The world was gray.
It mattered not that Erik had smoothed the wall, and had painters draw flowers and stones and scenes in every color that nature allowed. It's color and liveliness was lost to her, even as her eyes followed the path of the sweeping vines.
It mattered not. Very little seemed to.
Erik was worried, it took all her energy to put up a cheerful front to him. Meg, she suspected, updated him on how she was really doing. She hoped they thought she was happier when she was with him, rather than more determined to hide her sadness.
Christine should have been happy. At last he knew her grievances. Though there came very few from the servants these days. Her glaring, barely sheathed tongued servants were replaced by a group of bobbing, guilt ridden girls. Her hems came back still sewn, her food was given particular care, filled with spices and delicious foods that might temp her. Soon, she would run the castle as she should. Soon, all her problems would be gone.
It mattered not.
It couldn't matter when the gray pushed at her, suffocating every emotion. It was terrifying. And yet, it was familiar. She had felt the same way when her father died.
They always died. They were always taken from when she found happiness and the strength to push back the gray, it was all taken. Everyone. her father, Lady Valerius, the baby. Abigail. Christine hid her face in her hand to hold back a sob. Dear Erik, she wished he had not named the baby. Miscarriages were best forgotten. Everyone knew this. Everyone-
When would it take Erik? When would he leave her alone to defend her right to the estate from local lords. What would she do? What would she do?
Christine wished for something other than gray.
She knew, logically, that with time the grayness would pass. That she would be able to feel, to want, to laugh again. But the grayness prevented her heart from believing it.
There was a quiet knock at the door, and Meg entered, carrying a tray of oatmeal, smelling of spices. Cooked fish sat to the side, equally tempting.
Food that the baby would never know. The baby that Christine had killed.
Meg set the tray next to Christine on a table, she rolled away, hiding her face in her pillow.
"You must eat." Meg told her. "You must gain back your strength."
"For what?"
Meg's voice tinged with frustration. "Isn't a month long enough to mourn an unborn child?"
"No."
"Well, how are you going to get another if you keep on like this? Sometimes, sometimes the first one just doesn't catch. Next time-"
The thought of a next time made Christine whimper with fear.
"Christine-"
"Go away."
Meg's face reddened. "You're not the only woman to have a stillborn. My mother had two. Why are you any different?"
"I know I'm not the only woman to have a stillborn." Christine whispered. "I've helped many births. Many died."
"Well then, what makes you think you can lay around in bed and mourn?" Meg snapped. "What makes you so special?"
Christine shook her head. "I can't get up. I'm too tired to get up."
"We are all tired Christine." Meg nearly shouted. Christine curled up, as if the words were physical blows. "I've sat through months and months of you complaining and kicking your bed. You would have done anything to get out then, now you never want to leave?"
"I wanted to go with my baby."
"So you don't get to. So what? Get up, keep going. It's what the rest of us do, why can't you?"
Christine didn't answer.
"You want to know what my mother did after her miscarriage? She cried, then she got up and kept going. Why can't you? Oh-" Meg threw her hands up. "But you're too tired. You're too lazy and selfish to get up and do something useful for once-"
"Marguerite." The word cut through the room like a knife.
Meg froze, looking to her mother, guilt filling her eyes.
"You will go." Lady Giry said, standing as tall and noble as a queen. More noble than Christine ever would be. "We will discuss your punishment later."
Meg stalked out of the room.
Lady Giry watched her go. "She does not understand pain." She murmured. "She has had far too little of it in her life."
"She's right." Christine murmured. "I should stop mourning…"
"Are you really mourning the child?" Lady Giry said, arching an eyebrow high.
The gray around her seemed to press down, leaving the bed seemed all the more daunting. Out there, responsibilities, a castle to run, servants to face, her failure. The sympathetic faces, the apologies on the servant's lips. She couldn't face them. Not with that gray pressing down.
"No."
"Then why do you lay there?"
How could she describe it? The pressure, the death that came every time she allowed herself happiness. The servants. The world. The vast open sky that the baby would never see. The love that Erik showed it, and knowing that she might never be able to give him what he needed…
"I don't know."
"Christine… are you considering… well. Are you thinking of suicide?"
