The Blood Confession, page 9
"And now you are here with me," he said, laughing again. "There is more, and you must tell it." The sound of his breathing filled my head, his arm tight against my ribs. His deep voice seemed strangely familiar to me.
"I've sinned because I've had impure thoughts," I muttered, shocked and ashamed as I spoke the words aloud.
"I'm sure you have," he said, his lips brushing the soft flesh of my ear. "You must tell me, or you will remain unclean." The touch of his lips against my skin felt more impure than all the thoughts I had ever before considered.
"I thought of kissing a man—and of touching." I wailed, tears spilling onto my cheeks, my voice high and whining like a child's.
"Which man is this?"
"Not a real man," I cried, mortified, "just a sculpture of one, in the rose garden. But it was only a dream and nothing more. I know better than that, I promise you."
"There is not a woman in this world who knows better," he hissed into my ear. "It is the weakness of the female sex. Your flesh is weak, and it inspires weakness in others." His fingers tightened around my waist. He released his hand from my neck and began to stroke my hair, his fingers brushing my face. Could he sense some other weakness in me? I tried to kick him again.
"But I inspire something different in you, it seems. I inspire fury—I can feel it raging like a fire in your soul. You'd best beware of that fire, child." He laughed again at this, and seemed merely amused by my struggle.
"I understand," I said, trying to will the tremor from my voice. My eyes roved wildly in the darkness.
"I'm not certain that you do, but I'm here to find out. Do you believe in God, child?"
"Of course I do."
"Don't worry, you can tell me." I could feel his smile against my ear: moist lips and teeth. "God can't hear you, only I can. Now tell me, do you trust God?"
"Yes, of course I do," I said, my voice breaking.
"That's not true. You know the answer," he said. "I only need you to admit it."
"I told you," I gasped, thinking of Marianna's words. If I couldn't trust God, whom could I trust?
"You can trust me," he told me. "You can trust me."
At the sound of these words, I stopped fighting, too shocked to move.
"I've heard your voice before," I told him; I felt certain of this, though I could not explain the strange, intimate familiarity of his voice.
"You're a smart girl," he told me. "That's why I've come so far to be here for you." His arm still rigid against my ribs, the touch of his hand upon my face was surprisingly gentle.
"Let me try another question, one that I know you have the answer to: What if you had to choose, right now, between death or eternal life?"
"I already answered that one—that was you? You've asked me that before." That was where I had heard this voice before: that day in Pugrue's chapel, just after I learned of the prophecy. The deep voice I had heard in my mind that day was the same as the one I heard now. But this was a real person, a living man with his arms wrapped around me, not just a voice in my head.
"This is important; I want you to think about it: early death or eternal life." I tipped my head back against his shoulder, letting his voice fill my head and the darkness around us. "Would you allow God to decide for you?" Suddenly I felt something cold and sharp, piercing—was that the point of a dagger, pressed against my ribs? I tried to wriggle free but he held me fast.
"No!" I screamed in fear and pain. "No! I would choose myself—I choose to live forever!"
"That's right, my dear," he murmured soothingly. "It's often best not to trust God's plan in such things."
"You know about the prophecy, don't you?" I asked him. He only laughed in response. Then it must be real after all, I realized, and not some terrible dream.
"Do not worry so much about the prophecy," he said, this time his voice more gentle. "You have the power over life and death: the decision is yours to make." The pain in my side gone, he put his arms around me again and swayed, side to side. "I know you better than you think. You will never be alone as long as I'm here."
As suddenly as I had been seized, he released me: I slumped to the ground in a heap, my legs giving way beneath me. For a moment I might have fainted, for when I came to I heard nothing—the dungeon was completely deserted, and I was alone. I held my breath until it began to ache in my chest, listening closely for any noises in the dark.
"Hello?" I called, sitting on the dungeon floor. I would have been happy to see Pugrue in that moment. No one appeared. I stumbled forward on weak legs and shuffled to the door.
I could not run from the darkness fast enough. I ran down the hallway, through the kitchen, directly to the rose garden. The rain was coming down heavily now, and the sky was dark. The mud slowed my steps and made my gown heavy. I ran until I was safe within the rose hedge.
"Marianna!" I called, but it was difficult to see through the veil of rain, and I was still gasping for breath. Once I caught my breath, I called her name again, and again. Where was she when I needed her most? Perhaps she wouldn't come today at all because of the rain. I felt eyes all around me, as if I were constantly being watched, from all angles. Reeling in the grayness, I could find nothing to distract me from my fear. I bit the palm of my left hand to let my mind focus on the pain.
"Erzebet! Erzebet!" I heard Marianna's voice call. She stood with her dark hair wet upon her forehead, shaking the iron gate. I fairly tripped over my sodden gown in my effort to reach her. When I appeared, she smiled, but her smile faded as I drew closer to bid her entrance.
"Erzebet, what's wrong?" she asked.
"Come with me," I said, avoiding her eyes. I grabbed her hand and bent my head low, running through the cold, stinging rain.
"But Erzebet, wait!" she cried, skidding her slippers into the mud to stop me. "The count has returned, hasn't he? What will he say?"
