Pulchritude Read online

  An elderly man -- a distant uncle or cousin, Ezio wasn't certain -- broke off from one of the groups engaged in conversation and wandered over to congratulate the prince on his good fortune. Ezio received the well-wishes with as much politeness as he could muster, but he could feel his frustration mounting. His betrothal to Adelina would be announced at dinner with appropriate etiquette, but Ezio could see no reason why he should pretend to be in raptures at the thought of marrying his dowdy cousin. The marriage was a profitable one for both sides -- her family would be absorbed into his royal titles, and he would be so enriched by her dowry that he need never again worry about matters of expense -- but it was tiresome to protest a heartfelt passion for a woman that stirred in him only indifference.

  The thought of his disappointing betrothed drew Ezio's mind back to the greener pastures embodied in her younger sister. He waited until the old man wandered off in search of more spiced wine before casually picking up the thread of conversation with Flavio. "I wouldn't sell yourself so short as to settle for a handmaiden. I'm confident that my bride's family will see the benefit in joining Lady Imelda to my distinguished Captain of the Guard." He glanced sideways at his younger brother, hoping to gauge his reaction to this proposal.

  Flavio looked startled for a moment, but his face quickly smoothed over into a bland expression. "That would be quite an honor," he said in a neutral tone.

  Ezio smiled in satisfaction at his own planning. His marriage to Adelina might be necessary to pay his father's debts, but there was no need to limit himself to the cold marriage bed offered by his homely cousin. Imelda had only a fraction of her older sister's dowry, but she was as beautiful as her older sister was drab, and gaining her as part of the bargain lightened Ezio's spirits considerably. A match between Flavio and Imelda would take the burden of the youngest daughter off the family's hands, and Ezio was confident that his brother was shrewd enough not to interfere with the prince's seduction of Flavio's pretty new wife -- not when there were dozens of pretty chambermaids and local shepherdesses to tumble instead. "Father always insisted that princely tastes had to be discerning," Ezio mused, though Flavio's low-born pedigree proved that Prince Domenico had rarely followed his own advice.

  The storm was picking up outside. A particularly strong gust of wind swept through the castle doors, bringing with it a spray of rain and a deeper chill than before. Several of the ladies gasped in alarm as at least one elaborate hairstyle crumpled in the face of the evening winds. Even several of the gentlemen looked disconcerted and moved further into the dry hall.

  "Shall I close the doors, Your Highness?" Flavio asked, his voice uncharacteristically formal.

  Ezio hesitated -- he had rarely seen his unflappable younger brother speak so stiffly, and wondered what could have occassioned Flavio's sudden annoyance -- but after a moment he nodded. "Yes, we might as well move to the dining room. The servants should be ready by now, and I don't think any more relatives will be arriving at this late -- what is that?" he asked in sudden puzzlement.

  Something was moving up the steps of the castle, but it was impossible to make out any details in the fluttering torchlight that reached out into the night. Through the curtain of rain, the figure was a short, brown blur; Ezio imagined the shape as a young orchard tree come to life and lumbering slowly up the castle steps. He took a step closer to the door in curiosity just as the apparition stepped over the threshold of the castle and resolved itself into nothing more exotic than an ugly old woman.

  The woman walked bent at the waist so that she was forced to crane her head up to see where she was walking, and her sight was impeded by the stringy hair that clung wetly to her scalp and partially covered her face. Despite being drenched through with rain, a thick coat of slimy mud coated the woman's dress and hair, and Ezio found the look and smell of her to be instantly sickening. "It's a beggar," Flavio murmured in answer to the prince's earlier question, though now that she was fully bathed in the castle light, Ezio could see the obvious for himself.

  "The storm always brings them out," Ezio said with irritation. "They're supposed to go around to the servants' entrance. Get her out of here before the guests see her." Dark mud was already dripping from her on to his fine rugs, and Ezio grimaced as he mentally calculated the cost of cleaning them.

