You know how you can be minding your own business, doing the most habitual thing in your life, and a new story idea comes to you? "Thus the female mind." I think this newest idea will make Number Ten (roughly speaking) in my Plenilune series which I am working on (Talldogs makes Number Three - Ethandune, who is Number Two, will be overhauled and expanded from its two-month blitz at some point in the future).
I've used my tentative, embryonic scene for this newest story as my Chatterbox. This month's Chatterbox subject is mirrors, but the actual story (so far as I know) does not hinge upon mirrors. They are a prop, a foil. And upon my soul I have cheated so shamelessly this month, it is a wonder Rachel didn't throw me off a cliff. I lo-o-ove you, Rachel.mirrors
my lord avery
“Is my Lord Avery
at home?”
I slipped loose
the heavy garnet fibula and let my chamois slide from my shoulders into Julia’s
hands. The maid took it and I turned in
the burnt shadows of the hall entryway, my nostrils full of the scent of mown grass
and freshly baked goods. The wind was in
its summer quarter, and the familiar smells of Amaranth in the height of the
year hummed inside my veins. My heart
had been going at a quickened pace since the morning two days past, and had not
slowed: now that I stood upon the threshold of my future, its gait seemed to
redouble.
Julia folded my
little riding cloak in her arms and took up my pack with ease. She was a tall woman, a little roughened from
use, but surprisingly strong for her light-boned build. With the yellowed evening light catching on
the thin grey of her eyes she looked down a little at me, smiling
straightly. “Aye, hast been expecting
thee these two days past. He was a dragon
in these halls this morning!”
Guilt was added to
the active emotions in my chest. If only
Father had not been tardy returning from Battens and I had been sent off in due
time! I knew I was not late for my own
coming-out, but I should have arrived at Amaranth at least a day ago. I had not known my Lord Avery to ever be
cross with me—trifling and, at times, a little perplexed, but never cross—but
when he was out of temper there was no gentle place in the world for my
soul. I hoped he was not angry now.
“Art dusty, and
thirsty besides,” remarked Julia gaily, in ignorance of my trepidations. “Come by and I will set up the bath for thee
and tuck thee in before supper.”
“Thank you,
Julia,” I replied meekly, and tread softly along behind her down the hall. The stone flags underfoot were scored and
scarred with fire, but the walls were new, and still looked to me a little like
playthings, they were so clean-cut and fresh.
“Give them another six generations,” my Lord Avery had once said to me—I
glanced over my shoulder: I had been sitting on the stone kerb of the wall on
the east side, where the summer’s evening light would hit me, and I had been
reading a book of history. My Lord Avery
had looked on the book with a strange fondness and his eye had not been upon
me. “These walls will grow hoary about
the whiskers with age.”
The rest of the
house was old—very old. I walked after
Julia through a narrow arched doorway into a darkened dog-leg of corridor where
very few lights shone after dusk and it was a horror to walk in the dead of
night, even with a lamp. I have never
been equal to the dark. Many other
things I have conquered in my sixteen years, but the dark has not been one of
them.
The buckle of my
saddle-bag jingled as Julia moved.
She took me to the
familiar blue-tiled washroom with its high narrow window and plumbing that could
alternately freeze your bones and strip the skin off your muscles with its
heat. It was a small, familiar,
fish-scale-coloured place, and I was glad to see it.
Julia shut the
door behind me and moved to place my pack on the stuffed seat of the armchair
by the old copper tub. As she began to
remove my clothing and lay out a fresh set of garments for me, I moved to the
basin and framed my reflection in the round, heavily gilt oval of the mirror. The face which gazed back at me was paled by
the blue light, but picked out on the cheeks with lively pink, woefully
freckled, and shrouded in the flaxen hair which the wind of my ride had teased
from its coils.
