#henrytcdor

❝ The gardens were in full bloom as winter eased away and lessened into a balmy spring, and the verdant hedges flanking the garden provided not only secrecy but solace to any drifting within its winding paved routes. Joanna’s skirts dragged noisily against the pavement, her adamant step clicking against stone. Click, click. Rearing three children in the space of half a decade meant that she was unaccustomed to the quiet. Silence, such that one could discern the drop of a pin, both disturbed and nettled her, when she had become so used to the sound of her children’s wails or laughter. Their tinny voices. She found herself longing for the orchestra-level cacophony that can only be produced by children’s arguments she had grown to detest. 

Menacingly grey clouds were steadily forming over head, drawing together like rags on a clothespin line, threatening to let loose in a torrential rainfall of Biblical proportions, but Joanna wouldn’t abscond just yet. She was awaiting the august presence of the king, her king – and whilst she wasn’t altogether assured that he would grant her request for a private discussion, she hoped curiosity would win over, and she clung to that hope even as dampness collected in the air and she could all but smell the familiar fragrance of impending rain. A sweetness hung in the air, coupled with the perfumes of the flourishing garden. A rustle in the hedges caught her attention, and the subsequent sound of boots thudding against the pavement caused her to turn around, like a child caught red-handed. She’d been in the midst of plucking a rose from its thorny bush as she turned to the source of the noise – relief flooding through her marrow, and, whilst scurrilously concealing the stolen flower behind her back, she hurried to meet the king and dropped in a low curtesy as though a ship lowering into a frothy wave.