𝑂𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙....
In a world of bloody war and misgivings that lead to treason, there is only one thing Catherine Percy can be sure of and that is danger.
Her life had not always been thus, f...
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~To be a Percy~
To be a Percy was to be a God and to be a God was to be a Percy, they were one and the same.
To be a Percy was to be no mere mortal among men, but a higher power of wealth; one of ever expanding influence. It was to be the puppeteer that played with the strings of fate; ever dangling them back and forth to their will. At least, that was what her Father had always said; her late Grandfather too.
As a toddler, the older man would sit her on his knee, her small body cradled carefully in one hand, a pint of ale in the other while he educated her of their family's ever expanding influence over the blossoming land of England.
"We are the oldest family on these shores" He would say in his deep, baritone voice that often sang her to sleep at night, despite his sometimes prickly demeanour "Older than the Plantagenets that rule us now. They may be Kings, my dear, but we are Emperors, we are the Gods that govern this country"
Then, placing a gentle kiss to her forehead, he would set her on her little feet and call for her maid to carry her little charge to bed.
Catherine had never forgotten those words of wisdom, not ever, so often they were spoken to her. At his funeral in 1455, when she had been just three years old, she had murmured them in her own, childish way, uttering the golden words into the silver beads of her rosary.
He had been killed in battle, a most honourable death her Father said, but she was told he was not killed by honourable people. Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, had been killed at the Battle of St Albans by the forces of the House of York, a band of 'treacherous claimants to the throne' her Mother, Eleanor, had told her.
The country was ruled by the House of Lancaster, rulers who had, at first, risen to the English throne as usurpers, removing the tactless Richard II from power before Henry IV took his crown. Now his grandson, Henry VI was upon the throne and had been ever since he had been a nine month old infant.
He was not a strong man by any stretch of the imagination, he was not witty nor very apt at ruling the Kingdom that was his but he was not vicious and he was not cruel. Henry was a man devoted to prayer and the readings of God, many saying he would be more suited to living in a momentary than the vast palaces and castles he inhabited. Not only that he was prone to fits of madness that would render him useless to his country for months upon end.
But still, he had his beautiful, intelligent Queen, Marguerite, and his loyal nobles (such as the Earl of Northumberland) to see his country safely through these uncertain times. Besides, he was God's King, Catherine had been taught, and God's King could not be questioned no matter what failings his thin body possessed.
Now, with the 2nd Earl killed, his son, little Catherine's Father, had risen to power as the third with her brother as his heir.
The family of Northumberland was not a large one by any means, though numerous times it had tried to be. Catherine had four sisters, some elder, some younger but all dead at birth, or soon after.