  Flavio strode over to the old woman and Ezio carefully cast a glance back at his guests. Thankfully, they were too absorbed in their own conversations to have yet noticed the social gaffe standing on his doorstep, but he needed the woman out of sight before the ladies went into hysterics upon seeing her. The filth caked on her was enough to put his guests off their dinner. "And no one knows what diseases beggars carry these days," he thought with a grimace. He looked back at the woman and saw with mounting annoyance that Flavio was having trouble convincing her to leave quietly.

  "--but I have nowhere to go in this storm. If I could just have a night's shelter," the woman pleaded in a shrill, nasal voice.

  "And you can have shelter," Flavio said, his voice soft and reasonable but with the air of a man repeating himself, "but we need you to go around to the kitchen entrance. You can't come in this way, little mother," he urged with gentle firmness.

  "But it's so cold out there," the woman argued loudly, "and so dark! I'd never find my way in this storm, and who's to say your kitchen will let me in? Please let me stay here where it's warm!" She looked about wildly, and Ezio flinched as her rheumy eyes landed on him and took in his rich clothes and royal jewels.

  "Here, I'll escort you myself." Flavio sighed, stoically resigned to escorting the woman through the rain, but she was staring intently at Ezio and seemed not to hear him. Flavio reached out to take her by the arm and guide her outside, but with a burst of energy, she jerked away from his outstretched hand and lurched forward to grasp at Ezio's arm. The prince pulled back in disgust, but the old woman was surprisingly deft and clutched at his sleeve with her dirty gnarled fingers.

  "You, sir, good lord," she pleaded, smiling up at him with a mouth filled with rotting black teeth. She struggled to lower herself into a kneeling position, and her iron grip on his sleeve pulled him down so that he was forced to lean over her as she knelt in supplication. Ezio tried again to pull away, but to his astonishment found he could not. Flavio shook off his surprise and sprung forward to take the old woman by the shoulders to wrest her away from the prince, but the moment he touched her twisted back, she shrieked in pain and Flavio quickly pulled his hands back as if burned.

  The scuffle had not gone unnoticed by the dinner party; Ezio could hear gasps of shock mingled with peals of high, nervous laughter from his guests in the hall. He felt blood rush to his face in embarrassment, followed by a deep rage at being so thoroughly humiliated in front of his guests. Oblivious, the grime-caked woman plunged ahead with her supplication. "Please, good lord, give me shelter from the storm," she begged in her shrill whine, smiling expectantly up at the tall man helplessly leaning over her.

  "Unhand me," he hissed at the woman. He tugged his arm back again, but she stubbornly gripped at the fabric and he could not pull free.

  "Please, good lord--" she whined again, repeating her plea, but Ezio felt a rising panic and could stand no more. With his free hand, he struck the woman hard across her face. She cried out in a feral yelp of pain and dropped his arm, crawling backward away from him and kneeling so deeply in supplication that her face touched the floor rugs.

  "Prince Ezio!" a voice shouted behind him in alarm. Ezio recognized the voice of his father's old advisor Guerrino, but could hardly hear for the roar of blood that pounded in his ears as he glared at the prostrate woman. Furiously, he wiped his filth-stained hand on the shoulder of his ruined sleeve and struggled to collect his temper.

  Her pleading voice rose up to him, muffled by the weight of the carpets, "In the name of charity, please give me shelter," she begged. Even muted by the rugs, her nasal voice grated on his nerves, as did her insolence when she dared suggest, "If you cannot afford me char
ity, I beg you give me honest work in your home as payment for lodging."

  Time seemed to slow in that moment. Ezio could see Flavio, still standing uselessly by the castle doors, struck dumb by the strangeness of the situation. He could feel his guests behind him, and sensed their disapproval at this disgusting intrusion and their mockery at seeing him in this ridiculous situation. He could hear Guerrino running towards him, his meddlesome help utterly unwelcome unless he could somehow magic the beggar woman away, and her mud and stench along with her. Ezio could make out the watery eyes of the old woman as she peered up at him through the thin curtain of her dirty hair, waiting for his reply.

  "Payment?" he sneered at her, his voice booming through the hall. "You could labor for the rest of your life and not begin to cover the expense you've caused!" He gestured expansively, taking in his smeared silk sleeve and the caked muck on his rich floor rugs. "Get out!" he ordered, pointing to the castle doors, "Get out and stay out! A night's sleep in the rain may at least scrub the filth off you!"

