No Fury

Then: Seven

Eleven weeks after we turned thirteen, the prince was taken away. To France, they said.

He was home for only a fortnight and then he left again. To Spain, they said.

He came home a year later, different: taller and broader, yes of course. But he was no longer only a presence because he was sunshine and life and beauty. He was a presence because he'd learned he needed to be.

I was taller, too. I took after my father in length, in shape. Mother cursed my narrow hips and small arms. I could not yet lift the kettle alone. But I also had Da's spirit: stone and fire.

The prince's mind had aged. We could all see it in his eyes when he stood beside his father as the king delivered an address. The king was adding a tower, you see. A tower fit for a queen. He needed men to build it. He needed greater kitchens to feed the men. His family would be growing in the coming years and we all had reason to rejoice.

The prince had been away learning leadership and love, and the politics and war in each. He knew now what it meant to rule. He knew he was expected to take on a wife. To have children; a house of future rulers.

It breaks something inside us to know that we won't ever slay the dragon with the sword or discover a diamond the size of a fist beneath the ale house. To know we have to be king, we can't ever be queen. We have our path and we trudge down it.

The prince's eyes flickered directly to me, buried in the dusty crowd, and then away.

But just before they did, I thrilled to see that his eyes were the same at least: still sunshine dancing beneath the sea. When he swallowed, he looked like a man: throat bobbing, skin tanned. His jaw darkened with the hint of a beard beneath the ruddy pink.

I walked from the ale house to the woods, fetching nettle and sage for Mary.

He rode past me on his mare, so close in a field of nothing I could only believe he meant to knock me over. I fell to my knees and stared down at the grass in a gesture of supplication.

A quiet thump rustled the grass.

Before my knees was a doll. Her skirts were made of delicate green silk, her skin of porcelain. Her hair was velvet and felt like air between my rough fingertips. Brown, like my own. Her eyes were glass. Blue, like my own.

"From Spain," he told me. "Your doll. Made to look like you."

Dust kicked up behind his horse as he disappeared into the stand of trees.