Stories by Sofia Hardy
The
 arsh King
Part 1
 There was a young man, and one day he met a young woman, and in time they were married.
They were walking in a very pretty meadow, with flowers everywhere. They walked, and they made a very nice picture together, hand in hand, in the meadow.
The wife had long black hair. The long grass and the tall flowers brushed her skirt as she passed by, releasing a fragrance of wild flowers but there must have been a less fragrant herb in the field because as she passed, there was a scent that was not so pleasant. It was a scent like cats, and it was like old, stuffy rooms.
But she and her husband did not notice the scent of the flowers, they were oblivious, and only walked together, through the field, talking quietly to each other.
The sun shone above them, and there were white clouds in the sky, which was deep blue at it's centre; and they walked along, like those who move in a picture book, and they were perfectly content, in their way.
*****************************
The young wife had a large family; and after her marriage, she was told by her mother to visit her aunt, who had not been able to attend the wedding.
The girl agreed, though she had not seen her aunt for a long time, and, in the whirl of social events leading up to her marriage, she might even have forgotten to invite the elderly aunt.
The young wife and her new husband had many friends, and were popular. It would have been easy, in the rush of the invitations being sent, to have missed one or two.
"You must go and see aunt Ag," Said the young wife's mother. "She missed the wedding, and this will make up for it."
But the young wife frowned. It was many years since she had seen her aunt Ag; and, though she could not quite remember it, she had an idea that there had been something not very comfortable about the experience. Perhaps the chairs had been too hard, perhaps the aunt had been crotchety, for the young wife had been quite spoiled as a little girl and had wanted for nothing; so, if she had been taken to a household where she was less indulged, she might have remembered it ill.
Whatever it was, she could not remember it in any detail. Just an old, dark house and a tall, dark presence which must have been the old aunt.
"Husband," She said, the next morning after breakfast; "We should go and visit Ag."
"We should do no such thing," Said the husband, who was busy that day; he was enjoying his life immensely and had friends, work, and many leisure pursuits to fill his time. Besides, he found some of his wife's many relatives tiresome, and wished she had a less numerous family.
"I have arranged the visit already," Said the wife, a little put out. "It is set for this afternoon. She is a wealthy woman, and she has a large house. You know you are interested in looking at large houses, because we hope to be really wealthy one day and live in just such a fine house."
Because, though they had everything necessary, and their house was comfortable and warm, it was quite a small house, and they hoped for a more aristocratic lifestyle in time.
"I have arranged to meet friends this afternoon," Said the husband. "And we are going out on the river, afterwards. You will have to go alone."
The wife was annoyed. She would have loved to take the river trip, out in the fresh air with the sky and the flowers all around her. She would have worn the white dress and she would have sat in the boat, and she knew she would have received many compliments, because the white dress suited her very well.
But there was nothing for it, and she knew she had to visit Ag alone, while her husband went out with his friends and enjoyed himself.
The house was as tall as she remembered it, and as dark and lowering. "Why, I remember being frightened of this place when I was a little girl," She thought, as she stood by the door, waiting to gain entrance. "Though I can see it is only the paintwork, and I can see it is a very fine house indeed, and one in which I would be proud, if I lived here, all it needs is to be refurbished."
 But she also noticed carvings over the front of the door that looked like frogs, perhaps, or some other leggy and bug eyed marsh creature creeping around over the lintel, and, as she looked, she could see one very large marsh frog, but it had been carved sitting on a high chair. It's bug eyes were heavy lidded, and on it's head it wore a crown; it went unclothed, it's feet and hands were webbed, but it gave an impression of an ancient and heavy jowled aristocracy in it's marsh kingdom.
And all around it crept the lesser frog people fetching and carrying as it seemed, for their marsh king.
"Ugh," She shuddered. "I would get rid of that, for a start."
But the marsh king's face held a lofty and faded authority: and she could not help looking at it, and, as she looked, she observed that it's eyes seemed to be painted red, and that it seemed to be watching her under it's lidded stare carefully, and with intent.
Just then the door opened and she was ushered in to Ag, who sat in solitary splendour in one of the large back rooms, a quiet room, away from the noise of the traffic.
