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The King’s Daughter – Chapter 16
- by John on May 17th, 2010
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THE prince made his way across the bailey with a quick and steady stride. Aelswith’s maidservant was lifting a bucket of fresh water from the well not too far from the door to the keep.
“Maiden, where is my sister?” he demanded.
“In her chamber, my lord,” she replied, bowing her head.
The prince ran through the door and up the stairs, skipping steps as he went up. He nearly knocked over a manservant who was carrying several rags in one arm and a bucket in his other hand. The servant just looked stunned as he regained his bearings and watched the prince disappear into the stairs above him.
She heard him coming. It was the familiar sound of his footsteps, which had been good warning in the past and proved to be so this day. She sprang to the door and locked it as quickly as she had ever done before. Immediately she heard her brother try the door, which was shortly followed by a loud pounding.
“Aelswith!” the prince shouted through the door. “Let me in at once.”
“I am not proper,” she shouted back as she threw her outer garment off and jumped under the covers of her bed.
“Get proper! I am coming in,” he shouted back. She heard a key enter the latch, turn with a brief scraping noise, and click into the unlocked position. As the door swung open she saw the prince standing in the doorway. He just stood there staring at her. He seemed quite angry at first glance; or perhaps it was more of a mixture of confusion and displeasure, but definitely serious. He continued to stand there staring at her eyes. He breathed a deep, almost verbal sigh.
“How long are you going to stand at my door?” she asked almost sarcastically, somewhat offended at her brother’s indifference to her privacy.
The prince softly entered the room and quietly closed the door. He walked over to the narrow window and stared out of it. There he stood calm and motionless.
Aelswith was very nervous now, “Say something.”
The prince looked down at his feet. “I am afraid to ask the unthinkable.”
She had never known her brother to be afraid of anything. “Afraid?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied gently. “I am afraid of what the truth might be. If what I ask of you is true, I shall face no greater grief. Yet, if it be not true, I am ashamed for asking it.”
Aelswith thought this might be her chance to forget the whole thing happened. “Then why ask?” she replied.
“Because despite our best efforts to hide it, the truth will always find a method of revealing itself.”
She knew what he meant. She had thought of it before; but she had not thought of it two nights ago. Why did that not stop her? Perhaps it was the mood, drinking by the fire, the seduction and the anger. It all converged as a single force to brush aside all rational thought. It hurt to think that way. She remained silent.
“Aelswith, do you know what I am about to ask you?”
She felt a painful knot forming in the back of her throat. Her heart began to race so fast that she could feel it pounding in her chest. Her hands began to perspire and her face grew pale. All she could do is nod her head.
“Ferrante claims,” he paused, still looking down at the floor, “well, he claims to have taken you.” He turned to her with an almost sorrowful look on his face and closed his eyes. “Please tell me it is not so.”
At this, Aelswith burst into an uncontrollable sob. Her eyes emptied themselves of tears into her hands with which she covered her face. “Oh, God!” she cried looking up at the ceiling between her fingers. Her whole torso began to rock back and forth until she finally crashed onto her side on the bed. She buried her face into her blanket.
The prince stood there for a moment in complete shock. He had never seen a person abandon all sense of restraint in expressing their deepest emotions. He saw for the first time his sister’s bare soul as she lay across her bed. He was moved with compassion. He approached the bed and sat down next to her. He put his arm around her to hold her as tears filled his own eyes.
“Oh, Aelswith,” he lamented, “What have you done?”
She sobbed even more bitterly. She sobbed till there were no more tears. A few minutes passed and the prince spoke again.
“Why did you do it, Aelswith?” he pleaded. “You know the consequences. Why did you do it?”
She tried to return to some semblance of normal breathing. “I…I was angry.”
“Angry?” the prince asked, confused. “About what?”
“Father. You. My life!” she exclaimed.
“What did Father do? What did I do?”
“You are perfection incarnate, and Father makes laws that no one can obey.”
“Like what?” the prince queried further, still confused.
“Like the wretched law I just broke.”
The prince’s eyes grew big. “Is that what this is all about?”
“Yes. No.” She shook her head. “It is that and so much more. I do not want to be the wife of a king. I hate being the daughter of one. I want a normal life. I want to do what everyone else does.”
“Aelswith?” the prince asked rhetorically. He threw up his hands. “You do not understand what you have done! This kingdom is in such disarray. People are dying everywhere from unknown diseases, the Normans are advancing from every corner, and we are in short supply of able-bodied men. And now you have personally forced the hand of precedence.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused by his last statement.
“Aelswith, you broke the law intended for your protection. The law requires that you must be subject to the penalty of death.”
“But you and Father made the law. You can change it!” she protested.
“You do not understand. If we change the law because the king’s own family has broken it, then we will have sanctioned chaos, and the people of this kingdom will rise up against us. When that happens, our enemy across the sea will overtake us, and we will be no more. The fact is that you broke the law.”
She sat up and faced him. Her eyes lit up. “What if we tell no one? No one has to know,” she pleaded.
“We could tell no one, but do you not think that Ferrante has arranged for the release of this knowledge? The last thing he said to me was that the whole world would know. Whether or not he goes free, his purpose from hereafter is to see the destruction of our father and his kingdom.”
She began to cry and fell into her brother’s shoulder. “I cannot bear to face death. I would rather join a convent.”
“Aelswith, how long can we run from the truth? If I join your betrayal, I too shall be worthy of death. It is not in my hands.”
The prince held her for a while longer as she continued to cry. Aelswith could hear him mouthing prayers over her head which she had firmly planted in his shoulder.
“I am afraid,” she said.
“I know,” the prince replied. “I am, too.”
The King’s Daughter by John Albert Thomas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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