***
The morning of the next day passed us by altogether. We didn’t even hear a single tweet of a bird until the sun was at its zenith in the sky. I imagine everyone was asleep, though I wouldn’t know. I slept myself like an exhausted child. And like a naughty one, I woke to the shrill sound of Princess Cecilia berating me.
“Where were you!” she came in my room barking.
I looked at her, strangely thinking that it was my mother upbraiding me for some fault. My eyes focusing better, I saw the irritated face of my mistress, her black eyes boring right through me.
“Well, you promised me.”
“And, so I did,” I said, as I pulled myself up in bed, still trying to shake myself awake. “When I arrived in your room, you were already dead sleep. You must have been so worn out that there was no life