And there was Ag, sitting in her high backed chair, like a countess holding court. Her dress was dark in colour, and she wore a dark lace veil over her hair; she was a dark complexioned woman, but age had made her skin sallow, had made it pale, but in all her lines there was the shadow of her original olive complexion, around her eyes and forehead; and her eyes were long and dark and narrow and they glittered.
"So," She said. "You have come to see me."
But the young wife was frowning. "What is that terrible smell?" She wondered, to herself.
The young wife was wearing, in contrast to Ag, a pale pink skirt and a lemon coloured shawl; the colours suited her complexion very well, and her colours were the brightest in the whole room.
Ag must keep cats and keep the room closed from the air, the young wife decided. Only that could explain the intermittent but very unpleasant fragrance.
"I have brought you a piece of the wedding cake." Said the young wife. She offered it and a small gift to Ag.
Ag nodded regally. Around her neck she wore a very large amethyst, and it sparkled whenever she moved.
"Put it there," She said, pointing to a small inlaid table at her side.
When the young wife put the gifts on the table she noticed it's patterns were all dark, and they depicted the same image of the marsh king and his subjects as she had seen over the front entrance to the house.
As she passed Ag's chair, Ag reached out and plucked something from the young wife's shawl. "You have been in the fields, I see," She said, and held up a withered grass that had caught in the young wife's shawl, when she walked in the meadow.
"Oh how silly!" Said the young wife. "Have I been carrying that around with me for the last two days?"
She took the grass from Ag, and examined it, but it was not grass, it was a long stem from a herb with a purple flower; the flowers were very small, and the leaves around it purplish, hairy, and thick, and the stem was thick and burred, too.
She raised it to her nose and sniffed. "I don't think I like it very much," She said. Her sense of smell was not of the most acute, but it seemed to her that the herb had a particularly noxious fragrance, both unpleasant and slightly heady at the same time.
But Ag held out her hand to take the herb back.
"It is called Rue's Colard," Ag said. "And like everything in this world it has both good and bad about it. You will find this, as you get older. This little herb used to grow only in the mountains, but of recent years it has been seen much in the valleys and in the meadows. In years gone by it used to be quite a standard for the serious herbalist, and they would journey to the mountains to find it, but, as I have said, it is a two edged sword, and it can injure, as it can sometimes heal."
"I do not like the scent of it at all," Said the young wife, wrinkling her nose. Because it seemed to her the unpleasant scent in the room mingled with the fragrance of the flower, so that she could not tell which was which.
But Ag only smiled. "You are young and will learn what is to like and what is not to like," She said, and turned the conversation to other matters.
So the visit ended, and the young wife went home. Her husband was already in, she could see by the light shed from the window; because Ag lived at some distance, and the journey had taken her the whole afternoon and part of the evening, too.
Her husband was looking tanned and well from his day on the river. "So how was Ag?" He asked.
The young wife felt tired and cross from all the travelling.
"Not very good," She said. "In fact, I don't think I like her very much. And the house, it is a wonderful house, what we could do with a house like that! But it was filled with an unpleasant aroma. I think Ag must keep cats."
"Did you start sneezing?" Her husband laughed, because it was well known if the young wife saw so much as a hair of a cat, it started her sneezing.
"No." Said the young wife, "Not once."
"Well, she is elderly, maybe cats keep her company," Said her husband, who was moving out of the room, and had not listened to his wife's reply.
But as the young wife was putting her shawl away she found again, stuck to it, the dried stalk of the Rue's Colard.
"Now, however did that get there?" She wondered. "I thought I had left it at Ag's house."
A few days later, one of her uncles, uncle Beck, came calling. He was a man she liked, he had always been especially indulgent to her, as a child.
"How went the visit to Ag?' He asked her. The family grapevine worked well, as they all visited with each other frequently, and kept in close personal touch.
"Not well." Said the young wife. "In fact, I don't think I will be going there again."
Her uncle laughed. "Well, you and Ag never did get on," He said. "It's a pity, though, because Ag has great authority within the family, more than you know. In fact she commands a great portion of the wealth of the family, and it is for her to dispose, to say who shall receive and who shall stay in want."
