No Fury

Then: Five

From that day on, we met secretly on the trail each Saturday after he met his uncle, and sat together, hidden in the tall grass. The prince would bring me a scrap of silk to dress my dolls and I would braid grass into baskets, and we would tell the stories of our lives.

They were so disparate, our two worlds, even though I lived in a tiny cottage just outside his tall, arching window. Living mere meters apart, but our lives looked nothing alike. We could have said anything and the other might have believed:

My father trains me to fight dragons. I must defeat the one at the top of the mountain before I can wear the crown.

We must clean the ale house floors with brushes we weave from our fallen hair.

The castle cooks feed us roasted unicorn and berries made from gold.

We share a bed, the four of us, in a room full of rats.

But we didn't tell those stories; we told the truth.

His father wasn't cruel, just cold.

My family brewed all of the ale for the castle servants. I could barely stand the smell of the mash but that scent would be my life. It would always be my life.

The girls that came to his father's rooms were young. Too young. He didn't think he would ever want so many.

I hated my choices, hated the size of my world. Hated that I could be whipped if I was found talking to him. Hated the men who came to the ale house, with their wandering hands and lewd tongues.

His most shameful admission: He didn't want to be king.

My greatest blasphemy: I wanted to be queen.

And together, we were safe.

We talked for as long as we dared-until the sun cast shadows on the opposite side of the old oak tree-and then he would stand, and I would bow.

"I will return next week," he would always say.

I never said it back because I didn't want to make him a promise I could not keep.

For a year he was mine every Saturday. And then one morning, ten weeks after we turned thirteen, we met on the trail and he held out a bracelet of woven flowers.

"My uncle taught me to do that. Said to give it to you."

I blinked up to his face. "He knows about me?"

"Aye." He handed it to me, not touching my skin. "Cathryn?"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"Cathryn," he repeated. He stood quietly for several long minutes and then turned, walking away. He didn't say he would be there next week, and we never had a Saturday together again.