  Out of the corner of his eye, the prince could see Guerrino skid to a halt at his side, panting from the exertion of running the length of the hall. The agitated advisor immediately began an incoherent babble between gasps for breath, oh no please stay no no he didn't mean please madam please stay, but before Ezio could react to this bizarre behavior, his attention snapped back to the old woman. No longer cowering fearfully on the floor, she had rocked back on her heels and was actually laughing at him. Her laughter was deeper than Ezio would have expected from such a small woman and as her mocking peals rolled over him, Ezio was convinced she must be insane. He took an apprehensive step backward -- it wasn't safe to stand so close to a mad woman -- but she gestured sharply, and he found himself rooted to the ground, unable to move.

  "No, my little prince, I don't want you running off just yet." Her mouth moved in time to the words, but the voice was strangely foreign to the prince. Deep and sibilant, it belonged to a much larger creature than this frail old woman, and was laden with an accent so thick and unfamiliar that it was a moment before Ezio could understand the words. In a single fluid motion, the woman rose from the floor and stood tall and straight before him. Her entire body -- her papery skin, her stringy hair, her tattered clothes -- shimmered and glowed with an unnatural light. Ezio gaped in astonishment as pieces of her began to flake off and fall from her body, the little thin wafers disappearing before they touched the ground. Beneath the flakes, where there had been black mud and drab skin, there shone through vivid bursts of color: verdant greens, dark crimsons, and deep browns.

  As fragments of the old woman swirled in the air like dry leaves, a new shape began to take form before Ezio's astonished eyes. It was a woman, but unlike any that he had ever seen. She was at least a head taller than himself, and she stared down at him with an imposing countenance that somehow combined cold anger and childish amusement into a single expression. She was clad simply in a loose green gown, but the material shone in the torchlight as though the cloth were really thousands of tiny emeralds. Dark vines stood out against her deep olive skin and climbed over her dress and down her arms like sleeves, each vine sporting dozens of thick red roses and bright green thorns. Her face was unlined and smooth, but her bearing was too harsh to be lovely and she seemed anything but young. She looked wild and untamed, like an ancient goddess of the forest.

  Ezio was still frozen to the spot, but beside him Guerrino seemed to have regained some of his composure. He bowed deeply before the strange apparition and when he spoke, his voice trembled apprehensively. "Good mistress fata," he began respectfully, "Please forgive this grave misunderstanding--"

  The woman cut him off with a sharp gesture, and the old man's mouth clamped shut with an audible click of teeth. Ezio felt a shiver scramble over his spine as he realized that her imperious gaze had never left his face, and that her eyes were bright with excitement. "Prince," she addressed him loudly in that deeply accented voice, "you have failed my test of character." She gestured contemptuously to his guests in the hall behind him; from the complete silence, he supposed they must be frozen from either magic or terror. "You play the host for your rich friends, but you turn away those most in need of your charity. You complain of the expense of the poor while you revel in your own riches."

  Her expression darkened, and Ezio trembled as he remembered that he had struck this powerful creature. Slowly, with a show of consideration, she plucked from the vines covering her arms a single sharp thorn. The fata stepped forward gracefully until she stood over Ezio and he found himself staring helplessly up into her haughty face. She raised a hand to his face, and cupped his left cheek with her cool fingers. Her touch was almost tender, but then a sharp pain shot through him as she pressed the thorn into the flesh of his cheek. The thorn dug deeply into his face, but the pain spread through his entire body: a strange sensation that ran cold through his veins and left him feeling deeply nauseous. Triumphantly, the woman stepped back from him and the spell that had rooted him so firmly to the ground left with her. Unable to stand, Ezio collapsed to his knees, his palms pressed into the rug and his stomach heaving violently.