Mon coeur, I sighed dismally. I had hoped that, magically, the eve of my
coming out would wake a kind of spell that would make me very beautiful. In all respects I was tolerable, respectable,
and plain. Most days I could contrive to
believe that I was not ugly: very few days came which found me vain. But
tomorrow, I reasoned with myself and with providence, I should have liked to be beautiful, and to stand before the world with
unrivalled grace. My Lord Avery—
“There is the
clothing for thee,” said Julia, rising and turning to me. “Canst undress thyself?”
I drew my gaze
from the image in the mirror. “Yes. Thank you, Julia.”
She pinched the
corners of her gown and dipped. “I will
get a glass for thee and come back to thee presently.”
“Thank you,
Julia.”
She went out
through the heavy oak door, shutting it again so that its iron latches squealed
a little in their places, and I was left with the hollow sound of my own voice
echoing in my ears. Thank you, Julia. I would be
saying that often.
I unbuttoned the
throat of my riding habit and crossed to the tub. It was a sweltering day, and my head was
light with the blaze of the sun. A cool
bath, cool enough to jolt the brain back to reality—a heart-thundering
reality—would be the sort of thing Lady Greymere of Hol would take. Would she not? With my hand upon the handle of the spigot, I
frowned over my shoulder at that ordinary reflection.
You have always misfitted your name.
I turned the water on and felt the cold dig
its fingers into my palm through the sweaty metal pipe. Then, as an aside, I have been waiting for this moment all my life. Why am I so terrified of it now?
As I stood
placidly watching the tub fill, my fingers toying with the purple pearl buttons
of my silk, it crossed my twitching mind that I had not brought my set of combs
with me, choosing to use those which were held here for my use in the little
ivory drawer of my little ivory dressing table.
I would need them.
I shut off the
water and let myself out of the washroom.
The muffled sound of my boots on the stone flags was my only
accompaniment as I wound through the familiar passages to my bedroom at the
rear of the house. It was a beautiful
room, long and low-seeming, with a bank of leaded windows looking out over the
park. There was always good light in
that room, and it was lavishly furnished.
As a bower, I did not know its rival.
I turned the
corner to my room and stopped, mumchance, my lungs fighting to expel a sudden
wave of rotten stench. It was as though
something had died, and been left to decompose!
I slung my elbow over my mouth and hurried by the window, bracing as the
sharp light lanced across my eyes, and dove for my bedroom door. My foot hit a little red thing on the
floor—something like a rose petal; the door stuck and banged as I pushed it
open.
The butcher scent,
which I thought had been coming in from the window, welled out at me as I stood
stricken in the doorway. I got a
confused image of scarlet and a man’s silhouette, but it was a moment before my
flogged brain could pick itself up from the oppression of the smell. I jumped back, flinching, as a fly dove for
my face, and then a familiar voice was cutting through the miasma—
“Don’t come in here!”
Something wet and
red hit the back of my hand and I recoiled from the threshold. When I could see, when I could breathe
without gagging, I looked up through the fan of electrum evening light to find
my Lord Avery standing half upon the seat of a chair, half upon my receiving
table, holding what looked like the cover of my windowseat like Atlas above his
shoulders. He kinked it backward, cutting
off the aureole around his head; long red droplets, shining in the light, fell
to the ground behind him.
“Greymere!” His voice was reproachful, harsh and
serrated. My body shrank from it, but
already my eyes were starting round the room, glassing over as they took in the
shattered furniture, the scarlet smears on the lime-washed walls, the
bed-hangings ripped and sodden with blood.
There was a puddle inside the doorway not far from me which had
thickened, but still carried its rich, guttural shine; three flies were skirting
its oblong perimeter.
“Lord Avery!” I
gasped weakly. “What—what have you
done!”
“Don’t come in here,” he snapped. Then, beneath his breath, “Shi’batch! you would come at this
instant!”
It was a new word
for me. In the back of my mind I wondered
what it meant, and if I could use it.
Later I would pull it out and see what his response was. I was not sure how Lady Greymere ought to use
such things.
