Beatrice de Luna

Beatrice shows affection easily and readily.  An extrovert, she is fond of others, even strangers, just on impulse, and enjoys spending time with them, getting to know them, and exchanging banter and jokes with them.  True intimacy, however, is much more rare.

Perhaps her most personal means of showing affection is twofold.  While her playful manner is genuine, and showcases itself even more with her real friends than with others as she wishes her real friends to be happy and enjoy themselves, it can also form something of a shield behind which she hides, at times, and so willingness -- in the right situation -- to drop that is the first sign.  Absolute, unflinching honesty and sympathy or advice given from the heart is the second sign.  If Beatrice is willing to cross these lines for you, she considers that there is a true connection -- or potential for one -- with you.

Richard was not, by nature, fond of dancing.  He did not skirt a blatant truth, however grim and gruesome it may be; he did not evade, with light-footed regard, confrontation and discord. Yet, when Beatrice flits and pirouettes around his words, his mouth curves into something vaguely resembling a grin––mangled and stiff.  Such a display of mirth would be, however rare, as short-lived as a flare of lightning in the midnight sky; the corners of his mouth descend, with surety, to their rightful state of neutrality, a wry angle across his face, painted with the negligent stroke of an artist’s fat brush.  It settled with a heave of dust, an ancient thud.  Richard’s return is clipped, whipped by the evening wind’s, “so it would seem.”

To any curious onlooker, the pair buffeted by the city’s evening chill would have appeared every inch the dichotomy that they were: she, bright and teeming with whimsy and exuding of pure light, and he, charred and cryptic and reclusive and cloaked in a somber sable.  Richard’s eyes regard her with suspicion, as they often did––the nature of their entanglement did not absolve Beatrice of loyalty to Mary, a woman who could offer her lady––were they companions?––far more than strangled gasps of pleasure and the curl of her pink toes.  It was, in any event, entirely out of Richard’s nature to lower his guard; with Beatrice, with anyone.  “Your words carry truth, I’ll admit.”  For a brief moment, their gaze is torn asunder.  The onyx of his irises rove to the Muscovy skyline, the crush of stone cathedrals and gangling spires and, beyond, the steaming river, opening into the mouth of the emerald-green lagoon.  “Is that how I ought to regard you? A spy, a thief?” 

As his eyes lock with hers, Lancaster inches closer, the heel of his boot falling heavily against the stone parapet.  “If gallantry is what you seek, Beatrice, I’d implore you to look elsewhere.  But if you’ve an interest in being treated like the mole that you are––you’ve come to the right place.”

The duke guffaws, at that.  Beatrice is all coyness and pretense and open ridicule.  She puts her bitter mistress to shame.  Something delighted stirs within him as he moves his hands––neatly clasped, ruby heirlooms clinking––to the base of his spine.  “Is that how you interpreted my words?”  Richard’s winged brows bolt to his forehead.  “In that case, there is much I’ve denied you.  Tell me, Bea, how might I redress?”

Leaning her two arms upon the bulwark, she laughed, shaking her head.  His tone was crisp, his words brief, and something in the familiarity of it, of him bemused her, grin flashing towards his face for a moment.  Two more different people, she had once thought, would be difficult to find, but she had since come to see this divide as their very communion: he was a silver star set high in the black of night, and she was a bright-beaming moon, but theirs was the sky, for they were set high up in the dark together, for better or for worse.  Whatever gulf there existed between them, was this not, in its way, a perfect harmony? 

He spoke again.  Beatrice looked long at him, gazing in his deep-set eyes for some unknown something.  For all this, she never quite knew where they stood: there could never be any knowing, but the chasm yawned before her now, its belly inky and fathomless.

