Palace Walls

Part Seventeen

                                                                         Several years earlier

It has long been rumored that Her Majesty is the reincarnation of the unique ancient priestess, Leaping Jaguar. Have you ever seen the uncertain majesty in her gaze? I believe it's possible, but if so, I fear I shall drop dead. The priestess craved blood the way Her Majesty craves decorum.

--from the diary of Grand Historian Penelope Oltu

Young Princess Clotilda ran up and down the halls, gathering the crinkled light-green skirts of her farthingale in small, red-nailed hands. She couldn't help but giggle; the Elder Lady Salmon never gave her so much freedom in all her days of "nursemaiding." The elegant, auburn-haired Lady Salmon even seemed to sniffle the day she was forced back to her quarter of the Humble Blossom Palace Complex. But Princess Clotilda grinned and galloped with excitement. Ever since she turned eight, she no longer needed a nursemaid, and was free to spend the day as she wished-- as long as she completed her tutoring lessons.

Lord Polona, Clotilda's burly, white-haired tutor, adjusted a moving oil painting on the cream-colored parlor wall. It depicted a priestess with a long, light-tan cape tossed over her shoulders, trickling with red streams as she carried a rusted silver sword in both hands. She had a stern square face, black hair flowing beneath a twisted green serpent headband, and her buxom body was bare, displaying black jaguar spots tattooed across her skin. The King and Queen scowled as the painted woman swung the sword back and forth, cackling from the confines of her silver frame.

"Isn't it strange," remarked Lord Polona, flicking his hair over his shoulder, "That the little dame is allowed to learn and speak several languages, but she isn't allowed to speak to her own brother?"

Clotilda heard her mother flick her hand-fan before collapsing luxuriously into a burgundy velvet lounge.

"Why, she certainly can! She can't see him, that's all."

"Tradition," the King added, "Since Bathurst can start his King-Training, he has been personally anointed by a Priestess of the Mother Goddess, Kaluz Kamud. As such, his, er, unblessed sister can't see him, lest she return him to full mortality."

Lord Polona lifted the cloak from his back. It was thin and dry, its faded beige and black Jaguar-spotted surface splotched with crusty red-black stains of blood. He smirked. The King and Queen recoiled, horrified.

"You stand back," he snorted, "But you recall the sacrifices Priests and Priestesses used to make...flaying the most beautiful and fertile women to our same Kaluz Kamud. On my back, I wear the flesh of Leaping Jaguar-- an ancient Jotun Priestess, called that because of her tattoo of the bravest, most motherly of animal mothers. These holy women were so willing to suffer for the visions of their souls."

"My, my," remarked the Queen, "And from that painting, she looked so much like our Clotilda, when she grows up!"

Lord Polona snorted again and aimed his aquiline nose at the golden conch-shell chandelier.

"Why must the most royal man be anointed and not flayed? Whose life is worth less?"

The little Princess shuddered. Flaying...yuck! Do they really still do that?!

Queen Ankaret raised an eyebrow at the royal tutor.

"Well, seeing that you wear the skin of a dead woman...."

"You'd rather our daughter see a flayed woman than an anointed boy? Her own brother?! No wonder, they say us royal folk have misshapen hearts!"