18. Lady Bloodstone
(Sestinas)

1. Murder

The Lady Bloodstone woke up on her bed
Of roses bright and beautiful, and yet
The memory still haunts her with such thoughts
As did bedevil ladies of her rank,
For she was beautiful—therefore, to be
Assailed by time and guilt for hidden crimes.

And what, you ask, were Lady Bloodstone's crimes?
They were the crimes of passion on her bed,
Whereon a thousand sweet devotions be
Despoiled upon the lips of lust, and yet
She still retains the honors of her rank
By keeping secret all her brooding thoughts.

And what, you ask, were Lady Bloodstone's thoughts?
They were the thoughts of someone else's crimes:
Her husband's sweet caresses all were rank
With all the perfumes of another's bed,
For she heard rumors of his whoring, yet
She vowed in silent vengeance yet to be.

But how, you ask, could Lady Bloodstone be
So calculating in her vengeful thoughts?
She proved herself a worthy actress, yet
The thought of his unfaithful whoring crimes
Bedeviled her love-making in his bed:
She was a jealous wife of noble rank.

She smelled the other woman's perfume, rank
With all the stench a jealous wife could be
Forced to endure upon their squealing bed,
For in her mind were such ungodly thoughts
That even her bad husband's many crimes
Were small compared to hers enacted yet!

Ah, there's not hell like women scorned, and yet
The proper duties of her lofty rank
Helped her to hide th' intentions of her crimes,
For she was sly, a vixen yet to be
Proven with evidence to glean her thoughts
Upon her latest tryst upon his bed.

Envoi

And yet when night fell o'er their sleepless bed,
She acted out the rank sins of her thoughts
With vengeful knife to stop his crimes to be.

2. Masquerade

Now Lady Bloodstone pulled a masquerade
Over the eyes of those who thought they knew
Her well, her sobs and aspect full of loss
And pain to anyone with eyes that see,
Yet all her skill at method acting proved
But an illusion! She had all the arts

The Devil could have granted, all the arts
To hide a truth most foul in masquerade,
And all the arts of subtlety that proved
Herself the prey of circumstance. Who knew
Or could have known the the grisly truth? Or see
Or could have seen through her well-acted loss?

Ah, no one could distinguish 'twixt the loss
Of guileless death from such ungodly arts.
So for a time, she went to look and see
The wench who was her husband's masquerade
During the night before his death. Who knew
What thoughts were lurking in her head? She proved

Herself a sly and worthy actress, proved
Herself a saint in others' eyes, whose loss
Attracted sympathies from those who knew
Her well, but then our Lady Bloodstone's arts
Were tested at this wench's masquerade!
This Lady Weston, she would meet and see

Why her late spouse would leave her side to see
This other woman. Lady Weston proved
To be her equal in this masquerade,
Attracting gazes were she went, the loss
Of which aroused our lady's bloody arts
With similar intentions. Ah, who knew

What devilries our Lady Bloodstone knew?
Who could foresee the consequence? Or see
Into the mind of someone skilled in arts
Too subtle for a law court to have proved
Lady Bloodstone guilty of a second loss
While at another woman's masquerade?

Envoi

Only one person knew her masquerade,
Or could see through our lady's cunning arts:
Lady Weston proved it was a bloody loss!

3. Detection

During the masquerade, the Lady Weston
Espied the Lady Bloodstone with her lorgnette *
Within the crowd below, and when she faced
This rival paramour of her late lover,
She took the lady's hand and kissed it well
And, like her rival, played her own charade.

