Sunset ^beta

Chapter Text

The sky should not have been so blue, Madeleine thought, her work forgotten in her lap as she gazed out of the solar’s southern window; it had no right to be such a beautiful day, when all of Germaine held its breath to find out whether its king would live or die. She had left the sickroom under duress, after both the court physicians and her closest ladies begged her to rest.

“You know that I will not be able to sleep,” she told Lady Lianne. “Not while my father struggles so to breathe.”

“Of course.” Lady Lianne always understood: she was Madeleine’s confidant, offering advice in every situation and ready with a witty retort or whispered comment to defuse tension, and there was no-one the princess trusted more. Lianne squeezed her hand. “Why not sew an offering to Iaçe and Acese, and pray for your father’s health?” Madeleine nodded, and allowed herself to be led away to the solar, where she allowed Lady Jeanne to cut a square of white silk for her to embroider with a prayer and Lady Cornelie to put a length of golden thread through a needle. She could only manage the first few letters of her prayer before she laid her hands in her lap and stared blankly out the window.

Lady Lianne had tried to console her the night before, offering her sweet mouth and fingers if they would help her sleep, but Madeleine could not bear to be touched at the time. She sat near the princess's feet, glancing up every now and again without speaking, for which Madeleine was glad. She did not know what to say. Unless the gods were merciful, within a matter of days or possibly hours, she would be taking on the role she had been trained her entire life for – she would rule Germaine. And while she had never been fervent in her ambition (indeed, there were many times that she had wished Guy were the older sibling and that she could become a consort, not to be required to make heavy decisions regarding war and peace and executions), she could not imagine wanting it less than she did at that moment.

Suddenly, the door was flung open with such force that it rebounded against the arras behind it. Adele screamed, dropping her sewing basket, as four guardsmen rushed in with drawn blades; Jeanne and Marie clutched at each other and looked fearfully for the threat that had brought their protectors crashing into the solar. But the protectors were the threat, Madeleine realized in the split second while she fought through her weariness to stand, before they fell upon her ladies.

It was a slaughter. They were gentlewomen, none taught to fight. Quick Cornelie ran, but there was only one door to the solar and it had been blocked, so she was chased and stabbed awkwardly – it took several cuts to bring her to the floor. Adele was not so quick, not even getting to her feet before a heavy downward thrust pierced all the way through her body. The others fell, one by one, in terror and pain and blood – so much blood, spurting and oozing and dripping and, finally, spreading quietly over the floor. It happened so quickly that before Madeleine could think of what to do, it was over, and she stood by her chair among the dead bodies of her women, trembling, with her hands balled into fists by her side. Only Lianne was left, crouched by her legs – it must have been a miracle.

But that was also not what it appeared, Madeleine realized, as her first lady of the bedchamber slowly stood and went to stand behind the guards, who were now turning their gazes on her. Lianne's face was sick and pale, but there was not even a hint of surprise on it. She was joined from the corridor outside by another familiar figure: Sir Pierre de la Guiaume, Lianne's brother and Prince Guy's favorite companion. A handkerchief was at the ready in his hand, and he pressed it to his face as he looked about the room, ensuring that the slaughter had been complete.

"A pity," he said after overlooking Jeanne, whose lovely long neck bore an obscene gash across it, and whose body was pierced in two places. They had been betrothed, and Jeanne had read aloud so many poems written by her supposedly ardent swain on the subject of his eternal devotion and submission to her wishes. That was all that she merited: two words, the same he might have delivered if a brachet were gored during a hunt.

He was finally satisfied, and turned to Madeleine. "Which one of you has the gag?" he asked, holding up a hand and motioning forward with his fingers. Two of the guards sprang to order, but now she found her ability to move again, and she backed away, past the window.

"How dare you," she said in a half-croak. "How dare you commit this violation, this atrocity on my women? You will be tortured, and flayed, and then hanged, drawn, and quartered for this – I shall see your heads rotting on spikes until there is nothing left but clean bones, and I will have them crushed to dust."

