BLUEBEARD'S LAST WIFE

BLUEBEARD’S LAST WIFE

         It is true. The beard, the prodigious wealth, bartering for a bride, the key…even the cupboard I was not to open.

         Na Cealla Beaga means little cells. The townspeople say it is for the monks in their beehive cells outside the walls.  Others swear it is for the caves dotting the cliffs hanging above the frenetic ocean waves.  Wise women of

Na Cealla Beaga know the cells are the endless rooms in the manor of Bluebeard.

         I have seen all the rooms and lived to tell you. You seem confused, dear Friend. Perhaps you have not heard the story. Sit here in the shade. Let me bring you something to slake your thirst. I will share my story of how I became Bluebeard’s last wife.

         We in this far northern clime are rarely visited by the sun.  Our skin is fair as clouds scudding overhead and our cheeks are as rosy as apples.  We are known for three things. Fish. Horses. And sheep’s wool woven into carpets of great renown. The carpets and horses are sold in every county and shipped to distant lands.

         With one exception my Father was the richest man in Na Cealla Beaga. He owned a great fleet of ships. His sheep were plump and produced the finest wool. His horses ran as swiftly as a maiden’s fall from grace. He was respected and welcomed in every home. His children, though, were his greatest pride. There were three of us; my brother Seosamh, older by two years; my sister, Aine, younger by two years; and me.

         The only more esteemed personage in our town was the man who lived on the cliff over-looking the sea. Bluebeard. The rumors about Bluebeard were fanciful to be polite and specious if the truth is told. Those in his service whispered behind the marketplace stalls about his caskets of silver and chests of gold. But this man, unlike his fairer neighbors was the progeny of a Fomorian woman and a Moorish sailor.  The Fomorians are among the most ancient of Eire’s people and given to moods as dark as their skin. Combined with the heated passions of the Moor the poor lad had no choice either in temperament or visage. He was so unlucky as to have a tremendous blue beard, which made him so frightful and hideous all the women and girls ran away.

         His mother died in childbirth when Bluebeard was ten summers. His father died in a hunting accident as the young man reached adulthood. The townspeople suspicioned the old High Lord had actually befallen a murder.

         The next year Bluebeard married. A lass from a distant county. Bluebeard opened his manor and the town celebrated his nuptials. That was the only time anyone saw his bride.

         There were rumors she died in childbirth, or ran away, or he murdered her after an innocent flirtation. No one took this idle gossip seriously until Bluebeard married a second time. Then a third. Finally, a fourth. The townspeople declared the women never left the manor.

         With this odd dark blot hanging over our lives; our days unwound idyllically until my twentieth year. That year Winter froze out the abundance of Spring. Ewes died without dropping a single lamb. There was no Imbolc celebration. Then came the taint of the blue tongue that took both kine and horses.

         Father was so overwhelmed by this downturn he sent Seosamh to the south lands to sell our rugs and remaining horses. The ocean was cruel that year. She demanded her offering. My brother’s life. Our broken Father drank himself into an early grave.

         Mother, a distracted bird of a woman, was a crazed thing. It is the only reason I can believe for what happened.

         The day arrived when Bluebeard appeared at our door.  Mother fell back, her bird-nest hair spiderwebbing her blanched cheeks. “Milord,” she croaked.

         “I would have one of your daughters to wed.”

         She looked confused. For the first time since our brother died she seemed to remember her other children. “Which of my daughters?”

         He looked too where Aine and I stood in threadbare raiment. “I care not. Let them decide.”

         And he was gone. I expected Mother to collapse.  She did not. She rounded on us; her thin face stretched in a beatific smile. “Our prayers are answered, Daughters!”

         Aine clutched Mother’s knees. “Please, Mother. Not me. He murders his brides. He eats them like a savage.”

         Mother pulled her favored daughter to her bosom. “Have no fear, my wee chick, you are much to delicate to face such a man. Evleen is older and much stronger. She will save us all.”

         My heart stopped; coldness prickling all my limbs. Mother was marrying me to the Devil.

***

         Of the wedding I remember little. The man himself was attentive to my every need.  My wedding dress was gossamer layers of blue lace struck through with hundreds and hundreds of pearls and diamonds. I undulated like an ocean wave as Mother and Aine held me upright; making certain I did not faint before I gave my vows.

He charmed Mother and Aine so much they declared him not nearly so ugly nor his beard so blue. Bluebeard insisted they stay to for the full Mead Moon. It was a grand party for a coterie of friends. The month passed in endless diversions. The finest horses were brought to hunt stag. We feasted until grease ran sparkling down our fingertips into our cuffs. We rode to the River Finn and hooked red-fleshed salmon.  The smell of the sea lingers on its skin, a reminder of its wild and untamed nature; much like my new husband.

