Summary:
Lady Elizabeth Sheeks is unhappy about her upcoming marriage to Steelius Mercutio, a cruel and arrogant man. She watches from her bedroom window as his entourage arrives at her home, and she is filled with dread. She knows that her life will be miserable once she is married to him.
Elizabeth tries to find comfort in the fact that she is not the only one who is unhappy about the marriage. The servants who are tasked with welcoming Steelius don't know they will be miserable, and have to suffer under his rule.
Elizabeth knows that there is nothing she can do to stop the wedding, so she resigns herself to her fate. She closes the curtains and tries to block out the sound of Steelius's arrival.
The next day, Elizabeth attends the "Ball of Introduction" where she is formally introduced to Steelius as his future wife. She is forced to dance with him, and she can feel his eyes on her every moment. She knows that this is just the beginning of her nightmare.
Woe to the man that toucheth a Sheeks' woman. For if he heeded the warning, then the beloved innocents of our tale wouldst hath sooner escaped death.
Cry out, o' kingdom of Callea, and look upon this our pitiful house. Woe is ours. We art too late, and our haste ist to blame. Intrigue hast seeped through the proud walls of Sheeks’ Manor. Who shalt pre'ent us? And where ist Pity? For we art so soon a grave people, that we might wot her not.
Lady Elizabeth Sheeks paced thither the window, wrung her hands, and fumed. Her fiance was expected at any moment, though the least desired of men. Piffle for hope. Pleas for salvation from his grasp fell on deaf ears. Not a soul in all the kingdom wouldst dare save her now, and risk their own perfumed necks.
An ominous gong from a grandfather clock chimed its noon death toll, signaling the turn of e'ents that leadeth to all things despised.
The skies flashed and clapped in fury, mirroring the tumult of her soul. They hammered down harsh strips of waters to rising grey puddles, submerging an array of white and tan stones.
She held herself, as she stared from the floor-to-ceiling window of her bedroom suite; situated on the bottom floor across from the rounded cobblestone courtyard.
Her eyelids fluttered. Powdered nostrils flared out a lingering sigh. A slight tingle, and thence a twitch. O’ what a weary woe to this day, and greater to those who were doomed to breathe its hour.
A cool whispering slip of wind creeped in through the faint crack of the panes, letting in the fragrance of oleanders, and the remnants of the lost morning dew. The bumps of her flesh raised. The fateful hour approacheth, and he wast late.
O’ that fate may grant that something pre'ented him, and she might be able to forbear him e’en a day longer.
Down the hall from her sumptuous apartments, a homage to Her Majesty Marie Antoinette’s style, female servants bustled and brambled with their mixed talk. They busied in vain, if only to please their ‘honorable’ and thankless guest.
All talked of the espousal contract of the season, and with plain ignorance. None couldst recognize the truth, else they wouldst mourn with her. On this day she signed no marriage agreement, but her own death warrant.
O’ that her mother might put her selfish ambitions aside, and let her alone. O’ how that she shouldst thence dream to wot some manner of peace and sweet contentment. Under how many moons these past sixth months didst she press for release?
Elizabeth closed her eyes and quivered them. A vain thought. Her mother, the old bat, wouldst sooner die than bear the burden of being humane.
The whisper of the winds carried the distant clopping of horseshoes. Her eyes opened slow. He came, and ‘twas e’er to her detriment. Though sight was not as well through a thick layer of tears, 'twas hard to miss the beginning of an end.
White steeds in pairs of fours, draped in pale blue velvets, drew forth in a kilometer-long line of white and gold-trimmed carriages. They clacked in all their pageantry, and stopped ere the wide front steps of the manor.
She seethed. There was not a tittle of glamor alive in its vanity, but the show wast a cruel reminder of who controlled her fate.
Dozens of short puffy men poured out of the carriages, bedecked in silk fineries of colors matching their steeds. Piffle, the lot.
Hadth they shame? Ne’er. The whole party, both man and animal, were dressed better than all the ragged peasant realm, which at that time exceeded thrice the kingdom.
They muttered, as they scrambled like a band of jesters, to open the pearl-handled coach doors.
Elizabeth scoffed. Verily, these servants didst him little credit in yet further ways. Didst they not possess order, like good little soldiers? Wast no decorum, nor discipline, to be found in them outside of a glittering ceremonious appearance? Or were they like a pack of loyal naive dogs; impatient to look upon their master, with whom all their hopes and favor rested? E’er wagging their tails, and for mere scraps.
He waited on the other side; he who was, to her alone, the most unwelcome of all men in all ages of all the realms.
Elizabeth carelessly graced her fingertips across the edge of her dry lips. She watched for her betrothed with a scornful glare, as her finger traced down to her rising chin.
Her soft and heated breaths, which still smelled of this morning’s red wine, warmed the little window pane and clouded it. It obscured her view. She allowed the marring, lest she’d find herself eager to see him.
The cool wind whispered into her widened eyelashes. A burn fell o'er her eyes. They were only close to another bitter flooding of tears.
Stronger strips of rain, roaring like a waterfall, beat down on the balding heads of his scattered retinue. Hmph. Right thing. The skies punished justly for their disgraceful loyalty to their unworthy liege.
They pooled together in the torrent, like a flock of penned sheep. ‘Twas a wonder why they hasted not to open his door.
Peradventure Steel waiteth for the right moment to give the order, for he liked their suffering.
Abuse was naught new to servants of this realm. All courtiers suffered their portion in pains, and e’en sought them with wide smiles. For any price. There wast no trial they wouldst not endure, if it meant they might keep his futile and seemingly ‘undying’ favor.
They wanted for wisdom, and they served the air. Their wages were merely a few pence and his easy temper.
Her fair blue eyes narrowed as she sighed again.
She couldst taste the salt of her tears entering the tightened corners of her mouth. The floods of sorrow, built fully in her like a dam, couldst no longer be held back from the crevices in her eyes. This wast her future she looked upon with such scorn, and this all her sorrow. She couldst forbear him no longer.
Drops of tears tapped her big toe.
Her palms, fully stained in sweat, pressed against the cold glass as she leaned in to get a good view. ‘Twas strange. Wast it not? ‘Twas no goodly thing to be reminded of his existence, that she shouldst also be forced to share in it. Howbeit, there wast yet a queer curiosity in gazing upon the source of one’s doom.
She winced as she gulped down the acid that rose in her throat.
They broke their cluster now, and made haste to line up; a curved wall of men on both sides, forming a path to the doorway like human hedges.
The footman, singled out in a white and blue hat tipped with large white plumes, opened his door.
Thence, his appearance appeared. His Royal Highness, and her intended future husband, Steelius Mercutio. Not yet Rex.
He plucked down from the carriage, and then gazed o'er the house with a pleased grin. For a surety, this meant not that he liked the manor well. ‘Twas doubtful that a mere manor could impress a prince, but his arrival wast the long-awaited next step in furthering his ambitions.
He treated his retinue as absent, as he hastened to the front door.
Elizabeth pressed tighter against the glass, as he flew to her right, and more out of her vision. Her cheek chilled as it flattened against the damp pane. Both wet hands squeezed and pressed. She breathed another misty cloud, obscuring all her view. O’ woe. Weary, weary woe. Her end nigh approacheth yet further still.
She held her breath, that the glass may clear.
