I’m brought back here to be locked up and left to daydreams and queer thoughts. Do you know what I was thinking, just now? That perhaps I should kill the daughter along with her father, for her own good, to spare her a life of wretchedness. She’s already lost a mother—would she really want to go on living, sickly as she is, and fully orphaned? Mightn’t she be happier drowned like an unwanted kitten?”
“Oh, no, Ma’am, you mustn’t think such things,” Mabel cried. “To punish the guilty won’t bar you from heaven, but to harm the innocent surely will. And that child is sweet-natured and innocent.”
“I know that, and thus I contemplate putting her out of her misery. Is it strange to imagine that killing someone could be a favour to them?” Before Mabel could answer she continued, “I’ll kill her father as a favour to my late husband, because it’s my duty to do so, but why stop there? Why not kill the daughter, or kill myself even? I’ve never killed before—I may discover I like it, and go on a spree.”
“Madame,” Mabel pleaded. “I worry for your sanity. You obsess on your singular duty, and that can only be unhealthy.”
“How can I not obsess?” Sylvanne muttered angrily. “Do I have anything else here to occupy my mind?”
In a careful, tentative voice, Mabel asked, “Might I give you some advice, ma’am?”
“Yours is the only voice that speaks to me,” said Sylvanne. “So speak freely.”
“Well then. You’re not making your task any easier by so clearly showing everyone here your true intent. They see it, one and all, in your face, your actions, and even your words. When you are in the presence of Lord Thomas you’re sullen, unhelpful, and your words are ice cold. You claim a desire to imitate the life of Judith, but as I recall the story of that heroine, she didn’t approach that villain Holofernes with fury on her face and foul curses on her lips. Just the opposite—she tempted that great brute. She led him down the garden path to his own destruction using soft sighs and feminine giggles, gestures meant to enchant a man, and make him forget himself.”
There was good sense in these words, Sylvanne knew. Clearly, seduction would serve her better than the brooding anger she displayed to Lord Thomas. In a voice laden with self-reproach, she said, “I haven’t found a way to disguise my unhappiness. It’s too fresh, too strongly felt.”
“Our Biblical model accepted her need to play seductress, ma’am,” Mabel continued. “She behaved uncharacteristically for a greater purpose. And so should you, if I may say. So should you. Be sweet to the daughter, become her friend and companion, so that the father will look upon you tenderly. Match his tender regard with your own. Make him fall in love with you.”
Before Sylvanne could give expression to her thoughts the door opened, and a guard informed her of his orders: she was to be brought at once to Daphne’s bedroom. Pointing to the untouched breakfast upon the table, Sylvanne said, “Give us a few moments, there’s a dear,” in a voice she intended to sound honeyed and demure. To her own ears it felt fake, it fairly reeked of insincerity, but it produced the desired effect on the guard. He looked at her uncertainly, then nodded, and left the two women alone. As the door closed Mabel saw her Mistress smile for the first time in a very long time, possibly since the siege had been laid. “You might be on to something, sweet Mabel,” Sylvanne mused. “Come with me to the girl’s bedside, and let’s see whose heart I can win.”
25
Daphne sat up in her bed, watching with delight as her father juggled three small oranges. A dozen more nestled in a wooden bowl on her sheets. “They came all the way from Spain, where it’s sunny and warm,” her father crowed. “I expect they’ll soon make you sunny and warm as well. They are sweet, yet almost sour, and that’s very curious. I’m told they only grow in lands that never see snow.”
In a chair by the bedside, the servant girl Beth had been assigned the task of peeling and segmenting one of these exotic, mysterious fruits onto a silver plate to present to the young lady. Thomas glanced at her, and saw that she had grown bewildered and frustrated, for the skin of her orange was tough and dry, and when she ripped at it,