The Boy-Toy Wife

The seat at the top of the dining table stood empty.

So too did the one to its right.

So, too, did the one to its left.

The absences stood out all the more for the cold silence that gripped the room—white-liveried servants shuffled around, setting dishes to prepare a dinner just for four, and Miria could hear their each and every step. The quiet, culled of any idle chatter that once might have filled it, set so vastly across her ears that even the delicate ring of plate-on-wood or the sweet slosh of wine-into-glass became an unexpected reprieve.

Above it all, the heavy fragrances of infernal spices—the real ones, too, not the mild imitations that some burghers pretended to enjoy—wafted around the hall. They should have roused her stomach and reminded her of the hunger that had been plaguing her since the morning. They did not.

She tried to swallow, only to discover her throat had clenched so tight she wondered, for a moment, how she was even able to draw a breath.

Up the table from Miria, Mażin kept glancing at the empty chairs. The eyes of all the remaining wives were fixed on her, expectant. It had been a long time since they had to sit down to eat without either Asha or Visza to say the blessings, whether infernal or divine.

The third wife waited for the first course to arrive, and stood up.

"Let us eat," she said simply.

Across the table from her, Czewa bent her head forward, hiding a quick movement of her lips between folded fingers. Miria could hardly blame her; it would not do to speak a temple grace with Visza's body just a few flights of stairs away. She looked down into the bowl of rich sesame soup before her, and dipped a spoon in. It took some effort to bring it back to her mouth.

It was only the thought of her little, budding defiance that kept Miria from getting crushed under the suffocating weight of wifely grief. Her mind kept racing out of the palace grounds, down the hill and into the city proper, to a luxuriously modest house by the Lesser City Square. It was not difficult at all to imagine her family sitting together, terrified of what would become of their sole remaining son. A part of her wished she could be there to console them; a part of her worried her presence would only make it worse.

The taste of sesame and spices bloomed on her tongue, intense enough to undo the knot in her stomach. She moved to take another sip, but slowed down; around her, the remaining wives continued to struggle to eat. Mażin did not so much as touch her bowl before a servant quietly took it away. Czewa took a few sips, but mostly focused on unabashedly tearing strips of bread and pushing them to Stava, not unlike a lowland husband would be expected to. The fifth wife accepted them, only to take hardly a bite and lay them down by her plate. Miria tried to not make her appetite overly conspicuous.

It was not just for sympathy that she kept mentally reaching out towards her family. If her father had been the one to arrange Visza's security, then it held that he ought to know something about its absence. Or, at least, the reason why his son had somehow managed to find himself a part of a noble mob. That alone should make for a good starting point for Miria's little truth-finding exercise.

Assuming, of course, she could manage to get that far in the first place; she had not yet done anything, and second thoughts were already worming their way into her mind—especially in the face of what she was going to do next. But first, she needed the dinner to be over, and a chance to get a moment alone with Stava.

"I used to have a seat in the Overwhelming Grace too," Mażin muttered, her voice barely rising above a whisper.

Still, the sound was enough to break the spell of silence. The third wife sighed heavily, reached for the flat-breads, and broke one loudly in half. Czewa took the remaining half, and dripped the end of it in soup. They ate.

"I keep forgetting that you are a Kaszabi," the fourth wife said after a moment.

It was not something Miria had heard about before; Mażin loved to talk about others, but rarely herself. It did make sense, however; the House of Kaszabi was one of those aristocratic families that had most readily embraced Her Infernal Majesty's scepter. For Miria's brother that had made them traitors; for her father, it marked them as reasonable.

"If I could forget about that myself," the third wife replied, "I would."

Czewa frowned at the response, but said nothing. The second course was served, and for a time only the scraping of cutlery broke the dining room's quiet.

"I do envy you sometimes, Mażin," Czewa set her fork and knife down. "You and your giving up on everything that you were. Name. Faith. Even family."

Stava reached above the table, her hand landing over the fourth wife's wrist and gently holding it down. Miria instead pretended to focus entirely on boning the bream on her plate. The conversation pulled her back into the present, and into the unfixed tangle of her emotions, too flushed with shame over how she had felt towards Visza earlier to make much sense in the now.

"And I thought you had given up on your little provocations." The third wife's voice did not budge. She put a small bite of the fish in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "You could have chosen a better day to return to that habit."

