Eat the Poor

XXXIV

We stole each day in the light like thieves.

For the rest of August and early September we took private suppers and horseback rides in the country. Philip read books to me in the garden and took me to the high field to see fireworks. The Court watched colors explode in the star-speckled sky while I lay in the King's lap and ate chocolate cake. We chose the courtiers we liked best to sit next to us, to sprawl out in the grass in their cream-colored breeches and suck icing from Philip's perfect fingers.

I did not meet their eyes. Better a lapdog than a street mutt. The words I thought over and over as I dug my nails into the meat of my palm until blood welled up. Better a lapdog than a street mutt.

As a lapdog I ate duck and rabbit and cheese and bathed in saccharine opulence. I felt drunk all the time, even when my glass was empty. I laughed at supper when nothing of humor had been said. They pulled me away and roughed up my collar with a sneer that said, Don't forget where you came from.

And some days I almost did. Almost forgot the streets and the filth and rot. Then I would wake up gasping at night because I had just seen my mother with blood pouring from her eyes or a mob of peasants holding a noose for me.

Traitor. Murderer. Devil.

Philip would hold me until the tears stopped and press our scabbed palms together. Shh, Auden. It's alright. I'm here.

He would kiss my eyelids and the bow of my lips. We slept in a tangle of limbs, shrouded by the canopy curtain.

The King's closest circle excused his disinterest in women with a heart-throbbing tale of his infatuation with Henriette of France. Philip wrote letters to her weekly. Composed songs. Sent gifts.

He is so enraptured, they say, he will not bed a single woman until the day they wed!

Philip became known as a gentle king, a stark contrast to his father. This new young king preferred wine to ale, picnic lunches to hunting trips. He arrived in the center of London in his white-and-gold carriage and bejeweled horses with great plumes atop their heads. He gave baskets of bread out to the people.

Philip the Bread-Bearer, they called him.

No one on Council was particularly pleased with his curious displays of generosity, but their complaints were little more than murmurs in the hall. Clarence Scott, Bishop of Norwich, wrote that His Majesty was 'bending to the will of the poor' and 'making a mockery of the strong fortitude of the Crown'. He was expelled from Court.

Philip set me up in a little room with a gray bed and two dirty windows overlooking the courtyard. "I'm sorry it's so plain," he said as my weight sank heavily into the mattress. "I thought it would be better for you- something more like you're used to."

I said nothing. I knew what he meant. I couldn't keep sleeping in his bed.

He crossed the room and gave my forehead a chaste kiss. "Auden, it's better this way. For both of us. There's been... talk."

I said nothing still. My throat had closed up.

He stared down at me. At last I could not bear the weight of his eyes and looked at his hands instead, loose at his sides. He only wore two rings, one on his first and one on his smallest finger. Emerald and Opal. I felt so pathetic. If he had unbuttoned his breeches and pressed his cock to my lips, I would have got down on my knees and let him fuck my throat.

Better a lapdog than a street mutt.

"I am... worried for you," he murmured.

My head shot up. "Why?"