Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper Read Free Book Online

page, and the words seemed to flow out of the pen of their own accord. "This first day of July, year of our Lord, thirteen hundred and forty seven." The wedding was scheduled for the following day, the fifth. Dating mama's letter back to the first allowed four days for the letter to have been on the way from somewhere before reaching me. When the ink was dry, I folded the parchment up and addressed it to "Beauty, the daughter of Duke Phillip of Monfort and Westfaire and the Lady Elladine of Ylles." I sealed it and marked the wax with the signet ring from the box. It shows a winged being which I take to be an angel.
    I feel rather glum as I look at what I am to wear to the banquet, a dress provided by Aunt Lavender which has all too obviously been made over from something previously worn by someone else. It has achieved a pallid limpness much like that of the cleaning rags which are always drying on the kitchenyard wall.
    I must not succumb to vanity. It does not matter how I look.
    9
    LATER, MIDNIGHT
    As I was about to put on the limp dress, Doll knocked on my door and came in with a gown. It was of heavy India silk, the color of a deep pink rose, worked with silver and seed pearls at the neck and at the edges of the full oversleeves. Beneath the long sleeves were tight sleeves of silver cloth and the underskirt was of silver cloth as well, with roses embroidered in a border at the bottom. It had belonged to my mama, Doll said. All this time it had been folded away in clean linen in one of the attics, awaiting an opportunity to be worn again.
    I looked across my room to the dress provided by Aunt Lavender. It was poor, ugly stuff, compared to this. Doll saw my glance and nodded.
    "I saw what you were goin' to wear," she said. "Thought it wasn't nice enough. Your mama'd have a fit, seein' you in that. All her clothes are up there in the attic, and you should make use of them."
    "Did you like my mama?" I asked Doll.
    "Nicest lady ever," she said. "And I don't care what they all say, she wouldn't kill herself."
    Well, I'd never thought she had! But there was no time to talk about it, for Doll set about getting me dressed and doing up my hair in a knot in back, with part of it flowing down. Most of the women would be wearing wimples and or headdresses with peaks or wings and veils flowing from them. I hate headdresses because they muffle up my head, but then I wash my hair a lot and most women don't. Washing the hair is dangerous because it fevers the brain, they say, but I'd never noticed mine being anymore fevered than usual.
    "There now," Doll said when she was finished with me. "You look a lot like her around the eyes."
    I caught her eye in the mirror, and we stared at one another, each knowing exactly what the other was thinking. She had piled my silver-gilt hair up, making it look plentiful and curly. She'd told me before that my eyelashes were as thick and black as Mama's, and my mouth curved just the way Mama's did. The dress fit like a glove, so I knew I was built the way Mama was, too, slender in the waist and nicely plump other places. I even guessed I knew why Doll had found the dress for me. She had got me up to look rather like Mama to remind Papa of Mama because Doll didn't think Mama was dead. I smiled at her and winked. She winked back.
    There was no pocket in the pink gown, but it had long, full oversleeves. I broke the seal upon the letter and pinned the letter inside my sleeve.
    When I came into the hall, Papa gave me a puzzled look, as though he might have seen me somewhere before. After a bit his face cleared and I knew he had remembered. Then he looked at Weasel-Rabbit for a while, frowning. I could see him thinking that his second wife was a paltry substitute for his first. All the aunts gasped when they saw me, but they didn't dare say anything with the abbot right there at the table. I simply smiled and sat in my place. So there we all were: Sibylla and her mama and my papa and five aunts, also the abbot