Everyone knows of Alice, but what of the Queen of Hearts?
This is the tale of Catherine Howard, a girl turned woman far too soon, and queen shortly after. When her forbidden love brings the wrath of King Henry VIII down on her, falling down a rabb...
She exhaled, squeezed her eyes, and slowly lowered her cheek to the cold stone surface again, practicing the moment she would die.
Her hands quivered and tears burned at the corners of her lashes. It still wasn't perfect, not dignified. She sat upright, inhaled a pained breath, then released it and tried again.
Catherine had entered womanhood at the ripe young age of thirteen. She had liked the way the boys gasped at her assets, and she enjoyed the way men turned her way when their wives weren't looking. Now, only a few years later, she couldn't help but wonder what could have been had she remained a child a season longer, if she hadn't have stolen the affections of the king.
Had she known then that her playful smiles and subtle glances would have lead to her imprisonment, she would've sewn her lips shut and plucked each lash one-by-one. She hated the man, the king, who was so infatuated with her.
She dreaded every night that he summoned her to his chambers and smothered her thin frame with his fat and heavy body. It wasn't love that he did to her in the dark of night. It was an awful mix of lust and defilement, and Catherine wondered if the heavens truly blamed her for the sin that had sealed her fate. After all, the only sin she was guilty of was falling in love.
† ♥ † ♥ † ♥ †
It was a brief encounter, their first. No one would have suspected it-the queen and the fool, but it only took a simple little game for their fates to be sealed.
"Pick a card, my love," he'd said one stormy eve.
She'd pulled a Jack of Hearts.
"And here I have the Queen. Strange."
Yes, strange indeed.
At first they'd only exchanged innocent glances in passing. But as their hearts slowly began to bend to the desire of the other, passings in the hall soon became more frequent. Whispers in the dark led to lingering fingers on bare skin as two hearts slowly aligned like the stars in the vast expanse of the night sky.
It was unlike anything she'd ever felt, and she certainly felt nothing of the sort when in the bed of the king. His touch was the definition of love, and his caresses burned like candle fire in a dark room, slow and steady, yet hot and secret. He unraveled every bit of her and she of him, and they slowly fell further and further into each other.
There was something about the forbidden nature of it all that lured her in all the more. She craved him, and the more she gave, the more she needed, and after a while, she'd finally given him everything. She had no regrets for desire had consumed them both, and in their slow undoing, they became reckless.
They'd met too frequently, or perhaps their glances had become far too revealing. Maybe they hadn't been careful enough when running through the dark, hand-in-hand, hearts racing and feet following to their secret place to make love again and again. Or perhaps God had simply had enough of their treachery.
Whichever it was it mattered not. It had ended their happiness in a single night. They ran hand-in-hand through the dark like so many nights before, only that time they knew would be their last. They were frantic, and even the skies cried as they fled from the shadows that had been watching. But he didn't release her hand, not until she was safely back to her quarters.
Her eyes, wide and afraid, found his in the dim candlelight. His eyes reflected her fear and, without words, she knew their fates were sealed.
"I have no regrets," he'd whispered before pressing his lips to hers. She wrapped her shaking hands around him and savored the moment for as long as she could.
"I have no regrets," she'd echoed.
He smiled and touched a hand to her cheek. "If we die, let us die with dignity, My Queen." With his final words, he pulled a card from behind her ear, his final act. She took it and held it to her bosom and watched as he faded into the night like an angel fallen from grace but not defeated.
† ♥ † ♥ † ♥ †
Rising from the cold stone surface, Catherine searched her bosom for the only treasure she had left. A single playing card. Jack of hearts. He still held the queen somewhere on his lifeless body. It was a simple token of their forbidden love, one that brought fresh tears to her dull eyes and a faint smile to her pale lips.
My sweet little fool.
Footsteps sounded down the hall, interrupting her passionate reverie with the grim horrors of the present. A small opening at the base of the iron door opened, and a tray slid through, just as it had every day at this time since she first arrived in that dark and dismal prison cell. On it was the usual portion of cold, lumpy porridge of a rather odd hue of gray-oh how she missed the delicacies of the king's dining hall! And beside the porridge lay a single rose.
A small note tied to the rose read, To my rose without thorns. It was his last token of affection, not from her lover, her husband. The king, who had so quickly stolen her youth and her life, still made her his obsession. But he was deadly wrong.
She picked up the thornless rose, hating that she'd ever accepted it the first time he'd given her such a gift. It was never true. With a single motion, she removed the bud from the stem and threw it into the dark corner with all the other thornless roses.
Little Catherine returned her card to her bosom and placed her cheek against the cold stone once more, her eyes clear and her hands steady, for she would die strong and brave and with dignity, for she was a rose with many thorns indeed.
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