The Other Henry VIII

Swan Song

Sunset: fiery blazes of pink and red, yellow and orange, raging across a marbled sky as Princess Clara donned a plain wool cloak and slipped undetected from the castle. After weeks of clandestine meetings with Charles, the route could not have been more familiar if it had been lined with gold. Keen to arrive before nightfall, her strides were brisk and unwavering, each step surer than before.

A year ago, she might have deemed it vulgar to proposition a man as she had that afternoon — even earlier this summer, the ideas of passionate affairs and secret trysts belonged squarely in Lady Bryan's cautionary tales. To any other young woman of her birth, they might have stayed that way. But Clara was a girl raised in the shadow of the King and Queen's great love. She herself was the product of a love match, however ill-fated, and there had always been an inkling of something else lurking behind the predestined plans for her future.

But when the trees gave way to that vast, shimmering mirror she knew so well, when her eyes found that unmistakable silhouette, the tide of fervour ebbed suddenly within her. She could not move; her feet were rooted in the dry, sun-baked earth. Twenty paces away, Edmund made no attempt to approach but merely unfolded his arms. His hair appeared almost ginger in the dusk, his eyes a pale mauve, face rosy and wistful. He stood so close to the lake that water lapped at his heels. Clara pulled down her hood, thinking he must have been there a while, and silently cursed her own tardiness. Looking at him now, there seemed only one phrase she could possibly say: "I love you."

All the makings of smile were there, yet none touched his lips. It was strangely jarring to hear the words spoken aloud, as if their relationship existed only in thought, in the fanciful daydreams of a man sick of reality. "But...?"
"I love England more."
Edmund nodded. Her answer came as no surprise, certainly, but in his arrogance he had allowed himself to hope.
"It is the way of things," she explained gently, "I am the eldest princess; my marriage was always going to be of a strategic nature —"
"You need not defend yourself," he whispered back.
"Needn't I?" It was a genuine question.
"No. I would not have expected anything less."
"I am sorry. I wish our circumstances were different. Then, perhaps —"
Edmund pulled back. "Don't say that."
"Why not?"
"Because... I would not change a single thing. But tell me, why did you ask me here tonight?"
She frowned, as if the thought had not occurred to her. "I suppose I was tired of playing pretend. I thought the truth would set us free."

There was a momentary pause, before Edmund met her eyes and said quietly, "Say it again."
"Which part? Have I not made a fool of myself enough as it is?" asked Clara, eyebrows raised. He laughed at that and she could not help but join in, despite everything. "Does something amuse you, Duke?"
"Not at all," he replied. She took the liberty of doubting that answer, since chuckles still framed his voice. "But if you do not say it again, I will fear I have imagined it." Edmund meant it, too.  Sometimes he dreamed so much that he smudged the very lines of reality. Their moment in the courtyard, for instance, was rapidly fading into legend.

Clara sighed, though more so to regain composure than out of exasperation. "I love you. Any further requests? Should I have brought a quill and parchment?"
"Yes: may I kiss you?" For what else could Edmund possibly desire, as they inched towards each other below the vanishing sun? If she was startled, Clara did well to hide it. Instead she raised a hand to his cheek, so slow through the humid evening air he could have sworn time itself lagged just for a moment. Then another. He inclined his head so she could reach with ease, but she had already stood on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to his.

It was just a kiss; Clara thought she owed herself that, at least. She was entirely convinced now that she had always felt this way, that this warm aureate glow pervading her body had been waiting there all along. It was not that she had never loved before, for Clara knew she had loved a great many people and things in her life. Nor was it that she had never been in love, but those years of girlish longing for Joseph seemed wholly incomparable. The two things did not equate, they were the same sentence in two starkly different languages. She remembered being unable to look at him sometimes because it reminded her just how much of her world he occupied, and that terrified her.