"Pah," Said the young wife. "We don't need her help. We are doing very well as we are, and expect to do much better as time goes on."
"Ag was much put out at not being invited to your wedding," Said Beck, very seriously.
"I am sure I invited her," Said the young wife, uncomfortably. "I almost remember writing her name on one of the invitations. Anyway, what does she want with an invitation to my wedding? She hardly leaves her house."
"Nevertheless, it would have been respectful to have invited her," Said her uncle. "But as I said, you and Ag never hit it off, right from the start."
"Go on," She said, interested.
"After you were born, your parents held a big party in celebration," Said Beck. "You being the first girl. And Ag was there, but when someone handed you to her you made a great fuss; and Ag said, "Take her away. She has an ill temper."
The young wife giggled. "My mother said I was a fussy child," She said.
"And then, when you were four years old, they took you to her and you were given cinnamon cake, but you spat it out and said it was not cinnamon, it was something nasty instead."
"I can remember that," Said the young wife, with an expression of revelation. "I remember that creepy house, and I didn't like Ag one bit, and the cake did not taste of cinnamon at all; it tasted bitter, not sweet."
As she spoke, it all returned vividly to her mind, so that she wondered how she could ever have forgotten; the room, and the unpleasant aroma, and the unsavoury taste of the cake.
"I felt as if someone had tried to poison me," She said. "And the chairs, they were so hard! And I wasn't allowed to run about, at all."
*****************************
Time passed. The young couple did not achieve the wealth they had anticipated; certain of the husbands investments proved unsound, and, while they saw many of their friends move on to better things, their own lives continued as before. They were not rich, but they were not poor either. Sometimes times were a little harder than others, but on the whole though they were disappointed not to have achieved the success they had decided would be theirs, they were not unhappy.
They had lost some of the friends they had counted on as being the best of their friends. The couple saw them occasionally in the street, and these people were all very well dressed and obviously very pleased with their lives and their prosperity but they were no longer friends.
The couple lived more quietly. There were no more trips on the river, or walks in the meadow. The husband had to work hard to make enough to live so opportunities for pleasure or for parties were few; but still, they were not unhappy.
There was really only one riddle that disturbed the even flow of the young wife's days. She found, every time she went to the drawer to take out her shawl, the dried sprig of Rue's Colard; she threw it away, but every time, it had returned, when she went to the drawer, to take out her shawl.
Then she discovered she was expecting a child. At first she was pleased, the couple had wanted children from the start.
They told everybody, and especially her family; because she had not seen so much of them, these last few years. The family were generally more prosperous than she was, and she could not afford to visit or to join them in their celebrations; and her house was too small to accommodate their gatherings. So, while she was not absolutely ignored, she had somehow fallen by the wayside, and the family were people who valued wealth, success, and achievement.
So at last she had some news. Another great grandchild for her grandmother, and possibly more attention than she had received from that quarter of late.
Their congratulations were muted but some two or three came calling with gifts for the expected child and she enjoyed the company and exchanging the family gossip again; being part of the group, again.
One day, just a few weeks before her child was born, her uncle Beck came calling.
He gave her many congratulations, and he had brought her flowers and gifts, sweets and an exquisitely embroidered blanket for the baby.
"But I thought you did not like cats?" He asked her, when he sat down to talk, after she had run about for him, and found a glass for the flowers.
"I don't, not a bit," She said. "Why do you ask?"
"There was a great, black creature in your garden, while I waited for you to come to the door," He said. "He was watching the door as I arrived, and I thought he must belong here. He did not take kindly to my arrival, he switched his tail at me, and he glared at me with huge yellow eyes and he even tried to scratch me but I was too quick for him. He seemed to want me away from your front step. Eventually he hissed at me and ran away into the bushes; he is probably still there."
She looked out of the window, but she could see nothing, only the front garden, but there was no saying that he might not still be hiding in the bushes.
"I am sorry I left you standing so long," She said. 'I was asleep upstairs: I have been very tired lately."
"Well, it is late in your pregnancy," Said uncle Beck, smiling in a kindly way at her. "It is to be expected."
