The Meaning of Mistress

When she had carried the dictionary back to her room, the world outside had been flooded with light. Yet by the time Anastasia came fully to herself, darkness had settled thickly over the chamber. Startled, she turned and saw the table already laden with food gone cold.

When did Natasha come by?

Groping through her memory, Anastasia recalled, faintly, telling Natasha that she wished to concentrate on reading today and to prepare only a simple supper. After the maid left, she had locked the door. How could she have forgotten that?

She sat staring blankly for a long while before finally lifting the lamp from the table and setting it above the dictionary.

As a child she had once reached for this very dictionary—the one the village headman’s son had brought to show off—because she wanted to look at it longer. She had been beaten savagely for it. She still remembered the welts on her calves, bleeding. Anastasia lowered her hand and traced the place. The scars were gone now. Even so, the instant her fingers touched the skin, the memory of the switch striking down flared alive, and her body flinched.

I had forgotten all of it.

It was not only the memories she had forgotten. Anastasia could no longer recall the last time she had offered a prayer to God.

When was the last time she had given thanks simply for not going hungry? When was the last time she had been grateful not to be cold? When was the last time she had prayed that He would take her life while she slept?

Once she had prayed from morning until night. It had been the only thing she could do. The only knowledge she possessed had been scripture and the words of prayer, so she had repeated them endlessly.

Sadly, her memory retained perfectly when that had begun to change. From the moment she started living with Mikhail, the number of her prayers had dwindled. Rather than thinking of the God in heaven, she had found herself more conscious of the man standing before her.

Mikhail never prayed. He said he did not believe in God. Watching him simply pick up his fork, Anastasia had likewise skipped the prayer and taken up her own cutlery.

The realization of how unconsciously she had been behaving struck her like a blow; she lowered her head. Once, forgetting a single prayer had felt as though the world might collapse. Why, then, even knowing her fault now, did she feel no fear at all?

Her gaze returned to the dictionary on the desk.

Mistress.

Among the books she had been devouring at random were any number of novels. Stories set among the noble houses of the capital had been especially gripping.

Yet the moment a character mentioned that the heroine’s father kept a mistress, Anastasia had closed the book. She had immediately begun reading a completely unrelated journal of southern-continent exploration.

It had been the same with other volumes. The instant the word mistress appeared, she shut the covers. Had she simply lost interest because she did not know the word? Or… had she not wanted to know?

With trembling hands she opened the dictionary. The thick leather cover fell back to reveal the preface.

After the densely written lines explaining who the compilers were and whose patronage had made the work possible, a passage seized her attention.

Beneath those closing words was drawn a red serpent coiled around a red fruit. The color of the snake was exactly the shade of her own unbound hair. Anastasia hurriedly turned the page.

True to its name as a great dictionary for the young, the entries explained every word with remarkable clarity. Illustrations depicting the example sentences filled the pages as well. She turned leaf after leaf until her hand stopped. There, beside the definition of paradise, was the very illustration she had once seen as a child.

The picture she had stretched out her hand for, desperate to look at a little longer.

There was the tree heavy with red fruit, the first humans, and behind them a beautiful mansion and forest. Anastasia searched for the red serpent she remembered watching the humans from the trees. It was not there.

Where?

As she studied the image she found the serpent in a place different from her memory. The red snake no longer hid in the forest; it had slipped inside the mansion and was gazing at the humans through a window.

“……!”

The instant she realized it, Anastasia flipped the pages roughly. Snap—the thin paper tore under her haste. Still she did not stop.

Only after the page of paradise had been left far behind did her frenzied hands finally still.

“Hah… hah…”

Her breath tore from her as though she had run for her life. She clamped her lips shut, holding the air in. Her chest heaved violently, craving more. Having fled paradise, Anastasia now moved her fingers in search of the words she had until now refused to seek. Lascivious. Wicked. Cunning…

Perhaps because the dictionary had been compiled by someone devout enough to invoke God in the preface, the entries, unlike those of other lexicons, overflowed with example sentences, illustrations, even passages from novels—all provided so that if you truly did not know the meaning, you would be left in no doubt.

