𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫

1. Mistress

I walked with my head high as a honor as I walked towards my brothers presence chamber, I walked in to my brother talking to some clerk, "Your grace." I gave him a dignified curtsy, "Sister, you may go now." He dismissed his clerk who bowed to him as was his station.

"You would like to speak to me about something?" I asked him, "Yes, the king has written requesting your presence." "The king? As what a mistress?" I asked, curiosity seething through my words, "It was not written, though if it is," He started with me, "I am to what? Accept being a mistress a whore to a king?" I asked him.

"If needs be, yes, now you are to where a fine dress to outmatch that witch Elizabeth Woodville." I stared at my brother, my fathers namesake for the Lord's sake, "Would father do this?" I asked him, "What?" He asked me, picking up a paper of no importance to me, "Would our father do this? You knew him longer than I did."

He took his eyes off his paper and looked at me for once in our conversation, "Do you remember when mother used to tell us tales of father and his ambition?" He asked me, "I do not remember. She died without every seeing me or any of us." I responded, "One tale was that he had seduced the queen, Margaret of Anjou, to have sex with him, and succeeded and as such used the power against her for his own power."

"I do not remember such tale every being told?" "He a Duke, made a queen his whore more than once, and the king will make you, a sister to the Duke and the daughter of the dead one a whore also."

I looked at my brother surprised that he would say such things to me when his clerk came back in and gave him a letter, he opened the letter read it, and looked up at me,"Bridget!" He yelled for my deceased father's bastard, Bridget ran in worried about her name being used, "Get her fitted for new gowns, she has a need for some now."

Bridget curtsied to her low rank and was about to lead me out, "Make sure one of them is green and gray, we have to win over some favors." My brother shouted, I looked at him hurt that he would sell me out like a common whore.

Me and Bridget curtsied to our rankings and left, "I always seem to forget I am a prized pig sold off to the highest bidder." "I know my lady, but think of the bright side if you are to be the king's mistress at least you can marry a Marquis and have a pension provided by the king."

She tried to make a situation she would never experience into one that seemed unbearable. I wonder how it was for Catherine of Valois & Margaret of Anjou to handle being linked to my father, imagine being a king or a queen and linked to a person lower than you.