6:30 AM
Brigid’s maidservant Sofia entered just as Brigid finished the last of her exercises. Sofia was pushing a cart carrying a breakfast tray, and she went directly to the small breakfast table in the corner of the room. Sofia transferred the tray to the table before Brigid, and then poured and served her a cup of strong, sweet jasmine tea
As Brigid drank her tea and breakfasted on eggs, bacon, toast and jam, miso, and a selection of fresh fruit, Sofia went into the bathroom and drew Brigid’s bath. As the bath filled, steam floated from the water and wound its way through the other rooms. Sofia has poured a mixture of rare oils into the water: the scent of jasmine and sandalwood and other exotic and mysterious fragrances filled the air.
Brigid’s fast now broken, she entered the bathroom, slipped off her gi, and stepped into the capacious sunken bath. She sighed at the sensuous feel of the warm water trickling across her skin, at the seductive scents she loved to surround herself with.
Brigid reached out her hand, took the sponge and soap offered silently by Sofia, and began washing herself. When she had finished, Brigid stretched herself out against one side of the bath, letting the hot water soothe her tired muscles. As she relaxed, Sofia began to wash Brigid’s long coppery red hair.
Sofia said nothing. When she had first started serving Brigid, she would speak on occasion, but she was fearful and nervous. Her hands shook at times, remembering the stories of how the Family treated servants who displeased them and imagining how Fiona’s daughter would treat her if she displeased her. But when her hands shook as she was brushing Brigid’s hair, she tugged painfully at a knot. Annoyed, Brigid turned and stared directly into Sofia’s eyes.
Now, Sofia had no fear when serving Brigid, and no imagination. Something behind her eyes had fallen asleep, leaving them empty. It was an action that Brigid regretted in part because she performed it in an undisciplined fit of piqué, but more in part because she did it so quickly. There was no chance to savor the feeling of Sofia’s will surrendering to Brigid’s powerful gaze. It was an action that Brigid had attempted to avoid in the future, with a large degree of success.
Sofia dried Brigid’s hair with a towel, briskly rubbing it, then proceeded to brush her hair until it shone like the copper metal it was often compared to. Then she wrapped the towel around Brigid’s hair. Brigid spent several more minutes relaxing in the warm, scented waters, then held out her hand.
Sofia handed Brigid a large woolen towel, and Brigid stood, drying herself as she stepped out of the bath. Brigid then wrapped the fluffy white towel around herself and stepped back into the bedroom. Sofia had already picked out Brigid’s garments for the day; a simple task, as Brigid’s wardrobe changed little from day to day.
Brigid pulled a short shift of white silk over her head and smoothed it down past her thighs. Then she slipped into an emerald green Mandarin cheongsam and buttoned the ornate gold buttons along the side of the front up to the high collar at her neck. It was snug across her high breasts and across her slender waist and slit high along her legs to both sides, providing a free range of movement. It displayed a Chinese dragon that wound its golden way from its tail curled in the center of her back to its head with its great grinning jaws across her breasts.
Sofia knelt and produced a pair of simple black slippers, and Brigid stepped into them.
Finally, Sofia held out Brigid’s long dark green robe, and Brigid pulled it over her shoulders and knotted the sash about her waist.
Brigid then sat at her dressing table and set her diadem on her head, then Sofia arranged her hair in an elegant, upswept style, knotted at the back of the neck and pinned it into place with a gold-inlaid ebony comb. The selection of the arrangement was one of the few original ideas that Brigid allowed to Sofia in regards to her morning routine, and Sofia had not disappointed her. Brigid admired the arrangement in the mirror and nodded her approval.
Sofia patiently awaited Brigid’s next orders, but instead, Brigid said “That will be all,” dismissing Sofia. Her work done, Sofia collected the breakfast tray and left as silently as she arrived.
Brigid continued to regard her reflection. Her thin coral lips, high cheekbones and flawless mother-of-pearl complexion that so mirrored Fiona’s own beauty were part of her mother’s genetic gifts, and they needed little enhancement, only a slight highlighting of the cheekbones to give them the appearance of additional depth.
But she paid special attention to her eyes. Her startling emerald green eyes were part of her father’s genetic gifts, and they demanded special attention in order to subtly draw further attention to them. The eyes were the windows to the soul, so said the common wisdom, and for Brigid, the eyes also were the key and the door to the mind behind them. It gave her special pleasure when her subjects looked into her eyes as she entranced them; it gave her even greater pleasure when her subjects were unwittingly seduced into looking into her eyes because of their jewel-like brilliant beauty in the first place. But her greatest pleasure was watching the light of her subject’s intellect dimming within their eyes as she covertly or overtly took control.
After that, she picked through the casket of jewelry on the dressing table, finally selecting a simple pair of earrings in gold and rubies and a large, flawless emerald pendant in a long golden chain. The earrings were slipped into the piercings on her ears, and she slipped the pendant over her head and settled it against her robes.
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