"You will not," said Pierre, as one of the pair of guards lunged forward. She was wrapped tightly in his arms so that she could scarcely struggle, only kick ineffectually at his ankles. The other was hidden from her sight, but after a moment a sort of pointed leather cup appeared from behind her; it snugly fitted over her mouth and chin, and no amount of head-shaking could prevent it. "You will be far from here, and I suspect that you will die long before any one of the rest of us."

The princess could not make any retort regarding the intercession of the gods in her plight due to the gag, which was tied tightly behind her head and kept her jaw firmly closed.

"Good – you're quiet now. Someone bind her hands and feet, and let us move." She would have thought that the guards would feel something –  at least some trepidation at the possible result of this lesé majesté – but their movements were unflinching and sure. With her hands tied behind her back and her ankles wrapped with a cord, she was truly defenseless, though she was forced to admit that she had been defenseless even before: she had been able to do nothing when her ladies were killed, not even scream for help. Still almost disbelieving that any of the events of the past few moments had happened, she looked to Lianne, hoping that some look would reveal her to be acting under her brother's control. Instead, she stared back with a clear gaze. How?

"You may take this as a lesson," Lady Lianne told her, "about not trusting someone simply because they agree with you and bed you well."

"That carpet will do," Pierre said, pointing to one at the side of the solar with only a little blood on it. The guards forced her down onto one edge, and proceeded to roll her up in it. This cut off her senses, and she was left in the hot dark, alone. Her mind went accordingly blank.

That had been a mercy, she realized some time later, after the carpet she was imprisoned inside had been carried out of the palace and unrolled in some damp cellar. She had been roughly stripped to her shift, then left to wait, huddled in a corner – and it was then that her emotions returned. Jeanne was dead. Adele was dead. Cornelie was dead. Beatrice and Marie and Margot were dead. Adele would never tell another of her amusing anecdotes; Margot would never dance a lively rondeau. Lianne was the only one left alive, and that was by her own design. She had betrayed their little sisterhood, allowing her brother to have them all butchered.

Her father suddenly came to her mind, and that broke through the last of the icy numbness, driving her to tears and great, shuddering sobs. She would never say goodbye to him – never observe the funeral rites, not stand by Guy's side at his bier. And Guy would never know what had happened to her. He would have to lose his father and sister at almost the same time. He was a man grown, by many standards, but she still thought of him as a little boy, terrified and alone, and he would have to cope with the greatest responsibilities of the kingdom being thrust upon him.

It was some time before she had herself under control enough to question what would happen to herself. Most highborn ladies who were stolen were ransomed back to their families, or sold to someone else to ransom. That could not be it, though, as once she returned she would only have to give the order for the entire Guiaume family to be arrested and executed for treason, and they would not be so stupid as to think they could get around that. Only two possibilities seemed likely, and the likeliest was that she would leave the cellar soon, but as a corpse. It was possible, in that scenario, that she would be raped before that in order to degrade and humiliate her before her death. The other was that she would be sold to some enemy of the state and executed, although this seemed less likely – the crowns of any of the surrounding countries would want to force her to sign pacts and treaties that would benefit them.

Madeleine was the crown princess, her father’s rightful heir, and so she had been well-educated in statecraft, modern and ancient languages, geography, mathematics, music, philosophy, and rhetoric; she had been only trained enough in swordplay to be comfortable wielding a dagger, and performing ceremonies that required a blade, and could not wrestle or brawl. She would have been defenseless any way, and she was naked, bound, and gagged. She would die, and there was nothing to be done.

At least if she were to die, she would do so with dignity. Her legs had become stiff from being pulled back in one position, and she stretched them before coming to kneel on the damp earth. Her bonds prevented her from raising her hands or speaking any of the words aloud, but she silently began the prayers to the funerary goddesses Tacite and Nenie that she had said with her mother years ago, when the queen’s illness was finally drawing to its end.

When men came for her, Madeleine was prepared and at peace, confident that her soul would descend from her body at the appropriate moment and join her mother’s, and perhaps also her father’s. She did not struggle when she was pulled to her feet, and she walked out with her head held high. If they were to cut off her head, she knew that the gods would ensure that the blade would be sharp and the blow strong.

