The Kindness Curse

the brutes in the first wagon, so she kept her silence and let them believe she was tired. Their consideration for her comfort was most gratifying. Yet these people were strangers, not her servants. What was wrong with them, to be so kind to a total stranger?
When they reached the town, the smallness of it stunned her. The way the girls had talked, she expected a major city, with an enormous merchant district. This place boasted only four streets of merchant and artisan shops. She counted only four inns, a barracks and a courthouse. Merrigan didn't doubt the circuit judge only rode out here once every four moons. There was a town square, with a well, a dancing floor, and a dais for musicians. How could the girls have been so pink-cheeked with excitement over ... this?
She forgot her disdain for this disappointment that called itself a town when she stepped down from the wagon. She looked down into a watering trough between her and the steps up to the raised walkway around the town square. Merrigan stared, horrified, at the sagging jowls and pale skin, the red-rimmed eyes that looked like ashes rather than the dusky crystals praised by simpering courtiers. Leffisand had always teased that he preferred her eyes filled with sparks, ready to flame with righteous indignation. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were nearly nonexistent, her nose was twice as long and had a definite downward hook. She saw a protruding mole on her chin, another on her cheekbone and a third between her eyebrows. Her hair had once been so lustrous thick and dark that court poets described it as midnight velvet stolen from the skies. Now it was thin to the point she feared she had bald spots, and that peculiar shade of white that was no color at all.
Clara had indeed cursed her. Who would ever believe her when she said she was the queen of Carlion?
Yet that filthy brute who accused her of working with faeries had given her an idea. People still expected to be rewarded by majjians if they did outstanding things or ridiculously simple kindnesses. Didn't they? If the folks hereabouts thought faeries were interfering, then she could convince the fools that helping her would earn them a reward from the fairies. Or hedge witches. Or minor enchanters. Or faerie godmothers.
If all else failed, she could follow the stories of magic at work until she found the nearest majjian and request help. As long as that person hadn't heard what Clara of the Pools had done to her. There had to be some rivalry among majjians. If she was lucky, she would find someone with a grudge against Clara, and convince them to help her to spite the seer.
"Are you all right, Granny?" the farmer's wife asked, gripping Merrigan's elbow as if she thought she was about to fall over.
"Perfectly fine. Just thinking deep thoughts."
"Where do you plan to go from here?"
"I would like to see the world. Now that my husband is gone, and his property has gone to his kinfolk." She caught her breath, knowing that was happening in Carlion right that moment.
She had never met any of Leffisand's relatives, other than his wretched healer cousin, Rafal, until the funeral. The greedy graspers insisted Leffisand was an evil, scheming brute who had exiled them. They were likely stripping the palace of its riches. That horrid Rafal had likely proclaimed himself king. Did anyone pity her, as the childless widow? No. She had no claim to the throne because she hadn't given Leffisand a child. So she had gone to Clara for help. Why did the woman take offense that she had lied about being pregnant, so she could stay queen? How hard would it have been to give Merrigan a child conceived through magic? Why was it so horrid a thing?
What right did Clara have to call her selfish and cruel and arrogant, and condemn her to wander the world until she learned kindness? A queen who was kind and generous was weak, simply asking people to trample over her. Kindness would make her a target for the cruel and arrogant and selfish.
Just like her mother, Queen Daylily. Hadn't being kind ultimately killed her mother?
"Yes," she said, catching her breath, fighting not to shudder with her fury over the injustices that had hit her, one after another, until a lesser woman would have crumpled. "I want to see the world. I want to find magic and wonder and see incredible things."
"Well, you are equipped for travel. Do you have a cloak for when it rains?" The farmer's wife gestured at the heavy bag that had been hanging at Merrigan's hip this entire time.
Of course, she hadn't looked into it. Who had time, when they were struggling to escape a barbaric forest and find civilization? Merrigan let the farmwife check her possessions, to see if she was supplied. She had a shawl, extra stockings, extra underclothes, a spare shirtwaist and skirt, an eating knife, and a few slim bound volumes. Merrigan couldn't believe Clara could be so kind, and knew her love of books. A moment later, she knew she had been right. The first book was a collection of homilies on thinking virtuous thoughts and acting with generosity and honor.
The other two volumes were poetry, and tales of the actions of majjian folk. Merrigan wondered if the book had been there before or after she resolved to find someone with magic to pity her and help her. Was Clara taunting her, helping her, or warning her?
The farm family insisted she should share their dinner at the finest inn in town. Then they asked a merchant friend to help her on her journey, by letting her ride in his wagon to the next town on his route. Merrigan thought that was highly generous of them, and quite unexpected. She was just stunned enough to listen to the prompting from her childhood memories. Her first nanny, Starling, had gently scolded her