The Hanged Man: Part 8: Lithia
Post #85: In which a cage is opened ...
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GINGER
On the way back across the lake, Ginger thought of her mother’s face, dark-eyed and framed in hair tangled from her dance.
“We’ve no choice,” her mother said in memory. “We must hide this part of our lives or it’ll be stolen away and we’ll be nothing but powerless puppets going through the motions of life. Promise, me Ginger, to guard our secret.”
She’d promised and she’d held to that promise for twenty years, and become a powerless puppet going through the motions of life in spite of it. In the morning, another man would die.
I can’t do this anymore.
You must.
***
The following morning a servant came to the bedchamber, glanced at the pile of worn-out dancing shoes by the door and led the man Radulf away. He gave Ginger a smile as he left. She could hardly look at him. She wondered if he’d given her the last smile of his life, or would that be for a servant or even her father, the king? He’d been a courteous man, Radulf.
***
The king called for his daughters to appear before him. They went in their fine clothes with hair dressed and jewels on, twelve proper princesses. When they entered the room, Ginger saw Radulf standing quietly in a corner. He held three branches — one of gold leaves, one of silver leaves and one of diamond leaves.
Ginger controlled her expression but she heard one of her sisters gasp and felt tension ripple through the neat line of twelve standing before her father. She dropped her eyes, looking fixedly at a crack between one plank and the next on the polished floor.
“Tell it again,” commanded the king, nodding to Radulf.
“Your daughters contrived a key to fit the lock on their door,” said Radulf. He held up a gold key and sunlight from the window next to him picked out red jewels encrusting it. Ginger had never seen it before.
“I followed them. Conveyance waited for them and they were taken to a dance.”
“Lord Dunstan, I expect,” said the King. “He hosts dances and parties all summer long.”
Radulf inclined his head politely.
“We passed down a wide avenue in a park with lovely trees.” Radulf held the branches in his hands out in illustration. “Naturally, the princesses didn’t lack for partners and they danced the night away.”
The king paced up and down in front of his daughters, who stood stiffly in their line, not meeting one another’s eyes. He clasped his hands behind his back and inflated his chest. His round belly pushed out in front of him. “Silly girls,” he said, shaking his head. “Silly women.” He stopped in front of Ginger. She looked him square in the eye.
“I suppose all these years you’ve protected your mother. She met someone at one of these dances, didn’t she? Met someone and ran off with him, leaving her husband, her duty and her daughters behind. Your mother always kept secrets. I knew it. I tried to bring her to heel but she was stubborn. And beautiful. I was a young fool in those days.”
Ginger, who well remembered her mother’s wild sweetness and fierce independence, kept her face calm and her eyes steady.
The king waved a hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t matter. Ancient history. Better off without her, we are.”
He began to pace back and forth again in front of them. “If you want to go to dances, why not ask permission and do it properly? Why all this sneaking and secret key business? Why make a mystery of it? I’d have been delighted to find suitable husbands for you when you were still young, if you’d only been less stubborn and told me what I wanted to know.” His gaze roamed over them. “Now some of you are too old, but Gemma and the younger ones might still be fresh enough.”
The king paused and looked at Radulf. “My thanks, sir. I can’t think why such a silly puzzle wasn’t solved long ago. I felt greatly upset by the loss of my wife and for some time I didn’t think clearly. When it appeared my daughters were following in her footsteps, I became quite beside myself.”
“Naturally,” said Radulf.
“As a reward for the peace of mind you’ve brought me, please accept one of my daughters in marriage. We must consider what part of the kingdom you’d like to be responsible for.”
The relief of tension made Ginger feel faint. This man had seen—and not told. The jeweled key hadn’t unlocked the chamber door, but the hidden door. He’d followed them down the stairs, along the avenue of trees and over the lake. He must have watched their ritual and dance, and then followed them back.
Clearly, he didn’t intend to betray them.
Oh, Mother, she thought, you were wrong!
Radulf stood before her. He spoke, but the words flew away from her ears like birds. He held out his hands and it was as though a door opened. She put her hands in his and stepped through.