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.

Chapter Text

When Queen Marina pronounced her Maddalena, she had truly thought it was all over, that she would be revealed and executed in a trice. But instead she was led away to the slave baths, where a no-nonsense matron with salt-and-pepper hair stripped her of her dirty shift and forced her into a tub (although she didn't need much forcing). Four of the other five wooden tubs were in use by women who were washing themselves, and showed no inclination to take an interest in the two of them.

What she had expected was to be kept with Susanne and the others, and set to toil in the kitchens for the rest of her life, which she had had no doubt would be short – either because she would catch a fever or an ague and no one would bother to waste the coin for a doctor on a slave, or because someone would be paid off to stick a knife in her. She had forgotten that Delenzia had more barbaric customs. Where Germaine held villeins in bondage to a particular estate as an impersonal class, working the land for their lords but allowed freedom outside of that work, Delenzians preferred to consider each individual as a piece of stock to buy and sell. Germainian serfs might till and sow or scrub and cook, but as long as they didn't try to leave their place they lived as if they were free; Delenzian slaves were treated like pets, forced to spend their entire lives catering to their owners.

This would be much crueler than being an anonymous scullion. She would be at the queen's beck and call, constantly under her nose. She had not been found out so far, but if she wanted to stay alive – for no true purpose, since if she were to return to Germaine after this humiliation, she would have to retire to a nunnery and perform penance for the violations that everyone would assume had happened to her person – she had to forget Madeleine and become Maddalena. Put thoughts of escape out of her head; concentrate simply on living.

The matron scrubbed at her hair with a block of soap, drawing a lather but roughly pushing her head from side to side. Maddalena wanted to jerk away, but she had to make friends – allies – protectors, so she loosened her shoulders and neck instead. "Thank you for taking the time, donna ," she offered. The woman slackened slightly in surprise.

"I thought they said you were from Germagna?"

"I do – but I come from a port city, we have to speak all kinds of languages there." A pause. "My name's Maddalena."

"Like the bitch princess?" The matron clicked her tongue. "The girls call me Mamma Eudoria."

"Then thank you, Mamma Eudoria." She wanted to ask a million questions about the palace, but forced herself to be quiet, to see if Eudoria would volunteer anything important. She did not, so Maddalena ventured, as if timid, "I'm to be serving the queen personally. Do you know – what is she like?"

"Is she going to beat you, you mean?" said Eudoria. "Very likely. She has high standards, Her Serenity, and a quick temper, and she runs through girls like they were made of paper. I hope you aren't clumsy, or that pretty face of yours is going to get slapped a lot."

"But is she …" Maddalena pretended to grope for the Delenzian words. "Does she like it, to be angry?"

The matron pushed her down in the bath suddenly to rinse her hair, and Maddalena spluttered. "If your mistress is angry with you, it's because you made a mistake, or you were clumsy or stupid," she said with heavy emphasis. "It's not for you to blame her for punishing you, and if you suggest that again, you'll get more than a slap." Then she sighed and her hands softened. Still wiping the water from her eyes, Maddalena at first wanted to be furious – but then realized: that was a warning. Eudoria was protecting her. She could not question Queen Marina's behavior, even inside her own head, unless she could make absolutely sure the rebellion would not be detected. "Now, stand up, time to dry you off." Maddalena stood and waited for Eudoria to pat her dry with a towel, then remembered herself and took the length of linen the woman was holding out to her, earning a raised eyebrow and a snort – just as a page in his teens entered the baths and darted around the tub to give an order.

"You're to get back to the queen's chambers at once," he said, as she scrambled to press the towel around her body in front of his insolent gaze. Well, not insolent: that implied he owed her respect, and she was nothing now.

"I'll send her up as soon as I put her in a gown," Eudoria promised, but he shook his head.

"Her Serenity said she was to come exactly as she was." No doubt Marina had hoped to catch her still in the bath itself. She looked to Eudoria, and the older woman squeezed her shoulder.

"Go, quickly."