He, addressed as ‘Steel,’ lowered his uncrowned head, being shielded from the downpour by his servants’ sunken coats. His trimmed and neatly swept dark hair kept its perfect place. Bah. Kingdom forbid that his clean appearance shouldst dare be marred by the skies' protests, lest it offend his vanity.
He hastened thither the white quarried stone steps, clacking and clopping his iron-heeled boots like horses’ shoes.
Elizabeth thinned her eyes and lips.
His red velvet cape dragged a trail of mud in his wake, and left a dreadful mess for her poor servants to scrub.
How she pitied them. She wanted no share in their sufferings, yet she coveted their status, inasmuch as he disliked the latter and her want of them.
Piffle. There wast nothing well-favored of Steel. Nay, if she couldst so withstand his presence any better than the sight of him afar off, thence only the little better she might suffer.
His vanity, temper, and a blatant lack of morality were only a mild portion of the offenses caused by the presence of Steelius Mercutio.
None dared to shew how oft hadth a smell of the foulest sort: well reputed to stink of mugwort hair oil, salted wet brimstone that lived under his boots, and lips of mead.
Steel wist this naught, and to his own misfortune. His retinue were the masters of still faces; careful to shew themselves not offended to the strength of his presence, lest they incur his wrath and their lost wages.
Elizabeth shuddered.
Who wast made to suffer these things for all her days? Only ‘Lady’ Elizabeth Sheeks, who deserved all the pity for such unjust punishment, and yet she found none.
Only one man in all the kingdom of all the realms was moved for her, but it bought her salvation not.
Elizabeth humphed.
She pulled away from the window, now stained with smeared prints. She slammed the velvet curtains, the color of fading blood, shut.
The unworthy spectacle outside ended, bringing anent the indistinct mutterings from the cluster of guests; crying aloud with both relief and elation. They wouldst do better to wail and grie'e, as at a funeral, for he wast their doom.
Elizabeth’s ears fumed as she crossed her arms, and thence paced.
The ‘Ball of Introduction’ awaited tonight, and e'ery important eye in the kingdom shalt witness their interlude.
O’ how they spake. Look! O’ the grace of their dance. How their e'ery glance wouldst be weighed and discussed. She wished in vain for a savior to spare her this wretched course, for which the ball itself ist a celebration.
Elizabeth sniveleth her lip. This kingdom wast confounding. What wast so magnificent to be said in truth of the praised prince, Steelius Mercutio? He wast no soldier nor hero, or a man of any ‘real’ honor.
The little rows of medals perched on his left breast were unearned; from decades of ceremonies planned ere his birth, and only awarded ‘because’ he wast born, though even this wast no feat of his own. There stood naught more to his tinkling metal circles and ribbons, than to impress his vain and ignorant inferiors.
Elizabeth's heartbeat quickened, and ears raised, as her mother moaned her name with impatience. Bah. The old bat. Couldst she not forbear the suffering of her presence until the ball?
The wind howled and roared, and the thunder clapped, again. How e’er great the storm outside, drenching the free lands she wast forbidden to roam, the torrent coming to this room exceeded in power, and oft’ wrath.
She gulped a glob of tangy saliva. She breathed in deep. Her wet throbbing hand still clutched at her hips. She sucked in a sharp breath, and her throat formed an itch. She looked back at the double doors.
She cometh.
An apple-sized lump grew in her throat. Her dried tongue danced o'er her bitter lips. What to do?
Elizabeth peeked through the crack of the door.
“Yea, ‘tis her” she said, softly.
The heaving taffeta skirt dragged behind and scraped the heirloom tapestries, sunken like a dead body pulled against the rug.
The famed portrait gallery was long and red as the rose, stretching a quarter mile in length. The walls and rounded ceilings were the color of old pearls. It wast oft' empty, insomuch that one might hear the wind sail off their shoulders if they made enough haste, but today her mother needed to make an impression.
She hadth hired, for naught less than eye-pleasing, an entire male household. Red uniformed men faced forward on either side like soldiers, with hardly a space betwixt them, in doublets and black tights. They guarded naught less than dusty portraits in over-polished frames, flanked with their six-foot pointed staffs at right sides.
She was still afar off. There was ample time to forbear this, for her dress was of such grandeur that 'twas a great burden inward and outward. It couldst only be handled in little balanced steps.
Elizabeth looked back at the window. She wondered if she might scale the terrace and live to escape. If only. Her mother was not the only problem today. Running would also bring courtiers at her heels at Steelius' order, like a pack of bloodhounds.
She looked through the crack in the door again.
The trademark mass of excessive silver jewelry, which oft’ reeked of lead, clinked against her mother's ‘always tightened’ torso, as she bobbed down the hall. Once again, she hadth drenched herself in fashion best suited for people in half of her years.
Her gown cinched up to her withered neck in purple. 'Twas pompous, but without such a covering one might liken her to a lumpy candlestick, with a smaller candle smashed on top.
Elizabeth turned to her silent maid, who waited at her post in the far left corner with a lowered head and folded hands.
She hadth nigh forgotten she was there, but for a maid to be as discreet as the wind was naught uncommon.
"Melanie," Elizabeth said, in a hushed breath, “Make haste.”
Melanie hadth a moment of alarm, like a little dog leaping from sleep at its master’s voice. She gathered her skirt, and rushed forward.
She curtsied low to the floor, bowing her head of wiry black curls, which smelled distinctly of olive oil; a low cost item used and exchanged among the other darker-skinned lowborns. 'Twas of such great strength that Elizabeth couldst nigh taste its zest.
"Yea, our lady?"
How she wished for reason, that she couldst order Melanie to immediately procure a plan of escape. She lacked not for wit and cleverness. Still, the opportunity was passed. Even 'the mongoose' couldst offer no hope. Elizabeth looked back at the window, to the door, and then back to her. There wast no hope. She sighed with resignation.
"Make us ready. The inevitable hour of our doom approacheth."
Elizabeth looked to her damp hands, a common thing and a gross offense to her upstart mother.
"Clean us."
Melanie looked up, raising her brows.
Melanie yanked and fluffed her white lace and linen heirloom kerchief from her right narrow hip pocket. The fabric made a fresh billow, like a sheet in the wind.
She crushed its softness, quick and careful, into Elizabeth's wet palm. She stared like a crow, conveying her obedience with an understanding silence.
The smell of two different kinds of breath lingered betwixt them. One of sweet wine, and the other like bitter waters. Despite these, there seemed to be a new and nameless connection.
Elizabeth gulped down yet another glob of fresh saliva.
She closed her eyes and turned away from Melanie. She made a sigh of relief. Elizabeth twisted her hands in the cloth, and thence use it to rub her eyes. She hissed long under her breath. She hadth yet a little while longer, for the old bat hadth not yet come.
The dried lips salted, and she couldst still taste its copper bitterness.
Sensing her instability, Melanie hasted stood ere her. She slowly took the kerchief from Elizabeth’s hand, with a sort of love, and tapped the corners of her mouth with its last clean section.
If Elizabeth hadth been raised to thank servants, then this ist when she might hath done thus.
At the first sting of this uncommon gentleness, Elizabeth recalled the last time she knew happiness.
The Honorable Sir Henry Bradford, the Ninth Duke of Sheeks, arose from bed with nothing more than a mild cold. He wast a grave man by the last sennights of Fall.
Tears formed in her eyes. Melanie dabbed these also. Elizabeth rattled her breath as she remembered.
