By Blood and Marriage
Celene had never seen the need of a nightgown.
To her, there had never been any point in wearing something hot and oppressive, particularly when she slept. The little cot right next to the warm fireplace was considered her bed, and the cellar itself was considered her bedroom. And so her nightwear consisted of nothing but a breast covering and a small slip. And why not? No one ever came into the cellar to be shocked by her appearance, save for Elle, who was used to her sister's odd habit, and Celene's admirers, whom Celene was quite pleased to shock.
She was completely alone by the fireplace, after realizing too late that Elle had lied to her about Roberta's time of return; she was gone for much longer than an hour. By then, Celene had already rushed the count's son out of her bed, finished the rest of her chores, along with dusting the chimney in a rush. But when she saw that her stepmother had yet to come back, she threw caution to the winds and simply lit the fireplace again, lied down on her cot and read one of the large books of fairy tales that her father used to read to his twins. But while the stories had simply amused Elle, they entranced and hypnotized Celene. As a small child, she was possessed by the books, and would always imagine her life was a fairy tale; that she was a princess in a palace. And, although Celene was no longer a young fool, her decisive mind had never quite forgotten that dream.
"ELLE!"
It was Roberta's voice, calling from the foyer. Celene's body jerked at the sudden sound. "I'm coming, Roberta." a new voice called; this time her sister's. She looked up at the ceiling to hear the sound of footsteps and a closing door, and cautiously set her book down. Her trained ears caught the sound of swift, stumbling feet, rushing down what she knew very well to be the back staircase. Celene smirked to herself. That would be Jack, running down from Elle's room, as he always did. Her twin's affair had always amused Celene; particularly the fact that Elle could still get physical enjoyment from a boy close enough to her to be her brother.
As delicately and with as little noise as she could manage, Celene grabbed her book and moved off the cot, trying desperately not to trip over her daintily useless feet; to imitate her sister's spectacular stability. She miserably failed to achieve the latter, but surprisingly accomplished the former. Sound traveled all too acutely throughout the walls of the house, and she didn't want to risk being heard by her stepmother. Not now.
She stepped over to the mantel and knelt down, moving a large, rectangular stone from its place in the floor pattern. It slid out of its panel easily, revealing a well-sized, open compartment, perfect for a small storage area. There were three large books inside it, all of them tall tales, or children's stories. Tenderly, Celene placed the fourth book next to the stack, unwittingly letting her fingers caress the cover. It took her a few hypnotic seconds for her to realize what she had been doing. Pulling her hand away gently, she smiled inwardly and turned her eyes to the large pile of coins and notes; breielles and zouhlads. Celene held her breath as she scooped up a handful of the bronze breielles, eyes widened with slight exhilaration, and began to count her savings. Up the staircase, she could still hear the voices of the people who had always passed for her family.
She finished counting, and could not help but feel as if she were suddenly as if she were suddenly being emptied beneath her substantial chest and flat stomach, like a statue; one that was beautifully carved, but hollowed out. 1,511 zouhlads, and six breielles. A good sum for a lowly servant such as herself, but in reality, it wasn't that much, and it wasn't enough. It had been for quite some time now that Celene Glasswen had been saving up for two items. She was nearing the amount of pay for the first, but had a stretched road to travel if she wanted to buy the second.
She stared at the money in her hands, and soundlessly placed it back in the compartment, covering all of it with the stone. As she looked up, she inhaled deeply and stared straight ahead. Her lovely face was now set, eyes not defeated but determined. With one last look at the stone, she bounded up to the top of the staircase with as little sound as possible, leaned her ear against the door, and began to listen.
Elle reached the last step of the staircase, arranging her expression so that it was blank as a servant's face should be; eyes open wide enough to be attentive, less than enough to be coy or alluring; chin tilted the slightest bit downward in what should be considered respect, if not fear; mouth set in a straight, impassive line. She lost her personal aura of control by the tilt of the chin, but retained all the elegance of her posture. Once, she had even considered dropping that as she entered her maid's role, but found that she had an extremely difficult decision to make: whom to honor? Her mother's poise, which she herself had inherited, or her stepmother's authority? The question was too exhausting to answer, so she did nothing about it.
She turned and saw Roberta walking into the foyer, Lisabeth and Angela behind her, purchases in their arms. When the woman's eyes met Elle's, she immediately turned away and walked towards the kitchen, busying herself with her purchases.
