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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~King Richard the Third~
She paced back and forth in her bedchamber, the fire unlit and still dressed in her nightgown, a light woollen shawl; hair a loose mess down her back. She hadn't allowed her ladies to come to her, nor the servants and she knew it must be well past midday but she didn't care. Time was the one thing she couldn't bare to think about and it was the one thing they didn't have.
Murmurs of suspicion already filled the air and swirled around them like angry mist. Why had the King not been crowned? When would he be crowned? Why had the Queen fled to sanctuary? What had the Lord Protector done?
Oh, but it was not what he had done, Catherine thought, it was what he was yet to do! What he couldn't do! He just couldn't....
She bit her nails, still pacing, a tight band wound around her chest and heart hammering like the beat of a war drum, calling soldiers to battle. She didn't want another battle but she couldn't help but fear it was one Richard would charge into.
He was a seasoned commander, a York Prince and while he would not break his promise to his brother, he would not leave his country weak either. He loved his nephews, the last he had of his brother, but despite that love, he knew what everyone else felt.
No one would select a boy King if they had a choice. No one wanted a child to lead them when they could have a man. A man with heirs, a man who knew his own mind and had the trust of the nobility. If stability was what the people were looking for, Richard was the choice. If he took the throne he could stabilise England and eradicate any threats to its government, namely the Woodvilles, or rather the dowager Queen.
Catherine sank down next to the ashen hearth, the white fur lain before it soft on her skin.
"How has it come to this?" She wondered, running the pale tuffs between her fingers and looking at the cards laid out on top of it. Just two nights prior, Richard had sat there, teaching young Dickon to play while Henry read his book on chivalry, trying in earnest to memorise each page.
Her fingers brushed across the oval cut cards of layered paper, carefully painted with a myriad of colours. Two caught her eye, side by side the image of a woman and a man, or rather a King and his Queen, she dark haired like Catherine, he dark haired like Richard. In one hand, he held a sword of state, the other held aloft, pointing to a black heart. Catherine frowned.
'Richard is not black hearted' She thought, far from it, he loved his family and his country but what would he be viewed as if he took the throne? A usurper? A tyrant? A traitor? Her body shuddered at the last word and she drew the thin woollen shawl around her body a little tighter.
