by God and by Mine right

@henrytcdor

An audience with the King was a moment that was highly sought by many. The King’s time was precious, and many people clamored over themselves to have a fraction of a moment, to speak their piece even if it meant shouting out over a crowd.

Alexandra, however, had sought no such audience. She had no ill will toward the man - she merely had no reason to speak to him. Any intercessions for their family would almost certainly be made by her husband unless some circumstance prevented his going. She could handle it to be certain, but it was simply not something she much wanted to attend to. It was unnerving, therefore, to be summoned without ever asking to be and without any direction. A page had merely been sent to her and her needlework had been left aside, half finished, as her nerves mounted and she was lead through to the inner sanctum of the Palace. 

She still knew nothing of what the meeting was about when she was led to the receiving chamber, Alexandra sinking into a deep curtsy while she waited to be acknowledged. “You have sent for me, Your Majesty, although I am afraid I know not why. May I somehow be of some help to you?”

Henry reined himself in from examining the woman as she minced her way to his study. In fact, he put off inspecting her at all, lest a minor detail influence his judgement. Particular things had a way of rearing their head forward and drafting emotion where there should be sense: a discarded ribbon, an ear-marked book emerging from a pouch, the stooped backs of those inured to praying. They made him paint qualities where there were none. They made him build portraits out of two-faced men, triptychs of disobedience. Thus he remained immobile, still-faced as the countess of Pembroke bent her hairline for him to judge. To bestow mercy across her organdy and her plumes, or at least rain down any explanation that would quell the doubts.

     All this talk of her nephew’s grand celebrations and Margaret couldn’t resist overseeing how the court was functioning for herself.  She’d already wandered the entire castle interior, pleased for the most part, and with enough energy to see what was occurring outside.  Naturally, she gravitated towards her favorite horses preparing for their daily games, then the common nightly spectacles.  “And these are the canons for the fireworks, yea?  The ones I fired at Lord Angus were three times this size,” she mused, fingers brushing over a dormant canon’s metal rim.  Straightening, she planned to peruse the next game, but nearly fell into the courtier standing in front of her.  Perhaps they were there by chance, or something was urgent?  “Pardon, were you looking for me?”

              To her Highness, Princess de Klef, written on the 

None of the letters commenced under formal address survived their first lines. The royal we, the seal, the specifications on our God’s day - all dwindled and flitted out. I have been under this duress for the better part into dawn, long before the privy men huddled outside my doors, and have nothing but debris to show for it. Half finished letters, one more prim than the other, as if I’m beseeching you about a fleet, a loan in whole pounds. They lay crumpled, crippled around me, like eggshells or theater props, something our courtiers would use in a masque to suggest the scrambling for words. The hopeless pursuit of what shall ever elude thee. But I am nothing if not tenacious, and rather scornful of ridicule itself. Hencefore the right words are no taunt for me, for I have ceased hunting them down. I am bound to make a fool out of my person sooner or later, after my estimations - so if laughingstock it shall be, then let it be for good cause. And you, Anna, are the best cause I could chance upon on this earth.

I will not make a charade out of us by pretending I am unaware of your sentiments. You are altogether too humble, too brazenly honest for this. There is more verity in you than there is in entire landscapes, in those concrete objects which taper with our world. I am more assured, sometimes, of your reality than that of England itself. Thus I know, to some extent... that you feel the same. You were never guileless about it, never concealed the few which transpired between us under shrill laughter or demure sighs. How many men can say such a thing? That they have looked upon a woman and saw truth at last. No... I am foundering, adrift, and through my aimlessness risk betraying something I do not trust myself to do. Because it is exactly that extent, Anna, that brings me to a halt. For I have no inkling - and scarcely can presume - how high those sentiments tally. How much they amount to. Do they merely owe to your nature, your golden-thread way of roping the world in kindness? Do they owe to your fondness for odd, errant creatures, which you take upon yourself to rescue? For I am that, and we know as much. Perhaps it’s only us who know it, but we do. If there are grounds...-

