In the Chamber, Part Three
Monday, February 16, 2004The next morning he was waiting in the dining room. As with the night before, everything as already laid out, not another person in sight.
“Three times a day,” he told me, “The servants will lay out a meal...if there’s anything your require, a something between meals, something you would prefer, you merely have to say so in the speaking tube leading to the kitchen. He flicked a finger at a brass tube next to the doorway leading towards the servant’s area. It had a cover, so all I had to do was flip the cover up and say what I wanted.
“How will I know that they’ve heard?” I ask.
“They always hear.”
“I’ve never seen one yet...where are they?”
“Around” He handed my an egg from the basket. It was still warm, and when I cracked open the shell I was pleased to see it was cooked through solid. I listened to the crunch of shells being rolled and cracked on the table, silver ware on plates, stuck again by how loud all these mundane tasks seemed in contrast to the absolute silence that commanded the residence. It had been too quiet for me, last night, trying to get to sleep. The manor did not creak as it settled for the night. The wind did not whistle through the chimneys. I would have drawn comfort from the breathing of my husband, but once he drifted off his breaths became almost imperceptivity shallow. I’d held my hand in front of his face once, to see if he yet lived.
It had not been this way, on our travels.
Wherever the servants were, they new how to cook. The rolls were so sweet and warm they hardly needed the honey that sat in it’s etched glass pot. It, like the dinnerware, had a fox motif...in fact, hunting was a major decoration of many of my husband's furnishings. So manly. I wondered if he would mind, now that he was single, if I replaced a few of his foxes with something more female. I stared down at my plate, of the foxes running along a forested border, out witting a farmer with an axe, and felt dizzy. Yes. Roses, or perhaps ivy would be far better for my indigestion. Especially since the plates seemed to be telling a story...one that continued around the brim of the salad plate, that blossomed full blown on the side of the tea pot. Foxes running, hiding, from foolish looking men. It would have been cute, even comedic, but for the look on his muzzled face...
“I’ve lingered longer than I should have.” he said, standing up from the table. I stood too, but he stayed me with a kiss. “Sit, finish your dinner. I will see you in a few days, I promise.”
“Are you sure?”
He took my chin in his hands and kissed me again. “I always keep my promises.” He looked me in the eyes a long moment and I nodded. He stroked my cheek and left, leaving me to sit, wondering what to do next. I ran to the window after a moment, to see him on his white and gray horse, riding down the lane. He had a pair of saddle bags, no more, and I thought good, perhaps he will come home. The keys weighed heavily from their chain around my waist, and so I decided to do some exploration denied me the night before. I went over to the tube.
“I’m all done. Thank you. It was very nice.” I listened for a long second. No banging of pots, no yelling at skivvies, and certainly no acknowledgement of my speech. Odd, I thought as I, keys jingling, went off.
Most of the rooms were not locked. Some of them could be...and I had keys for those to prove it. The library, three stories high and filled with books was one of these, the key marked with an open book fit in the lock and turned easily. It was a perfectly round room, and a set of stairs spiraled around it, up and up to a small platform t the very top, below the stained glass dome. I walked all the way up, admiring the pattern of the large done...it was intricately done, a forest filled with flowers and life, like a labyrinth that unraveled itself the closer I got to it. On the platform, with it’s short iron rail, I could see the words around the very bottom, worked in the pattern of the forest floor. “Be bold,” it said, “Be bold, be bold...but not too bold.” Looking far down to where the bright colored pattern of the carpet seemed more like a memory than fact, I thought it would take far more than me being bold to ever ascend those steps again.
There were bedrooms done in various colors, and, under lock and key, a nursery, the only place that had any accumulated dust. I pulled the drapes and opened the windows wide, hoping that some of the dust and the underlying stench of decay would fade. I would have to talk to the servants...it smelled as if a rare, or maybe even a cat had died unattended to. And the dust and webs lay so thick on the furnishings that until I opened the widows I thought they were covered with cloths.
It was the only room in the manor so shamefully taken care of. I took delight in the upper rooms, all of them locked, such as the music room. As I stepped inside it, I was amazed at how airy it seemed, filled with cases displaying all manner of instrument. One corner was taken up with an odd organ, that barked nosily at me when I, thinking that I was crossing a different pattern of tile, found myself making music. I did a silly little jig on the wedge shaped tiles, and every time my foot moved, music came out of the pipes. In front of the windows a many layered harp sat, speaking softly whenever a whisper of breath from my moving touched it. I opened the windows and stood behind it so that the breeze from outside could play across the strings, and as I stood there I felt as if I was awash in music, bathing it like something tangible.
