Then she climbed to her feet – careful not to disrupt the infant – and walked to the door. She draped a shawl over her shoulders, tucking it around the warm, coiled bundle in her arms. She hesitated at the threshold as if the wooden frame were a barrier between one life and another. Then she stepped outside.
Fading daylight cast long, grey shadows in the narrow street. Men and women traipsed over the cobbles, returning from working the cold fields on the outskirts of the city, their hands and feet caked in dirt. The clanging and banging of pots and pans could be heard from open windows and doors, as wives and daughters hurriedly prepared the family dinner. A loose chicken skittered at the edge of the street before a filthy beggar child lunged from the shadows and grabbed it, scampering off into the crowd.
Maylie drifted past, the baby asleep on her chest. She kept her head down as she climbed the twisting lanes out of the Pits. Every so often, she would wonder at what she was doing. But whenever thoughts of turning back arose, she chased them away.
It had been like this throughout her pregnancy. ‘I have a summer sickness,’ she had told herself when she began vomiting daily and her moon blood had stopped. She had ignored the looks and whispers of the other servants at the townhouse until Piepe called her into his office and said that she must find employment elsewhere;Ms Delaphio had noticed her swelling belly. Without a word, Maylie had left, her last payment of flecks clinking in her pocket, pretending she did not feel the soft, fluttery kicks of life inside her stomach. She had found work selling sugared crackers in Midtown instead, plodding up and down the cobbled streets, balancing her tray of sweet-smelling goods on her ever-expanding waist, as the seasons changed from late summer to autumn, then winter.
The birth had taken her by surprise one evening. Hearing screams, a neighbour had come knocking and stayed to see her through the worst of it. ‘You’ve no family or friends to help?’ the woman kept asking as the labour stretched on and on, long and difficult. But Maylie could only scream and weep in return.
Afterwards, things were no better. The baby was a furious, demanding stranger and Maylie was terrified and weak. She could mix herself simple tonics to aid healing, but the ingredients were hard to come by in the city. Herbs that grew wild in the mountains were expensive at the markets. Her recovery slowed. The baby screamed. Her savings of flecks ran low. The winter dragged on. Everything was hard, cold and endless.
The baby was barely a moon old now, but Maylie already knew that they could not carry on like this. Something had to change.
She reached Midtown, where the streets widened and the crowds thinned. She turned in the direction of the nearest square, her pace quickening. Carriages and wagons rattled by, a few smartly dressed couples strode arm in arm along a row of townhouses and a little girl with braided hair sang for flecks, her voice high and mournful. Maylie headed towards two liveried guards dawdling beside a tavern.
One of the guards noticed her. ‘What do you want?’
‘I have a baby girl,’ Maylie replied. ‘For the Queen.’
She was surprised by how steady and clear her voice sounded.
The guard looked her over. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
She followed him into the streets of the Old Quarter, the baby still lying on her chest; snuffles of breath puffing into her neck. Maylie tried not to think of what she was doing or where she was going. She had slept so little since the birth – snatches of rest between the infant’s piercing screams – that life had taken on a vague, filmy quality anyway, as if she were wading through a trance.
Maylie looked up to see Syonno Castle before her. She had only visited the main square a few times since moving to the city and she was struck by its imposing beauty. She had a sudden realization that Esmelie must have come this way for the Maiden Sacrifice too and passed between the very gates that were now drawing open.
Her step faltered.
She could not bear to think what her sister would say if she knew what Maylie had done. The terrible, awful mistake that had led to the baby in Maylie’s arms.
‘This way,’ said the guard.
They crossed a courtyard, the grand splendour of the surroundings bewildering and disorientating. Ahead lay a tall, circular building at the back of the castle strung with ribbons: the Sanctuary. Passing through a shadowed archway, they turned down a narrow corridor before arriving at a large wooden door.
The guard knocked.
They entered a cluttered, round room where a man sat bent over a desk piled with books and scrolls. He was wearing a distinctive long, black cloak.
Surprise jolted through Maylie’s shame and grief. This was the Royal Master. She felt dizzy with the strangeness of it all.
‘Anotherbaby?’ he barked.
‘It’s a pretty one this time, Master Jakespurcia,’ replied the guard. ‘And tiny. The mother’s young and pretty too. Fits what you’ve been asking us for.’
Master Jakespurcia’s gaze flicked to Maylie. ‘How old?’ he asked.
It took a moment for Maylie to realize he was speaking to her.
‘Just over a moon.’
‘I meant you. How old are you?’
Maylie swallowed. ‘Sixteen winters.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘The father’s not around, I suppose?’
She shook her head.