The page turned and started off, Maddalena following closely behind with her hands firmly holding the towel in place. It was shift-linen, judging by the width; as she had wrapped it, it ran from just below her arms to a little above her knees, which was enough for the main purpose, but still felt extremely scanty even in comparison to the dirty chemise she had had on before. In her – in the royal palace in Germaine, if a girl had been seen trotting down a corridor in such a state of undress, someone would have rushed to find out what had happened to her; here, it was clear that she was a slave, and that her master or mistress was playing some kind of a game. The looks, comments, and pinches were even more ribald than they had been before, although no one actively tried to grab hold of her and prevent her from going – it was just casual entertainment.

The mood in the queen's apartment was different than it had been before. The women were quiet now, and instead of clustering around Marina, they seemed to be deliberately spacing themselves away and watching her from the corners of their eyes. The queen herself was prowling about the room, and when her quarry was admitted she flung herself back into her chair.

"There you are – took you long enough. I should punish you for dawdling. Now, I want to see my new gift properly." Maddalena was not sure what that meant and so did nothing. Marina leaned forward with a smile like a knife. "Drop your towel," she said slowly, and leaned back again.

A blush bloomed across Maddalena's face, and some of the ladies did giggle slightly, their wariness dropping now that there was a target their queen intended to vent her feelings on. First one hand came away from the linen, and then, painfully, she peeled the other one off as well, each finger moving separately and delicately. Released, the fabric started to unspool itself, the wet inner layer sticking to her body, and then fell around her feet in a heap. The queen's eyes immediately began to saunter down her form, taking in Maddalena's curves and swells, and Maddalena forced herself to keep her own eyes straight forward so as not to have to see the mockery in the queen's face.

"Turn," was the next order, and she made her stiff legs take short steps around a pivot point until her back was to her mistress. The ladies and servants who had been behind her were evaluating her openly; one in red leaned to another in blue to whisper something, both of them looking directly at the junction of her thighs, and the one in blue nodded vigorously.

"I never said to stop turning." Another chuckle went around the room. It took all of Maddalena's effort to keep her face still as she continued to pivot. When she reached the end of the circle she hesitated, then started around again, trying not to look at any of the members of her audience too closely. As she came to face the queen again, the order came: "Stop." She waited, concentrating on not curling her hands into tight fists. It was almost as though she were being tested to see if she could follow through on her plan of pretending to be an obedient, pliant slave.

She expected Marina to begin a scathing critique of her body, but none came. They were in a frozen moment in time, silent and calm. The queen's expression was haughty, but otherwise unreadable; it was as though she were simply waiting for something. At last, Maddalena made a decision and flung herself forward, onto her knees, and brought her forehead down to the floor.

“ Serenissima ,” she said, trying not to think about the view she was presenting behind her, “I most humbly beg your forgiveness.”

“You beg my forgiveness,” came the queen’s voice from above her, still cold, but with a slight edge of disbelief. “For what, precisely.”

“For my lateness, your most serene highness, as you said; and then I did not follow your instructions properly. I am so sorry for my failure to serve you as you merit.” She had never lied so fervently in her life, although the ending was true in its own way. Maddalena had never groveled or cringed before, but she tried to do so with such focus that she shivered in the warm air of the solar. The spectators murmured among themselves, most likely, she thought, calling her a pathetic coward, and it felt as though she were left naked and on display for them for an eternity before the queen spoke again, this time through clenched teeth.

“Get up.” 

Maddalena tried to rise quickly enough that she could appear to be eagerly following the order, but with enough grace to retain a little dignity.

"Get out of here. Before I have you executed."

Maddalena grabbed for her scrap of towel and tugged it around her body as she curtseyed, then backed out of the room as quickly as possible. As this was her fourth trip between the queen’s apartments and the slave baths, she was able to manage the journey alone despite the blush staining her cheeks, and the many people who stood in her way.

Chapter Text

Mamma Eudoria had found her two chemises and a petticoat, and, because Maddalena was to be a handmaiden rather than a scullion or stablehand, a sleeveless gown made of cheaply-dyed, cheaply-woven light blue dupioni silk. It was old, streaked both from the poor dyeing and from wear, and it fastened with ribbons tied across the front — a style from some years ago. The chemises were coarser linen, too, but it didn’t matter. Simply being able to cover herself again, even if she had only had sackcloth, would be more than enough.

