I remember.
The white petals, the slender pale green stem swaying in the winter cold wind. A moment with narcissus and the child, who was oblivious of the circumstances.
The demurring and pitying smiles of ladies-in-waiting, the whispered trill of laughter as they danced down the tall, stone, halls–she loves narcissus, she loves the narcissus flowers–well she should, well she should, as she weds the living, breathing freezing man himself.
I’ll wed in April. I’ll wed when the dew is like diamonds upon the white of narcissus, its deep red heart like the beating of mine.
I exist to please the eye, they said in whispers, and that is all.
My pale, tall groom, so stoic and waiting–I remember being a young girl and not knowing.
I wed in June as all brides do–I longed for the cool of April. He stood so tall, so austere as in my dreams, my white knight. He stood tall and without a smile or glance of kindness.
The monk took a pitying glance at the roses in my grip. The heavy blooms trembled in my numb hands. The holy man mumbled, regarding the pallor of my face. My knight frowned in response.
I was out of my tall tower to be given to the man who waits. I dread the night. I dread the knight.
No food touches my lips, no wine for my stomach’s sake. The supplications of kinder women that I knew–take, they said, take, and the coldness of his touch might lessen tonight.
No.
He held out his arm that I may touch but not lean. I stay within my austere body, not weeping for those few who cared for me.
If I had seen a measure of kindness, if the blackness of his frown lightened or the pale, thin lips had softened into a slight smile in private. No, only a mask of a man handsome to some to me a prison.
Narcissus, narcissus, I heard the girls sing–and now knew their meaning. My future was written in my taste in flowers, only I could love the cold and winter blast, only I could survive the frosty blast.
We walked beneath the high-vaulted ceilings hung in tapestry and glory. His voice alone now mine to hear, deep and austere “I have secured the borders of this lofty tower and your beauty and your fairness are now mine to ponder.”
I bowed my head and sealed my lips refusing to look at a man who viewed me as a prize and perhaps, yes perhaps worthy in feature to be called his bride.
Narcissus, narcissus, I hear the girls clatter.
“You think me shallow, I see the outside of my wife–not at all, not at all my dove, I see both inside and out–you are lovely, a fair spring flower…”
The narcissus I remember and let the tears slide. No sorrow, or compassion, no tender touch–he waits and so I pull within myself the grief that has escaped.
To the tall tower, our bedchamber now, in a daze and docile I go. The air seems light and the June evening at last cool; the lights are low and the rose petals upon the floor, upon the cushions, and upon the bed glow. He seems well satisfied; he seems content, and at the pinnacle of satisfaction looks about and his eyes light upon me.
But to the edge, I have crept while his mind took stock of all that is now his. A moment of hate flashes across his face and a word of denial screamed, slashing like a sword’s edge from his mouth –
Too late, too late and it is I who smile as the cobblestones below I embrace for comfort–a moment’s pain and years of release.
Narcissus, narcissus they whisper not jeering, narcissus, narcissus they scatter in the cold freezing spring as I sweep along the cobblestones, leaving a tinkling, icy laughter.
I glide upon the stair during the winter’s interminable night. I wait, I wait; my hand now cold and white. His grip on marriage slipped. He dreads the spring, with all the force of a dying man upon the dying earth.
A madness sears his once handsome face. The narcissus blooms in fields every frigid April–a reminder I wait.