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ELIZABETH:
Thank you.
And, well chosen.
My husband gave this to me on the day we were married. I wore it to the bridal chamber.
The color wasn’t appropriate, but he didn’t know that.
See, I look quite lovely in it.
What a wedding it was. It was the event of the year. The joining of two great families, though mine was the better of the two.
LADY IN WAITING (V.O.):
Have you seen Ferenc?
Have you?
He’s so handsome. I wish I were you.
And so important.
Did you know that the Emperor might be coming?
The Emperor himself!
ELIZABETH:
But he was unable to. That upset my mother no end. But he did send an ambassador.
The gifts.
The balls. I had never danced so much in my life. So many young men begging for the chance to touch me before...before my husband did.
Such lovely music!
Such pretty dresses!
For days before the ceremony we danced and laughed and danced even more.
[She dances as if she’s in a ballroom surrounded by beaux.]
LADY IN WAITING (V.O.):
They say he’s on his way. He’ll be here soon.
Don’t look so glum. He’s coming.
Come and dance some more. Everyone is waiting.
ELIZABETH:
I was the center of it all. I was no longer just some extra daughter waiting to be married off. I was the princess. I was the one everyone loved. Envied. It was I. Young. Beautiful. Wanted. Adored.
LADY IN WAITING (V.O.):
He has sent a messenger. He’ll be here any day now. Don’t be sad. I’m sure he’ll make it up to you.
PRIEST:
Why were you sad?
ELIZABETH:
And, believe it or not, Priest, relatively innocent.
[When ELIZABETH is speaking with and interacting with people from her past, they should be emotionally connecting, but physically separated and not actually acting together. There could also be some technical way of establishing the different timelines (use of light or something).]
MOTHER:
Innocent. Don’t pretend to be so innocent.
Don’t be so coy.
You had just better hope that you fool Ferenc. But I know what you are.
Don’t worry. Even if he is unable to show, you wouldn’t be the first girl married by proxy.
ELIZABETH:
I didn’t mean—
MOTHER:
I know what you meant, girl. I know exactly what you meant.
Well, he’s not coming. Get that thought out of your head.
Don’t try those sad eyes on me, slut.
ELIZABETH:
Please.
I want to marry—
MOTHER:
Never. Not while I live.
You are marrying the Count Ferenc. That is the end of it.
The other — that was a mistake.
ELIZABETH:
How can you say that?
MOTHER:
Had I been here—
ELIZABETH:
Jealous, Mother? Is that why I’m marrying Ferenc? Because you are jealous of your own daughter?
How pathetic!
MOTHER:
Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice, girl.
Ferenc is a great man.
ELIZABETH:
He’s a butcher.
MOTHER:
This ‘butcher’ is one of our greatest generals. He’s rich. Powerful.
ELIZABETH:
I’ll never be a wife to him.
MOTHER:
You will be whatever he wants you to be, girl. What do you think you are? Know your place. You will belong to him.
Look, little girl.
We are a great family. But we are no longer as rich as we once were. Ferenc is rich, powerful. We both stand to gain so much from this marriage.
You have cousins who need advancement.
We need money.
You will get that for us.
Girl, this is your job. No one raises daughters to leech off the family fortune. You are brought into this life to be married off. To make a man happy. To help better us.
Don’t be so selfish.
ELIZABETH:
It’s not fair.
MOTHER:
Who said anything about being fair?
I didn’t know your father before we were married. I barely knew who he was. I hardly spoke the same language.
But I understood what was expected of me. I understood my duty.
And the result was fine. Your father and I have had a happy marriage. For years.
Do your duty by Ferenc, and you will be happy. I want you to be happy. I do.
ELIZABETH:
But I don’t want to marry that filthy butcher. I want a prince. Someone to love me and whom I love.
MOTHER:
You are being naive, girl.
It is arranged. The guests have arrived. That’s the end of it.
Everything is arranged. I will not be embarrassed because of some spoiled brat. Daughter or no daughter.
But do as you like.
