Seventh Bride (7 page)

The silent woman stood behind her, holding Rhea up by the back of her shirt, a far more solid presence than the floor. The tile they stood on was one of only a handful remaining, seemingly suspended over nothing. The walls led straight down into an enormous chasm, wallpaper and baseboards hovering absurdly over sheer stone cliffs.
 

“What—how—oh god—what—” Rhea could hear herself babbling between those terrible sounds, and then she couldn’t even babble anymore and could only pant like a frightened animal.

In her pocket, the hedgehog was curled into an agonizingly tight ball.

A long time later, the noise stopped.
 

What
was
that? How is this happening? Is this sorcery?

What is holding us up?

And far more importantly
How do we get down!?

It was a very large tile, but it seemed very small with two people (and one hedgehog) standing on it.
 
The other tiles hanging in the air were empty, except for one that had an end-table with a vase of flowers on it.
 

The abyss underneath was endless and very, very black.
 

Oh, Lady of Stones, if I fall in there I’ll have time to pray and confess my sins before I hit the bottom.
 

This was not as comforting a thought as one might wish.

“How do we get down?” whispered Rhea. She hadn’t meant to whisper, but she couldn’t speak any louder.
 

The silent woman sighed again.

There was another noise—this one grinding, ratcheting, like the millworks starting up—and then a tile flew upwards out of the abyss and snapped into place in absolutely empty air.
 

I’ve gone mad,
said Rhea conversationally to herself.
The hedgehog was probably a warning sign. The saints only know what I’ve
really
got in my pocket.

Another tile popped up, only a few feet beyond, and then another, and then they were all rising, like fish surfacing in a pond when you throw breadcrumbs into the water. They fitted themselves together, each of them in the right place, black bordered by grey and grey by black, and then there was a tile fitting into their tile, and another, and then the noise stopped and the whole floor was intact.
 

The silent woman dropped Rhea’s collar, and strode out across the floor.

It took Rhea a minute longer to gather up her courage. She put a foot on the next tile and tested it worriedly.

What if they fall?

Her guide had reached the far doorway and was waiting impatiently.

How could she take a step? What if—

What if they fall again and I’m still standing here?

Rhea crossed the vast floor in less than three seconds flat.
 

The silent woman snorted, and pushed the door open.
 

Rhea stepped inside—surely the floor in here could not fall? No, of course it couldn’t, there was an enormous table and a chopping block and all those things would have fallen into the abyss as well.

The room was a kitchen, built to a scale that befitted the size of the house. There was a gigantic hearth with fire irons around it, and a brick oven that radiated heat. Pots and pans hung on nails overhead, and another doorway stood open, leading to what was presumably a courtyard with a pump. Cool night air came in through the doorway, cutting the heat from the banked hearth and the oven.
 

Two women sat at the table. One was enormously fat, and one was very pale and had a bandage wrapped around her eyes.
 

“Good heavens!” said the fat woman, looking towards the doorway. “At this hour, too?”

“The floor,” said Rhea, hearing her voice rising hysterically. “The
floor!
It—did you see—does it—it fell, and—”

“Happens every night at midnight,” said the fat woman matter-of-factly. “And sometimes at a quarter after four in the afternoon, although not always. Depends on
her
mood, I should think.”

“The—four in the afternoon—
her?”

The silent woman made a wordless sound of contempt and shut the door. Rhea could hear her shoes clicking on the tiles as she strode away.
 

“Her,” said the fat woman. “The clock-wife.”

Rhea said “Oh,” as if that explained things, which it didn’t in the slightest.
 

“Have a seat, honey,” said the fat woman, rising to her feet. Rhea saw that she was not merely heavy but tall as well, and powerfully built across the shoulders. “You’ve had a shock, and probably a long walk on top of it. Let me fry you a bit of supper.”

“That would be wonderful,” said Rhea, sitting down, while half of her mind gibbered about the floor, what had happened to the floor, the world was not a place where things like the floor falling away and then coming back two minutes later
happened
—and the other half had smelled ham and was ravenously hungry and felt the floor could wait.

“Is it her?” asked the woman with the bandaged eyes. Her skin was much paler than anyone in the village, and she had wispy white-blond hair. “Maria, is it her?”