Eventually I left. I spent more time than I should admit to in the treasure room, with it’s small boxes filled with gold coin, a chest of nothing but pearls, and a cabinet with various stones of varying hues and sizes. I felt guilty, looking through it, but he had bid me to be free with his whole manor.
And so I was, until I took a wrong turn somewhere, wanting to sneak down into the servants quarters. I thought I could sneak up on one of them, give them a right talking to for the nursery.
The hall was long, dark, but perfectly clean. A window at the very end of it provided the only light, and there was only one door, outlined in red. There was no other way out, but to go back the way I came. I could hear something, on the other side, and as I leaned closer I could hear something whispering. At first I wondered if it was perhaps the housekeeper or the butler’s room. I placed my hand on it lightly, pressed my ear to the wood. My other hand held the keys silent.
The smallest key dug into the palm of my hand, and I straightened, looking at it. It was not metal, despite it’s black all absorbing color, but glass. I held it in front of my gaze, studying it. The other keys slid away until I was holding only the small, plain glass key in between my thumb and forefinger. Such a tiny key, for such a tiny room, down such a long, plain hall. It looked so harmless. I had seen all his treasures, surely...his gold and his jewels and his strange, beautiful, wondrous things. What things would this room hold? This out of the way, innocent looking doorway? Besides, he was my husband, was he not? What right did he have to keep secrets from his wife?
Such a tiny, harmless, innocent key. Such a plain, normal looking door. Just take a peek, prove them all wrong, no one would ever, ever know...
I lowered the key towards the lock. The door knob was red glass, smooth and cool to the touch.
It would not go well for out marriage, I heard him say, as clearly as if it were yesterday again. I took my hand away from the knob and put it behind my back. I forced myself to drop the keys so that they hit my thigh. Hand joined hand, and grasped each other tightly. I backed down the hall, never taking my eyes off the door, wondering, wondering, what was listening to me in the silence, what might come out to get me.
The only sign of my near fall was that my thumb and forefinger were pink, almost as if the key had scalded me. It faded even as I was sitting down to the tea I had requested from the kitchen, telling the silent servants that I was not interested in lunch, thank you, when footsteps, hard, business like boot steps could be heard stomping up the stairs. I thought about cowering in the corner, but realized that the small room, sunny and filled with plants, the only furniture a spindly table and pair of chairs, would afford me no cover. I could throw the tea pot at whoever it was, I thought.
“There you are.” He leaned against the door frame as if trying to capture his breath. There was no warmth in his smile.
“You’re home so soon? Was the business that quickly concluded?”
“I hope you’re not disappointed. I wanted to rush home to my bride.” He crossed to me, and offered his hand. I placed my hand in his and he kissed it with cold lips, turning it over so that he could kiss the palm. His eyes lingered on the tips of my fingers. The pink was merely a blush, almost indiscernible, and he kissed those two. He repeated the process with my other hand, and the more he kissed them, the more he looked, the warmer he became, until he gave me a smile of perfect, unspoiled joy and pulled me close. His lips on mine were warmer than summer, and I felt, oddly, as if I’d passed some test, as if I’d made him incredibly, profoundly happy.
I searched the house from top to bottom, but never found the smallest sign of a servant. My husband always changed the subject even if I asked him right out where they where and why I never saw them. The nursery was door was locked again the next time I went to inspect it, and when I opened the door the curtains were drawn once more. I looked at the floor, and noticed that there were only two sent of tracks...one leading in and one leading out. How did they manage to go in and shut the windows without leaving a sign? I thought it was because they had their own way in, like all large houses a network of tunnels must surely run behind the walls, entrances and exits cleverly concealed by wall seams and wainscoting. I walked around the room, pulling back the curtains and looking for scuffs in the dust beside my own, and came up empty. I stepped into the hallway, pausing for just a moment, wondering if I should prop open the door and go get my husband, when I heard the whisk of the curtains being drawn once more. The door was slammed shut and I heard the lock turn. I fumbled for the keys then stopped, much as I had before another, smaller door, and decided to lave well enough alone.
To quote my husband during a more exasperated moment when I’d been harassing him on the subject, “As long as the food appears on the table on time, the rooms are clean and all of your other needs are seen to, what do you care if you ever see them or not? Most nobles prefer it that way.”
The servants (or lack of) were not the worst part.
