Image description: statue of a mother holding her infant child. The child's hand is pressed to the mother's cheek.
Him
My daughter was born in
Blood Moon. It was a day so moist that each drop of sweat from my brow seemed
to join with the vapor in the air around me, the sweltering humidity pressing
against my skin. I lay naked on top of silk sheets. It was too hot to let them
cover me, even for modesty's sake. Some of the young chambermaids had balked at
the thought of seeing their King so vulnerable and undignified. They were used
to me in fine, flowing robes, furs wrapped around my shoulders, head held high
with the crown woven into the braided knot of my hair. They were used to
imperious eyes and cold marble skin, a statue seated gracefully on the throne.
When my breathing broke into a sob as the contractions refused to relent, they
shied away and whispered among themselves how torturous childbirth must be, if
even Mathylde, the mighty Woman King, could not help but beg the spirit of her
dead husband to take the pain from her. But the midwives, those who had seen
women of all stations through their labors, heard my cry and understood: today,
I was a woman first, a King second.
And so they took my hand
and told me to push.
*
My daughter is seventeen
now and stands before me in a private conference chamber, surrounded by images
of the Ancestors. The lush rugs and tapestries that line the wooden walls bear
the faces of those dead to whom we pray each night—my husband Ionai, my father,
my mother, and all the Kings who came before me, first-born sons of countless
generations. I am the first daughter in the line of Kings, and Arkadya my first
daughter. When I die, she will have every right to rule. I have spent my whole
life fighting for that—on the battlefield, commanding an army against my
traitorous brother to seize the crown, which half the country thought he
deserved; in council, watching noblemen tear apart laws I had labored over
while women's lives hung in the balance; and as a mother, making sure Arkadya
was well-versed in history and government, skilled in diplomacy and benevolent
in the imposition of her will, so that she might continue to show our people
the strength in womanhood after my death.
I know that if I do not
speak, it will all amount to nothing. Yet something keeps me silent a moment
longer.
Arkadya is beautiful. She
looks more like Ionai than me—her hair is ink-black to my gold, and her eyes
are not round like mine but folded at the corners like the creases of a paper
crane. She has shorn her long, thick
braids and donned a man's shirt and trousers. They’re earth-brown, her favorite
color since the day she first took a handful of soil into her tiny fist. She
has hundreds of brown dresses in her closets, but she never wears them anymore.
It is my responsibility
to lay down the terms for her. I must turn my eyes cold and play the
dispassionate judge, as if she were not my own child, born of my own flesh.
Arkadya's fingers clench the hilt of the sword at her hip, then release, then
clench it again. My knees weaken a moment, but I straighten my back. And I
speak.
“The advisers and I have
come to a consensus.” I exhale, slowly, and pray to my Ionai: dear love, let
her understand. “You are to retain the status of Princess and all
privileges and freedoms—as well as responsibilities—that that title grants
you.”
Her eyes narrow until
they are the tiniest slivers of black orbs, like the moon eclipsed. “Princess?”
“In the castle, at court,
and any time you are acting in public as a representative of this crown, you
are my daughter and will be referred to as such. You are to dress and behave
accordingly.” For a moment, I let weariness take over me. My shoulders sag. My
arms hang like dead weight, and my stiff spine is strained almost to breaking.
I don’t know what I want anymore. “Your choice to live as a man will not be
made public, nor will it be acknowledged in any statement of mine, public or
private.”
*
Contraction after
contraction moved like a wave through my body, coming faster and faster until
it was all just one blur of pain. I can't survive this, I thought. I
won't survive. Breathing and
pushing and muscles tightening, one push after another. They'll bury me next
to Ionai, in the Field of the Eternal, and someone else will place potato
flowers in my hands and call us Ancestors. Ionai, King Mathylde, and this child
of theirs, their first and last child, together in Arkadya—in paradise.
“No,” I murmured aloud,
faintly. I would live for this child, this daughter of mine—for I knew she was
a daughter, even though the seers had shaken their heads and told me the future
was too cloudy to see. The magic of the crown flowed through my veins, and the
heart from which that magic came had cried out to me. I would have a daughter,
and I would live to see her.
The sun began to set,
flooding the room with light in shades of bloody scarlet. A breeze came through
the window to cool my face. “You will be a mother soon,” said the chief
midwife. Her eyes were deep blue and full of the life that her old, pock-marked
skin lacked. Though her face would be forever ashen, she had survived the Grey
Death. Ionai had not. “One more push.”
All the muscles in me
grew taut and all my energy, or what was left of it, rushed to my womb.
Something gave.
My small, slick child was
pulled out of me by the midwife’s steady hands. She was here. My daughter was
here.
*
I know Arkadya's mind
like I know my own. Her anger burns hard but slow. I can see it now in her
eyes, flint and steel being struck, a single spark catching a candlewick. She
will take her time stoking the fire before raging at me, giving me time to
convince her to change her mind. No, Arkadya is not angry yet. But there is
pain in her voice when she asks me, “Why?” One word said, one thousand
unspoken.
“Our claim to the throne
has always been contested-”
“I don't need a history
lesson, Mother,” she says icily. Of all my subjects, only she dares interrupt
me. “You have always had enemies, and you always will.”
“Hush, child, please.” My
eyes meet hers and she is silent. “Our legacy depends upon us having heirs. I
have you, but if you go down this path you might never marry or have children.
Meanwhile my brother the traitor has a fertile daughter whose only obstacle to
inheriting the throne is you.”
“The traitor's daughter
hasn't set foot on this land in twenty-five years. The people would never
support her.”
“They would if word got
out that the King was letting her daughter pretend to be male and engage in
deviant behavior. I will not have our family scandalized and our right to rule
put in jeopardy, Arkadya.”