He went on to gossip about the family, who was to be married, who was rumoured to be facing marital problems.
"They are all so successful," She sighed, cupping her chin in her hands. "It is like a different world to mine."
"And Ag," He said. "She has been going from strength to strength. Did you know she has bought your brother a farm, where he can raise horses?"
"No!" She said, astonished.
"Yes," Beck nodded, emphatically. "Just last week," He said. "He will probably tell you all about it himself, I know he wants to see the baby when it arrives. It promises to be a really successful place."
After Beck left, she felt exhausted and a little upset. "Their children will live like little princes," She thought to herself.
It was a warm summer evening. She opened the window to let in the air, but there was no breeze, the night was still and hot.
But something moved over by the bushes. "I believe it is that cat," She thought, and took off her slipper to throw it: but it vanished, and she put her slipper back on her foot, and waited by the window for her husband to come home from work.
A few weeks later her child was born. It was a girl, and everyone could see, though she was only a very small baby, she was very pretty; but when the wife saw her child, her new happiness vanished.
The child was pale, lacking her mother's olive complexion, but her skin was darker, around her eyes and forehead; and she looked a great deal like Ag.
"Take her away," She said to the midwife. "I am so tired."
So they took the baby away so that she could rest; but every day, though the wife fed and cared for her child, she could feel no love or kindness in her heart towards her, and she never played with, or sang to, her daughter.
"You are very quiet," Her husband said, one evening
"I am tired," Said the wife. "I have been feeding, changing, and caring for our daughter all day long, and on top of that I have the house to run. It is not as it is for my old friends and my family, who have help to do these things."
Her husband was surprised. "But you have very little to do," He exclaimed. "The baby is quiet and rarely demanding and this is a small house, and easy to run."
He was extremely put out, because he had been orphaned early, and ever since he remembered, this had been his dream, to walk up his own garden path, to see his own light in his own window, and to know that behind that window there was his wife, and his child, and his dinner on the table; and they would run forward to greet him and he would sit and relax in the warmth of their affection. This had always been his dream, and he was extremely taken aback to find that she was tired and not happy. Did she want for anything? He asked himself. Was there anything wrong with her husband, or her child? no, they all enjoyed good health.
So he was angry with her, and displeased, because he wanted his dream with all his heart, and he did not want his dream disturbed.
He spoke sternly to her, but, afterwards, as they lay side by side in the dark, he decided he would talk to his own friends about the problem the next day.
So the following day he spoke to his friend and he said, "My baby daughter is very well. I am very pleased with her, she is pretty and charming. But my wife is constantly peevish, and I do not know what to do about it. It is getting on my nerves."
But his friend advised him to wait, and said that his wife would settle down. "It is a good deal of work," She said. "The first months especially, and she is tied to the house. She cannot go and shop, and wander about the town, as she used to."
So the husband waited, but matters only became worse. The wife seemed now hardly able to bear her daughter's presence. She would wait until her husband's return, and then leave the baby with him while she visited with people she knew.
After a while he lost his temper with her, and he raged at her; but she only became sullen, and refused to speak. His dream was in ashes around him, there was never a light in his window when he came home after working long hours. Either the child had been put to bed early, or they had both gone out to see people; so that his wife need not be alone with the baby, or there was a stranger in the house, a woman his wife occasionally employed to take care of the baby.
As time went on the little girl turned from a quiet baby to quite an ill tempered child. She was very pretty and people liked her; but suddenly her face would twist up into a mask of rage, and she would scream and scream at the top of her lungs, and nobody could do anything with her, or for her.
And so it went on, and the whole household became very unhappy. The husband spent as much time as he could at work, and in the course of time he became closer to his friend, who was a handsome and sympathetic woman; and he began to conduct a secret liaison with her.
His wife never suspected. She knew herself to be lovely and intelligent, and it never crossed her mind that her husband, who worked so hard and diligently for his family, might be interested in another woman.
*****************************
One day, when the little girl was about five years old, Beck called on the wife. He saw her altered, her olive complexion pale, and dark shadows around her eyes.
