Wedding Day

It is the morning of my wedding to Etienne Emmanuel, Dauphin of France, and I sit at my dressing-table and drone my rosary, the words lulling and familiar. My broad hands on the somber beads have a certainty, a possession, absent from the rest of my demeanor, at least this day, and I find comfort in the grip.

I love Etienne, it is sure, and I am prepared to marry him. Never has any countenance, whether square, before me, or conjured in dream, roused such emotion in my breast; never has any touch borne such craggy, such voluble chills through my veins. Never has any man made me ache, so clandestinely, with desire.

But still, inarticulate fears linger. I have twenty years on my form; Etienne, nineteen. To be sure, we are well-endowed, passionate with the mirth and vigor of youth. But...suppose we round the ominous curves of middle age, and our love wanes; suppose my womb fails to deliver an heir fitly crafted enough to please his family?

Suppose my flights of fancy collapse me; suppose I cannot handle the insistence of queenly duties?

I shake my head in a soft right-left motion to soothe and abate my worries. What, I entreat myself, distinguishes my fears from those of any blushing maid on her wedding day? What of them transcends petty rivalries, the constant rending of self and self apart? To be female is to inherit a code of morals, dreads and delights alike.

An entourage of maidens fits my gown upon my curves; indeed, such assistance, such managed minutiae, are facets of royalty to which I must accustom myself. After a time, however, Lizette ushers the eager women from the chambers and outlines my countenance herself, with a lush, brilliant melange of shade upon shade, hue upon hue, red upon red. Lizette, bless her. She has not been harassed into her position by domineering masters; she owes me nothing. She’s seen me through stages of petulance and stroppiness, days of steep, unrelenting darkness; she has heard complaints, however trivial, of twenty solid years. And yet she chooses -chooses!- to see me off to court, to settle without complaint into her new station, to remain a comforting stagnancy in a current of upheaval.

When at last I see myself, reflected and refracted in the spun-lace mirror, I am disbelieving, challenging of the very truths with which my eyes present me. Always pretty; today striking, today I am a blossom of soft curls and loveliness; today stitched into loops of beading, yards and cards of lace, voluminous velvet and profuse organdy. My broad, well-turned features seem not to be hidden, but risen, pulled and drawn into description, forced to assume pride of place on my form.

And as I notice myself, each instant, anew, I begin to see before me the ceremony itself, in all its haughty glory. I imagine the benedictions, the prayers in languages too private and advanced for my comprehension; the gossips at court, for once hushed into subordination as I and my groom assume the day’s precedence; the droning madrigals and the chapel’s bowed ceiling seeming to curve with the might and echo of their prodigious voices.

And then -he and I, my love, my intelligence, he who owns my spirit and my intimacies. And he’ll wear a fractured, joyous grin, and those lips will burn with a sentience, a life...

...He takes my hand and my palm aches. He tingles my collarbone as he lifts those staggered veils from my countenance and sees me, shy and beautiful and lit with an inner lust. His face draws slightly; the longing is etched on his features, and then

he kisses me.