No Fury

Now: Fifty Two

An hour later, the tiny princess is taken from my arms again, but I only fight it for a breath, until I look up at the face of the guard. From the defeat in his eyes, I realize he, too, knows that keeping my babe from me is a losing battle.

"What are you doing, siding with her?" I ask. I want my voice to be gentle, but it is so unused these past few days, my words come out scratchy and harsh.

He stands stoically, arranging the blanket around my daughter in his arms.

"Bring her back when she is hungry," I command.

"Aye, ma'am."

"Do not let her be left alone."

He goes silent, dark eyes shining with tears. "I admit, I do not much like this either."

I study the guard. He has delicate features; nearly feminine in his beauty. I know he has a good heart - it shows in his dark, glittering eyes. He is young; likely younger than I.

"How old are you?"

He hesitates. "Seventeen, ma'am."

"What is your name?"

His dark eyes are wild when they meet mine. "I should not-"

"Who would I tell?" I ask, gesturing around us to the dark cell inside the empty prison. "I am Cathryn."

"Zayn, ma'am."

I want to stand, and pull my daughter from his arms, and then pull him also into mine, for he looks positively terrified. He is too delicate for this station. He is too good.

"By following her orders, you are on the wrong side," I say. "You know this."

He says nothing, staring at the floor.

"Is she crazed?"

He shifts on his feet, blinking back to my daughter in his arms.

"She is," he whispers, glancing over his shoulder as if the Queen might be eavesdropping. "She demands things we do not have. Oranges, berries, sweets. She denies the villagers supplies even if we have plenty. She orders beatings . . ." He trails off, unwilling to elaborate. "I do not understand her reason." He looks up at me, eyes pleading. "We are at war, ma'am. Everyone is trembling."

"We are all terrified," I agree, voice tight with rage. "Look how innocent she is," I whisper. "Look how tiny."

His jaw clenches, and he sniffles once. We fall silent and finally, he turns, making his way to the bars to let himself out.

As the youngest child in her royal family, Maria doesn't know the first thing to do with a baby. I don't even have to ask this guard to know that she commands them with a shaking voice, with hysterical, emotional words.

I must be better than her.
I must be more clever.

~~

But now that I have held my daughter, the quiet without her, the emptiness of my arms is unbearable. I pace. I sit and rock. I have nothing to occupy myself and my mind fills with missing her, with worrying about where she is, whether she is left alone upstairs, whether Maria is kind to my baby.

My insides twist, and I fight tears, for hours, unable to eat.

Zayn returns little Anne to me hours later, crying in hunger again. But this time, she is dressed in a scarlet dress, a tiny replica of the one Maria wore when she watched Harry and me in his bed.

It is a message.
My fury builds.

Once Zayn leaves, I pull the gown off her little body, bring her warm, soft skin to mine as I feed her.

"I am your mum," I whisper. "I am yours, and you are mine, and your daddy is ours. Never forget this."

While she nurses, she coos to me. And I sing to her as I tear the vile red dress into tiny frayed shreds.

I speak to my daughter of the life she will have:
A mother who loves her
A father who adores her
A family of doting fools.

Zayn returns, and I hand him a baby swaddled in a new stretch of cloth: a clean section of my underskirts. I do not miss the gleam in his eye.

I measure the fabric of my outer and inner skirts, my shawl, the blankets Catroina left behind: I can reclothe my daughter forty five times if I am frugal.

We repeat this pattern every few hours for days:
Each time Anne is brought to me, she wears something fine and red. Silks, velvet, the softest linen.

Once I've pulled them from her body, and pressed her to me so that she smells of my milk and not the sweet perfume of Maria's rooms, I no longer tear the dresses apart. I tie them together.

And I return my child to the monster upstairs in pieces of my skirts.

~~

My clothes are torn, barely covering my body anymore, and only the filthiest layer remains. The Sunshine Princess, now two weeks old, lies in my arms, wrapped in one of the final bits of clean, white linen I've saved for her.

Zayn has been gone for hours now; Anne sleeps soundly against my breast. Although his absence is unexpected, is a gift to be granted this amount of quiet with my baby. It is a treasure to watch her sleep, to hear her tiny, dreaming noises against me.

I gaze at her, seeing Harry in nearly every one of her features. It is heaven, and it is hell.

Inside, I am raw. I imagine a set of organs, scratched bloody, barely functioning.

Is he well? I wonder. Is he victorious? Is he lonely? Does his chest ache, as well?

When will he come home?

Without any occupation in the prison, every second feels like a week. Every day is a lifetime. I have enough time to remember every touch, every word, every smile and every bit of fire between us. Oh, but if he would just return to me . . .

The thought is a constant loop.

But a new thought takes over. Worry creeps in, cold and thick, when the noon hour passes, and I am not fed.

And night falls - I can feel it in the chill of the stone at my back - and Zayn has not yet reappeared.

In fact, I hear no one: no voices up the stairs, no clamor as copper pots are dropped to the floor in the kitchen.

It is as if the world outside has vanished.

I feed my daughter when she wakes, I change her with the scraps of the remaining linens I have. I sing her to sleep in the dark cave that has become our home, and when she stirs, I feed her again.

Day comes, night falls, and still, I am not fed.