Black Blood

Before I can go on about what Novak wanted to tell me, he answers the knock on the door.

‘Inside.’ I stop myself to remind him of his story later. The door opens slowly and a young lady appears in the doorway. In her hands she holds several items of clothing, she is wearing the same dress as Zora and her brown hair is braided on her head. She bows slightly in our direction and walks into the room.

‘Good day, Beta Alex asked me to bring you clothes for the ceremony. I don’t know your exact sizes so I hope these clothes will fit you.’ From her story, I assume this is Flora. I get up from the bed and walk in her direction.

‘Thank you, Flora.’ The young lady seems surprised that I know her name. A small smile appears on her face and her brown eyes begin to glow slightly. She walks past me to the bed and puts the clothes on it. Novak, meanwhile, has gotten up and is standing next to the bed.

‘Ladies first,’ Flora says and smiles small to me. I want to accept her offer kindly, but then realise that I will be facing Novak in my underwear. I may have spent a few nights in a tent with him, but my clothes have always stayed on. The idea makes me shudder and I slowly shake my head.

‘I insist that Novak go first,’ I try to shift my turn to Novak. Flora looks at me a little surprised, but then nods her head approvingly. I clasp my hands together and take a step back. Novak walks closer to Flora and gives me a doubtful look. Flora picks up the men’s clothes from the bed and holds them out to Novak.

‘It should fit,’ she says to herself rather than to either of us. As soon as Novak takes off his coat, it seems to me the moment to turn around and look away. With present discomfort, I stand and listen to the sound of clothes falling to the floor and being put on.

‘You can turn around, I’m not naked,’ Novak’s voice sounds through the room after a few minutes. Slowly I turn around and let my eyes go over his new clothes.

He is wearing royal blue trousers, a white blouse tucked into his trousers and a jacket of the same colour as the trousers. On the jacket there are several silver embroideries that look like plants and flowers. The embroidery is mainly on the underside of the jacket and tapers upwards. The embroidery seems to be inlaid with small silver stones. He is wearing his own black shoes. I would not like to admit that it looks good on him, but it does. The colours match his blonde hair and blue eyes.

I just nod approvingly. Novak smiles slightly. Novak turns around towards Flora.

‘Thank you. I’ll go to the ceremony.’ Novak takes his cigarettes and matches from the bed and then leaves the room. Surprised, I follow him with my eyes, but ask no further questions. I wonder if his unexpected departure is because of the incident earlier or because he wants to give me some privacy.

‘Do you want me to help you undress or would you rather do it yourself?’ Although I grew up as a princess and should be used to this way of doing things, it is still something that is not self-evident.

‘If you could undo the strings,’ I ask her, trying to avoid fiddling for ten minutes. Flora nods her head and walks in my direction. Carefully she begins to open the clasp of the dress.

I try to find a comparison and difference between the servants here and the servants in the castle. To my regret, I can only say that their mannerisms are similar. I can only hope that their treatment here is different from that in the castle. Although I would like to think that the servants here are better off, each one is nothing more than a slave to the one above her. Denigration, sexual abuse and ill-treatment are the order of the day for every servant. You are nothing more than a worker for a poor wage, a voluntary slave. You are born for it and it will not change in your life.

Meanwhile, Flora has loosened the strings of my dress and takes a step back. I let the black dress slip from my arms and step out of it as soon as the fabric touches the floor. In just my underwear and bra I stand before Flora. She picks up the blue dress from the bed and holds it out to me like she did with Novak.

‘It consists of two parts,’ she explains to me. She takes the blue part, which is almost like a coat, off the hanger. She hands me the white under dress. The white under dress goes on first and is fastened at the back with the familiar strings. Over the white dress comes a dress that is more like a coat. The coat is royal blue, closed from the bottom of my ribcage to just above my cleavage and falls open in a point from my ribcage. The neckline is a V-neckline, with the white dress coming out from underneath. At the bottom of the blue dress are the same embroideries as on Novak’s jacket. It’s a beautiful ensemble that reminds me of the dresses in the castle.

‘Do you like it?’ I turn in Flora’s direction and let my gaze run behind her to the mirror. The silver mirror is big enough to see the whole dress. In the reflection I see Flora looking in my direction with nervous eyes.

‘Yes, it’s beautiful. Thank you,’ is my sincere reply. If anything has become clear to me in the few hours I’ve been here, it’s that the most common colour here is blue, a colour I’ve never actually worn. It is the colour of the dawn, my father’s helper. It was simply not a colour for a crown princess.

‘It’s nice to hear,’ says Flora, grateful for my compliment. She is about to pack her things and leave the room until I realise that I have no idea where to go. I can barely remember how we arrived in this room, let alone find my way to the ceremony.

‘Flora, could you do something for me?’ I prefer not to ask for help from servants, purely because I think I can do it myself, but in this case I really need her help.

‘Yes, ma’am, how can I help you?’ She takes the clothes hanger off the bed and looks at me with an expectant look.

‘Can you tell me where I have to go for the ceremony?’ I feel both stupid for not knowing where I am, and spoiled for having to ask. Flora gets a small smile on her face.

‘Of course. The ceremony doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes. At the moment there is a walk-in with the opportunity for something to drink and eat’. Before I can ask anything else Flora turns around and walks out of the door.

I quickly step back into my black heels and follow her into the corridor. The same corridors pass by as when we walked to the room. Down the stairs, the same works of art and even the engravings in the wood I recognise. I try to catch a glimpse of Novak but in vain.

I would consider Novak a friend by now, an ally perhaps. My image of men is distorted, broken even. All I see in men is lust, lust for power and aggression. Novak seems to be the first to be able to put a spin on that. Maybe men are different than I thought, maybe Novak is different.

My happy thoughts seem to disappear like snow in the sun as soon as we walk into the clearing. Flora says goodbye to me but I am too surprised to utter a word. Hundreds of people are standing in the clearing, talking, dancing and drinking. However, my eye does not fall on a stranger but on Novak. Decades away from me, Novak is standing with his lips pressed on Zora’s, his hands on her buttocks and her hands around his neck. Men are all the same.