"I see you have not got rid of that cat yet," He said
"Yes," She sighed. "We try whatever means we can, but he is like a black shadow, sneaking about."
"How are you, my dear?" He asked, sympathetically, as she threw herself into a chair with a gesture of hopelessness.
So she told him some of her story: but she told him only what she told everybody, that the little girl had an ill nature, and was very difficult, and she complained for a long time to her uncle of her trials with her daughter. But she did not tell him she had never loved, or even liked, her daughter, because she told nobody, as she feared censure.
"I wish she was not at home so much," She said. "If I could afford more help in the house, it would be better. But I cannot, and the times I have with her are dreadful. I have taken her to all the doctors, but none know what is the matter with her. I think there must be something wrong; she can be playing quietly one moment, and then screaming the next; and she is never really happy, except sometimes with her father. I am at my wits end."
Her uncle was thoughtful listening to her. "Where is the little girl now?" He asked her.
"I have a friend who takes her in the afternoon," Said the wife. "To tell you the truth, I wish she might keep her longer; but she cannot, and I can't pay anybody else, and uncle, please, tell no one else this. I would be so shamed if my family knew of my difficulties with my only child."
Uncle Beck promised, and he said; "Your family can help you here, I think. You should have turned to us before. Now, tell me, is there anything else happening around here? Anything odd?"
"No," She said. "Only the sprig of Rue's Colard." And she told Beck how, no matter if it was thrown away, it always returned, after she had washed her shawl.
"Rue's Colard!" He said. "Now, that is interesting. It is time, I think, that you let me speak to Ag about you. She is very wise, you know."
"No," Said the wife, looking darkly at him.
"I do not like that woman, and I will not have my private affairs discussed with her."
Just then, her neighbour brought in her daughter, who came in laughing and happy. When she saw Beck she changed as if she had taken a dislike to him; and she had a tantrum, and threw her little bag and little hat on the floor, and refused to go into the room when she was told.
When eventually the fuss died down and the little girl was sitting in the kitchen her mother returned to Beck. "You see the trials I have," She said, as she walked slowly to her chair, her head bowed, and tears in her eyes.
"That child," Said Beck. "Is the image of Ag when she was younger."
"Is she?" Asked the wife; she did not want to admit she had recognised the same resemblance in case he became aware of her dislike for her daughter.
"Yes," Said the uncle, but he looked excited. "You must give me permission to talk to Ag."
So the wife resisted, but it was no use; he was extremely persuasive, and she was exhausted by her difficulties with the child, so she relented and gave her permission.
"And where is your husband, this evening?" Beck asked, as he got up to leave.
"Oh, he will work late," Said the wife. "He has to work hard to keep the roof over our heads."
Beck looked at her shrewdly. but she did not notice. She was always very tired, because of the battles with her daughter, and it was time to put the child to bed, and to go to bed herself.
A week later, Beck returned. "How are you?" He asked her immediately.
"Oh, I have had a terrible week," Said the wife. "My husband and I are at odds, I am so tired I can hardly get his meals together, and he has been having to cook for himself, and it makes him angry with me."
"Well I have some news for you," Said Beck. "Ag wishes you to visit her."
"No!" Cried the wife. "I will not set foot in that house! I do not like Ag at all, and I do not want to visit her."
"Nevertheless, you must go," Said Beck. "I will be with you, to support you."
She wept, but she could see no solution, and she was beginning to be afraid that she had lost her husband's affection forever; so, after an hour of argument, she agreed she would visit Ag the following day.
*****************************
It was arranged the neighbour would take the child and the next day she set off. "At least," She thought, "It gives me a day away from my daughter." And she began to enjoy herself a little, it was a wintry day but bright and sunny. Over her coat she wore her old shawl, and around it, as always, there clung the fragrance of the stalk of Rues Colard which people had begun to notice when they came into her house; which she concealed by growing a little bush of jasmine in a plant pot, and by wearing jasmine, when she went out.
After quite a long journey she arrived at the old house. It was just as she remembered it, the marsh king in residence with his marsh court above the door.
