𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄 || 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑾𝑯𝑰𝑻𝑬 𝑸𝑼𝑬𝑬𝑵

𝐶𝐻𝐴𝑃𝑇𝐸𝑅 𝑋𝑉𝐼𝐼

~Little Love~

4th of August 1464, Westminster Confinement ....

Her pains started at sunset, when she'd been sewing by the fire with her ladies at her side, each dressed in their array of orange gowns lit by glowing light. She had been so terrified, so scared when she felt the first bolt of burning pain shoot through her belly, that she had cried out, dropping her embroidery to the fur covered floor.

She'd thought she was loosing her child, could almost see her baby being carried away in blankets sodden with blood and tears but Anne had merely clapped her hands so the others leapt to their feet.

"What do we do?" Margaret asked, panicked as Beth and Katherine took the Queen by the arms, guiding her to her bed. Isabel Neville had never been present at a birth before and now, as Constance almost doubled over in pain, tears burning her eyes, her heart began to pound erratically. She didn't know what to do she didn't know what to say, she could hardly think!

"Undress her!" Anne ordered before taking to unlacing the Queen's gown herself; nimble fingers working down the purple velvet at an unknown speed before pulling the dress from her shoulders "Fetch water!" She ordered, looking at Isabel while her sisters worked on the Queen's shoes and kirtle "And towels, now!"

"It's alright, dear" Beth reassured Constance as she climbed onto the bed in her shift, breathing heavily as if she were trying to claw the air into her lungs. She hardly remembered James' birth, she only remembered his little face, how perfect he'd been.....

"I don't want to lose him....I can't lose him...." She gasped, pressing her head into the pillows. Beth shook her head, taking away the covers of the bed until only a plain sheet remained.
"You won't, sister! We will see this baby delivered and by dawn you shall have a York Prince in your arms!"

Constance nodded, tried to think, to keep herself conscious while pain coursed through her veins but that had been almost two days ago now. Covered in a veil of sweat that made her shift stick to her skin and dampened her hair; the pillow beneath she lay in agonising despair. Incense skewed her senses, assailing her nose with a thick cloud of rosemary and lavender that made her mind reel.

For forty eight hours she had been lying on her godforsaken bed, trying to push the babe from her body but it refused to come no matter how hard she tried. She had pushed, she had screamed, clawed at the covers until they were in danger of ripping. She felt like she was being torn apart from the inside but still her baby refused to be born.

She was starting to worry and she could feel her ladies, the midwives begin to worry too. All around her, their muffled voices murmured how they had scarcely seen such a difficult birth. Between themselves they murmured solutions, murmured consequences of those solutions, some as if she were not even there, as if she was just an object to be set aside in favour of the baby.