The Curse of Kalathan

Three: Palace

The water smelled beautiful, of jasmine and roses. It was warm – perfectly, beautifully warm, and she closed her eyes, her arms floating at her sides. She was clean; for the first time in months she was clean and it felt so wonderful that she ignored her very strong suspicion that it was all a mistake, that the soldier had never meant to fetch her to the palace, to this bedroom hung with velvet curtains and rich tapestries, to this steaming, magical, fragrant bath that was dissolving her fear and her shame in its luxury.

It had been three months. She had asked the stout, bustling woman who had taken her from the soldier what the day was and she had told her. She had been in prison for three months, without a trial, a visit, nothing. It hadn't been especially surprising when it had happened. People like her expected injustice and accusations, persecution and random, unexplained imprisonments. It had always been part of her life, from the moment the red-robed, bald-headed greasy-faced priest had seen her innocently eating dried figs out of the bag her father had just bought at the market. "The Devil's claw!" he had cried out, pointing a shaking finger at her left hand raised innocently to her mouth. Her poor father, who had trained her so carefully ever since she was old enough to understand never to use her left hand for anything, anything at all, had to watch her being dragged away, screaming and crying, to the temple and then to the prison at the castle. He was allowed to take her home three days later, and he had always said he hardly recognised the pale, limp, nearly frozen child they brought out from the dark cell, her secret discovered, her left wrist marked, her future now at stake. She was nine years old then, but she remembered it all. She remembered the fear, she remembered the hideous cleansing ceremony at the temple, pigeon blood dripping from her head onto her dress. She remembered the cold cell, the needle and the pain in her wrist as they marked her. She remembered lying in the dark and wondering if she had died.

But that had all been ten years ago. She had stayed in the background since then, not going to school, staying at home with her parents mostly, learning what she could from the books her father and his friends could find for her. If she went out she wore long sleeves to hide the mark. She tried, and she tried hard because she knew her future depended on it, but she was never able to do much with her right hand. She could not write, she could not sew, she could not cut up vegetables. Her father had learned to use his right hand and no one but his parents had ever known about his curse. But she was different. Her right hand was stupid, useless at anything that might help her earn a living.

She did not try to hide it as she dressed. She noticed the servant girls staring at the way she buttoned the soft tunic they gave her, as she took the comb from them and worked it through her knotted, tangled curls. "Yes," she said, shrugging at them as she tugged the pretty comb through the snarls. Was it ivory? She thought it might be; it was carved with elephants. "The Devil's claw. But don't worry, I don't bite." One of them supressed a squeak, and she smiled to herself. It was strangely enjoyable, not to be bothering to hide it.

There was a mirror, in the room, a tall one framed in silver that she could see her whole self in. She stood in front of it, and looked at herself, her whole self, for the first time in her life. The girl in the mirror was combing her hair with her right hand. She had dark circles under her eyes, but she was clean, shiny and scrubbed pink. Her hair was a nondescript brown, her face not particularly interesting, her nose perhaps a little too long, her dark grey eyes perhaps a little too large. Her arms were skinny and marked with raw red patches from sleeping in that cold, dirty cell for three months. No one had told her anything yet. She hadn't been released. The woman said very little and the other servants who brought food and bathwater and helped her to untangle her hair and scrub the months of dirt off her said nothing at all. She had given up asking when she realised she wasn't getting any answers out of them.

Besides, Trina didn't really want answers. She was in the palace, in a pretty dress, her belly full and her body warm, and even if this was a huge mistake, which she was almost completely certain it was, there was just a chance she might actually see the princes. It had been so long since she had been able to be in the crowd lining the road from the palace to the temple, since she had stood with the other citizens of Kalathan and watched the King and the royal family ride by on their way to worship. The king himself, broad and strong, his auburn hair curling over the white fur collar of his cape, like a picture of a king in a storybook. The fair-haired queen, always so sad and regal on her white horse, and behind her the princes. All six of the beautiful princes, riding behind their parents: from Theo, the oldest, already a man and taller than his father, down to Maikal who was only Rilla's age. When they came to get her, as the woman had said they would (although she had no idea what that meant), she might just catch a glimpse of one of them across a courtyard or a ballroom or whatever other kinds of fancy rooms they had in a palace. Even if they were coming to get her just to throw her back onto the street or back into the prison, she might see the princes. It was worth a wait, she thought, taking a plump, juicy grape from the bowl on the table beside the bed, and falling backwards onto the spotlessly white, impossibly soft feather pillows.