His was a slow and painful death at the hands of failing doctors, whom she long since blamed for robbing his soul. Futile were the endless stream of blood-stained white bowls of cold water, filled with wriggling leeches. The so-called infusions, in bottles without number, claimed to be the best in any province.
He wast none the better.
Her fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes closed, as Melanie continued tapping away tears, from cheekbone to chin.
In his last weeks, Elizabeth lived outside the locked door to his quarters, forbade to enter by the old-fashioned men. They believed the presence of ‘weak’ women, even those of his family, would only hasten a man’s death.
She brought no blanket to comfort her, nor any pillow. She refused them from her servants, whom she permitted not. Prayer wast her comfort, and she didst this always.
Her mother called her name again.
Melanie withdrew the kerchief with haste, and crushed it in Elizabeth’s palm.
Elizabeth seemed to be in a trance now, inasmuch as if her very soul hadth left her body idle, as she reverted to a time long gone.
How she oft’ nuzzled her forehead into the crack of the polished wood door, whence she couldst smell the remnants of burning cigars. She couldst nigh taste the half glass of sherry he left untouched at his bed side. O’ that he would hath drunk and gained the strength to live yet many more days.
Instead, he wheezed and rattled like an old pipe. She didst likewise between her flows of tears. She wished that his noise would cease and allow their comfort. She also wished it wouldst not, lest he leave her.
Yet she wast greedy for these moments, her last remnant of him, and resisted all company.
Elizabeth continued staring at her bedroom doors, waiting for her mother like a messenger of death.
Beyond her notice, Melanie drew away and reopened the curtains, that she might better please Lady Sheeks. After all, protocol forbade curtains to be closed at any time from dawn until dusk.
Elizabeth let the kerchief fall from her limping hand.
The bare window towered across the hall from where she laid. The fogging glass daily exposed the warmth of the rising sun, like a peace offering, against its clear skies. ‘Twas a glimmer of hope. This morning marked the last day for his suffering. O’ yea. For certain, he shalt rise by the time the curtains close.
When this time passed and he wast none strengthened, but worse, the cold of blackness clouded the night and seeped into her weary heart.
She remembered no star hanging in the sky, nor the glow of the moon, as though it were ashamed to bring light into her dark world.
In the final hour, she sensed the moment his torments ended. ‘Twas the certain kind of silence she hated to expect.
As church bells chimed for the death of a king, so didst her echoing wails announce his end.
Elizabeth's life ended, too. O’ woe to that day, and this one. Woe ist she; so unfortunate in her seemingly fortunate appearance.
Elizabeth took a few steps hither.
Her father wast the only one who understood. He relieved the burdens other nobility placed on her shoulders, and oft’ quieted her mother's pestering. He treated her as no ornament or prize, instead instilling the equal value of all persons; a contrary idea to his peers.
Elizabeth managed a small smile to herself, as a fond memory squeezed forth from the dreadful shadows of her mind. 'Twas like a fresh citrus in one's hand, spritzing up bliss from a zesty spray.
In this singular second of thought, all manner of distresses seemed naught, that she may live in the few pleasures of the past once more.
O’ how 'oft they sat 'aside one another, with the warmth of the popping and crackling fireplace ere them, as they discussed the uselessness of a societal hierarchy. The familiar smell of his cigar hanging betwixt them ere the glow, as smoke drizzled upward in a transparent stream. How she hated the smell, and how she loved the man.
He oft’ reached o'er and rubbed her hand with tenderness, neatly cupped at the edge of the arm of a grand and polished leather chair.
From the very day he died, salvations fled.
Now naught spared her. She ist left at the power of a great woman, whose high blood ran colder than his carcass.
'Twas time to put her memories away, like tucking an heirloom softly in one's drawer. She wist her dreadful reality. Her mother drew nigh.
The stench of globs of bitter green mucus still hung back somewhere inside her throat. She swallowed hard, and in such a way that was doubtless easy for Melanie to hear.
"Fetch us our gloves," she said, breaking the silence as she whipped her head back. She gave no evidence of her thoughts. She kept a blank countenance as she gestured to Melanie.
The old bat’s footfalls became audible. Damp and slow, like a waltz through the thick mud.
Melanie hurried past her, to the aged silver gilded trinket box lying on the vanity. She flipped open the lid with one hand, in such haste that Elizabeth thought the lid might crack the glass vanity top.
“Have carefulness, Melanie,” she said, as she squeezed her thumb into the cloth. She winced and hissed low under her breath, and looked back to the door, “She cometh nigh faster.”
The long and narrow box, lined with red velvet, re'ealed a pair of blue folded gloves in an immaculate condition.
Melanie snatched them up, thence whipped around to face her alarmed mistress.
Elizabeth stretched forth her arms.
Melanie paused, raising her eyes and mouth at the spectacle.
Elizabeth said, shaking her arms, “Why doth thee delay us?"
The tangy taste of her saliva swam betwixt the teeth that clenched the tip of her tongue.
“May we not wash thy arms and hands first?” Melanie said, quivering her voice, "In soap and water. The napkin may not be sufficient."
How mother abhorred the unclean hands of a noble lady. They were the things of nightmares in this house.
“There ist no time,” Elizabeth said, sighing with annoyance, “and the bowl and towels are not here.”
Couldst Melanie wot not the urgency of what is urgent? Hast she the place now to question her lady?
She nodded as though, in some impossible way, she might empathize with Elizabeth’s plight.
She remained delicate, as she slid the long gloves on Elizabeth's hands. The waif of soft cream silk brushed her equally her creamy skin. They made a soft rustle, as they scrunched tight up against the grain of goose pimples to perfection.
"Elizabeth?" Lady Sheeks called.
They whipped their heads in the door's direction, turning cool and white as sheets.
Her proud and slender elder mother, the old bat, chimed her name in a songful voice. The handles clinked, and thence the doors swung open.
Melanie scurried back to her corner like a rat, distancing herself from her mistresses; to her rightful place to be easily forgotten.
The thundering lowed now. The tweeting of the birds became apparent all the more, as the sloshing of rain strips turned to tinkling.
Her mother pinched her wrinkled fingers in the air. She, then, licked one index finger and raised it. Whether 'twas for the oleander winds of with the passing storm, or she wast admiring the stench of her own person, one shan't wot. She raised her nose and smile with a most unwelcome gleam.
“Ah,” she said, with a single quick raise of her brows.
The pangs of too much powder on her bleached and wrinkled face caused Elizabeth to gag from the depths of her slender throat. Her mother thought bathing to be a passing fancy beneath her status, and thus smelled nigh worse than Steel Mercutio.
Melanie hadth nary the privilege to express complaint. Like Steel’s servants, she hid disgust behind an obedient smile; for such was the way of all goodly and fearful servants.
Elizabeth curled her face, but her mother ignored her. The reaction wast naught new.
Crushed pearl powder and goat's milk, mixed with her opium breath aided not the long-gone beauty her mother fought so hard to recapture. Her inner beauty, which might otherwise make up for the failings of outward appearance, wast also a lost course.
The Lady Sheeks' arched her wiry eyebrows. Her toothless smile wast like the sun that blazed its final light, ere it disappeared behind a thick storm cloud.
