The Hollow Kingdom (18 page)

No, that's not fair, she told herself firmly. I promised to be this creature's wife, and I can't be a coward. I'm not really a captive like those Roman brides, and it's not his fault he's ugly. And those arms were around me on the way home. He wrapped me in his cloak so I wouldn't be cold. He didn't feel deformed and hideous; he felt strong, and he was kind. Perhaps, she thought wistfully, perhaps it won't be so awful. I've never been kissed by a handsome man, so I suppose I'll never know the difference. This was my idea. I have to remember that. I saved Em's life, that's the important thing, and now I have to live with the consequences. She recalled her father's favorite lines from Milton:
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest, live well
.

Kate became aware of a change in the activity around her and opened her eyes with an effort. Old Agatha stood beside her couch. Picking up a paintbrush and dipping it in black ink, she began to write in small, neat letters straight down Kate's right arm, starting a little above the elbow and ending at the wrist. Kate felt annoyed. She hoped they would wash that writing off because otherwise she was going to look like a cannibal princess at the wedding. Of course, she reflected unhappily, she hadn't seen her dress yet. An arm covered with black ink might be the most stylish thing about her before the goblin women let her go.

Coming to the end of her row of letters, the old dwarf woman picked up a glass bottle and dotted some oil onto Kate's arm. Two of the black ink letters faded and then brightened into gold. Agatha
dipped the paintbrush and started on another row. She wrote line after line, first on the right arm and then on the left. Each time, she ended with a dot of some liquid, and each time, one or two of the letters in the line changed to gold. Eventually it dawned on Kate that these were the tests of the King's Bride, and it was obvious from the excited faces around her that she was passing them all.

The women had dried her hair as Agatha worked, and now they were winding it full of ribbons. Kate thought bitterly of Marak's promise to Emily that the goblins would weave ribbons into her hair. Better Em than her. One simple ribbon would have been fine, but they must have ten or fifteen in there by now. The women stood Kate up and brought her undergarments, which she hurriedly put on, worried that they were so short and skimpy. Then two of the women stepped her into a dress. As they hooked up the back, Kate looked down at herself in real concern. Style was not really the issue, and neither was comfort. The simple fact of the matter was that there had better be more clothing than this.

Kate looked around anxiously for more garments, but the women beckoned her to a tall mirror instead. She stared at her reflection in complete dismay. Her hair, twisted and puffed into an elaborate swirl, rested high on the back of her head. One long, thin strand of hair hadn't been put up at all, and now a goblin woman tugged it around to fall, loose, down the front of her neck. The dress left her arms and shoulders entirely bare, and her back was bare down to the shoulder blades. She felt deeply shocked at the sight of so much skin.

Even if the dress actually covered her up, it would never have been something she would have chosen. The tight bodice was of gold cloth, and it gleamed in the dim light like polished metal. The skirt was unlike any she had ever seen. It was made of many loose and wispy layers of red silk, as if someone had sewn hundreds of
handkerchiefs onto an underlying petticoat without rhyme or reason. Poking out beneath were her shins in their gold bands and her bare feet. I look like a beanpole, she thought disgustedly. And those golden shackles are going to come in handy because if they expect to bring me out in front of a crowd looking like this, they're going to have to use them.

Agatha appeared next to Kate's horrified reflection and beckoned her over to the door. Kate instantly forgot the awful dress in a wave of pure panic. As Agatha pushed the low door open, she tried to reason with herself. How bad can it be? she thought. I don't have to speak lines, and I won't forget what I'm supposed to do next. The King said I have the easy part. She stepped forward bravely.

Ahead of her stretched a low, short tunnel. Two goblin men in golden armor appeared in the doorway. I wonder, she thought sarcastically, if that armor's there to protect them from my powerful magic. After all, goblins don't believe in taking chances. Each carried a short chain of thick gold links. They stopped on either side of her, touched the chains to her golden bracelets, and there she was, effortlessly shackled. But they didn't haul her off. Instead, they hesitated. Kate remembered what Marak had said: "Don't make anyone drag you around." She squared her bare shoulders, lifted her chin, and walked down the tunnel, the armored goblins keeping pace on either side.