And what, you ask, was Weston's own charade?
When her dear love had died, the Lady Weston
Suspected Lady Bloodstone's actions well
Before she spied her rival with her lorgnette,
For from the lips of her departed lover
She knew the Lady Bloodstone was two-faced

And sly and jealous of his trysts. Now faced
With someone else's consummate charade,
She sought t' avenge the death of her dear lover
By talking with that lady. Lady Weston
Talked to the Lady Bloodstone, placed her lorgnette
Down by her side, and took her upstairs well

Beyond the hearing of her guests and well
Beyond the confines of the ballroom, faced
With mirth. The Lady Weston dropped her lorgnette
On the floor and dropped her own charade
And questioned Lady Bloodstone. Lady Weston
Now said, "I must confess, I had a lover,

A sweet affair with someone's husband, lover
That he was, and we both knew him well."
The Lady Bloodstone eyed the Lady Weston
With horrified expression as she faced
This very wench! She dropped her own charade
And, with a spiteful glare, took up her lorgnette

And took a blade from out of her own lorgnette
And stabbed the blasted wench that took her lover
As Lady Weston screamed out, "Your charade—"
Attracting everyone's attention well
In hearing, Lady Bloodstone now was faced
With imminent detection! Lady Weston

Envoi

Took out the lorgnette knife as Lady Bloodstone faced
The crowd, and Lady Weston said, "Know well,
Lady Bloodstone, your husband's lover! Your charade . . ."

4. Pursuit

The Lady Bloodstone ran away, found out
At last, and sprinted through the darkened halls
Of Lady Weston's mansion, where her servants
Attempted to prevent her wild escape,
But she ran with the Devil's speed that night,
And right behind her flew her guilty conscience.

In desperation, dogged by her own conscience,
She sprinted through the corridors and out
Beyond the entrance door towards the night,
While all the guests within the winding halls
Recoiled in awe at such a fleet escape,
And everyone from guests to lowly servants

Then crossed themselves. The once pursuing servants
Returned with pallid faces, every conscience
Reeling in shock a such a quick escape
That they began to fill the halls throughout
With tales of wicked witchcraft in the halls
And out into the Devil's lair of night.

One servant said he heard her screams that night
Resounding through the halls, and other servants
Said that as they dogged her through the halls,
They saw a wight pursue her guilty conscience **
With premonitions of her doom, and out
Beyond the gate where she made her escape,

One guest said that he saw her wild escape
On horseback, galloping like mad that night,
And still some other guests have sworn it out
That they had seen her husband's ghost. Now servants
And guests alike, to soothe their frantic conscience,
Called up a Catholic priest to bless those halls

With holy water, yet these very halls
Still echoed with the screams of that escape,
The screams of Lady Bloodstone's guilty conscience
Haunting that night and every other night
Since then. Now all the superstitious servants
Soon quitted their own stations and turned out

Envoi

Of those ungodly halls and, both in and out,
Making their own escape, these frightened servants,
Whose conscience tells them to beware the night.

5. Overcast

When Lady Bloodstone found herself within
The confines of an alleyway unknown
To her, she screamed and filled the night with terrors
Unleashed like death knells through the air. The skies
O'erhead were filled with misty overcast,
And everything about her lurked and crept

And capered in the shadows. As she crept
Along, the tapping of her steps within
The confines of the alley overcast
Her thoughts with specters, demons, things unknown
Upon the earth or in the daytime skies,
That every sound enthralled her full of terrors

Within this alley. Oh, what awful terrors
There be that spied or peered and stalked or crept
Within this purgatory under skies ***
Clouded in black and gray? Somewhere within
These parts, she thought, was something now unknown
Yet still familiar in the overcast,

Something that beckoned through the overcast
Of her own guilty conscience. All the terrors
Of her ungodly flight now fled, unknown
Were all the things ahead of her that crept
On half-heard footfalls, and from deep within
Her heart there manifested in the skies

Remorseful tears of rain come from those skies.
Now dwelling on her sins, the overcast
Without now matched the overcast within,
While premonitions of unfounded terrors
Capered and dashed and hid and stalked and crept
Before her steps along this place unknown,

Until she saw ahead a space unknown,
Perchance an exit from these bitter skies
Of guilt and pain. So off ran, then crept
Out from the alley and the overcast,
But now she stopped and viewed with mounting terrors
Something ahead of her that moved within

Envoi

This foggy street unknown, something within
These mists brought from her skies of looming terrors,
Something that crept out through the overcast . . .

