Chapter Text
They did not execute her, however. Even as she repeated the prayers for the dying in her head, they pushed her to a covered cart in a row of covered carts and forced her inside. I am to be transported to my grave first, then , she thought – but once her eyes adjusted to the lack of light inside, she saw that there were thirteen other figures inside, all women. It would have been more accurate to call them girls, she realized as her hands were untied and then locked into shackles fastened to the side of the wagon. (The gag was left in place.) They were all younger than her, most likely none older than seventeen, and all had the starved look she had seen on the rare occasions when she caught sight of serfs in the fields or running an errand outside of the kitchens in the palace.
As the wagon began to roll, the mist of calm that had enveloped her mind began to disperse. Was she merely being smuggled out of the capital in a caravan?
After a day and a half of travel, Madeleine realized that not only was she not simply being smuggled outside of the capital, she – and the other captives – was being taken far from it. They were moving south and east, an impression that was confirmed after several more days of travel when they reached the great Central Sea.
"It's so large," whispered Susanne, the girl next to her. "Does it even have an end?"
"Yes," Madeleine whispered back, the gag long since left off when she proved herself a well-behaved hostage. "There is another continent on the other side – and so many islands in between."
"There's never ," Susanne whispered back with glee. Then the chain that linked them to each other, and to the rest of the girls from the wagon, was pulled, and they embarked on a ship for the next phase of the journey. It took two more days, this time traveling due east, and Madeleine tried to tell herself that the destination was not what it clearly was: Delence.
Germaine had a number of ancestral enemies: Delence was one of them. A small state based on an island surrounded by swamps, it nevertheless held great riches and disproportionate power. It would be impossible to define how long they had been at war, since there were always skirmishes and power plays taking place, but fighting had been going on continuously for the past seven years, only ending recently with the deaths of the heir and then the king. Madeleine did not want to find herself given over to Delence.
From the docks, they were marched in foot to the palace. As a distraction from her fear of what was to come, Madeleine paid close attention to the sun and the shadows,and attempted to build a map of the route in her head – in case there were some way that she might get herself back to the docks. The main difficulty was that the city seemed to be designed to be most easily traversed by the canals that crossed and recrossed it. The group was walked over a bridge that spanned a canal as wide as a river, then down a number of back ways, winding around and behind houses and courts. It all seemed so alien: in part, she realized, because she had never known anything but the wide main passages from a city's gates to the royal residence. If her sense of direction was correct, however, the palace was on the very broad canal, set off of it by a large square that was surprisingly empty of merchants and their stands.
One of the guards went to the palace door, leaving the transportees to try to rest their feet – most of them bare – as well as they could. Eventually he returned, bringing some sort of steward with him.
"They must be taken to the slave quarters and thoroughly washed before they can be presented," he said, sniffing pointedly. "Redressed, and shorn if they have lice."
"Not this one," interrupted one of the guards who had been most closely watching her throughout the journey, pinching Madeleine's jaw between thumb and forefinger. "I have orders to take her directly to the queen."
"That is … objectionable," said the steward.
"Orders are orders."
The steward was forced to agree, and Madeleine was detached from the rest.
"Do you not need to bind her?" The steward looked at her as though she were a horse they proposed to drive through the palace, but the guard and his partner laughed.
"What do you think she's going to do? She's just a woman in a shift."
Madeleine had to remind herself with every breath that she was the crown princess of Germaine. The look she sent over her shoulder to Susanne – who appeared as bereft at being deprived of her companion as she was – was intended to be regally compassionate as she was led away.
While traveling, she had become used to her state of undress as the group of slaves were also largely also in the minimum of clothing, a few with shoes, hose, or some other garment. From her conversations, she'd gathered that most had been sold to cover their or their family's debts, or to pay for a crime; their clothes were often sold as well to bring in needed funds, or were kept by friends and family to sell or use. Once separated from them, however, she began to feel her own nakedness. The palace was bustling with pages and clerks, all of them fully clothed in the Delentian fashion with full sleeves and slashed silks, and her body suddenly seemed so vulnerable in comparison. In the crowded corridors, she could feel every brush against her skin, and more than one impudent young person reached out and tugged at her shift, trying to lift up the hem to get a look at her thighs or to pull it off one shoulder. She could see from their eyes that the fine linen, dirty as it was from her travels, did little to hide her shape, and it made her cross her arms as though she were cold.
