Sophie makes a choice

Sometimes when Sophie opened the chest to take out her nightgown, she would hesitate a while, looking over the fine gowns she refused to pack away, pretending she was deciding among them again.

She would pretend she was the pretty, vivacious sixteen-​year-​old she had been when she had arrived in Lothere. She dreamt of the days when her life consisted of visiting from house to house among her friends—of the days when she still had friends. She dreamt of the days when the Duke had declared her pepper for parties: insufferable in large doses, but capable of enlivening even the dullest gathering and of making the merriest sublime.

She dreamt of the days when her husband was still in awe of her; of the days when he was more pleased to follow his noble wife into the society of nobles than he was jealous of her popularity or of her blood; of the days before he had smothered the one and first spilled the other.

But she could not hesitate long. She was nineteen now: tired, unloved, frumpy, defeated. She had to hurry into bed, well-​covered in the most matronly nightgown she owned, and sleep or seem to sleep.

Leofwine would not trouble himself to rouse her then if he wanted her. It did not seem to bother him that she pretended to be dead, no matter what he did to her. Perhaps he pretended the same thing. Perhaps the idea excited him. She would not have been surprised.

On this night she hesitated too long. She was still pulling the nightgown down over her hips when he threw open the door and ambled in.

“Just a second too late,” he chuckled.

Sophie said nothing.

“Why are you still wearing this ugly old thing?” he asked her. “My mother looks better than you at night.”

She bit back the suggestion that he sleep with his mother, in that case, and she only muttered, “Because it’s comfortable.”

He reached around her and squeezed the back of her thigh in his powerful hand. She had smelled the wine when he had come in, but now that he was close she could scarcely stand to breathe the air he polluted with his breath.

He grinned up at her. “Wouldn’t it be a lot more comfortable to sleep naked?”

She swallowed another sarcastic reply and said, “A gown is warmer.”

He laughed, “I’ll keep you warm, Soph!” Abruptly he stopped laughing and commanded, “Take it back off.”

“I should rather leave it on…” she mumbled.

He let go of her and stood tall. “Take it off, now.”

She still did not move.

After a moment he grabbed a fistful of cloth in each hand and began yanking wildly at it.

“All right, all right!” she cried. It was pointless to resist; she would only gain a torn gown and a few extra bruises.

There was that terrifying moment when the gown passed over her head and shoulders. Then she was both blind in the eyes and bound in the arms.

He was waiting for her when she emerged. Before she could duck away, he spun her around, shoved her face-​first into the wall, and leaned against her, pinning her against the paneling.

It seemed to be the idea of crushing her bare breasts against the wall or the floor that excited him. He always reached around to feel them.

“Let’s just go to bed,” she whispered wearily.

He was dragging her body to the side with his weight, but her skin refused to slide over the rough wood. It was beginning to feel as if it would simply tear.

“A good idea, Soph!” he laughed.

He pulled her away from the wall only to fling her towards the bed.

“What would I do without Sophia to think of clever ideas for me?” he bellowed.

He was very proud that he knew her name meant “wisdom” in Greek, even though it was doubtlessly the only Greek word he knew.

In the time it took her body to hurtle across the room, she realized that, more than anything, she could not bear the vulgarity of the man. She could not bear that he would pollute an ancient language with his tongue. She could not bear that he would pollute her sacred name with his tongue. She could not bear that he would pollute her body with his tongue and with his hands and with all the rest of his hulking body.

She caught the bedpost with both hands and hung on, to her own surprise.

He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled. That only rattled the bed frame in an alarming manner.

Then his hand flew up and cracked against her windpipe. His fingers twisted in her curls and closed over her throat. He was doing it again.

“I won’t let go till after you do, Soph,” he murmured. “Just so you know.”

It was perhaps his most effective tactic. As long as he was only swinging at her and kicking at her, she could always duck and dodge. There was nothing she could do against the noose-​like grip that was depriving her of air.

But it was not because it was so effective that he so often employed it. He always pressed himself against her so he could feel her gradually weakening struggles with all his body.

It excited him more than anything. If he hadn’t gone so far as killing her, it was probably only because he would never be able to enjoy strangling her again.

Sophie let go, but he did not.

“Don’t do that again,” he warned.

She nodded her head as far as the hand beneath her jawbone would let her.

“Now you get in the bed.”

She nodded again.

He released her slowly, warily. Before she even had a chance to catch her breath, she darted away from him and away from the bed.

But she was too dizzy. He easily caught her arm and spun her around so he could smack her across the face with the back of his hand.

His mouth alternated between a snarl and a cruel laugh. His eyes were steadfastly evil.

Suddenly she wondered whether it would be possible to enrage him to the point of killing her. It would not be suicide if her husband murdered her. She might yet hope to find peace beyond this life. If not, her anguished soul might torment him for the rest of his days, and that would be some satisfaction.

“I hate you!” she growled.

He punched her in the eye.

Her brow bone took the brunt of the blow, but her head snapped back and she gasped, causing her to choke on the blood that had already begun to trickle down her throat from the first smack to the nose.

Nearly blind, she stumbled away from him, and the hand she held out before her knocked over the tall brass candlestick that stood on the table before the window.

“Not so fast!” he cried. He thought she had meant to take the candlestick as a weapon.

He shoved her aside and snatched at it as it rolled across the floor. Without faltering in his stride, he swung himself back around and whacked her across the cheekbone with it, so hard that even the blunt edges of the candlestick sliced her cheek open—so hard that it flew out of his grasp and rolled across the floor towards the opposite wall.

He lunged for it.

Sophie was too stunned to react. He was going to beat her to death with a candlestick, and she did not know how to stop him. She had realized too late that if she died, this monster would be the one raising her sons, assisted by the very woman who had raised him.

She watched as he tripped and fell. The falling seemed to take a very long time. She was able to watch the arc traced by his hand as he went down. The hand still reached for the candlestick all the while.

As soon as he hit the floor, her body reacted. Though her mind was still in a fog, her body knew she had only an instant.

She leapt on him, driving her knees into the small of his back with all her weight behind them. He roared.

His hand closed over the end of the candlestick, but before he could swing it up behind his head, she caught the other end with one of hers.

Then began their last, brief battle.

She dropped her knees to the floor on either side of him so that she could take the weight off her other arm and use both hands to fight for the candlestick.

He strained, she tugged, they struggled, and she won. The weapon slipped out of his sweaty hand, but she held it in both of hers, and as she fell back it cracked against his windpipe. His neck and head were in the way. If she wanted to free the candlestick, she would have to let go with one of her hands.

But she did not have to let go. It was enough merely to hold it there. Better, she could lay heavily upon him, crushing him against the floor as she pulled back on the candlestick. She could feel his gradually weakening struggles against all her body.

This was what power felt like. This was what excited him more than anything.

“Now you know how it feels,” she giggled. “Now you know. Now I know.”

She held the candlestick against his throat long after he stopped struggling. She held it until her own arms trembled from the unaccustomed strain. Then she flung it away and slowly rose.

Leofwine did not move. He lay as if he might push himself up at any moment, but he was impossibly still. He was not breathing. He was dead.

Sophie flung open the doors of her chest of clothes again. Now she would have to choose among her gowns truly.

She recalled that her Uncle Brandt had always thought her prettiest in green.