If there is any sliver of merit in hoping this is not just a token of goodwill, nor a salvation attempt, that you did not merely bestow your heart because you saw how much it lacks in my own... find a way to convey it to me. I do not wish to force you to be bold, to trespass your borders - I would not say it, unless I saw how bottomless your courage is. Like chaos or light, it finds no end. The portrait affixed to this letter does no justice to anything about your figure, but I had spent hours in sketching lessons as a child and they were all misused. Nothing had been worth committing to paper until now. Saint Valentine is meant to be a secret affair, but, for once, my own boldness defeated what is supposed to be. Or should I say: once more. Because from that garden miscue and ever since, supposedness held little value for me. When I uttered your first name, unprompted, unthinking, it was the lightest sound I ever made.

There is no more to it than that.

                    Without seal, a Majesty on all days but this,

    There was many a court resident, English and foreign alike, that bid Anna a merry Saint Valentines when they glided past, arm in arm with another. Or perhaps after a cordial bow, lips warm and soft as they spilled the greeting, like cream in a hot, formal cup of English tea. As it were, she rather liked this stripping of inhibitions, the softening of courtier edges. Which begged to the question–what was Saint Valentines?

    And why, if it was something to be merry about, did Cromwell lock himself away from her questions, from the world, in his study, where he did not respond to so much as a knock–or, a flurry of knocks, more like? No one could dub her as unambitious, the princess supposed.  She posed this inquiry to her ladies, who found it the perfect opportunity to break from Anna’s ’speak English, please’ rule. They congregated, as if discussing an infectious plot in their mother tongue, intermingling the small tidbits of history they knew with the buzzing excitement of the upcoming events in it’s honor. All while Anna was finding the proper position to set her dear parrot’s cage–for, she didn’t want it too close to the fire, but, how he did ruffle his feathers when he was a trifle too cold. 

    Cromwell’s seclusion, in turn, didn’t make much more sense. Even so, she passed the kitchen a recipe for gingerbread that she’d ripped from her own cook’s book, carefully translating and leaving a tin with a lovely red ribbon for him to find. For if gingerbread could not coax even Cromwell from his hiding hole, then what would? What a splendid tradition, giving out gifts. It was almost like Christmas.

    She was knitting together a gift for Henry when he came for her–though, were her cheeks not still red from his glowing victory? Smile aching from her seat as she watched him parry his way through competition? Even so, she fumbled it into a nearby drawer, smacking it shut, as if the breeze might whisper her surprise. 

    Anna smiled–down at him, and what a sweet thing, that! “All the same, you were crowned when I met you, no?” She should have been tentative, perhaps, in her want to touch him. More elusive, eyes more downcast. Instead, she reached forth a hand, soft, white cloth with lace embroidery tangled between it’s mother’s fingers, “It is I that should have called upon you, I did not get the opportunity to give you this before you started. I suppose you do not need it, now.”

      The imminence of the thing, and its unlikelihood too, only added to the weight it carried. It played on its hue, which clung to rays of light, on its evenly trimmed corners, making it appear whiter, larger. It stood defiantly there, suspended between them to evoke wisps they never uttered, splinters of conversations and assurances. A cloth that could’ve been anything. A motherly dab on the cheek, a shroud for a stolen kitchen treat, a garment of mourning or departure at sea - somehow, in her hand it was all that and none of it. And even as his mind churned with alternative roles the symbol could take, he knew he was deflecting its reality. It was her favor, of course. But was that enough to warrant the constricting winding it drew in his chest? That line stretching between her fingertip and his pulse, preordained and leading?

