Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: snow
Object: Brass Locket
Icy winter wind cuts deep into my flabby skin, the bone beneath creaking against the flesh prison. Our journey to Woodstock saw my cheeks double in size so even my ladies maids cannot look me whole in the face, while I dare not gaze into any mirror for fear of a medusas hard stone reflection. Sir Henry, my custodian, ney warden, who unceremoniously shares my father’s name, has writ to Doctour Owen, more to assuage any rumor of maltreatment than out of genuine concern seeing as previous letters requested the relinquishment from the burden of my presence. The Doctour, in his finite wisdom, conveys through correspondence, which I’ve been granted permission to observe, that “the tyme off yere, owing to the weather’s distemperaunce, does not make prudent the ministration of purgacions.” These men deem my health of no vital consequence, and should the finger of death caress my face, Sir Henry perhaps unable to restrain his jubilance.
Despite my illness, swollen face and feet alike, I cannot sit inside waiting, the amenities of Woodstock no more comforting than the bare walls of the Tower of London. Thus I walk to the church on the hill, Henry glaring from his study as I depart, no doubt cataloging of my conversion to my half-sister’s religion for future letters. Catholics, doling out the body of Christ and pointing parishioners always toward Rome on bended knee. A different and altogether analogous system of control to that of the monarchy. Prayers to an Italian from the English who beseech God Save the Queen.
The brass locket around my neck is frozen shut when I reach the little church. My fingers clutch the frigid metal, the cold severe enough to burn, matching the red of my yeasted cheeks. Thankfully the space is devoid of anyone, even the father, who must also fend for warmth on these snowy days, leaving me free of his incessant preaching, which prevents even basic thoughts from rendering themselves.
Even in the quiet of this one solitude, Sir Henry’s words, actors who conform to the harsh stage of his estate, echo within my being. And in the desolation of my imprisonment, his eyes forever watchful, hollowed in darkness, intentions obfuscated by mortal cravings of ambition. Perhaps this sickness is his own doing, my very life a threat to my Queen half-sister, whose seen no shortage of turmoil in her short reign. Henry persists in my involvement in rebellion, always insinuating, pecking away at my sanity in the hopes of unveiling plots and schemes of a womanly nature.
At last, my skin has warmed enough to free the clasp on the locket, and in the dim candlelight, barely enough to fight the winter’s darkness, I see the smiling face of my mother. Her confidence radiates out through the paint, and for a moment it calms the stresses on my heart. The limp smile reminds me of the curious position of women. One day Queen, the next, nothing but another corpse on the heap. Is this not what we are taught? Womyn are to be admired but not heard. Strong in body, not of mind. Loving husband and child and never asking more. Men at first suckle of us, then fondle and harass us, and when our bodies are depleted of marrow and blood, we are cast aside for another to suck dry through vampirical ambivalence.
Upon my knees, my fingers fumble through the low light. There, in the shadows, comes the reformed prayer book. Henry observed my continued use of it, those suspicious eyes landing upon its crimson surface. Another fact proven for my conversion. The Father’s success in cleansing this unpure soul. Frigied hands open the book to the marker, a passage underlined in the smeared red ink of my only compatriot: “But ye shall receive power…unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
Sir Perry’s tight script on the folded page hidden in the spine talks of Mary’s continued lack of child. Perhaps the only reason I’ve not yet been quietly dispatched, never to be heard from again, say as ghostly wailings from beyond the mortal coil. Should Mary conceive an heir, this shall be the final step in my descent into oblivion. Born heir, illegitimate by doctrine, imprisoned by decree, alive by proxy. And still, the only circumvention of my imminent death is Father Henry’s royal blood in these veins the Doctour refuses to let. These men, who scrape, plot, and pry at the robes of power, who maim, thwart, and wrest what little is given to womyn, cannot find it within themselves to deliver me a knife-edged fate. And in an irony only God may laugh at, it is by the blood of a man, for at least a time, that I am saved.
Perry writes of other doings in town, of his efforts to create chaos for Sir Henry and confound his relations. He writes to me of biding time, of my eventual ascension to the throne. A latent power I can see but not touch. And what kind of Queen shall I be?
My knees ache into standing once more, book clutched to my breast to protect the locket against my heart. If the fates will it, I may one day wear the crown, and the nation shall bow before its illegitimate Queen made new through the course of fallacy and law. If the fates conspire to anoint me, I shall be a gracious Queen. An honorable Queen. Not a vengeful Queen.
Should I live past this winter, past these dark days, let it be known that no man shall ever rule in my stead. For this Queen will never bow before another and utter the word King. This Queen shall not succeed power and let another force illegitimacy upon her. No. They will kneel before this Queen with praise on their tounges and loyalty branded on their hearts. For I am Elizabeth, daughter of Anne, the first of my name.