There was a heat in his eyes; a kind of heft in his gaze.  At once time, Beatrice had liked to fancy that she brought it on, but it was not her heat, not her light.  It was his own.  Richard seemed at all moments to burn bright and burn hot: at times he was Apollo’s bright-beamed gaze...at others, the wax-scorched back of burning Icarus.  But how could he be otherwise, she often supposed.  That was, after all, his doom: one or the other.  Perhaps it was a trap just to know it.  Beatrice, herself, had never known such a burden but by proxy: if Maria failed, doubtless her Mistress of the Robes would follow her to the Tower, one way or another, and perhaps even to the block, but perhaps not: Beatrice’s was perhaps a tangential attachment in the eyes of the world: as both a woman and a subservient force, if there was a crime, hers was the lesser.  But Richard?  Should he make an effort, should his wings scorch...there would be but one fate waiting to claim him.  Yet, if he made the leap, took to flight, and won?  Why, then, who should not think such reward worth risk?  Yes, a trap, indeed.  A cruel torment to put such risk and such delight so close together.

Slowly she turned to him, exhaled slowly, fighting the impulse to gently brush away a stray, windswept curl that crowded his brow.  “Am I a spy?”  The question hung heavy.  “I do report what I see and hear at court, but this is no secret.  And we are not now at court.”  She paused.  “She does not know we meet and, God willing, she never shall.  So, you see, I do not tell her everything.  Yet, it is an apt enough title, I suppose, so I will allow it.  I have no intention of lying to you, after all, but a thief?  What have I stolen from you?  From anyone?”  She shook her head.  “I was appointed to my position within your brother’s own court because I earned it by my loyalty.  Surely you do not object to that?  We are, both of us, following the path of duty, are we not?  The only trouble is that the objects of our fidelity conflict.”  Yet, this trouble was no small matter, a difference powerful enough to pull a country asunder and, should it come to that...Beatrice wished there was some means of healing the divide -- but she knew of none.

He moved closer.  Naturally, without thought, she leaned towards him, a heavy-headed lily ruffled in the breeze.  She wished to lean into him, fully, to feel the press of his skin, his lips upon hers, his hands on her body.  She wished it, but she did not relent.  Those days are gone, she told herself.  They could not resume, not so long as they were here where it would prove impossible to avoid detection and, with it, a situation dire enough to result in charges of treason.  So she simply smiled, fingers biting into the frigid stone parapet as she turned to look at him once again, his heavy gaze a weight against the door of her will.  He spoke of gallantry and she chuckled, turning then, her back to the parapet, head tilted to look more closely at him.  “Then, tell me, Your Grace, having found me out...How do you mean to treat a mole?”

Eyes twinkling in the growing darkness, Beatrice arched a brow.  Her look was a long one and then, with an impish twist of smile, she replied, “That shall do for a start.  I do so like the diminutive.  But have no fear, tonight I shall think on a dozen ways by which you may enter into my good graces, again.”

It would not be the first time in which Maximilian softened for a woman and she not him — and it would not be the last. But nonetheless, he had no time for the trivial affairs of the heart (or any other muscle), whether they were reciprocated or not. What mattered to him, as plain as day, came forth in the shape of news on the horizon of the two hoards that made up the Holy Roman Empire — whether the Bavarians came to unhorse him amidst this delicate, political matter or not, Maximilian could not say, for the gallant safety of their people still hung in the balance, for even the Emperor was unsure what’d happen if the his taste soured on the wellbeing of such ancient, Germanic bloodlines. 

However, even with the war a constant distraction in his mind, he enjoyed the easy chatter that flowed between himself and the English Mistress of the Robes — welcoming the rest bite as he sat into the awaiting chair, arranging his robes to fall about him, black velvet trimmed with golden threads, the Reichsadler embroidered against his chest, the very heart of the Empire thumping above the soft rhythm of his deadened heart. 

“Indeed, you should go first, my lady — let us see if Lady Luck has chosen you as her champion,” the Emperor hummed, crossing his arms, squaring his shoulders, his smile teasing his lips in a manner he had not felt since before his grand Papal coronation, his English perfect for he was after all, born beneath the banner of the King of England, many moons ago. “This place is starved of true sunshine, is it not?” 