     And if this did not bespoke another sentiment entirely, Henry could almost grudge Anna for the ease she had about her. Extending him a seal as if she had never seen the letter. As if, unbeknownst to her, favors were as light a trinket as they come. No, he did not suspect her unaware, oblivious to the coiling, reverberating significance of it. Oblivious to how it flitted across his heart - and how it would flit across courtier’s lips too, if word bustled out. She was too cultured in English custom for such a slip; surely she knew favors were an intimate matter. But what else was she cultured in? Human folly? The dry, sandpaper quality gathered in his throat when she lurched forward in her ever impredicable motions? Or was she truly unconcerned with all that, so self-possessed of goodness that emotions were a familiar, a bounty, never a burden? Hell’s breath: it would’ve taken him a month to conquer what she yielded in a hand twist.

He did not intend to call upon the princess of Cleves per se; what if it was her windows that framed him, down below in the inner courtyard, a linchpin of bones, tendons and expectations? What if it was her hands that he squinted towards, the space between them as they flitted and steepled, the sunlit spheres? It was still not a visit. He still had nothing to say, and no time to mitigate his silence. But God, had her absence not been a lessening, a debasing of reality itself? To that, Henry had no more to raise than a glare. A rumble and a faint sense of alarm. He meant to tip his head under her eyes, in scant acknowledgement, maybe remark on the weather or the recent outcome that had men revering him. But another set of words throttled through Henry’s intentions, words which were both more senseless and easier to be said. Senseless in their honesty and easy in their humor, the telltale token of the intimacy he hoped lied between them.

“I had to wait to be crowned a victor before I could address you again, it seems.”

     “I hope you do not fear me, Henry, for you have not asked me what good for,” She smiled, and bit her elbow into his side softly, teasingly, if only to alleviate the hardening of his cerulean gaze. Not such a silly thing, she thought, for a king to fear a princess. Not the fear one holds for a God, or a creature in the night–something different. Something that resided in the stomach, in the palms, the twitch of a finger. Universal, that. Gold didn’t need to run in your veins for that, nor silver, nor bronze. It aided Anna, surely, to think of Henry’s pedestal, his person, as being tangible, real, his hand in hers, their feet against the pavement, the hearts that throbbed underneath fine linen.

     “I will tell you, then,” Her smile stretched into a grin, and she turned her cheek to him, leaning in close, as if they were children, about to exchange a clandestine secret, “I have a parrot, that happens to be very fond of sunflower seeds. Ha! You should have seen your courtiers when I climbed from my carriage this morn, walking out in a parade of empty shells at their feet,” Anna snorted, placing a hand over her mouth as an eruption of giggles poured from pink lips, “They must think poorly of me, surely–but I had nowhere to put them!”

He almost hitched to a stop, had something not more educated, more concerned with the seemliness of it all, wafted him forward. Indignation, the sole sentiment he would’ve deemed fit for the situation, did not cross him for a second. Who was this bundle of contrasts, who carries the drawn world in her sleeves and a bird in her carriage? Who addresses him as if she were partial to a future he had never dared to glimpse? As if he were a great man already, worthy not of diffidence but of equally-footed respect? Splitting an entire life opened as she smiled, with the unabashed steadiness of a child and the paragon indulgence of the clairvoyant. Whatever I am, her chuckles seemed to say, you have not yet learned the words to contain it. 

“You brought a parrot”, Henry issued, tentative, so taken with the matter that he nearly neglected their new-found proximity, “--and sunflower seeds, on the minutely tended gravel of Hampton?” His eyes darted to the sky for a moment. Seeking help, or justifications, or both. Then, with little warning, but plentiful, bountiful cause, he started into a laughter that overflowed them, reeling them both in its tide. He doubled over and his hands found her round, shapely shoulders for support, which they leaned against with the thoughtlessness bodies are wont to have. With the lack of analysis and strategy which arises only at the most intimate, the heedless and the genuine. It was only when this fit of mirth passed, dispelled like a burst of sunlight, that he realized they were lodged in place: she under him, so close he could sketch the oddly-contoured speckles on her face, half-moons of auburn and gold. So close he could still see her skin stretching in the giggle’s remainders. Above them a tree carried on with its play of light, the sort that could empty the theaters. It projected flimsy lace patterns across her brow, whose arch, Henry knew, was now forever engraved in him.

