Je T'aime.

XIII. Ψάπφω

Sunday afternoons were always the calmest around the palace. Everyone was tired after a three-hour long royal Mass, and the taste of Christ's blood on everyone's lips meant there was little to no courtly drama. On Sunday afternoons I usually relaxed with my sisters, but on this day I went off on my own.

I was still wearing my church clothes as I silently strolled the palace. I liked my church-going dresses almost more than my court gowns or day dresses, second only to my riding habit. My favorite church dress, one of three, was made of dark green silk, decorated with eggshell-colored lace. Like all Catholic women, I wore a mantilla loosely over my hair of a matching lace. The mantilla was one of the few traditions that still lingered from the two centuries past when Spain ruled the world. But ever since the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Spain had faded into the background. The Dutch took over, then the French. But in modernity, one nation reigned supreme as the power of the world. My Hapsburg heart strained to say Austria, but that was wrong. The master of the world was Britannia. And we were at war with her.

Nevertheless, I still walked the halls of the palace of the Holy Roman Empress. I reached a door on the east side of the palace, located just behind the ballroom. This little door was rarely touched. The east side of the palace was more for court affairs than personal meddling, making this location awkwardly placed, but I loved it all the same. Especially on a Sunday afternoon, I knew I would be the only one to enjoy it.

I carefully opened the door and stepped inside the room. It was a library, the walls and furniture made of a shiny, dark cherry wood. A large landscape painting from Japan hung on the far wall. Underneath the diamond muntin window was a bust, much like that of Albert's Greek deities, of my grandmother, Empress Elisabeth Christine. I remembered her scarcely; she was always a bitter old widow when she lived, and my mother made sure our visits were always very formal and brief. She died ten or so years ago when I was just a child. The short moments that I do remember of her, she was so fat that she almost could not stand, and her face was always flushed. And, beside her on a table next to her near-permanent chair, as always a glass or two of brandy that she swallowed without haste. She usually accompanied these swigs with some kind of short prayer to good health, which with her image was almost comical. 

I lit a few candles, filling the library with flickering amber light. The place smelled like old leather, stale paper, and mothballs. The air was stuffy and stiff, like the mindset of the long-gone scholars who used to pace these shelves. The shelves themselves were full of books of all colors, shapes, and sizes. At one point there must have been organization to it all, but now it was just academic madness. The library itself was not very large; in fact, my chamber was larger. The tightness of it all could have easily made anyone claustrophobic. But it was a beautiful little place, with the knowledge and academia of the greatest university tucked into my own half-year home. Women could not attend university, but this was almost as good as the real thing, as far as I was concerned.

I had time to burn. I ran my fingers along the books, glancing over the titles written on the spines. Though, I didn't take much care to digest their titles- I was following the books until my heart told me to stop. Some of these books were rather aged, their leather covers flaking under my fingertips. I wondered how long these books had been neglected. A layer of grayish dust began to build on my fingertips.

On the third shelf from the bottom, just before the end of the shelf, my fingers lingered on a single book. It was a rather small book, only about as long as my hand. It was about an inch thick, bound in a burnt orange leather. It was tucked between a large black Bible and a copy of The Iliad. I smiled, remembering the play that my family and I performed, The Apple of Discord.

My character's greatest line replayed in my head. "Helen, will you leave your husband behind and come back with me to Troy?" I whispered to myself with a smile. I pulled the little orange book out from between its neighbors, blowing the layer of dust from the cover. Stitched onto the cover was a word in a script that I could not even try to read.