All The Queen's Ladies [NaNoWriMo Project]

The Glass Shattered

She has men to escort her, two Clares, anonymous in their livery and with tell-tale lumps that indicate knives tucked into pouches on their belts. Knives? Cara, it seems, is not taking any chances. Perhaps she is expecting her to try to escape. But where would she go? Where can she go, where her name is not known?

The day is cold and snowy, but the air around her is triumphant. The northern leader has been killed - by her own brother, nonetheless! - and his deputies captured. His nephews have sworn revenge but his sons have made peace on very agreeable terms. Cerys' lands and incomes have swelled and men are starting to filter home; in the history books this short war will be two passages, no more, but there is a time for history and a time to lift your head and cheer your victory for the world to hear. The kingdom feels drunk. Northmen are creeping back into the city. The ambassador returns to his house and his staff are seen cleaning up the writing scrawled on the walls in his absence. A girl called Johannie arrives at court; she is the northman equivalent of a highborn, a hostage of sorts who speaks several tongues but cannot understand why Cerys does not talk to anybody, or seem as jolly as she should. Already it is rumoured that she is to be married to First Commander Dewi Harwood. Johannie is beautiful and kind and a deft hand with a needle. She claims to have sewn up warriors. Alice is fond of her. Eliyne less so.

Branwen knows all of this because Alice had told her, on her visits to her room. Just a room, not a suite, guarded by queensmen and visited regularly and unpleasantly by Lady Pallina, but it is the only way they can be assured of her behaviour. No other visitors except Alice, and only with Lady Pallina or Carlotte with her. It rankles with her, to have the room she was gifted by Cerys turned into a cell, and she senses as she walks that all memories of it are now, however pleasing they were, tainted. She was well fed and watered, but a prisoner.

Her belongings are already gone, carted away to Rooksrest under the supervision of Mariam and husband Will. When she left Lawrin's Keep she had seen the gouges on the walls, where her tapestries have been taken down and the Harwood thorns scratched away. She is the last thing to leave. It is the first thing in the morning, before anybody is even awake; she does not want to see their expressions, see disdain or judgment or pity on faces she knows and cares for. But still, she dawdles.

A flash of blue in a window. Squinting into the snow, she turns up to see it; it is a woman, too high for her to be sure of her features, but she knows it is Cerys. She cannot imagine her expression. Heavy with sadness, she raises a hand. Snowflakes settle on her gloves. Up in the window, blurred, slow, the figure of the queen unfurls her fingers. Then she steps away from the glass. From the floor below, it seems that she has simply disappeared.

Somehow, that makes it easier. With her chin held high and her step as confident as she can make it, she steps into the gatehouse, through the gate and out onto the street. A cart, emblazoned with rooks and castles, waits for her, drawing curious gazes from the crowd waiting for the breakfast leftovers to be handed out. She pauses and, despite her determination that she wouldn't, looks back. The palace sparkles like a diamond. She thinks she sees Alice in one of the walkways, then thinks she doesn't.

The cart door opens. She takes in one last breath of city air, one last breath of freedom, and steps in.