                          There was something amiss in the air, an imperceptible source of dread that clung where crows portending death were present ––––– as though plague carrying itself through the perfumed zephyrs of miry fields, curled itself in the smoke eluding Spanish cigars, whittling its way to the sprout of all consternation and rooting beneath the French princess’ breast akin to mild dyspepsia. Yet as she glanced about the sumptuous banquet hall, cerulean eyes raking through the crowds that seemed to thin, she failed to pinpoint the root of unpleasantness, whether it be a quarrel or drunkard that bred such disquiet in her, though she could taste it as pungently as salt dissolving upon the tip of her tongue. The hand in her lap twined as though a serpentine or vine around silver cutlery, held so steadfastly that the insignia of its creator would leave imprint in her palm, yet upon feeling a hand brush against her shoulder she startled, eyes glancing up at the countenance of the ringing monarch, and promptly the knife wedged betwixt her nimble digits clinked against the floors; the volume it produced obscured by an increasing cacophony. She parted her rose tinted lips to speak, but no words had formed, and within the next instant armed sentinels had guided the king and herself from the budding pandemonium fostered within the evacuated ballroom. 

In the yet short span of her sojourn upon the English isles Marguerite had attempted to evade the king’s company, not for the reasons that in any rational mind would immediately conjure up, but for her own security and at the behest of both advisor and father; she was not overly refined in the art of royal receptions and her great absence from French court put her at a disadvantage in the way of public duties. So whilst she originally considered the abrupt fleeing a blessing, it began to present itself as an imprecation as she kept abreast of the king’s strides. She struggled to comprehend the meaning of the words pearling from his tongue, her command of the English vernacular being frail, although she hoped – for his sake – that he was mustering up an apology! “I demand to be told where I am going, and why,” she enjoined in her native tongue, “I am the king’s cherished daughter. If there is something amiss he would bid me to know. Pray tell, is this how the English court treats all foreign visitors? Or just those of the fairer sex? You are the king ––– how is it that you haven’t the foggiest what is to be done in thine’s own court?” Although he words were potent her cheeks began to bloom russet, and her intonation quivered slightly. 

He bolted a glance laced with conflict and admonishment. The woman’s diatribe, coupled with those undeterred hands that pushed them to their covert chambers, composed the tableaux of a siege better than ten assassins. For your safety, Majesty, would be the motto inscribed underneath, the one repeated with sacrilegious exactitude by the Yeomen guards. From the moment they cut through the corridor like a heated blade, to the sound of the doors latching closed behind them, Henry’s gaze did not relent. Only when they were alone did he spare her a second, to take in the way the double-ironed lock twisted, sealing the outer spheres and leaving only the interior to flare, to torment. After that, his eyes were back on her face, round and flushed with an indignation he could have slapped clean off. Yes, conflict lit the blue from within. But what was not discernible in the young king’s eyes weighed far more than what was - namely, a suppression of feeling so great, so extensive, that he could have roared under it. Bryan, the treacherous subterfuge threatened to give way. Bryan. Bryan’s death printed in spiced wine, written with pimento and orange peels and resin. And tremendously misaddressed, for I was to be its consignee. Questions writhed in him with more adherence than any concoction, dripping from a chalice or off a pair of dried lips. And when he stared her down, he directed the full force of all those questions on the woman.

“I am not certain whether I should be preparing an apology at such a vexing turn, which my court’s security could easily be blamed for, or assure you that I am as uninformed as your person on this matter.” He declaimed with a certain smoothness, a uniformity of voice and bearing, like a demagogue or an infidel brought before the gavel. In the folds of his tone, no emotion broke out - they were dammed so tightly it nearly cracked at the seams. Everything was pushed away, everything: his apprehensions and terrors, culprit names, his scintillating pulse, his vision of the man’s fate, blood bubbling or pooling or mixed with sallow humors, everything but this monological thought, rehearsed as in a courtship comedy: serves me right.

henrytcdor:

he dismounted with easeful, but rapid movements, intent to assure the Emperor’s son that he would not ride past him without requesting company. henry yielded a curt nod towards the older man, content to simply soothe his stallion’s urgency rather than pick apart and appraise his guest. any vivisection he and his royals may have made out of phillip’s person had long been carried out. as with any foreign visit, more especially one that belonged to a prince of the blood, England roiled and swarmed to decipher and compare, mock or esteem the visitor. even so, the man’s bearing was imposing, his cortege formidable and polished to the last squire. it did not sit lightly with the young king, but it also nudged him to seek the other’s friendship.