I stared at the
coagulating blood and the flies. “What
happened? Did you kill someone?” I took a step over the threshold.
“No—don’t come
in!” He took a step up onto the tabletop
and swung the windowseat-cover off his shoulders. It spat blood across my carpets and stained
the cream linen of the back-turned bedspread.
“What are you
doing?” I demanded. My stomach was
feeling queasy and my voice sharpened to cover it. “What
happened!”
It did not occur
to me that he might not know. He was
Lord Avery, head and shoulders above me, even when he was not standing on a
table, and I had always looked up to him as a kind of god. It did not occur to me that he might not
know.
He set the cover
down on the floor, dropping its weight against the lip of the table. As he bent his face was plunged in grey
shadow, and I was able to see his eyes, brown-hazel in the light, flickering
round the room as if he was expecting something more to spring out at him. I, too, travelled round the room with my eye,
sick-feeling and suspicious, repulsed by the sheer amount of carnage that
covered my belongings. There was so much
blood. It was throat-catching,
filthy—the lot would have to be burned.
It must not be human. It is
too much blood. Perhaps it is cow-blood,
or pig—something no one would notice if it was slaughtered. A human would go missing, and surely—my mind darted back over countless items of information I had picked
up from my Lord Avery over the years, pieces he had probably not been aware I
was storing away—surely this is too much
for one person to bleed out.
But where are the bodies?
My Lord Avery
stood on the table, the crown of his fair hair brushing the ceiling, and gazed
round on the room with a kind of sullen despair. I pressed tenaciously to the entryway, my
hands clasped together among my skirts, and tried to make myself as small as
possible. He was deeply in thought, and
I was always fearful of disturbing him when he was angrily pensive.
He looked down at
a shattered chair between himself and a scarlet end of bedding. “Is that a new gown?” he asked lightly.
I coloured and
looked down the length of my dress. It
was a dove-grey silk, ribbed in glossy purple thread. My father had ordered it so that I might not
come with trunks full of old gowns.
“Yes,” I murmured.
He nodded
sharply. “It is very becoming on you.”
My colour
deepened. It was only very recently that
he had taken to remarking, now and then, on the cut of my gowns, and I had not
grown accustomed to the event. But he
was not cross with me, and I was emboldened to prompt,
“Who would have
done this—please?”
My Lord Avery
flung a sharp laughing look at me, covering a latent fury which he did not want
me to see. “ ‘Please’! I am sorry my tone was so strong. But sooth I do not know,” he added in a
growling, baffled voice. “Have you see
Malcholm?”
I shook my head,
and the blonde tendrils of my hair trembled around my cheeks. “No.
Julia saw me in, but I did not see Malcholm.”
He thrust his
hands down upon his hips and scrunched his nose in perplexity. “Aye!
I do not think anyone knows of this.
And yet the windows are not broken, nor the latches undone. I have a wretched worm in my heart telling me
it was a person of my own household.” He
looked at me sidelong and quizzical.
“Have you ever,” he began, then stopped as if he had thought better of
it.
I stood very small
and cold in the doorway, wondering what was going on behind his suddenly
inscrutable face.
He began again,
speaking his words very gently, as if they were made of glass and might cut his
lips. “Have you ever had a disagreement
with any of the members of my household?”
A disagreement! I was not yet out, and despite the strength and the money behind my
name, I was not powerful or clever—not as powerful or clever as I wished I
was—but I heard the words he did not speak and I felt the heat rise in my
face. My voice came out very soft.
“No, my lord.”
His eyes widened a
fraction, like a wick when it catches the flame and sinks again. “ ‘Please’ and ‘my lord.’ What have I done to deserve this treatment?”
I shifted my heel
toward the corridor. “I am sorry, my
lord.” It seemed very clear to me
now. Someone was jealous. Perhaps someone had had her eye on my Lord
Avery for some time now, and felt I was unworthy of such a position. And I was, was I not? My throat was very dry: I tried to
swallow. It had been an old, settled
thing before I had shaken out of the mould.
