~𝕭𝖊𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖞𝖆𝖑 𝖎𝖘 𝖔𝖓𝖑𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌~
Born the youngest daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, Constance of Bourbon grows up amidst comfort and splendour on her powerful family's estates in France. A shy child, she prefers her...
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~The Vanishing Princes~
June 1483, Westminster Sanctuary....
Katherine was right. She did have to stay alive after all.
She would not stop till she saw both Arthur and Elizabeth dead and to do that she would have to postpone her wishes of an early end. So that was just what she did. It was difficult, there was no denying, there were days where she wished to sink into her bed and never emerge, days where she sobbed from dawn till dusk and felt hope was lost to her, days where she wished to burn the world, and herself along with it, in anger.
But she did not give in.
She and Katherine clung to one another to keep them afloat through their grief, comforting each other when sadness overtook them. She sat by Katherine when she prayed for her children, often with a hand on her shoulder, though she did not pray herself. In the mornings they would plait and pin one another's hair (having chosen to forgo the trouble of hennins) something which almost always ended in long embraced before they emerged for breakfast.
They shared the six gowns they owned (three of black, one of blue and two of purple) and in the evenings often read to one another from the Bible or the books the Archbishop brought them. Well, brought Katherine - ever since the coronation Constance had refused to see him. They made a point of continuing to don their jewels, retaining one last semblance of noble dignity, and never failed to tidy them away neatly into their caskets at the end of each day.
When the children slept, they hauled heavy buckets of water from the courtyard well (something neither had done in their entire lives) and heated it by the fire before pouring it into their wooden tub. They alternated between who bathed first and second so it was fair but whoever stepped into the waters first was the one to fetch water and heat it to warm up the second's bath.
They washed each others hair then dried it over the fire, hanging the hip-length tresses over the arms of their chairs. They drew strength from one another and that strength became their life line, seeing them from day to day.
One evening, an hour or two after the warming June sun had vanished, replaced with a chilling moon, they both sat by the fire, Katherine gazing into the flames, twirling the long chain of her emerald pendant around two fingers while Constance diligently worked on a split in one of Cecily's shifts.
"I do not know what I will do once the elder two begin to outgrow their garments, Kate" She murmured, biting her lip as she focused on a small stitch "The younger ones may wear what has been outgrown" She'd never thought that would be the case, her children always had the best and the best was always new "but Isabella and Richard" She sighed "Perhaps you may ask the traitor of an Archbishop if he could donate a few yards of material?" She glanced up, a mischievous grin spreading across her lips "We could steal the alter cloth!"
