August 1485
They had no choice. That didn't make this any easier.
Lily tried to pretend she wasn't in pain, but she was restless even in sleep and the coppery scent of blood in her chamber was impossible to ignore. She'd been like this for three days and Dickon was beginning to wonder if they'd made a terrible mistake asking the woodswitch for tansy.
Simple, a cup of tea and a few days' rest. That was what Dickon had told Lily. She'd barely spoken as he explained his reasoning, just stared at him with solemn eyes. After everything they'd been through, she trusted Dickon more than she should. It had never occurred to her to rid herself of the babe until he'd suggested it.
When they'd found the woodswitch to ask for her help, the woman had glared at him, muttered that men knew nothing. Then she'd touched Lily's cheek and told her she could bear it, if this was what she wanted. Lily's hand had shaken as she lifted the cup to her lips.
She whimpered in her sleep, her arm curled around her still-flat belly. The days had blended together until neither had any idea how long ago Dickon's seed had quickened in her womb. The signs had been there for some time, but he hadn't wanted to see it.
Surely it was better this way, before Lily felt the babe move, before she saw its face. They'd had no choice.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
Anne was as white as snow. Looking down at her younger sister who had her hand in a vice-like grip as she strained and screamed, Charlotte sensed the thought pass through her head. A moment later, she corrected herself. Anne was whiter than snow. At least snow had some sparkle to it when it was freshly fallen. Anne had none. All she had was pain. Pain and a mother's instinct.
In stark contrast to the woman who writhed upon it, the birthing bed was drenched in blood. For a moment, Charlotte feared that her fragile sister was about to bleed out in front of her, with nothing to show for her hours of travail.
The Physicians exchanged a look.
"It's no good, Thomas," the apprentice said. "The child is stuck. The labor has gone on for too long. Even if we were to cut open Her Grace, there's but a slim chance that the child would still live. And her person is sacred. We cannot..."
"Aye, but if this child is a boy, then it is the Duke's heir. A boy to be his father's new heir now that their only son died. If it yet lives, the child is our Earl of Salisbury, the future Duke of Gloucester. Doing nothing means we give that boy up for lost. We may well murder him. Need I remind you of the oath we both took when we entered this profession?"
"No."
"Well then. And this is no ordinary mother and child. This is the Duchess of Gloucester, giving birth to a child that is our King's cousin. Would you have royal blood on your hands, John?"
"Sirs," Charlotte's voice broke in before the other man could respond. "This is no time to think of Royal protocol. My sister is a woman and a mother like any other. She would want you to do everything within your power to save her child."
The physicians turned to look at the speaker.
"With all due respect, Your Majesty, you know nothing..."
"No," Charlotte cut him off. "I do not. But I do know Anne. I know what she would want."
Pausing, she stroked a tendril of her sister's honey hair away from the waxen face. When she spoke again, her voice was scarcely above a whisper, but there was a determination in it that could not be gainsaid.
"Anne is beyond pain now. She's gone to meet our beloved Father in Heaven. She's in His hands. So do what you have to do, Sirs. Do what you have to do for the sake of this country. I'll answer for it to His Grace and to my son."
Bowing before the steel in her eyes and voice, the two men nodded and reached silently for their scalpels.
With trembling hands, they sliced jaggedly into the Duchess's still warm flesh, praying they wouldn't be sent to Hell for violating Her Grace's person.
To no avail. They were too late.
The Earl of Salisbury, who would have been the apple of his father's eye, had he lived, but instead had done nothing more than condemn both himself and his mother to death, lay jammed in the birth canal. He was perfectly formed, but large. Too large.
Dr. Thomas Hattefclyffe picked him, rubbed him down with a linen cloth and put his ear to the boy's chest, searching for a sign of life that he already knew would not be there.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
Bess locked herself in her chambers and refused to come out. She wasn't even certain how she had gotten there. Her brain was a fog with echoes of Lady Anne is dead bouncing amongst her thoughts and against her heart until she felt too exhausted to even move, and yet she did.
She threw all of her colorful dresses away. She threw away the reds and the yellows and the blues. All she kept were the black and the greys, her plainest of dresses. She spent hours taking out the embroidery she had worked on for a year, her mother's embroidery too.
What was there to be happy about? What was there to dress colorfully for?
Uncle Edward was dead. Rickon was dead. Arthur was dead. Ned was dead. Her mother was dead.
Her mother was dead after she promised she would not die. Her mother was dead, trying to have another son.
That news that it had been a boy had come later and for that news, she screamed.
She screamed and screamed until she was voiced into exhaustion.
She could hear Ned's voice in her head telling her she was being a little dramatic and the thought of her brother made Bess's heart hurt more.
She wanted her mother and father. She wanted to curl into her mother's side and be surrounded by her and her father's arms, crying helplessly into them as they held her close.
But she was denied even that comfort now and Bess could not help but let the bitterness churn her belly.
Bess screamed, burying her face into the pillow and letting her tears draw her into another restless sleep.