And look at how I had shaken!
Here I stood on the brink of my coming-out and the announcement of the
shape of my life, and someone had painted a very clear sign of what would
happen to me if I should dare to go forward.
It was very clear to me.
My heart felt like
a broken silver.
“I am sorry.”
My Lord Avery was
very quiet and I did not dare to look up at him for the corners of my eyes were
smarting and any movement might send a telltale pearl of water over the
edge. But at last he said, very gently
and very thoughtfully,
“I am facing a
room debauched in something’s blood
and the suspicion that someone of my house is trying to send me an unpleasant
message—not very clearly, but very poignantly—and the little chit standing
before me, to my mind, is not upset about any of these things. She is upset about something, but not these
things.”
“I am—I am very
sorry.” My throat was tight, but I
pulled the words out of my mouth with an effort. I straightened my shoulders. How I wanted to get out of this and run away
from it like a coward! I levelled my
chin at the nightmare. “Did you—did you
jilt someone?”
This appeared to
take him aback. The chape of his sword
clawed across the back of a chair as he pivoted with the movement of his
surprise. “Jilt? No more than you, it would seem! Whom would I have jilted?”
It was all a bad
omen: Father’s lateness, the bloody carnage, the flies. My stomach crawled up my backbone and hid
there. “The timing is—tomorrow is my—was
my—coming-out. To find my room like
this—”
His voice cut
across mine. “If you think you are
playing a very subtle game with your words, your grammar is markedly
telltale. But let us suppose you are in
the right. I can think of no female I
have jilted—not to her face, at the least—but the landscape has an expression
of revenge, don’t you think?” His teeth
flashed and his nostrils flared on the scent of his words and the old bloodlust
of his noble pedigree. “Sooth, I did not
want you in here because I would rather you not see the foreskin that is nailed
to the lintel.”
“Shi’batch!” I jerked from the doorway and scrubbed at the
blood-streak on the back of my hand. “An’
sure it was a woman!”
“Why—language,
girl!—why a woman?” my Lord Avery laughed.
My flesh trembled
with appreciative revulsion. “A man
would not do such a thing.”
His brows flickered
admittingly. “An’ true. Ma
petite mère,” he added, swinging down off the table to stand with the sun’s
areole around his head, “I believe you have just formally graduated from the
schoolroom.”
I bit my lip and
stared up at him from an angle, discomforted and frightened and desperately
hopeful. He had used his old pet name
for me—could that be a good omen among all these nasty imports? Could it be that he was not looking round at
this violated chamber and looking twice at the picture he had made in his mind
of his future?
He hooked his
middle finger through his sword-belt at his back and gave it an unconscious
hitch. “It is in my mind that you are
right,” he said in a more serious tone.
He smiled straight-lipped and mirthless at me, and the hope in my chest
died. “Someone—an’ I do not know who,
but I am sure I will meet presently—someone is towering angry with me, and from
the looks of things it is a woman.”
I ventured among
the dead embers of my hope, and they did not burn my feet as much as I would
have thought. “It is not me she is angry
at? That was your first thought.”
Out of the corner
of my eye I saw him whip his head toward me.
“It was my first thought that it was a man playing a brutal game with
your sensibilities. I have got account
of that kind of thing done before, and it is not pretty.” He came carefully across the mess toward me,
sure not to set his boot in any of the congealed patches of blood. His shadow thickened on my trembling
skin. “But now that I look at it anew I
am convinced you are right. This was not
a man’s work. Not a lady’s work, either,
but certainly not a man’s.”
Was he
convinced? My mind backstepped quickly
from his advance, and a new, nasty thought occurred to me: what if he knew more
than he let on, what if he was trying to convince me, and all this was a façade to break up the coming-out and the
announcement and everything I had anticipated all my life? What if he wanted none of it, and sought a
bold way out? Oh—oh God—my chest hurt abominably.
