Marguerite felt the color draining from her face. She had imagined Zosia as her friend, her confidant. But she didn't really know the old woman. She didn't really know anyone here. Suddenly it was just as easy to think of Zosia as Donskoy's faithful executioner, and Yelena the silent witness, Or perhaps Zosia would serve as torturer, applying «justice» whenever he, the great lord, demanded it.
Zosia observed Marguerite's blanched expression. "Don't let your wits scamper off like a mad hare," she scolded. "The salve contains only herbs and a few private ingredients, proffered by your lord," She gathered some of the goop on her finger, then added, "Each is quite ordinary alone, but mingled together they make the test run true."
Zosia gently rubbed the sticky substance over Marguerite's stomach, just below the navel, tracing a pair of warm circles, one inside the other. The salve trailed behind the old woman's white finger like the glistening, slimy wake of a crawling slug. A sour smell pricked Marguerite's nostrils, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Zosia motioned to Yelena, who came forth and wrapped the rod in a linen sheet. The girl took this bundle and retreated to her place in the shadows.
"Do you wish to observe the next step, lord?" Zosia asked. "It is as I described it earlier."
"No," Donskoy replied simply. "But I will observe the outcome."
"Very well." Zosia withdrew a brown egg from the folds of her wide woolen skirts.
Marguerite lifted her brow, half in amusement, half in disbelief. "In these lands, I sense that eggs do more than bind flour." She spoke in a tow voice so Donskoy might not overhear. Zosia suddenly reminded her of a great black mother hen.
The old woman clucked her tongue. "Hush, child. Did no one ever teach you of such spells? Did you never read of them?"
Marguerite could not suppress a smile. Her mother's only spell had been turning cream into butter. "No. But I am aware that customs vary."
"Tsk. This is no custom, as you say. No quaint little fairy-tale ritual. And no trivial matter to your lord." She shot a glance over her shoulder at Donskoy, who coughed, shifting uncomfortably in the chair.
Marguerite realized her faux pas. "Nor to me," she said firmly. Then she recalled an old saying, something the old women in the village had sometimes muttered. "Ovum raptum est," she said. 'That's about eggs, isn't it?"
Zosia cast her a sharp look. " 'The egg has shattered. To the ignorant, it warns of a coming disaster." She dropped her voice low. "Or foretells a miscarriage."
"Oh." The talk of disaster made Marguerite think of her dream and the gypsy's curse. It frightened her, but she did not dare speak of it now-not in front of her peevish husband.
"I know another saying," growled Donskoy. "He who wishes eggs must endure the clucking of hens."
Zosia put a finger to her lips and cast another glance over her shoulder. Marguerite could not catch her meaning. Was the old woman asking her to play along? Her mind raced. If a wedding rite of fertility called for her to swallow the egg, what might she do to prove conception? Hatch it? And if Zosia meant to rig the test, proving a pregnancy where none existed, she would refuse. Time had a way of turning that particular ruse to ruin.
"Finish the test now," said Donskoy. The edge in his voice could have cut stone.
Zosia cracked the egg into a clean porcelain pot beside the bed and motioned to Marguerite. "Your own water will tell the tale. Mind you to hold your shift so the salve does not smear."
Marguerite sighed, then reluctantly complied, half curtsying with her nightshift held aloft. Then she stepped aside, her face red with embarrassment. She'd heard of seers who read tea leaves, seers who divined the future from a still pool, but never seers who looked for their answers in a pool like this. Zosia mumbled something while sprinkling an herb into the pot.
Curiosity won over Marguerite. "How does this work?"
The old woman stared intently into the pot. "if the egg floats to the surface with the yolk swirled through the white, you carry a daughter. If it floats intact, with the yolk whole from the white, you carry a son. But if any part of it fails to rise, your belly lies vacant." Her voice dropped as low as the Abyss. "And if it bubbles and seethes," she said slowly, "if it churns and roils, you carry the spawn of a fiend. A monster child, twisted in body and spirit."