A sadness, or, perhaps, a pensiveness, seemed momentarily to seize over the Emperor’s expression and then, in half a heartbeat, it was gone.  Beatrice almost wondered if she’d seen it, if by some fancy she’d simply misinterpreted something.  Holding herself still, her tapered finger rested on her card, pressing down absently as she wondered whether she ought to ask -- or, instead, to let it pass.  Something warned that the moment was private, but part whispered that, despite this, her role in this life was to listen.  This was not something she particularly minded -- indeed, it gave her a particular kind of autonomy in this courtly game they all played -- but she was not meant to listen to him.  Her ears were meant to be the Queen’s.  Yet, her time, just now, was her own.  Exhaling slowly, she tapped the card and, quickly, she retracted her hand from it.  Her mental self-sparring had been but a moment.

“Does something trouble Your Highness?” she asked, at last.  “We have a saying, you know, in Aragon: all is made better when said by one to another across a game of cards,” she added, lightly, her tone slightly jocular as, indeed, this was no saying at all that she’d ever heard, and the laughing tone, she felt, would help him brush it off, should he not wish to speak.  She paused, growing serious.  “What I mean to say is...I think it may be that it is a lonely thing to wear a crown.  You need not be ruling while you are playing at cards, if you do not wish it: we are both Children of the Lord, are we not?  We may enjoy each other’s company merely as such, if we choose, and put aside other mantels, for now.”

It was a bold thing to say, she knew, and likely foolish, but the words were out and there was no recalling them.  “Though perhaps these are silly fancies all of my own foolish making.”  She smiled, throwing up a woman’s shield.  “That is the lot of we ladies, is it not?”  It was a flimsy shield but, she hoped, it would do its work, should she have given offense where none was intended.

There was something in his smile which did not fail to win a return from her.  Gleaming back at him, she inclined her head in her playful way.  “That is gallant, Your Highness,” she said.  “And brave,” she added, arching her brows in a jocular fashion.  As proscribed, she let down her cards all at once and sighed.  “Oh, dear,” she laughed.  “Your courage, it seems, was well rewarded.  This is not at all a promising start for my cause, is it?”

She exhaled slowly, laughing softly.  “And I thought England was deprived of sun!  I must say, growing up in Aragon...I find, these days, I took the sunshine of my childhood very much for granted.  All there is golden and vibrant.  Castile, too, boasts sun-soaked shores...but never, since, have I found the like.”  She paused.  “What is Aachen like?  I have never, to my knowledge, seen so much as a blade of grass of your Empire, but I hear very,” she chuckled.  “Conflicting reports.  Some say that the Holy Roman Empire is bright and balmy, others that it is damp and cold.  What is your opinion?”

    The crowd boasted a splendid assemblage of lords and ladies; though their arts of elegance, employed for banquet halls and cathedrals, was abandoned for the vulgarity of blunt, boisterous jostling, better reserved for the ungraceful nature of domestic privacy. François, slipping through the crowd, observed the affair with a mixture of reverence and provocative, mirthless, laughter – in truth it was fear, which moved him. He possessed no shadow of an idea as to why the fleet, as imposing as a storm sweeping across a darkening sea, settled upon Moscow shores, now. Contemplation brought him only distress; and so François deemed it far more fruitful  to find reprieve in the wondrous, gratifying visages of the young ladies who flanked him. With one beauty, who entreated him in docile, albeit alarmed tones, François had the rapture to be acquainted with – white as a Roman column in the moonlight, beauteous and terribly cold, all in tandem. “War? I pray with their health in mind, that war is not their desire; for God would not smile fondly, upon those who smite the unnamed. And their outcome, nevertheless, shall sure be death? What might do they possess, against the strength of the known world?”

  In possession of a gallant heart and little desire to embrace reality as a trusted companion, François was proficient in soothing; for he had little chance of survival in his union, without such a skill. “Entreat them into friendship – or warn them, your grace, that conflict is futile. But I have ruminated too much, filled your head with my vapid pondering; what would you have us do? I would wager with great confidence, you possess greater ideas than I.” He was excessively anxious to make their exchange pleasant; for Beatrice was his queen’s right hand, and thus, would never look upon his face with excessive pleasure – rather, she would recall what names of vulgarity or venom, she had bestowed upon him with Mary, that same day. 

