Ama turned back to the window and held herself very still. She closed her eyes, deepening the darkness, and tried to feel the shadow hand on her shoulder once more, tried to recapture that sense of something behind her.
At first, it would not come. Only her ghost future, creeping in with the cold, luring her, ice fingers caressing her face. Nothing at her back now. But she stood still, barely breathing, waiting, reaching, willing what was behind her to connect with her again, and as the flame’s heat built an aura of warmth that pressed against the length of her back, from the crown of her head, down her neck, spreading through the velvet of her gown, across her hips and buttocks, and down her legs, Ama felt the tingle once again—a sensation that she could almost grasp, if only she stood perfectly still a moment longer. It was behind her; it was her past, beckoning her.
“You’ll catch your death, lady!” Tillie’s voice, loud and quick, shattered the reverie Ama had half slipped into. “It’s hard enough trying to keep you anywhere near healthy without you going and leaning out into the cold like that, practically inviting illness.” Skirts swishing, she crossed the room, set down the furs she had been carrying on the edge of Ama’s bed, and cranked the window shut.
The cold whispered away, along with Ama’s near-memory.
“A girl such as you shouldn’t get a chill,” Tillie said, as if repeating an order she had been given. “A girl such as you must be watched.”
“A girl such as me?” Ama asked. “What sort of girl am I?”
“A lady,” Tillie said. She was spreading the heavy furs now across the bed, adding layers of weight and warmth.
“But did someone tell you that?” Ama asked. “That I should not get cold?”
“A week ago,” Tillie said, “and nearly every day since. The queen mother herself. Furious, wasn’t she, as if I had anything to do with it, that day when you ran out into the storm to find your lynx. You weren’t gone an hour when she sent for me. I was lucky that she thrashed me just with words, that is sure, though if you had returned injured—or, heavens forbid, had not returned at all—I have no doubt that a tongue lashing would not have been the whole of my punishment. She called me twice that day. The first time, to admonish me for ‘letting’ you run off, she said—‘useless prat,’ I believe, and ‘senseless git,’ she called me. And after you were home abed that night, she summoned me again.”
“What did she want that time?” Ama asked, ignoring the stab of guilt that she felt over having caused trouble for Tillie.
The girl paused, thinking, casting her mind back. “Let’s see,” she began. “After making it clear how lucky it was for me that you had been found by the king and were home safe and sound, after that, she said, ‘A lady such as your mistress is not like you, girl. There are certain things she needs, and it is your job to provide them—heat, most of all.’” Tillie screwed shut her eyes, concentrating to recall the exact words, and when she spoke again, it was in the singsong intonation of a lesson learned well. “The queen mother told me, ‘When the snow begins to fall, the queen-in-waiting must not be cold.’” Tillie nodded firmly, and then her eyes popped open, and she shrugged. “So I begged her forgiveness and promised to do my job better. To not let you run off into the cold again, for one, and to fortify your bed with even better coverings when the snow began. And tonight, here is the snow, and here are the coverings.” She patted the growing pile of furs, pleased.
But Ama was no longer listening. The queen mother had said that Ama must not be cold. And though Ama had herself felt what being cold had cost her, ever since that first plunge into the icy river—the dimming of her mind, the slowing of her senses—how could the queen mother possibly have known? Ama had never mentioned this to her, or to anyone.
“Tillie,” Ama said slowly, “does the queen mother always keep her rooms as warm as they were when I visited her in them?”
“Oh yes,” Tillie answered. She seemed in the mood for a chat. “Always. Winter or summer, it matters not, she orders the fires burning hot in her chambers. Why, my aunt Allys told me that when the queen mother first arrived, before the night of her marriage to the king, she just grew colder and colder, she did. Nothing could truly warm her. Fires worked only to keep the frost away, no more. She grew so cold that she near died. Her heart—it beat slower and slower, they said, but who’s to know the truth of that? ’Twasn’t like many had cause to listen to the beating of her heart. But folks said that her heart was near frozen before the wedding. Some folks thought there would be no wedding at all, but a funeral, instead. But marry they did, and it is well believed that it was the king’s kiss that heated her heart back to life. Other folks said it was more likely his yard than his kiss that warmed her, for there was a babe in her soon after, and everyone knows that nothing warms a woman like growing a child.”
“And that child was . . . Emory?”
“None other,” said Tillie. She was turning back the covers now, fluffing up the bolsters.
“And the queen mother had no other children,” Ama said.
“Just the one,” Tillie said. And then, “Same as the queen mother before her, and the queen mother before her, as far back as any of us can remember. ’Tis always that way—a damsel queen births a single son. That son grows to manhood, and rescues a damsel of his own, who births a single son. ’Twill be that way for you, too, lady. And your son will be a handsome one, I’d wager! With your red hair and King Emory’s blue eyes.”
“A single son,” Ama said softly.
“That is the way it has always been,” Tillie answered.
Later, after Tillie had arranged the heating stones, helped Ama out of her gown and into her night things, then tucked up the covers and snuffed out the lamp, leaving Ama alone in the dark, Ama remembered the snow shadows outside her window.
She could not see the snow. She had not been able to hear it falling. But she knew it was there because it made the air colder, and colder, and colder still. It made the world more silent.
In spite of the potential promise of Sorrow remaining, in spite of Emory’s attentions and Tillie’s ministrations, her future was like the snow. Ama could sense it, not by sight, nor smell, nor sound. But by the coldness, creeping in.
Ama’s Choice
After first sleep, but before second sleep descended, Ama called Tillie to light the bedside lantern.
“Do you need the pot, lady?” Tillie asked.
“No, thank you,” Ama answered, and she was about to ask Tillie to build up the fire from its embers, but before she could speak, Tillie was already heading to the fireplace. Ama watched as she stacked new logs and blew air upon the embers with the bellows, coaxing flames from nearly nothing, just with patience, wood, and a little air.
Tillie worked the bellows gently to begin; too much air too fast would extinguish the embers rather than feed them. But as the first tendrils of fire burst up, licking the wood waiting to be consumed, Tillie blew the bellows harder until, with a foomph, the fire flamed in earnest.