by Auriane Bell
“Well, perhaps not a diamond…” the elderly woman murmured in puzzlement, returning at least a fraction of reality to Mairin.
The headmistress’ voice sounded through the hall, drowning out even the threatening turmoil. Looking back over her shoulder, Mairin could see that the staff of Sunflower Garden was following her instructions and forming a wall to protect them.
Much to her regret, there was nobody to protect her from the immortal’s servant, who ruthlessly dragged her out into the corridor.
Mairin’s arm hurt. The immortal’s servant hadn’t loosened his grip until they had finally reached Mrs Enderby’s private quarters and she had been ungently forced down on one of the chairs. She wasn’t impressed by the rough manner she had been treated with and sullenly rubbed her wrist to make the pain go away.
“Are you listening to me?”
Mairin nodded even though it wasn’t entirely true. She had been busy with recovering from the shock and her efforts to pay attention had turned out to be less successful than her decision to avoid the servant’s frightening gaze. Instead of listening to the man who was revealing her future to her, Mairin kept her eyes busy, inspecting Mrs Enderby’s usually well-guarded office.
Three large windows in the back made it possible for the room to be flooded with sunlight. Mairin was amazed by the neatness and cleanliness of the Spartan study. Even the simplistic portrait on the wall behind the immortal’s servant showing three young ladies seemed to be exactly centred. Besides the impressive wooden desk, the painting and the three armchairs they were sitting in, there was only a large vase in one corner of the room, harbouring a lonely sunflower.
“He inquired after your name, girl!”
Mrs Enderby’s voice managed to draw Mairin’s attention.
“M-Mairin, Sir,” she mumbled and chanced a look at his face.
The demon cleared his throat.
“Alright then, Mairin. I will pick you up in a fortnight. After that you will be living with the immortal and if it is his wish you shall become his wife. From the moment you are entering your new home you won’t be allowed to get in contact with anyone who hasn’t been approved by the master. Your family will be well compensated but you won’t ever be able to see them again. Do you understand?”
Mairin slowly nodded. After all, this was what her sister Renga had hoped for. Her family wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore and maybe Mairin would be able to receive a proper education. There was no reason for the lump in her throat.
The servant removed a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his suit and unfolded it in front of her on the table.
“Sign it,” he requested.
“Sign?” Mairin inclined her head to one side.
“Write your name there,” the servant said and drew an X next to a line at the bottom of the document before offering his writing instrument to her.
Mairin took the strange object from his hands, wondering how he had been able to produce the cross with it, and nervously moved it to the marked spot.
“You know how to write your name, right?” the servant asked quietly.
Mairin blushed and hastily nodded.
“Here?” she asked unconfidently.
“Mhm.”
Her hand was trembling. Perhaps it was due to the man’s harsh treatment and the precarious situation in the hall. Mairin attempted to read what was written on the paper but the letters were misbehaving and no matter how hard she tried to force them to make sense, they didn’t want to yield.
“What- What am I signing this for?” she asked hesitantly.
“By signing, you confirm that I explained to you the conditions of becoming the immortal’s bride.”
Mairin cast a look at Mrs Enderby who nodded approvingly.
Slowly she put the tip down on the sheet and started to draw the multitude of lines that amounted to her name.
Mairin – she was merely half done and even though only a few letters had appeared on the paper written in a shaky hand, it seemed to her that she had filled several pages.
Mairin Muriel.
Upon finishing the final loop of the letter L she cast out a deep sigh.
When had writing her name become this difficult?
“Are you alright, girl?” Mrs Enderby sounded unusually worried.
“Mhm,” she managed to lie.
Tiny black clouds started floating in front of her eyes and soon the room, once flooded with sunlight, turned into a pool of darkness.
Mairin was soaked with sweat. She had regained her consciousness slowly, yet she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she had been violently brought back to her senses. The body she had always been able to trust in, was weakly quivering as she wiped watery pearls off her cheeks. It took a moment for her to realise that someone had to have carried her all the way to the dorm room and put her to bed. Frightened to find out that the immortal’s servant was still close, she pulled the blanket further up over her nose to muffle her sniffing and dried her eyes to improve her blurry sight. Carefully she looked about the room and only when she could be certain that nobody was about, she slowly got up on her elbows.
It was impossible for her to tell how much time had passed since she had lost her consciousness but considering that the room wasn’t completely dark despite most of the curtains being drawn and that none of her roommates were in sight, it couldn’t be past bedtime yet.
With some effort Mairin managed to drag herself out of bed. The floor was uncomfortably cold under her bare feet and her drenched nightgown stuck to her body quite unpleasantly. Mairin retreated to the foot of her bed and started to search for a shawl. Kneeling on the mattress she rummaged around in the clothes that were piled up on top of the trunk close to it. Most of them had been carelessly cast aside by the other girls in her room and it took a while until she was able to produce her own warm shawl. With a self-content smile she put the find around her shoulders and mentally prepared herself for treading on the stone cold floor. Whoever had changed her clothes obviously hadn’t been thoughtful enough to leave a pair of slippers.
