The Princess and the Pious

It was too pretty of a sunset to be watched during a funeral.

Purples and oranges managed to sneak their way through stormy clouds, colored like a bruise. The clouds had taken no particular shape except for that of thick whisps, their ends curling like petals as the darkening sky turned to a garden of bellflowers, delphiniums, and violets.

Droplets fell on the mound of dirt as the Princess knelt next to where she had buried the dog, with only a pile of rocks for a headstone. She let her long pale fingers drift over it, the dirt barely disturbed as she ghosted a touch. She had dug the grave outside the abbey, where she knew the sisters came to plant their flowers in the spring. Her hands were still sore from rubbing against the coarse wood of the shovel. It would have been an appalling sight for the court: their princess, knee-deep in the thickening mud, dirt shoved beneath her nailbeds, hovering over the grave of a seedy no-name dog.

But he had a name to her- many in fact. "Mutt" or “Runt” for every day, "Pest" for Sundays, and "Vermin"... but only for very special occasions. Those usually included her tripping over his old bones outside her door while he bathed in the summer sun, the ceaseless barking when he followed her carriage through busy streets after being fed too many scraps, or the incessant nipping at the sweet juices on her fingers during afternoon tea in the garden.

None would mourn him- most wouldn’t even care to notice he was gone. Give it a few weeks, and she supposed she would stop caring as well. But as she continued to kneel, the rain stopped, and the droplets kept soaking the sand. So she let her tears fall.

When the sun had finally dipped below the horizon line, and the mountains faded from purple to navy, her tears had dried by the time steps sounded from behind. They squished on the mossy gravel path out to the garden. The Princess did not move, allowing those steps to come closer, until long robes brushed up beside her cold hands. The cloth was stained with mud from the wet rains in the early morning.

“The Sisters prayed for the creature in their vespers.” It was the voice of the Reverend Mother. Today, she found it did not bring as much comfort as it usually did.

The Princess's voice came out hoarse. “It’s just a dog.”

The Mother laid a hand on her shoulder.

“When the Father sings with all his creation, will a dog not join the choir?”

While the Princess did not think the Father cared for such joys as singing, or much of anything on this mortal plane, she still nodded and stood.

She turned to look at the Mother. Her kind face, wrinkles, and sun-weathered skin stood out from beneath her coif, looking tired.

“You look distant, Your Highness.”

“It’s been a day.”

The Reverend Mother sighed. “That it has.”

The Princess looked off to where the church bells rang from atop the chapel, and the nuns walked out, readying themselves for bed after supper.

“Is it too late to join the covenant?” She asked. The Reverend Mother gave a chuckle.

“Grave words from a soon-to-be bride.”

Words that were far from the speech she had delivered this morning announcing her marriage, arm-in-arm with her soon-to-be husband. Words full of dreamy speech, and a voice that carried light and sweet, like a bride in a dream, in disbelief to be at the side of a Prince.

Now, her words dropped like the weight of dirt on bones. Low and hollow.

“I’m serious.”

The Mother looked over to where her subordinates filed out. Perhaps it was their tired walk, their soft chatter, or the gentle hymn being hummed that rested like a blanket over the cooling night; but she decided it would be kind to look like she actually considered the offer.

“We all have our duties. And I’m not sure that the abbey holds the right ones for you.”

“I could try again. Study the scriptures, learn to believe.” There was an edge of desperation in her voice. The kind that you hear from people cornered, the universal clock suddenly ticking far too loud, too fast. The kind that drove people to reject faith, or die to it.

The Mother smiled sadly. “You have learned lots of things here my child, but despite my constant efforts, I’m not sure piety was one of them.”

The Princess swallowed hard and nodded. There had been a time when she was happy to kneel in a hay-covered barn, lying prostrate until the wood left splinters in her knees. When Psalms would drip off her tongue like holy water on skin. But that had all been in the before. Before thick castle walls, and bloody rosaries, and fabricated love, and dead dogs deep under dirt.

“Tell me Mother… will God grant me His grace if I repent before I sin?”

“I’m afraid that’s not true repentance.”

The Princess whispered. “And what if I am truly sorry?”

The old woman's eye flashed with knowing. She had seen this before, men and women who fell at her feet, begging for an answer, for a sign. A way to contradict both the fate laid out before them and save their mortal souls.

“Sorry? Or afraid?”

The Princess’ hand shot out, gripping the old woman. Her bones felt so fragile beneath her hands. “Please, Mother.” Her voice shook. “Please, I cannot marry him.”

If there was some mercy the Mother could spare, some sort of wisdom or prayer, she did not give it. Instead, she lifted the Princess’s hand and landed a gentle kiss on the tips of her knuckles.

“Wait on the Lord, Your Highness, and He will deliver you.”

Her hand dropped.

And the bells continued to toll.

The Reverend Mother joined the soft hymns the sisters sang as she walked back to their communal corridors. The Princess looked at their black robes, their turned heads. She listened to their sad song, and their shuffling feet and thought, this is indeed a proper funeral.

Looking to the grave, she pictured her friend's body, shriveled and broken, bones left to rot in the heat of the summer sun. Pictured the people who would not remember him. And she knew if she remained, she would die. Her soul would shrivel and break, and her old bones would crack and curl into themselves, and be left to rot in the summer sun.

If she did not get out, she would die.

The Princess decided that if there was a God, she could not wait for him.

She would deliver herself.