This one I jotted down this morning, inspired perhaps by the sunshine and birdsong going on outside. The littles and I went for a walk this morning - fresh air and a hint of spring is always good for some inspiration!
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Katrin ran the brush slowly and gently through Ana’s hair. “You have lovely hair, Your Highness,” she said.
Ana opened her eyes and observed herself and her new maid in the strange mirror. She’d always been proud of her hair - no one else in Brixil had hair so long and shiny. Here, though, it was just another thing that made her strange, like her accent, her topaz-colored skin, her penchant for wearing bright colors and few petticoats, her very outlook on life.
“It isn’t as nice as Princess Isa’s, I’m afraid,” she said, her red lips curling up in a mocking smile at her own reflection.
Katrin sniffed. She looked very prim and proper, standing there behind Ana’s chair with a brush in her hand, dressed in a demure grey gown. Yet Ana almost thought she saw a twinkle in her maid’s eye that spoke of a very different nature than the one presented. “Princess Isadora has half a dozen maids who wash, oil, brush, and arrange her hair to make it look as it does,” she said. “Yours looks lovely even with my clumsy ministrations.”
“Why, Katrin, you aren’t clumsy at all! I’ve never had someone tend my hair so gently, not even my mother.”
Katrin’s pale skin flushed. “Why, thank you, Princess Tanager. Your hair is so long and thick, it seems a shame to bind it up at all.”
“At home I wear it loose,” Ana said dreamily, thinking of Brixil. “Only children bind their hair.”
“Strange, the way different places have different ways,” Katrin mused, threading pearls through Ana’s plaits with an expert touch. She stood back to observe her own handiwork, her brown eyes as bright and inquisitive as a bird’s. She shook her head. “Pearls don’t suit you at all, I’m afraid.”
“No,” Ana agreed. “They make me look like I’m trying to be Isa.”
“Which you needn’t be.” Katrin stripped the pearls out and rummaged through the box of baubles on the dressing table. “Pippa - that’s Philippa, the youngest of Princess Isadora’s maids, she comes from the same village as me - told me that Princess Isadora is terribly jealous of you.”
“What?” Ana spun around, pulling her hair out of Katrin’s reproachful hands to face the other girl properly, instead of in the mirror. “Isadora, the most beautiful and talented lady in Gracia, jealous of me? I’m not even the most beautiful lady in my own land, Katrin!”
Katrin nodded solemnly. “It’s true,” she insisted. “‘Kit,’ Pippa says, ‘You should have seen the fit my princess threw after Prince Alexis danced twice with your princess last night. Pulled at her own hair until tears stood in her eyes, and told us we had to make her look so beautiful he wouldn’t dare look at any other lady for tonight.’ And Pippa doesn’t exaggerate, Princess. She hasn’t any imagination at all.”
Under Katrin’s gentle but insistent pressure, Ana turned back around. She studied her face in the mirror again. Round. Thick eyebrows. Eyes set deep in her head and the color of that strange spice - what was it called? Oh yes, cinnamon. A wide, flat nose. A very stubborn chin. And the rest of her? Small and round, just like the bird that was her namesake, a little summer tanager.
How could Isa, tall, fair, coldly beautiful, her mother’s darling, possibly be jealous?
“Prince Alexis only danced twice with me to be kind,” she said, as much to herself as to Katrin. “He was asking all about my home, trying to make me feel more at ease.”
“Maybe,” Katrin said. “But Princess Isadora didn’t see it that way.” She held up a handful of delicately carved green stones. “What are these called, Your Highness?”
“Jade,” Ana said. “They are very common in my land.”
Katrin looked at them with satisfaction. “Well, they aren’t common here. And neither are you.”
Copyright E Louise Bates 2011, do not use without permission, all that jazz.
Copyright E Louise Bates 2011, do not use without permission, all that jazz.
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