Her mother looked behind her at Melanie, and with a snap of her head she beckoned her to approach them. Her disciplining lips tightened, like a wrung whip. She gestured, with a flap of her arm, to the grand oak chest at the end of the bed.
“Why ist she not ready? Art thou blind and deaf to wot not of his arrival? Art thou too idle?” she said, shoving her in that direction, "I'll sooner demote thee to the scullery where I wot thee already maketh idle conversation."
"Mother," Elizabeth said, interrupting her scolding for another subject, "We wot thy will is iron, but desist this cause, ere it becometh too late. Hearken our endless pleas. Mercifully spare us this espousal. Do this for all the love thou doth bear us, if thou might any at all, e’en in its smallest measure. Peradventure then, thou might sooner suffer us a token of happiness. Doth thee ne'er long to see me smile?"
Elizabeth wist her pleas were in vain. If she were dangling from a cliff and reaching for her hand, though she wist her mother shan’t extend hers, ‘twas still only human to desire rescue.
"We spare thee naught," Lady Sheeks said, turning her nose at her, "Our 'dear' Elizabeth.”
Dear, indeed.
“O’ how we art so unlike thee,” she said, folding her hands at her hips with a sigh, “Wot not that we possess aged wisdom? And if thou didst, thou wouldst wot to hearken with pleasure to our guidance."
Elizabeth’s blushing cheek itched as her mother stroked a dangling stray blonde curl, mocking her capability of tenderness.
Elizabeth bit down on her bottom lip, examining its slick fullness betwixt her teeth.
She softly flicked the hand away, like a pesky fly.
She wist her mother’s mind. This tiresome and undoubted ‘wisdom’ wast ready to spew forth, like a beaver’s log loosened from an overrun dam.
The Lady Sheeks firmed her lips. "We shan't be a good mother and take away thy opportunities, and on the basis of unsteady whims. We hath no doubt that thou shalt come to love him, e'en as we didst thine own father," she said, turning away to trace her fingers on the waxed bedpost in examination, "but we beg that thee might bite on thy false wisdom. Withhold thy mind from our prince before thy mouth becometh our folly. And if thou must spaketh this mind, wait. Doest so when thou hath produced an heir. Then he shalt care naught for thy mind nor thy words, for thou wouldst hath already filled thy purpose."
Her words didst little to turn away Elizabeth's scowling frown.
Forsooth, her mother didst love and obey her father well. Elizabeth wouldst argue that she loved him greater, despite it being a different kind of love.
Her mother raised a chin, and her eyes.
She spake, "Thou wot well if it were us who were young and fair, who wast so fortunate to..."
Elizabeth scoffed and interrupted.
"If we were but any class lower, he shan't care if we existed. For, ‘tis our own misfortune that we were born into," she mocked a gasp, "nobility."
Her mother’s so-called wisdom appealed to a royal snob, who Elizabeth cared the least to impress of all men.
Elizabeth relished fanning the flames of her mother's cooling nature, as her golden goose circled like a vulture.
"Couldst we not marry rather a stable boy," Elizabeth said, sighing as she tossed her head back in the direction of her mother, "Yea, bring us a man of no titles, nor good fortune. If not e'en this, thence peradventure Steel’s man, our dearest Brawm. For he ist the best man of all low men, and we like him a little well."
Her mother tightened her pursed red lips, for she wast unable to take her offensive words. She pinched the fine peach skin of Elizabeth's bent elbow.
Elizabeth clenched the pink spot.
"Mother!"
She rubbed her elbow, and thence she glared at her mother with curled brows and narrowed eyes. This wast a familiar way of reminding her who ran these intrigues, as though for some impossible cause one might forget.
"Bite. Thy. Tongue," Lady Sheeks hissed. She cracked her ragged rouge lips. She grabbed Elizabeth's pointed chin at the tip, which wast small, and faced it hither to her, "Take audience with his Royal Highness. Shew him ‘all’ due honor and politeness deserving his exalted person. Be not his better, and grant thyself no freedom to spake. Thou wot how a woman’s forward mind is the bane of our existence. O’ our ‘little daughter.’ How we wouldst sooner wot thee not and cast thee out, if not for Steel’s interest. For how is it that thou shouldst be of our own womb, and be this eager to shame me? Art thou mine only in blood?"
Her mother shoved her chin away with a cold hand and grimaced.
Piffle for her longing to draw pains from ragged speech. Her harsh words didst little to sting, for they were too many o'er too long a time; a dulled blade dancing over the skin.
When Elizabeth satisfied not her desire for a retort, Lady Sheeks gathered clumps of her skirt in both hands.
"Come, Melanie. We must make ready. All hands are required."
Elizabeth smirked back at them both. Even her mother hadth to admit the victor.
The formidable Lady Sheeks swung her train and whipped away. Good riddance.
Elizabeth rubbed her hands with delight and sighed with relief, as she watched that over-puffed matriarch march through the doors. Her heaving luxurious fabrics rustled and dragged in her wake.
O’ that her mother was young again, and might becometh queen in her place. She pretended the part well enough in her little manor.
Melanie, with a forced pleasant smile, made a single curtsy to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth saw her from the corner of her eye but acknowledged her not.
Melanie followed closely behind the esteemed Lady Sheeks, whence her mistress shan't watch.
Her mother started down the hall, in all her signature vainglory. She stared straight, as she passed by the brown-toned portraits of their sitting ancestors, who once possessed e'en a quarter of her humility.
Her skirt caught up to her increasing speed, billowing in her wake like a country flag with e'ery ounce the same power and pride.
Melanie remembered the familiar feuds. As though yanked by an invisible force, she thrust her back against the gallery wall.
A surprised guard leapt aside.
The gilded gold frame of the painting rattled and wobbled against her flattened shoulder blades.
She took in a single deep breath as her eyes danced o’er nothing.
The flustered guard resisted his emotions, though forced out of his place by a mere young servant girl.
Lady Sheeks turned ‘round, and she raised a curious right brow.
Only the tweeting of the birds and the whistling of the winds existed in this stilled space.
The Lady Sheeks blinked, and said, “Well. Hast thou readied her wisdom? Or hast thou only now possessed the impossible ability to hold her peace?”
"I merely ready our inquiry. Wilt thou suffer it?”
“And when shalt I be so blessed, as to suffer thee not?” she spake, as she teetered her head.
“Answer me this, and so find me satisfied. Wouldst it not be our greater fortune if we hadth been born to a better woman? Better, I declare, only by nature of being a low-born?”
She smirked sharper than a butcher's blade. She turned back to the window, tossing her pillow-soft blonde hair o'er her raised shoulder. The wide swish gave her a whiff of the vanilla fumes exuding from her prickling skin.
Though ‘twas hardly an insult to others, her mother couldst withstand her suggestion not. That her precious high-born daughter, her royal blood, might suggest being low-born wast preferable to her high birth was profane language.
Silence, like the wind in the reeds.
Elizabeth looked back and craned her head forward.
“What? Silence? Shalt thou not rebuff us? Come. What sayest ye, our dear mother?”
Lady Sheeks made a slow blink. No other parts so much as flicked.
Thence, she turned away with a huff and a twisted lip.
The floor creaked ‘neath her hurrying feet.
Elizabeth smiled with deep satisfaction, like a beast lapping its mouth over its prey. ‘Twas the sweetest and most coveted sound in all the world: her steps fading into silence.
