…

Her hand shook only slightly as she broke the seal to release the cords. ‘Steady Elizabeth’ she thought to herself as she spun out the actual act of opening the casket. Slowly she removed the cord rolling it into a ball which she carefully placed aside. Then with her right hand she swept the broken pieces and dust of crumbling wax into the left. They filled the palm, the inner colour of the larger pieces showing a lighter tint than the outer dusty skin. Suddenly she could not bear to simply discard this reminder of her father. It was like a physical pain in her heart as she held the shards. He had melted this wax and applied his seal to it she felt tears sting once more, tears which had long been held at bay since she had retrieved the box and letter from its hidden place that morning.

Standing again she looked around the room in a panic. ‘I must preserve this’ she muttered, ‘where, where?’ Breathing deeply to calm herself she found a small velvet pouch from amongst her baubles, unceremoniously dumping out the brooch it contained to carefully pour from her hand the dried up wax fragments. The small bundle was then placed in the bottom of her jewel case and covered over with her bits and pieces, pearls, gold chains and a great many rings which she loved to wear. Closing the lid she grasped the case with both hands and leant forward slumping in a most unladylike way, her hair falling over her shoulders in a great wavy curtain, tears falling unheeded, the force of her sorrow making her shake to her toes.

In time she raised both hands to gather her hair either side of her face and toss it back over her shoulders. Of their own choice it seemed her hands rested on her neck, circling it gently. She had heard in one of her eavesdropping moments that her mother had stood so in the tower before she died saying “I have but a small neck”, following the words with hysterical laughter.

Elizabeth too had spent time in the tower on the orders of her sister Mary. She had felt fear of possible death but it could have been nothing to the actual knowledge of death her mother had suffered within those walls. Standing there she pressed her hands more firmly into the white flesh, felt the bones of her spine with the fingertips, imagined the blood pulsing through her veins, a shudder shook her as she released the grip, dropped them to her sides and clenched them into tight fists. Many times she had stood so imagining what it must have been like, what it could possibly have felt like in that last second as the cold steel of the French swordsman had swept through the bone and tissue of Anne’s slender neck. They had said no pain but surely there would be pain however brief? A mere prick with a sharp needle by a careless prod when embroidering was painful enough, a sudden stabbing followed by blood. Steel into flesh must make for pain Elizabeth felt sure and did the head in the swiftness of the action feel stunned as it struck the rough wooden planking of the scaffold. In death did her mother have a great bruise marring her beauty as she lay in her cold grave? Did Anne’s head land on its nose to bring forth even more blood? Did her lips become torn, her teeth broken as the force of the fall was met by those hard boards or did the straw, which there would surely have been, scattered there to greedily absorb the blood making it a gruesome mess to spread on the tower vegetable garden later as feed for the plants, did it make for a cushioned landing? These and similar thoughts had given the childish Elizabeth many nightmares. To her young mind the idea of a dark bruise or other injuries to that gentle face seemed more horrifying than all that went before.

Clearing her wildly rambling mind with a shake of her head she faced the desk once more. The chest sat there patiently waiting. “I know” she sighed loudly, “I prevaricate.” Elizabeth addressed it in a mutter but did not return to the desk. She strode around the room for the umpteenth time that day stopping to splash water on her hot face then with exaggerated casualness sat herself by her mirror to roughly comb through her hair.

“I will read what he has to say. Of course I will. Tis only words. Gad! but words can cause pain too.” She tugged harder at her hair which was slowly drifting out from her head in a huge golden red aura then flung down the comb in an imitation of temper. She was not angry, she was afraid.

“A defence you say? A defence sire? There can be no defence.”

She glared at her own reflection breathing heavily from the emotion of her fear, her pain. Slowly she calmed herself her great dark eyes staring into the great dark eyes of her reflection. “Father, father there can be no defence.” The voice was calm now, hope that the box contained some sort of release for her, sadness for all that had gone before, a surety that she was to be deceived by her father’s words, shame that she should think such thoughts, her mind whirled to drive her near as demented as she had often thought her father to be. Mayhaps that was the true curse of her family, that they were all mad in the end. She broke the eye contact with her other self and saw also reflected in the mirror the casket, still sitting on the desk behind her, patiently awaiting her further investigation.

“Gad! Let it be now then. I will, I will.” It could not be borne one minute longer she decided as in a swooping movement her skirt swishing around her she left the stool to throw herself into the chair at the desk. Sticking her chin out and pressing her shoulders back she grasped the lid of the chest, breathed deeply and raised it.

……