"We'll have to hide. I'll find somewhere."
Moments later we burst into the kitchen, our wet slippers skidding upon the floor. I heard the cook shout "Mercy!" but I dared not slow my steps. I gripped Marianna's slippery hand in mine and pulled her through the kitchen, ignoring the comments of servants along the way. I had to find a place where we could hide, where we could both be safe.
A piercing scream stopped us in our tracks. We slipped on the slick stones and fell to the floor. I looked around, frantically—the count could be anywhere, and I didn't want him to see us. I knew where the screams were coming from: we were near my mother's chambers.
"What is that?" Marianna gasped.
"It's my mother," I told her, then was shocked at the suddenness of my confession. "She's not well," I said, attempting to explain.
Servants scuttled around corners, watching us get up from the floor in our soaked dresses. Mother's screaming continued, and in the midst of it I managed to find a sudden clarity. There was one place where we would be safe from the count. I grasped Marianna's hand and pulled her down my mother's hallway. The hall seemed to grow longer as we ran, Mother's screams magnified with every step. At the end of the hall we reached a staircase that twisted higher and higher, as though stretching into the sky. The stairwell became narrow at the top, no longer lit by torches.
"Where are we, Erzebet?"
"The tower room—the south tower, the one by the cliffs. It should be empty; it's never guarded." Groping along the cold, moist wall, we found the door that took all our might to budge open.
We shivered as we entered the tower: a circular chamber with a high spire in the center and narrow, windowless casements slick with icy rain. Cobwebs clung to the hems of our gowns. The stone walls were burning cold to the touch and the cold seeped beneath our layers of clothes. Marianna hugged herself against the cold, but I relished the feeling, as if it cleansed me of all that had taken place that day: a thin layer of ice slipping against my skin like silk.
"No one ever comes to this tower," I told her, my voice bouncing off the walls.
"A whole room and no one ever uses it, like it's been sleeping this whole time." She smiled thoughtfully and shivered.
"Maybe this room has been waiting for us," I said, excitement making me bold.
"For us?" She blinked at me in awe. "I've never had a room of my own before, not even with just one other person. It sounds so secret and wonderful."
"We can share this room, but it has to stay ours, alone—do you agree?"
"Of course!" she whispered, suddenly breathless. She clasped my cold hand and the wind outside howled; the tower seemed to sway dangerously. "It's our secret." She smiled. My palm stung in her grip, but I pretended the pain did not exist. I took both of her hands in mine.
"Haven't you heard the story of Snow White and Rose Red?" I asked her, trying to make my voice cheerful and swallow my tears. "They were friends, but they were really like sisters, and there was a song that they sang: Snow White, Rose Red, would you beat your suitor dead?" I chanted, and pulled her by the hands into a spiral, our wet shoes kicking up mud from the floor. Marianna nearly tripped over the soggy hem of her gown, but she only laughed and spun faster.
"Snow White, Rose Red," we chanted together, and spun.
This was our very first magic spell. The gray stones, the worn tapestries, the cobwebs in the air, spun around us in a blur. The walls around us and the floor beneath our feet seemed to slip away. The world slipped away. Everything around me spun too quickly to see—everything but Marianna's smiling face.
XII
Day six, tower, night
I'm anxious when the servants leave at night. Only the two guards sit outside the tower chamber, and they've been told not to talk to me. The owls hooting in the distance, the violent caws of ravens, and the occasional bark of a wild dog are all that interrupt the abyss of quiet. I'm never tired enough to sleep. This is how I fill the hours: sitting before this oval mirror, the dressing table before me trembling with candlelight. I spend each night dressing, painting my face, and affixing jewels in my hair.
The bodice of this dress accentuates my elongated waist, the flat front of the bodice embroidered in swirls of sparkling gold thread. The square neckline exposes my neck and the very tops of my breasts, and the bottom descends into a long, sharp point between my hips. My corsets have grown tighter, my bodices longer, the points sharper as the years have progressed. Each gown transforms me: scintillating, elegant, seductive. I am all of these things and more as I write these words—the mirror tells me so.
I talk out loud sometimes, narrating my transformation in the mirror, in the hopes of filling the terrible quiet and scaring away those old ghosts. I have no minstrels to entertain me, no one to fetch ingredients for a sleeping draft or other potion, and no midnight visits from my girls... that would calm me, above all else. I search my dressing table for an abandoned vial of blood, probably long since dried out. But there are none—I think they took them from me, along with the stain for my lips. I drink red wine and pretend that I can taste that familiar metallic tinge, but I know I'm only pretending.
Day seven, night
When the servants arrived this morning, I was resplendent. They paused at the threshold of the door, gazing surreptitiously at my gown and jewels. I'm relieved when they arrive, but even during the day, the tower is eerily quiet. My nights are lonely and my days are likewise, spent in the company of servants who offer little in the way of conversation. Eventually I find my way to the mirror again, to the distraction of my own face.
"I would like to attend Helena's funeral," I inform the servants just before they retire for the evening. They look up from gathering their embroidery hoops and trays of untouched food.
They do not respond to my statement, only stare at me with slackened jaws.
