63.

Considering

The mural in the throne room was coming along impressively.

Tarpaulins were spread out along the floor, the seats for lords, the throne and over the shark skeletons for protection.

Using ladders, Helena and Maureen had painted the majority of the bluff rock around the room in swirls of black, green and blue tufted with sprays of white foam.

Light gray shark fins dotted the stormy sea.

In more subtle swirls of dark green, they had added the outlines of mermaids, darting amongst the waves.

Above the sea, a cloudy sky had been painted with bits of sunlight streaking through the clouds, the white mixed with the vermilion and yellow ochre.

“The king is very pleased,”

Maureen sang at me when I entered, my black cotton dress and apron ready for the messy work of mixing pitch.

“He is,”

agreed Helena.

“But now he wants us to add a warship.”

“And,”

added Maureen, “the prince wants us to paint other parts of the keep now.”

I sat next to Helena, mixing the bucket of slaked lime with water and salt, my arm cramping.

But I continued to work the paddle around until Helena said it was the correct consistency.

The two of them daubed it onto palettes with pastes made from azurite, malachite and verdigris and began to add more froth and foam to the tips of waves.

I was given a small cup of white and a fine paintbrush and I added little dots to whatever wave they directed me towards.

We spent the day in this way and it was peaceful.

In the late afternoon, Helena asked me to stand next to her, adding my dots to the section she was working on.

“You don’t need to add any white,”

she said in a lower voice.

“Then why am I standing here?”

I asked, poised with the brush.

“Because I kissed Caleb last night and I want to tell you about it.”

“Who is Caleb?”

“It is my betrothed’s first name and he asked me to use it.”

I looked at her, expertly swishing her brush over the rock wall.

“So tell me about it.”

She looked over at Maureen, who was humming to herself, eyes intent on her work.

“He was inebriated.

I had to use the privy before bed, so I did and when I was on my way back and he spotted me from your hallway, across the landing and he stalked over to me and said ‘please for the love of the gods, kiss me,’ and I said, ‘go on then’ and I just sort of stood there.”

“And?”

She looked at Maureen again and back to me.

“I am considering sharing his bed.”

“How unladylike of you, Helena.”

She smiled into her work.

“He is completely not my kind of man.

He is wild.

I mentioned that I liked to read once and he told me he only learned to read because Alric made him learn.

He has the foulest mouth on him too.”

“And you want to marry him.”

“Maybe.

I don’t know.”

“But you consider his bed.”

“I consider it.”

“Alric was drunk last night too.”

She turned to me.

“Did he try to kiss you?”

She had avoided overtly asking about my relationship with him, likely in response to my resolve to avoid teasing her about Thatcher.

We had only spoken collectively of the Lady Vinia, my telling them all to be wary of her, especially Catrin who came in contact with the lady, a regular of Modwenna’s court.

But I had refrained from saying much of Alric to Helena.

I was not ready to speak of his uninhibited entrance into our room last evening.

So I said, “I have magic.

My penchant showed itself.”

And I told her about the stones in the field.

And we marveled at this new blessing in me.