“I am not pretending
to be a man, I am one. This isn't something that can be lit and unlit
like a candle at my bidding, Mother! I am a man, only no one else can see it!
No one can look past this wretched body!”
“None on our earth can
choose their own bodies, Arkadya. Your body is beautiful.” I smile. I
move to touch her cheek, but she steps back, and the smile on my face fades.
“You have breasts, a womb, the ability to bear a child. That doesn't make you
weak, that makes you strong. You are nothing to be ashamed of, nothing
to be denied. You are a woman-”
“You are the King!
The first woman King cannot be anything other than a woman, and yet she expects
her son to pretend to be anything other than a man?” She takes her hand off her
sword and crosses her arms over the breasts she has bound to flatness. Her
eyebrows furrow, settling into a look of implacable determination that I know
far too well. This battle is all she has left. And she will not yield, lest it
break her.
“You know what they would say?” I take a step
towards my daughter. “My allies, not my enemies. They would say that by
supporting your choice to spurn femininity, I am implying that womanhood is so
inferior to manhood that women must want to become men. That I have
taken the title King out of
deference to male power, instead of to subvert it. That I have betrayed my
gender and everything I have taken a stand for ever since I first put on that
crown. They would say that all that I have done, all that I have fought for, for
you, for your daughters—that that is all a lie! A facade!”
I move to leave. My
winter cloak drags on the floor, slowing me down until I stop before the door.
I do not turn around. I do not let her see my face. “And the men will say, How
foolish we were to trust a woman on the throne.”
*
“What will be the girl's
name?” The midwife’s voice was far away, echoing in the distance as I closed my
eyes and let out the breath I did not know I had been holding.
*
We have passed moments in
silence. The wind beats against the outer wall of the room. A bitter laugh
escapes Arkadya's lips. “So this is it? I am in agony, and you let politics
dictate whether or not to give me human consideration?”
“As a King, I must be
ruled by the kingdom, just as I rule it,” I say. It is an old saying, and one
of little comfort to either of us. “The same goes for a King's heir.”
Her hand is
on her sword's hilt again. “I
didn't ask to be born a King's heir! Just as I didn't ask to be
born in this body!”
“And you think you'd be
better off in poverty, married to some farmer in exchange for a few sheep,
beaten senseless every time you dared speak a word against your husband? Be
grateful for what the Ancestors gave you.”
“DAMN THE
ANCESTORS!”
Steel slides
out of scabbard. Arkadya's wrist flicks the sword up to parallel her stance, a
mocking salute, an invitation to the duel, and then she's gripping the hilt
with both hands and cutting through her tunic, through the strip of cloth
wrapped around her breasts. I lunge forward, but I am too slow to stop the the
blade or the blood that bursts from her skin as she tries to cut her breasts,
her womanhood, away. She cries out and I sob, memories blowing through my body—
—the warmth
fading from Ionai's hands as he holds me—
—the height
of labor pain, my muscles pulled so tight it feels like I am being ripped
apart—
—and now, the words
bile-thick in my throat as I whisper a frantic prayer, begging the Ancestors
not to take my child away from me, not like this—
My body
collides with hers. I press myself against her breast to stop the blood. I
wrest the sword from her hand. She tries to pull me off of her and an
irrational part of me is glad she's angry, she's fighting, she has a reason to
stay alive, even if she hates me.
“I don't want
to live a lie, mother,” she whispers hoarsely. Her very voice is breaking.
*
“What will be
the girl's name?” asked the midwife, and I answered, “Arkadya.” There had never
been any other name for her.
*
“Arkadya.” I
weave my hand through a few stray locks of her hair and pull her closer to me.
There's blood on her body and on mine, just as when I gave birth to her. “Let
me get the wrap, we can use it as a bandage,” I say, but my eyes do not leave
her face as I grasp the ripped cloth that has fallen to the floor.
There is
something like a smile on her face as I wind the bandage around her torso. She
places her hand on top of mine and says, “I have done this before, you
know.” I blink, uncomprehending, then realize with a start that I am binding
both her wound and her breast.
My mind twirls like a
drop spindle, spinning fibers of truth into the lie I must tell: The
Princess Arkadya is of ill health and must be taken to the countryside to
recover. She will return as soon as her health improves. Her status as my heir
remains unthreatened by her current condition, and I am confident that she will
return to her normal state soon. And those few who know of Arkadya's secret
manhood will nod and smile, secure in their knowledge that the King sees the
Princess's perversion for the sickness that they think it is.
Only she and I will know
the truth. Only she and I will ever know what words I say to her next, softer
than a whisper as I press my lips to her forehead and my hand to her heart.
“What will be your name, as a man?” I ask. “What will I call you in my mind?”
“My father gave me a
woman's name when I was born,” my child whispers back. “I want you, my mother,
to give me a man's name now.”
I close my eyes and let
myself linger on the memory of Arkadya. I let myself mourn the girl who died to
birth the son I hold in my arms—a girl who never was, a girl only alive in my
hopes. Arkadya, the rhythm of my pulse beating daughter, daughter; the
cry that pierced the dark and silent night, the cry of a fierce girl whose
voice would send walls crumbling down. I remember the thrill of cradling her in
my arms, holding her to my breast and letting her suck, feeling our two bodies
as one, as they had been when she was still inside me. Ionai had named this
girl after paradise, and I remember thinking that she would never leave me as
he did, that she would be my daughter until the day I died—
And then I remember the
child who saw the brown of the soil and called it beautiful, this child who has
grown to be so much more than the seed of hope I once carried inside me, and I
take the roots of Arkadya and shape them into a new name: Arkady,
the man who has found a paradise of his own, a world of his and my creation.
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