[2] WEEPING MONK║you're not what I was looking for

66| Queen of All - 𝐈

One evening gives Lancelot and Ari a chance to be free. Old secrets come to light.

The knocking on Ari's door made her turn away from the window. She had been watching for so many minutes at the busy comings and goings of the bailey, that her breaths had created a sheen of fog upon the glass, diffusing the cold blue light of day.

She wasn't expecting any visitors. In fact, she was wanting to leave her room and see again that her people were settling in where they had been allocated. Lord Hubert was more than generous in offering shelter to the children and those who could not fight in the coming battle, and welcoming them without asking for anything in return either. Ari had her suspicions around that, but her instincts were saying to trust these people. And so she did.

The solid inches of door were heavy to pull open, and she was greeted with a bright, familiar smile.

"Henry?" Her forehead wrinkled. What was he doing here?

Lord Hubert's son shifted a long wrap of cloth draping over his held out arms, drawing Ari's gaze down. It looked heavier than he was letting on.

"I beg your pardon, your Grace, but I came to give you this," Henry explained himself, angling the plain cloth as though it were an offering. His smile didn't dampen and Ari knew that he had come with good intentions. She didn't receive many gifts, so her interest peaked.

Ari moved herself aside and allowed Henry to enter her borrowed bedchamber. Her brow remained pinched as he manoeuvred his tall, broad shouldered frame through the doorway, being mindful to not disturb what he had brought.

Didn't nobles have people who were sent on errands such as this? she wondered as she watched him. Henry didn't need to bother himself with walking through the castle just to deliver whatever was neatly swaddled up in his arms.

It made Ari like him even more that he did.

"It was made for my mother," Henry elaborated brightly on his way towards the untouched bed. The same mattress and four posts that Ari has slept in the last times she has stayed the night here. His tone took a saddened dip to add, "But she never had the chance to wear it before she passed."

The wound from losing her own mother on Ari's heart, ached. She closed the door, but not completely— enough to keep the heat radiating from the fire in the hearth from rushing out of the room.

Henry was peering at her, waiting for acceptance of his offer which Ari gave when— in a few strides— she was by his side. He turned his back, the deep blue colouring of his padded doublet turning a warmer shade from the firelight as he set down what Ari gathered was fabric upon the bed with care. Gently, he straightened out the long length across the width of the bed before unclasping a buckle that Ari hadn't noticed before, and unfolding the protective covering of cloth.

Ari's jaw went slack as the plain cream gave way to a bursting of colour.

Henry patted down a crease with a softness to his eyes that spoke of how fond he was of his mother, and how much he missed her, too. He set himself upright with a shallower smile than the one he had greeted her with.