December 23

Thank you to author Natasha Gennady Robinson for sharing her creative writing with us as today’s Advent Calendar treat...

The Merry Soul.

The royal palace was clothed in winter white, a serenity without which lay a pitiless hand of frost upon the fortunes of those within. The leaden roof tiles all wore their own cloak of silvery ice, which shone in the moonlight, and afforded them a look of sublime enrobement, with such a profound beauty born of simplicity, that the very rooftops out shone that regal decadence worn within. About the chimney stacks, the sheer whiteness of the snow was dotted with black, like ermine, not only by the soot which stained the tops of the chimneys, but by nesting black birds whom made their homes there, in the pretence of survival, fortified through the long winter by the chimney’s persistent warmth.

Within the palace, a fire raged in every hearth in every corner, and only the open air of the courtyard gave warrant to the noble lords in their complaint of the winter’s chill. As if in testimony to the frozen stillness without, life within the palace had stopped still, both swiftly, and with alike frigidity, and as the night hours persisted toward day, barely a mouse stirred in the industry of merriment.

In the King’s chambers a celebratory game of cards had ceased mid tournament with the King left alone before the remnants of a deliberately conceded loss. Before him, upon the table top, stood a bevy of pretty piles of coin, each containing twelve, and all together four and twenty pounds worth of gold lay before him. To the King, the pretty piles of wealth bore insult in their inanimate witnessing of his sudden grief. Before his descent into accumulated bitterness, and before his assumption of the infamous title of ill temper, the legendary proportions of which would warrant an eternal infamy of the same; and of the age not quite twenty four, King Henry VIII did wallow then in the reckoning of profound loss. His cheek pressed upon the tabletop. His tears wetting the paltry pack of cards which had not long ago been cast upon the tabletop in all good hope. Such bitter grief in its fresh deliverance upon so young a man cleaved sheer and sharp into his very soul, his heart pierced by pain, which would indemnify an early reckoning of ill luck which afforded an early education into the realm or mortal things; once was ill luck, thrice was clearly God’s intent on cruelty.

A child born and robbed, so swiftly, and taken before breath were drawn in this world was a child lost and gained only in the delusion of an affirmative faith. He did not live, thus never had lived, and if he had lived, he did not live long enough to warrant the loss of one living. One can only then grieve for that which might have been, but as God’s cruel witness, never was. And thus he was left alone, the King in his chambers, before a table top of gold, and a heart of sadness in the dank depths of ill fortune.

The Queen’s parlour, in great difference, was then filled with people. With attendants, physicians and maids, it seemed the Queen would be afforded many comforts, but not that of dignity. The Queen made not a sound nor a whisper, and it was that which gave credence to the plague of physicians whom did hover about her bedchamber, and muttering with heads shaking, that as she bade no recognition of that which went on about her, they feared the lady insane. It seemed true to those men of letters and leeches, that hysteria was a thing inherent of woman’s more extreme conditions, thus the Queen’s silent civility bore clinical indication of a sinister affliction of the mind. With cries and screams, woman might lay claim to a baser torment, which must be outed that an inner tranquillity might be attained through such violent purging; therefore, a woman afflicted with such earthly agonies as the Queen had recently borne, whom had all the while lain still and quiet as a lamb, was clearly not of sound mind nor sound reasoning, thus clearly unaware of her stark predicament.

Said the physician of a greater reckoning, a title born ever of his own marvellous ego; that they must break the Queen of her silence and thus be sure of her sanity. Said the tired physician, whom yawned with each interjection of his colleague; that they must at the least have her woken from her sleep. Both admitted a want to see the Queen lucid, and both resented being kept any longer from their beds. Nevermind that the Queen had herself been awake some three days in her labour and delivery, and the silence which did follow; men of their worth were a superior race and thus must be afforded their proper rest. Both physicians had dined very well from the King’s own table, and both had washed their eminent throats with the finest of his wines and thus felt themselves entirely worthy of such merit as would excuse their coming cruelty.

The Queen had been sustained those wee small hours with bread soaked in milk and honey, a meal which required barely the consciousness required for swallowing; she would not take wine nor any food which might be taken with mirth. In her profound loss, the heartbroken Queen could no longer happily abide the habits of the living. Queen Catherine was still in the dew of youth, of copper hair plaited beneath her night cap, and burnished in its warm beauty upon her shoulder. Of clear blue eyes which shone like the sea off the Iberian Coast of her youth. And still her complexion now took on new alabaster tones of paleness. But she did not then weep nor took upon herself the mask of one whom had lost, and thus the physicians sought then the familiar hallmarks of a significant awareness.

“Majesty!” In loud assuming tones. “I would beg of thyne forgiveness.” And coughed as if self conscious. “I fear to tell thee, dear Majesty, thou hast given birth to a child this very evening, but alas that child were never living.” Then with a clearly self important objective. “Pray give me sign of thyne understanding of it, myne good Queen, for we are afeared of thyne insensibility!” And the doctor’s role in the ruthless tableau was complete

And it was then as if the cruel physician had plunged a knife into the lady’s heart, for she gasped as if dragged from drowning in the deep, drawing sudden breath. The Queen then began to weep, though she said not a word, but only nodded her head in her assent of the fact. Yes, she knew that her babe had been born lifeless, and felt keenly again the pain of his inanimate form as it was drawn lifeless from the sanctuary of her body.

The physician, pleased with the effect of his pernicious prescription, nodded his head knowingly, and patted his patient’s hand as a father would assure an injured child with no care but to make the child quiet.

“And thou shalt rest.” Spoke he, reassuringly, and took his leave of the bereft Queen.

With puffed up chest, said the first physician to the second; “Our job be now well done, and she shalt suffer, but shalt take soon the rally of her condolences.” A prognosis the doctor would make with less and less resolve as the case was repeated in the years that followed.

The first physician, full of his own purpose, attempted to make report to the King of the Queen’s condition, but the King would admit no one to his chamber. The second physician went happily to his bed.

And the winter dawn finally brought forth a new day. In the bleak first light the restive blackbirds which then nestled beside the chimney stacks atop the palace, awoke and shook the snow from their jet feathers, plumping and ruffling them that they might dry themselves in the early sun. The raven coloured pair then began their day with a song, a duet sung to the dawn, for they had lived another night through, and soon with the spring, would begin anew their growing brood.

Natasha Gennady Robinson began her journey as an historical writer after reading Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, which led to an insatiable curiosity for British History, which in turn led her to stumble nearly a decade ago upon a fledgling Tudor History website known as ‘The Anne Boleyn Files’. She has never looked back!

Natasha has purposefully developed an unusual style of writing which she calls ‘Historical Quasi-Fiction’ the essence of which combines a driven passion for in depth research presented in the form of lyrical prose and early modern poetry. Natasha has since penned over one hundred short stories about the Tudor Era and means to publish a collection of these called ‘The Raven and the Writing Desk: Tales of the Tower of London’ in 2020.