Roberta was a small woman in her late forties, reaching Elle's own height. She had the look of a woman who may have been attractive in her years of youth, but age had left its mark on her in the form of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth that blemished her olive skin. However petite her body was, her face was slightly rectangular shaped, with defined bone structure that preserved some of her former beauty. Her forehead was high, her eyes were a pale grey, and her long, dark hair was cleverly put up in braids that concealed the traces of white strands. The thin, pale lips that were normally firm and pleasantly set would have given Roberta Inlet the look of a controlled, agreeable woman. But something about her demeanor seemed to change in the company of her stepdaughters.
"Did anyone come to call while we were gone?" Roberta asked, in her quiet, uneven tone her voice always contained in Elle's presence.
In a fragment of a second, Elle thought back to Jack's entrance, and the image of Celene opening her door to some handsome admirer or another. She shook her head. "No, madam."
"And your chores are near done?"
"Quite, madam."
Roberta said nothing and nodded. Suddenly her gaze fell on the kitchen's table, and her pale eyes widened. Elle followed her glance and felt herself staring in shock at Angela's hidden bottle of ale, the one that Elle and Jack had left on the table. The room fell utterly silent.
The woman's eyes were near bulging now, and the hands that held her purchases were shaking. Elle felt panic spur her heart, making it beat louder and quicker, just as a drumstick beats rapidly against its drum. Roberta had stopped walking, and now stood still to the ground, unable to move. Her lip and chin trembled as she spoke, her voice likewise moving uncontrollably. "What is that doing here?"
Angela also staring at the bottle, face contorted into what was clearly utmost panic. Her eyes darted to Elle, shaking her head viciously fast, mouthing pleading syllables to her stepsister. The gods only knew what Roberta would do to her daughter if she discovered the ale's origin.
Elle thought quickly. "Oh, I forgot. Someone did come to call, young master Edwards, from that extravagant manor up the hill. The ale was thanks for lending him the carriage that one night, when his horse broke down. He believed it was the least he could do."
Angela closed her eyes and let out a long tortured breath, giving Elle a look of solid gratitude, which Elle returned with a one cornered smile. It was a smile she had always saved specifically for Angela (and, on occasion, Jack), whenever she was guilty of the house's most recent crime.
She turned back to Roberta, who was not taking Elle's reply as well as her daughter. The relief on her face was only slight, and her breath was still fluctuating unpleasantly. Lisabeth, still in the corner by the door, looked at her mother with nervous anticipation.
Still trembling madly, Roberta gulped, as if testing her throat to make sure it was still capable of movement. When she spoke, however, her voice seemed calm.
"Take that bottle out of this house at once." she said to Elle, turning her face so that she was looking neither at her stepdaughter nor the ale. "You will throw it into the lake for the talons of deep water to snatch and grab at it as they please. After that, please complete your chores, I would like to see this house cleaned before midnight."
The well-practiced tone, the rehearsed lines, they all made Elle feel as if she were back at the theatre, watching some sort of Westlieren play. She was used to this from Roberta; she supposed it was her stepmother's only veneer to conceal the fear, hatred, and jealousy that hid in her heart whenever she was near the Glasswen twins.
Elle nodded at Roberta's orders, and curtsied enviably as she walked to open the back door in the kitchen, grabbing the ale in the process. Her hand rested on the door's handle. Before turning it, she turned her head and stared straight on at Roberta.
"Have a good day, madam."
The door shut softly.
She returned a half an hour later to find Angela standing in the kitchen, stashing another bottle of ale in her hidden cupboard. Elle raised her eyebrows and gave a resigned sigh.
"I give up Angela. It really is hard, you know, being your second mother."
Angela just laughed. "Elle, you're as good as a real mother. I'm in your debt now." She spoke in her easy, casual way that only Angela possessed; as if she were just tossing her words out into the air, not necessarily caring where they landed. Elle rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but smile inwardly. Angela's lazy carefree manner was oddly endearing.
Angela was the oldest of the Inlet sisters, no younger than Elle herself. Her appearance was less than attractive; she was short and nearly neck less, with a round face, large cheeks and pale, slightly yellowed skin. Her lips with red but thin, and hardly ever did the smile that revealed her unclean teeth leave her mouth. Both her beady, sparkling eyes and stringy curls were black, as well as the gown she currently wore. It was pulled obscenely low to exhibit her finest physical feature; her cleavage. One glance at her chest was enough to convince many passing men that she was a talented whore. But Angela Inlet was no whore. She simply worked for free.
Elle shook her head. "This is really getting absurd, Angela. You know it's dangerous to have ale and alcohol around her, and I can't keep covering up for you."
While Angela was no longer grinning, she wasn't frowning either as she raised an eyebrow. "You do know that you wouldn't have had to cover up for me if you hadn't left the bottle out in the first place, right?"
Defeated, Elle could only give her a warning look, which Angela caught and laughed.
