Ageless
by Amber Averay
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People referred to me as stunning; a woman of incomparable beauty, whose unnatural height lent itself to a graceful carriage and pale skin poetically praised as luminescent as silver moonbeams. My long raven hair was appropriately envied for it bore a gloss and sheen like sun upon water, and my catlike amber eyes oft gleamed with a jest nobody could possibly articulate.
Was I vain? Undoubtedly, but with good reason. My small waist was cinched tight, my bosom was large, and I had legs longer than most! Separately none of my features were of great import, yet pieced together they formed a magnificent visage of which I was proud to boast. I would spend much time before my looking glass, admiring, seeking fault and finding none – until that damnable twin curse of creeping time and frequent childbearing conspired to leech my beauty and pad with crinkled flesh my once-enviable figure…
My husband never mentioned the vanishing of my beauty, yet I was horribly aware of it. Fine lines began spidering out from those once-captivating eyes, creases started bracketing my full, luscious lips and the skin of my breasts formed unsightly creases that left me in a foul temper. My servants avoided me – and rightly so, for they were fools, all of them, and mirrors! In their pitying expressions I could see reflected back at me the steady march of time, the vanity I no longer had a right to bear yet could not relinquish.
Erszebet, my husband would croon, a large, stubby-fingered had cupping my cheek, you are ever the most gracious lady, the most beautiful. Fair of skin and dark of hair, your eyes flash and sparkle and your mouth warrants the attentions I press upon it. Never doubt the effect you continue to have on me…
His words were well intended, yet I scoffed for as my husband I expected him to speak pretty things calculated to flatter. After so many years, I knew his professions of adoration by rote.
How to resign myself to the loss of something so pivotal to my character, something on which I’d relied all my life? How does one say ‘farewell’ to assets that brought envy and fame and had men and women falling to their knees, weeping at sight of me?
Prepare my bath!
The command was given, and should have been followed instantly. Without question. Yet the young maid stood before me neither curtsied nor even bobbed her head in acknowledgement of my instruction. Instead, I saw in her face a revulsion – ill-concealed – at the thought of undressing and helping me with my toilette. Rage clouded my vision, for this girl owed everything – her very life – to me, and I reacted spontaneously: I slapped her hard across that round, cherubic little face of hers and the beryl ring I wore caught her flesh and tore it open. Blood sprayed upon me, and I struck the girl again.
Filthy! Puterelle! Skamelar! Ronyon! Each word emphasised by the sound of my palm clouting her cheek, and Krisztina wept, pleading for my forgiveness, cowering from the blows raining down upon her. When I’d exhausted myself, chest heaving, breath puffing, hair and face dewy with perspiration, I finally ceased my attack and commanded that someone clear the blubbering maid off the floor while I repaired to my bedchamber until the bath was ready.
What a sight I must have made! Stalking through the grand house, face glistening with blood, clothing flecked with it – I must have resembled something from a nightmare. I stormed into my suite and demanded a cloth, which was presented immediately, and I settled myself before my large mirror and took in my ghoulish appearance. Fool girl! I seethed, bunching the cloth and in my rage rubbing at my face. Dare she insult me with such loathing, look upon me with such horror!
Get me water. The cloth, too dry to be of use, was but smearing the blood everywhere. And yet… I leaned closer to the glass. Fetch me a light! Almost magically Margaréta appeared with more candles, which she set about me and the mirror. My eyes scrutinising the face reflected back at me, I could not help but smile, marvelling at the changes. Where Krisztina’s blood had landed the puffy pouches, the lines, the age had disappeared! Smooth, youthful skin gleamed with health and vitality, and I clapped my hands with delight before snatching a candlestick and tilting the light over my right hand. So beautiful! I marvelled, mesmerised by its softness, its girlish appearance.
Was it merely Krisztina’s blood that could do this, or would any maiden’s purity suffice? Margaréta, I declared, find Krisztina and take her to the baths. I have a surprise for her…
Luckily, Margaréta had learned from her friend’s treatment that hesitation would not be tolerated, and she bobbed a curtsy before hastening from my chamber. And I laughed. How I laughed, for I had discovered the trick to defying the scrabbling claws of age!