“would you join me in today’s stride, Prince of Castille? we do not have to discuss anything of consequence, should we not wish so.”

@hapsburgphillip

Phillip looked over at his brother-in-law – who was also, in fact, a cousin of sorts, being the son of Phillip’s great-aunt – and bowed to him as he approached. He wondered what their relationship would be, now that Henry was king. There was always the specter of the possibility that Henry, like his father, like Phillip and his sister, may struggle to produce an heir. If that was the case, like it or not, Mary was the next heir to the throne. Which meant, as her husband, Phillip would not only be King of Spain (and possibly the Holy Roman Emperor) but the King Consort of England. “I would be honored,” he said, inclining his head toward the other man. “Do you have any subjects you wish to broach, Your Majesty?”

JOANNA OF YORK

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  /  recently friends  /  turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  /  friendship of need  /  friendship of circumstance  pen - pals or internet friends  /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  other ??? lost chance smh

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  /  older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

ENEMIES.   dangerous to themselves  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  passionate /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into a sexual tension (obvs lmao)  /  developing into a romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based of misunderstandings or lies  /  other .

EDWARD SEYMOUR

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  /  recently friends  / turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  / friendship of need /  friendship of circumstance   /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  none on this one .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  /  older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

ENEMIES.   dangerous to themselves  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  / passionate /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into a sexual tension  /  developing into a romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of circumstance /  based of professional matters  /  based of misunderstandings or lies  /  other .

HENNERS FITZROY

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  /  recently friends / turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  / friendship of need / friendship of circumstance   /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  none on this one .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  / older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

ENEMIES.   dangerous to themselves  / dangerous to others  /  unpredictable / passionate /  rivals  /  petty  / developing into a sexual tension  /  developing into a romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of circumstance /  based of professional matters  /  based of misunderstandings or lies  /  other .

MARGUERITE DE VALOIS

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  /  recently friends / turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  / friendship of need / friendship of circumstance   /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  none on this one .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  / older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

Maria’s smile widened noticeably at the insistence in his voice, though she found herself lucky that he did not seem to have taken it as an insult. On the contrary - he was smiling too, and that warmed her. Perhaps there was something still left of the boy she remembered - his royal destiny unable to entirely change him into something unfamiliar, untouchable.

She acquiesced to the request, allowing him to take her hand in his own and make the greeting he wished as she resumed her full height. She found herself looking up to him - as a man, he had grown tall like his father, and seemed to have all his royal presence. 

“It is wonderful to see you, Your Majesty. The words of my father’s dear ambassadors, while always kind, hardly do any justice.” Some part of her longed for familiarity - to be able to speak plainly, without listening ears and prying eyes, though she would wait to attempt to request such a thing. The formalities, as much as she hated them, had to be played through first, unless Henry decided otherwise.

“I have brought a gift, if you should be so kind to accept it.” She motioned without looking to the servant behind her who carried the box to present to the King. “A book of verses and prayers made by my own hand - I hoped you might find some use in it, and at the very least think fondly of your humble cousin as you examine its pages. The cover is made in silver and gold from the territories across the sea.” It had seemed a fitting gift - both personal and grand, uniquely Spanish, uniquely Maria. 