"So," she began, the twinkle in her eyes alive and mischievous. "How did the handsome prince enjoy himself while we were gone?"
Elle only glanced up at her apprehensively as she knelt on the floor with a wet washrag. "Do I even want to know how you guessed he was here?" she said, looking down and scrubbing.
Angela smirked, clearly enjoying herself. "You can relax. I only noticed because you don't usually drink without company."
While Elle's expression did not change, she couldn't help but inwardly chide herself once again for underestimating her stepsister. It was rather often that she forgot about Angela's observancy.
"How much did you drink, by the way?" Angela continued, her voice overtly suggestive and her eyes dancing.
Elle stopped scrubbing and looked up at her. "Would you like to go and check the bottle yourself? It should be floating somewhere near Autanoer by now."
Angela smiled before putting on a mock pout. "Fine, don't tell me. I suppose now I am free to assume that the two of you were drunk when you went upstairs, am I right?"
"I'm not drunk now, and he just left."
"You mean I just missed him? What a shame, I had had my own ideas of what to do with him."
Elle set her jaw differently, her eyes showing an emotion somewhere in between exasperation and despair.
"You should stop, Angela," she said, abruptly
"Stop what?"
"Handing yourself out, without question."
Angela was silent as she began to stare off in the distance, sipping her glass of ale. The dominant trace of a smile was left on her closed lips. "Live in the moment, Ella," Elle winced at the nickname. "I don't care for anything eternal."
"These men mean nothing to you, Angela."
"You're hardly one to talk, Ella. You certainly don't love Jack."
Elle stared Angela straight in the eye. "But I trust him, Angela. He wouldn't hurt me. Your men are different."
Angela only laughed once more. She never tired of it. "Elle, how can these men hurt me?"
"In any possible way. Angela, if you don't mean a thing to these men, there's no way of knowing what they could do to you."
At these words, the smile on Angela's lips shifted oddly into something resembling cynicism. The previously blue sky outside was stained with the orange and gold glow of a sunset that seeped through the kitchen window, catching its reflection in her distant black eyes. "So what are you suggesting, Elle? That I find a man whom I mean something to?"
Elle stopped scrubbing as the realization of her own words surged through her unpleasantly. She moved her mouth silently, wanting to apologize, and unsure of what to apologize for. Angela laughed, her smile now far away, with a bitter wisdom that would seem out of place to one not familiar with her. "We're not all painted pretty like you, Ella. I'm no beauty, nor am I a fool enough not to see it so. It would take a long time for any man to fall in love with me. Their eyes are domineering, and anyone with a sister like yours knows that full and well." She laughed again and took another.
Angela's not bitter for her own cause, Elle thought as she examined her stepsister. She's upset for the rest of us, all victims of males' visual obsessions. Her sister. Her mother... Elle stopped her mind from wandering in that direction.
"By the way, Elle-" she snapped her head up, thankful for Angela's interruption. "Has anyone ever told you that you are a damned good liar?" her stepsister smirked.
And at that, Elle could not resist a chuckle as she crouched lower on the floor, scrubbing with a little less intensity than before.
Jack ran for about an eighth of a mile before slowing down to a walk, just to be safe. He truly did not want to think of the look that Roberta would have on her face if she ever caught him near her stepdaughters.
The prince didn't bother to speed up again until he reached the town's center, through which he had to endure the glances and whispers of the peasants and upper middle class as they noticed the tatters of his garments. Undoubtedly each and every one of them was making up stories of the prince's latest escape adventure to satisfy their own curiosities. Because that is simply what people do. When they ask questions to which they receive no answers, they persist and persist until it become intolerable, or they make up their own answer, which is then spread around until everyone grows to accept it as the truth.
Jack hated it. But it was far from the worst aspect of the life of a prince of a prosperous kingdom.
The prince was suddenly washed over with sheer relief as he spotted a small cluster of palace knights chatting and laughing near the fountain at the center of the crowded street. The focus of the knight's attention was one of their own, a young man who wore leather armor rather than metal, wearing a feathered cap with a quiver slung over his shoulder, marking him as one of the king's archers. He appeared to be telling a curious tale to the knights, assisted by amusing faces and expressive hand gestures. Jack had no doubt in his mind from watching the gestures that it was a bawdy tale, and knowing the storyteller, it was a narrative that was as serious as it was comical. For those were the kinds of stories that Fletcher Arden told. He loved to make people laugh so that he could laugh at them.
Jack bolted up to the archer and grabbed his shoulder. His captive spun around indignantly just before Jack began to drag him away from the gathering of knights. "Hey, what are you, oh, it's you."
