After Life

“I’ll try and keep this quick as I can, so pay attention. Wouldn’t want to interfere with your many noble-type duties that y’got these days.” I sniffed at her, but more quietly than usual. I wanted to hear the story so much! And it was so exciting to talk to someone, anyone!

“So, I was born poor, and I lived poor me whole life. That’s very much all that needs to be said about that.” She paused. “Well, not that you’d really know what that e’en means. But it should be enough to tell ya that I never lived anything like you.” I nodded- of course that was true! (Y/N) might be fetching and humorous, but she was unquestionably a peasant. So vulgar, and always simplifying everything!

“Soon as I was able, I started workin’ as a scullery maid in the cookhouse of an elderly linens merchant by the name a’ Jenkins. Nice enough sorta guy, never tried anything with me. Small house; everyone got on alright. But he keeled o’er about two years afore I got killed.” I tried not to fidget. This tale wasn’t very interesting at all thus far, only mildly gloomy.

She continued on, “when it happened, none of us knew how things’d turn out, if we’d find work or starve and die-“ that seemed a touch melodramatic to me “-me whole family was long dead by then. Turned out to be just as well; me parents woulda suffered to see what came of me later.

“Well, one real piss of a day, I thought I was the luckiest of all of us low serving folk when a fine-looking young man stopped me right in the street just two days after ole Jenkins died.” She grimaced, but I thought I saw a hint of real hurt in her expression, though it could have just been the poor lighting. “I still remember it so clear. He had perfect styled, chestnut hair, sharp dark green eyes, and smelled somethin’ wonderful. Seemed like a dream at the time, me knees got weak and all that nonsense. I’ll call him ‘Fancy,’ cause it fits, e’en more than it does you.” What was that supposed to mean? Was I more or less fancy than some purportedly handsome, long-dead man? I wanted to ask but was afraid to interrupt. Did I want to be fancy? Why did she not just use this fellow’s proper name?

“Afore the end a the day, he’d found me a new spot cleaning dishes in his father’s own cushy homestead. It weren’t as big as this,” she gestured towards my home, “but they did have a lot a real old art, a whole collection, and e’en a bell tower like a church!”

Ah, bell towers! I had taken pride in having the biggest of all, when I was alive. My precious bell had been so flawless with its deep, resonant ring! It still rested on the grounds, near the old chapel, though time had left it somewhat worse for the wear. Back in my day, quite a few men of lesser station had attempted to emulate my prized bell in its lofty spire, but none had even come close to approaching its magnificence. What a fruitless endeavor- to try and outmatch me! I permitted myself a small grin, hoping that no one since had acquired a bell larger than mine.

I realized she had been talking, “…true. I’d me own mattress and was fed well, e’en given a small place to store a thing or two.” I nodded to indicate I was listening. At the very least, I was trying to pay attention. This was just rather dull.

“Not a month’d gone by afore Fancy started courting me. Imagine, I said to meself, the son of a knight o’ the shire, after me?” Son of a knight? Pfft! That didn’t mean a bloody thing! All knights were commoners, not nobility! And just a knight’s son? “Sure, he thought he was clever and sly, but there’s no other reason a moneyed man’d mingle with the staff aside from dipping his wick. Though I thought he was the most perfect bloke in the world, I hadn’t seen a single ‘fatherless’ babe at the knees of any of the young and fresh gals, and that weren’t a good sign.” Now, that I understood. Some families wouldn’t tolerate illegitimate children for various reasons and had the pregnant mothers put out on the street. I had always thought the practice was overly cruel and totally unnecessary. Perhaps I had underestimated (Y/N)’s intelligence.

“I decided that I was too smart to end up with a bastard child by Fancy, so I turned up me nose at him whenever he’d come to call. He threw a tantrum every time, swearing up and down that he’d oust me after dinner. But by the next day I’d have flowers, a sweet, or a poem waiting for me when I woke.” She scowled fiercely, and I found myself newly intrigued by her tale. Who or what had stepped between them, ruined their troubled, budding love? I hunkered down a bit, now eager to hear the rest.

“Welp, one day, he changed his plan and told me he loved me. He said that he’d take me away and marry me, make me a woman of class and means…” That soured me on Fancy permanently. He was very obviously a shameless liar.

(Y/N) caught my frown and looked at the ground, clearly embarrassed. “Look, I was lonesome, stupid, gullible… and I’d grown to love him. I believed it when he said that he loved to hear me sing and watch me dance.” I forced myself not to show any external reaction to that- yet another transparent lie. As fine as (Y/N)’s strange, pagan dancing might be, her singing was undeniably dreadful. “The other staff were nasty to me on account of the special treatment… I hadn’t anyone else to talk to.”

She kept looking at the ground, “when he took me to a storage room and asked me to make him happy by doing something that he swore up and down wouldn’t make a baby, I did it. Though that was hardly the first time I’d seen a man’s sausage, it was the first time someone grabbed me by the hair and shoved it down me throat.” My eyes widened of their own accord. Somehow fellatio wasn’t the next turn I had expected in the plot. And her frank description… I simply hadn’t been mentally prepared.

She sighed heavily, shaking her head as she stared into the distance. “From there... he kept talking about love and marriage and our future together, giving me things, and the tantrums stopped. He told me how he’d become a knight, like his father, and I’d be right by his side.” I was developing a true hatred of her erstwhile lover. The title of knighthood was not heritable, and ‘Fancy’ would have known that without question. “I’d never been so happy.” Her words were full of regret, and for some time she said nothing.

Abruptly she stiffened. “It’s not as though you’d understand, why the hell am I telling you anything, you self-“

I raised my hands, “wait! I care! I really do care, I swear it. Please, will you tell me? What happened?”

She glowered, “eventually I came to believe all he was saying, fell so deep in love I couldn’t tell me ass from me gullet. I, well, I let him put it between my legs. Bled something awful and hurt e’en worse, but I thought it was worth the suffering for love.” Despite the sad turn her story had taken, the mention of the act, of (Y/N) receiving… I forced my mind away, focusing dutifully on her words rather than the interested tingle in my nethers.

“And that was that. He’d come down in the late evenings, fetch me up and bend me o’er something every damned night. Eventually it stopping hurting and started feeling decent enough, but I still don’t understand what he thought was so great about it.” She shrugged, shooting me a pointed look, “I guess you blokes get a lot more jollies out of a roll in the hay than us womenfolk.” I smiled lamely, unsure what to say. I had most definitely enjoyed the carnal acts while alive, enough such that I had died for my imprudence.

“So, as ye’d imagine, after a time I started getting sick in the mornings. I did me best to hide it, but some of the other girls noticed. I should’ve paid more attention when one of them took me aside and told me to run off, but I thought she was crazy or jealous! I was scared, I didn’t feel ready for a kiddie, but I thought I’d be a nobleman’s wife…” I said nothing, but I had a bad feeling, a very bad feeling. Fancy was, at best, a compulsive liar who took advantage of women, including (Y/N). He had abused someone that hadn’t deserved it.

“Well, I went ahead and told Fancy after a while o’that, thinking he’d be glad, that we’d get married right soon, so I’d be an honest woman. His father was off on some sort’ve obligation and Fancy was the man of the house, so I thought I was about to live my dreams. Instead, he didn’t seem to pay much heed. Not e’en mad or angry, just blank. He buttoned his trousers, asked me if I’d told anyone, then left as soon as I told him I hadn’t. The next day I heard he’d left to join his father.”

I felt heavy with dread, “where was his father?”

She rolled her eyes as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “’Ere, a’course.”

Notes

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