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her, she would have to use the skills of any ordinary woman. Perhaps she could starve herself. She remembered hearing her nurse gossip about a servant who had eaten only one piece of bread every day and concealed her pregnancy for more than seven months.
    At that moment a maid entered with a tray of food. She often ate in her room now, avoiding the dining hall and her husband’s coldness as much as possible. She could tell from the savory smell that her meal was some sort of venison stew.
    The maid stopped and gaped at the destruction of the room. I am a queen , she reminded herself. She stood, summoning all her dignity. “Leave the tray on the window seat,” she commanded. “I will be taking a walk in the garden after I eat. Have the room tidied before I return.”
    Her maids had grown scornful, but this one had enough sense to obey. Likely, she thought her fate would be the same as the painting’s if she did not. She set the tray down, curtsied, and fled the room.
    There was stew, thick and full of meat. And wine. Rich red wine, the one truly fine thing that came from this country. She stared at the bowl. Her stomach rumbled. It seemed like she was always hungry now. It was ridiculous. When she was pregnant with Thalia she hadn’t been able to eat a thing for months.
    With a girl, pale and drawn. With a boy, healthy and strong . Her ancient nurse’s words came back to her. The thought made her laugh: a strange, barking, humorless sound.
    She threw the bowl of stew into the fire. It hissed and sizzled, filling the room with foul smoke. She was about to throw the bread into the grate as well, but her grumbling stomach protested. It was only necessary to slow the baby’s growth. Wolfishly she gobbled the bread, then sat and drank the wine. She watched her supper burn and waited for the air to clear.
    When her glass was empty she put it down and slipped her arms around her belly once more. She remembered sitting like this when her daughter was growing within her. Then she had been revered, her child wanted, the birth anticipated by everyone. “Thalia,” she whispered, “have you cursed me?”
    She rose, threw her cloak around her shoulders, and left the room.

I.viii.
    They had cut her hair so that it hung around her shoulders in lank, jagged chunks. It looked as though it had been chopped with a scythe. Sycorax was dressed in nothing but a dingy white shift, her feet bare and chapped, her toes curling against the rough wooden planks.
    It had not taken them long to discover her secret. She had become sloppy after eating nothing for three days except water, red wine, and a little bread. The maids found the half-burned food. Her ordinary woman’s plan was easily understood by the ordinary women around her. The news had spread throughout the palace. She supposed that saved her. Alonso had been quick in sending the doctor. His examination had been short and brutal, conducted while her husband looked on, his eyes blazing. “You thought you could hide this from me,” he’d hissed. She’d made no reply.
    She had not expected to live. They had charged her with witchcraft and thrown her into prison. They left her there, in the dank, for a week. Finally, the sentence was brought down. She was to be taken by ship to some remote, unchartered place and left there. The judge said she could find mercy at the hands of God and nature.
    At first she’d thought that they meant to sail out some distance and then throw her into the sea, but it had been five days now and they still brought her the pathetic bread and water to drink each morning and night. It seemed that Alonso could not bear the title of “baby killer.”
    That made her laugh, her new dry, empty laugh. How many babies had he and his soldiers killed in all the years he’d warred against other lands? But his own child, however hated, must be shown mercy. She remembered, with infinite irony, how he hoped