The big woman—Maria—was chopping up a potato and tossing it into a skillet with grease and bacon.
 

“I’m guessing it’s her, yes,” said Maria. “Got Himself’s ring on. Ask her yourself, she’s right here.”

“Is she pretty, Maria?”
 

Rhea blinked.

Maria sighed and said “She’s young, Sylvie. Young, and not bad-looking, but she’s no great beauty. Not like you were, dear.” Over the frail woman’s head, she mouthed,
Sorry.

Rhea wondered if she should be annoyed, and decided that the potatoes were much more important.

“Oh,” said Sylvie. “Oh, that’s fine then. Not that it matters.” She folded her hands together, and Rhea was suddenly quite sure that it mattered
very much
.
 

“Egg with your potatoes, dear?”

“Oh yes, please,” said Rhea.

“Not that it matters,” said Sylvie again, more loudly. And then, hesitantly, “You—you have a nice voice, dear.”

“Err. Thank you,” said Rhea. She looked worriedly at Maria, who glanced over at Sylvie and rolled her eyes heavenward.
 

“She has a nice voice,” Sylvie told Maria.
 

“It’s not nice to talk about her as if she’s not here,” said Maria. “What’s your name, child?”

“Um. Rhea.”

“Good name, that,” said the fat woman approvingly. “Queen of the old gods. A strong name.”

“It’s important to be strong,” said Sylvie. “It’s better to be strong than—that is—” She stopped. Had she not been wearing the blindfold-like bandage, Rhea thought she would have been staring at her hands. “It’s bad to be vain,” she said finally.
 

She’s mad
, thought Rhea.
Or if not quite mad, she’s at least a little touched in the head. Worse than the conjure wife, anyway.
 

Maria must be the cook, and I guess that means the woman with the throat wound is the butler? Maybe? And Sylvie…maybe she’s a former servant? Or a relative of Maria’s?

“You’ll have to forgive Sylvie,” said Maria, thumping a plate of potatoes, eggs, and bits of ham down on the table in front of Rhea.
 
“Which is not to say that she
ought
to be forgiven, but you’re probably going to be here awhile, and it’s just easier if we all make our peace with each other.”

Rhea would have forgiven anyone anything at that point if they came bearing potatoes, but a prickly wiggling in her pocket reminded her of her manners. “Um,” she said again, reaching into her skirt. “I have a hedgehog.”

“So you do,” said Maria, eyeing it dubiously.
 
“I suppose it’s hungry, too?”

The hedgehog managed to indicate that it could eat, yes.

Maria opened a cupboard and began rummaging through it. “I’m out of slugs,” she said over her shoulder. “There are plenty out in the garden, and your services would be much appreciated there, Master—or Mistress—Hedgehog, but for now…”
 

She dumped a handful of raisins out on the table next to the hedgehog. It picked one up in its paws, nodded graciously to Maria, and tucked in.

“Useful creatures, hedgehogs,” said Maria. “Is it your familiar, then?”

“I don’t
think
so,” said Rhea, who had been applying herself to the potatoes. “We only just met. And I’m not magicky.”
 

She glanced at the hedgehog. The hedgehog shook its head.
 

“Well, you never know,” said Maria, wiping her hands on her apron and settling down into her chair. “I had a familiar once. Old she-bear, size of a cow by the time—well, never mind. She’s still out there. Bears are nigh-impossible to kill once they get that size. Death’s too scared to come looking for them.”

Sylvie stirred restlessly, as if about to say something, and Maria patted her hand firmly. The blind woman—surely she was blind?—settled back into her chair.

She had a familiar? Lord Crevan’s
cook
had a familiar?
 

“So you’re Rhea. Well, I’m Maria,” said the cook. “And this is Sylvie, as you heard, and the grim old bat who brought you in is Ingeth.”

“Are—are you Lord Crevan’s servants?” asked Rhea timidly.

Maria laughed then, a rich, rollicking belly laugh that filled up the kitchen and rang the pots and pans.

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Sylvie, shaking her head. Wispy hair flew.
 

“Bless your heart,” Maria said, wiping her eyes. “Servants indeed. No, my child. We’re Lord Crevan’s
wives
.”

