The Forgotten Rose {COMPLETED}

Part I: Chapter Twenty-Four - Second Sons

Prince Richard ran about the room giddily, his sister Cecily chased after him her skirts flowing behind her as she did so. "Come on little Dickon." She had called as he ran about on his short legs. The Princesses Elizabeth and Mary laughed at their younger siblings game. The elder two thought of how much more joyful they would be if their brother Edward were with them, their Prince of Wales, he was only six but lived too far from them to visit often. He was Prince of Wales, so in Wales he had his household.

"Dickon." Princess Elizabeth said to her brother as she placed her needlework down on the table, and Prince Richard smiled, he liked it when she called him Dickon, it was his uncles name but somehow it had become his. But the young Prince quickly turned his attention away from his sister and continued to run about. "Dickon, do stop that. Mother shall be coming shortly, she shall not want you so frantic. Little Annie does not like it when you run about like a fool." Princess Elizabeth continued. Richard looked blankly at his elder sister, wondering if he should follow her commands but then Cecily bounced up from behind him and set him off again.

"Will the two of you stay still for a moment." Mary ordered them to no avail. She too put down what she was doing upon the table and watched as Richard and Cecily chased one another about. "You are too big to be playing silly little games, Cecily."

"No, I am only seven. I am not betrothed like Elizabeth and you, I do not have to be like you. I can play all I like." She protested with her spindly arms upon her hips. "Lady Anne let me play with Dickon when she came to court."

"But Lady Anne is not here, now come sit and do some needlework. And you are betrothed, to Scotland. That is why they call you Princess of Scotland." Princess Elizabeth laughed at her sister. "Do you ever listen?"

"Yes." Cecily said bluntly. "But it shall be forever until I marry," She sulked, "and even father says that Scotland is a bad match."

"No he doesn't, he says it is a good match. You shall bring peace to the border in marrying James Stewart of Scotland." Mary corrected Cecily. "Now come and sit before Lady Elizabeth comes back and finds you being such a child."

Cecily folded her arms across her chest and slumped down on the chair next to Mary. She took up the cloth she had put down earlier and began to continue sewing her York rose. Someday her own children would be doing this with her. Her own Princesses of Scotland sat around her embroidering a dozen patterns onto silks. But, if they wanted to play, she would never stop them.

Prince Richard did not sit with his sisters, he sat upon the floor cross legged and began to play with the jewellery from Princess Elizabeth's jewellery box, which he had knocked onto the floor earlier that afternoon.

"Do you think there shall be another war?" Elizabeth asked only Mary. Her eyes were darkened by the thought, she did not wish to see her father go off to battle again. Not without the certainty of victor. She remembered the last time there was war, a true war with real battles; not what had happened in France. A war when thousands died and a victor was made. When there had last been a war like that, she had been four and her sisters three and one; they fled into sanctuary where their brother Prince Edward was born. A year they waited for their fathers victory and in the end it came. But at a cost, many good men died that was what her father had told her. And good men shouldn't die, but in war they always seemed to come first.

"Why would you ask such a question, Bess?" Mary replied as Lady Elizabeth Darcy brought their mother into their presence.

"Because uncle George is spreading rumours, he calls our parents marriage invalid and our father a bastard." Elizabeth had almost forgotten her younger siblings with near her. She hadn't noticed her mother or her Lady Elizabeth enter. When she did she quickly rose and curtsied. "Mother, Lady Elizabeth."