She was allowed to plait her hair into one long braid, which was a mercy: many of the slaves she saw had their hair cropped short or even shaved off. Still, it was an odd feeling to be dressed without her hair coiled and tied up under a coif, and she pulled it over her shoulder in order to seem less weighted down. Finally she stopped to breathe for a moment, watching the matron fold some rumpled chemises – which is when the full events of the past few hours began to run through her mind. It was as though she had suddenly been plunged into an icy river, and when she climbed out onto the snowy bank, there was nothing around her but the wind.

Since her apartments had been invaded, she had been living on the tension of not knowing what lay ahead; now she had come to rest. But she couldn't rest — she had to focus on something that she could do, that she could affect. What did she have now? No kingdom. No troops, no guards.

“Mamma Eudoria,” she began tentatively, “do you know where the other people I came here with are?” The other woman continued to smooth the linens, but a trace slower. “Before they took me, they said – the others needed to be cleaned before they were ‘presented’, but they weren’t in the room where I washed.”

After a moment, Eudoria turned around, her face set and emotionless. “Most likely, they’ve been stripped and washed in the stableyard, if they were as bad as you.” 

It shouldn’t have shocked her, after the way that she had been treated – forced to run through the palace in a towel, and then to display herself to the queen and her ladies and pages – but the thought of the indignity stopped her breath. “They would not,” Maddalena said, more as a prayer than a contradiction.

Eudoria shook her head with eyebrows raised, as though she were surprised at Maddalena's stupidity. “Of course they would.”

Of course they would. These people saw her and her compatriots as no longer human but … commodities. Property, without even the most basic of rights. Certainly no right to privacy.

“Where are they now? I need to – Mamma, please, can you take me to them?”

“It’s always hard for the new ones to learn,” she said, almost to herself. “Listen to me, girl. You’re not a group of Germagni. Each of you is one piece of something, and you’re being split apart to be whatever you need to become here. Look.” She took a shirt from a pile and held it up. “If I cut this up and dye this red for a neckcloth, and I use this as a rag to clean dishes, and I patch the queen’s petticoat with that, is there any use in trying to get them back and sew them into a shirt again? The shirt is gone.”

“I don’t – but the linen doesn’t remember being a shirt. We could …”

“You’d do better to forget where you’re from. You’ll never see it again.”

Maddalena could only stare at the other woman, whose countenance appeared unruffled as she continued with the task of folding cleaned linen. She’d been prepared to envelop herself in the role of a low-born servant, obedient to the queen’s will, but it was a matter more complicated than simply playing a part — particularly since the queen had sent her away, out of her presence. Though it would certainly be safer for her if she were completely forgotten.

Well. She had to tread on the line between keeping her wits about her so she could escape (hopefully, one day) and giving herself over to it to avoid detection, so she went quiet and tried to be as useful as possible to Eudoria for the rest of the day: since the queen's cousin had deemed her intended to wait on Marina, she could not be reassigned, but plainly she could not go back to the queen's chambers. It was also a good opportunity, she told herself, to learn how to do all kinds of chores that she would already understand if she were the serf she was pretending to be, like sweeping and scrubbing. Eudoria didn't seem to believe that entirely, snorting at her assertion that she could darn stockings and making a remark to a male servant about “soft hands” with a significant glance over at her, but as long as she thought Maddalena was a pampered youngest daughter or something of the sort rather than a lost princess, that was fine.

Dinner and supper were presented in the dormitory hall as great bowls of thick gruel and pieces of coarse brown bread that she had to elbow her way to for a portion. It was — not good, but not unbearable, and by the time Maddalena got to the evening meal she was hungry enough to treasure every crumb. It was late, long past the time that the nobles and even bureaucrats of the palace would have had theirs, so there was no time for anything else — and it wasn't until after she'd finished that it occurred to her that there hadn't been any prayers or offerings. Well, everyone else seemed as tired and hungry as herself. Perhaps prayers before meals were luxuries slaves couldn't afford.

