For King and Country

Simplicity is Key

Chapter 1

*14 Years Later*

I had a happy childhood. I was raised in a little house atop a little hill, just outside the local village. When you stepped outside, you could see the grids of dirt roads in the village below with smoke rising from the tops of houses and people milling about on their daily business. Outside the village, fields of swaying wheat and hay continued for miles and miles like yards of velvet laid across my mother's table. She was a seamstress. My father was a farmer. My little brother carried milk into town every morning to sell to those who could afford it. My little sisters, Mabel and Mary, spent their days playing with their dolls made of cotton and straw. I cared for them while mother sewed. We all woke with the sun, and my mother immediately began her work. I played with Mabel and Mary and helped my father in the fields when he would let me. They didn't want to brown my skin or rough my hands, so I could make a suitable match someday. I said that I would never take a husband, but my mother didn't take me seriously. No one took that seriously.

So I made breakfast and lunch and brushed my sisters' hair and made sure my brother washed his face, it was good practice for later life, Ma always said, not that I could pretend the children I cared for were mine, like some girls liked to do. Even though we were siblings, I was the black sheep of the family. Mabel and Mary both had long blonde hair, though Mary's had subtle hints of red while Mabel's was all golden. My brother Morris's hair was red and curly, like my mother's. My hair was a deep dark brown. Their eyes were all brown, but mine were a blue green. I looked so different from the rest of my family that my father always made jokes about how I must be the milkman's. Mary would then squeal, "Papa, you are the milkman," making everyone laugh. While the girl's slept and Morris did his chores, I would sit in the loft in a pile of soft hay and read whatever book father brought home from the local bookshop in exchange for milk.

I liked my life, the simplicity of it. I woke, I cared for the little ones, I did my chores, and I went to bed. It was repetitive and full of smiles and laughter. My mother was loving, my father was strong, and I was glad for it. But there was something else, something just beyond my scope of life, that I knew I was missing. It was there the way the taste of rain is before a summer storm. It was anticipation and hope, I guess, that this simple life wasn't all for me.

I always knew that my life would change as I became a woman. As I grew, more often, young men came to pick up their mother's dresses. Then they came to visit with my father. Eventually, my mother became the conspirator, beginning to send me on deliveries into the village but making sure I wore my finest gowns and my hair was perfectly plaited.

That day, the day it all began to change, she was having me deliver a package to the viceroy's wife, Lady Lily. She had made me a new dress for the occasion. Well, the occasion was my seventeenth birthday a few days earlier. She warned me to keep close to Morris on the way to the village in light of the war, then she sent me into town. The war was an eternal part of life, an annoyance that only effected the village's trade occasionally. It had been raging as long as I had been alive, but it had come closer to our village in the past few years, refugees flooding into the town every few months with stories of the two foreign armies that used our lands as a battle ground. One that fought alongside our men, and one that fought against us. It was said to be over a woman, my mother said men lost their minds over nothing else. I said it was because men could get away with anything. 

So I went into town that day, in a beautiful blue dress with intricate silver embroidery on the three quarter length sleeve and along the front lacing bodice. My breasts were mashed flat to my chest and I knew I would draw far too many glances for my liking. I walked with Morris the half mile into town, laughing at his silly jokes, as soon as he escorted me to the viceroy's door, he told me he would meet me at the gates in an hour. I quickly walked up to the door, knocking gently. The butler, Matthew, a balding old man that was friends with my father opened the door.

"Cora, hello dear." He stepped aside to let me in. "Delivery for the Lady?" I nodded with a smile. "Well, the Viceroy is entertaining guests from the capital. Wait here?" I smiled and he hurried off, leaving me standing in the most ornate building in the village. I examined my reflection in the dirtied mirror that hung over the reception hall. I was pretty in a way that was not like the other girls. Most were fair haired and dark eyed. But I was the opposite. My face was oval shaped while the other girls had round shaped faces or hearts. I hated how I looked, how it singled me out. 

I looked down at the overflowing fabric in the basket, wondering how many yards my mother had to buy to cover the Lady's figure. The larger the woman, the more suitable they were for marriage, for baring children, and the Lady was the largest in the village. But she only had two children. Everyone said that it was because she looked like a toad, not because of her figure. I had never been thin as some of the ladies, and my hips were full, something my mother said would help me make a good match.

"This is the nicest building in town! Can you believe it? Lord there are stables at the capital better than this!" An indignant voice said from the top of the stairs, the sounds of boots making me look up.

"Oh your spoiled up bringing is showing." Another voice laughed.

"And yours isn't? The Regent's top general, the son of a high ranking Lord no less, forced to sleep on a lump of hay wrapped in muslin while the flabby daughter of a lowly Viceroy throws herself at the both of us." The two men appeared, both in earth colored tunics and black pants, but both made of rich fabrics. They had swords strapped around their waists and shiny black boots.

"Oh hello, did someone from camp send you?" The second voice I had heard came from a boy with deep chocolate curls and warm brown eyes.

"Umm... I'm here to deliver the Lady's gowns." I said, holding up the basket. The other man, whose sandy hair was barely falling onto his forehead, laughed.

"Of course, we would have noticed a beauty like you wandering at camp." He said, bounding down to stand beside me. "Are you from around here?"

"A farm just outside the village." I said with a nod. The sandy blonde shot me a crooked grin.

"You look just like..." The other boy said before stopping. "You could easily be from the capital. You don't look like these people."

"I hear that a lot," I said, rolling my eyes, but smiling. The dark haired boy looked at me with wonder, examining me, making me feel uncomfortable. The butler reemerged.

"The lady will receive you now," I nodded, stepping back from the sandy haired boy that was standing too close to me.

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"Wait, was is your name?" The curly headed one called after me, I looked over my shoulder at him.

"Cora." I said, before entering the Lady's receiving room, and ignoring the piercing set of eyes I felt on my back. 

Hope you all enjoyed it! The picture at the top is of  Alysia Debnam-Carey. She's the actress I based Cora off of. Don't forget to vote or comment!