Aware that the cold should be the least of her worries, Mairin finally got on her feet and weakly tiptoed towards the door of the dorm room. The closer she got the more certain she became of being able to make out the voices of a man and a woman talking to each other. Carefully she sneaked to the only exit and paused to listen. If Mrs Enderby and the immortal’s servant were close, it was possible that she would overhear something important.
Although Mairin was straining her ears, she could no longer hear any voices and she leant her head against the door, hoping it would effect a change.
The quiet sound of footsteps made her heart skip a beat.
Before Mairin could step back, the door was pulled open and raising her head she was gazing into the face of the devilish looking man.
She could remember that evening ten years ago as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. Like on that day, the immortal’s servant was standing right in front of her in the door. She was surprised to see him, just as she had been back then, even if the reasons for her feeling that way had changed. This time, instead of worrying what he might do to her, she was rather struck by the fact that he was here now – ten years after the fateful decision he had made instead of the promised fortnight after.
Though she hadn’t seen him in all those years, she had recognised him at once and she was wondering if it was only her imagination playing a trick on her that gave her the impression that he hadn’t aged at all. Nonetheless, he had undergone some change. For one thing, he was not scowling disapprovingly like so many years ago when he had discovered her standing in the dorm room, only wearing her nightgown and shawl, leaning against the space where the door had been, just like a mime; And for another thing: he was wearing clerical clothing, a cassock with a black fascia instead of the simple but very uncommon suit of Mairin’s memories. Had he always been a priest?
“May I come in?” he asked irritably.
Due to his pro
fession there was no need for a chaperone and aware that she was exhausting the amount of time courtesy allowed her to let him wait, Mairin hastily stepped aside.
“Thank you,” he said, slightly bowing his head.
With a shy gesture she invited the immortal’s servant to make himself comfortable on one of the two arm-chairs.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I haven’t been expecting visitors.”
“Not at all.”
Her important guest shook his head, dismissing her comment, and patiently remained standing in front of his appointed chair until she was seated.
Mairin didn’t know what to think about the apparent improvement in manners. They had exchanged a number of polite phrases, yet his words had been spoken in a way it only furthered her uneasiness. Company was rare for her – not to mention male company – and finding herself unable to make conversation she lowered her gaze. Every moment of silence was more difficult to bear than the one before and after several minutes of torment, she started cursing her visitor for not taking the initiative. Awkwardly Mairin straightened her back, causing the chair to squeak.
The priest cleared his throat.
“So-“
“You are late,” Mairin dared to say just at the same time he had finally decided to speak. Instead of distracting from her gauche behaviour, she had added to it.
“A little late perhaps,” he agreed without hesitation, completely ignoring her reproach.
In Mairin’s opinion a difference of ten years was far more than ‘a little late’ but she did her best to suppress the frustration that had built up over the years. In truth she had already given up on becoming the immortal’s bride a long time ago, thinking that his servant had to have realised that he had made the wrong choice.
“Won’t you introduce yourself?” she asked and raised her head to gaze at the man who had changed her life.
He really looked just like she remembered him: the broad shoulders, his dark eyes and the peculiar hair. She was still amazed by its intense dark red, a shade not unlike the drop of blood on her finger when she had pricked herself working on a delicate piece of embroidery. Although his hair was tied back, shorter strands from the front had escaped and were reaching into his face. If it hadn’t been for his clothes he might as well have passed for a demon.
“I believe I have done so the last time we met. My name is Adrijan,” he said calmly.
It was strange that while he looked quite the same as back then, he appeared somehow differently to her.
“There must have been more important things on my mind,” Mairin responded truthfully, only realising the impoliteness of her words once they had left her mouth.
“Without a doubt.”
Whether he was annoyed about her comment or not, he was not showing it.
“I must confess I’m surprised to see you are a priest,” she said, immediately cursing her clumsy choice of words.
“Are you… are you no longer serving the immortal?” she hastily continued, hoping that he hadn’t noticed the unintentional wordplay or at least wasn’t thinking that it was intended.
Her opposite raised his eyebrows in puzzlement.
“Servant of the immortal… servant of the Lord… I’m a bit of both and neither one of them.”
Mairin frowned at his cryptic answer. The one thing she knew after hearing his odd reply was, that if she had been the immortal, she certainly wouldn’t have let this strange man work for her, regardless of his qualifications. Even if one ignored that it was impossible to be the servant of two great masters, she recoiled from the idea of merely comparing them.
“Tell me,” he interrupted her thoughts, “are you ready to come with me?”
After all she had been through in Sunflower Garden, she was more than willing to leave the place. There was one thing though she could not completely ignore, not even being as diplomatic as she tried to be.
“Would it be impossible of me to ask, if you want me to go now or pick me up in fourteen days?” Mairin inquired innocently.
The priest sighed and let his mask of politeness slip.
“I’ll return to Sunflower Garden in the morning. Tell your maid to pack your things; tomorrow we’ll be travelling to your new home.”