“My lord—” I began thickly.
“I am a lord,” he
cut me off gently; “I am also a man, and I will take my liberties.”
Next thing I knew
my heart was in my throat and his hand was firm beneath my chin, drawing it up
so that he could touch my mouth with his.
It was so sudden, so unexpected, that I did not catch my own reaction of
his lips and his smell and the comfort of his presence until the thing was
over—and then he was smiling soft and crooked down at me, as if something hurt
a little on his inside, and he asked,
“Now tell me: why
does my first kiss taste of salt?”
I gasped and
ducked my head to brush the back of my knuckle against my dampened eye. “I—I am sorry,” I stammered and stared at his
feet. “Please do not—I do not mean to
cause you trouble—if you would rather send me back—”
I heard his teeth
in his voice when he spoke. “I thought
that was the thing which troubled you.
Send you back! My girl, what kind
of picture have you painted of me, that I would backstep from the gate like a
coward? If this is the way the weird
lies, I will follow it, and nothing will induce me to upset either your coming
out or the formal announcement of our engagement.” His voice softened a little, but the sound of
his teeth was still in it. “Sooth, my
own blood is up, and I would like to look the witch in the eye who has done
this. A good test of our mettle, don’t
you think, you and I?”
He put his hand up
on the doorhead and leaned into it, tall and dominant above me, and the
presence in his eye as he stared down at me was blunt and heavy like high
summer sunlight on my skin. I did not
feel brave—I was still sick inside—but I thought he was in earnest, and with
the knowledge of that, feeling better would come in time.
His free hand
brushed my cheek and he said without lifting his gaze from me, “Malcholm. Art just the man I am needing at this
moment. Come soft.”
I pressed into the
wallspace behind me and turned to see the big soft-spoken steward standing
hesitant in the hallway some yards behind.
He was a great man for silence and efficiency, and I knew that in a
moment my Lord Avery would speak a few deft words in his ear and turn the
matter of my bedchamber over to capable hands.
Malcholm would know, but would not mind save that it was a matter
pertaining to his lord’s comfort, that someone had painted a gruesome message
across the threshold of my life.
Staring at my
hands clasped in my skirts, I wished powerfully that I could determine what the
message said.
My Lord Avery bent
to my ear. “Chin up, ma mère.
Do not look so peaky. I will see
you at supper.”
Then he
backstepped into the doorway again and Malcholm joined him, nodding with kindly
deference to me as he passed, and in a few moments I had my back to them and
was wandering in a daze toward the washroom.
Nothing felt right to me. My Lord
Avery did not yet feel safe in my grasp and the vicious thing which had
happened cast a sordid pall over the glint and glimmer of the ton into which I was about to be
ushered.
But perhaps my Lord Avery is not wrong. My breastbone
ached with the effort of hopefulness. He is not cross with me, nor regretful. God and his angels preserve me—I could not
bear it if he was regretful. I came
to the washroom door and let myself in silently upon the gentle blue-lit
chamber. Perhaps it is not all glint and gilt, but blood too, and we will come
together through it, he and I. Those
were his words.
I shuddered and
slipped the lock to on the door behind me.
I do not feel safe.
Crossing to the
tub, I turned the water on once more and watched the high pale light dancing in
the coppery depths. My fingers played
with the long row of buttons down the front of my silk, and as the silk fell
open the air stroked my nettled skin.
With an effort I drew a deep breath to soothe the tension of my chest
and found the tang of blood was still in my nose.
