The Rugged Edge

Chapter 3: Act CXII

This kingdom was long ago filled with such joy;
The people, they danced, and the fiddles, they soared.
But now this magnificent joy, it has died...
been merc'lessly slaughtered, and this may I cry.
Maybe once, long ago, I knew the sweet songs;
maybe once, long ago, they dried my child tears,
but since greyness swept in, the tears have returned,
with no hope any day of being played away.

. . . . .

From then on, I was stuck fully on the idea of discovering Collum's reason for my mother's murder. I snuck around the castle looking for clues: bottles of poison lying around, bloody daggers, gags and cushions to suffocate her with... of course I never found any of these. He must have hidden the evidence, I would think. So that sent me on insane adventures in the middle of the night to dig in the castle garden. I'd be sure to leave bones in the holes I dug and cover them quickly so that if they were ever discovered, everyone would think it had been some dogs.

But eventually I gave into the fact that I would never find why or how - or if - Collum had killed my mother. I would lay in bed, looking at the curtains above my four-poster and letting the tears run down my cheeks. The fact was, I had no proof that Collum had killed Giovanna at all. At first it was just curiosity, but as weeks turned to months and months to years, this curiosity turned into hope at being rescued from my empty life. Because that's what my life was. It was so empty and grey, like the great dungeon-like stone walls that rose high around the castle and left long, black shadows along the flowerbeds. The inside turned dull and grey as Collum stripped the rooms of paintings so that they wouldn't be ruined by dust before his great balls. But that didn't stop me from finding the great big storage room in the cellar and sitting on a filthy box. I'd look at my mother's dusty painting - putting paintings in the cellar don't keep dust off, of course - and I'd cry. I'd cry because I'd given up and given into the despair that the whole kingdom was now experiencing.

When I was eleven years old, Bessy finally seemed to realize this. One morning, I got up early to get a head start on my lessons with Professor Alastair, my tutor. I hurried into the kitchen, looking for a hot bun before I left for his tower room study. Bessy looked hard at me for a second and then spoke.

"Ise, Dear," she said, quietly. "Let me show you how my roses are getting on, out in the garden."

I looked up, surprised. Then I stole outside with her and looked around at the early morning. The stone was muddy and slick; it had rained last night. Her roses withered in the shadow of the huge wall that Collum had encircled the palace with, for defence, he said (from what? I didn't know. This kingdom had nothing left to be stolen). I looked up at the cook, wondering why on earth she would show me these dying plants... they, too, seemed to have given into the despair that filled the place.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I brought you here," Bessy said.

Yes, I was. But I was silent.

"Here there is no one," said Bessy. "We won't be heard."

I wondered if she was going to tell me a secret of some sort.

"Ise, dear," she said. "I have seen in your eyes that you are upset. And I can easily guess why. You, like everyone that sees no hope, have given into the depression that this so called king has inflicted on this poor kingdom. But you mustn't become helpless like everyone I see around me, the glimmer in their eyes gone. No. Your mother said long ago, when she remarried, that you would be the ruler as soon as she died. When she did die, complaint rose at Collum's being king instead of regent. 'No,' he said. He declared that you could not be queen until he died. But you come of age when you are fifteen, and then you will be queen. Yes, a very young age," she said as I gasped. "In many cases this age is purely unwise. Yet in four years you should take his place.