Beauty

was there I first met the pointy-eared boy. He came strolling out of the copse, introduced himself as Puck, and asked my name. When I told him Havoc, he laughed. “I know that’s you, Beauty,” he said. When I asked him what he was doing in my woods, he told me he was keeping an eye on me for someone. I assumed Martin had sent him, simply because I couldn’t think of anyone else who might care to have me looked after. After that, I saw him every now and then. Once in a while he would tell me stories. They were not like the stories anyone else told. He spoke of God, but not as Father Raymond did. Some of the things he said sounded greatly like blasphemy to me, and I told him so. I assumed he was some woodcutter’s son, told off to watch me whenever I left the stables, which wasn’t often because that’s where things were going on and people talking about things I might not have learned about otherwise.

It was in the stables that I learned about animal procreation and saw enough of stable boy anatomy to draw certain useful parallels. Though the boys’ equipment suffers by comparison to that of the stallions, the similarity of function cannot be ignored. I think it odd that the aunts have never said anything about this matter. There are a great many things they simply do not discuss with me. They did not even tell me about the way of women, and when it happened I thought God was punishing me for having certain feelings about a certain person by letting me bleed to death. It was Doll who found me weeping and told me it was all very ordinary and had nothing to do with sin.

Doll is Martin’s wife. Doll is short for Dorothy. She was named for St. Dorothy who was a virgin martyr known for her angelic virtue. Doll says she wishes she had been named for someone a little less angelic and a bit more muscular. She is one of the women who keeps the castle swept and the cobwebs pulled down, and that takes muscle. I’m sure she has always known what I was up to in the stables, but she has never told on me. Doll and one of the other women make clothes for me, too, and I thank God for that. If it were up to the aunts or Papa, I’d always be dressed in things out of the attic made for ancient female relatives in their latter years. Doll and Martin are my first two friends.

My third friend is Giles.

Giles is one of the men-at-arms. He is a year or two older than I, well-grown for his age, very broad in the shoulder and slender though well-made in the hip and leg. He has a frank and open countenance and much soft brown hair which falls over his forehead at odd times, making him look like a much younger person. His eyes are blue, deep blue, like an evening sky. His lips … He has very nice features. I have had certain thoughts about him from time to time, thoughts which I have not even told Father Raymond about, because I would blush to do so. Besides, I don’t have any polite words to use because either there aren’t any or no one has taught them to me. I know how the stableboys talk, but Father Raymond definitely would not appreciate that. Nonetheless, when I see Giles, I think of the stallions and their way with the mares, and I get all flushed feeling.

Also, I see the way he watches me sometimes—Giles, not Father Raymond—which lets me know he feels those same feelings. He is of good birth, but he is only a young man without fortune or rank, and there is no question about his being a suitable prospect for the daughter of a duke. He is not. I know that, and he knows it as well, but he is nice to me. He is thoughtful and kind and has never, even by so much as a word, done anything improper toward me. Sometimes, after a lengthy rain, I will find my bench in the garden carefully dried off and a rose laid upon it. I’m sure it is Giles who does it, but he doesn’t say anything, nor do I. Still, he is my friend. He would not act so otherwise.

My other friend is Beloved.

Her mother calls her Beloved, though her name is actually Mary Blossom. She is the daughter of Dame Blossom, an artisan freeholder, a weaver, in the village. Dame Blossom is very much respected by everyone because she is a midwife and can heal wounds and set bones. If there is trouble, better get Dame Blossom and stay away from doctors, everyone says. It’s true. From time to time one or the other of the aunts has consulted a physician, and all the great scholars ever did was sniff at their piss, bleed them dry, and give them some dreadful mixture that—so says Martin—would kill the old ladies off a few years before their time. Beloved is my personal maid. She is also my friend and almost certainly my half sister, almost my half-twin.

Not that Beloved is the only young one running about the castle who looks a lot like me. Everyone pretends not to notice, but I would have to be blind not to see. When two mares who do not look alike throw foals that look exactly alike, you know the same stallion has been at them, so it’s clear my Papa has been at Dame Blossom. That was sixteen or more years ago, of course, when she was younger and prettier. I remember her when I was a little girl. She was quite slender and gay then. She has put on weight since, and become very grave, which is a suitable style for a respected matron.

So, Beloved is my half sister, born