Miria glanced up from her fish, and allowed herself to look at the arguing wives. How different they were, seated across from each other. Mażin's body had grown soft and round after years of wife-medicine, which to Miria's eyes seemed to render her less feminine so much as beyond such terms altogether. Or maybe that was not the matter of appearance, but rather of the absence of pride, of that famed haughtiness of lowland wives which Visza had sought to embody. Then again, the third wife was all gentle lights and quiet words, with nary a suggestion of masculine hardness left in her.

In contrast, Czewa—tall and gaunt—seemed mostly immune to the results of the medicine she was supposed to be taking, the old contours of her body only marginally softened. It did not detract from her beauty. If anything, it highlighted it further. Masculinity had left little bite on her, in any case; Miria's eyes surveyed the fourth's hairline, producing little stabs of envy in the process. Even with Czewa's unwifely's gestures, she still wore the mourning white better than Miria could. Some bodies, it seemed, were just more fortunately born—and tended to attract more attention, as the fifth wife’s tight hold on the fourth's wrist attested.

"If you want to talk about provocations," the fourth wife growled, the faint veneer of voice training giving way to the basso beneath. Miria scowled; it was not something she should have noticed, even if Czewa made little effort to hide it, "consider how happy the First has to be, now that our wife has a reason to burn the Overwhelming Grace to the ground."

The third wife raised a hand; a servant rushed in to pour her a glass of ruby-red wine. She sipped quickly, seeking something else than taste, and said nothing.

"But that is not something you care about anymore," Czewa pushed on. "Is it?"

All that she managed to get out of Mażin was an extended, whistling sigh, and a very pale and unhappy smile.

"What do you want me to say, 'Wa?" she said finally. "Visza's corpse is still warm. She died because she refused to stop caring. She died because the pious temple-going folk you are so concerned about hate us."

It was not the first time Miria had heard such arguments at the table, especially when the Lady Governor was not present; but in evenings past, Visza would be already intervening. She had never had much patience for others questioning her choices; pointedly, this had applied to Czewa as much as to Mażin.

"They hate what's been done to us," the fourth wife snapped back.

"You know that you do not have to stay if you hate it so." Mażin shook her head, and took another bite of the bream. "Ask for a divorce. Put the pants on again. You are a wife, not a slave."

The fourth wife's only response was a bitter, brittle laugh.

Mażin was not wrong; the infernal marriage vows under which they had all been wed were renounceable. Want, Luna was fond of reminding them, was not meant to be a prison. The Lady Governor herself had made it explicit that she would not bar her consent from any wife seeking a dissolution of their union. But there were also good reasons for why none of them would ever seek a divorce.

Miria looked more closely at Czewa, trying to divine from the contortions of her face if she too had been sacrificed by her family at the altar of political exigency. The idea that one could be sentenced to such a fate without having Miria's desire made the boy-toy wife shudder.

Desserts and fragrant coffee arrived, breaking up the argument for a time. Stava leaned over towards Czewa, quickly whispering something into her ears, still refusing to release her grip on the fourth wife's hand. A servant tried to offer a slice of cake to Miria; she refused politely.

It was not the infernal way to mark mourning with restraint, but the idea of having sweets on the day of her fellow wife's murder still made her queasy, no matter how much they made her mouth water. She was not the only one at the table to display such sentiment—though, of course, no wife turned the coffee back.

"I am sorry," Czewa announced at last, slackening in her chair.

The fifth wife smiled imperceptibly at her and finally let go of the hand. It was to be expected. No lowlander wished to stand up from a meal in anger; it never boded well. Those who apologize over bread do not die over swords, the saying went, harkening back to darker times of blood-feuds and barely restrained violence.

"Apology accepted," Mażin nodded, not ungratefully.

"I am just afraid," the fourth wife continued quietly. "If our lady wife does not…"

She left her voice hanging on a minor, stifled note.

"She will," the third wife reassured. "She always does. And even if, by some miracle, she does not, the matter is far beyond our reach anyway. Like it or not, we are wives now, and there is nothing that we can do but wait. Let us not add to our grief by pretending otherwise."

There was no reason for Mażin to look at Miria as she said that, and she did not. The admonition was for Czewa, and evoked a pained wince that the fourth wife ineptly tried to hide behind a sideways glance. None of them could count on being able to change the Lady Governor's mind—but it was Czewa alone who had never had her wife's ear, for reasons only indirectly alluded to in conversations and gossip. Still, the boy-toy wife could not help but to feel her cheeks flush at Mażin's words, as if they were aimed at the plans she had been quietly nursing.

