No Fury

Now: Fifty

At some point, I must have fallen asleep.

I know I fought sleep for hours, listening intently for the sound of the army returning quickly, for the sound of feet pounding on the stone steps leading to the prisons. I listen for Douglas' voice, begging forgiveness. I listen for James. But, when I am so tired I imagine stars and rain cascading over the stone walls, I hear Harry.

I hear him coming for me: his voice a low growl, slowly building into a roar.

I see him running down the stairs, sword in one hand, beating down the iron bars with his fist.

He pulls me up, crushing my body to his, and swearing on the life of our child that Maria will die.

When he says this, my stomach spasms sharply.

I am jerked awake and upright by the force of the pain, pulled from my dream into the black stillness.

Clutching my stomach, I push to stand, feeling my way along the wall to the bars but am doubled over by the intensity as another wave washes over me.

My scream scorches my throat.

"Please!" I cry out into the empty hallway. "My child comes!"

Pain is a stranger to us all.
We feel it and then: we forget it.
Or, we hear others lost to it - the screams, the begging, the quiet broken whimpers - but can't quite fathom it. Pain is a fog, it is myth.

I like to think we forget it lest we go mad.

I can recall the stroke of Harry's fingers across my breastbone. I can recall the whisper of his laugh against my neck. I can recall the spasms of his back beneath my hands when he crested inside me.

But after every wave of pain, I immediately forget how terrible it will be when it returns.

And each time, it washes over me again and pulls with it a bit of my sanity.

I think,
Maybe I am done.
Maybe my child is in my arms now.
Maybe there was never a child at all.
Maybe there was never a prince.

He should be here. It will tear him apart that he is not.

But then, were he here, I would not be here. I would not be in a cell, on the dirt floor, pulling off my dress with the final coherent thought that I need to live in this gown until I die down here. I do not want it soiled.

~~

Perhaps, because I've gone mad, I imagine the shouting at the top of the stairs, the whiskery shuffling of delicate feet on the dirt floors. Metal clangs upon metal as my cell is opened, and Catroina is allowed inside.

Perhaps, because I've gone mad, I imagine her quiet, "Shh, pet," as she falls beside me and pulls my head into her lap. But then she touches my face, and I feel it, and I recall the stroke of Harry's fingers across my breastbone.

"I'm here," she assures me. "I'm here."

This is one small mercy.

It is something, but it is not enough. I still require Maria's head on a plate.

Catroina has a wet cloth, she has herbs. She has a stick for me to bite down upon.

And, I do not know. What can we recall of pain?

I fall back laughing.

I can still recall the stroke of Harry's fingers across my breastbone. For hours upon hours, I struggle to recall the stroke of Harry's fingers across my breastbone.

My entire body bends, twisting. I can feel my child; he is tearing me in two.

A tiny piece of my mind hopes that Maria can hear my screams. They are powerful, and they are strong. She has crossed the wrong woman, royalty or not.

The greatest relief I have ever known: when my body breaks, and my child slips from me.

But I was wrong about pain.

The greatest pain I have ever known is not the kind I can forget: it comes when Catroina sobs, apologizing fervently as she swaddles my babe and takes him away before I can gaze at his green eyes, pink mouth, soft skin.