I jerked my head
toward the mirror. Something told me it
was there the moment before I saw it, but the little scream still started from
my throat. The bloodied back of my hand
flew to my mouth and I recoiled, grasping the edge of the tub for support. The mirror was slashed and streaked with
bloodied handprints, and across the width of it someone had written—
ALL MEN ARE BASTARDS
And you are leaving us THERE? That was not kind Jenny.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, I forgot to mention that this is not a typical one-shot, it is part of an entire story. So yes, it isn't tied up in a pretty little bow at the end. You're welcome. XD
ReplyDeleteI am loving loving loving it. I love Greymere and Avery. They are wonderful together, and the little juggling of cozy summertime and horrific nightmare is effective. I love this so much. Cannot wait to find what you do with the story as a whole!
ReplyDeleteHa ha! I'm glad you liked it. It took me two tries to get it right: I started off in the third person, felt the whole thing was resisting me, and switched to first person, which answered to my touch much better. Cosy summertime juxtaposed to nightmares is a specialty. We have a fresh shipment in every second Monday.
ReplyDeleteThank you for allowing me to cheat so thoroughly. You're a real friend. :P
Could it be the girl in the beginning of the snippet or else I will have to suspect someone else of the household or surrounding area. *puts on her holms cap*
ReplyDeleteYou will never know...until I write the rest of the story.
ReplyDelete*waves hand benevolently* I know I'm a generous creature. This was worth it. Also, sometimes first person is the only way to go. In this case, I think it captures much better the spirit of a sixteen-year-old chit who isn't exactly grown up yet. That'd be harder to do in 3rd.
ReplyDeleteMm, yes...
ReplyDeleteI think my use of first and third person splits about forty-sixty across my works.
Adamantine - third.
Plenilune - third.
Gingerune - was going to be first, switched to third.
Ethandune - first.
Talldogs - third.
Lamblight - third.
Maresgate - third.
Cruxgang - third.
Amaranth - was going to be third, switched to first.
Drakeshelm - third.
Ampersand - first.
Four in first, seven in third. Third is more forgiving when it comes to general plotlines, I find, and often suits my prose better, but every now and then first is the only thing that will do.
Darn your mushrooms. I just like saying those names over and over.
ReplyDeleteMy mushrooms be suitably damned. Enjoy them. ^.^
ReplyDelete...You'll have to forgive my counting skills. Eight in third, three in first.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Julia? Please do write the rest the story!
ReplyDeleteOh my! Chilling. Goodness gracious, but this is a tantalizing snippet.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE IT.
ReplyDeleteDarn your mushrooms indeed, I want more! I think this has to be my favorite Chatterbox so far.
(And I like how it's a shot at first-person. We don't see much of that around here.)
Well this makes my little Chatterbox offering sitting in draft look very prim...XP
Gillian - I'm glad the atmosphere got to you! I feel I have won the battle with this piece. ^.^
ReplyDeleteBree - My mushrooms will never know redemption. Which is all right: in general I'm not very fond of mushrooms, myself.
If I'm not mistaken, I can actually recall the first story I wrote in first person. You will never see it, and you will be glad for that. All of my beginning stories were self-inserts of the third person (which in itself sounds like a book). And usually I'm more comfortable with third person: it is more forgiving in terms of movement, observation, and interaction. But I can do first person. I recall reading a little summary on Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword At Sunset, and coming across the account that the woman began the story several times only to find it resisting her at every turn, then she realized it had to be written in the first person, not third. That account has left a remarkable impression on me, and I was not adverse to scraping what I had of this Chatterbox in the third person and beginning anew with the first. It seems to have worked.
As always, your very obedient.
Couldn't the work of the Holy Spirit be considered "self-inserts of the third person"? Capital work as always dear. Avery may well be one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteAh heh, that may be my new favourite joke of all time. XD
ReplyDeleteThank you oodles. My cool professional demeanor is quickly dissolving into a puppy that has been told "walkies." ^.^
Powerful stuff!! I am so looking forward to hearing more from this new story, Jenny. You left us here too painfully.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I truly LOVE all your descriptions here, and I grew fond of this tentative little girl.
Avery though.... he deserves closer inspection.