𝙪𝙣𝙗𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙
three. — elizabeth's destiny!
THAT NIGHT, MERE hours after the king had proposed marriage to her sister, Melissa tossed and turned in bed, her sleep fitful and restless. She dreamt of Bosworth, of blood staining crisp white roses, and the screams of men dying on the battlefield. She dreamt of her sister, who walked up the aisle of Westminster Abbey in a beautiful golden gown, her stomach already swollen with child, and then, she dreamt of herself, older and transformed, walking up that same aisle, wearing those same coronation robes, sat beside a man whose face was blurred out. She dreamt of many things, unpleasant seeings courtesy of Mother Melusina, and probably would have dreamt more, had she been allowed.
"Melissa. Melissa!" Jacquetta Woodville's soft, hissed voice roused her from her slumber.
"Mother?" The girl groaned.
"Get up. Get ready. You are to be a witness at your sister's wedding." The woman commanded.
"Why me?" Melissa moaned, already half-awake and rubbing at her eyes.
"Because I said so. Now, wear your dress and come downstairs. Quickly now!" Jacquetta left, then, leaving her daughter to rouse herself.
Melissa would have loved nothing more than to lay in bed and go back to sleep, but knowing of her mother's unmatched wrath when her unequivocal commands were not obeyed, she slipped out, pulled a long, blue dress that had once belonged to her older sister, Anne, over her shift, and left the cramped bedchambers.
Her mother was waiting outside by the manor's entrance, and as was Elizabeth, both of them visions in blue. Looking down at her own attire, the girl couldn't help but snort. To outside eyes, it would look like they had color-coordinated.
"Finally!" Elizabeth exclaimed, seeing her. "You took your time."
"It is your own fault for not informing me that this was happening today," Melissa glared at her. "I would have risen earlier, otherwise."
"Girls, we do not have time for arguments," their mother interrupted them. "Let us be off."
And off they went. Traversing the bridge above Grafton's river and running down the well-worn path lined with trees, Elizabeth and Jacquetta held hands, beaming as though the sun had smiled upon them for the first time. Melissa followed them, her pace slower and steadier. She had never been an envious girl, having had to share most of her life with nine sisters and four brothers, but with the sight here before her eyes, it had never been clearer who mother's favorite child was.
"Do not think of that," she commanded herself. "After all, what does being mother's favorite mean in the grand scheme of thing?"
Nothing, that was what. She affirmed that statement over and over again as they reached the little church near their homestead. Soon, the sight of England's own king, Edward, and his chaplain diverted all her thoughts.
"Soon," Melissa thought. "My sister will be married to the king of England. Not yet queen herself, but the intention is there. Elizabeth shall be queen, and I ... I will begin mapping out my own destiny."
For indeed, the red-head was rather confident that this one event was what would get the barrel rolling for her entire family, their fortunes and their future. Her elder sister, unintentionally, had gifted them all with a clearer path than they had all had before.
"I was early," Edward, the king stated, approaching her sister with a beaming grin on his face. "I couldn't wait."
They kissed, and he gave Melissa a small, teasing smile over Elizabeth's shoulder.
"I see you are to be a witness?"
"I see you are to be my brother," she retorted.
"Are you displeased?"
She examined him, head to toe, before returning his smile with a mischievous smirk.
"No ... it could have been worse. You could have had a double chin, or a fat neck."
He laughed out loudly, drowning out the hissed words of warning Melissa could hear coming from her mother's direction.
"My sister, Meg will like you." He affirmed. "She is as cheeky as you are."
"If she does, then she will have proven that she has good taste." The girl parried back. "Now, why don't we get you and my sister married before everyone else wakes up?"
This statement proved to be more than agreeable for Elizabeth, who was frowning between Edward and her little sister. Inwardly, she wondered how the two had come to develop a relationship as close as this, but she had no time to ponder upon it, for soon, they were before the chaplain, reciting their vows. Suddenly, though, Edward's smile faded away.
"I'm a fool."
Jacquetta, Elizabeth, and Melissa all looked at him in alarm. Was he regretting his decision already? Kings were, after all, known to be fickle creatures.
"I've forgot the ring," he continued, putting their worries slightly to rest. "Lady Rivers, do you have a ring I could--"
"I- I have one." Elizabeth interrupted him, pulling a small, velveteen pouch out from one of the pockets she was so fond of sewing into her dresses. And then, out came the ring. Small, delicate, shaped like a crown — it was Melusina's ring.
The couple laughed lightly, before Edward took it from her and placed it on the presented pages of the Bible. Then, in no time, they were married.
The king and his soon-to-be crowned queen ("My sister!" Melissa marveled inwardly) then stepped out of the little church; Jacquetta, her younger daughter, and the chaplain following them. Edward pressed a pouch of coins into the chaplain's hands, offered his new sister-in-law a cheeky wink, before turning over to her mother.
"Lady Rivers, where can I take my bride?"
"There's a hunting lodge by the lake," she smiled brightly, offering her daughter the key to said lodge. "I've had it made ready for you." She then turned away, hand extended toward her redheaded girl. "Come, Melissa. Let us go back to Grafton, before everyone wonders where we are."
"Won't they wonder where Elizabeth is, anyway?" She grumbled, nonetheless taking her mother's lead upon seeing her elder sister be hoisted on the back of Edward's white destrier.
"Yes, but we shall distract them, until supper," Jacquetta answered patiently. "And now, you shall go wake Eleanor, Margaret, and Catherine; get them ready for their lessons."
"But why must I do it?" Melissa huffed out loudly, returning Edward's wave halfheartedly as he and Elizabeth galloped past. "Isn't Anne elder, therefore more suited to teaching them their letters?"