He gazed appreciatively, biding his time, on the present she saw fit to bestow. It was truly quite the unction for diplomatic cogwheels, suitable for any Royal house to his knowledge. Cromwell would be livid, he knew as much - though not ingratiated into the full details of his man’s animosity to the Spanish (and Catholics as a whole, surely, for hatred never skimped when it was time to splurge over) he did suspect it would not sit well. But then, he was such an exceptional worker - how had Wolsely penned him, in a letter Henry never read, only gathered from secondary mouths? A man for all seasons? No, that was not it; a man for all hours, and the devil’s too. And he would have his work quite cut out for him with this one, Henry thought bemusedly, as Maria fixed unyielding eyes on him. She was nothing like her sister and nothing like his own mother. Who did she resemble? With those stark pallid irises, as though life seeped out of her features and back into her spirit, that spirit she unsheathed whenever she saw fit?

It unsettled him in a small, reasonable measure - far less than it would’ve a week ago, a month ago. He recalled briefly his would-be confrontation with the Warwick woman, when his tongue retreated like a treacherous tide, and he was left staring at his table companions for some succor, some deliverance. No, that wouldn’t have happened now. He became inured to puzzling situations as one becomes inured to the plague. He accepted, at least a part of him did, that his mind would always be left churning, tarrying to seek a better way or an additional motive, venturing on some paths his father had never even glimpsed. Profundity is a bad trait for modern kings, who handpick their men to think for them. But so it was, so he was; more prone to vivisection than rashness. And the moment he accepted it, he had made it his own. A blacksmith dealing in both inherited and unprecedented traits, which separated the weak alloys from the more enduring metals, the one he truly wished to wield.

He dismissed them - not only the servant who had brought him the prayer book, which now rested coddled in his hand like a small animal - but everyone in the room, clerks and nobles, dignitaries and the ladies of her envoy. The flaunting gesture cleared an entire chamber. Once more, the revelation of power dawned on him, with a searing strength only sightly more dim than the first time it happened. Power, it was as illusory as a town fair show; and like a town fair show, it moved the present world. And Maria, he felt, had understood that sooner than he did. Sooner than every other prince of the blood he’d met, perchance.

     Anna. He’d called her Anna. Not Princess de Klef, not even Anna of Cleves, or the preferred English moniker, Anne. But Anna. Azure eyes gleamed, and she felt her grip on the map falter, nearly sending it toppling to the ground–had she not fumbled into rolling it up once more. Yes, of course, that’s what she was trying to do all along, don’t mind her.

     She found she would miss her name inside his mouth, and wouldn’t mind if he said it over and over. Anna, Anna. She would not spill a drop of it. A smile melted across her lips, “Truly, there’s no better ‘thank you’ I could have received. My fingers are practically trembling with excitement, to write back to Mercator and tell him all English eyes were deemed worthy. That is beautiful, Henry.” 

     The air was cool, the ground beneath her feet was cold, but Anna was pleasantly warm. Safely tucking away his map from the elements, the German hoped that spring would come soon. She’d soaked in longing peeks on her trip, of course, peering out until her eyes watered and her nose was scarlet from the bitterness that laced the winds, but she wanted to see England in full bloom. She hoped the flowers would grow in rich, full clumps, that the hills would roll and bend into streams hearty with gleaming scales and glittering stones.

     She extended her arm to him, the king, beckoning for him to take it in his, “We may walk and talk, yes? After so much sitting, I would like to walk. And you will tell me about your Whitehall, and when it will be warm again, yes? So that I may have flowers on my writing desk?” She tilted her head, “The Greeks, they write stories of flowers, but only tragic ones.”

Henry’s tipped his head like a knight about to receive the sword’s holy end. Her words washed over him with the force of a baptism and the lightness of a mother’s ringed hand. Oh, he could’ve laughed; he would’ve doubled over, filled with such fondness for her precipitated, lighthearted plans, that it truly crushed all defenses. Yet he feared she might take it as mockery. Did he not have a small repute for condescension? The unyielding will and single-mindedness of the Tudors mixing with Lancaster sharpness, the half-French ability to render anyone mute with a jab. He didn’t remember when he’d acquired it, but he must have. Even if the men from his closest circle were spotless ( he tried to push the Boleyns’ influence at the very periphery )  and not one ill-spoken word could be attributed to them, let alone a misdeed, he himself stood on quite other grounds. He was as clean before God as an infant - but just about as ready to subdue the wills of others.

