My Mistress Lies in Beauty

I gladly serve her though the other women scorn her and look at her with jealousy in their eyes. Some of them choose not to look at her at all; perhaps for fear that they are not worthy and may perish from the sight. Still others stare without fear or jealousy at all and are amazed by her infinite beauty. I neither fear nor am jealous of her, but that is because I see no beauty in her face. She is pale and lifeless in my eyes. While my skin glows with a golden radiance that only the sun could have created, hers has never been warmed by the light of day. The truth be told, I have heard her say that she fears the sun and so she has me cloak her from burning crown to marble feet in heavy, emerald garb. I've gazed upon myself in her reflecting glass and seen the differences between my outsides and hers. I much prefer my own; the way my lips are full and naturally rosy, my skin is smooth and warm, my eyes are dark like two sweet blackberries floating in a dish of cream.

My mistress fears not only light of day, but also dark of night. We sit together by candlelight in her room and only listen to the life going on beyond us. She dresses me like a child does to a doll and sets me at her feet to sing to her the songs that I remember from my mother. It angers her when I forget the words, but I left my mother so long ago and have not heard those songs sung by anyone else, so every night it gets harder for me to remember the words. She never raises her voice when she angers, though, for fear it will leave her in the morning like so many of those women who always yell at their girls. My mistress never allows her brow to wrinkle when she angers for fear it will ruin her milky whiteness. Sometimes, I sit beneath her and she just watches me play. She enjoys my simple youth, but never smiles for fear she will impart the knowledge of her true happiness to all who may witness such a show.

Those who know her know that the key to her beauty is that she is forever saddened by her gift. When we go out and walk throughout the garden, the jealous women follow us and whisper to each other about my mistress. She never hears a word of what they say or else she does not respond to such ugliness in them. The staring women follow us, but never speak. They are in such awe of what they see, that their tongues cannot form words to express what her beauty makes them feel. The women who cannot look at her follow us, though I know not how. They never see just where we are going to because they do not look up from the ground. I suppose they follow the sound of the jealous women's voices or perhaps the lovely scent of my mistress and I.

I lead this crowd of women around the garden picking blooms from all the flowers that I see to make into a wreath of splendor to adorn my mistress with. I carry the bunch in front of me and always hold them close in hopes that their odor will linger on me late into the day. We take our leave of the garden before the sun begins to set and wander into a room where we can rest and eat. My mistress does not eat much and always has me eat first. The finest foods are spread before us and I am allowed to begin the meal. She glances around the room at all the faces of all the women that always follow her in sort of a thank you for being with her. She never smiles or waves at them, as I have seen other women do when they recognize their friends or see them sitting across the room. She remains alone, except for me, I suppose because of her beauty and the fact that she never waves and barely eats.

My mistress walks in beauty as we exit the room and leave the women behind. This is the only part of the day when we see a man and the only time I am ever alone. We go to the chapel and she sets me at the altar to pray for her while she is gone. She walks into a smaller room and stays there for quite a while. When the time is done, she exits with a man she calls the Priest. He gently holds her arm for he knows how delicate she is. They speak in muted voices to each other, but she never looks at him. Instead, she stays focused on the beads with the cross on it that she holds in her hands. They are too far away for me to hear what they always speak about, but I imagine that it is very important to them both. A single tear runs down my mistress' cheek and splashes onto the beads. She grips them as tightly in her hands as she has strength to do so and kisses them. The Priest claps her clenched hands and kisses them as well, then leaves her standing there and rushes away. I make my way across the room to her and kiss the beads as well as a proper ending to our solemn prayers.

Tonight she watches me play with my doll as I sit beneath her and for the first time in a great while she strokes my hair. We sit in silence long into the night, as there are no actions going on beyond us. The women are gone for the evening, we have met with the man, and now it is time to just sit in the candlelit room and play. I interrupt the silence with a song for my mistress. I sing it softly at first until she begins to hum along. I have sung this one for her many times before and we both remember how it goes, though I do not remember hearing my mistress' voice ever sounding this way before. It is clear and soft and much more beautiful than her face has ever been in my eyes, but I do not become like the jealous women, or the women who stare, or the women who cannot look at all. Instead, I keep singing with her and we are beautiful together. Late in the night, my mistress and I drink warm cups of mead that she has made for us, then we begin another song.

Morning comes to my surprise, because I do not remember falling asleep. I leave my bed in the corner of my mistress' room and rush to her side to wake her. There I find a sight that I have never seen before. My mistress lies un-awakened in her bed with crimson life-blood flowing from her wrists, soaking into her bedclothes, and dripping onto the floor. Her hair is messed about her along with crushed blooms from the wreath of flowers I made for her, and her skin is paler than I have ever seen it. Her gown is torn at the bottom and I notice that her feet are spread apart. More blood pools at the bottom of her gown than there is anywhere else on the bed, so I go to see why. There between her open legs, not wrapped well in part of her torn gown, is a baby with the same paleness as my mistress and covered in the same life-blood. I look closely at the child and notice a slit that leads across his neck from one ear to the other. I run back to my mistress' side and examine her wounds; they look the same. I drop to my knees to mourn the loss of my mistress and this unknown child and land on something sharp by the bed.

There on the floor lie her beads with the cross on them, but the bottom of the cross is missing and in its place is a small blade just big enough to make the wounds on the babe and my mistress. I walk to the foot of the bed, stand there, and cry. I stare at her lying there covered in more vibrant color than I could ever adorn myself with, then look away in the fear that I am not worthy of seeing something this alive and at that moment, as never before for as long as I have served my mistress, I am jealous of her beauty.