"Is this really what being a wife means?" she caught herself asking, before she had the good sense to bite down on her own tongue. The unease she felt at the notion came as a surprise.

"Yes," Mażin said softly, a motherly smile on her face.

"Especially for you," Czewa added, earning a sharp stare from Stava.

"It also means you don't have to worry so much," Mażin added. "It's not in your hands, anyway."

Miria did not respond. A part of her wanted to—maybe needed to—feel a sharper kind of guilt, because what the other wives said was indisputably true. After all, had she not entertained the dreams of being so stripped of choice and responsibility, back in those nether days of failing to live the life a son should? Now, not half a year had passed since she had managed to win her chance to be held in hand, and she was already starting to turn her back on it? And out of what—a lingering sense of filial duty?

Czewa was right; the way Mażin cut herself from her past was worthy of envy.

The conversation moved, and promptly floundered, without ever reaching the usual rounds of gossip and small, quotidian complaints. Mażin—who on any other day would love nothing but to lead the wives in their casual chit-chat—left first, excusing herself with exhaustion.

Surprisingly, Czewa followed moments later; in response to Stava's puzzled look, she claimed she needed to be alone for the night. The fifth wife did not protest, as saddened as she clearly was—but for Miria, it offered a slight, lucky break. She had not been looking forward to the embarrassment of having to knock on Stava's door later, only to find her occupied with someone else.

"Would you mind," she asked, finishing her coffee, "if I visited you after?"

Stava, as usual reluctant to make a use of her voice, gave her a curious look.

"There is something I need to borrow," Miria explained.

***

The fifth wife's rooms were just next door to Miria's. If there was a difference between them, it lay not in size, nor luxury, but in how lived-in Stava’s seemed in comparison. She came from the far west, and had brought the distant ocean with her to the lowlands. Nautical maps of the warm seas adorned her walls, alongside sentimental but capable paintings of ships sailing the spice routes. Most of it had been her dowry; the rest the Lady Governor's generous gifts, including a spectacular panorama of the Bay of Dis, its waters turned red by the fluttering sails of Her Infernal Majesty's grand war fleet.

Those gifts did not limit themselves to decorations, however. A great bed of exotic redwood took up most of the chamber, easily twice, if not thrice as big as the one Miria slept in. The purpose behind its size was not hard to divine; in stifled moans and cries of pleasure, it penetrated into the sixth wife's room every time Czewa visited Stava for the night. The fifth wife had received it for her anniversary, and Miria recalled being puzzled at why Czewa, usually so reserved and reluctant, was the one to offer the Lady Governor effusive thanks for it. Then again, those were the first weeks of her marriage, and back then, she’d barely understood what the relationship between the wives was supposed to be like.

"If it is what I think you mean," Stava whispered, sitting down before her dresser, and starting to clean her makeup, "it'll be in the wardrobe. Lowest shelf."

Miria envied the fifth wife a little for her bed, but mostly for her voice. In a twist of cruel irony, Stava never seemed to fully realize just how beautiful her slightly husky, but nonetheless soft and sweet whisper sounded. In fact, she spoke up only rarely when surrounded by others, out of concern for the supposedly unwifely tenor. This little shame was one of the many reasons why of all the Lady Governor's wives, Miria had ended up liking Stava the best and desiring her the least: she could recognize herself in her, for better or worse.

Admittedly, it was usually the latter.

The fifth wife removed her silver earring loops, then the crystal-studded choker; her gestures were slight, as was her frame. When fingers brushed her body, they did so overly carefully, as if she was a fragile thing, likely to crack under pressure. It was this grace that made Miria, a poor reflection; they were both lean, they were both sharp-featured, but unlike the boy-toy wife, Stava inhabited her flesh without any mannish impetus.

Miria looked away from the fifth wife before the sight started to hurt too deeply, turning to the paneled wardrobe doors and what hid behind them. For all her fondness for jewels and precious metals, Stava's tastes ran plain and modest when it came to dress. Though Miria had never had a good opportunity to ask, she suspected that whatever family Stava had left behind had to be of those pious burghers who matched a deep suspicion of opulence with a subtle taste for luxury.

The package Miria was looking for lay hidden under layers of folded kerchiefs in autumnal reds and yellows. It was a bag made out of brown, waxed paper; when the boy-toy wife reached inside she was rewarded with the overly familiar touch of rough fabric and old leather. She did not need to see to know what her hands found: a white shirt, and a black vest. A sword-belt, riding trousers of the kind that had been fashionable a few years ago, and boots to match. In other words, a complete outfit of the kind one would expect to see worn by a young burgher man in Karsz's streets.

