Her face brightens sunnily; there are few things my precious dandelion loves more than to please, but flowers are a close second. She presses an exuberant kiss into my side and flies out the door, the pale banner of her hair trailing behind her.
My mother watches her go, her face suffused with tenderness and apprehension. “We will soon be living on edible flowers, if Istvan keeps losing custom,” she mutters, and I can feel the pounding of her concern, the lash of relentless worry. This year’s harsh winter and poor harvest has blighted us all, and many of those who once bought my father’s metalwork have no coin to give him, little else to trade. “I worry for her especially. She grows so quickly, I can almost see it as it happens. She needs milk and bread and meat, not petals.”
Silently, I drop my bag of coin on a flourless spot on the table. Mama picks it up, agape, weighing it on her palm. “The countess . . .” she murmurs, marveling at its heft. “It went well, then?”
“Very well, and even more surprising.” I reach for the ball of dough to relieve her aching knuckles. I consider lying to her about Gabor’s identity, but decide against it. I dislike deceiving my mother, and she can keep a secret just as well as I. “Her son had taken ill, an inflamed puncture. I brought him through the worst of it.”
“Her son?” Mama cocks her head at me, eyes narrowing. “But the countess has no children. We would have heard of her confinement.”
I lower my voice, as if someone might overhear even in our cottage. “Not with her husband, at any rate. This one is a commoner’s get. Apparently she bedded their farrier’s son.”
Mama purses her lips, shaking her head. “I’d heard she was unruly in her youth, but a peasant’s by-blow—such brazenness, to enter wedlock defiled. She should hang her head in shame, not flaunt her wantonness to you.”
I try to imagine the countess with her head bowed, long neck bent, and cannot. “She wanted me to try my hardest for him, that is why she told me. And it worked out well enough for us, didn’t it?” I tilt my head toward the bag, sinking my fingers into the unyielding, salted dough. “As long as we make certain that Father never sees it, it should put proper food in our bellies for at least a fortnight.”
“And once it’s gone?” Mama asks, her tone uncharacteristically despondent. “What then, Annacska? I can almost smell the winter nearing.”
Her hopelessness unsettles me, this chill that seems to have seeped into her bones. I fumble for a solution, anything with which to reassure her. “The countess liked me. Perhaps she will call on me again to tend to Gabor.”
“Put that from your mind, Anna,” Mama says so harshly my head snaps up. “I’ve heard talk of her, from the women whose daughters are already there. They say the countess is unusual, uncanny, more given to the flog than any woman should be. Why do you think they are always short of servants at the keep? Even steady coin is hardly worth the risk of such bloody punishment.”
I think of the countess’s dark, compelling eyes, the silken touch of her palms on my face, her vehement love for her son. No, I do not believe that she would be harsh when uncalled for. Demanding, yes, and intolerant of failure. But not sharp for the thrill of it, not when she loves her bastard son so well. “I spent the night with her, by her boy’s side,” I say gently, unwilling to contradict my mother but unable to let it stand. “She was warm with him, tender. And kind to me.”
“Well, there is a reason why she cannot keep her help, and whatever it is, I would not have you find out for yourself,” Mama says crossly. “Besides, you should be thinking of marriage, not of servitude. It’s time, Anna. You’re of age, more clever with herbs than I ever was, and lovelier than any man could hope to take to wife. You should be wed already, and growing round with child. I see how you dote on your sister. You need a babe of your own.”
I wrinkle my nose with distaste, averting my face so she does not see it. Despite her years of catching babes, cauled or stillborn or so monstrously large they rend their mothers open before sucking their first breath, somehow she still loves children above all else. I can’t understand it. The last thing I desire is to be split open, to die shrieking and sundered on a scarlet wave of blood, delivering a child that would forever shackle me to my husband, should I have the misfortune to survive. Wed to a man, I would no longer belong to myself.
And my family needs me. They’re mine, they are my blood—even my loutish, largely useless brothers—and I will not abandon them when we teeter on the brink of destitution.
“Oh, you’ve heard how our neighbors’ lummox sons talk of me,” I say breezily. “They fear my salves and teas as if they’re poison or witchcraft, the devil’s work rather than medicine. They fear me, Mama—save for when they sicken. Then they come calling readily enough. And without a dowry to entice them, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“Is that so? And what of Peter Erdelyi?” she counters, lifting a skeptical eyebrow. My mother is nobody’s fool, no more than I am. “That boy has loved you since you were both babes. How long will you insist on turning a blind eye to him? You must know he means to propose soon—the village has been talking of nothing else for months.”
“Mama, please. You know how idle gossip spreads here. Peter loves me like a sister, no more and no less.” I slide the meager loaf back to her, keeping my eyes on it to hide the lie from her. Though Peti has not broached marriage with me yet, it is not nearly so inconceivable as I am making it sound. I haven’t seen him in weeks, the longest we’ve been apart in the course of our entire friendship. Perhaps he’s been purposely making himself scarce in an attempt to quash the rumors. “Besides, I can’t imagine wedding my best friend. It would almost be obscene.”
“Fine, Annacska,” she says, relenting. “But if not him, then someone. And soon. That is your lot, just as this family—and these blasted hands—are mine.”
I watch her warped back as she wraps the loaf and shuttles it over the embers in the hearth, sighing hoarsely as she straightens. And for the thousandth time I make a vow to myself, a blood oath with my own soul that I will not betray.
This life of hers, of toil and squalor, forever pinned under my father’s thumb—it will never be my life.
I will not allow it.
Chapter Three
The Summons and the Nest
When the knock comes, a week has shuffled past, and I have almost succeeded in putting the countess and her boy from my mind.
We are breaking our fast, the seven of us crowded around the table over four eggs, stewed plums, and stringy bread rinds. Mama and I exchange wary looks; the demanding cadence of the knock is familiar to us both.
“What’re you waiting for, then, woman?” Father grumbles, hunkered over his plate. “It’s sure to be one of your needy lot, come wheedling for grasses and leaves. Go see to it, will you, before their rapping rattles my brains.”
Mama rises and hastens to the door. Sunlight spills into our gloom, making me blink like a surfaced mole; Father has demanded the shutters be kept closed so he can cosset his ever-tender head. When my eyes adjust, I make out Janos’s strapping silhouette.