Miranda
Dearest child, hast thou quenched the floors outside,
The master didst but tell of how his pride,
Belike for want of value true, will nought
Than both of us pursue, 'til sans-culottes
Both here and thence no more - please yet my haw
Forgive - feel the draw of our adamant.
Dearest child, the broom still weighs you down, though
Still weigh you down it shall not.
Oh dearest father, I have done all said
and so your inquisition is bootless.
But as I swept the floors, did strike me such
A thought. An we were to take a loaf, just
A fruit or less, would we hereby be damned
To Hades fires, or no? What thoughts do cross
The abysm of mind when we have none
For eat. Back to your weaving, say I or
Else we shall have no francs for food. Death is
written in our looks, thinks me.
Helena
Helena took to the road. She kept her head low as a round of stares looked their way into the wall barely inches a over her head. A desperate lunge for a window resulted in her being thrown to the floor, leaving her but seconds to make a dive for the safety of an upturned market stall. Traipsing along the hardened mud on hands and knees like a sewer beast, she fought the effluence away from the explosions of laughter and footfall that she dared not look back on.
A cart drew up not four feet in front of her, but of course in her lowly state it could not notice her. Why should it? She was inconsequential. The ugly horse of oppression reared before her as she waved her arms frantically, bearing arms in defiance at this assault. She would not be brought down. Evidently satisfied with its intimidation, oppression withdrew from the attack and raced off. Helena took her chance. She saw a glimmer of hope in the shape of a bunker, or more aptly a stable by the Queen's palace.
At the window of the renowned Queen's palace, short bursts of orders and commands broke out though the thrown open windows. The noxious gas of bread was intoxicating Helena. She dared not look up. Wiping the worst of the waste off on her knees, sweating like the most rancid soldier of the war, and reached for the bread. The cold grip of death grabbed her wrist like a vice, and she felt as if it were preparing her for the saw. She was not wrong. She soon blacked out from the pain, but not before she saw a young girl, although not much younger than herself, watching her from the doorway of the opposite building, sweeping the drowned pavements with a broom.
Cecily
Demétrio Abrantes
34 Calle de brasil
Vigo
Galicia
Ar'ight dear, how's the Duchy treatin' y'all? Up in ol' Paris we en't got much in the way o'servants right now, only our handmaid'a quit herself not three nights since. See, there was this thief'o'bread, stuck'er hand right through the window, which were wide open might I add, and grabbed a loaf! Poor ol' handmaid were fright'd t'death but she stuck it out and grabbed the lil'filcher by the arm, cut her right across. Left her in the gutter somewhere, don' matter now, do'it? En't no one checkin' for nought these days, no one'll notice a beggar girl gone missin'.
I be makin' me way up to Albion to meet him with'oo I'm betrothed. I couldn't find me best silks so I'm stuck with me animal furs 'till the white cliffs. 'Parrently my futur'usband only got himself few hundred acres 'r so, 'ardly worth the time, I says, but father ent having none e'that. He's got himself an obsession with a marriage with them Angles, 'tho can't see why. By the by, to for the presents, I loved 'em, they look the part and all with those I got from father last spring. One was broken on the way, but like I says, no one ent goin'a notice a beggar girl in the gutter, ay?
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