So ‘twas this way before, and shalt desirably be again. As long as she wast her mother's daughter, Elizabeth shan’t permit her mother to hath the final word.
Lady Elizabeth Sheeks is unhappy about her upcoming marriage to Steelius Mercutio, a cruel and arrogant man. She watches from her bedroom window as his entourage arrives at her home, and she is filled with dread. She knows that her life will be miserable once she is married to him.
Elizabeth tries to find comfort in the fact that she is not the only one who is unhappy about the marriage. The servants who are tasked with welcoming Steelius don't know they will be miserable, and have to suffer under his rule.
Elizabeth knows that there is nothing she can do to stop the wedding, so she resigns herself to her fate. She closes the curtains and tries to block out the sound of Steelius's arrival.
The next day, Elizabeth attends the "Ball of Introduction" where she is formally introduced to Steelius as his future wife. She is forced to dance with him, and she can feel his eyes on her every moment. She knows that this is just the beginning of her nightmare.
Cry out, o' kingdom of Callea, and look upon this our pitiful house. Woe is ours. We art too late, and our haste ist to blame. Intrigue hast seeped through the proud walls of Sheeks’ Manor. Who shalt pre'ent us? And where ist Pity? For we art so soon a grave people, that we might wot her not.
Lady Elizabeth Sheeks paced thither the window, wrung her hands, and fumed. Her fiance was expected at any moment, though the least desired of men. Piffle for hope. Pleas for salvation from his grasp fell on deaf ears. Not a soul in all the kingdom wouldst dare save her now, and risk their own perfumed necks.
An ominous gong from a grandfather clock chimed its noon death toll, signaling the turn of e'ents that leadeth to all things despised.
The skies flashed and clapped in fury, mirroring the tumult of her soul. They hammered down harsh strips of waters to rising grey puddles, submerging an array of white and tan stones.
She held herself, as she stared from the floor-to-ceiling window of her bedroom suite; situated on the bottom floor across from the rounded cobblestone courtyard.
Her eyelids fluttered. Powdered nostrils flared out a lingering sigh. A slight tingle, and thence a twitch. O’ what a weary woe to this day, and greater to those who were doomed to breathe its hour.
A cool whispering slip of wind creeped in through the faint crack of the panes, letting in the fragrance of oleanders, and the remnants of the lost morning dew. The bumps of her flesh raised. The fateful hour approacheth, and he wast late.
O’ that fate may grant that something pre'ented him, and she might be able to forbear him e’en a day longer.
Down the hall from her sumptuous apartments, a homage to Her Majesty Marie Antoinette’s style, female servants bustled and brambled with their mixed talk. They busied in vain, if only to please their ‘honorable’ and thankless guest.
All talked of the espousal contract of the season, and with plain ignorance. None couldst recognize the truth, else they wouldst mourn with her. On this day she signed no marriage agreement, but her own death warrant.
O’ that her mother might put her selfish ambitions aside, and let her alone. O’ how that she shouldst thence dream to wot some manner of peace and sweet contentment. Under how many moons these past sixth months didst she press for release?
Elizabeth closed her eyes and quivered them. A vain thought. Her mother, the old bat, wouldst sooner die than bear the burden of being humane.
The whisper of the winds carried the distant clopping of horseshoes. Her eyes opened slow. He came, and ‘twas e’er to her detriment. Though sight was not as well through a thick layer of tears, 'twas hard to miss the beginning of an end.
White steeds in pairs of fours, draped in pale blue velvets, drew forth in a kilometer-long line of white and gold-trimmed carriages. They clacked in all their pageantry, and stopped ere the wide front steps of the manor.
She seethed. There was not a tittle of glamor alive in its vanity, but the show wast a cruel reminder of who controlled her fate.
Dozens of short puffy men poured out of the carriages, bedecked in silk fineries of colors matching their steeds. Piffle, the lot.
Hadth they shame? Ne’er. The whole party, both man and animal, were dressed better than all the ragged peasant realm, which at that time exceeded thrice the kingdom.
They muttered, as they scrambled like a band of jesters, to open the pearl-handled coach doors.
Elizabeth scoffed. Verily, these servants didst him little credit in yet further ways. Didst they not possess order, like good little soldiers? Wast no decorum, nor discipline, to be found in them outside of a glittering ceremonious appearance? Or were they like a pack of loyal naive dogs; impatient to look upon their master, with whom all their hopes and favor rested? E’er wagging their tails, and for mere scraps.
He waited on the other side; he who was, to her alone, the most unwelcome of all men in all ages of all the realms.
Elizabeth carelessly graced her fingertips across the edge of her dry lips. She watched for her betrothed with a scornful glare, as her finger traced down to her rising chin.
Her soft and heated breaths, which still smelled of this morning’s red wine, warmed the little window pane and clouded it. It obscured her view. She allowed the marring, lest she’d find herself eager to see him.
The cool wind whispered into her widened eyelashes. A burn fell o'er her eyes. They were only close to another bitter flooding of tears.
Stronger strips of rain, roaring like a waterfall, beat down on the balding heads of his scattered retinue. Hmph. Right thing. The skies punished justly for their disgraceful loyalty to their unworthy liege.
They pooled together in the torrent, like a flock of penned sheep. ‘Twas a wonder why they hasted not to open his door.
Peradventure Steel waiteth for the right moment to give the order, for he liked their suffering.
Abuse was naught new to servants of this realm. All courtiers suffered their portion in pains, and e’en sought them with wide smiles. For any price. There wast no trial they wouldst not endure, if it meant they might keep his futile and seemingly ‘undying’ favor.
They wanted for wisdom, and they served the air. Their wages were merely a few pence and his easy temper.
Her fair blue eyes narrowed as she sighed again.
She couldst taste the salt of her tears entering the tightened corners of her mouth. The floods of sorrow, built fully in her like a dam, couldst no longer be held back from the crevices in her eyes. This wast her future she looked upon with such scorn, and this all her sorrow. She couldst forbear him no longer.
Drops of tears tapped her big toe.
Her palms, fully stained in sweat, pressed against the cold glass as she leaned in to get a good view. ‘Twas strange. Wast it not? ‘Twas no goodly thing to be reminded of his existence, that she shouldst also be forced to share in it. Howbeit, there wast yet a queer curiosity in gazing upon the source of one’s doom.
She winced as she gulped down the acid that rose in her throat.
They broke their cluster now, and made haste to line up; a curved wall of men on both sides, forming a path to the doorway like human hedges.
The footman, singled out in a white and blue hat tipped with large white plumes, opened his door.
Thence, his appearance appeared. His Royal Highness, and her intended future husband, Steelius Mercutio. Not yet Rex.
He plucked down from the carriage, and then gazed o'er the house with a pleased grin. For a surety, this meant not that he liked the manor well. ‘Twas doubtful that a mere manor could impress a prince, but his arrival wast the long-awaited next step in furthering his ambitions.
He treated his retinue as absent, as he hastened to the front door.
Elizabeth pressed tighter against the glass, as he flew to her right, and more out of her vision. Her cheek chilled as it flattened against the damp pane. Both wet hands squeezed and pressed. She breathed another misty cloud, obscuring all her view. O’ woe. Weary, weary woe. Her end nigh approacheth yet further still.
She held her breath, that the glass may clear.