At the end of the tunnel, she stopped inadvertently, her eyes trying to make sense of the dim cavern beyond. These creatures just don't use enough light, she thought. Turning her head to the left, she could see through the gloom that a huge crowd of goblins was gathered above her in some sort of rough amphitheater. The stage area was floored with black stone, and she could see two stone tables arranged on it, each lit by its own set of torches.

The goblin King was standing sideways to the crowd, facing her, about twenty feet away. He could have been properly dressed,
Kate thought resentfully, but no, he had to look barbaric, too. His striped hair was wild, as usual, and he wore a loose black shirt untucked over baggy black trousers, the ends of which were stuffed into short boots. Kate decided that he looked like a peasant in an old tale. He was wearing the cape that he had worn at court, and the gold letters on it shimmered as they caught the torchlight. At a gentle tug from one of the guards, she stepped out from the shadow of the tunnel, and a great shout went up from the assembled goblins. So it's going to be like that, she thought. There'll be no pretty music at my wedding.

On the black floor of the cavern in front of her were four large, square sand paintings, a goblin letter against a different-colored background of sand. They were rather pretty, and she hated to step on them, but the guards left her no choice. As she walked across them, the letters shifted and writhed alarmingly under her bare feet. Stopping in front of the goblin King, she glanced back to find that the letters had already blown away.

The crowd roared with approval at whatever had happened, and Marak walked toward the first table. Her guards started off after him, Kate between them. She couldn't help looking around for something she could recognize--a vicar, flowers, church steps. I don't even have a bouquet, she noted gloomily. I'll have to press a shackle in my diary.

The first stone table was ringed by torches in stands. It was long and narrow, and it was just tall enough to be convenient to someone standing by it. The table held a variety of items, but the most startling was a set of three small golden knives. These captured Kate's complete attention. Kate's guards stopped in front of the table, and Marak walked around to face her across it. The guards fitted her wrist bracelets into two metal brackets, then detached the chains and stepped back, leaving her anchored, palms up, to the table with the knives.

Kate could hear the crowd shifting and murmuring. She couldn't resist a pleading glance at Marak even though she knew he wasn't supposed to speak to her, but the goblin King didn't make any reassuring gestures. First he took a small paintbrush and wrote some symbol on her forehead in gold paint. The searing pain of the acidic paint took her by surprise. Then he uncurled her hands and stretched them out carefully so that the palms were taut, tracing with his thumbs the lines across her hands. When he turned away, Kate found that she was unable to move her hands at all. Marak picked up two knives from the table, unmatched eyes stern with concentration as he studied his marks. Kate felt that he had never looked so inhuman before, so completely removed from the world she understood. I will not believe that this is really happening, she thought desperately, and she screwed her eyes shut as he raised the knives.

It was over with a swiftness that left her time for nothing louder than a gasp. She opened her eyes to see two long red slashes stretching from the bends of her wrists down to the center of each palm. Marak quickly dropped the knives and pulled her hands free from the brackets, holding them so that the blood spattered into an empty bowl. Kate gave another gasp as the stinging pain of the wounds reached her. What a hideous, heathen, barbaric thing to do! Satisfied, apparently, with the amount of blood he had collected, Marak next plunged her hands into a bowl of water. It wasn't water. Kate's vision went black as the wounds seared like fire, but when he lifted her hands out, the bleeding had stopped. He wrapped a cloth around each hand and put them back into the brackets again. She wasn't entirely sorry to have some sort of stable support because she was shaking all over.

As Kate's vision cleared, she saw with horror that the goblin King was reaching for the last knife, but this time he bared his own pale arm, wrist up, and held it over the bloody bowl. She felt a distinct satisfaction as he made his cut, but then she had a further shock.
The goblin's blood was a dark, clear brown. Kate watched it drip into the bowl, brown pool on red pool, feeling a little sick.

