Spinning Silver

by Naomi Novik

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have thought for an instant she’d have trouble with the court; a woman who can coolly bargain with a demon that wants to gnaw on her soul is hardly to be intimidated by Lord Reynauld D’Estaigne. Or, more to the point, by her husband. I could already see the freshly hideous future taking shape ahead of me. I was going to be stuck with her. My blasted demon was going to snatch at her offer with both clawed hands, Aunt Felitzja was going to be delighted at the chance to marry Ilias off to a rich princess, my entire court already thought her enchantingly beautiful, and my councillors were really going to adore my having a wife who would listen to them prose on about tax rolls and then come and harangue me for hours in their stead, since I couldn’t send her away. And everyone would love her as absolutely no one did me. Oh, and five minutes from now she’d undoubtedly inform me that she expected me to consummate this relationship, so she could pop out an heir or two to still more general acclaim. After which I wouldn’t be the least surprised to find a knife sticking out of my back some morning. There was a gruesome inevitability to it all. My life has been a sequence of monsters one after another tossing me about to suit their whims; I’ve got a finely tuned sense for when another round of buffeting has arrived.