Bone, Tooth and Wool

Last night, I dreamt that I was pregnant. I carried the baby for nine months and then gave birth to a son. I was overjoyed to have become a mother, but when I saw my child, I was disappointed to see how much he resembled my brothers. The baby must have sensed my disappointment because it began to cry. I asked the midwife to pass me my son, so that I might feed him, but the accursed woman refused me.

‘This is not a baby, this is an abomination,’ she said, holding my son upside down by his ankle, causing his royal penis to dangle towards his head, in the most undignified of manners. ‘We must toss it onto the pyre, at once.’

My heart surged with emotion, but before I could call for the midwife’s head, I was awakened by a knock at my door. I lay for a moment in the darkness, bewildered and in pain, mourning the loss of a baby that had never really existed. I wanted to cry and scream, but the sensible part of my mind took over. Thinking that something terrible must have occurred for a servant to disturb me at such a dark hour of the night, I rushed to the door in nothing but my nightgown and was rather relieved to find that no servant was there. Instead, standing in front of me in the hallway, there was a large doll.

The doll was about as tall as my waist and wore a heavy cloak. It had a strange, magical air about it, and was quite unlike any doll I had seen before. It was not made in Sardignon, that was for sure.

I crouched down and pulled aside the doll’s cloak, half expecting it to call out in protest. Its skeleton looked as though it had been fashioned from the bones of some large animal, like an ox, or a horse. The bones had been carved into the rough shape of a human body, and fastened together with rope at the neck, shoulders, waist and ankles. One large bone had then been placed behind the doll’s spine, to keep him upright.

The doll’s inner workings were hidden behind its cloak and a woollen skin, dyed red, blue, and black – the colours of the Fellshaaran flag. The doll’s face had been fashioned from tiny beads, carved from animal teeth, attached to the wool on its head in the vague shape of eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

I crouched down and admired the craftsmanship. It truly was a work of genius and, I assumed, the first present I had received from my new groom.

‘What fascinating taste. Perhaps my married life will not be such a bore, after all,’ I whispered to the doll, as I crouched down to pick it up around its waist. To my surprise, its wool cloak felt warm against my skin, and it smelt of vanilla.

I carried the doll into my bedchamber and set it down in front of the window. ‘You wait here, and see in the dawn,’ I said, ‘make sure tomorrow is a beautiful day, for both of us.’

When I awoke this morning, I expected the doll to be gone. I thought the whole episode nothing but a nighttime fantasy; nothing but a hangover from my dream before. But there was the doll, the red stripes on its cloak blending into the crimson sunrise.

I thought the bloodied sky was likely a bad omen for my meeting with Prince Effal but tried to push the thought from my mind. Whether the sky liked it or not, I was going to meet my groom, today. The prince was already in the palace – my new doll was proof of that – there was no turning back now.

I washed and dressed like normal, but my routine was disturbed when Maël barged into my room, unannounced. He was carrying a silver tray bearing a cup of hot mint.

‘Where’s Reema?’ I asked, surprised to see my brother bringing my morning drink, instead of my regular serving lady.

‘She was feeling under the weather, so I sent her to rest. Where do you want this?’

I beckoned for him to come over to my dressing table and took the cup from the tray. Before I had even brought the drink to my lips, I could smell something was off.

‘What is this?’ I asked, taking a sip. ‘It tastes different.’

‘It’s mint, obviously. I had a servant prepare it.’

‘You should have asked Reema to make it before she left.’

‘Just drink the thing, won’t you? Or do you want Effal to go home complaining of his bride’s peasant breath?’

Inadvertently, I glanced over at the doll when Maël mentioned Prince Effal. My brother must not have noticed it until then, because he immediately screwed up his face in disgust.

‘A bellay doll, already?’ he said. ‘Effal, you lech.’

‘You mean, you know what this is?’ I said, unable to hide my surprise.

‘Of course I do. I did not spend all my time in Fellshere politicking with Father and their king. I learnt a little of the local culture, too.’

I knew that Maël had accompanied our father on his trip to Fellshere but, frankly, I had thought him too arrogant and stupid to absorb any of the country’s customs. The borders of Fellshere have been closed to outsiders for centuries, so even finding an interpreter for their trip was difficult. In fact, the whole reason Father arranged for me to marry Prince Effal in the first place, was to improve relations between our countries.

Father had heard rumours, spread by a band of nomads who claimed to have visited Fellshere, that there is a unique species of bear that can only be found in the mountains, there. The nomads told him the bear has the most delicious meat imaginable. The rump is supposed to be more tender than the finest veal, and its blood so sweet, Fellshaarans mix it with mead to create a potent dessert wine. Of course, Father would have been willing to wage war on Fellshere to hunt this bear, but he chose to take the diplomatic approach, this time, and offer them me, his daughter, instead.