François was a king, really, in all but name, but his life’s course curved sharply, cutting him off from honors that, perhaps, ought to have been his.  Unlike her Queen, Beatrice had some store of sympathy for him: she knew what it was to be cast off upon a turbulent sea in marriage, wishing for all and receiving nothing for all of that wanting.  Besides, she was conscious that, in some ways, she herself had usurped a position which ought to be his as consort: was she not the Queen’s right hand?  And, indeed, Beatrice’s first loyalty was, in fact, to the queen in question and not the Frenchman before her, something of which the Mistress of the Robes was, in general practice, all too aware.  This new circumstance, however, made such general sentiments into something almost foreign, something floating in some distant horizon.  Instead, she felt only glad to be with someone she knew.  That, she thought in some strange, distant way, should make things easier.  But what things?

As he spoke, her gaze turned upon him, brows lifting slightly as she took in his words, before turning her face back upon the river.  “Our forces are now diminished, are they not?  Our own English soldiers being primarily in England.  No doubt, all the rest of the great nations are the same -- how else should Russian not be overrun?”  She shook her head, earrings swinging gently upon her lobes.  “No, if they mean to attack the powers of this world, Your Grace, I think this the best moment of all.”  The look she turned on him was a serious one, her lips turning white in the blazing torchlight.

She was surprised by his words, not seeing it as her place when confronted with this teaming mass of kings and emperors, to step into the world’s arena and make grand speeches.  Looking at the sails, she identified banners of Venice and of Bavaria.  “You give my Italian, I think, far too much credit, Your Grace,” she began, cracking a strange joke by some odd tick of character, yet gradually sobering as she spoke.  “And of German, I have none at all.  But if no one else will do anything, I shall try.”

Yet, she was spared this daunting task by the appearance of François’ brother and the Tsar, who seemed ready to ride out and greet them.  “You know your brother, I daresay, better than just about anyone.  What will he say?”  There were as many enemies of his, it would appear, crowded upon those ships, as friends.

“understandable,   nothing   is   more   tedious   than   a   long   carriage   ride   .”   she   agreed   .   between   the   cramped   wagon   ,   the   poor   resistance   to   outside   weather   &   the   incessant   stench   of   horses   there   was   little   lyudmila   enjoyed   of   the   journey   before   the   destination   .   the   views   ,   however   ,   were   sometimes   picturesque   .   she   recalled   once   crossing   a   river   during   sundown   in   the   countryside   ,   how   the   sky   painted   the   water   a   shimmering   orange   and   yellow   .   the   light   refracting   off   the   surface   of   the   waves   so   that   it   looked   heavenly   &   alive   .   but   the   sheer   length   of   transportation   between   aragon   &   russia   seemed   hellish   .   “but   i   do   so   love   to   see   more   of   our   known   world   .   i   hope   you   find   russia   to   be   all   you’ve   imagined   .”

it   was   difficult   to   mistake   her   for   anything   other   than   slavic   in   her   dress   ,   which   differed   so   greatly   from   the   styles   common   in   beatrice’s   western   europe   .   “indeed   ,   i   was   born   here   &   have   seldom   left   .”   she   explained   .   though   with   hope   one   day   she   would   marry   and   leave   this   place   behind   to   climb   the   aristocratic   social   ladder   .   that   filled   her   with   an   unspoken   sadness   ,      which   she   pushed   away   from   her   mind   quickly   .

lyudmila   gestured   to   the   lotus   for   beatrice   to   see   ,   “i   hate   to   give   preferential   treatment   ,   but   yes   .   this   is   my   cherry   blumb   ;   the   russian   lotus   .”   the   flower   was   large   &   a   vibrant   pink   ,   with   a   bright   yellow   center   .   its   petals   fanning   out   from   that   middle   like   blades   .   perhaps   to   some   its   vivid   colors   might   seem   a   bit   garish   ,   but   that   mattered   not   to   lyudmila   who   adored   decadence   .   

Chuckling as Lyudmila referred to the carriage ride, she arched her brows.  “You’re not wrong, there,” she agreed.  “I feared I should lose my mind with the tedium...Though, even so, I believe it was decidedly better than crossing the perilous crossing of the Channel.  I’ve braved that twice, now,” she said.  “And I confess, I privately wish I could somehow be spared it a third time, though it seems unlikely.”  England might not be especially fond of the Aragonese Queen and her countrymen, but Beatrice could not imagine spending her life anywhere else, now.