The goblin King reached for a small plate of powder and threw some into the bowl. Kate saw the blood inside blend and swirl. A thick red vapor began to fill the bowl, climbing over the sides and rolling across the table. She pulled back in disgust. Marak stepped closer to the bowl, watching intently. A silvery mist was forming over the top of the red vapor. It sparkled in the torchlight as it rose into a swirling cloud several feet high. Kate thought in surprise that it was pretty. Marak looked completely stunned, and the huge crowd of goblins erupted into bedlam. Startled and anxious, Kate glanced at Marak for guidance and found him staring as if he were seeing her for the first time.

As the strange cloud faded away, Kate saw that the revolting blood was gone from the bowl. In its place sparkled a silvery pink cream as thick as cake frosting. Marak dipped his finger into the glittering cream and rubbed it along the slashes on Kate's hands. The pain faded out as he did so, and the puckered edges of the wounds flattened, but an iridescent silvery pink line stayed in each palm. As the crowd hushed, he studied the lines. Turning to the throng, he called out something in goblin, whereupon they cheered and stomped again.

Kate's guards fastened their chains to her and set off for the next table. By it lay a cushion between two brackets on tall rods. Marak helped her to kneel on the cushion and adjusted the brackets beside her. These came up and cradled her elbows, locking over the bend in the arm. Then the goblin crossed to the table a few feet away. It also held a variety of small instruments. These items didn't worry Kate, although perhaps they should have. She was staring instead at the largest thing on the table, a golden sword about five feet long. It was elaborately engraved, but she could make out nothing except faint
scratches in the gold. The hilt was a simple continuation of the metal of the blade; it had no guard to give it a sword's familiar crosslike shape. Kate stared at it, deeply frightened. Maybe this had all been some horrible ruse. Maybe the goblin King had intended all along to kill her in some hideous sacrifice.

Leaning down, Marak kindled a magical flame in the middle of a large golden plate. Then he came toward her with small scissors and a tiny bowl. He pulled one of her hands out straight and cut off several fingernails into the bowl, then added several of his own and fed them all to the fire. He sheared off the ridiculous lock of hair that the women had left loose on Kate's neck, then one of his own pale horse tail locks, and burned them as well.

Marak picked up a large needle and a small golden plate. Kate recognized danger. She clenched her fists so tightly that he had to set the plate down and use both hands to free a finger and jab the needle into it. He forced several drops of blood onto the plate. On one knee by the table, he next stabbed his own finger. Kate watched in panicked revulsion. She didn't know how much more bloodshed she could take.

Very intent now, the goblin King bent close to the little fire, holding the plate upside down over the flames so that they could lick off the drops of blood. The fire vanished, leaving a small mound of silver ash behind. Carefully and deliberately, he took these ashes on his finger and rubbed them all over the blade of the long sword. The entire crowd was still now. Kate held her breath.

From the sword came a musical tone, as if it had been struck against the table. Marak picked up the weapon and walked toward her, his expression distant and impassive. He's going to kill me, Kate thought desperately. The goblin King seized the hilt in both hands and whirled the sword over his head. Then he brought it down upon her in a whistling arc.

Eyes tightly shut, Kate felt the cold metal touch her hair, slide down her back and loop around her shoulder. She waited in breathless suspense for whatever people feel when their heads are split open. But something wasn't right. She opened her eyes cautiously. A long golden snake glided around her neck and reared up in front of her face. Swaying back and forth, it considered her terrified features carefully, a slender golden tongue flicking from its long, curving jaws. Kate couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't even blink. The snake turned away from her dismissively and looped its length three times around her upper right arm, tail almost by her elbow, before arranging the rest of itself about her neck in a loose spiral. Petrified at no longer being able to see her enemy, Kate bent her head slowly and peered down at her arm. As she watched, the tight coils collapsed and became flat with her skin, just as if an artist had painted a golden snake on her.

Kate screamed, twisting in her brackets to try to reach the flattened snake. But no one could hear her. The goblins were screaming themselves, chanting, cheering, and yowling at the top of their lungs. The King's Wife ceremony was over.