The Beggining called Death

The woman's screams,

Still hung in the halls like the cloying scent of the roses which lined them. The occasion, was meant to be a joyous one, the birth of Lord Denys's first son, Piers. Or, to put it politely: Piers Cyprien Ratclif-Denys. The boy's arrival had put a damper on his parent's wedding plans, but had been received with no less excitement than before. Excitement, however, had soon turned to panic and panic, to horror and horror, to mourning. The roses, would be funeral flowers in a few short hours.

Lord Denys, sat slumped against the door to the woman's chambers, his head in his hands. Linet, was dead. The soiled linens soaked downstairs in the laundry vats, the matress burned in the yard and the corpse, lay in state on a cold, marble block in the chapel. The boy, healthy enough once cut from his dead dam's belly, lay in his half sister's arms across from the man. Neither dared, to enter the chamber, but neither was ready to leave that place, where the servants had washed the corpse and dressed her in the wedding gown which ought to have been a symbol of the greatest day of her life. They didn't know eachother, the man and his child's half sister and they had no interest in it. It was only right now, that they were kin.

"I'll take the boy in the morning," He mumbled, his voice horce,

"I know," the girl's voice was hollow, cold as the rest of her, with her gray eyes and white skin. Nothing like her mother's warm, golden tones, it was now more than ever that she looked like a sad, bleached, parody. Piers, sturred, shockingly perfect, shockingly tiny in his linen swaddling. The man, meant nothing to the girl as she watched a tiny hand curl around her finger. He'd never meant anything to her, other than the father of the boy her mother carried. She hadn't expected him to hang around this long, none of Linet's other lovers did, coming and going as easily as bumble bees. But he had, perhaps because he was young, perhaps because his first wife had died and it was Linet who'd accompanied him back to his chambers after her wake.

The girl knew her mother's secrets, the wash she used to brighten her hair, exotic lemons and chamomile, her way of ensnareing a man with her sweet voice and lowerd lashes, playing the innocent when everbody knew she wasn't. Every man, fell for Linet. It was in their blood to love her girlish gowns in soft pastels, her hair woren loose even though she was nearing her thirty-second birthday. Men loved her and women, hated her and now, she was dead and Verity, was alone.