No one dared to go to bed in case of missing any jocularity in the evening. Drinking, chess, cards, and games of chance, and, of course, ribald stories.  At midnight someone would nudge Bluebeard and make an indelicate remark about the Lord needing to plow the field or some such crudeness.

He would then offer me his arm and, shaking dreadfully, Bluebeard led me to our bed chamber where he gently lay me on the bed.

         He apprised me of my wifely duties. "Here are the keys to the great halls, wherein I have my choicest furniture, rugs, and tapestries.” He slid the next key into my palm. “These keys open the cupboards for my silver chalices, gold services, and jeweled plate.” Another key joined the growing collection in my fist.  “These open my strongboxes, which hold my money. I am beholden to no man.  These keys unlock the vaults containing my jewels. And this is the master key to all my apartments.” By now the keys overflowed my meager grip. I prayed that no more would be added. Yet Bluebeard was not finished. He leaned into me, his eyes the color of a raven’s wing; glossy blue-black and endlessly deep.  He was speaking.  I had to pull myself away from the depth of his gaze. “As for this little one?” He shook it in the narrow space between our eyes. “It is the key to the closet at the end of the Great Hall.  Go into each if you care to do so. The one you may not enter is the little closet in the Great Hall.  I forbid you. If you open it you have proved yourself disobedient. I cannot trust you. You may expect my just and righteous anger."

My husband would then disrobe and stand before me as God had created him. I gazed upon him blushing furiously. He snuffed the candles and crawled under the bedclothes.  Heat radiated from his flesh through my own thin nightdress. I stiffened horrified over what I was told would happen next.

“Am I so very hideous?” Bluebeard whispered. It was the cry of a lamb asking for his ewe’s teat.

“I cannot dissemble with you, my wedded husband. It would not be fair to you. Yes, my Lord, you have a devilish aspect. But it is not so hideous as when I first beheld you.”

A chuckle rumbled the bed. “You are a smart woman, Evleen. Even better, a truthful one.” He threw a wooly arm around me and slept.

Every night it ran the same. Days of merriment, playmaking, and feasting. And always the odd scene in our bedchamber. By the day Mother and Aine returned home I had grown to enjoy the company of Bluebeard.  My husband had a library. He played chess so few could beat him.  Wherever we travelled Bluebeard would seek me out to share some small adventure or delight.

Still at the day’s end it would be the litany of the keys with its one threat—do not enter the closet in the Great Hall. Then, the sorrowful question: “Am I so very hideous?”

I could not lie. Each day he was hideous; but less so each day.

***

On the first night we were alone I asked him about the others. He seemed confused.

“Your other wives.”

“They are well, Wife.”

“Are they dead?”

He had been sopping gravy from a trencher. Now it was dripping juices onto the table. “If it were so I would tell you.”

Before the Wort Moon was new he announced he had business at the King Stone at Tara. He would be gone for weeks. I found myself disappointed. I would miss our wild rides through the forests, the chess games, and winding badinage long after the candles had burned down.

The morning of his departure Aine arrived declaring she missed my company. More likely she missed Bluebeard’s largesse.

In the stable my husband repeated his admonishment to enjoy all the hold had to offer. He embraced me warmly before mounting his steed. I kissed his bearded cheek. His jet eyes sparkled beneath shaggy brows. “Am I so very hideous?” His words were for my ears only.

“My Lord, you have a devilish aspect. But you are far from hideous.”

He roared with laughter as he rode away.

***

Aine and I ate mussel chowder and biscuits. When Cook placed a crowberry tart before us Aine declared herself sated. I barely heard her words. Her slender form was framed by the door of the closet. The keys weighed down my pocket.

Aine and I snuggled close in my bed just as we had when we were girls. She was a poor substitute for the massive girth of Bluebeard. Her gentle snores were no comfort when compared to his satisfying warmth.

Unable to sleep I crawled out of bed, retrieved the keys, and padded to the closet with bare feet.  The key grew moist in my palm. A step forward. Back. Forward again.

I set the key in the lock. The iron blade slid in smoothly. My hand refused any other movement.

After several minutes of vacillation, I dropped the key into my dressing robe and scurried back to my bed.

So it went for six nights. The door. The key. And my curiosity raging to be satisfied. Aine grew worried as my temper grew short and dark circles ringed my eyes.

Curiosity won the seventh night. The key spun in the lock effortlessly. The door swung wide. I held a candle aloft to behold whatever spectacle lay beyond.

A vat of clotted blood stood in the center of the room. The stench of it was awful. Row after row of ladies’ garments hung the length of the room.

Was this place the tomb of my predecessors?  Then horror of horrors. The key fell into the loathsome vat sounding a bell-like tone as it struck the bottom. I plunged my hand into the gruesome bath and retrieved the key. No one heard my stumbling flight to the bedchamber. I thrust the key under my pillow. Staring into the darkening night my only thought was: when I would be joining my sisters in the closet?

