Luminous

43 - Agnes's Tale

Lady Hadrian's horse-drawn carriage was accompanied by supplies and luggage wagons, surrounded by yeomen on horseback, with a vanguard of mounted knights and squires paving the way.

The entourage trundled past fields upon fields of withering wheat stalks. Disfigured and discolored unripe plums, apples and cherries littered both sides of the road, having fallen prematurely from their yellow-leafed mother trees on the levee.

The early morning spring breeze eased by, and the wheat stirred feebly. The sight further alarmed the harried villeins. They rushed by the irrigation trenches, bobbing in and out of sight amid yellowish-green waves, as they sowed manure taken from the mule-drawn wheelbarrows behind them. Some were lugging carts overflowing with seaweed imported from the Southern Sea, slopping armfuls of slimy, frilly leaves onto bare soil, then spreading them out to form a mulch-mound.

Meya peeked through the gap in her curtain at the nostalgic yet foreboding sight. Seven years ago, a week after she was punished at the town square, and mere weeks before the Crosset Famine hit at full force, she remembered trudging to the fields with lunch bundles for Dad and Maro, who were mulching the dying wheat.

While Dad chomped on Mum's smoked jerky, made from the remains of Meya's piglet Tildy, and sandwiched between Morel's homemade muffins, silent and brooding and ignoring Meya, Maro struggled to cheer up the disheartened Meya, who still bore whip scars on her arms and legs.

It was a tough feat, considering Maro himself was just as flummoxed and fearful as any Crossetian then—what little of the battered wheat that had survived the summer rain and autumn locusts were withering without reason.

Seeing Meya's indifferent gloom, he forced out a laugh and patted her head, as much to placate himself as her.

"Don't worry, we still have the storehouse grain."

Of course, nobody had known back then that all that emergency grain had been magicked into the gold yarn lining Bailiff Johnsy's robes, and the fat lining the inside of his engorged belly.

There was a loud sniff from behind her. Meya turned around. Lady Agnesia had been calming down on the opposite seat, Arinel by her side with her hands on her shoulders. Gretella had taken up the seat beside Meya, lips pursed and looking careworn.

At long last, Agnes seemed to be ready. She drew in a large gulp from the waterskin, then a deep breath, staring down at her fidgeting hands on her lap.

"Father once said that daughters are a waste of resources unless they are beautiful." She began, her quiet voice and impeccable speech unwittingly reminding Meya of Coris. Especially as she hitched up a wan grin, "Imagine his chagrin when Freda cursed him with twin daughters and no son."

Meya thought she must have imagined it, for it looked as if a crimson glint of savage, bitter glee had shot by in Agnes's eyes.

"Father promised the church that he would offer up all his daughters but his firstborn to their service. It is fortunate I'm the firstborn and Persie is second, as she's a Greeneye. She isn't fit for a profitable marriage. Father would have to offer up his estates and titles as her dowry, and even then, she might not attract an acceptable suitor."

Agnes raised her left hand. With her right thumb and index, she circled her bare ring finger, as though imagining the band of precious stones that would someday enclose it.

"I was to marry power, make Graye prosper. Persie was to take the vow at twelve. It's always been that way."

Despite their differences, Meya understood Agnes. For as long as she could remember, the four paths of the woman had been hammered onto her skull by fellow women of Crosset: marriage, spinsterhood, prostitution, nunhood.