Smiling as her companion spoke, her look was inviting.  “More than I imagined, I confess.  I believe I had quite pictured an iceberg,” she joked.  “But, come, tell me: where have you been?  Outside Russia, at all?”

Beatrice smiled softly.  “Treasure it, then,” she began, softly.  “We women have few opportunities to ever see again the places we were born, and memories of it will be your comfort in your future life, should you ever leave.  Oh, I do not say that you will not find new comforts wherever you may journey, but there is something unique the place where you were born that no other place can ever be.”

Smiling softly as her gaze wandered over the fuchsia water blossom, she smiled.  “I can easily see why.  It is truly mesmerizing.  Do they bloom every summer?  The scent is so refreshing!  I imagine it must be a special pleasure to gather a bouquet of them, is it not?”

She first heard the hubbub as she emerged from the building and into the courtyard.  There, a bustle of people stood, grouped along the edge of the walls, jostling to command a better view of something.  "What’s going on?”  Pressing her way through the crowd, Beatrice found her way to the top of the line and, gaze cutting along the length of the Kremlin, she realized others peered into the dark waters of Moskva.

“What is it?  What do you see?”  

Twilight glittered across the spectral waters of the Moskva, lit up by golden moonlight in a ribbon across the land before them.  Yet, in the midst of golden-glowing waters, a bevy of spectral shadows lurked, growing ever closer.  The waters were otherwise still.

Hands upon the parapet, Beatrice leaned forward for a better look, limpid hues searching the horizon for any clue.  “Do you see it?  What is that?”

They approached, the inky shadows, looming like dread, and Beatrice inhaled sharply.  "Is that what I think?”  A bevy of warships encroached and Beatrice’s heart gave a lurch.  A sliver of silver fear crept along her spine.  It was a cold thing, and stinging, spreading out through her limbs like paralyzing ice.  They were already here, she realized.  Perhaps already within the Kremlin, itself.

“Why are they here?” she said to the person beside her.  “To make war upon us?”

A warm and friendly smile came across Matilda’s face as she saw Beatrice.

“My lady.” She greeted with a nod of her head as she set her goblet of wine down onto the table in front of her.

“I am settling into it perfectly well. The architecture of the room reminds me of the Cathedrals in Bavaria. Such intricate yet ornate detailing. Though this is a personal room it still makes one feel closer to God just by admiring the beautiful architecture of the ceiling, wouldn’t you agree?” Matilda said as she briefly looked up at the high yet intricately detailed ceiling.

“The climate agrees with me well enough, though as you can see I still enjoy sitting by the fire. Come, sit. Join me. Would you like some wine?” She offered.

Matilda kindly gazed upon the Mistress of The Robes and smiled.

“Were you at the ball, my lady? What did you think of the Russians and their Byzantine Bride?” She asked as she took a sip of wine.

It was always a pleasant thing, Beatrice found to hear others speak of their homes.  To her mind, it opened a door to all that mattered most to them, to the inner architecture of their inner lives, a kind of understanding of them that few other subjects so readily allowed.  Her smile was a warm thing and, taking the proffered seat, she leaned slightly forward, eager to hear more.  Matilda’s words painted a picture in her mind’s eye and, glancing up, she followed the tracery of the ceiling with her eye, plastering it in her mind’s eye over another place, one of German extraction.  Looking back to the Empress, she smiled.  “What is Bavaria like?  One hears such things -- how rich with color, mountains springing to life all around, placid lakes at every turn...It sounds quite a heaven.

“I’ve a wish to travel,” she confided.  “But, alas, a lady in my position has little excuse to do so.  Though,” she added with a small laugh.  “I really ought to consider myself fortunate.  I’ve traveled more than most of our sex ever do.”  She grinned, half-conspirator: almost an inside joke.  “I’ve gotten to see Russia.  I confess, I never thought I’d do that.”  Smiling as Matilda compared it to a cathedral, she nodded.  “Oh, yes.  I confess, I sometimes feel closer to God in small, intimate settings than I do in rooms piled high with the faithful.  It seems to me that my prayers must be easier to hear,” she laughed.