And how dearly he did not wish for her to stop from her reverie, to be brought face to face with the wiles and innuendos, the spreading stains that one had to wield if one was to survive court! How dearly he wanted her to think him above it; the kind of ruler that would do just this, receive a map, turn it into a weapon for education and enlightenment. Receive a woman, turn her hand over, walk her through the gardens unassumingly. What gave birth to it, from whose legs did it crawl, this desire to be the man a woman like her would like? Obey ? No, not obey; associate with, tend to, listen without prepossessed forcefulness.

This wing of the gardens was just as silent as when they’d met. All paths that led to it had been barred - and it unnerved him, but amused him, how Cromwell and the delegates must be waiting at the other end. Waiting for what to emerge? He shook his head for his own sake, like a child that is momentarily unaware he can be seen by others. The thicket in his mind was so carefully built over the years, so impenetrable, that it might keep him in for good, once. One time, when he springs out of bed, ready to see to the day’s orders, and finds he cannot articulate anything instead. Like the old Lancaster, the old madman king, silver-spit pooling at its mouth under York’s pillow. Choking on the very cushions that had seated his subjects.

Realizing why the man had seemed so familiar, Juana’s smile turned, and she put on a more somber expression as she cleared her throat. “A thousand apologies your majesty, I did not realize– well I did not recognize you from your portraits.” she said, deciding to be honest with Henry as she dismounted her horse and waved off assistance from the guards. She stepped closer to the King and took his hand, placing a kiss upon it before sweeping into a low curtsy as was Spanish custom to do for those of higher standing, and the King of England was certainly ranked higher than a princess of Spain. “Your riding grounds are beautiful, your majesty. I apologize again for not greeting you as you deserve to be greeted.” 

She could see the harshness and the divide that Henry’s eyes conveyed, but she was not about to just grovel for an honest mistake, she had more pride in herself than that. After a brief awkward silence, she turned toward her horse again, who was sounding off her restlessness that reflected the princess’s own ache for the freedom that riding allowed. Juana had a skill for seeing the person beneath the title, and as much as it got her into trouble in terms of formalities and proper protocol, she still remembered that the man standing before her - before being a King, or a Prince even- was just that, a man. A man who had lost his father and been thrust into this role of responsibility for a whole Kingdom. She almost pitied him, but of course she would not let that show. Instead, she decided to be kind to him, despite the rather abrasive way they had first met. 

“Allow me to offer my sincerest condolences on the loss of his majesty, the late King Henry.” she said, joining her hands and then resting them in front of her waist. She didn’t want to prolong the sensitive topic, but she knew that if her father had passed away, she would appreciate the sentiment. “Perhaps you would do me the honour of accompanying me on a ride around your grounds, your majesty… that is, if you could spare the time.” she asked, leaving it up to Henry as to not seem intrusive. “Say the word and if you wish it, I will leave.” 

He brushed over the mournful reminders, not out of impoliteness but simply faded habit, an occurrence so common it was wrought into normalcy. He neared in on the second offer instead; Henry’s eyes rounded, which suited his features better than the usual inquisitive slits, and he bowed in assent. “The Infanta seems a professed rider. Perhaps you will join our cavalry if we ask kindly, no?” The words were cast in lightness, as much for her sake as for the other men which pilfered about them.

Without betraying the fact, the young king tried to survey her, inspecting her like battle grounds. Comparatively, but also tentative - who was she, in rapport to her sister? She did not have the same hardness veined in marble features - which, for that matter, looked closer to Venetian glass rather than stone. She had a fair, whey countenance, the sort that gets made into some wheat figurine at harvest feasts. A picture of abundance, she was. For the span of one fluttering moment, Henry pictured her above the fire, blueish flames licking at the threads.