***

Morning brought me news that my husband would be home by midday. I looked at my hand and the key. Both were scarlet. Bold statements of my shame and condemnations of my curiosity.

“Sister,” I begged Aine, “Go to the highest tower. Signal for the town’s guard to come.” Aine asked no questions; doing as I asked.

In a basin of water I scrubbed both hand and key. Both remained scarlet. I called for sea salt and scrubbed the scurrilous hand and key again. My knuckles were raw. My palms scored. The stains remained vivid.

My maid placed a bowl of beach sand before me. More scraping. More grating. Even as my skin broke and bled the stains remained.

My maid announced Bluebeard’s return and asked me to present myself at the table in the Great Hall. I begged her to fetch my gloves.

Bluebeard appeared in bad humor. His business had not concluded favorably. He would be required to travel to the islands in the south seas.

Then he did what I dreaded most fearfully. He asked her for the keys. I gave them over but the offending key was not among them. Bluebeard, of whom I had grown so fond, was aggrieved.

"What!" he bellowed, "Is not the key of my closet among the rest?"

"I must have left it in my chambers.”

“Bring it to me at once."

Upon entering my chambers I found my maid quaking in the armoire. I begged her to go to Aine, who had lit the tower signal, but had not seen the town’s guard. I dropped the key into my pocket and returned to the Bluebeard.

He examined the damning key as it lay upon my gloved palm.

         "Why is the key stained? " Then he saw blood speckling the glove. “Woman, why is there blood upon your hand?”

Lying would not serve me. I refused to lie even now. It had not served the other brides of Bluebeard. I would not add deceit to my other sins. “I entered the closet in the Great Hall, My Lord. I know your secret.”

"You do not know!" hissed the Bluebeard. “But, you will, Lady. By the end of this day you shall know.”

"Since I must die," I beseeched through tears, "give me time to say my prayers."

Bluebeard locked me in my chambers. Dismissing my maid, telling her that he would be tending to her Mistress himself. He demanded she convey my sister to our Mother’s home. He dismissed every servant and freeman from the keep.

I knelt at the window and feigning prayer. I watched in righteous fear as every soul left the keep. There would be no witness to my demise.

Even when I heard the key turn in the lock I did not turn. I did not want to see the blow that would end my life.

“Wife? Evleen?” Bluebeard’s entreaty was a plea to enter.

I did not turn. Fear kept me immobile. “Sir?”

“You have pleased me.” His words took my breath. “No woman has spoken the truth to me as you have.”

“Thank you, My Lord.” I tensed for the blow that would release me across the Nine Waves

“I would like you to walk with me, Evleen.”  He took my ravaged hand and kissed the palm. “I am sorry about your hand.” 

We walked along the corridors our footfalls the only sound in this enormous space. We stopped before the closet in the Great Hall. Was this to be my final resting place?

He took the stained key and the door swung open just as it had for me. He lit sconces high on the walls.  I saw the bath of blood, the array of my predecessors’ wardrobes, and Bluebeard. He stood at the basin.

         He inhaled deeply; then exhaled slowly. “It’s clothing dye. This vat is used to dye clothing.”

         I didn’t understand.

         “Evleen, my honest Lady. This closet is not the death chamber of my wives.”

         “What about the clothes?” I stammered.

         He pulled a nightdress of Carrickmoss lace from a peg.  From another peg he pulled a second nightdress of the sheer linen embroidered all over with fairy foxglove and wild roses.

         With the gowns draped over one arm he seated me in his chair at the high table. He bid me close my eyes until he said otherwise. After a good deal of grunting and rustling Bluebeard spoke. “You may look now.”

         I do not know who was more wary when I began to speak. Bluebeard was dressed in the linen gown. The midday sun glazing every black hair on his body and defining the strength of his muscles. His gaze was averted as if any words I might speak would destroy the little confidence he had in this moment. Despite the hirsute body he might as well have been a blushing virgin. I knew then, I had nothing to fear. This was his admission of trust in me.

         “Am I so very hideous?” The words were barely a whisper.

         “My beloved Bluebeard. You have a perfect aspect. You will never be hideous in my eyes.”

         That, dear Friend, was the secret of my Bluebeard. His previous wives had seen this harmless dressing and were repulsed. They begged him for a divorce. He did not retaliate. He gave the women what they wanted. Three were married to fine gentlemen. One was content to retire to a convent.

         Only I accepted my Bluebeard as he was and am not sorry for it. We travelled to the Southern Islands.  Among my many trunks were his special clothes. He wore them often. And I loved him lavishly.

         When he crossed the Nine Waves he was buried in the robes of a Sultan and his favorite lace nightdress. I insisted on attending his body myself. The secret was forever ours. At the end of his years I do not recall his beard being so blue, his countenance ever being anything but perfection, and his heart filled with anything but love.