The servant came to the door; and, inside, she thought, "How quiet it is here!" And the old musty scent of the house did not bother her as much as it had, because it was the same as the Rue's Colard, and she had begun to be quite used to that.
She even felt a stab of envy at the large hall with it's imposing, though drab, columns, and the sheen of polish over all the wooden furniture, at the sumptuous curtains which so carefully shielded the windows.
"Curtain's everywhere," She thought. At home, she liked her curtains pulled hard back so that the light of the day could linger in all her rooms.
Soon, she was with Ag, who sat in her chair, just as she had all those years ago. The hair that was visible under the intricate lace veil was perhaps a little more grey; but otherwise she seemed unchanged. Her eyes were still narrow and very dark and they still glittered as they watched the wife.
Beck was there in an easy chair over by the window, and he rose and welcomed the wife very kindly. "I am so glad you have come," He said.
But Ag said to him, "Leave us!"
"But I promised I would be with her," He said, pleadingly. "I cannot go."
"Nonsense," Said Ag. "She is an adult now, and not the pretty little girl she once was. She is a strong woman, stronger than she knows; and what I have to say to her is for her ears alone."
He begged her; but she was obdurate, and eventually the wife, who was very uncomfortable, sighed and told him he should leave. "You can come and get me after we have talked," She said. "When Ag rings the bell for her servant."
Reluctantly he left them; he was, apart from his affection for his niece, extremely curious, and he wished he might stay. Whatever happened, he felt he would never hear the whole truth of this conversation, afterwards.
When he had gone, Ag looked at the wife. "I would have liked to have seen your daughter," She said. "I hear she is very much like me."
"She is," Said the wife. "Only she is just a baby still, so it is not so noticeable, yet."
"Beck says she is exactly like me," Said Ag. "It is as I expected."
Then she fell silent, and the wife, who was being very careful in the conversation, looked around the room.
"Do you remember the time you came here when you were a little girl?" Asked Ag.
"Yes," Said the wife. "You gave me cinnamon cake, which I hated."
"I did." Said Ag. She saw the wife's gaze had strayed to the inlaid table, and it's pattern of the marsh king. She smiled and her lips were pale, and her smile was not pleasant, it was, as the wife thought, like a serpent’s smile.
"You are looking at that table," Said Ag. "And you are wondering about it. The truth is it is extremely ancient. Many hundreds of years ago it was made for an ancestor of mine, by the craftsmen who lived by the marshes."
"The wood is very dark," Said the young wife.
"Yes," Said Ag. "And it is not only age which makes it so dark. It is wood pulled from the bog there, in the marshes, beside the mountains. It was a very long time ago and this house, you noticed the marsh king over the door? He has been there since this house was built for our great grandfather, and it is quite old."
"I did not know," Said the wife. "I only ever knew it as your house. Was the marsh king over the door copied from the design on the table?"
Ag's glittering eyes looked sidelong at the table. "I told you the herb, Rue's Colard, grows only in the mountains," She said, softly. "It was not quite true. In fact, it grows in the marshes besides the mountains and the mountains I speak of are in a country a very long way away. Your father was always keen to modernise and forget the past, but it is not useful or profitable to forget the past. There were matters that concerned you that you should have been told, but no one told you so now I must."
The wife listened intently. "How will this help me with my daughter?" She asked.
"I will come to that," Said Ag, in a tone like a sharp knife. "Be patient, and listen, The day you came here as a child you spat out the cake I gave you, do you remember?"
"Of course," Said the wife, who was nettled by Ag's sharp tone; "I remember it perfectly. I thought you were trying to poison me."
"I was," Said Ag, and the young wife stared at her, opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing, and rose from her chair.
"No, sit down," Said Ag, impatiently. "You were a threat to me. I saw that. I hold all the power in this family, you know that? All of it, and it is much more than you know. All their financial dealings go back to me, and I hold all the secrets. I have made the family strong. It has been very profitable for me, but the family has benefited, too.
I saw immediately you were born, you were the threat I feared," Said Ag. "You are like me, you know. In your heart you know this."
The wife opened her mouth to deny it; but she realised in some respects, it was true.