It is your choice. We are not barbarians. Just say ‘no’ during the ceremony.
We can’t force you.
If you say no, however, then you will be out.
I shan’t lose any sleep. I shan’t miss a meal.
You are certainly pretty enough. You could probably survive well enough for a few years. But no prince, great or small, will marry an outcast.
But remember, aging wives are respectable. Aging whores starve.
But, as I said, it is your choice.
ELIZABETH:
I couldn’t really starve, now, could I?
Could you see me hungry? Poor? Unwanted?
I know it happens to some people. I’m told it’s worse to be poor having been rich than always having been poor.
I could not allow that to happen to me.
I’d figure out a way to get what I wanted. Duty or no.
Married or no, I would not spend my life as chattel.
PRIEST:
Who did you want to marry?
ELIZABETH:
What?
Oh.
Just pre-wedding jitters, Priest.
The wedding almost didn’t happen.
Ferenc was a warrior, as you know. He had been away killing Turks, or something like that, just before the wedding. He almost didn’t make it in time.
He was so late that some guests were leaving when he came in.
[FERENC bursts in. He is tall, dark, gorgeous, heroic. He is almost ideally male. He is dressed for killing. He is covered in blood. He looks like a young man in his early 20s.]
[In the distance, we can hear the soft ringing of wedding bells.]
I knew, as soon as I saw him, that I wanted him. But I also hated him.
Was I to be chattel? However much a man he was, might be, I could not be his property. I could not love him as I….
I played my part during the ceremony. I said the words in a haze. I remember little except that someone said I was wife. Ferenc lifted my veil and….
[FERENC goes through the motions of lifting her veil and kissing her gently. She feels his caress.]
I held my tongue at the reception. And later was escorted by giggling maids to the bridal chamber.
I felt like an object. The guests standing outside leering at me. Knowing what I would be doing with my drunken warrior husband.
Was this duty? To be paraded to my husband’s bed. For our first time to be the subject for drunken carousing and public scrutiny.
I was no fool. I knew exactly what to expect. I’d heard too many stories of drunken fumbling. I’d stood outside too many doors to not know of being hammered into. Of sleeping under dead weight after he’d passed out from thirty seconds’ exertion.
Don’t be so shocked, Priest. I, and all women, are aware that husbands are notoriously... expeditious — is that the word? — lovers. Why do you think we do not care that our husbands take mistresses? Why do you think so many children don’t look like their fathers.
So I prepared myself.
[ELIZABETH stands, offering herself coldly. FERENC looks at her for a moment. He smiles. Gently, he motions for her to sit. He presents himself to her.]
FERENC:
Leave off the warfare. That is who I am, but it is not all of me.
Call me warrior. But also call me man, husband, lover.
Imagine we are simple folk, living deep in the forest. No one else is there. No one. We reap. We sew. We tend our flocks. That is our life. That is our life. We fight the rains. The bitter winters. The parching droughts.
But, together, we can endure the work and the solitude. Together we can stand against any hardship.
Come dance with me. Come be with me under the starry sky. Smile to the moon and wave to the clouds. For they are our roof. Only they can see us, and they share in our new-found love.
Imagine we live among the trees. Dancing on the leaves. Playing with the beasts. Alone we play and hunt. We bathe in the purest of streams and make love in the glades.
Come dance with me. Leap with me among the trees. Play with the deer and sing to the birds. For they are our family.
Fear me not, for I love you. With me you shall come to no harm. My only fear is that my love will scare you, for you have never met its like before. Come love me. Trust me. For all that I am, all that I can, all that I will is yours.
Come dance with me. Give me your youth. I shall give you my strength. For we belong to each other.
[Although ELIZABETH tries to resist FERENC, she is gradually drawn in by his words. FERENC makes his way to the bed.]
ELIZABETH:
Do you know what it is like, Priest? Can you know?
Can you understand the raw power of a man?
Maybe a priest would.
I had never known such pleasure. It would only be a long time after his death that anything I would experience would even be half so wonderful.
And my beautiful Ferenc. Would anyone have thought that any one so violent — a killer — could love me so gently.
