He improved slightly, over the next few weeks. He talked to Christine of more than the weather, and he didn't avoid her as much as he did. But he still refused to return too their comfortable chess matches, and he still barely spent more than an hour a day in her presence.

Christine missed him. She missed their gentle conversation and their instructional chess matches. She had been growing better quickly, she even thought she had come close to beating him once. But now she only played against Meg, and the few court ladies that would speak to her. She beat them all easily, they were far easier targets than her clever husband.

She hadn't realized how much of her time was taken up by him until he became distant. To fill it, she took up the harp, practicing over the strings and singing songs along with them. Her only audience was Meg and her tutor. One of the musicians that Erik housed, she approached him, asking him to train her. He played for them often during dinner, and she found that she liked his playing the best.

He praised her often, always, even when she made mistakes, even when she played so horribly it made herself shudder. Meg gave her more valuable critiques after he left.

"You must play that section without hesitating." She would say, her eyes closed and her head cocked to one side as she listened. "You're playing much too loudly, it's a love song, not a war ballad!" Or even- "Good heavens, is that thing tuned?"

Christine made slow progress with Meg's help. The strings felt clumsy in her fingers, she was not used to such fine work. She was used to hauling wood, cleaning rooms, and helping wherever she was needed.

Sometimes she missed not having to do fine work. Sometimes all she wished to do was to help with the laundry and cleaning of rooms, and directing where nobles should stay, and the simple joy in life.

And yet... there was Meg, a true friend, and Erik. She liked Lady Giry, even if the woman was intimidating, and Nadir wasn't bad either.

And there was the baby... it was now plain through her stomach that she was pregnant. She often rubbed it, thinking of the baby inside, and feeling warm and happy.

No, she would never go back to her old life, not if it meant leaving the child behind. Her baby, whom she already loved so very much... Sometimes her arms ached to hold it, to pull it close to herself. To kiss it's head and sing it lullabies.

But the baby would come in it's own time, not hers, and she was barely four months pregnant.

By now Lady Giry had shown her around the castle, she now knew the ins and outs of everything, and now there was nothing she could do. Lady Giry still ran everything with an efficient hand, and if she thought something should concern Christine, she brought it to her, but by and large the daily running of the household was done by Lady Giry and Lady Giry alone.

Christine didn't think it helped her reputation. They thought that she was too weak and frightened to run her own household, that she wasn't worthy of their service.

Well, she was frightened. She was terribly frightened by the whole of it. By the fifty six servants that worked directly under Erik's hand, of the twenty nine rooms in the castle. (Not counting the outer walls towers where the servants, musicians, and artists stayed.) The stacks and stacks of gold and silver coins that were shelled out and taken in. The whole thing frightened her terribly. She feared the day she must take it over herself. She feared the day when she would have to face them all head on, as she did in the courtyard.

She was used to familiar and friendly faces. Distant and apart they might be, they had always held smiles and spoke encouraging words. Here, she was guarded by Meg, Lady Giry, to some extent Nadir, and dear Erik. Even if he didn't know it, even if he was still distant. Beyond them, stone faces, poisonous words at the tips of their tongues.

The artists and musicians didn't seem to mind so much, but they were men, men and more men. They came and left. Some would barely speak a word to her they were so afraid of her. Most simply praised her, her beauty, her kindness, her clothes, her status, and everything. The friendly German painter who had taken down her picture had left, gone to paint some church in Paris. Christine wished him well.

But none of that, the loneliness, the overly polite artists, the large and intimidating castle, was why she wasn't running it. It was all frightening, and made her ache inside, yes. She was certain she would become used to it. It was- well-

She was too afraid to speak to Lady Giry about it.

Maybe they were right. Maybe she was too terrible and cowardly to run the castle herself. But Lady GIry had worked there so long, nearly fifteen years, it was her home. It was where she had built up the staff and the servants... Erik himself had appointed her. Surely, surely he wanted her there.

Or perhaps he had simply not thought to ask her to leave.

But whenever Christine tried to speak to Erik of deeper topics than painting, music, the weather, he steered away. Whenever she thought to bring it up with Lady Giry, her eyes saw the pressed, tight, stern lips of the woman, and Christine's heart failed her. She could not bear to offend the woman, she did so much good, no doubt she thought of the Black Land's castle of her home. And to push a woman out of her home... Christine could not do it. She could not be so cruel, and she wouldn't let Nadir think so badly of her. Imagine, asking his own wife to leave her position!

And so she said nothing, did nothing, and practiced the harp until her fingers raw and her mind anxious from sitting for so long.

Perhaps that was what led her to start riding more often.

She'd noted, on her ride to the beach with Erik, that she had become almost laughably incompetent at riding again.

To keep up her skills, and to help with her restlessness, she began riding regularly. Meg came with her, more often than not, and they would cover the span of the Dark Land's hills, before stopping to eat a little and ride back.

Lady Giry disapproved. "You ought not to be moving so much during you pregnancy. They say that too much movement causes one to miscarry."

Christine always replied with a smile and a little joke. "They also say if I look at a dog during my pregnancy, I shall bear a beast. Mary gave birth a month early to healthy boy despite spending the entire pregnancy helping with the castle. I'll be fine."

Besides, she was truly growing to love riding. With the blue sky above her and the thin grass and dark stone beneath her, she truly free. Not at all trapped with a castle household that hated her, and all the responsibilities that she could not fulfill. She often rode along the sea, thinking of the last time that her and Erik's relationship had been normal.

One evening after lunch, she was hurrying down the castle steps. She wanted to take a ride by herself, but as quickly as she was going down, she saw Erik hurrying up.

Quickly, she changed plans.

As usual, Erik bowed his head when he spotted her, standing to the side so that she could pass. But she stopped at his side, grasping his arm so that he couldn't escape.

"Will you go riding with me?" She asked.

His golden eyes behind his mask widened with what almost seemed like panic, going from her face to her stomach.

"I wish you wouldn't." He finally said, looking away, up the stairs as he said it. He swallowed.

Christine bristled. "Wouldn't do what? Talk to you?" She said a little harsher than she'd meant to.

He shook his head, still gazing to the top of the stairs. "I wish you wouldn't go riding."

Christine blinked. "Lady Giry talked to you?" She asked, deadpanned.

"She did mention... do you think it is worth the risk?" He asked, looking down at her again.

Christine snorted. "There is no risk. For heavens sake, Mary, gave birth to a healthy child though she'd been running around the manor helping me." Christine said. "Yes, during the last months of the pregnancy I'll rest but I've barely been pregnant for more than four months."

Erik hunched over, muttering something about how Lady Giry had given birth to many children.

Anger flared in Christine, but she strove to control it. "Could we play a chess match then, if not tonight than perhaps tomorrow?" Perhaps that would settle him.

Instead, he only hunched a little more, his arm twitched in her hand. "I- I am very busy." He finally said. "I cannot, I'm sorry. I just-" He glanced at Christine and faltered when he saw her face.

"I'm truly sorry." He whispered.

Christine felt her throat clog, and she swallowed it down, blinking rapidly. "O-of course." She said, releasing Erik's arm. "You have much to watch over of course. I understand."

And with that she hurried down the stairs, ready to ride until the castle was only a spot in a never ending horizon.

Woot! Another chapter done. Written in bits and pieces, hopefully cohesive.

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