Muriel was able to keep up her good cheer until her menstruation cycle came. That meant they had to seek out help from their "assistant" again. She wasn't looking forward to it. In fact, her mood soured rather quickly on the day it was supposed to happen. At dinner, she started drinking wine, and more wine, and even more. She couldn't say why, exactly, but she wanted more.
Vidar didn't seem to think he could stop her. No matter how he touched her, no matter what he said, Muriel couldn't think of anything peaceful. So, he seemed to give up and he starting drinking even more than she was.
Princess Arya shot both of them the nastiest looks. Her brow seemed weathered. Her lips formed a tight red circle. At one point, she said to Muriel and Vidar, "You're married adults, and I can't stop you from doing as you please, but I must remind you of how dangerous an excess of alcohol can be."
Everything after that was a blur.
***
Her head felt like it had been inside a forming press. The inside of her mouth felt like sand. Light was pain. She covered her face with a pillow and shuddered.
A maid's knocking on the door sounded like a hammer on her temple. "Your Highness? Would you care for a glass of water?"
Yes, oh YES!!
Muriel slid her pillow off her face and said with the most damaged voice, "Yes, please." Her legs shook as she got out of bed, but she managed. She would have done anything to get that water.
Later, when Muriel was ready to get dressed, she was still feeling like a recently beaten criminal when she asked a maid, "What in the world happened last night?"
With a lowered head and a humble tone, the maid told her, "You took in so much wine, Your Highness, so much! And so did your honorable husband! We've never seen such a thing in this castle. We were all biting our lips as we watched."
"Is that so?" Muriel said as she combed her hair.
"Truly, Your Highness," the first maid said. "You stumbled and wept all the way to your bedchamber. Then you sent us all away."
Muriel's red eyes closed as she tried to remember anything from last night, but nothing much came to her.
At breakfast, she noticed that Vidar was in an even grumpier mood than she was, but he kept quiet about it. He even held a cold, damp rag against his protruding forehead.
Princess Arya's first words to them were full of contempt. After a few minutes of bearing her scolding, Vidar pounded one fist onto the dining table and shouted out, "YES!! WE'RE FULLY AWARE OF OUR MISBEHAVIOR!! NOW LET US BE!!"
Muriel put her palms to her ears and closed her eyes. Vidar's voice might as well have been a gunshot.
But then, through her hands, Muriel heard Princess Arya sigh. "I suppose both of you have learned your lesson."
Later that night, Muriel secretly took Doctor Bergson aside and asked him if the "assistant" had gone to her room. She honestly couldn't remember. The doctor whispered to her, "Yes, Your Highness. I took him to your room, and he returned to me shortly after. You personally told me that he performed his duty." He shrugged. "You weren't pleased with the situation."
"Did anything else happen?" Muriel had suddenly wondered if she had shown her temper off to her husband again, not that he would've remembered it. As far as she knew, Vidar had also forgotten most of everything.
"I'm not certain. Once we had the man paid and sent off, I went to my room."
Muriel sighed. "It's fine, then. Thank you, Doctor."
***
Muriel was able to smile as she woke up the next morning. She had very pleasant dreams floating around in her memories. There might have been a success. There just might have been the beginnings of new life growing inside her, and if that was true she wouldn't have to do that disgusting thing with the "assistant" anymore.
During the afternoon, wearing a smaller skirt with a modest bum roll, Muriel hummed a bouncing song as she played a board game with her husband. He tended to let her win, which often bothered her, but he couldn't be bullied into sincerity on this matter.
"Has anything odd happened lately?" Vidar asked as two of his patchy fingers slid a tile a few inches towards her.
"I haven't noticed anything," Muriel said as she moved a tile to her right.
"Hmmm, that's very good, then." He clacked one tile on top of another. "Keep a vigilant attitude. While I do believe that my brother is cowed for now, you're still on his mind. However, all of our guards have been very careful, and all of our servants have been examined. Nobody has any poisons or secret abortifacients. Nobody has any money they shouldn't have."
"Then might I be able to relax?" Muriel asked with a sigh. "Pregnancy is the goal for now, and pregnant women shouldn't be overly stressed."
