The Other Elizabeth *OLD VERSION*

XXXII. September 1458

Author's Note (Important!) : As I am researching and writing this story at the same time, sometimes I come across information and have to re-write. This chapter will introduce the minor character of Joan- Humphrey's husband of 2 years, however I did not find out they were wed in 1456 until recently. I have added her into the story, so in this chapter, she will be mentioned. If you want to go back to where she is introduced, I have added her in since 1457, however she doesn't affect the storyline at all. I hope this all makes sense!

XXXII

September 1458

Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, England

"I wish not to talk with you."

"L-lizzie, wait."

"Henry-"

"L-liz-zie, please."

"Henry, oh Henry, I forgive you." My eyes fly open and a tear drops down upon my cheek, onto the signature on the letter before me. Elizabeth, it reads, and then there is a large pool of ink stretching off into pronged spiders blotting all over my page whereupon my quill has rested. A lump forms in my throat- how can I end my signature with 'Bourchier', yet how can I simply bring myself to sign 'de Scales'? I again was envisioning of what could have happened- if only I had given Henry my forgiveness, he would still be alive on this Earth.

I simply cannot believe he is truly vanquished, as if he never breathed. These weeks since he has gone, it is almost as though I were an apparition myself. My lips move as I speak, my legs move as I walk, but everything I do is almost in a trance, as if I were not existing here in the present. I am torn halfway betwixt worlds. It is if I were buried underwater; I cannot breathe or see properly, nothing is corporal, for the voices and faces of those about me are blurred, they fade away. I do not know what to do. How to cope without Henry. I never imagined that he would die- even when he went off to battle at St. Albans, and received his wounds; the thought of death never seemed a true reality. Now it is. He is gone. 'Tis my fault.

No matter how many coins I offer at Church every day for masses to be said for his soul- and to hasten his stay in purgatory, although none shall know of the true fate of one they once perceived to be so godly- will bring him back. He is gone. He is gone. I wake every morrow knowing I cannot gaze upon his face. He is not here, and in that, I find hard to comprehend. And we must hide his true cause of death, Humphrey and I, it must surely be a secret privy betwixt us till our own deaths? We burned the bedsheets, we cleansed the bedchamber ceiling to floor, we threw the dagger, that bloody dagger that helped his end, his most errant end, into the river. Humphrey ensured the priest who performed the scurrilous Last Rites was so addled, he would never remember.

We both agreed 'tis best never tell any person, for fear of our own ruin. How could we tell poor Lady Isabel and My Lord the Viscount- they shall remain in ignorance, believing their son died almost naturally- just of an awful chill- or so says the post mortem, written with a hand full of bribery and shaky with more copious ale. I cannot express my gratitude enough to Humphrey for all of his aide- he is a true friend, despite our childhood slighting's and romances. Yet I know some part of him must blame me responsible for Henry's demise, and so does every other person. Our feud was the death of him. How hard must he find it, knowing that his brother was tormented to such an immoral end?

John, Edward and Thomas are present here, serious, studious grown boys blanched permanently white at the death of the older brother they always revered. Isabel is inconsolable, and My Lord, a distant figure to me, a warrior of a man from my childhood memories, large and gruff, cries and shakes into his hands. Elizabel and William, having recently lost their baby son, look now close to death themselves. No one expected Henry's so sudden death. Henry and I shall never have a child- there is no child, which shall bear Henry's blood in its veins, no reminder of him, to continue his lineage. No heir for me. I have only memories, tainted with all our struggles, to remember him by. And I sent him to his death; my words were the first daggers, and how I wish, how, how I wish, I could take them back. Henry shall be with Isabel now, the child of mine seemingly so far away, seemingly a figment of my imagination...