Margaréta and Krisztina and other maids were waiting for me, Krisztina shivering with shock and trepidation – though she’d learned her lesson, and dropped into a curtsy so filled with respect and submission that I bestowed upon her the most beautiful smile I could give. It was her foolishness, her blood, that had led me to this magnificent discovery, after all. I could afford to be magnanimous.
I snapped my fingers, and Gergely – a burly manservant of my husband’s that I’d collected on the way from my suite – and Benedek, the groundskeeper, stepped forward to seize Krisztina’s arms. She paused, then began wriggling and screaming, trying to wrench herself free but they held her tight and dragged her to the edge of the sunken bath. Looming behind them, large blade glinting in his overly large hand, was István, his cruel face alight with eager anticipation.
Margaréta, assist me. The dark-haired servant concealed her trepidation admirably, composing her features in stoic neutrality, and before maids and men she helped undress me, then handed me down into the bath. My cloth. For this one time, I would wash myself. No need to share my elixir with her, nor listen to the whispers that she required new gowns for work!
Gergely and Benedek held Krisztina still – no small feat, for she never stopped writhing and screaming – and angled her downward, that she seemed near suspended above me. Then István reached around her, and with one firm slice cut deep into her throat.
The girls screamed, though I paid it no heed for the hot blood poured over me, and its rejuvenating capabilities nourished my body, flooding me with Krisztina’s youth and purity and I basked in the flow of warm liquid.
I would be beautiful again! My youth restored, the ageing process nullified. Was it sorcery, or mere luck that I was now able to stay young and beautiful forever?
For a time I paid spies in my household to report to me any transgressions, however slight, and the perpetrator was hustled down to the dungeons. To ensure I received the best of each sacrifice I had them chained and fed – very well fed, better than they’d ever been in their lives – and when it came to forfeit each life the chosen source was positively corpulent, and the blood was smooth and hot and stimulating. I convinced myself I felt it frothing against my body, plumping the thinning flesh, erasing every wrinkle and line and mark of age, reducing the excess fat that clumped in unflattering places.
When the castle servants learned that they were being watched closer than ever, plucked for their mistress’s health benefits, they became impeccable workers. Not by a word or an action did they fail in their duties, and I was soon forced to have my men scour the countryside for more girls. They needed to be pure, and their disappearances unnoticed. Only the blood of virgins would keep the ravages of time at bay!
When that source of the elixir was exhausted, Gergely and István travelled further abroad. They were loyal, and devoted, and I trusted them implicitly – well, István I could. He was cruel to the bone, had fed upon it at his mother’s breast; yet Gergely grew paler and quieter, so to prevent any ‘accidental confessions’ I had his tongue sliced out.
However it wasn’t long before they had to seek girls that normally they wouldn’t have dared take. Maidens from the lesser gentility, younger girls from noble houses – it was when we were forced to take these measures that rumours began to spread and accusations were flung.
In late December 1610 the castle was stormed and searched, and I was placed under house arrest. Me, the eternally young and beautiful Countess Erszebet! They dared rough handle me, accuse me, spit at me! Never has a gentlewoman been so foully manhandled as I, and I made plain my displeasure. I fumed, I stormed, I raged – to no effect. It but added to the growing myth that I – I! – was deranged, cursed with unnatural tendencies, cruel and sadistic. I laughed then, as I laugh now. For elongated youth, for ageless vitality, sacrifices must be made. Those girls were merely a product I required, they fulfilled an important need. Why could not their families appreciate it as such?
Such blindness yet confounds me.
I am now waiting in my small, dismal cell, awaiting the gaoler come to escort me to the top of the castle’s eastern tower where I shall be bricked up. The guard without my door does not speak, does not allow anybody in, does not permit me out to take the air or stretch my legs. He is a dour, silent, grim fellow, but when I hear his crisp greeting I know the gaoler approaches.
Once, the name Countess Erszebet was whispered with awe and respect and reverence. Now it is whispered for slightly different reasons…
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