She travelled from the east, not long ago and stole his heart from the depths of my soul. Hidden beneath years of love and admiration. She found his heart, all my efforts of trying to keep him closed away, gone, lost, forgotten. Like pouring water into the Sahara desert, it will travel to its roots, foundation never to be seen again, a waste if ever I knew one. So it has been, I've wasted my time and efforts in loving and caring for Carlos, to see it washed away like a name written in the sand just before the tide comes in. Me, a crystal gazer unable to believe even my own precious stones that I had been trained in reading.
She came upon a white horse looking like some creature that had just emerged from some fairy tale that had been long untold yet so burnt into people's memories no one had yet found a way to forget. Black curls fell around her face like curtains waiting to be drawn, to say she was pale would have been an understatement, the contrast between her obsidian coloured hair and marble white face left him in awe. To watch my husband, my lover, spell bound by another woman, to watch him greet her with such enthusiasm and delight, bruised the shrine that cradled my ego.
She was so young and naïve, her mind oblivious to his lusting eyes. She requested the east tower, said it would keep her closer to a place she then called home. I sent a maid to accompany her and Carlos, even then my mind was not at rest, I sat at our bedroom window and watched as she raised her white skirt to stop it dragging across the floor, a modest virgin. I reached for the wooden box that held fresh coal and placed one upon the awaiting shisha, lit it with a single match. The familiar smell of roses flooded the room a comfort to the unsettled mind. I took hold of the pipe and breathed in deeply, hearing the water at the bottom of the bottle bubble rapidly.
In frustration I pulled the black ribbon from my own honey coloured locks that he rested his head upon, on many occasions. His hair would mingle with mine, the cherry blonde locks a beauty occasionally impossible to distinguish between one head and the other.
I could hear the ringing voice of Marillia, the chamber maid I had sent to watch over my husband and the newly arrived maiden.
"Mistress, oh mistress." She called her voice soft, however no comparison could be made to her personality, she understood without being told why she was asked to accompany Carlos.
"Marie, I'm in here." Wanting to be left alone to my private chambers, to tar my lungs and wallow in my failure. To satisfy the man that I had so dearly held on so many occasions.
"Oh mistress, the count has asked for you to attend a brunch, in reception of our guest." She was ever so formal on such occasions when a casual manner had failed us.
"Tell him...tell him, that I..will be down as soon as I can." I replied, hesitant. Never have I felt so threatened by the presence of a female. Yet in this case it is probably because never has Carlos looked at a woman the way he looked at her. Never has he so absently followed someone with his eyes.
By the time I had surfaced from my sea of thoughts Marillia had left. I took one last drag from the pipe before letting it lifelessly fall to the floor.
I sat tight lipped through brunch as he called it, more of a banquet than something to pass the time between breakfast and lunch. It was upon sitting at the same table as the both of them that I realised she was not to blame. Not once had her gaze lingered over Carlos. However he was also not at fault; was it in his hands, who his heart chose to desire?
It was that evening that Marillia sat at the end of my bed tried to convince me that I was over reacting. I nodded as if to look like I was obedient in believing her, her eyes pleading with me, my mind wanting to believe her, however it wasn't to my mind that the crystals had revealed a competitor for my husbands heart it was to my soul. As though I was in denial that he could have eyes for anyone but me, for months I ignored the jade, tiger eye and snowflake obsidian. When they told me someone would soon whisk him away from my bed I was too vain to believe. Now she has come as promised by the beautiful stones that lay beside me on the table.
I slept alone that night. All that could be seen from my window was the flicker of an illuminative candle in the east tower. Oh, how I longed for the body that spooned mine while I slept, the warmth that I had grown to take for granted at my back.
It was then that I decided to leave for my land in the west, early the next morning. Carlos's father had pressured him into marrying a woman with a power. It raised the family status, but now I was of no use to him, two years married and yet to bear him an heir. He was free now to choose the woman of black and white that had caught him off guard on a passing visit. She has no right to refuse the count of the lands that she is a guest on. It is no fault of hers.
I have nothing left in these lands, nothing to look forward to but humiliation. Yes, in the morning I will gather my crystals and encrusted box of coal and head for my homeland, where my father still lives. I will leave him to his woman of black and white; I will take my dark horse and travel as soon as there is light. For now I lay in wait of the morning, in wait of light in wait of hope.
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