He, addressed as ‘Steel,’ lowered his uncrowned head, being shielded from the downpour by his servants’ sunken coats. His trimmed and neatly swept dark hair kept its perfect place. Bah. Kingdom forbid that his clean appearance shouldst dare be marred by the skies' protests, lest it offend his vanity.
He hastened thither the white quarried stone steps, clacking and clopping his iron-heeled boots like horses’ shoes.
Elizabeth thinned her eyes and lips.
His red velvet cape dragged a trail of mud in his wake, and left a dreadful mess for her poor servants to scrub.
How she pitied them. She wanted no share in their sufferings, yet she coveted their status, inasmuch as he disliked the latter and her want of them.
Piffle. There wast nothing well-favored of Steel. Nay, if she couldst so withstand his presence any better than the sight of him afar off, thence only the little better she might suffer.
His vanity, temper, and a blatant lack of morality were only a mild portion of the offenses caused by the presence of Steelius Mercutio.
None dared to shew how oft hadth a smell of the foulest sort: well reputed to stink of mugwort hair oil, salted wet brimstone that lived under his boots, and lips of mead.
Steel wist this naught, and to his own misfortune. His retinue were the masters of still faces; careful to shew themselves not offended to the strength of his presence, lest they incur his wrath and their lost wages.
Elizabeth shuddered.
Who wast made to suffer these things for all her days? Only ‘Lady’ Elizabeth Sheeks, who deserved all the pity for such unjust punishment, and yet she found none.
Only one man in all the kingdom of all the realms was moved for her, but it bought her salvation not.
Elizabeth humphed.
She pulled away from the window, now stained with smeared prints. She slammed the velvet curtains, the color of fading blood, shut.
The unworthy spectacle outside ended, bringing anent the indistinct mutterings from the cluster of guests; crying aloud with both relief and elation. They wouldst do better to wail and grie'e, as at a funeral, for he wast their doom.
Elizabeth’s ears fumed as she crossed her arms, and thence paced.
The ‘Ball of Introduction’ awaited tonight, and e'ery important eye in the kingdom shalt witness their interlude.
O’ how they spake. Look! O’ the grace of their dance. How their e'ery glance wouldst be weighed and discussed. She wished in vain for a savior to spare her this wretched course, for which the ball itself ist a celebration.
Elizabeth sniveleth her lip. This kingdom wast confounding. What wast so magnificent to be said in truth of the praised prince, Steelius Mercutio? He wast no soldier nor hero, or a man of any ‘real’ honor.
The little rows of medals perched on his left breast were unearned; from decades of ceremonies planned ere his birth, and only awarded ‘because’ he wast born, though even this wast no feat of his own. There stood naught more to his tinkling metal circles and ribbons, than to impress his vain and ignorant inferiors.
Elizabeth's heartbeat quickened, and ears raised, as her mother moaned her name with impatience. Bah. The old bat. Couldst she not forbear the suffering of her presence until the ball?
The wind howled and roared, and the thunder clapped, again. How e’er great the storm outside, drenching the free lands she wast forbidden to roam, the torrent coming to this room exceeded in power, and oft’ wrath.
She gulped a glob of tangy saliva. She breathed in deep. Her wet throbbing hand still clutched at her hips. She sucked in a sharp breath, and her throat formed an itch. She looked back at the double doors.
She cometh.
An apple-sized lump grew in her throat. Her dried tongue danced o'er her bitter lips. What to do?
Elizabeth peeked through the crack of the door.
“Yea, ‘tis her” she said, softly.
The heaving taffeta skirt dragged behind and scraped the heirloom tapestries, sunken like a dead body pulled against the rug.
The famed portrait gallery was long and red as the rose, stretching a quarter mile in length. The walls and rounded ceilings were the color of old pearls. It wast oft' empty, insomuch that one might hear the wind sail off their shoulders if they made enough haste, but today her mother needed to make an impression.
She hadth hired, for naught less than eye-pleasing, an entire male household. Red uniformed men faced forward on either side like soldiers, with hardly a space betwixt them, in doublets and black tights. They guarded naught less than dusty portraits in over-polished frames, flanked with their six-foot pointed staffs at right sides.
She was still afar off. There was ample time to forbear this, for her dress was of such grandeur that 'twas a great burden inward and outward. It couldst only be handled in little balanced steps.
Elizabeth looked back at the window. She wondered if she might scale the terrace and live to escape. If only. Her mother was not the only problem today. Running would also bring courtiers at her heels at Steelius' order, like a pack of bloodhounds.
She looked through the crack in the door again.
The trademark mass of excessive silver jewelry, which oft’ reeked of lead, clinked against her mother's ‘always tightened’ torso, as she bobbed down the hall. Once again, she hadth drenched herself in fashion best suited for people in half of her years.
Her gown cinched up to her withered neck in purple. 'Twas pompous, but without such a covering one might liken her to a lumpy candlestick, with a smaller candle smashed on top.
Elizabeth turned to her silent maid, who waited at her post in the far left corner with a lowered head and folded hands.
She hadth nigh forgotten she was there, but for a maid to be as discreet as the wind was naught uncommon.
"Melanie," Elizabeth said, in a hushed breath, “Make haste.”
Melanie hadth a moment of alarm, like a little dog leaping from sleep at its master’s voice. She gathered her skirt, and rushed forward.
She curtsied low to the floor, bowing her head of wiry black curls, which smelled distinctly of olive oil; a low cost item used and exchanged among the other darker-skinned lowborns. 'Twas of such great strength that Elizabeth couldst nigh taste its zest.
"Yea, our lady?"
How she wished for reason, that she couldst order Melanie to immediately procure a plan of escape. She lacked not for wit and cleverness. Still, the opportunity was passed. Even 'the mongoose' couldst offer no hope. Elizabeth looked back at the window, to the door, and then back to her. There wast no hope. She sighed with resignation.
"Make us ready. The inevitable hour of our doom approacheth."
Elizabeth looked to her damp hands, a common thing and a gross offense to her upstart mother.
"Clean us."
Melanie looked up, raising her brows.
Melanie yanked and fluffed her white lace and linen heirloom kerchief from her right narrow hip pocket. The fabric made a fresh billow, like a sheet in the wind.
She crushed its softness, quick and careful, into Elizabeth's wet palm. She stared like a crow, conveying her obedience with an understanding silence.
The smell of two different kinds of breath lingered betwixt them. One of sweet wine, and the other like bitter waters. Despite these, there seemed to be a new and nameless connection.
Elizabeth gulped down yet another glob of fresh saliva.
She closed her eyes and turned away from Melanie. She made a sigh of relief. Elizabeth twisted her hands in the cloth, and thence use it to rub her eyes. She hissed long under her breath. She hadth yet a little while longer, for the old bat hadth not yet come.
The dried lips salted, and she couldst still taste its copper bitterness.
Sensing her instability, Melanie hasted stood ere her. She slowly took the kerchief from Elizabeth’s hand, with a sort of love, and tapped the corners of her mouth with its last clean section.
If Elizabeth hadth been raised to thank servants, then this ist when she might hath done thus.
At the first sting of this uncommon gentleness, Elizabeth recalled the last time she knew happiness.
The Honorable Sir Henry Bradford, the Ninth Duke of Sheeks, arose from bed with nothing more than a mild cold. He wast a grave man by the last sennights of Fall.
Tears formed in her eyes. Melanie dabbed these also. Elizabeth rattled her breath as she remembered.
