Just a Taste

God's teeth, it just smelled so... so good. Like yeast and warmth and charcoal. Her hands gripped the edges of the silver tray, knuckles almost white. She wouldn't drop it. Nor would she even look at it. But she felt that even looking at it would be less sinful than smelling it. The aromas were more than sensual as they caressed her cheeks and penetrated into her very soul. In fact, she worried she was blushing an unseemly red, betraying one of the many desires she wasn't allowed to have. None of them were allowed to have. Desire was not a word that belonged in this world for women like her.

She loathed being assigned the bread tray. At least with the meats and the cheeses, the aromas took longer to reach her nose. But with bread, crust still crackling in protest after being torn from the oven's womb, it was always a challenge to keep composure, to pretend to float on air down the hall with dozens upon dozens of eyes upon her.

The last thing that Mistress Mary - lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, first by the grace of God to bear that name, Queen of England, Ireland, France, and Wales - felt like, was floating anywhere. She didn't think that Lady Anne had done a very good job lacing up her corset that morning and suspected her bumroll was slightly too low, thus not doing its job of supporting the weight of her heavy brocade skirts. Mary had been in a foul mood all morning as a result of the discomfort and kept subtly shifting to try and relieve the sharp pinch on her right hip bone.

To make matters worse, she was hungry. More than hungry - she was convinced this must be what starving was like. Although a properly-tied corset brought many benefits, such as distributing the dress weight across her mid-section, an improperly-tied corset just made her feel...squished. Like a grape under someone's heel, but held there for hours and hours in a sort of fashion-induced purgatory. Even worse, rather than shrinking her stomach and doing something useful like masking hunger pangs, it seemed to squeeze out uncomfortably sonorous rumblings instead. She had spent the last few hours trying to time fake coughs at just the right moment to prevent them from being heard, but coughing was absolutely not something she could do for her next task. Presenting the feast trays to Her Majesty required perfection. All of the pomp and circumstance the most powerful woman - no, the most powerful person in the world deserved.

But what if her stomach made such a noise while she was presenting? The growls were decreasing in subtlety as the afternoon wore on. She would get to eat with the other ladies after the presentation, but imagine the horror of making such a noise in full view of the court? Or rather, her traitorously unhelpful brain contributed, full hearing?

On certain occasions - such as the impressing of foreign dignitaries or reminding certain domestic nobility of their place - the presentation of the feast was a lengthy and, in Mary's opinion, an awkward affair. Each lady-in-waiting would hold a tray of food piled with meats, cheeses, pickles, breads, or pies in abundance. The ladies would line up and enter the dining hall in a predetermined order at shortly timed intervals, reverancing Her Majesty every three steps as they made their way down the hall. Each reverance had to be perfectly timed with the lady in front and behind her, as if in a dance. It was all in full view of the entire court, standing and waiting to watch Her Majesty and selected guests dine. Mary and her companions would be free to eat after the Queen, which was as far away as the next century, as far as she was concerned.

Mary glanced around her, noting the sightlines of her companions as they grabbed their trays and began organizing themselves in the correct order. What was worse, eating a morsel of the Queen's feast before it was presented, or embarrassing the Queen herself with a stomach symphony? Mary attempted a furious calculation in her head, but the variable of human need won out, and before she could even consider the consequences of being caught, she raised up one of the smaller rolls to her mouth and took a bite.

"Mistress Mary, if you could return to the present and line yourself up in the appropriate position."

That voice. Mary was convinced that voice could bring her back from the dead. Lady Kat Ashley, appointed Mother of the Maids and former governess to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, was the last person on earth that Mary would want to catch her in such a guilty act. What little luck Mary had today was with her, though. She was at that moment facing away from Lady Kat, who had evidently not noticed Mary's gross indiscretion. In fact, she'd already moved on to the next lady, delivering her next cutting remark. Mary was about to sigh with relief when she noticed Anne, her closest acquaintance at court (in age if not confidence) starting at Mary, lips parted slightly in shock.

"Are you insane? "Anne hissed, eyes flickering down to the roll hovering at Mary's lips. Anne's own tray was covered in soft cheeses, and she held it away from her chest perfectly, elbows at right angles and the tray perfectly parallel with the floor. Her gray gown was laced in silver threads, so even without complicated embroidery, the fabric spoke of her family's wealth and explained her position as a lady in court. It made Mary feel dowdy in comparison with her own attire, made up of the most "impressive" wardrobe pieces from every female in her family. Beaded yellow sleeves from her aunt, dark bodice from her sister with a fraying stomacher, and slightly-too-long blue skirts from her mother. Mary had tried widening her hoops to allow the skirt to lift more off the floor, but risked being too wide of a silhouette to be called fashionable if she widened any more. Her family's wealth and prestige only barely made the cut to have a daughter presented as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and sadly, it showed.

Mary slowly lowered the roll from her lips as Anne glared. The bite of bread sat on her tongue, warm and soft. Her mouth began to fill with saliva, responding to the flavors. Not daring to chew but afraid of choking, Mary pressed the bread as much as she could into the roof of her mouth and swallowed what liquid she could.

"You know better, Mary. If you're caught..." Anne trailed off, shaking her head slightly. The sapphire-blue feather on her pillbox hat accentuated the movement, catching the candlelight as no doubt it was intended to. Mary narrowed her eyes at Anne while at the same time inwardly sighing in relief at the implication that Anne would not tell.

