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.The prince had a tantrum in his own suite at his own house, but his parents remained adamant that they would not allow his marriage to a woman without a dowry.It was no more than I had expected.I got the warrant out from the hole where I'd hidden it and took it to London, where I sought the man who had issued it, a Jew named Yeshua ben Levi.Yeshua was dead of plague.I found his son.His house had advised my papa, some years before the first great Death, to use the money in the purchase of grain.During the times of plague the price had soared.The two warrants were now worth so much that Papa could have settled all his debts and found it unnecessary to marry Weasel-Rabbit.I told the House of Levi to keep the other warrant upon their books, for some heir would come to claim it, perhaps hundreds of years later.They stared at me strangely, but one of the bearded sons made a note of it.When I returned to Wellingford, I carried with me a more than adequate fortune for Elly's marriage portion.I went to the prince's parents and represented Elly's interests.I signed the documents as her guardian, as her father's nearest kin.I arranged the nuptials.I did it all without meeting with her or discussing it with her.The prince's father negotiated with me, his ponderous mind plodding after me, step by step.He was not quick, but he missed nothing.It was like being tracked by a bear.Still, I did not give him everything.I saved some for myself.I attested to the fact that Elly was a virgin of noble birth.True.She would not have stayed a virgin long, but she was still, technically, a virgin.And yet I lied.I wanted to say, "I fear she is a monster.Her father was a monster, and she is like him.I fear she is both sensual and cruel, a succubus who will twine herself around your son and suck him dry, making him rue the day he ever saw her." I said none of that.For all his intelligence, the prince's father did not ask.He cared only about the money, her virginity, and that she was nobly born.I should have stopped it, somehow.And yet, wasn't it fated? Hadn't the story been told for hundreds of years? Wasn't my daughter to have her prince and live happily ever after?While I was there, I asked again for Giles, saying I had known him for many years.He had gone, they said.He had never returned after delivering the glass-slipper message.I don't know what has happened to him.I don't know where he is.I want more than anything to go looking for him, but I can't do that just now! First I must arrange this wedding.When it is over, I'll find him.Then he and I will come back to Wellingford.There are fields to harvest and geese to pluck.There are apples to store and cider to make.I can't decide what to do next.There's an old pain burning in me and a new love.Between them both, it's hard to decide what to do.Was this what Carabosse meant when she asked me to be merely ordinary? Is being a mother ever ordinary? Is caring about one's children ever ordinary? Is there always this much pain?FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, DECEMBER, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1367Elly became pregnant even before the wedding.I had not thought to tell her anything about that.Neither had anyone else.Now that she understands there is no way to escape it, she has settled into a sullen resentment at the facts of life."I don't want it," she told me."I just wanted the other, not this."I told her I understood.I did understand, for I had not wanted it either.At least she had enjoyed the begetting.Her eyes grew dreamy."I like the other," she said."I like it a lot.More even than he does."I think perhaps I blushed.There is something so frankly lecherous in her tone when she talks like this, an insatiable hunger totally untinted with affection or humor.I tried to change the subject."It'll be fun for you to have a child.If it's a girl, she'll probably look like you.""She can't," Elly said flatly."I won't let her.No one looks like me.She can look like someone else.Someone pale, like him.""She'll have your dark hair.""His pale skin.His red lips.This baby can look like that.""Like that," I agreed, feeling sick inside.On several occasions I have tried to get her to talk with me about other things: religion, gardening, pets.She doesn't care about any of them.She has some lingering affection for Grumpkin, but it is only a passive thing.Except toward the pleasures of her body, she is closed away.She likes warmth and frequent good food, and, most of all, fucking.She does not read, does not think, does not care.She would ride twenty miles in bad weather for her lust's sake, and would not walk twenty paces down a hallway to do a kindness.She emptied her ashes, not out of any sense of cleanliness, but only so her fire would burn so she could be warm.If she wants something, she could kill to get it, and if she does not want something, it might as well not exist so far as she is concerned.I blame myself for her nature, though I keep coming back to the real cause.She is not like me.She is like Jaybee.Elly should never have been born, and but for him, she would not have been.But for him and for the fact I remembered too well the things Father Raymond used to teach me.I had told myself it was God's will when it was nothing of the kind.It was only man's stupidity.Mostly, it was Jaybee's fault.I ask myself if I want Jaybee dead, and tell myself, no.Not dead.Not necessarily.Simply.simply unable to do to anyone else what he did to me.The more I see of Elly, the more sure I am that he should never father other children!She sends for me.Every day or so, she sends for me.When I get there, she takes my hand and holds it, as though it were a rope and she were drowning.She looks at her swelling body with terror.Well, well, I know.She has heard what all women hear in this time, that babies do not come easily nor safely.Women die giving birth.Many of them die.Life comes through the doorway of death in this time, and Elly is in terror of death.So she sends for me, and I sit beside her and hold her hand.After a time, she grows calm, and her eyes grow soft and her mouthloosens.She begins to think of the prince, and then she sends me away.I want to go looking for Giles.I cannot.Not so long as she needs me.Daytimes, I go on about my self-imposed duties at Wellingford.Harry and Bert have gone off to London.Some weeks ago I suggested to Griselda that she might look into the convent where Aunts Tansy and Comfrey-"Acquaintances of mine, now dead"-had found so many pleasant years.She did so and liked it.There she will not have to worry about men or clothes or being ugly, though she will have to bathe.Lydia arranged a dowry for her, very quickly, too, considering that young Edward is still a minor, and Griselda left us.Lydia and the two young children are alone with me.I do what I can with the children.The boy seems past help, but the little girl, Catherine, is beginning to respond to consistency and affection, like a flower growing toward the sun.ST.BENEDICT'S DAY, MARCH 1368Little Catherine is dead.My so-called "namesake." Sweet Catherine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]