His was a slow and painful death at the hands of failing doctors, whom she long since blamed for robbing his soul. Futile were the endless stream of blood-stained white bowls of cold water, filled with wriggling leeches. The so-called infusions, in bottles without number, claimed to be the best in any province.
He wast none the better.
Her fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes closed, as Melanie continued tapping away tears, from cheekbone to chin.
In his last weeks, Elizabeth lived outside the locked door to his quarters, forbade to enter by the old-fashioned men. They believed the presence of ‘weak’ women, even those of his family, would only hasten a man’s death.
She brought no blanket to comfort her, nor any pillow. She refused them from her servants, whom she permitted not. Prayer wast her comfort, and she didst this always.
Her mother called her name again.
Melanie withdrew the kerchief with haste, and crushed it in Elizabeth’s palm.
Elizabeth seemed to be in a trance now, inasmuch as if her very soul hadth left her body idle, as she reverted to a time long gone.
How she oft’ nuzzled her forehead into the crack of the polished wood door, whence she couldst smell the remnants of burning cigars. She couldst nigh taste the half glass of sherry he left untouched at his bed side. O’ that he would hath drunk and gained the strength to live yet many more days.
Instead, he wheezed and rattled like an old pipe. She didst likewise between her flows of tears. She wished that his noise would cease and allow their comfort. She also wished it wouldst not, lest he leave her.
Yet she wast greedy for these moments, her last remnant of him, and resisted all company.
Elizabeth continued staring at her bedroom doors, waiting for her mother like a messenger of death.
Beyond her notice, Melanie drew away and reopened the curtains, that she might better please Lady Sheeks. After all, protocol forbade curtains to be closed at any time from dawn until dusk.
Elizabeth let the kerchief fall from her limping hand.
The bare window towered across the hall from where she laid. The fogging glass daily exposed the warmth of the rising sun, like a peace offering, against its clear skies. ‘Twas a glimmer of hope. This morning marked the last day for his suffering. O’ yea. For certain, he shalt rise by the time the curtains close.
When this time passed and he wast none strengthened, but worse, the cold of blackness clouded the night and seeped into her weary heart.
She remembered no star hanging in the sky, nor the glow of the moon, as though it were ashamed to bring light into her dark world.
In the final hour, she sensed the moment his torments ended. ‘Twas the certain kind of silence she hated to expect.
As church bells chimed for the death of a king, so didst her echoing wails announce his end.
Elizabeth's life ended, too. O’ woe to that day, and this one. Woe ist she; so unfortunate in her seemingly fortunate appearance.
Elizabeth took a few steps hither.
Her father wast the only one who understood. He relieved the burdens other nobility placed on her shoulders, and oft’ quieted her mother's pestering. He treated her as no ornament or prize, instead instilling the equal value of all persons; a contrary idea to his peers.
Elizabeth managed a small smile to herself, as a fond memory squeezed forth from the dreadful shadows of her mind. 'Twas like a fresh citrus in one's hand, spritzing up bliss from a zesty spray.
In this singular second of thought, all manner of distresses seemed naught, that she may live in the few pleasures of the past once more.
O’ how 'oft they sat 'aside one another, with the warmth of the popping and crackling fireplace ere them, as they discussed the uselessness of a societal hierarchy. The familiar smell of his cigar hanging betwixt them ere the glow, as smoke drizzled upward in a transparent stream. How she hated the smell, and how she loved the man.
He oft’ reached o'er and rubbed her hand with tenderness, neatly cupped at the edge of the arm of a grand and polished leather chair.
From the very day he died, salvations fled.
Now naught spared her. She ist left at the power of a great woman, whose high blood ran colder than his carcass.
'Twas time to put her memories away, like tucking an heirloom softly in one's drawer. She wist her dreadful reality. Her mother drew nigh.
The stench of globs of bitter green mucus still hung back somewhere inside her throat. She swallowed hard, and in such a way that was doubtless easy for Melanie to hear.
"Fetch us our gloves," she said, breaking the silence as she whipped her head back. She gave no evidence of her thoughts. She kept a blank countenance as she gestured to Melanie.
The old bat’s footfalls became audible. Damp and slow, like a waltz through the thick mud.
Melanie hurried past her, to the aged silver gilded trinket box lying on the vanity. She flipped open the lid with one hand, in such haste that Elizabeth thought the lid might crack the glass vanity top.
“Have carefulness, Melanie,” she said, as she squeezed her thumb into the cloth. She winced and hissed low under her breath, and looked back to the door, “She cometh nigh faster.”
The long and narrow box, lined with red velvet, re'ealed a pair of blue folded gloves in an immaculate condition.
Melanie snatched them up, thence whipped around to face her alarmed mistress.
Elizabeth stretched forth her arms.
Melanie paused, raising her eyes and mouth at the spectacle.
Elizabeth said, shaking her arms, “Why doth thee delay us?"
The tangy taste of her saliva swam betwixt the teeth that clenched the tip of her tongue.
“May we not wash thy arms and hands first?” Melanie said, quivering her voice, "In soap and water. The napkin may not be sufficient."
How mother abhorred the unclean hands of a noble lady. They were the things of nightmares in this house.
“There ist no time,” Elizabeth said, sighing with annoyance, “and the bowl and towels are not here.”
Couldst Melanie wot not the urgency of what is urgent? Hast she the place now to question her lady?
She nodded as though, in some impossible way, she might empathize with Elizabeth’s plight.
She remained delicate, as she slid the long gloves on Elizabeth's hands. The waif of soft cream silk brushed her equally her creamy skin. They made a soft rustle, as they scrunched tight up against the grain of goose pimples to perfection.
"Elizabeth?" Lady Sheeks called.
They whipped their heads in the door's direction, turning cool and white as sheets.
Her proud and slender elder mother, the old bat, chimed her name in a songful voice. The handles clinked, and thence the doors swung open.
Melanie scurried back to her corner like a rat, distancing herself from her mistresses; to her rightful place to be easily forgotten.
The thundering lowed now. The tweeting of the birds became apparent all the more, as the sloshing of rain strips turned to tinkling.
Her mother pinched her wrinkled fingers in the air. She, then, licked one index finger and raised it. Whether 'twas for the oleander winds of with the passing storm, or she wast admiring the stench of her own person, one shan't wot. She raised her nose and smile with a most unwelcome gleam.
“Ah,” she said, with a single quick raise of her brows.
The pangs of too much powder on her bleached and wrinkled face caused Elizabeth to gag from the depths of her slender throat. Her mother thought bathing to be a passing fancy beneath her status, and thus smelled nigh worse than Steel Mercutio.
Melanie hadth nary the privilege to express complaint. Like Steel’s servants, she hid disgust behind an obedient smile; for such was the way of all goodly and fearful servants.
Elizabeth curled her face, but her mother ignored her. The reaction wast naught new.
Crushed pearl powder and goat's milk, mixed with her opium breath aided not the long-gone beauty her mother fought so hard to recapture. Her inner beauty, which might otherwise make up for the failings of outward appearance, wast also a lost course.
The Lady Sheeks' arched her wiry eyebrows. Her toothless smile wast like the sun that blazed its final light, ere it disappeared behind a thick storm cloud.
Her mother looked behind her at Melanie, and with a snap of her head she beckoned her to approach them. Her disciplining lips tightened, like a wrung whip. She gestured, with a flap of her arm, to the grand oak chest at the end of the bed.