But there didn't even seem to be an altar in the room, she realized. The walls were all flat and bare, no niche for statues. It was eerie, now that she noticed, and the thought of what it implied was so monstrous that she refused to believe it, even to countenance asking Eudoria about it later. No, she must be mistaken. There must be places for slaves to worship … somewhere other than their dormitories. No doubt she would find it soon.

When she lay down in her shift on a thin, straw-stuffed pallet, Maddalena had to fight against a nausea that was not caused by the gruel or bread until she fell into an uneasy, troubled sleep.

Before the dawn, the rising of the other slaves around Maddalena woke her, and she forced herself to follow suit. Another day of labor, which would be followed by another, and another, and on and on until she was so worn out that she couldn’t rise again. Well, she told herself, she must be optimistic: Eudoria was at least in her forties, and seemed far from wearing out.

After a breakfast much like the dinner the night before, she went to find Eudoria for more instruction on what she should do with herself for the day, since she still seemed to be unassigned to any specific task or location. (The others streamed past her, clear in where they were going even if they — understandably — didn’t move as quickly as possible to get there.) Would she just fade into the background running of the castle, becoming one of the laborers who was never even seen by the courtiers it was all done for? Or would someone see to it that she was given away to another lady of the court, a woman who was high-ranking enough to merit a personal gift from Germagna?

The question turned out to have an answer that was likely coming faster than she’d expected. Just as she found Eudoria preparing to leave, her attention was caught by a tug at her skirts, and both of them turned to look at the very young page with blond curls and pink cheeks.

“Please,” he said, “Lord Montefiume’s asked me to bring you back to his apartments.” Then he realized he was still holding onto her skirt and dropped it.

Maddalena could tell that Eudoria was having the same thought as her about that order: their eyes met for a long moment before slipping away again. That was what her life was now, she reminded herself for the thousandth time. She was someone a lord could tell to come to his rooms for his pleasure and send away again when he was done. Perhaps that was what she was supposed to do as her regular occupation, the way others were assigned to the laundries or the stables. Marina might find that funny. She’d called Maddalena a whore before renaming her, hadn’t she?

She attracted less attention on this page-led journey, at least. People took an interest in a naked woman walking through the halls, but a shabbily dressed one was less intriguing.

The rooms the page took her to were as sumptuous as the queen’s had been. The two were let into an empty anteroom with meticulously painted walls, then passed into another covered with dark red silk damask and furnished with a table, chairs, and highboy carved finely from teakwood. Although Maddalena would have stopped there and waited to be found rather than be accused of sneaking about, the page persisted in taking her through yet another door, into a small, close room lit with a fireplace and several white, perfumed candles. After her eyes adjusted, she could clearly see a man dressed in green and black silks lounging in a chair by the fire, reading a book, despite the early hour.

“Here she is, signore.” The page brightened when the man smiled and shut the book.

“Very well done, Antonio. Here, for your pains.” Lord Montefiume pulled a silver coin seemingly out of the air and presented it to the boy, who bowed deeply and quickly, like a child’s toy, before turning and scampering out again, pushing the door shut behind him.

Despite the dimness of the room, Maddalena recognized him. This was the queen’s cousin, the man who had saved her the previous day, scolding Marina for not treating her as befitted a gift from Germagna — presumably from Pierre. A little of the tightness in her chest eased. A little kindness meant nothing, she reminded herself. He could think it was inappropriate to kick a slave in public but see nothing wrong with ordering her to her knees in front of his chair in private.

But he didn’t. Lord Montefiume leaned back again and regarded her, his head tilted and resting on two fingers. He was certainly handsome, looking very like his cousin, whom he couldn’t be more than a decade older than; his hair was somewhat darker and with a little more curl than hers, and of course she had no trimmed and shaped beard on her chin.

The longer he stared, the bolder she felt. If he had anything untoward in mind, she was sure that he’d have gotten it underway.