But in her dreams, at least, she had the hope of seeing her brother and mother.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
The funeral for Anne Neville, Duchess of Gloucester was a grand affair befitting her station as the Dowager Queen's sister, a Royal Duchess and the King's Aunt. The procession was headed by her nieces, Lily and Caitlin acting as chief mourners at the funeral followed by their cousins and younger sisters.
Their mother and brother were with their uncle, all three unable to attend as it was against tradition. The funeral procession included a hundred torch bearers, clergy carrying the cross, six horses pulling the coffin; a funeral fit for the beloved sister of the country's adored Dowager Queen, for their King's lady aunt, for the Kingmaker's youngest daughter.
Sitting in the dark of his chambers, Charlotte could not help but feel lost at the fact that Anne was gone. In the past years, before Edward died and she and Richard moved to court, they had not seen each other that much. Where Anne and Richard detested court, Charlotte could not imagine life without it. She'd grown up surrounded by people, in her father's own little court at the North and she could not fathom the idea of preferring solitude over it. Yet, Anne and Richard both preferred being on their own and they saw each other rarely during those years. They had moved of their own volition after Edward died, in order to support her and the children and they had grown closer.
The doors to the chamber opened and Richard stepped inside, he held his head high and waited for the doors to close behind him before he made his way over to him. Pouring himself a drink, Richard did not speak nor did he look towards his sister-in-law before he took a seat at the table; he took a big gulp of his drink taking in the silence of the room.
Neither spoke for a time and Charlotte was almost thankful for that, both reveled in the silence of the room around them, allowing them to think about all that they had both lost. Their fathers, his brothers, now both her sisters. Only the two of them remained.
"To our Annie," Richard stated holding up his goblet, he did not look at Charlotte as she shared his statement and clinked her goblet with his.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
The next day, Charlotte woke up at first light to find Anthony no longer in bed beside her. She rubbed her eyes before sitting up, a large frown on her face.
"Anthony?" She called out, only to get her answer when she found him sitting at the desk near the window, his back facing her.
She sighed in defeat and stood up. She made her way over to him, a concerned look on her face. "Anthony, what's wrong?"
"Henry Tudor has sailed," Anthony sighed. "We must leave for battle in a few days."
Charlotte sighed, noticing how his back was still facing her. She placed her hands on his shoulders, rubbing his back affectionately.
Gradually, he finally turned to face her. Charlotte hugged him and Anthony wrapped his arms around her, digging his face into her chest.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
That day, it was decided Edmund, Dickon, Richard and Anthony would head into battle with their men in a few days' time.
Charlotte would head North, to Warwick Castle with her younger daughters, stepdaughters, Bess and Kathryn. Aimee would go with Maggie and Teddy to Suffolk to be with Duchess Cecily and their Aunt Eliza, the last remaining sister of Richard in England. Lily and Caitlin would head off to Margaret Beaufort's home.
Frankly, Charlotte did not like that they would be separating, but she had no choice in the matter. She knew it would be better if they were not in the same place and Lily and Caitlin were old enough to fare for themselves.
She was walking down the hallway when Anthony suddenly approached her, causing a smile to form on her lips.
"Charlotte, there is something I must tell you," Anthony informed her as he grabbed her by the hand and led her to another room.
"Uhh..." She trailed off as she anxiously glanced around to make sure no one was coming. "I must get back to packing."
Anthony finally stopped when they standing in the empty room. He grabbed ahold of her hands and leaned forward, but she moved just in time so he would kiss her cheek instead of her lips. Nevertheless, she smiled. It was comforting.
"Why don't we go to my rooms?" Charlotte murmured, clutching his doublet.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
Knowsley, Lancashire
"So Edmund sends his sisters to us," Margaret spoke up in an annoyed tone as she turned to look at her husband.
"It seems as though he's trying to prove a point," Stanley replied, causing Margaret to give him a weird look.
"And what point is that?" She asked, raising a brow at him. "And to who is he trying to prove it?"
"That I do not know, but we mustn't refuse this offer. If Edmund dies in battle, even if York wins, Lily will be the key to England and keeping a hold of the Yorks. Some might argue Kathryn has a superior claim, but she's a toddler and her father has never been secure in the throne, not like Edward was," Stanley argued. "This upcoming battle will decide all of our futures, but either way, Princess Lily is the key to it all. If your son wins, she will be his wife," he explained, which Margaret wasn't happy about.
"It should be Caitlin," she complained. "She has Lancastrian blood. We can marry my grandson to Kathryn and consolidate the claims that way without leaving Lancaster blood out."
"It's Lily or Nora," Stanley said firmly. "And given that Nora is a girl of eleven, it will be Lily."
"You will not bully them, Margaret," he warned his wife in a stern tone.
"I do not bully. I will merely help them to move closer to our Lord as their mother has clearly failed to do so as of late," she explained. "Honestly, from what you told me..." she trailed off, thinking about what Stanley had relayed, regarding Lily and Dickon and Richard's fixation on Caitlin before his son died.
"Good. Because those girls are their mother's daughters."
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
I am so so sorry for the delay. I will try not to make it a habit, but most likely I will only update once a week for the next two weeks.
I am in the process of moving into college and that means the past week has been a whirlwind. Hopefully the week after next I am able to post the usual two chapters once things have stabilized a bit.