Lasher - By Anne Rice Page 0,272

the leggings were the worst for me, for my legs were so long. I had to bind them where they did not fit. The tunic covered it.

Discovering myself in the mirror, I thought: Yes! And I knew that I was beautiful, otherwise the women would have been even more afraid.

My hair was not yet down to my shoulders, but would be soon. It was brown. My eyes were brown, as were my mother’s. I put on the fur-trimmed hat which they gave me.

The midwife then fell on her knees. “This is the Prince,” she cried. “This is the heir sought by the King.”

The other women shook their heads in horror, trying to quiet her, telling her it was not possible, such a thing. And my mother turned her head into the pillow, crying for her own mother, for her sister, for those who loved her, averring that no one would stand with her. That were it not a mortal sin in the eyes of God, she would take her own life.

Now how do I escape, I thought. I felt fear for my mother. Yet I hated her that she didn’t love me, that she thought me monstrous. I knew what I was. I knew there was a place for me, that I had a destiny. I knew this. I knew that her attitude was irreverent and cruel, but I could not put this into words or defend such a position. I wanted only to protect her.

We stood in this candlelighted chamber, I and these women, beneath this dark wooden ceiling, and the midwife gained possession of herself and forswore her former joy. This monster must be taken out, destroyed.

Destroyed? The same old song. Not this time, I thought. I did not intend to be destroyed so easily. No. We must learn more each time, I thought. I will not be destroyed.

Finally to the secret door came my father, Douglas of Donnelaith, a big shaggy man, more crudely dressed but nevertheless noble and decked in fur.

He had been in the castle and in great haste answered the Queen’s secret summons. When he was admitted to the birthing room, and beheld me, his face was a puzzle. I did not see in him the pure horror of the women. I saw something else, something vital and partial to me, something almost reverent. And he whispered, “Ashlar, who comes again and again.”

I saw that his hair and eyes were brown; from him as from the poor sad Queen I had these endowments. But I was Ashlar! I felt this news—and it was news—come into me as if my father had thrown his arms around me and showered me with kisses. I was happy. And when I looked at my mother, in her sadness, I wept.

I said, “Yes, Father, but this is no place for me. This is a place hostile to me. We must leave here.”

And I realized I knew no more of what I was or what he was than what had been said. It was the strangest kind of knowing, knowing without a tale to it, a knowing that was stable but out of time.

He needed no direction from me. He too was in terror. He knew that we must escape. “There is no hope now for the Queen,” he said softly, crossing himself and then making the Sign of the Cross on my forehead. We were already following the winding stairs.

We were out of the castle within moments, going down directly to a covered boat which waited for us in the dark waters of the River Thames. It was when we reached the Thames that I realized I had said no farewell to my mother and I was overwhelmed with sorrow, with a sense of horror suddenly that I had been born in this particular dreary and treacherous place and into this inexplicable time. My struggles were to begin all over again. I remember I would have died then if I could; I would have retreated. I stared down at the water, which stank of the filth of London, the filth of thousands, and I wanted to die in this darkness. Indeed, I saw in the mind’s mist a dark tunnel down which I had come, and I wanted to go back into it. I began to cry.

My father put his arm around me. “Don’t weep, Ashlar,” he said. “It is the work of God.”

“How so the work of God? My mother could be burnt at the stake.” I was

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