After walking through room after room of courtiers, they came to one more heavily guarded, although the men by the door were not attentive. Surely, she thought, there would be some official explanation here, but they were waved through with no fanfare.
It was the Queen's chamber. Madeleine recognized, suddenly faint and sick with fear, what it must be by the way it was full of women, confident of their places at court the way hers were, and the way they arranged themselves around a central figure that had to be Marina of Delence. The two had met once five years before at a very brief treaty signing, sharing a perfunctory kiss on the cheek; Madeleine had felt little for her but pity, as Marina had been gawky and awkward-looking and seemed to wish to be anywhere else. If either family's birth order had been different, the treaty might have been sealed with a marriage and resulted in real peace, but as heir to the throne Madeleine could not wed another sovereign without causing dynastic and political confusion. Marina was still gawky, but with age and a growth spurt she had filled out into something more handsome and angular. The Delentian style of gown, with the bodice lacing in front over an expanse of chemise, strangely suited her, as the deep V balanced out her broad shoulders, and the dark green damasked silk it was made from made her look like some sort of sea goddess.
Her face was a cool mask of haughty disdain. " Che cosa ?"
"Your Serenity," one of the guards holding Madeleine said in Delentian, "this is one of the slaves from the treaty with Germagna. We were commissioned to give her to you personally, rather than to present her to the crown with the rest of the group."
"Mmm. Who by?" The queen pushed herself out of her chair and came two broad steps closer before suddenly halting. Madeleine could not look away, her gaze frozen to Marina's face – at any moment, she would hear the other queen order her execution to avenge the crown prince of Delence.
"This is a gift of goodwill from Germagna to Delenzia, Your Serenity," he said. There was a slight tremor in his hand on her shoulder, and he pushed her forward; she didn't have the strength to balance herself and fell to her knees. Perhaps the queen did not recognize her, she thought wildly – perhaps she could still hide, pretend to be nothing but an ordinary slave. What would a slave do? She would keep her eyes on the ground out of humility, as a commoner in front of royalty.
"What do I want with a Germagnian whore?" The queen's voice was even colder than before. "Take this to the market and sell her to the stews."
" Serenissima …" the guard began. "We were given orders that she was to be your handmaiden."
"If she is my property, then I may dispose of her as I see fit." The queen stepped closer; she would have been taller than Madeleine even if they were both standing, but from Madeleine's kneeling position, she was a forbidding giantess. Lashing out with a foot, she knocked Madeleine sprawling. "Look at her! Filthy, worthless thing. Get rid of her." The queen's ladies tittered as Madeleine struggled to cover herself with her shift riding up her thighs. Suddenly, there was a hush as someone else stepped into the room behind the guards.
"Marinetta, what's going on?" The voice was smooth and light, with a hint of reproach. Madeleine did not look up, but by keeping her eyes around the floor she could see his shoes – fine blue damask, filled with pure white silk stockings. "I heard that you were offered a very special tribute from Germagna. And now I see what I assume to be that gift being kicked about."
"I will not have her," said the queen. Her voice was more subdued than it had bee , but Madeleine could still hear the rage beneath it. "Her presence will corrupt my women, she will have access to –"
"Our good Delenzian ladies cannot be corrupted by a single slave," the man said; "they are far too noble and too pure. And besides, I do not think this little one is very corrupting." He bent down to help her rise, and for a moment she was dazzled – he had much the same handsome looks as Queen Marina, but combined with a warmth that, after a week of rough treatment, made Madeleine want to immediately confess all and allow him to set it right. This must be the queen's cousin whose name she could not remember, who sat on the high council, which made him a very important personage to be helping up dirty, undressed slave girls. "Once you're cleaned up," he said directly to her, "I am sure you'll make a lovely addition to the queen's court."
Then he turned back to the queen and his manner became sterner, like a disappointed father. "You will not anger the Germagni by throwing away their gift," he said. "Have her bathed and dressed, and allow her to wait on you whenever you're in the public eye. Behave yourself in a regal manner." He paused expectantly.
The queen's hands curled into fists; Madeleine didn't dare look higher to see her expression. "Yes, cousin," she said at last, effort clear in her voice.
"Why not give her a name?" He smoothed Madeleine's hair from her face, almost the way her mother used to do it. "A pretty Delenzian name for a pretty girl."
There was less of a pause this time before the queen spoke. "Maddalena," she said with such finality and such venom that there could be no argument.