At the Fair

It was a year ago that I met her. If I had believed in love at first sight I would have recognized my twin soul that night.

The villages were having a fair and I was made to tag along by the sole virtue of a strong back. My father was a blacksmith and had taken it upon himself to represent our towns metalworking. He was not at all skilled in his craft, but believed his talent to be on par with the greatest smiths of the kingdom. Such pride would have been harmless, if he did not value those cheap bars of metal so far above his own family.

The first day there began as expected, I was tasked with carrying half formed masses of metal between our tent and my father's stand. I nearly slipped a half dozen times upon those muddy, trash strewn ruts that passed for roads. My initial work only gave way to the menial labor expected of a middle child in a large family. I, after all, had neither the pride of place reserved for the older children nor did I receive the doting on of the younger. The tasks I was assigned were tedious and time consuming, thus it was well into the afternoon before I was granted a reprieve and allowed to wander off. I chose to spend this time as any boy in my position might, by finding a hillside with a particularly lush looking mat of grass to lie on.

The time I could spend alone was a precious commodity within such a large family. During these occasions I could let my mind wander and allow my imagination to take flight. I could envision the clouds as vast beings battling for dominance on the canvas of the heavens, or perhaps listen to the winds whispering stories of faraway peoples and their strange legends. Whichever way I chose to spend this time, it usually ended with me creating some new fantasy to explore. I had been studying the inside of my eyelids for a good hour when a shadow came upon me. I immediately assumed this shade belonged to one of my brothers sent to fetch me for some frivolous task, or merely there to interrupt my musings and taunt me for their childish amusement. I sat up to challenge this pest only to be met with an unexpected sight.

Bent over me stood the most enthralling beauty I had ever laid eyes upon. Her hair was raven black and put the finest eastern silks to shame. Her eyes were blue pools that held a spark of mischief in their untold depths. Her ruby red lips looked so soft as the ghost of a smile played across her beautiful face. Before I could delve any further as to why this stunning creature was the most exquisite being in all of creation, she broke my reverie with a girlish giggle and a greeting.

Her voice was so soft and melodious as to put the angelic choirs of heaven to shame. My inability to focus on her words faced with ever increasing evidence of her divine beauty led to another fit of giggles as my own face became heated with embarrassment. Before me stood an absolute enchantress and I was acting like a little boy that had noticed the opposite sex for the first time. I gathered my courage and asked her what she had said as her amusement subsided enough to be able to form an answer. She wanted to know if she could share the hillside with me, being that I had indeed chosen the softest looking one in the area. I hesitated for a moment and wondered if she had indeed formed these words or if my own fevered mind had conjured such a request. I likely had the appearance of a startled deer as her radiant smile began to widen while she simultaneously attempted to exercise its suppression. My wits finally returned and I hurriedly nodded my assent before she labeled me as another one of the ill-mannered youths that ran rampant across the fair grounds.

She gave me a mischievous half smile and settled down on a spot that could almost be considered uncomfortably close. I was hoping not to make myself out to be more of a fool than necessary, so I attempted to act nonchalant and just relax. The constant smiling and suppressed laughter of my hillside companion led me to believe my efforts were quite in vain. I was debating whether I should strike up a conversation with her or keep my mouth shut when she made the decision for me. I had been so consumed with my thoughts that the sound of her voice startled me and, to my shame, I jumped a bit. This was becoming utterly ridiculous. I was old enough to be considered a man, if just barely, and here I was acting like a spooked child.

She had asked me my reason for being at the fair and I told her of my father's annoying desire to acquaint the world with his metalwork. I then tried to shift attention away from my own mediocre origins to her surprising appearance. That half smile that I was already falling in love with flashed again as she easily saw through my attempted evasion. She humored me though and told me a little bit about herself. She was here with her family on some business of her father's and as she continued it became apparent she had a similar opinion of him as I had for my own father. She made his work sound extremely tedious, yet she remained oddly vague about what exactly it was he did. We continued our conversation along more general lines as neither of us wished to discuss our families any more than necessary and I found we had very similar interests. It seems I was not the only one with strange imaginings, in fact she made my fantasies seem almost mundane in their simplicity and lack of scale.

We were still talking when I noticed a troop of men marching towards the hill. In the midst of our banter we had not noticed the hour had grown late and the moon had risen to cast its light across the fair. Now the ghostly glow was kept at a distance by the troops torches as their flames danced about and cast shadows upon their faces. In the midst of this dancing light and wall of men a team of horses drew a noble's carriage. I was waiting for them to pass so that I could escort my companion back to the fairgrounds, after all it was dangerous to be out alone at night, but they came to a halt at the base of the hill. I was becoming worried at their presence and as I turned to my new found friend my worry gave way to confusion. Upon her beautiful features lay, not a look of apprehension, but one of mild annoyance. I looked back at the troop in time to see a nobleman and his wife step down from the carriage. I recognized the symbols upon his cloak as those of the local baron while they walked up to us. My confusion was reaching ever increasing heights at this point. What could the baron and his wife possibly want with us? It was at this moment that I really took in the features of the baroness and a suspicion began to grow inside me. She was stunningly beautiful and exuded an air of self-confidence which quickly gave away the fact that this lady was no mere ornament as it was said that all noblewomen were bred to become. I had only ever seen such a graceful creature once before in my life. What really settled all my suspicions was that mischievous half smile she gave me when she saw us sitting on the hillside. The truth of the matter hit me full force, the girl I had been so struck with for the past few hours was the baron's daughter!