Every day or so, I would get visitors. Sometimes my cousin, but more often other nobles women from our, I suppose I should say, circle. People, I’d like to point out, who had had very little time for me when I was merely Weli’s charity case. And if it was the usual busy body digging for gossip, I’d have probably dealt better with it...but it was...odd. There was no noisy entrances, no silly useless talk or over exuberant greetings. The show, in short, was gone. You know what I mean...every time a lady visits another there is a mini performance. Her clothes, her friends, her carriage, everything down to if she brings some small, yappy pet along is part of a performance. The way she takes your hands, kisses your cheek, looks around your home are all part of a larger thing. They did not do this, for me.
They were quiet when they came, and their clothes, while respectable, were darker in tone. They took turns coming, and always came early in the day, well before sunset. There most daunting resemblance was the fact that, from the closest friend to the most distant near enemy, without fail, they always looked so worried until they saw me, until they took my hand. They would search my face, talk to me, until little by little, the worry would fade into an almost palatable relief. I thought as time went on, they would stop coming, but they never did. Every other day, afternoon. I could predict with near perfect precision when and who.
But that wasn’t the worst part, either.
It was the whispering, you see. Every night on the edge of my dreams. It was a murmur, if my husband was there, but it only grew louder when he wasn’t. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the darkness to an empty bed and to chitterings and whisperings and moanings that echoed between my ears so loudly that sleep was impossible, I could only lay there and wait for my husband’s return. He would come in, naked, cold, damp, and throw himself under the covers. He’d slide his hand into mine, and we’d never speak, just wait until his shivering stopped, and the screeing in my head would die down to faint whispers once more.
It amazes me still, that I could be obsessed with making him confess the secret of the servants, but never once ask him about the sounds in my head. Perhaps I was afraid that my listening at the door had contaminated me somehow, that it would be a confession of how I’d almost slipped the key in and opened it.
“Be bold,” I said.
He jumped a little, and looked up from his reading. “What did you say?”
We were in his study, and I was standing next to the fireplace. The painting above it disturbed me, continuing as it did the fox motif. I’d never gotten quite comfortable with it, but the picture of it, with a group of farmers hunkered down around a fire, the fox spitted over the flames, was horrifying. I felt bad for the fox, who chased my food around plates and followed me in the wood work of the house. I’d read the brass plaque underneath it.
“That’s what the painting’s called, I suppose,” I said, pointing at it. “Be Bold.”
“No,” he said, “That’s the motto of my house.”
“Be bold? Is that all.”
He nodded and returned to his reading. “It’s enough.”
I looked outside. There was another couple of hours of light. “I’m going riding.” I looked to see if he would jump up and congratulate me on my wonderful idea, but all he did was nod, and turn the page. I left the study, feeling nervous. I’d never ridden anywhere by myself, at least not since the last time. His voice echoed down the hall after me, comfortingly, as if he knew my worries.
“I’ll come after you in an hour,” he said, “should I not see you sooner.”
And suddenly I felt much braver.
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Why I did what I did...
Let’s see. Hum. This part is getting harder, but the idea is to make me think more, to explain, to study the experience, so...
I want to utilize some of the themes and happenings that are famous in the Bluebeard/Robber Bridegroom mythos. The egg is from a version of the story where the “Bluebeard” of the story gives his young wife an egg to carry around everywhere. She drops it in the room when she nebs into it, and hence he knows she broke in. That’s why Joaquin (still not sure about that name...opinions?) hands her an egg...albeit hardboiled. The key is glass because, and Terry Windling points out in the introduction to Fitcher’s Brides, it almost always is.
The fox idea comes from the fact that the Robber Bridegroom is often named Mr. Fox, or sometimes Reynardine. The implications will become more important later, but not, I hope, in the way you might think.
And I’ve finally used Be Bold the rest of the way. I’m not going to use the rest of it, (Be bold, be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest your heart’s blood grow cold) at least I don’t think so.
I had a lot of fun writing of the wondrous rooms...and of the creepier rooms. Mostly, what we have is a lot of planting. There will be more planting tomorrow, with her discover that she’s about to make. A lot of what I’ve written may get changed around in the next draft. Right now, it’s all discovery. Each draft is so different. The first, you learn...you learn what you have, what you want, what the story is going to be. You find out if it’s a short story or novel. It’s the raw stuff. The second draft is where you take it all and make it make sense...it’s a totally different creature, and just as much fun as you work things around, as you wince and cut or smile and polish.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:21 PM
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