The pain stayed mostly a nocturnal creature content to gnaw at her foot. But sometimes it tried to claw all the way up her leg.
Meline always beat it back.
You will not win, Elise, she thought, rubbing salve onto her swollen instep. I will give everything to make you lose.
She climbed into bed.
“Ha!” Fabi’s hand sought the cool bare skin of her shoulder. “You smell like Christmas cake!”
“Hush, silly—”
But he was asleep again.
Oh Fabi, she thought, the Devil has sent you to weaken me from my purpose.
***
It had been a beautiful clear hot summer day until the air turned heavy, light fled, thunder cracked the sky and let loose floods of hail. Meline and her brother are running for home and hurtling down on them is Elise—face lost and drowned in exaltation, lightning-gilded—fused into one being with the maddened horse, and Meline’s brother slipping and skidding and the horse with no place to put down its feet and splitting the boy’s head and trampling Meline's foot when she fell trying to shield him. Screaming and blood and Death summoned, and Elise galloping away uncaring.
***
The Baroness walked all the way herself to the little row of dwellings at the village end of the grounds and paid compensation to Meline’s mother with her own hands, and it was a great sum of money for those who have not much but nothing will bring back the dead.
…ashes under her eyes, Meline thought, that she should seem grieving, but where is her child to beg our forgiveness?
Elise had been sent away to another of their estates before Meline could even sit up, with the Baroness following once every remaining proper thing could be left to the hands of her steward.
He brought the Baroness’s own excellent physician to see to Meline's foot and order a month’s worth of milk puddings and rich strong broths, and Meline’s mother was given a life’s holding to the tiny cottage.
Not weregild enough, Meline thought. Someday Elise will pay and not in common coin.
Meline’s mother wouldn’t listen to any word of blame. She said the beauty of Christ’s message must stitch up their torn hearts but she must have been frail of faith because she was dead not even two years later.
A pity she didn’t wait longer. When the Baroness celebrated Elise’s marriage all the people here received handsome presents in the new bride’s name.
You’ll never enjoy your life, thought Meline. I’ll set myself up in town and make myself fine and smooth and perfumed, and I’ll find you out and I’ll whore myself to your husband and I will make sure you see me in your bed naked before I kill you.
***
It’s not so easy to become a grand courtesan as stories would make you think. Meline’d been bold enough to beg a reference from the Baroness’s steward and it got her as far as a servant girl’s place in a burgher’s house.
That’s where Fabi saw her, he courted her straight from his friend’s parlor, and nobody cares what a merchant does so it didn’t make any sort of scandal and stayed an amusing story in his circle. Not even told meanly, because Fabi wouldn’t continue with people if they tried to treat Meline with condescension.
His family was used to his eccentricities and he’d kept them all prosperous and he was in any case the younger son and well-ripe to be married. How long could he live alone in a house like that with only the servants for company? A man needs more than his hothouse plants to keep him warm at night.
And if Meline seemed somewhat lacking in patience, she managed his household excellently and had good enough manners and—she was very handsome, wasn’t she?
Fabi called her my swan wife and bought her a crateful of the softest Turkish slippers and had all the rest of her shoes made by the best craftsmen in town.
He was fine enough of a draftsman to no longer be thought an amateur with the botanical journals he kept, and he’d pull Meline onto his lap to show her his latest sketch and name for her all the parts of plants, and she’d say let me go, Fabi, I must see how the dinner is coming along or there’s the laundry to be sent out and would never stay more than a minute or two with his arm around her waist.
And he’d laugh and say a man must adjust himself to a helpmeet who can’t sit still if he’s knowingly taken a swan to be his Frau.
***
“Here’s some happy fortune! Ludo’s come back for the season and now you can meet his wife. They’ve asked us to dine this Saturday.”
***
Can one be scorched and frozen at the same time? Meline felt her heart had fled her body.
Elise stepped forward to welcome her, face innocent of any recognition, and she took Meline’s hand with great cordiality.
***
“…a fortnight. Come with me.”
“Don't be ridiculous, Fabi, I’ve too much to do preparing for Karneval. And the maids will run riot; we’d be lucky to return and find the place standing.”
“Dose them every day with all your tisanes if you suspect they’ll have had too much fun.”
He was laughing but Meline turned the color of oxblood as he squeezed her cheerfully and didn’t seem to notice.
“Pack my thickest nightshirts then, and a hot-water bottle to be my consolation…”
***
He was nearly out the door when Meline suddenly caught him back.
“Why do you love me, Fabi?”
“Isn’t it because you love me?”
Then the tumult swept him along, a footman swinging up the trunk and the maids swirling past with the luncheon hamper and saucy words for the coachman, and Meline rooted to the foyer’s parquet trying to hide her tears.
***
Beast-heads grinned up from the sewing-room carpet.
“Yours is the most horrible,” the maids giggled; “the master will never want to squeeze you again.”
“Do you want to end up trussed and roasted?”
“You’d like it if Karl trussed you!” one girl said to the other, and they fell over laughing.
“Smash these masks with your foolishness,” said Meline, “and I’ll lock you in to revel with the spiders.”
***
Fabi as a hedgehog looked absurdly debonair. He danced Meline all the way up the hill to the Rosenmontag ball at Baron Ludovic’s townhouse.
Here are my swan wife’s wings, and he kept twirling her off the cobblestones into his arms. What a night for him to make her laugh!
***
Elise shimmered in white silk and a diamanté cat-eared tiara and Ludovic kept seeking her with his eyes whenever they weren’t dancing.
She’s too proud, Meline thought, to cover that lovely face. Not even tonight will she dress in vulgar colors. Not even for an instant can her husband be free with his gaze.
Fabi danced Meline breathless in between the feasting and drinking, but now a cluster of friends came to pull him away; Meline’s heart began pounding but she choked out a laugh and said you’ve saved me from my mad husband who wants to keep me famished and she pretended to walk towards the chamber filled with laden tables.
Elise was at the other end of the ballroom and climbing the marble stairs. Above her the nurserymaid was waiting with a baby in her arms and a child reaching excitedly for her mother
Meline looked back; Ludovic was off with Fabi too.
***
The little girl suddenly started crying and Elise looked around, startled.
“I’m sorry!” Meline said, “I forgot about my mask. I didn’t mean to frighten her.”
“My sweetheart look! It’s Meline, she’s been to our house before. But this is what happens when naughty children don’t go to bed on time!”
Elise spoke very tenderly though, picking up her daughter and kissing away the tears, and she said “Mutti’s friend is so pretty, isn’t she? Let’s ask her to tuck us in nice and snug and wish us a good night!”
Meline was right at Elise’s shoulder when they were walking back downstairs; when Elise stumbled Meline caught her and the two fell back together. Elise was almost in Meline’s lap.
“Have I hurt you? I’m so sorry. I most always remember to count the steps.”
“How long—”
“Thank God I can still see my children’s faces clearly,” said Elise; “I think I can bear losing everything else.”
She pressed the hand still holding her like steel.
“We laugh and say I’ve always been clumsy but people are starting to guess, and I want to hold off their pity just a little longer.” She turned to look straight in Meline’s eyes, and smiled.
“Are you good at keeping secrets?”
How interesting, a story of revenge. I am looking forward to more installments.