When the couple finally reached us it was painfully obvious the baron and baroness had widely differing opinions about their daughter associating with a peasant boy. The baroness was still showing us that radiant smile, but the baron had a scowl on his face that could have curdled milk. My apprehension was returning, if the baron wished to do so he could make life extremely unpleasant for me and my entire family. This night was looking to become very uncomfortable for me.

The baron took a second to study us before he spoke. The first words out of his mouth were more or less an insult for me, and then he began scolding his daughter for socializing with the lower orders. She sat there with a look of utter rebellion painted across her features as she listened to him rant and rave. I was becoming steadily more annoyed with his idiotic monologue as he listed all the reasons it was unseemly to be seen anywhere near the peasantry. I was about to argue back, and possibly condemn myself to his dungeons, when the baroness came to our rescue in a bit of an unexpected way. She turned to her husband and told him to be quiet in quite the same way a mother might speak to her overly talkative child. The tone she used made it seem that we had all indulged his little tantrum long enough and she was going to remind him of his manners if he did not settle down soon. Needless to say both me and the baron were staring at her with our jaws hanging open in a very unflattering manner. It was unheard of for a noblewoman to speak to a man in such a way in private let alone in public. The ladies had been brought up to always be demure and unobtrusive. As my initial surprise began to fade an overwhelming desire to laugh at the baron began to bubble up, but I was not about to do anything that might draw the attention of the baroness upon myself while she was in this mood. The baron on the other hand was becoming red in the face and began spluttering with indignation as he searched for something to say to such an odd turn of events. His daughter, no doubt, was making the situation worse for him with her ever widening smile of amusement. I suppose even the baron knew when he was defeated, because when he finally stopped choking he told his daughter she was to hurry up and get in the carriage then he turned around and got in it, slamming the door behind him.

So here I was effectively alone with the two most beautiful women I had ever seen, and I had not even the faintest clue what I was supposed to do. The protocols of behavior in our kingdom dictated that when more than two people were present, the man in the group was to speak first. The baroness and her daughter had already proven they cared little for social propriety, but now they were following this rule. The only coherent thought passing through my mind was that they seemed to absolutely love teasing men. I was standing in front of them, obviously with no idea what to say and they just stood there smiling and waiting for me to speak up. Stuttering a little bit I greeted the baroness, as we had not really been introduced before her husband's tirade. That ever present smile was still lighting up her face as she greeted me back and asked me the question I knew was coming, she wanted to know what exactly me and her daughter had gotten up to before they had arrived. My stuttering got worse at this question as I tried to explain that we had just been lying on the hillside talking. My explanation was sounding feeble for all its truth and her daughter was not helping me out at all as she stood beside her mother smiling and waiting for me to finish making myself look like an idiot. As my little speech petered out they were both giggling girlishly and I thought my face was going to melt off, I was so embarrassed. After they calmed down a bit the baroness haltingly told me she was glad her daughter had found such a nice little boy to talk to as her fit of giggles did not seem to want to go away completely. I was a little put out at this comment as I was as old as her daughter and proceeded to tell her so. She smilingly apologized and told us that they had to leave before the baron burst a blood vessel and that we should say our farewells as she herself began walking back towards the carriage.

I turned to her daughter with my face still aflame, which I was beginning to believe might be a permanent condition, and tried to say how honored I was to have met her and that I had a very pleasant time with her, though with all my stuttering much of it came out unintelligible. She smiled and told me likewise, then she looked down and sort of kicked at the ground as if wanting to say something more. This was the first time I had ever seen her speechless and I was wondering what it was that she wanted to say. She stopped her kicking as if she had made up her mind about something and she suddenly rushed to me. She hugged me tightly and through the fog of my mind I managed to hug her back. She was so warm as I held her and her perfume was a flowery scent that I knew would haunt my dreams for many a night to come. We held each other for a what seemed an eternity, yet only the merest flicker of an instant. She looked up to me and we gazed into each other's eyes. I could have drowned in those beautiful blue pools as my blood grew hot and my heart was fit to burst. She leaned up to me and her lips met mine. There are no words to describe the moment, the beating of our hearts in rhythm, her soft, warm lips against mine as the ghostly glow of the moon bathed us in its light. If it can be said there is such a thing as destiny then that moment when the Earth seemed to halt its dance through the heavens and the wind surrounded us so that all we knew was each other, proved its existence. I wish that moment could have indeed lasted an eternity, but though heaven is eternal, the earthly glimpses of it we gain are only so in our hearts. As our kiss ended we were left breathless and held each other hoping to stave off the moment we must part.

She looked up at me once more with that beautifully mischievous smile of hers and whispered something into my ear that left me stunned. She giggled once again at the expression on my face and ran back to the carriage where her parents were waiting for her. As she reached it she stopped and looked back to where I still stood trying to fathom what had happened thus far. She could not help but smile at me as she gave me an impish little wink and then disappeared into the carriage. I watched on as the soldiers made their final preparations for departure thinking on what she had said. They finally got everything ready and began to ride off, leaving me alone on the hillside were my life had changed so suddenly. The last I saw of them was a golden ring of fire around the carriage that held my lady as her last words to me echoed in my mind, "It won't be long my love 'til our wedding day."