Words she had heard every single day of her childhood. Weakly turning the pages, Anastasia at last found the word she had to face.

The definition itself was brief, yet the compiler clearly had much more he wished to say; he had included a large illustration and several quotations from novels.

On the bed a woman, plainly naked, hid beneath the covers. Beside her a fully dressed man stood at the door, waving to the wife who called for him. Over the place where the woman lay, a deep shadow had been drawn—as if that were the only space a mistress was permitted to occupy.

Plip. Plip. Droplets ran down her cheeks and fell onto the dictionary.

Anastasia closed the book.

“I knew…”

How could she not have known the meaning of mistress? The word appeared everywhere.

In travel accounts of Ils, in scholarly treatises from the southern continent, in novels set in the capital. As though the entire world were full of mistresses.

Everywhere the mistress was pointed at with scorn. Better a prostitute who sold her body for money, people said; at least she did not dare to speak of love—that pure emotion granted by God—while living in such filth. Of course they would. Was not one of the ten commandments the Lord had so strictly enjoined, Thou shalt not covet what belongs to another?

She had not been ignorant. She had only wanted to pretend she was. Anastasia went to the bed and buried her face in the covers.

She knew exactly what kind of man Mikhail was. The more she came to understand this new world, the more clearly she saw how immense a grace the time and effort he lavished upon her truly were. And the world said that no one gave without expecting something in return. The only ones who gave freely were those who felt pity.

Mikhail was fond of saying that he was a merchant and made only profitable deals. Therefore he would surely demand payment for every grace he had bestowed. And she had only one thing she could give.

Wet tear stains spread across the blanket. Without sobs, without even the sound of labored breathing, she wept in silence and thought.

She was not afraid that he wanted her body. What truly terrified her… was the possibility that he pitied her.

Slowly her consciousness sank into darkness.

Anastasia was alone in an old chapel. Not the abandoned one in the forest, but the village chapel where she had lived with her father as a child.

She was still wondering why she was there, glancing about, when the sound of a warped wooden door opening came from the rear of the chapel. The sound of her father coming out. Her body, trained by terror, moved before thought.

She scrambled under a wooden pew and held her breath. The closer the footsteps came, the more desperately she swallowed every sound. He had only come out to look around the chapel. He would go back to his room. If she was not discovered she would not be beaten today. So please…

Frantically she called upon God in her heart. Then a thought struck her. She had always lived like this. From morning to night she had clung to God alone, begging only to survive one more day.

At some point those survival prayers had become prayers of gratitude before she slept.

Why? What had God given her that she could feel thankful?

Someone’s face was about to surface when a pair of bare, rough feet stopped in front of her. Familiar yet strange feet. Her father had always worn old leather shoes. He had said one must show proper respect in God’s house… so why…

“So here you were.”

“……!”

The voice was coarse, like metal scraping metal. At the same instant a hand thrust under the pew, seized her by the hair, and dragged her out.

“Ah!”

She cried out at the pain of being hauled, then hurriedly clamped her mouth shut. When she made noise her father hit harder. If she swallowed both tears and sound, it ended sooner. As she was dragged across the floor she squeezed her eyes shut.

Why am I here? Was I always here?

“You take after your mother, so I always worried about you.”

“It hurts… it hurts…”

She pleaded, but the hand that shook her by the hair only grew rougher.

“I was certain that once you grew up you’d become a cheap little mistress just like her—spreading your legs and swinging your hips for any man who looked at you.”

Words she had forgotten for a long time. When she was small her father had beaten her while saying exactly that.

“I told you never to speak to men, never even to touch them! But you couldn’t master your own filthy nature!”

His roar fell like a thunderbolt. Anastasia clasped both hands as if in prayer and begged.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I won’t do it again…”

In that instant the hand gripping her hair vanished. Her body crumpled to the floor. The wind that had always sighed through the chapel ceased, and the cold stone under her became soft red carpet. The moment she smelled warm air and the faint scent of tobacco, her face went white. This was…

“Anastasia. Stand there.”

Count Lauderdale’s voice commanded her.

“And do what you always do.”