Recalling her dream, Marguerite gasped.
Donskoy exploded, "Faughl What nonsense are you babbling now, you old witch?" He strode to the bedside and stared into the pot with red-faced revulsion, then turned away. He did not meet Marguerite's gaze.
Marguerite forced herself to peer into the pot. The egg lay at the bottom, still and intact.
"You are not with child," announced Zosia simply.
Marguerite almost smiled. The dream-curse had been just that, a dream.
"Wretched hag," growled Donskoy. "You have done the test wrong." He raised his hand, then stayed it, waving the black glove contemptuously.
Zosia's eyes darkened. "I have done nothing wrong, my lord," she said evenly. "The pot tells what it will tell; I am only the reader."
"Then there must be some other test. Do another," he commanded.
Zosia clucked. "A few are known to me, but I doubt you would prefer them."
"Such decisions are mine alone. What other tricks can you perform?"
Zosia stroked her plump chin, and her black eyes sparkled in their nest of wrinkles. "I can wrap a severed finger in a lock of her hair, and suspend it over her stomach. If the Powers are willing, the finger points out the truth."
"Do it," he said. "Take Yelena's finger; she can manage without one."
Yelena gasped and dropped the rod to the floor; it landed with a muffled thud. The girl clutched her hands to her chest and sank back against the wall, as if the shadows might keep her safe.
Marguerite was mortified. "Surely," she began, "surely, there's-"
Zosia raised her hand. "Alas, my lord, Yelena's finger would serve no purpose," the old woman said smoothly. "The finger must belong to the one who lay with the mother-to-be." She winked at Marguerite. "Mow, I might work the magic with just a fingertip, but the less flesh we take, the more closely the charm holds its secrets. I have seen the appendage of a long-fingered man spin like a maple seed whirling to the ground, while a mere scrap of skin has crumbled into ash before my eyes, too weak to withstand the ordeal of questioning."
"Rubbish," said Donskoy. "A rubbish test. You seek to vex me, old woman. What else can you do?"
Zosia exhaled sharply. "Perhaps you would do better to look toward Marguerite herself, Lord Donskoy. She could stand at a crossroads with a newly sharpened ax, then drench it with her water and bury it. When morning comes, she must dig up the ax and repeat the gesture. Mine times she must water and bury the blade. Then, if the ax shows rust, she is with child."
"Nine days of this?"
"At least," said Zosia impatiently. "And the test is not so sure as the one I have already completed. After nine days of wetting, even an ordinary blade can decay. In your lands, I would consider that a certainty-in half the time."
Donskoy shook his head and began to pace.
Zosia continued, "Moreover, a crossroads harbors danger, Lord Donskoy. Peasants and certain Vistani bury suicides there to hold the restless spirits at bay- even your own lands may not escape such use. And if the dead hear a pregnant woman scrabbling above them-if her scent or her digging disturbs them-then they may rise as ghouls and eat through her belly to reach the tender morsel inside."
Marguerite remained silent, mouth agape.
"Take heart, Lord Donskoy," said Zosia. "And rediscover your patience. Marguerite is young and healthy. She will be with child soon; I have seen it."
"So you have sworn," he grumbled, turning to glare at the old woman. He behaved as if they stood alone; as if Marguerite was of no more consequence than a rug. "Then when?" he demanded.
"it may be never if you continue in this fashion," Zosia replied with a note of warning. "A dry field seldom blooms. You must pay it some attention." She stepped to his side. "And take care what attention you give. Nervous women bear weaklings. The sickly yield worse. If this child is to serve in the manner you hope, you'd do well to heed an old woman's advice."
Donskoy sighed, then returned to the chair by the fire. He drummed his black suede fingers on the armrest, as if to keep pace with his galloping thoughts.
"There is another test I might recommend," Zosia continued soothingly. "The oldest test of all."
Donskoy twisted his face in a wry expression. "What, pray tell? What must we sever or piss upon and bury now?"