A month and a half into her marriage, Miria had experienced the misfortune of running into the Hofmeisterin while returning from a visit in her family's home back in the town below. The clothes she’d worn then were not unlike the ones in the brown bag; the boy-toy wife had not yet had a chance to change back into a dress. The old servant did not receive it well; she had Miria dragged before the other wives and viciously scolded for her refusal of wifely obedience. Then, the Hofmeisterin ordered Mariś to go through all of Miria's wardrobe, pack anything in it which could pass for boy's clothing, and burn it all in the palace's central furnace.

If Miria had been braver, she would have tried to argue: maybe explain that it was not a refusal of femininity—not that she could refuse something she barely held, anyway—but rather a familial matter, and one of personal comfort. After all, she had no intention to try to offend the Lady Governor by wearing men's clothes inside the palace, and in fact relished the opportunity to not do so. But to mount such a defense would be difficult for her even today, let alone in her first, confusing, lonesome weeks.

A few days later, Stava had found a private moment alone with Miria and offered the boy-toy wife that, if she ever needed to again, she should feel free to make use of her old outfits. They were, after all, similar in size, and should fit well. Miria's next few jaunts into the city had confirmed that theory, even if hurriedly changing inside a carriage climbing back the palace hill was always a sharp shot of stress.

"Can you even leave?" Stava asked upon hearing the rustle of paper. "The Lady Governor forbade it."

The sixth wife nodded. Somewhere in the back of her head, an idea percolated that she should just try to sneak out, but truth be told, she had no idea how she was going to accomplish that. She pursed her lips at the thought that she had concerned herself more with what to wear in front of her family than with how to get to them in the first place, but eventually decided that, in any case, now was not the time to get wound up over that.

She tugged at the bag to free it from its hiding place. As the package came out, it was followed by a slender, metal tube which had apparently been tucked on top of it. It tumbled quietly to the floor, resting in the thick, southern carpet covering the floor. Mindful of how curiosity was a bad habit in girls, Miria carefully picked it up.

Husband-medicine poultice, the label read. Strong formula! Produced in Dis, for use infernal & mortal. Not for sale to wives. A ragged tear marked where the paper seal holding the cap in place had been torn. It took Miria a second to understand what it was exactly that she was holding. Did Stava really hate being made a wife so much?

She glanced up at the woman in front of the mirror, finishing with wipe the rouge from her cheeks; there seemed to be no rush in her gestures, no desperate need to come clean. Nothing in her suggested that femininity was a mask she loathed to wear. The boy-toy wife turned the tube in her fingers. So if it was not defiance against the Lady Governor, then what? And, more importantly, how had the fifth wife managed to smuggle this highly illicit medicine past the Hofmeisterin? That question contained within itself a kernel of an idea.

Miria swallowed, bracing herself for the thing she had to do next.

"Hey," she asked, looking up. "Where did you get that?"

Stava's reaction was gracefully temperate. She followed the boy-toy wife's look, and upon noticing the tube in her hand, rewarded Miria with a disapproving look. Immediately, the boy-toy wife had to suppress an urge to apologize.

"It just fell out," she mumbled, withering under the gaze. "It was an accident."

The embarrassment had to be plainly visible, because Stava exhaled lightly and tempered her scowl.

"Look," she said, "if you want to try it, feel free. But it won't make the changes go away. It doesn't work like that."

At first, Miria raised her hand to protest the notion; but she had a bag of illicit men's clothing sitting on her lap, and so it was difficult to blame Stava for the assumption.

"No, that's not…" she started, half-heartedly. "Why do you even have it, then?"

Stava turned away, looking back into the mirror. With most of the makeup gone, Miria could clearly see the dark lines marking where she still had not had her facial hair burned off.

"It," she began, turning faintly red, "is for me and Czewa. For when we're together. Right?"

The sixth-wife blinked, then quickly stashed the tube back in its hiding place. For a moment, all she could feel was that disastrously stupid and horrendously embarrassing surprise at finding out that it was the fifth wife who was the husband between her and the fourth.

"Right," she murmured instead.

"It's an old wife trick. I learned it from Visza."

The fact that it was Visza, that supremely beautiful ideal of femininity, who had taught Stava how to use the husband-medicine briefly registered as a little bit odd. But thinking about the late second wife was not something Miria particularly wanted to do. She shook the notion away, and focused on the thing that mattered the most in the moment.