Jack grumbled impatiently. "Don't sound so disappointed."
Fletcher pretended to look shocked as her freed his shoulder of the prince's hand. "Disappointed, to see such a princely face, accompanied by such a princely purse?" he asked with an elaborate, mocking bow, clearly enjoying himself. "Why on earth would I be disappointed? I am here to serve you to your heart's content, your highness, as we all are."
The ridiculous look on the archer's face would have been enough to make Jack burst out laughing, had he not caught the deliberate slight on his royalty in his friend's jest.
Fletcher was no more than a year or two older than Jack, but he looked as if he were a mere fifteen years of age. His frame was small and lean, but muscles were frankly obvious at even a glance. His face was delicately structured, which, along with his size, resulted in his young appearance. The olive skin that covered his bones was tanned from the summer sun, and the clean but unshorn hair on his head was a dusted blonde. But the freckles on his nose bridge that began to spread just slightly onto his cheeks were defined and bold, and his curled-lashed eyes were wide, dark, and glinting merrily. The combination of these two features could have made him appear as a charming entertainer, or a devilish cutpurse, depending on the character of the observer.
Fletcher Arden was both.
"In that case, you're coming with me. You have to bring me up to the palace." Jack shot right back, with a feeble attempt at princely authority. "Take me to my father."
At this, a full-fledged smile made an appearance on his friend's face. "You want me to pretend that I found you and captured you and forced you to come back home?" It wasn't technically a question, since Fletcher already knew the answer.
Jack winced; the idea sounded ridiculous to his own ears. "It's better than letting him know that I came back on my own." he mumbled grudgingly.
Fletcher shook his head vaguely, still smiling, though this time it was somewhat inwardly. "Vaillere is turned upside down indeed. You know, Jack, most fugitives run away from the soldiers who have been ordered to turn them in. You coxcomb, Jack."
"I'm not a fugitive, nor a coxcomb!"
"Nor a good liar, either."
Jack had no answer to that, so instead he stared at the ground grouchily as he walked and swore at Fletcher, who only smiled wider.
After a few moments of silence (during which Fletcher whistled), Jack spoke up. "Do you think he suspects the Glasswen twins of hiding me? It hasn't been too long since he's spoke with them last, and I don't think he took too kindly to them."
Fletcher shook his head dismissively. "Relax, Jack. Those two can hold their own a bit better than you."
Jack sighed, frustrated beyond comparison. "You're enjoying every minute of this, aren't you?"
Fletcher's smile broadened. "Jack, if your flaws aren't highlighted for you, then you'll never bother to fix them."
"So you wouldn't mind if I pointed out a few of your flaws?" Jack asked hardly.
"Now, now, Jack!" Fletcher shook his head and tutted disapprovingly. "That is no role for a prince to take on! The only ones who are granted that privilege are allowed fools and archers." he said with a bow before continuing walking. "The rest are hanged for such honesty."
Jack winced slightly at the words, for Fletcher was right.
King Acton was incredibly secretive about his dealings with his subjects, but he was not an open-minded man. When another man's words crossed the boundaries of his own ideas, or when overly frank opinions of him reached his ears, he showed very little mercy. If any at all. The idea that had always broken Jack in two was the knowledge that so few of the good people of Vaillere were aware of what went on behind the palace walls of the king.
Walls that Jack and Fletcher now stood in front of.
Wow, did it take me forever to write this. I apologize to everyone! I really am sorry this took so long. I ran into some problems with introducing Angela, Roberta, and with that section on Celene. Fletcher, however...hehe, he was alot of fun to introduce. I based him a little bit on a character that I am currently playing in a production of King Lear, kudos to any other geeks like me who caught on to that.
A few little author's notes: For those of you who aren't into Shakespeare and who don't attend any Renaissance a coxcomb refers to those court-jester's hats with the points and the bells on them, and was often used when refering to fools. Some pronunciation notes also:
Vaillere (the kingdom that this part is taking place in) V-eye-AIR (the double-L thing is pronounced like a Spanish word)
Autanoer (another kingdom mentioned in this chapter that will be important later) Aut-uh-no-ere/air
zouhlads (currency) ZOW-leds
breielles (also currency) BRAY-eel-es
One more thing, I'm changing the title of this story from Image of Perfection, or Happily Ever After (which I had no intentions of keeping, it really is a horrible title, I just couldn't think of anything else at the time) to What Was Made for Children, a title which I think will have much more to do with the story.
Thanks sooooo much to Abbeygirl06, MiraiYume, and especially to MidnightBlue88 for such a long review, and for finally updating her Breakfast Club stories! If anyone else is into that movie, you really should read them, they're brilliant.
-Fool out.