Finally, he spoke. “I must apologize for my cousin's conduct toward you yesterday. You don’t deserve to be humiliated or beaten.” His voice was gentle, so much more gentle than anything Maddalena had heard in days that it brought tears to her eyes that she had to blink back and swallow as best she could.

“My lord is far too kind to one such as me. I am at Her Serenity’s disposal, to do whatever she desires, and if she desires to kick me then I will not complain.”

“Beautifully said, and beautifully spoken.” Lord Montefiume grinned. “Your Delenzian is excellent, I must say.”

It was too late to try to seem that she wasn’t what she was. “I have had an education, my lord.”

“Yes, you’re quite different from the others who came here with you. I can see why your king sent you here as a gift for Marina — you’re very much worthy of a queen.” He stood and came toward her, just a few short steps, and Maddalena couldn’t quite stop herself from taking one of her own backwards, which he was gracious enough to ignore. “What a gem. We’re fortunate to have you here, I think.” With one finger he smoothed a lock of her loose hair behind her shoulder, and she only tensed a little in response.

Then he stepped back and turned away, apparently examining the hunting scene in the tapestry on the wall opposite the door, and she breathed properly again. It was almost unthinkable that he wasn’t about to make use of the power he held over her, but she couldn’t see any way that he seemed about to do so.

“I won’t ask you for the details of how you came to be included with the rest of the treaty gifts,” he went on. “I’m sure you don’t wish to dwell on that. But it’s clear that you should be … shall we say, protected somewhat from la serenissima’s temper. I will do my utmost to keep her from venting her rages on you, out of the spite and jealousy that motivates her. Many women would see a pearl like yourself as an adversary, and your status will make it easy for them to be vicious.”

He walked her back to Marina’s rooms himself, rather than entrusting her to another page. Although he didn’t put his arm out to her, she still felt that she was being escorted rather than meekly brought. When they arrived, he strode past the guards, who nodded to him as he went, and came through the apartments to find the queen just rising from her bed. She was in a plain linen nightgown, cut as high in the chest as could be managed with enough room left in the neckline to allow her head to slip out of it, and when Maddalena and Lord Montefiume entered, she gripped the velvet counterpane. There were a few gasps from some of her ladies at the intrusion, but when he smiled, raised his hand, and said, “My apologies for the intrusion so early, dear ladies,” they smiled back indulgently.

Then he bowed, one leg coming forward and one arm forming a smooth curve; Maddalena quickly settled on a much less florid bow of her own, not even a curtsey. When she looked up again, Marina was staring directly at her, lips pressed into a thin line and her hair still tumbled from sleep.

“What is the meaning of this?” Her voice was icy.

“I apologize, Your Serenity.” Lord Montefiume still held his hat in his hand. “I kept this young handmaiden from attending on you immediately this morning. But I think there must have been some mistake.” She turned her eyes to him, and if anything, they burned hotter, although her expression remained still. “She was being kept with the general staff, rather than at your side. As she should be.”

There was a long moment of silence, in which Marina glared daggers at her cousin while he regarded her with placid neutrality. “Do you think it's your place to tell me what to do with my own slaves?” she finally asked, and a murmur went around the room. He bowed again.

“I only point out, as I did yesterday, that this maiden was given to you personally, and that the Germagni may take offense if you send her away. In order to make it clear that you will honor this alliance, you ought to keep her with you to fetch your embroidery, serve your wine, and see to your needs.” He was patient, yet that made no impression on the impatient queen.

“Thank you for the lesson in statecraft. I suppose I have little choice, then, in who is to have access to my person?”

“Won’t your guards be able to protect you if anyone attempts to assault you, Your Serenity? And besides, this frail girl can hardly be a danger to you, even alone, I'm sure.” He glanced over at Maddalena and then smiled, inviting the room to agree.

The queen plainly did not agree, her hands curling into fists and her shoulders still rigid inside her nightshift. When she turned her gaze, full of loathing, onto Maddalena, it was like standing in the sun at the height of summer: deeply uncomfortable and entirely exposed. But her cousin was right, and she must have known it, for eventually she released her breath in a loud sigh.

“Very well,” she said. “The slut may stay here.”