"But how did you even manage to get it? Isn't it forbidden?"

The tension—and the blush—left Stava. Whatever she had been briefly worried about ceased to weigh on her. She put down her wipes, and turned around to face Miria, a bit curious, a bit pensive.

"What are you up to, Miria?"

The only response that the sixth wife managed was a slightly anxious twitch. It was not just that she did not want others to know about her planned escapades—she herself was not entirely sure of what her intentions really were. Thankfully, Stava did not push.

"Fine," she said, a delicate tension building somewhere in her slight voice. "None of my business. But you have to promise me something first."

She paused. Miria waited.

"Be kind to Czewa," she said, a raw note bleeding through her words. "Even if she isn't always too kind to you. Or others. She has given up on much for the sake of others. Much more," she hesitated before continuing, "than she should have had to."

If Miria could be sure of the meaning behind those words, she would love nothing more than to share that she understood such a sacrifice, having made one herself. But it would also have to be a lie; if Czewa resented her marriage, then her fate was nothing like the boy-toy's wife, no matter how similar their histories could be made to look. She nodded, and received a pale smile in return.

"Well then. Do you know Mihasz? The groundskeeper?"

***

Only a few quick steps separated Stava's door from the one to Miria's own room. Still, the boy-toy wife held her breath the entire way, crossing the distance in lunges as long as her dress would allow. This time, however, the Hofmeisterin did not lurk in an ambush; as the familiar dark of her bed-chamber welcomed her, Miria finally allowed herself an exhale—but not to put the light on. Not yet.

Stumbling around, she found her bed by touch and memory alone, and knelt down by it to push the bag of men's clothing deep underneath. A cursory search would not find it there, and as long as she did not give the Hofmeisterin any reason to investigate more thoroughly, she should be safe. She could only hope no one would notice her planned visit to the groundskeeper's hut, or find it suspicious.

It was not hard to believe that, of all the servants, it was the wrinkled, cantankerous Mihasz who specialized in supplying the household with everything that should not cross the front gate. It was not hard to believe, just as it was not obvious to suspect; the man had been tending to the palace grounds for as long as anyone could remember, his presence long since faded into the scenery. It did, however, sting a little that no other wife had thought it appropriate to tell Miria about the groundskeeper's trade.

As the excitement of her little transgression against the household's order faded away, the sixth-wife found herself swamped with a sticky wave of exhaustion. It had been a long day, and she preferred not to think too much about a lot of what had happened. In its own small way, the plans she was drawing for tomorrow, the plans that would maybe let her find out what it was, exactly, that felt so out of joint about Visza's murder, helped her to think less of the murder itself, of the body beginning to rot under the snow-white shroud, and of the formless, suffocating grief even she was not immune to.

Grudgingly, she removed the blinds from the hellfire lamp at her bed-stand. Orange and gold light flooded the dark room, taking her briefly back to the shrine of Want, and those bitter-sweet moments in the pillory there, before things had gotten so sour and so complicated. It was with that thought on her mind that she noticed the little surprise waiting for her.

Someone had left it on her bed, just so that she would not miss it, and still she’d been too caught up in her own head to notice it immediately—even though it was obviously meant to draw her attention. It was a small, wooden box, minimally carved with the simplest fire motifs. Miria's heart skipped a beat: this was how the Lady Governor preferred to offer gifts to her wives.

With her fingers shaking ever so slightly, she popped the lid open, revealing a card written in the familiar, sharp hand.

Dear Miria, it read, my beloved boy-toy wife.

The letter was a hand that wrapped itself around her throat, and held tight. Of all the things she had taught herself to expect, this was not one of them. She read on, stumbling over each word.

Please forgive me for the absence of my attention. If you must, put the blame on me, not Visza, and accept this gift as an apology and a promise.

That was all; no more writing, nothing. There was no mention of grief, of death, of mourning. The Lady Governor must have had this sent in those few hours between Miria being sized and Visza's murder.

Underneath the card, a sardonyx cameo waited for Miria on a velvet bed. Reverently, she picked it up by its silver setting, and brought it closer to the flame. The scene cut into the stone was not hard to recognize: a hydra of braided limbs, all reaching to bury a pilloried body standing atop a mountain of coin.

And on the other side, the one that would be always pressed into Miria's throat, should she ever wear the jewel, a single-word waited:

Mine.