When the sound of a stable boy being whipped reached the royal wet nurse through the nursery window, a thought struck her. She would switch out the prince for her own son. There’s no limit to the lengths a mother will go. None. The King wouldn’t notice, aggrieved as he was by the loss of his Queen in childbirth, drinking all day with his brother, the wretched Duke.
You see, the wet nurse’s left breast had grown hard as a rock from which flowed no milk and the prince, who had first suck on the right, took and took. She gazed down upon the prince, her greedy charge. And what of her son? If she didn’t act, it would be a stable boy’s life for him, no doubt and the stablemaster’s lash with it.
Late that night, she swaddled her own babe in the prince’s swaddling cloth and, in haste, prepared a basket with the prince in it for the orphanage’s steps
Pausing like a shadow in the moonlit hall, she overheard the Duke and the King deep in their cups.
“How can he stand the taste of common milk?” asked the Duke. “I imagine it tastes like piss. How can you let that gypsy girl feed your son? I’ve heard her kind gobble babies!”
The King mumbled.
“Well,” the Duke continued, “if you’re too heartbroken, turn the crown over to me and I’ll rule in your stead. The country cries out for strong leadership. Today, we’re handing our children over to babyeaters. What will the morrow hold?”
There was a crash of chalices. The wet nurse thought it best to be on her way and she slipped off to finish her task. What mother didn’t want to see her son ascend the throne, she thought and this prompted her to think: How many sons of wet nurses had already ascended thrones without a drop of royal blood in their veins?
The next day, the King was called away to visit his army on the war front. Before leaving, he came into the nursery and kissed the babe farewell. “My son,” the King sighed, resting his hands on the pommel of his sword. A sad tenderness came off the man. The wet nurse bade the King goodbye with a deep bow.
Her son grew fussy. A week of insomnolence elapsed at a lumbering pace. Days and nights passed like spokes on a wheel. When her weariness overtook her, she finally fell asleep in the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery. The sleep was deep and welcome. She awoke, though, with a start, seeing the Duke holding a pillow over her son’s face. She was upon him, driving her fingernails into his eyes.
The two fell to the nursery floor. Without a weapon, the wet nurse did something she did not know she was capable of. She bit his throat. His windpipe collapsed between her teeth. Blood filled her mouth. Pushing herself up off the dying Duke, she checked her son. His lips were blue. She ran from the nursery to find the royal surgeon. In the hall, she collided with the King. He saw her blood-smeared mouth and hands. She saw horror in his eyes. He drew his sword, fed it into her and the milk of her heart finally flowed from her left breast.
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Ross Nervig is a storyteller living in Nova Scotia. His work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Bluestem Journal, Bayou Magazine, Adroit Journal, Southwest Review, and Huffington Post. He is currently a MFA candidate in Fiction at the University of New Orleans. www.rossnervig.com
Photo: Nynne Schrøder
