Though he did not crouch out of deference, nor clemency, the posture was oddly similar to a biblical tableaux. L’apologie: a king under a balcony awning, his knees stooped like saber handles, his neck limbering towards something too bright to witness. This could hardly count as a visit of courtesy, he strove to believe. As far as these went, Henry had not dallied in their beautiful futility since before the jousting festivities. As far as she went, they had not spoken in what, a full week? A fortnight? His timeline intermingled with competitions and gains, culminating resoundingly into the season’s final victory. But winning would not bring reprieve, because what was a tournament if not a preening of feathers? A ritual defiance between higher orders? What was the use in being glorious, if you did not reap security out of it - and security meant tongue biting, and diplomatic fallacies, and odd hours parleys. The only meetings he had nowadays were carefully latticed, as if God themselves wove them into existence, as if they did not owe to men’s conniving but to a holy arrangement.
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.”
@annacfcleves