“Why ist she not ready? Art thou blind and deaf to wot not of his arrival? Art thou too idle?” she said, shoving her in that direction, "I'll sooner demote thee to the scullery where I wot thee already maketh idle conversation."
"Mother," Elizabeth said, interrupting her scolding for another subject, "We wot thy will is iron, but desist this cause, ere it becometh too late. Hearken our endless pleas. Mercifully spare us this espousal. Do this for all the love thou doth bear us, if thou might any at all, e’en in its smallest measure. Peradventure then, thou might sooner suffer us a token of happiness. Doth thee ne'er long to see me smile?"
Elizabeth wist her pleas were in vain. If she were dangling from a cliff and reaching for her hand, though she wist her mother shan’t extend hers, ‘twas still only human to desire rescue.
"We spare thee naught," Lady Sheeks said, turning her nose at her, "Our 'dear' Elizabeth.”
Dear, indeed.
“O’ how we art so unlike thee,” she said, folding her hands at her hips with a sigh, “Wot not that we possess aged wisdom? And if thou didst, thou wouldst wot to hearken with pleasure to our guidance."
Elizabeth’s blushing cheek itched as her mother stroked a dangling stray blonde curl, mocking her capability of tenderness.
Elizabeth bit down on her bottom lip, examining its slick fullness betwixt her teeth.
She softly flicked the hand away, like a pesky fly.
She wist her mother’s mind. This tiresome and undoubted ‘wisdom’ wast ready to spew forth, like a beaver’s log loosened from an overrun dam.
The Lady Sheeks firmed her lips. "We shan't be a good mother and take away thy opportunities, and on the basis of unsteady whims. We hath no doubt that thou shalt come to love him, e'en as we didst thine own father," she said, turning away to trace her fingers on the waxed bedpost in examination, "but we beg that thee might bite on thy false wisdom. Withhold thy mind from our prince before thy mouth becometh our folly. And if thou must spaketh this mind, wait. Doest so when thou hath produced an heir. Then he shalt care naught for thy mind nor thy words, for thou wouldst hath already filled thy purpose."
Her words didst little to turn away Elizabeth's scowling frown.
Forsooth, her mother didst love and obey her father well. Elizabeth wouldst argue that she loved him greater, despite it being a different kind of love.
Her mother raised a chin, and her eyes.
She spake, "Thou wot well if it were us who were young and fair, who wast so fortunate to..."
Elizabeth scoffed and interrupted.
"If we were but any class lower, he shan't care if we existed. For, ‘tis our own misfortune that we were born into," she mocked a gasp, "nobility."
Her mother’s so-called wisdom appealed to a royal snob, who Elizabeth cared the least to impress of all men.
Elizabeth relished fanning the flames of her mother's cooling nature, as her golden goose circled like a vulture.
"Couldst we not marry rather a stable boy," Elizabeth said, sighing as she tossed her head back in the direction of her mother, "Yea, bring us a man of no titles, nor good fortune. If not e'en this, thence peradventure Steel’s man, our dearest Brawm. For he ist the best man of all low men, and we like him a little well."
Her mother tightened her pursed red lips, for she wast unable to take her offensive words. She pinched the fine peach skin of Elizabeth's bent elbow.
Elizabeth clenched the pink spot.
"Mother!"
She rubbed her elbow, and thence she glared at her mother with curled brows and narrowed eyes. This wast a familiar way of reminding her who ran these intrigues, as though for some impossible cause one might forget.
"Bite. Thy. Tongue," Lady Sheeks hissed. She cracked her ragged rouge lips. She grabbed Elizabeth's pointed chin at the tip, which wast small, and faced it hither to her, "Take audience with his Royal Highness. Shew him ‘all’ due honor and politeness deserving his exalted person. Be not his better, and grant thyself no freedom to spake. Thou wot how a woman’s forward mind is the bane of our existence. O’ our ‘little daughter.’ How we wouldst sooner wot thee not and cast thee out, if not for Steel’s interest. For how is it that thou shouldst be of our own womb, and be this eager to shame me? Art thou mine only in blood?"
Her mother shoved her chin away with a cold hand and grimaced.
Piffle for her longing to draw pains from ragged speech. Her harsh words didst little to sting, for they were too many o'er too long a time; a dulled blade dancing over the skin.
When Elizabeth satisfied not her desire for a retort, Lady Sheeks gathered clumps of her skirt in both hands.
"Come, Melanie. We must make ready. All hands are required."
Elizabeth smirked back at them both. Even her mother hadth to admit the victor.
The formidable Lady Sheeks swung her train and whipped away. Good riddance.
Elizabeth rubbed her hands with delight and sighed with relief, as she watched that over-puffed matriarch march through the doors. Her heaving luxurious fabrics rustled and dragged in her wake.
O’ that her mother was young again, and might becometh queen in her place. She pretended the part well enough in her little manor.
Melanie, with a forced pleasant smile, made a single curtsy to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth saw her from the corner of her eye but acknowledged her not.
Melanie followed closely behind the esteemed Lady Sheeks, whence her mistress shan't watch.
Her mother started down the hall, in all her signature vainglory. She stared straight, as she passed by the brown-toned portraits of their sitting ancestors, who once possessed e'en a quarter of her humility.
Her skirt caught up to her increasing speed, billowing in her wake like a country flag with e'ery ounce the same power and pride.
Melanie remembered the familiar feuds. As though yanked by an invisible force, she thrust her back against the gallery wall.
A surprised guard leapt aside.
The gilded gold frame of the painting rattled and wobbled against her flattened shoulder blades.
She took in a single deep breath as her eyes danced o’er nothing.
The flustered guard resisted his emotions, though forced out of his place by a mere young servant girl.
Lady Sheeks turned ‘round, and she raised a curious right brow.
Only the tweeting of the birds and the whistling of the winds existed in this stilled space.
The Lady Sheeks blinked, and said, “Well. Hast thou readied her wisdom? Or hast thou only now possessed the impossible ability to hold her peace?”
"I merely ready our inquiry. Wilt thou suffer it?”
“And when shalt I be so blessed, as to suffer thee not?” she spake, as she teetered her head.
“Answer me this, and so find me satisfied. Wouldst it not be our greater fortune if we hadth been born to a better woman? Better, I declare, only by nature of being a low-born?”
She smirked sharper than a butcher's blade. She turned back to the window, tossing her pillow-soft blonde hair o'er her raised shoulder. The wide swish gave her a whiff of the vanilla fumes exuding from her prickling skin.
Though ‘twas hardly an insult to others, her mother couldst withstand her suggestion not. That her precious high-born daughter, her royal blood, might suggest being low-born wast preferable to her high birth was profane language.
Silence, like the wind in the reeds.
Elizabeth looked back and craned her head forward.
“What? Silence? Shalt thou not rebuff us? Come. What sayest ye, our dear mother?”
Lady Sheeks made a slow blink. No other parts so much as flicked.
Thence, she turned away with a huff and a twisted lip.
The floor creaked ‘neath her hurrying feet.
Elizabeth smiled with deep satisfaction, like a beast lapping its mouth over its prey. ‘Twas the sweetest and most coveted sound in all the world: her steps fading into silence.
So ‘twas this way before, and shalt desirably be again. As long as she wast her mother's daughter, Elizabeth shan’t permit her mother to hath the final word.
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