"I'm too tired to try that Lady Giry." Christine said. "Though I still think that Erik should have chosen some nice young noble woman to marry. Not me. Perhaps he would, if I was gone."
Lady Giry walked across the room and sat on the edge of Christine's bed. "He loves you, you know. More than anything. He has changed ever since you married him. He is gentler, happier. You should see his eyes when he looks at you. It is as if he is staring at heaven itself. I cannot think of any other woman making him so happy."
"I know he loves me. It would be easier if he didn't."
"Really?"
Christine rolled away. "Well, at least I wouldn't mind disappointing him, if he didn't love me."
"Disappoint him?" Lady Giry's voice filled with shock. "Darling, do you really think you disappoint him?"
"He needs a son." Christine murmured, pulling the blankets up to her chest. "It was why he married me. It was why I pushed so hard for us… he has given me so much. This… this is the only thing of worth I can give in return."
"And a wife who loves him has no worth?"
"I- you know what I mean."
Lady Giry's voice was gentle, but firm. "Your worth is not defined by the children you bear Christine."
Christine released a hiccup, a tear rolling down her face. "But I wanted to bear him a son. I dreamt of it for months, it was what kept me sane. I wanted to hold the baby in my arms and give it to him. I wanted- I wanted him to know I could provide an heir."
"He does not want an heir, child. Yes, it would be nice, but truly, he just wants you to be happy."
"But I wanted to give him what he needed!"
"And you might."
Chistrine sat up, turning to Lady Giry with tears streaming from her eyes. "But what if I can't? What if I just kill baby after baby, and he never has a son to raise?"
Lady Giry smiled, sadness etched into her eyes. "And that may be. You may never bear him a son."
The words hit Christine like a wall. It was a truth she had not wanted to accept. Suddenly the empty comfort of the servants flew from her fingers and she burst into tears. "I-I-" she gasped for breath, leaning back against the headboard. "W-what do do I do then?"
"Well, that is your decision. I cannot recommend, however, that you stay in this bed." Lady Giry stood. "Simply remember this. Life moves on. In all the wars, the illness, the tragedies and the triumphs as well. Life always moves on. There is always another day to grasp."
Lady Giry left the room, the door shutting behind her with a quiet thump.
Christine fell back down against the mattress, staring up at the vines on the ceiling once more. Just has she had before. Just as she had been doing for months.
Suddenly she threw back her covers, shivering at the sudden cold. February was not a warm month, not yet. She laid there, staring up at the painting, not allowing herself the comfort of crawling under the covers to hide from the gray.
Slowly, she slid one foot to the floor, shuddering at the cold stone. The other foot followed nonetheless.
Step by step, she pressed against the gray, trembling and shaking in her thin linen shift.
Finally, she pushed open the door to the lavatory, the dresses hung up. She ran through the many clothes, and finally settled on her wedding dress. She hadn't worn it in almost a year.
She pulled the dress over her head. It was a poor woman's dress. Loose, mostly squares, with little regard for wasting fabric on frivolous darts and tucks. It still fit her, despite the very noticeable bump that was still there even a month after the pregnancy.
Christine then sat on the edge of the toilette and opened a small chest that held her hose. She pulled this on over her feet, tying them firmly at the top. Then, she put on her shoes. Her cut leather shoes no longer fit her swollen feet, but her old wooden shoes fit just fine.
Finally, she re-braided her hair, then wound and pinned it. A head cloth soon followed. Christine tucked a few stray curls under the linen.
She sat, dressed, in her bathroom. She shuffled back into her room, not allowing herself to go back into bed. Instead, she sat on a stool, and looked out to watch the sea.
She should go riding, she decided. After all, she could go by herself again. There was no baby to worry about.
But going down those stairs, going into the stable and having stable boys watch her. Going out into the vast world where everything moved on. Where a world lived under a blue sky was too much.
Maybe she would go riding tomorrow. Today... today she had grasped as best she could.
Woo! Lady Giry for the win.
Don't be TOO mad with Meg. She's been couped up in one room with a hormonal pregnant woman for three months. That can get a little grating after a while. She does think that Christine should move on, but one's tact tends to be poor when you are angry.
Christine isn't keeping her side of the deal... *wiggles eyebrows*.
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