6. Ghoul

Out in the foggy street, there came the form
Of Lady Bloodstone's dear late husband, where
His apparition glided on the street;
Leaping for joy, she ran towards her husband
But stopped upon a closer look, for he
Had changed into monstrous shade—a ghoul!

Yet in her addled thoughts, she saw no ghoul
Or ghost or other kind of shade, his form
Like that of his original, and he
Himself seemed as alive, she thought, but where—
Oh, where within this world—had her dear husband
Been to without her company? What street

Had he been walking to and fro? What street
Had he been visiting? she thought. This ghoul,
The moving image of her murdered husband,
Then stopped and looked upon the standing form
Of her before him, saying, "Where, oh where
Have you gone to, my mistress?" But when he

Stretched out his withered hand towards her, he
Saw his lady back away along the street,
But with placating words, he said, "Oh, where
Do you think you are going, Lady-Ghoul?"
The Lady said, "I do not know the form
Of my late lover, my unfaithful husband

"Whose actions soiled the honored name of husband!
Who is this walking shade? Are you but he
Whose hands caressed another woman's form?
Is this the very place—the very street—
You took on your last tryst, you awful ghoul?
Was this the very route you traveled where

"You met your end before you reached her, where
You walked with yearning heart and loins, oh husband?
You're nothing! You nothing but a ghoul!"
She turned her steps away; but then t' was he
Who overtook her ere she reached the street
And clapped her body in his arms, the form

Envoi

He'd loved in bed, where both took up one form,
The husband taking her along the street
And grinned at her. "A ghoul, you say?" said he.

7. Canal

"I am your ghoul, and you're my murderer,"
He said, "and now we both share equal parts
In infamy!" And so he took her down
The winding streets towards the waters edge,
Where gondolas were floating by. Awaiting
Inside one gondola, a gondolier

Now waved him over; then the gondolier
Stretched out his hand towards his murderer,
Taking her hand within his own, awaiting
Her husband to come in. The ghoulish parts
Of his gray face now took her to the edge
Of sanity, for in her mind, deep down

Towards the beatings of her heart, deep down
Into her loins, she saw the gondolier
And husband shared a stark resemblance, edge
For edge and line for line. The murderer
Now put her hands upon her eyes, the parts
Of which now cursed her mind with sight, awaiting

Inside the darkness of her hands, awaiting
Th' inevitable truth she knew deep down
Into the marrow of her bones and parts
Unknown: her husband and the gondolier
Were doppelgänger brothers. "Murderer!"
They said in unison. Her nerves on edge,

She shifted her own body to the edge
Close by the water, silently awaiting
Her chance to take the plunge. "This murderer,
You say," she said, "did she ever go down
These thoroughfares to meet a gondolier
At this late hour within these haunted parts?"

Her husband said, "My mistress took these parts
Alone at night towards the water's edge
And met my brother here, the gondolier,
Yet you were stingy in your acts, awaiting
Myself to come to you at night. So down
Upon my brother's lap, you murderer,

Envoi

"And sink your hips upon his parts, oh murderer!
Just as you plunged your knife's edge up and down,
So shall the gondolier and I, where Hell's awaiting!"

(To be continued...)

A/N: Written on June 2019. After everything my family and I have gone through this month (June), things have settled down enough for me to actually update this collection. I've written a sestina before, but this is the first time I've used it to narrative purposes like this. Hope you enjoyed reading it!

* Lorgnette = (n.) a pair of glasses held to a your eyes by a long handle at one side.
** Wight = (n.) a spirit, ghost, or other supernatural being.
*** Purgatory = (n.) a place or state of suffering that allows sinners to expiate their sins.