The sudden loss of blood and the pain should have killed Crown Prince Emil. According to what little information Muriel heard from the loyal, always willing to keep a secret, doctors that tended to the prince, he honestly should have died. The fact that he lived mystified them. Muriel eventually decided that Prince Emil had been fueled by his own pure evil. That evil wouldn't let him die of anything but old age.
A doctor also gave Muriel a short examination, but there wasn't much to do for her.
At one point, Muriel wondered how Prince Emil had learned about the mark on her toe, but she answered her own question very quickly. Instead of bribing a maid to poison her, he had likely bribed a maid to take note of any peculiar spots on her body. It wasn't much of a stretch in logic. Once Muriel became pregnant, the family had lowered some of their defenses and they hadn't examined their servants as well as before. It seemed that the maids would have to be interrogated soon.
On the way back to the townhouse, the trio each had their amount of strangeness in their behavior. While Muriel wasn't in the same carriage as Vidar, she knew that from the time he washed his bloody hands to the time he went into his vehicle he had been cold and quiet. As for Princess Arya, she was a scattered mess of a thing. It was eerie. She was blubbering and wiping her face. Even in the carriage, she was hunched over and weeping into a handkerchief. Muriel was surprised, calm but surprised. She couldn't do much other than go where needed and stare at nothing.
Their moods changed little, or rather, not much at all, once they arrived at the townhouse. Muriel's family noticed their obviously traumatized attitudes and they tried to get some answers. Muriel didn't know what to say. Princess Arya hurried off to her bedchamber without speaking to anyone. Vidar simply told Muriel's father that they had witnessed a puppy being killed by a snake.
"Oh," Glen Davis said with a frown. "That's terribly upsetting, isn't it?"
Still quite aghast and mute, Muriel went up to the townhouse's nursery to check on the baby. Teresa was napping in an armchair while little Artair was having his own nap in his cot. He was on his back, wearing a simple gown of white cotton and not much else. Mittens had been removed from him long, long ago. All four of his dark little hands were curled.
She wanted to reach down and touch her son's face, but she was worried about disturbing his precious sleep.
So she stood there for a while, idly gazing down at the sleeping child. The minutes slipped by her, basically unrecognized.
Then a soft voice. "Muriel?"
Muriel blinked and looked back. Vidar's cloaked form was there. Possibly out of kindness for both the baby and the nanny, he was being quiet.
She turned her body around and gave the man a nod.
The man ...
The man that only recently tore another man's leg off.
"Muriel, come have a cup of tea with me."
Very well. That was a normal thing to say. Muriel nodded again and followed him out of the nursery and into the bedroom Vidar normally slept in. It was fairy big, all things considered, and the color scheme reminded Muriel of chocolate, brown sugar, mint leaves, and black licorice beverages. The couple sat near a window, and as usual Vidar kept just out of sight of anyone from the outside. Quick but nervous maids served them a tray of hot tea. The pot, cups, and the like were all painted a dark brown color with golden trees and building from exotic locations.
Muriel poured Vidar his cup of tea. Then she poured her own. It was a floral and sweet drink. It would pair well with the salted crackers arranged on a plate for their fingers.
They always had the best tea, the best snacks, and the best things overall. She couldn't find anything wrong with this moment.
A swallow, heat down her throat, then reaching her whole body, warmed from the inside out.
A memory.
Her first cup of tea with Princess Arya in the Vantrim Castle, when she had no inkling of the true reasons behind that woman's need for a lady's companion. Muriel's hands had been painfully rough. Her face had been careworn.
Vidar spoke to her. "Your prize will be delivered to you soon."
"Mmm hmmm." She bit into a cracker.
One of Vidar's hands was wrapped around his cup as if he was unaware there was a handle. "Muriel ... are you afraid?" The end of his question tilted and wobbled.
Muriel forced her lump of cracker down. She inhaled, exhaled, and took another sip of tea. And then another breath, another dramatic little sigh. "Why would you ask me such a thing?"
"Ever since ... ever since those incidents happened, you haven't been well."
One of her eyebrows jerked up and then moved back down just as quickly. "You could say the same for your dear mother."
"This isn't the first time she's cried so openly." Vidar's hand left his cup and lightly touched Muriel's free arm. The hot cup had transferred heat to him. Now he was putting that heat to her. It bloomed in her limb.