[FERENC embraces his wife, picks up his sword, and charges off.]
The danger of being married to a soldier is that they spend most of their time killing rather than making love.
My darling was away so very often.
But he was one of the best. The Black Knight of Hungary!
Even his enemies called him that.
But when he would return...then he would be all mine.
But you don’t want the details, do you, Priest?
And so the years passed.
My darling, Ferenc away most of the year killing whoever it was that he killed. I never really cared to know whom.
And for a few precious weeks each year he would return to me.
And I would be so happy. For a time.
I was my own mistress.
I cast aside my mother and her family with little more than a pittance.
They kept the dowry. No matter. I had this beautiful castle. My courtiers. My servants.
Yet….
I began to grow older.
PRIEST:
It happens to all of us. It is no great mystery. It is God’s plan.
ELIZABETH:
It was not mine.
I had done my duty. I was lucky to find so loving a husband. But my sacrifices to duty owed me more.
I was no longer the innocent child that he’d married.
I was no longer the young woman that he’d held in his arms.
I—I could find gray in my hair.
I—I could see wrinkles in the mirror.
My breasts were no longer so firm, my waist no longer so thin.
I was hideous.
FERENC:
Don’t be ridiculous.
I love you old or young.
I love every wrinkle. Every gray hair.
I love every moment that I am with you.
The youth and beauty that I love will be with you however old you are. And so will I.
ELIZABETH:
But, of course, I didn’t believe that.
When he would be away fighting, I would try every diet, every berry, every drug, every salve that the locals swore would keep me young.
And he would be away fighting.
I tightened my corset and painted my face.
And he would be away fighting.
I made myself sick from worry.
And he would be away fighting.
My lover was lost to me, even though he tried to tell me it wasn’t so.
I was alone. Surrounded by courtiers and visitors, servants...I was alone.
I was lonely.
[A MAID is revealed as if she is brushing hair.]
With my husband I was loved and caressed. Without him I was obeyed.
My husband was a lover. I couldn’t choose any of these men as lovers. I would have been ruined. They would have been dead.
I had no pleasure.
I had nothing.
And then…I learned something.
A silly maid, while brushing my hair, pricked me with a comb.
Bitch!
[The MAID reacts as if being slapped.]
Something I’d only heard about whispered out of sight.
I saw the fear in her eyes. The knowledge that if I spoke the word, she would be cast out, maybe killed.
The fear.
It was….
Was…so….
And her need to please me.
I slapped her again. Then I touched her red face. She shivered under my touch.
So I hit her again.
She began to cry, the silly girl. To cry!
The power I had to make this girl cry. To make her drop to her knees with tears streaming from her eyes.
They were salty, the tears. Salty just like mine. Just like mine.
And she became just like a puppet. Her hands moving where I commanded. Her body moving like I wanted.
As a wife, my duty was to please my husband.
As a slave, her duty was to please me.
A pleasure I never thought to feel.
I’d never thought of this. Oh, I know men do. It just never occurred to me that I could. To have such power. To be free to care only for my own pleasure.
PRIEST:
I do not want to hear this.
To have violated the marriage bed would be enough. But through this depravity. This infamy.
ELIZABETH:
Why depraved?
Why infamous?
Men take lovers. Why not women? I am Countess. I am Sovereign. It was my right. It is my right.
And the fear in that young girl’s eyes was so…exciting.
Such a soft and smooth body. So safe.
Cleaned up, she might almost have been mistaken for a lady.
Almost.
Don’t priests and monks do the same? Don’t soldiers.
Why is pleasure a sin?
[Throughout the previous, ELIZABETH has been building to a climax. At the same time, FERENC has been fighting for his life against some sort of great foe.]
PRIEST:
Should God be willing to forgive your other sins, he will surely punish you for this.
[As ELIZABETH approaches climax, FERENC is beaten and killed.]
[ELIZABETH’s screams at climax are not only those of pleasure, but those of the deepest pain and greatest loss as her husband dies.]
* * * * *