I turned my attention to Nathia, who fled out of the Great Hall and toward our apartments, ignoring my every call for her to slow down and explain herself. After we had both entered into our bedchamber, she turned and faced me, sniffling and wiping her eyes. She appeared to expect me to apologize for having embarrassed her in front of a few ladies of the court, but I was ready to tear into her.
“How stood you there as they insulted her? They spoke such disgraceful things and you laughed along with them!”
“Me? I do wrong? You humiliated us! Oh, I shall never forget their awful stares as they realized that she was my sister-in-law! The shame they must have cast!” She moaned and threw her hands before her face, but I would not suffer the act.
“If there was any shame to share it should have been theirs at having spoken such lewd lies of a woman they knew not. Do you realize, Nathia, that they judge her because she is southern, as are you?”
She scoffed, insulted that I would suggest such a thing. “I am from Green, which is not in Allonia and not southern!”
“No, your mother is from Green. With a name like Nathia Fournet, you could only have a father whose Beautav ancestors settled in Allonia after their eviction from Hilleana. You are as Allonian as I am!”
“My father died when I was but a child. I have always lived by my mother’s influence, dressing and behaving in a manner suitable to an Acrolan noblewoman. That is what they mock; southern style, not blood or residence.”
“I had no idea you resented my sister or my style so,” I responded calmly. I found my way under her skin, but she deserved it after what she had done.
“I have garbed myself properly—-in gowns of cost appropriate to my station, and cuts that befit anyone beyond a whore! And I behave according to Acrolan etiquette, rather than flirting, doing and saying as I please.”
“So you hate her for being a product of her own upbringing, just as I am a result of the selfsame background?”
“You will always take her side, will you not?” She threw herself onto the bed. “Very well, then. Go—-let you sleep with her if she will be more comfort to you. If no one takes up my cause I shall sleep my days out in solace.”
Her voice had reached a holler by this point, and I was not surprised to hear Matthew begin crying in the adjoining nursery. Nathia was playing dead on the bed now, refusing to acknowledge my attempts at reasoning with her. So I went to the nursery, grabbed my son into my arms and brought him back to my bedchamber, where I rocked him and told him everything would be fine.
“Will your voice never cease to haunt my ears?” Nathia barked at me with no warning. “I told you to leave me in peace!”
She was truly agitated, and I saw now how humiliated she was with my behavior. Perhaps I should have run to her then and apologized for everything, promising that I would always support her over her perceived enemies. But I was too upset with her to do any such thing, and Matthew needed comforting. So instead, I ferried the child out of the room and took him on a walk down a few nearby corridors, telling him a story about a nun falling in love. When we returned, nearly an hour later, Nathia had fallen asleep truthfully, so I put Matthew and me to bed.
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