“Wuh-what?
Wives?”

The words meant nothing to Rhea. They were in some foreign language. People did not have more than one wife at a time. Lord Crevan was—technically—her betrothed. You didn’t get betrothed to people who still had wives. Certainly not to people who had three of them!

I am very tired. I am not hearing things correctly. That’s all.
 

“I’m sorry,” said Rhea carefully, “but I think I must have misheard you.”

The cook’s eyes danced with a kind of jovial malice. “No, you didn’t. Wives. Wives, wives, wives. As in married. As in more than one. As in me, and Sylvie, and Ingeth, and the clock-wife and the golem-wife and the Lady Elegans, who is lying out in the graveyard.”

“Six of us,” said Sylvie. “Except Lady Elegans, because she’s dead. But she’s still one of us. And you, now, of course.” She sat up very straight. “You’re welcome. You should be welcome. We’re glad to have you. I mean, not glad that you’re
here,
because that’s not very nice for you, but…” She trailed off in some confusion, knotting her fingers together. “It’s nice to have someone else to talk to,” she said finally.

Maria sighed. “Poor child,” she said, without any malice now. “I don’t suppose you were in love with Himself, were you?”

“What?” asked Rhea blankly. Sylvie’s words had filled her with vague dread.
Not very nice for you
was much more menacing than it should have been.

“Lord Crevan,” said Maria patiently. “Your husband-to-be. Himself.”

“Oh! No!” Rhea shook her head. “Um. It was all very strange. He talked to my father—you can’t say no to lords, not if they’re wanting to marry your daughter—not if you’re the miller—
you
know—”
 

Maria nodded. “Oh, aye. I know it well. Why do you think I married him? I wouldn’t have set my cap for him by choice. I’d had three husbands already and his magic wasn’t a patch on mine.”
 

“You were a magician?” asked Rhea.

“I was a witch,” said Maria. “Hearth and heath and heartwood. I could call the great beasts out of the earth and wire them together with silver chain.” She tipped another egg onto Rhea’s plate. “Ah, well. That was longer ago than I’d like to admit.”
 

“You shouldn’t brag,” whispered Sylvie. “It isn’t nice. It’s vain. We can’t be vain, Maria.”

The blind woman’s hands trembled when she spoke. Maria reached over and took her hand firmly. “Don’t fret yourself, dear. It’s late and he’s away and we’re all a bit tired. Isn’t that right, Rhea?”

“Absolutely,” said Rhea, who was very, very tired. The hedgehog had finished its raisins and was curled up in a small prickly ball against her plate. “Um—you said he was away?”

“Off on business,” said Maria. “Nobody here but us.”

“Can I leave, then?” asked Rhea. “If he’s not here—I was supposed to meet him—”

Hope didn’t even have time to flower. Maria was already shaking her head. “Back down the white road? I don’t recommend it, unless you’re looking for a painful death. He called up things on the white road and didn’t have wit or will enough to put them down again. I don’t think he knows what’s down there himself.” Her smile was oddly satisfied.
 

“He told me to come here, and he knew he wasn’t going to be here?” Rhea scowled into her eggs.

“Very like him,” said Maria. “He’ll set you tasks merely to prove that you have to do them.” She patted Rhea’s shoulder. “Best get some sleep. Ingeth!”

Ingeth appeared in the doorway, looking sour. Rhea tried not to look at the terrifying wound across her throat.

“Show Rhea here back to her room, Ingeth—and take the short way, damn you. It’s late, and no one’s soul is being saved tonight.”
 

Ingeth bared her teeth at Maria. Then she turned away, jerking her head at Rhea to follow. Rhea scooped up the hedgehog and hurried after her.

The way did seem shorter. Ingeth’s back was a hard line in the dimness. She pointed to the door of Rhea’s room, then turned on her heel and stalked away.

Rhea wanted time to think, but she was so tired that the moment she climbed into bed, she fell down into a dark and dreamless sleep.
 

She woke and for a moment she could not think of where she was.
 

The ceiling was white, not thatch. She was in the wrong place. She had woken up, every day of her life, looking up at the thatched roof (or occasionally at the beams of the mill, although sleeping near a grinding mill is not easy).