"You are far more learned than Anne," her mother replied bluntly. That was one of her characteristics — she didn't sugarcoat anything. "Not many girls can boast having read the entirety of Master Audelay's collection of poems, nor can they say they know three proper languages. You underestimate yourself, Melissa."
The eleven-year-old looked down, slightly gratified now, though still a bit huffy. It was true she was more inclined to books than her older sister had ever been. In truth, Melissa could waste entire days away at her desk, reading or jotting down little notes in spare bits of parchment, if only she didn't have chores or wasn't required to show her face at the dinner table every now and then. There was, after all, a reason why she was called "the castle hermit". Still, that didn't mean she wanted to teach her younger, impatient sisters how to read and write.
"Very well," she muttered. "As you say, mother."
And with that, they parted ways at the bridge, Melissa off to properly start her day, and Jacquetta towards the river, where she was likely giving thanks to Melusina for their fortune. How good that fortune was, though, remained to be seen, for there was a storm coming their way; the redheaded Woodville could sense it, and so could her mother. The question, however, was whether they could all withstand it, or if the family would topple down one by one, destroyed all because Elizabeth had wanted a roll in the haystack with a Yorkist monarch.
"I will tell you what, Lizzie," Melissa thought darkly. "If we all die because you were feeling lustful and didn't want your honor brought under question, I shall have some very nasty words for you."
Nasty words, indeed.
THAT EVENING, THEY were all reunited at supper. At the head table sat Baron Rivers and his wife, the king at the seat of honor, with Anthony and John at opposite ends from each other. A grumpy Richard and their youngest brother, Lionel had been relinquished to the lower table, where the Rivers girls and their nephews sat, talking animatedly. Melissa, at her seat closest to where Edward sat, was in prime eavesdropping distance.
"You have no appetite, Your Grace." Baron Rivers commented, taking a sip of his wine. "I thought you would be hungry after hunting."
"I thought the same myself," the king agreed, sending a mysterious smile to what seemed like nowhere. "But I am exhausted. She led me quite a merry dance."
"Jesus," Melissa hissed under her breath, grimacing at the seemingly innocent statement. Only she, her mother, Elizabeth, and the king knew what those words truly meant. And Melissa, who, seven months past, had started her cycle for the first time, had been told the truth of how such things went, what the marriage bed entailed.
The king smirked at her, but said nothing else as Baron Rivers shifted uneasily, his wife smoothly pretending not to have heard the statement at all.
"Lissa?" One of her nephews commanded her attention.
"Yes, Thomas?" Melissa urged her mind to forget about Edward's double-edged words as she turned to the young boy who look so like her sister.
"Is hunting really so exhausting that one cannot bring themselves to eat anymore?"
Inwardly swearing, the red-head strived to maintain the smile on her face.
"Well, I would not know, Tommy, given that I have not gone hunting myself."
"You have not hunted before, Lady Melissa?" The king piped up from the head table, as though he were not the reason why her nephew was on with this line of questioning in the first place.
"No, Your Grace," she turned to look at him, a biting glare on her face.
He looked rather amused at her irate attitude, the swine.
"Then perhaps you should accompany my brothers and I on a trip sometime, if you ever decide to visit court."
"Perhaps I shall," she returned through gritted teeth.
"I believe my youngest brother, Richard is your age," he offered. "You and he may have some things in common."
"Oh, indeed," Melissa began, seeing her mother stiffen at the tell-tale sign that she was about to begin with one of her sharp, sarcastic statements. "Because we both have brothers who are king to a country."
Edward bellowed out a laugh, something Melissa and her sister, Elizabeth, both noticed happened a lot around the former.
"You have a sharp tongue, Lady Melissa. I believe that if you were to meet, you and my mother would take to each other like fishes do to water."
At that, Jacquetta whipped around sharply, indeed very surprised to hear that the king's mother, the woman they called "Proud Cis," could be even remotely fond of a girl whose mother had disgraced herself by marrying a lowly squire.
"Then I believe I should like to meet your mother, for she seems like she is a very formidable woman." Melissa replied boldly, ignoring the looks of caution her father and eldest brother sent her.
Edward of York looked at her, then, a new light in his hazel-colored eyes. He seemed like he was seeing her for the first time.
"And I believe she should like to meet you." He murmured quietly, swiftly looking down at his plate, effectively ending the conversation.
Melissa frowned, wondering what had gotten into him all of a sudden. Underneath the table, her hands brushed against the little brass key she'd retrieved from the river, and she was once again distracted by its mystery, the king's odd behavior forgotten. If only she knew how significant his sudden reaction to her was...
a.n. elizabeth and edward are married 🎉🎉 be happy, because that means you'll be reading the first proper chapter at court in four days!
i would love nothing more than to skip to all the action, but i really think these first chapters are important, because this is where you get a proper grasp of melissa's character. in this update, especially, you got a glimpse into her inner thoughts, what she really thinks of her family and elizabeth's whirlwind romance with the king, and her relationship with her mother and siblings as a whole.
and speaking of siblings, what do you think of richie? he's a real person in history, but he may as well be an oc, because we know next to nothing of who he truly was. i'm trying to characterize him as melissa's carefree yet overprotective brother, the sibling she's closest to, but it's a long road. we'll see, i guess 🤷🏻♀️
one last thing, i left a little hint at the very end of the chapter. we're moving into the thick of the plot for this story, and this should direct you toward what it is. i'll elaborate more in chapter five (that i just wrote!), but this should be enough for now 😉
i really hope you enjoyed reading this! i certainly enjoyed writing it!
bisous 😙😙 and see you all later!