Vidar removed three tiles from the board, folding his hand and swallowing the little wooden things into his flesh. "Oh, my darling wife, once you're with child, I'll punish anyone stupid enough to bother you."
Once again, he let her win the game. Then the couple sat together on a couch and watched the wind blow outside. It was a gentle little thing in the beginning, but it soon became powerful enough to encourage indoor activities. Muriel's cheeks were soon lightly patted and stroked by long fingers as she closed her eyes and listened to the weather. How could something so violent be so soothing to her ears?
"Muriel?"
"Yes?"
"I miss you."
She thought to say, "But I haven't left this place." Then she realized that they hadn't been physically intimate in a long time, or it was a long time when one considered the fact that they had only recently married. Muriel had been so upset about their sneaky actions that she didn't want to do much.
"I haven't been open and accepting of you, now have I?" Muriel said.
"But I understand your feelings," he told her.
Blindly smiling, Muriel thought that even trying to understand another's feelings was an admirable thing.
They left the couch, and together they walked up to Vidar's quarters. Inside his bedchamber, Muriel tugged on an arm and had him sit on the bed. Then she sat down beside him and carefully used her thumb to massage some of his fingers. "My husband has been such a patient man," she said with warmhearted words. "Even when his wife was too cross, he never did anything against her."
His fingers swayed and twitched under her touches. "How can you not have a cross mind when I've asked you to humiliate yourself?"
"Such a gentle man." Muriel brought his hand to her lips, and she happily kissed it.
Then she let him undress her and do whatever he wished with her body.
Time crawled along, and when they were spent and washed, the couple had little discussions about trivial matters. Muriel found one of the garments Vidar wore. Instead of a shirt or waistcoat, it was more like a open surcoat. It seemed much easier to make than a shirt with multiple holes for his arms. Sliding the pads of her thumbs over the plain stitches in the cloth, Muriel asked Vidar, "One day, do suppose you might have a tailor again?"
Still beside her, the uppermost set of shoulders on Vidar's body rose in a shrug. "If my eyes fail and my hands die, then I'll hire a tailor."
Folding the garment into her lap, Muriel put out another question. "Why were you cursed?"
Her husband's large head turned at an angle as he looked at her. "You'd love an answer to that, wouldn't you?"
"I'm assuming you did something to anger the fairy."
Another shrug from the man. "You've never even asked for her name, but you want to know of her intentions?"
Muriel got up to put the folded clothing on an ottoman. "I'm not interested in her. I'm interested in you."
"It's not a complicated mystery, Muriel. She was a lover of mine, but I grew tired of her, and I ended the relationship. She was so angry that she cursed me."
Turning back around with a sigh, Muriel said, "I believe in people's general cruelty, but I have difficulty believing that fairy's motivation was so simple."
"Oh Darling, people aren't so horrible," Vidar waved at her to sit back down on the bed, "and my curse honestly did come from a petty and dull motivation."
Muriel crossed her ankles once she was seated on the bed again. "Of all the people in the world, you should be the most aware of how disgusting humanity is, needlessly hurting one innocent thing after another."
To her mild irritation, her husband shook his head, but she noticed he was smiling. "Cooperation is vital to our survival as a species, and kindness is an outgrowth from that. While cruelty can never truly disappear, I believe that as long as humanity exists, then it's a sign of our proclivity towards cooperation and kindness."
Muriel's eyes narrowed as she looked down at her hands. Her fingers curled and opened several times.
Vidar had been cursed, horribly so, by a fairy for a stupid reason. He had that Emil as an older brother, which implied terrible things in his past. Yet Vidar still believed that people were good overall?
Muriel wondered about that for a long time.
***
By the time Muriel knew she was pregnant, winter was beginning again. She often craved sour and salty food, yet also had occasional heartburn. The mornings were the most common times for her to feel ill, and she would usually vomit a bit. The chamber pot was her new favorite ally because she had to use it ridiculously often. It was still too early for her belly to extend, but after a discussion with Doctor Bergson it was confirmed.