With these words he got up from his chair, curtly nodded at her as a goodbye-gesture and left before Mairin could ask any more questions.
Back then he had been certain that she was the most suited person for the task, but her current behaviour made him wonder, if he had really made the right choice.
Adrijan silently closed the door to Mairin’s room. It was the immortal’s fault, that he hadn’t been able to take her with him ten years ago. So much time had passed and she had changed from a simple young girl into a difficult grown-up woman.
“What a waste,” he grumbled and proceeded down the hallway.
When Mairin’s father had still been alive, severely grieving about the loss of his wife, he had visited the heartbroken man in his humble home. That was what priests did for the people after all – be there to ease their burden until he relieved them from their pain. The thought put a wistful smile on his face. Some priest he was. If there truly was a god – and Adrijan was a strong believer that the kind of god people pictured didn’t exist – he wouldn’t hesitate on the day of Adrijan’s judgement. There’d be no invitation to heaven, no redemption by going through the purgatorius ignis, only a one-way-ticket straight to hell.
Over the years he had come to realise what it meant to support the immortal and even though he was unwilling to stop, he had grown tired of doing what had to be done, of betraying and using people. Adrijan sighed. As tempting as it was, there was no point in wallowing in self-pity.
Finally he exited one of the corridors of Sunflower Garden, that had often been silent witnesses to his deeds and crossed the grand hall without haste, remembering his act of trickery.
Of course he had already known which girl he would choose before his carriage had even passed the main gate. Adrijan had spent weeks on studying the profiles of the candidates. Although Mairin originally hadn’t been one of them he had added her to the list after he had visited her father. Mairin didn’t know that he had promised him to look after his daughter and naturally neither her father nor Mairin had known of the spies which he had placed all over his town to make his work easier for when it was time to find a new candidate. Adrijan had even been rewarded for his service. Mairin’s father hadn’t been aware of it, thinking that he had been the one at the receiving end, being granted a gift of God, but Adrijan couldn’t ignore the bitter truth that made him feel like one of life’s cruel ironies.
A butler of Sunflower Garden opened the door for the immortal’s servant. Adrijan remembered walking through the same door ten years ago, guided by the headmistress, to choose Mairin from the crowd. The way she had been moving through the lines, it would’ve been impossible to locate her as quickly as needed from where he had been sitting, but the surveillance cameras in the celebration hall, his loyal staff in one of the secret rooms of Sunflower Garden and a small device attached to his ear had helped him with that. The magic of the modern world really made his life easier.
“Sir? Is anything the matter, Sir?”
Adrijan noticed that he had been standing in front of the open door, staring into the emptiness of the hall. He quickly put an apologetic smile on his face, shook his head and walked past the elegant man. There was still work to do.
He sure had some nerve, showing up after ten years without as much as an apology and leaving without giving her a proper explanation. What was she supposed to make of that?
Mairin tried to calm down. It was the immortal’s fault – not Father Adrijan’s. She was supposed to be grateful for being selected instead of furiously walking around in circles. Mairin had been lucky – there had been so many coincidences leading to that fateful day. When their father had died, Mairin, her older sister and her two younger brothers had been devastated. They had been left with
almost nothing and after the funeral they had been counting the days until they would be thrown out of their home and taken to an orphanage. Renga, her older sister, had taken care of them as well as she could, but there were limits to what a seventeen year old girl could accomplish.
Shortly after their father had passed away a woman had come to their house, claiming that she was a distant relative and that she was willing to take care of them under the condition that she, Mairin, not Renga, would take part in the gathering of the candidates for the selection of the immortal’s bride. Neither Renga nor Mairin had known the woman and at first the older sister had been very cautious around her, but with nothing left in the world there had been no other choice but to trust her. Renga had been especially worried about Mairin and to keep her from harm she had explained to her what could happen to girls who trusted too easily.
Despite their worries, everything had turned out well for them. The woman’s house had been close to Sunflower Garden so that even the decision of where to apply had been an easy one. From the day she had been chosen, she had never heard from her siblings again and especially in the beginning she had missed Renga terribly. Her harsh goodbye had hurt her but after a while Mairin had started to wonder if her sister’s words had only been an attempt to keep her from feeling lonely.
Without being motivated, Mairin opened her cupboard to prepare the clothes she was going to take with her. Now that she was about to leave, she felt that the years had gone by fast. Some of her days she had spent in solitude and isolation, studying her books or working on some handicraft. On other days she had been taught in English, German and Latin, history, biology, mathematics and physics, religion, philosophy, art and etiquette.
Her private lecturers, mostly elderly women with stern looks on their faces, had rarely been kind to her but the longing for knowledge and the thought that her family had been rewarded well had kept her going. Despite their rigour, her teachers had treated her better than most of the students and the staff of Sunflower Garden had. Even now she was bullied on the rare occasions when she encountered them, for example in the evenings when she had to join them for supper in the dining hall. This was one of the reasons why she hadn’t asked for help with the preparations. She didn’t fool herself into thinking that the maid who had been appointed to her would actually do anything to help her in her task.