"I intend to write to my cousin Stephan and ask that he grant me permission."
"She was to be married to a Habsburg," one servant ventures. "It will be a funeral for royalty."
"Am I not royalty? I would like to pay my respects to the child."
"Countess, Helena was found dead in your chamber." She explains this slowly, as if I am either a child or mad.
"But I was not the one to wield the blade," I tell them. "Someone must have said that, in all of this. No one saw me kill her."
Their eyes turn back to their tasks of gathering spools of thread and nestling needles in scraps of muslin.
"I'm sorry, Countess," the older servant sighs, but will not look at me. "I am afraid that Stephan will not allow you to attend the funeral." They turn from me and leave the room, closing and bolting the door behind them.
I sit by the fire and imagine Helena's funeral: the corpse dressed discreetly in a long-sleeved, high-necked gown to conceal the wounds still visible on her flesh. Over this, a white veil will stretch from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She would be carried upon a bier, of course, her face adorned with blooming roses. I imagine that I am there within the crowd, watching the bier pass. The thought of it makes me laugh, and my laughter echoes in the hollowness of the tower. The murder of servant girls isn't the reason why I'm here. It took the death of a noblewoman to attract any attention, and that killing wasn't even mine.
This tower chamber has always been the coldest in the castle. I turn from this Bible to revive the flames sputtering in the fireplace. I gather old books, the withered pages of a long-dead romance, and feed them to the flames. As the fire grows, the room becomes vivid with light and color. Shadows flicker with streaks of red and gold. There is a gleaming in the mirror, the shine of eyes and teeth. I curse the fire for its brightness, but stand close to it, desperate for warmth. Still, my hands cannot stop shaking. This body is a prison, cold and full of shadows. A log falls in the fire and sprays a shower of sparks in my direction.
Something glints before me: a slice of silver upon the floor. One of the servants left a needle behind. I roll it between my thumb and forefinger, then nestle it securely in the hem of my gown.
***
In the warm firelight, this tower chamber looks much as it did, so many years ago, when Marianna and I first adorned it with all the comforts we enjoyed. As the sun dimmed and the weather turned cold, we steeled ourselves against the chill with luxurious ermine-lined robes draped over our gowns. We lit candles all around the chamber and covered the narrow slits of windows with heavy tapestries to protect us from the harsh wind. We delighted in arranging the rugs and random pieces of furniture I had procured: a silk divan, velvet-covered chairs, a small wooden desk, and an ornate dressing table with a mirror framed in gold. Over time, the dressing table became a glittering array of small jars of colored glass, filled with scents and oils, herbs, and spices. In the evenings, we often dined in the tower on rich food and sweet wine.
The comforts of the tower room protected us from the wet, cold weather, as well as from the changes that had taken place in the castle since the count's return. The halls were often crowded with servants, soldiers, and the count's band of astrologers, eager to predict the sultan's next move against the Hungarian nobility. They congregated in worried clusters, their conversation falling to hushed whispers whenever I appeared. To avoid all of this, the pattern of our days was simply altered, with Rowena's assistance: after my lessons, Marianna and I were secreted directly to the tower room, through a series of passageways in the south wing of the castle, our progress haunted by my mother's despondent cries.
When Marianna and I had bid our hasty good-byes by the garden gate in the evenings, I was left alone with my fears. I thought about the man in the confessional. When next I entered the chapel dungeon to admit my sins, I trembled at the mere thought of him. I feared that Pugrue knew all about the strange visitation, but was relieved at his apparent obliviousness. He had missed our tutoring session due to a brief illness, for which he apologized.
"We tried to inform you, Erzebet," he told me, "but you were nowhere to be found." The familiar sound of Pugrue's disapproving croak was an odd relief for me.
The memory of that confession was folded and tucked deep within my subconscious, just as the parchment I had taken from the count's study remained hidden in a jewelry chest, concealed by a swatch of linen. His words both confused and haunted me: You have the power over life and death... You will never be alone as long as I am here. I often thought I heard his voice just as I slipped out of consciousness and into that lost realm of sleep.
Though I didn't dare tell Marianna about my encounter, I did my best to follow the advice I could anticipate she would give: pray to God and ask for guidance. But whenever I did, I was wary of what voice I might hear in answer—could I be sure that it was truly God's?
I saw the count rarely during his time at the castle, and by the beginning of that winter he was already preparing to depart for Prague, to be by the emperor's side. I wondered if perhaps the emperor was dying, and the count did not want to be absent, lest he miss whatever gift of power the emperor might bestow upon him when his departure from this world became imminent. From what I had seen, the count had not once visited his wife in the time he had been at the castle. Though she most likely did not desire such a visit, it made me sorry for the countess. I, too, was acutely familiar with the feeling of neglect.
Though the soldiers stayed behind, the count's departure that winter was a relief. Marianna still preferred the sanctuary of our tower room, but I was thankful to be able to dine with her in my chambers on occasion, or to enjoy a walk in the frost-covered garden without fear of being spotted. Considering how Marianna's presence improved my temperament, the servants knew better than to comment. As the year progressed and the weather turned bitterly cold, we found refuge again in the tower.
***