"Mary! Anne! Places," the voice of Lady Kat cracked like a whip, the bearer sweeping them by in a huff with a spine as straight-edged as the personality it carried. No more time to think, it was time to enter the dining chamber. Hastily, Mary attempted to hide the damning evidence of a partially eaten roll under a thickly cut slab of brown bread, but began to sweat as the folly of her action sunk in. Her mouth had gone completely dry, and she struggled to try and swallow the hellish bite still in her mouth, but realized that it would do nothing but make her cough uproariously. She carried her family's reputation in court, and as difficult as it was to get her here, it was just as easy for her to sink her entire family's reputation with one small mistake in front of the temperamental Queen. Even a coughing fit at the wrong moment could ruin everything. She was well and truly stuck with the consequences of her actions.

Mary took her place in the line of ladies, feeling her individuality drown amidst the swirl of skirts and pale faces. Hoop skirts pressed into awkward shapes and feet shuffled quickly as the ladies crushed into the small hallway that led to the larger dining hall, and the air was heavy with bated breath and anxious musk before suddenly the thick wooden doors opened wide and the presentation of the feast began.

Being near the front, Mary didn't have any time to work on getting rid of the bite of bread, let alone worry about it. She stepped out once the lady in front of her neared the middle of the dining hall and began making her way down the path created by lines of courtiers. She refused to look anywhere except for a spot on the ground several feet in front of her. She felt numerous eyes boring into her, taking into account every aspect of her appearance. Her hand-me-down garments. Her slightly too large hat. The slight color difference between the front and back of the bodice where a repair had to be made. So many things that shouldn't matter at all, and yet made up an entire world of gossip and power plays that could make and break careers. Even if she couldn't have the finest dress, she would at least act with decorum, do her damnedest to "float", and not collapse in a coughing fit.

At the end of the hall sat the Queen herself. Today she sat resplendent in a blood-red gown, the dark color contrasting artfully with flaming hair that shone out from under a heavily bejeweled hood. Long, tapered fingers rested on the stem of her silver goblet, and a small line between her brows seemed purposefully forced, creating an emotional mask that could have been anything from disdain to boredom. Her Majesty was in a diplomatic mood, it seemed, and the courtiers around her would be kept on their toes for the entire meal.

Mary stepped forward for the final of the three reverances each lady had to make as they processed across the room. Her eyes began to water with the effort of holding her mouth completely still, and the instinct to swallow the bread was overpowering. Although Mary's own gaze was to the floor, she knew the Queen would not be looking at her. She would be watching other powerful figures in the room, or perhaps even her reputed secret lover, Sir Robert. Still, enough courtiers would have their eyes on Mary, just waiting for her to make a mistake and make their day more interesting. She couldn't risk the slightest misstep.

Mechanically, a Queen's yeoman stepped forward to taste a morsel from the tray Mary offered forth. Mary almost blacked out with the shock of it - how could she have forgotten? A yeoman was always to make a show of tasting the food presented to Her Majesty to prove that it was without poison. Mary remained frozen in place, her knees locked in such a way that could carry her weight for hours, a secret that Lady Kat taught all the ladies as soon as they came to court. She stared intently at the floor, wishing she could be anywhere else in the world. From the corner of her eye, she noted that the yeoman was quite tall, his chest broad and imposing. Soon Mary's line of sight was flooded with a red tabard, and the Tudor rose embroidered on the chest swam into focus. Against her will, Mary found herself looking up to the yeoman's face.

She didn't recognize this yeoman. He wasn't grey and grizzled like the usual taster. This man was younger, closer to her age. His jaw was sharp but his eyes were soft, and she noted a hint of laugh lines around his eyes. Perhaps most shocking of all, those eyes met hers. With her thoughts so distracted, her body took over, and...she swallowed the bread.

The sound of the swallow echoed in Mary's own ears, and she could have sworn that it echoed in the entire hall. The yeoman's hand paused briefly on its way up to the tray, and his gaze sharpened as he looked at Mary. Truly looked at her...at Mary, not just another of the Queen's ladies. Mary refused to break away from his stare, and she could have sworn that the laugh lines crinkled slightly as the yeoman resisted an urge to smile. His hand pulled away a slice of bread, revealing the roll with a desperate bite out of it. To Mary's shock and immense relief, he smoothly dropped the slice of bread, picked up the roll, then covered her bite mark with his own, erasing her sin in one elegant movement. Mary's eyes widened slightly, and his eyes twinkled at her as he chewed.

The exchange was a beat too long. A throat was loudly cleared. "And following the breads made from the finest English wheat..." The Master of Ceremonies was nothing if not overly obvious. The yeoman's left eye twitched with the shadow of a wink, and Mary rose from her reverance to exit to the left. As the Master of Ceremonies called out the "finest of cheeses" and demonstrated a lack of imaginative vocabulary, Mary risked a glance up to the Queen. She was met with the piercing stare of the woman who ruled most of the known world, and who fiercely controlled any relationships in her own court with burning jealousy. Mary averted her gaze and hastened to the end of the table, handing the tray to the noble assigned to serve the Queen and stepping out into the adjoining chamber.

The room was blessedly empty of courtiers, as the ladies before her had hurried on to re-enter the dining hall from the other side, so Mary took a moment to lean back against the wall, the coolness of the stones seeping through many layers to her skin. She focused on her breathing, feeling her lungs press against the whale bones of her corset. She felt such a fool. All of her worrying over tasting something forbidden, when the real danger had been the eyes of a yeoman, and a temperamental Queen that destroyed the women who were free to love because she could not.