‘There is more to me than you realise,’ Maël continued, smirking. ‘You would do well to not underestimate me.’

‘What is it then?’ I asked, without taking my eyes off the doll.

‘It’s a marriage proposal and a fertility charm. In Fellshere, when a man wishes to marry a woman, he sculpts a bellay doll from the bones and pelts of the beasts he’s killed, and then leaves the doll outside her door. If the woman accepts his proposal, she takes the doll into her home, gives it a name, and cares for it. If she rejects his proposal, she leaves the doll out in the dark, for the man to retrieve in the morning. They say the doll is imbued with an ancient magic, born from the souls of the animals that died to shape it. The better the mother cares for the doll, the faster she will fall pregnant.’

‘I can hardly believe that Prince Effal made such a wondrous thing,’ I said, almost leaping from my seat to go and inspect the doll, once more. ‘I am more excited than ever to meet him.’

‘Don’t you think it a little presumptuous?’

‘What is presumptuous about proposing to the woman you intend to marry? If anything, this was a romantic gesture by the prince.’

‘And your fertility?’ Maël grimaced as he spoke.

‘What of it?’ I said, running my fingers over the doll’s face. Each bead had been worn smooth. It must have taken Prince Effal several days to make the face, alone.

‘The man hasn’t even met you yet, and he’s already thinking of stuffing you, like a pig.’

‘Maël!’

Instinctively, I moved my hands to the sides of the doll’s head, covering the space where its ears would have been, if it’d had any.

My brother’s language was coarse, but the ruddiness of his complexion betrayed his true feelings. For all his own vulgar escapades, he was still disturbed by the thought of his little sister with a man.

‘Just get ready,’ he said. ‘And drink your mint.’

Not long after Maël left my chamber, Father summoned me to his favourite sitting room, where an interpreter, Maël, Prince Effal, and the King of Fellshere, were already waiting for us. The two foreigners smiled, nodded, and greeted me with pleasantries I could not understand. The interpreter whispered a translation to Maël, but Maël did not relay what was said. He simply shook his head and glared at Prince Effal.

Father showed me to a seat between himself and Maël. I did my best to avert my eyes from the Fellshaarans, as a lady should, but this was more difficult than I had expected. Prince Effal was a delightful freak. He was taller as Maël, but his body was so fragile, he looked like he would break if anything heavier than his robes touched him. He had no hair or stubble on his cheeks or top lip, his nose was thin and long, but his dark eyes were wide and unblinking. Sat next to his pear-shaped father, he looked like the owlet the nest forgot.

I don’t know if my excitement was getting the better of me, or if I was beginning to fall ill, but soon after I sat down, I felt drunk and feverish. The yellow walls of the sitting room seemed to be expanding and contracting, as though the palace were breathing, though my own chest felt tight. I could hear the men talking, but my mind could not grasp most of what they were saying. It was almost as if they were in the room next to me, and I was trying to eavesdrop through the muffled vibrations in the wall. The last thing I remember, I heard Maël say something about when a snake eats itself, it begins with the tail. And then, I fainted.

I was mortified when I finally came to. I could not believe that I had made such a fool of myself in front of Prince Effal. And, to make matters worse, it seemed I had been unconscious for several hours. I could see from the shadows of the trees, visible through the window of my bedchamber, that the sun was just past its zenith. My stomach rumbled with hunger. I looked down at my belly and saw that I was naked, with a single sheet draped over my lower half. Warmth rose in my cheeks. My father or Maël must have carried me back to my chamber and called for a female servant to undress me, but only Reema was usually permitted to see my naked body. I hoped they had taken care to pick a trustworthy servant – one who would not gossip about what they had seen. I could not have the entire palace whispering about my carnal form. That part of me belongs to Prince Effal, now, and him, alone.

Fearing that I had fallen too deeply for the Fellshaaran prince, I dressed and set off in search of Madeleine. I could not stop thinking about how she had reacted to seeing me, the day before. If she knew something sinister about my groom, I needed to hear it, before my feelings for the man grew any more intense. But Madeleine appeared to be dead set on avoiding me. Even her serving ladies seemed to be under strict instructions not to give away her whereabouts. When I asked them where I could find her, each of them gave a different answer. I spent most of my afternoon, roaming around the palace, trudging up and down hallways, trying to find her. I thought of going out to the stable to see if she had taken out on horseback for the day, with Prince Simone, but I thought it best I did not to venture outside, in the cold, so soon after fainting.

It pains me to think my own sister is running from me, like this. These last few days have shown me that I miss her, dearly. There should be no secret dark enough to keep us apart.