He said, "You aren't accustomed to Mother's more vulnerable emotions."
Nodding, Muriel said, "We certainly experienced a morbid event, didn't we?"
"Muriel?" His fingers tightened on her arm. "Please. Aren't you disturbed? Aren't you traumatized? Why aren't you falling apart? Why aren't you bawling and weeping?"
Her eyes glazed the surface of the tea in her cup. "Should I ... should I lose my composure? Do you require that sort of display?"
His hand left her. "No ... I ... I'm surprised."
"Vidar ... I suppose I ... I'm fine, at least I'm fine now." She put the pad of her index finger on her cup's rim. Part of that digit was reflected in the tea. "I've been battered, but now I'm safe. My rage was too powerful to leave room for fear. Now I feel empty." She tapped the cup with her fingernail. "No, not truly so. I'm also quite amazed with you. I didn't know you could be so ferocious." Muriel took a cracker and smiled. "Oh, but don't misunderstand me. I'm impressed, even dazzled."
"Is that ... is that so?"
After she took another bite of her cracker, she idly said, "If that fiend had harmed Artair, I imagine he wouldn't have any limbs left."
"Nor a tongue," Vidar said with more confidence.
Muriel smiled. "How did your mother know the king was poisoned?"
She heard Vidar's throat bulge as he took his own bit of tea from his cup. Then he exhaled and smacked his lips. "When Emil was young, Mother told him a story. In Junjaia, there was an aristocrat who fell to the same illness my father did. A doctor was able to discern the true cause, and he injected a certain medicine into his bloodstream to awaken the victim. Later, he was given a proper antidote. Fortunately, the injected medicine isn't difficult to concoct, and it doesn't require a great amount of time either."
Another short sip of tea, and Vidar said, "Hmmm ... Emil can be very tricky, but he forgot who gave him that trickiness."
Muriel poured more tea into her cup. Steam floated about almost like mist as the cup was refilled. "Your mother ... she seemed to ... and forgive me for saying this ... she seemed to demand that fiend's death. I wonder what could have happened for a mother to sweep her love away in that manner. It's a stupefying concept."
Vidar didn't give a reply. He put two whole crackers in his large mouth and chewed quite noisily. Muriel sipped her tea and decided not to ask any more about the issue.
***
Nighttime came oddly quickly for Muriel's tastes. Sitting inside the nursery, she even sighed at the night, hopelessly gazing out a window and watching the people walk or ride about. Artair was sitting in a portable second cot beside her while Teresa was sitting nearby. Still looking at the outside world, Muriel blindly and slowly put her hand in the cot, feeling the soft mattress and its tight bedsheet. Then she felt one of Artair's hands swat at hers. He gripped her index finger. Then he seemed to hit her with one of his toys. It didn't hurt.
"Don't be mean to your Mama," Teresa gently warned the child.
Artair didn't heed. He was too young to properly heed to much anyway. He hit Muriel's hand again.
Muriel looked down at him. The toy he held was a smooth, wooden thing in the shape of a cat. "You'll have to go to sleep soon. So drain as much energy as you can." She petted the boy's soft head and riffled his hair.
A knock on the doorway's frame. "Excuse me?"
"Hm? Come in, Vidar." Muriel tapped Artair's nose with her finger.
"Artair? Shouldn't you be asleep right now?" Her husband walked over to the cot, put a hand on the baby's back, and spread his fingers a little. Artair looked up at him and babbled. Then he held his toy cat up towards his father's long face. Vidar took the cat and pointed his slightly protruding eyes at it. "Oh, this is your favorite tabby, isn't it?" He put the toy on the mattress. "He's very handsome." He patted Artair's head and turned to Muriel. "Mother's finally calmed down, but she's depleted."
"Has she eaten?" Muriel asked.
"No, but I sent a maid to her with a tray of food."
Muriel rose from her seat. "I'd pay her a visit, but she might need her rest."
Vidar pointed one of his hands towards her, palm up, fingers only lightly curled. "Won't you come with me, at least for a moment?" Something in his voice was rigid.
Taking his hand, Muriel nodded and said, "As many moments as you'd like, Dearest."