  "For your crime, I curse you, prince," the fata intoned softly, her voice twining like vines into his ears. "You shall take a form as beastly without as you are within." The coldness that had shot through his veins turned to fire. Sweat stood out on his skin and he felt a burning pain spread through him to the tips of his hands and feet. He felt an overwhelming urge to scratch his arms: if he could just scratch away all his skin, then the heat would leave him and he could be cool again. Driven by compulsion, he raked his fingers down his left arm and was astonished to see how long and sharp his nails had suddenly become. They were sharp enough to cut through his sleeve at the elbow and puncture his skin, but as his nails dug into his arm he felt no pain and no blood welled up. Instead, the skin peeled away as easily as the shreds of his silk sleeve, and beneath the skin was a thick mat of coarse hair.

  Shock and confusion sent him into a frenzy. He dug and tore at his arms, his legs, and his scalp with the strange claws that extended wickedly from the tips of his fingers. Everywhere he scratched, clothing and skin peeled away to reveal thick animal hair matted over a tough hide. Still the hot pain flowing through his body did not cease; Ezio writhed on the ground in agony as he felt his bones crack and shift into new formations. Mindlessly, he felt the strangeness of new joints and could not understand the sensation of weight that descended upon him.

  Her voice cut through the haze of pain, seeming as much in his head as it was in the air around him. He felt the burning recede as she commanded, "You must find that love which is willing to sacrifice everything."

  His eyes had been clenched shut; Ezio opened them warily and looked around in shock. He lay sprawled on the floor of the hall, lying on his back before his tormentor. The hall was subtly changed to his eyes: it was smaller, narrower. His brother Flavio had backed against the castle doors and was staring at him in undisguised horror. He swiveled his head to stare at his guests, but the moment he turned in their direction, the entire company panicked; several of the women shrieked or fainted, and at least half the men took off in the opposite direction at a full run down the hall. Only Guerrino seemed unafraid: he stood at the side of the hall, shaking his head slowly as though trying to wake himself from a dream. Ezio looked back up at the woman and though she still towered over the room, he was confused to see that she, too, seemed subtly smaller. Then he looked down at himself and, as his mind registered what it saw, he began to scream in terror.

  His body was no longer human. He was covered from head to toe in coarse brown animal hair. His arms and legs were longer, and his legs lay jointed deeply at the knees, as though he were a goat or a satyr stepped from one of his classical tapestries. Where his feet had been were now horse hooves; his furry hands still ended in fingers, but deadly claws extended where his neatly-trimmed nails had once been. Within his peripheral vision he could see that his nose
had elongated into a strange snout, almost like a jaguar, but with small boar tusks protruding on either side of his mouth. Even Ezio's screams were inhuman, a terrifying mixture of a cat's screech and a pig's squeal.

  The fata began to move her hands in a complex series of gestures. Ezio immediately fell silent, but he realized after a moment that the silence was produced only by his own fear and not by any magic. Helplessly, he wondered what new spell was being worked as a strange tickling sensation swept over him, but when his gaze darted around the hall and over his own bizarre body, nothing had changed. The woman finished her elaborate movements and smiled coldly down at him. "Without such love made manifest," she said with an air of cold finality, "before the last estate-rose dies, a beast you shall remain."

  With a triumphant smile, the fata flung up her arm in a final flourish and her entire body exploded in a shower of red rose petals. As the petals floated slowly to the ground, Ezio realized that she was gone. A painful emptiness washed over him; the overwhelming feeling that everything was horribly wrong and if he could just wake up from this nightmare, then it would somehow be all right again. He felt himself faint from shock, and as he lapsed into unconsciousness his last thought was that he didn't have any roses on his estate.

  Chapter 3 - Guerrino

  Guerrino saw the fata vanish in a shower of rose petals, and knew he could not be dreaming. His mind would never have been creative enough to supply the detail of the petals, fluttering gently in the wake of such violence. The prince, horribly changed, lay sprawled on the hall floor in a deep faint. He looked for all the world like a strange amalgamation of animals, and was completely covered in thick hair beneath the tattered remnants of his clothing.

  Behind him, Guerrino could hear the rush and clamor as the guests fled in panic to their rooms. He quickly realized how easily that fear could turn to violence. Any violence directed towards the prince could easily spill over on to nearby scapegoats like himself. "I need to get the prince out of the hallway," he thought, his panic rising. If they were both hidden away, there was a chance they would not be looked for.