The Duchess Read online

  “In my country it is a great honor to be chosen as the Pearl of the Moon. There is no other way a girl of my class can hope to escape the daily struggle of trying to find enough to eat. And when a girl is chosen, she may select eight other young women to be her maids. In all, nine young women get relief from their agony, I forever and my chosen friends have enough to eat for five full years. It is the greatest honor a girl can hope for. I was most fortunate to have been chosen.”

  Claire gave Nyssa a patronizing look. “Yes, I am sure it was a high honor, but you escaped. You have been able to get free of that dreadful place and now you can do what you want.”

  Nyssa tipped her head back to look at Trevelyan. “She will not understand, will she?”

  Trevelyan gave a brief shake of his head.

  “It’s you two who don’t understand. You act as though this pagan religion has some merit. I can’t imagine such a thing as this! Young, beautiful women being killed to honor some idol. I can’t—”

  She stopped because Trevelyan had reached out to her, his face angry, but Nyssa put her hand on his arm. “No,” she said softly, then she lifted her head to look at the two men by her tent. “Leave us,” she said, then nodeed toward Trevelyan, too.

  When the men had walked to the bottom of the hill and the flute music had stopped, Claire took a deep breath. “Now you’re out of danger,” she said. “If we run—”

  “No!” Nyssa said sharply. “Can you see nothing but what you already know? No one is forcing me to do this. I do this because I believe in it.”

  Claire could feel her own anger rising. “You want to die so you will be beautiful forever? I hardly think that a rotting corpse is a beautiful sight.”

  “I do this because it is what I believe.”

  “But it’s wrong!” Claire half shouted, and Trevelyan started toward them, but Nyssa waved him away.

  “It is different, that is all, and I am ashamed for you that you think I would give up my life for physical beauty. The death of the Pearl of the Moon has happened every fifty years for centuries and it has kept my city safe. If the tradition is broken then Pesha will be broken.”

  Claire gave a sigh of relief. “It’s not the death of women that has kept Pesha hidden, but lack of communication, lack of transportation. Someday there will be trains into Pesha. And it will happen in your lifetime.”

  “Not in my lifetime, for I die today.”

  Claire’s apprehension returned. “Pesha has already been found,” she said quickly. “So your death will be useless. Captain Baker found it. If he can get in, many others can. Queen Victoria will send hundreds of soldiers to Pesha. It has already happened. You can’t stop it. And certainly your death can’t stop it.” Claire’s face brightened. “You could go around the world telling people of your religion. You speak English so very well. You can educate the world. You can—”

  Claire stopped because Nyssa had motioned to Trevelyan to come forward. Trevelyan walked to Claire, then picked her up by the waist and held her to him.

  “Stop it!” Claire said to Trevelyan, trying to kick him. “Release me and go get help. I think she means to stand by and allow those savages to kill her. You have to stop this.”

  “No,” Trevelyan said into her ear. “This is what Nyssa wants to do.”

  Claire stopped struggling and twisted to look at Trevelyan. “This is what you’ve meant these last days, isn’t it? You kept saying that Nyssa is to be allowed to do whatever she wants.” She pulled back from him. “You’ve know about this all along, haven’t you? You’ve always known that she meant to die.”

  “I knew in Edinburgh when she wanted her cup.”

  “Cup? What cup?” Claire’s voice was rising in pitch. “What cup?”

  Trevelyan nodded toward Nyssa. One of the dark men was pouring a liquid into the crude cup that Nyssa had made Trevelyan get from Jack Powell’s house in Edinburgh. For a moment Claire was absolutely still, Trevelyan’s arm about her waist. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, what she had just heard.

  As Nyssa put the cup to her lips, Claire screamed and began to fight Trevelyan. Claire kicked and clawed at his hands, she twisted and turned and tried with all her strength to force him to release her, but he held her strongly and firmly.

  Only when Nyssa had drunk all that was in the cup did Trevelyan release her. Claire practically fell on Nyssa, grabbing her, sticking her fingers down Nyssa’s throat, trying to force her to vomit. All the while, Claire was screaming, “Help me! Help me!” but not one of the three men moved. They just stood there watching.

  Nyssa didn’t vomit and the poison stayed in her.

  Claire was by now holding Nyssa, and she could feel her small body growing limp. “Take care of him,” Nyssa whispered. “He loves you.” Nyssa took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and looked toward the setting sun. “Be sure that my cup is returned to the next Pearl of the Moon.”

  With that, Nyssa’s body went limp in Claire’s arms. “Nyssa,” she said, then louder, “Nyssa!” Claire began to shake her.

  Trevelyan pulled Claire away from the body. “They will take care of her now.” To the side the man began playing the flute again in that hideous, mournful tune.

  Claire was dazed. She had just witnessed the suicide of a woman she had come to love. She looked up at Trevelyan. “You could have stopped this,” she said. “You knew she was going to do this. You heard that man play the flute at the theater.”

  “Yes,” Trevelyan said softly. “I knew it was time. The Pearl of the Moon performs her dance of death no more than three days before she dies.”

  Claire turned away from him to look at Nyssa. If possible, she was more beautiful in death than she had been in life. Claire turned back to Trevelyan. “How could you have allowed this?” she whispered. “How could you have stood here and allowed this to happen?” Her voice was growing louder. “You could have stopped this. You could have done something.”

  “I do not decide other people’s lives for them,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

  Claire knew he was referring to the two of them as well as to Nyssa. “You don’t care, do you? You don’t care enough about me or about Nyssa. You let her die because you don’t care about anyone or anything except your precious books.”

  Behind her the flute had stopped playing and the two men were beginning to move. Claire turned and when she saw the men, with their hideous blue stripes painted on their dark bodies, she couldn’t bear to see them touch Nyssa. It was these men and their primitive religion that had persuaded a simple girl like Nyssa that she had to die for their beliefs.

  “Get away,” Claire screamed at the men. “Don’t you touch her. Do you hear me, don’t touch her!”

  The two men stepped back, not understanding Claire’s words but understanding her tone. One of the men reached for the cup, but Claire grabbed it first. She held it and looked at it, set with its crude rubies, and she hated the cup. She saw a rock nearby and she thought she would smash the cup.

  Like a sleepwalker, she stood up and walked toward the rock, the cup held in her outstretched hand. She raised her arm to bring it down against the rock but Trevelyan caught her wrist and held it.

  “You cannot,” he said quietly. “It was Nyssa’s wish that the cup be taken back to her people.”

  “So someone else can die from it?” Claire half yelled at him.

  Trevelyan still held her wrist and locked eyes with her. “Yes. The cup is older than we can imagine.” He looked at the cup, his eyes sad. “They put a ruby on it for every Pearl of the Moon who has drunk from it and died.”

  With horror on her face, Claire looked at the cup she held, at all the many, many rubies on it. She opened her hand to let the disgusting object fall. Trevelyan caught it before it hit the rock.

  Claire took a step away from him, looking from him to the cup then back to Trevelyan’s face. “You knew all of this and yet you allowed it to happen,” she whispered.

  Behind her the two men were again moving