August 15, 2010

• Part III- The Prize

  

  Princess Larayna wove through the revelers like a lithe needle through the festive fabric of flesh and finery, though they were not so much reveling but swaying as though soon to fall with the weight of death; but so was the way of the Gravehill dance, as well as the natural result of many successive hours of dancing and too much wine. She wished that she knew the identity of the prince with whom she had wagered her last dance; perhaps then she could guess his taste in women. But all men are alike it seemed to her, so she needed merely to find the woman she was most envious of and go to claim her prize. So it was that Larayna searched the entire ballroom, and as the music began to slow to even more dreadful a tempo, signaling its near end, she began to panic, for she could not decide upon a single woman of the many hundreds present, even with the generous amount of time afforded her. Surely this woman was not too old, and neither was she too young. The princess cursed herself for taking such a wager at a masquerade ball, of all places, for the masks precluded the possibility of viewing the face of any woman present; how could she judge a woman if she could not see her face?

  Finally, just before it seemed as though every dancer would drop dead, the music breathed its last, echoed by a collective sigh. A brief recess was called during which time all could avail themselves of food, drink and time upon a bench. Even as those in attendance dispersed  her task was made no simpler, and with only a few minutes before the final dance began Larayna returned to the anonymous nobleman who awaited her near the corner of the room.

  “You return empty handed, My Lady.”

  “You, Sir, have deceived Your Lady, or something to that effect; you have set her to an impossible task. Therefore, you shall neither tell her your name, nor shall you have her last dance.”

  The man smiled. “My Lady you are correct; I have deceived her, but not in the manner which she accuses me of. You see, when we first began I asked if from this vantage point she could view before her the same people that I could, and she answered in the affirmative. I, however, could see one woman here present that she could not.”

  “Pray tell,” Larayna said, a heat stirring in her stomach as she began to feel that she had fallen into a prank for this man’s amusement, “Who is this woman that you could see what Your Lady could not, though she searched every dancer for this one flower amongst an entire garden? She should like to see if this beauty was worth all this trouble, as well as your disappointment.”

  “As you wish,” he said, extending his hand to lead her. She accepted it and, before she could react, he spun her around to where they both could face the mirror. Gasping at her own reflection, feeling as though she had suddenly been stripped naked to her skin, she covered her gaping mouth with her hands. In that moment the truth of the day’s strange events struck her heart as though an arrow and Princess Larayna, daughter of a king, destined to rule over some realm of her own one day, regal and strong, could no longer stand by her own strength and leant upon this unknown nobleman for support.

  “You see, My Lady, this is she; you, the Princess Larayna. The truth is that, from where we stood, there was indeed one woman in this room that I could see and you could not, a woman you could search your whole life for and never find unless it was that a man who sees your beauty not merely for what it is, but who it is, helps you to see it. I offer you, My Lady, this truth in exchange for the simple favor of your last dance, in the great hope that while I enjoy in memory that simple moment of music and movement you will enjoy the rich blessing of knowing the beauty of your being, that beauty of yours that has always been, that is, that will be. I tell you nothing new but what we both know in our hearts to be true, and I do so that you will accept the truth now brought into the light—you are beautiful, and you cannot deceive yourself any longer, nor let yourself be deceived by any other.”

  She searched in the mirror those eyes again for deceit; surely he is merely a clever poet wishing to win something worthy of a public house’s brag! But again she found only a tranquil, liquid honesty that flooded every word of his with truth. In that moment a new strength was kindled in her, the strength that begins to assert itself when a person first opens their heart to the truth of their soul. A single tear grew fat upon her joy and began its slow, triumphal march down her face to bring its tidings to the very earth which Larayna felt slowly falling away as she seemed to soar. Thinking quickly, however, she reached out with her kerchief to catch it and watched as it spread itself across a small span of the white fabric.

  Larayna turned to look upon the nobleman, and Grey’s heart stopped in the face of her gaze, large green eyes open wide and trembling, brimmed in liquid glass, long lashes dew-laden. Terror gripped him, yet so too did delight, and the two emotions grappled like titans and shook his very soul.

  “You Sir…most kind Sir…you have done me such a service…your words have pierced me as an arrow swift and true…you knew precisely where to aim…so true that it missed flesh and blood and death and instead struck my soul, inspiring it to new life…I cannot…”

  “Milady,” Grey said, without considering his folly in employing this familiar greeting, “this message comes not from my own quiver, as though I were some clever poet who crafts his speech as a fletcher of words, but comes from a higher place we have no words for at all; I am but the bow.”

  With that his delight won out over his terror, but it would quickly have faltered if he knew the chord of recognition his employ of milady had struck in the attentive mind of the princess. She then began to hope secretly, truly against hope, that perhaps, somehow, there was yet another man in the world so simple and true as the servant Grey?

  Alas, what tragedy that the truth lay before her, though behind a mask!

              “Well, Sir Truebow, in thanks for this gift I give you this tear, wrought by your arrow, blood from my heart wounded yet made more whole. May it serve to remind you always of the moment you humbled the highest lady in the Twelve Kingdoms and stole a dance from their highest prince.”

              “Milady?”

              As though the word were a new music to her, Larayna closed her eyes a moment as she smiled, extending her hand to him, “Yes, you are victorious, Sir; may you enjoy your victory, and may the Prince Malagyrn be too drunk to remember our previous arrangement.”

              Grey tied the kerchief thoughtfully around his upper arm and joined her in the final dance, a lush traditional tune of Highills that drew a cheer from the crowd. He drank in every precious moment of the dance’s duration, the only time he would ever feel as a prince. Larayna too drank heavily of the sweet draught of the dance, for it was the first time she felt not merely a princess or even a queen, but truly herself and beautiful. No crown would now suit her, no dress adequately frame her, no jewel adorn her; nay, ‘twas she that now adorned the jewel.

   

   

  And so it is that there is nothing so beautiful in the world under Christ, nothing so moving, so humbling, so powerful in presence nor deep in meaning, than a woman who knows, truly, that she is beautiful, and accepts it. I hope that you have enjoyed my little story! God bless you all, and pray for me while I am on retreat until Thursday evening; I’ll be praying for you!

   

  • 4:06 pm
  • 7 Comments