After Apollo took off, I’d been measured for clothing and then led to a room down the hall, which fortunately had a screen painted with a lovely landscape with people picnicking on it, behind which, unfortunately, there was a chamber pot.
I wasn’t fired up about the chamber pot business but it was something that didn’t include me tiptoeing through the tulips (or whatever) to answer nature’s call, so I used it.
The room also had a fabulous porcelain bath with silver claw feet and high sides.
It was safe to say, I was fired up about that.
The girls left and I was allowed to take a bath alone but I noted there was no plumbing, although there was a drain. Still, the water was warm, the shampoo smelled of citrus, the soap of lavender, and the washcloth was slightly rough in a loofah kind of way.
When I got out, I grabbed the towel they left me on a dainty stool by the bath. It wasn’t terrycloth but it was soft and absorbent and a fabulous shade of blue.
They’d also left a robe. It was silk, there was a fair bit of delicate lace and it was butter yellow.
Okay, it was safe to say I was getting fired up more and more.
The women came back (three of them) and brushed my hair until it was almost dry then arranged it in a soft ponytail at my nape. They gave me light makeup, taking care with my bruised cheek (the room with the tub also had an oval mirror with scalloped edges on the wall; I looked in it and saw my cheek was not good but still, as bad as it hurt, I’d had worse).
They also gave me undies (no bra, just a pair of white lace panties and they were like panties in my world except a whole lot better).
Then they helped me put on a dress that didn’t fit, it was a hint too big, but it was lovely all the same. A gossamer fabric over a phenomenal crêpe de chine, both the color of a bruised peach. It had a scoop neck that showed some serious cle**age, a gathered bodice that led to an empire waist, and the skirts swept down to my feet, the back of it ending in a small kickass train.
After I got the dress on, they gave me four different pairs of slippers that I tried (they were all beautiful, two embroidered, one with a flat bow at the toe and one just plain satin). But none of them fit, (three too small, one too big) so I went barefoot.
And last, they brought me breakfast which was croissants, jam, fruit and, thankfully, coffee.
Then they left.
I tried talking to them but they spoke what sounded like French and I might know what tout de suite and chérie meant, but I took Spanish in high school so the rest of it was lost on me.
Since Apollo had spoken to one of them in English, which I would assume he’d know she’d understand, I tried to ask for her to come back as she’d disappeared with the women with the measuring tape.
This got me smiles, head tilts, brows drawing and shrugs, so I was thinking they were in the same boat as me and had no clue.
So I gave up.
After I ate, I wandered to the French doors and pulled a set open.
Then I took a step back and winced.
I didn’t wince from pain.
I winced because the rolling countryside was a green so green, a green so extraordinarily beautiful, it was difficult to witness.
In fact, it was so beautiful, it appeared unnatural.
I blinked several times and cautiously moved out onto the balcony.
The view was a unlike any other I’d seen and I’d traveled with Pol, broadly.
But I’d never seen anything like what I was seeing then. That verdant green. The winding, creamy lane that was flanked on both sides by a riot of wildflowers so bright, their stark juxtaposition against that green was unreal.
And that green seemed to go on and on, cut only by steeple topping a church made of mellow rust stone, and opposite that some ways away, a large patch of bushy rows of what appeared to be lavender.
But in the distance, the green darkened in what appeared to be a forest that climbed partly up some jagged topped mountains, their stone a severe gray which was lightened by deep grooves that scored nearly down to the tree line, the grooves filled with snow.
It was phenomenal. Amazing.
Otherworldly.