She nodded.  “Oh, yes.  I do adore a good glass of wine.  There’s something so warm and rich in it, one feels almost swaddled, quite like a babe in arms,” she added with a twinkle of her usual humor.

𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 -- beatrice, mistress of the robes

And for every king that died Oh, they would crown another But it's harder than you think Telling dreams from one another...

Oh, to see What it means to be free Of the shadows and the dreams That you claim to see

...Felled in the night By the ones you think you love They will come for you

-- daniel in the den, bastille

England had been a strange, wrathful venture, and in hindsight Maximillian wouldn’t have gone. But his brother, with his diminishing powers, had been worth the trip  — that, and it had allowed the Emperor to flex his fingers in the direction of the people who stood behind, or maybe to the side, of the Aragonese-English Queen. He had met her siblings-in-law; Richard of Lancaster, Elizabeth. They had not impressed him, but they had yet to expose their strengths and weaknesses, as was to be expected. 

It was, during his stay in England, a fair comment to peruse that Maximillian had played with a sort-off, make-believe fondness for Mary of England’s mistress of the robes, another Aragonese woman who had taken the boat toward the isle of Giants. When he came across her, hec ould not help but breach the cold front of his facade, his expression melting into a simmer or a smile that hid behind the dark brush of facial hair on the lower-half of his face. It was foolish, it was also boyish, but Maximillian had been starved of mutual attention, and the state of his marriage, had only pushed him to approach her in kind. 

 Once offered to play, however, Maximillian hesitated. How could a man who had taken armies and climbed the political tower to be crowned by the Pope himself as Holy Roman Emperor, falter before a woman who would someday be lost to the history books? He would tell himself this later, as he went to stand behind the empty chair, the black and gold of his costume highlighted by the natural reflection of the sun. “Are you sure?” He asked, “…I would hate to empty your purse for my own good fortune,” the Emperor muttered, before winding his fingers around the handle of the pitcher, drawing too deeply set cups with the wine, already bending to her will. 

Beatrice was perhaps the only woman in England who had not taken a side in the ill-starred marriage of Maximilian and Matilda.  Everywhere it was spoken of the villainy of one party and the sanctity of the other, but Beatrice had a more level view of the playing field: to her, it was clear that their union had been a misfortune to them both, but this perspective was also the woman’s very nature: she had a gift for viewing two sides of things.  As she often remarked to Maria, Beatrice was the Queen’s Eyes, and eyes did not judge.  They merely saw.  She liked to think that she could see the good and the bad in both parties and, perhaps more to the point, Beatrice was less eager to make enemies than she was to make friends.

In any case, the Mistress of the Robes had a kind of fondness for the Emperor, partially because he liked to think himself fond of her, and Beatrice could acknowledge most readily that she was not immune to this.  She liked being liked.  But, too, there was a kind of boyish sweetness to him beneath the layers of cloth-of-gold and sinew that made up the man, and that had, at first, reminded her of her younger brother, whose face she was not likely ever to see again.  Though this particular comparison had long-since worn off, the ghost of remembered affection lingered on.  And, then, there was the other matter as well: he was a good friend to her Queen -- at least politically speaking -- and there was no surer route to Beatrice’s warmth than this.  She had long ago marshaled her every loyalty towards Maria’s goals, and it was a fine thing to find allies in this, even if the Emperor’s own loyalties were likely entirely his own.

“Ahh, I confess, in other circumstances I might quail before contesting an emperor,” said she, eyes shining in her way as she jested.  “But in this, I have no fear, for this is no game of skill, and all of chance.  It is the cards who decide who wins and who loses, so I think I have a chance of conquering, yet.”  She smiled up at him, pleased as he took the cup.  “The real sport of it is in companionship...and, I suspect,” she added.  “The thrill of surprise.  Come, I swear to you, I shall be merciful in victory,” she teased.  “Though I make no such promises, should I be beaten.  I plan, in that case, to be very sore, indeed, as is every woman’s right.”