"Be silent," Said Ag. "There is more to tell you. You were looking at the marsh king. Would you believe me if I told you he was an ancestor of ours?"
"No," Said the wife, horrified. "Why, he is inhuman. It cannot be," But, as she studied Ag closely, she saw that her white lips were like the marsh kings; and so were her narrow, heavy lidded eyes, and she began to believe that the story was true.
"Yes," Said Ag, nodding. "He was, and he was extremely powerful in his region, and also a great sorcerer. We are speaking of a very long time ago, many years before the table was made.
The marsh king lived in a great court. He had servants and soldiers and he was the terror of the land: and he had amassed a vast fortune in gold and precious stones. He levied a tax on all the country around and his influence spread far afield. And all around grew the Rue's Colard, for it is a very ancient herb. They say the marshes were blue, in the spring, with the clouds of Rue's Colard. There is something about the air there that made it grow,"
She looked thoughtfully off into the distance as if remembering unimaginable things; and the wife felt a great sense of revulsion for her, which Ag seemed to sense, for she brought her eyes back to the wife's face, which was pretty, though not as young as it had been; and she smiled again. "I see him in your face," She said.
The wife was angry, but she knew it was true. Though her own mouth was soft and red, there was something of the marsh king in the whole shape of her face, especially her eyes, which were large and full, but heavy lidded.
Ag smiled again. "Yes," She said. "But to return to my story.
It is true the herbalists used to make the long journey to the marshes to pick the Rue's Colard. But they were not common herbalists, none such would know the full use of the plant; it was only sorcerers that went looking for it. And, you are right, it is the poison I used to try to kill you when you were five years old, because you were a threat to me."
"I could have you arrested," Said the young wife.
"No," Said Ag. "Nobody would believe you. I am Ag, and I am respected and powerful. Few know the extent of my power but it is generally understood that I am a clever and extremely capable woman; whereas you are just a woman with few real friends who lives in a small house and is rather suspect in her dealings with her family; in fact, people have begun to wonder if she is not a little unbalanced."
"That is not true, " Said the wife, furiously. "No one thinks that of me. I am liked and admired everywhere. I am extremely intelligent and everyone who meets me realises this."
"Intelligent, yes," Said Ag. "But your life is not a success and you are often found weeping and exhausted. People are beginning to speak of you as one who bears an intractable burden, and they wonder what is the matter with you."
The wife was thoughtful for a while. "Return to your story," She said.
"I had to kill you," Ag went on. "But you knew when I tried to kill you. I did not realise you would know; I was surprised, and I respected you for it. I saw you spit out the cake as soon as you tasted it, and you glared at me hatefully.
I knew then I should have to handle things differently, and I did fear the power that I knew was within you, because I knew it was more than mine, and you could unseat me; but as you grew I knew that I must accept the inevitable, and hand the authority of this family over to you when the time came.
"But the time has never come," Said the wife.
"True," Said Ag. "I realised I had to bow to fate and support your case, for the sake of the future prosperity of this family. And I was ready for this. But when the time came for you to marry, we all saw that your choice was made against the family. You had chosen a different road, and had rejected your family and your ancestral power. I knew this. So did others in the family."
"I rejected nothing," Said the wife. "I fell in love, and married, that is all."
"No," Said Ag. "When you were sixteen I gave your father a sum of money for a specific reason, that he should use it to train you, and to protect you and to guide you to the path that would have brought you to your position at the head of this family. But you quarrelled with your father and told him you did not accept his money or his protection, and you left his home."
"I was very independent," The wife asserted. "My father constrained my liberty, and I felt that he sought to dictate to me. I had no idea you were behind that.
I have not been able to think kindly of my father since that time."
"Then you chose to marry one such who would never follow our families path," Said Ag. "He does not like us."
"He likes Beck," Said the wife. "He isn't keen on my parents, or my other uncles, that is all."
"He wants to be the big man," Said Ag contemptuously. "He is not one of us and would never follow our road, which would, in fact, make him a very wealthy and successful man. No. He has his own problems; he must, to have been attracted to such as you."
"He loves me!" Cried out the wife.
