***
“I’m so happy, Grisella.” Issa
threw her arms around the old serving maid as she entered her chambers. “Father
has managed to postpone my marriage.”
Grisella returned the hug, patting
Issa on the back. “That’s wonderful news child. But I still say marriage to
Thomma won’t be as horrid as you imagine. We were all in your place once. Such
are things and such is the way.”
“I will sooner stay alone than be
married to someone I don’t love.” Issa released her maid. She sat down by the
mirror, untied the knot in her hair and started brushing it out. “But I will
not stay alone much longer. My love is coming.”
The gorgeous young lord from
across the sea would be in Cer’Ine any day now. Last night Issa dreamt of him
standing near the shore. He was turned away from her, gazing across the sea
with a traveling trunk by his feet.
Grisella looked up from where she
was turning down Issa’s bed. “Who might this be, girl?”
“The handsome man I dream of most
every night now. In the dreams we hold hands and stare into each other’s eyes
for hours and days, and I can see all his secrets as he can see all of mine.
And at other times we sit side by side and he has his arm around my shoulders
and I lay my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat, and I know all
will be well until the end of days, just as soon as we are together.”
Grisella walked over and took the
brush from Issiyanna. Her maid’s light brown eyes, for the moment not obscured
by the folds of her face, were fixed on Issa’s reflection in the mirror in
front of them. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, before finally
saying, “Issiyanna, child, you are experiencing the Dreams of the Other Half.
It is no more than that.”
“What are Dreams of the Other
Half?”
Pity filled Grisella’s eyes as she
looked away and started brushing Issa’s hair. “Your hair truly is lovely in the
winter. The moisture in the air weighs it down and gives such magnificent shape
to your curls. I almost do not want to brush them out.”
“The dream, Grisella?”
Her maid stopped brushing and
looked at Issa again. “All right…I will tell you…I’d hoped your father had
already done so by now…your mother never had the time…”
Issa waved her hand impatiently at
the maid’s reflection. “Just tell me, Grisella.”
“We all have such dreams, Issa, in
our youth and before we are wed. I too dreamt such dreams when I was your age.
The boy I dreamt of had dark brown hair and beautiful green eyes, the color of
the river after a hard rain and once the sun shines on it again. He looked much
like Kae, really. He stood over two heads taller than me and his arms were
strong and steady as he held me in the dreams. I always believed he must be
from the north, from some village at the foot of the Mountains of Giants, where
neither men nor women fear the twilight.” Grisella’s eyes were unfocused, as
though she was seeing all the way back into her youth. “But after the priests
wed me to dear, sweet Bern, the dreams stopped, and the longing vanished.”
It didn’t seem so to Issa. She
could still hear the longing in the old woman’s voice and see it in her eyes.
Grisella resumed brushing her
hair. “It’s said that the person who appears to you in these dreams is only a
mirror reflection of your own self, but of the opposite gender. Once they
start, it means that you are fit to be wed. You will see, when you are wed you
will no longer dream of this young lord.”
Her love’s eyes were the color of
the summer sea at dawn and his hair the color of wheat fields just before
harvest. Issa’s own hair was the color of honey, her eyes the color of the
sunlit summer sky. He was coming to her. When he did, a ray of the strong love
they shared in the dreams would pass from one to the other, and back again.
Then both would know that they were the one they seek, the one they long for
and wish to wed and lie beside until the end of days.
Issa would be wearing her pale
green silk dress when he came, the bodice of which was cut in a precise
arrowhead shape. It accentuated her bosom, yet did not reveal too much and was
lined with tiny pink pearls only found in the shells that lined the most
dangerous parts of the cliffs. All Issa had to do was wait. Now that her
wedding had been postponed, she had more time.
Grisella put down the brush and
handed Issa her nightgown, “Here, child, it is getting late. Things will look
brighter once twilight gives way to dawn.”
“Yes, yes, and such are things.
Truly Grisella, there is good and light even at night. Why should we fear it?”
Issa knew the answer before the maid gave it. What the priests taught, the
lower folk believed.
“One can lose themselves in the twilight, when there
are no colors to guide the way,” Grisella said, the faraway look still in her
eyes. Perhaps the maid would dream of her other half tonight too.
***
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1 comment:
Great excerpt. Sounds like a great adventure.
debby236 at gmail dot com
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