𝐸𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒 || 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑊𝐻𝐼𝑇𝐸 𝑄𝑈𝐸𝐸𝑁

𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐶

~Kit~

Small sobs escaped the women present and the Queen as they all gathered around the Countess of Huntington's bed where sixteen year old Katheryn now lay cold and unmoving, all life gone from her.

Her dark hair was a tangled mess from where she had thrashed around the bed when the deadly fever she had contracted took a hold of her and her chemise was bloodied as was the bundle of blankets beside her.

The bundle that contained her stillborn baby.

The little girl had come when her Mother had been in the very grip of her sickness in the early hours of that morning and Katheryn's desperate screams had filled the castle.

The physician had tried everything to save Katheryn's life (well everything he knew), he had first professed it to be an imbalance of her humours and bled her until Eleanor had ordered her to stop.

She had never seen how taking away a person's blood could help them to recover and so pressed cold rags to Katheryn's forehead and neck to try and cool her down before helping the unfortunate babe be delivered.

It had been five in the morning when Katheryn's fever had subsided somewhat, still she burned but she returned to reality for just a moment.

Managing a small smile she had taken Eleanor's hand with her trembling one "I love you Mother" she had said, her voice hoarse and grating, almost gone from her screams of pain "and tell Father I love him too. Look after William....take care of Johnny, don't let him mourn me" she had begun to weep then, hot tears leaking from the corners of her eyes "let me hold my baby" she had whispered.

Between sobs, Eleanor had passed Katheryn her tiny little girl and watched as Kit's smile widened a fraction and love filled her eyes "I shall be with her now" she had said before looking back up at the woman sitting beside her bed "my little Eleanor, my very own girl...." and then her last breath had passed her lips and the chamber had been silent as a tomb for a mere moment before Eleanor's screams of grief filled it.

Cat had held her at first, then Anais and Marie, then Jane whom she had clung to with all her might, sobbing into her gown. A few moments later Richard had burst through the doors with John by his side and had dropped to his knees, face in his hands while John had ran to the bed and screamed at the sight of his dead sister.

There were no Christmas celebrations for the rest of the season. The court were ordered to disband and return to Westminster in January for the funeral and the royal family were left alone to mourn Katheryn's passing.

꧁꧂

Richard wiped away his tears as he stood on the ramparts of Pontefract castle in the dead of night, just in his shirt, breeches and boots. He didn't care that it was freezing cold and that the snow that fell down from the sky, as if God was shedding his own tears of ice, was beginning to dampen his clothes.