"No," Said Ag. "He does not. He is attracted to something within you, but he has no idea what you truly are, or truly might be. He would not like it if he knew, because it would frighten him. He likes pretty submissive women, and he has, as I said, his own problems.
But to return to my tale. We knew you had made your choice when you married him. Your dream and his are the same. He wanted above all else a little cottage, and a little wife, and a little child waiting for him. You are just a prop in his dream: you are just the background, and it gives him a sense of security.
But for you, this became your dream once you turned away from the wealth and power that might have been yours, you invented a new dream and it was in itself a rejection of the old dream; you invented a new dream like a child’s drawing of a little house: front door, two windows upstairs and two down, and a scribble of smoke coming from the chimney. You have been fooling each other because your dream is only invented and his dream is not real either. He is quite other than you think.”
The wife was extremely unsettled and angry. "None of this is true or relevant," She said. "My husband and I understand each other very well.
I rejected my fathers assistance because to accept would have cost me my liberty; and he was too strict with me.”
“You could have taken your road again, after the child was born,” Said Ag. “You could have gone out and found yourself work. You would have found your way to prosperity; and the family would have helped you. You could have paid someone to look after your daughter, and so avoided the problem altogether.”
“He likes me to be at home,” Said the wife. “He does not want me to work.”
“Do you really think he cares one way or another?” Asked Ag, ironically. “So long as the house runs smoothly what does he care what you do with your day?”
It was true, and the wife was silent. “What of my daughter?" She asked, after a few moments. “I came to hear about my daughter.”
“Ah,” Said Ag. “She is like me and like you. Only she could be much more than you. You struggle against her; it does not matter. You could send her to us and we would raise her in all the old ways and she will be a formidable force at the head of this family. I am growing old now, and I am ready and very willing to devote the rest of my days to the training of the child who will take over from me, when I am gone. Because it is of the utmost importance that our family continues.”
Despite herself, and even though she was very angry, the wife found herself thinking the proposition was attractive. Her daughter would have the best of everything and she would be free at last.
Ag was serious, she knew and would not try to harm the child but would raise her well.
“No,” She said, standing up and making ready .to leave. “I will not do it.”
“You will,” Said Ag. “Eventually you will.”
“Her father would never permit it,” Said the wife.
“We have many ways in which we operate,” Said Ag. “He would capitulate sooner or later. He would give her over freely and thankfully.”
“You have not told me everything,” Said the wife. “I am leaving now. I think you are a deceitful, vain and arrogant woman and I know you are capable of murder, too.”
But Ag only smiled. “The choice is still yours,” She said. “Just think. On one hand, great prosperity, wealth, and prestige, and a secure future for your daughter and her children. You could live like a queen, with servants, too, and eventually you would live in my house, which, of course, you may refurbish in any way you like. You would be revered within the family, the head of the family.
On the other hand, you have a life full of difficulty. You walk a stony, desolate, barren road which leads only to darkness and no little extras, little comforts, to help you through.”
The wife did not reply, but turned to leave.
At the door, she said; "What of the Rue’s Colard? Why is it in the valley, now, so far from its original marshland?”
Ag’s slow smile was the worst the wife had ever seen; so full of a terrible and unthinkable knowledge.
“Ah,” She said. “Times have changed. Are changing. It is more beneficial here, for us and the Rue’s Colard, than it once was. The air is much more suitable, now.”
Beck was in the room beside the front door; he came out to her, and was very solicitous, as she was extremely distraught.
“Give me a moment,” She said. “I will recover.”
He talked to her, and tended her, until she felt better. He was insanely curious. “Can you tell me nothing of what passed between you and Ag?” He asked.
“Nothing,” She said.
He offered to accompany her home, and she gratefully accepted. She had so much to think about, it was good to have him there.
“Did you ever hear of the marsh king?” She asked.
“Just stories,” Said Beck. “My father told me, when I was little. “Funny little folk tales! I believe that is the marsh king, and his court, over the lintel of Ag’s house.”
The wife collected her daughter and paid her neighbour. As she fed her daughter and put her to bed she thought, “I have to love you, or I am lost.” Then she would think, “I cannot love her. She is like Ag!”
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