Disclaimer: Wow. Last entry. It's been a weird few weeks or so posting. I got more views for this story then I have for others that have been posted for months. Wow. But thank you I hope you enjoyed it. I never intended to write this but I did and I am glad I did because I always loved the two of them as a tragic "What if" couple. I want to post the other story just as soon as I did some editing and I hope you enjoy it as much as this one. Or more. Or not at all your choice.
Warning: This is depressing. More so then the other chapters. Enjoy
My feet weren't working properly. Every step I made, every shift of dirt or creak of wood underfoot was too awkward in my ears. Too unreal. Too not my own.
"Traitor! Off with his head! Long Live the King!"
The shouts are loud. They are jagged and broken, curled underneath my skin and shattering against my bones in the pure hatred behind them. I deserve the hatred. The yells and the curses against my name, against the damning of my soul. After all I had done. All I had in my heart and soul saw fit to commit. The crimes I had taken part in, the prices I had willingly paid.
"Get on with it! Spill his blood! Long Live the King!"
The steps end underneath me and I stumble somewhat on the scaffold, the wood splintered and worn with the stain of blood that still tinges its boards a deep red. All the men and women before me. All the innocents and the guilty. It does not matter when they kneel before the block. A saint or a sinner they are all human, all afraid when they kneel and murmur a prayer under their breath. I cautiously raise my eyes, the swarm of the crowd brokenly gathered together and yelling their curses hot in the chilled air.
"Long Live the King! Damn you to Hell! Off with his head!"
I dig my fingers into my dirt crusted sleeve and desperately search for her face. She said she would be here and I am torn by my desire for her to be safe at home and away from the curses and blood and my unbearable need to see her once more or lose whatever courage I had managed to hold trembled between my fingers. I suddenly see her and the sight of her almost brings me wretched to my knees. She is standing almost lost in the crowd, her face almost unseen by the large man in front of her but she is there. Against the dirt and the grim and the curses and the horror and all the ugliness that this world contains she stands resistant to it all. She smiles faintly and I try to return it but I cannot force it to my lips. I am crushed and broken and the only thing keeping me whole is the trace of smile to her lips, the beauty that even on my deathbed she can remain indifferent to the harshness of the world around her.
"I ask you all to pray for me."
My words are met with boos and more curses. I knew it was futile from the moment I formed the words trembled on my tongue but I had to say them. There was nothing else I could say. No words that could bring me comfort or ease my passage. Just the crowd of those who hated me and the woman I had loved with more fervour and care then an ordinary man could be fit to bear and yet someone I bore it. An ordinary man. In love with an extraordinary woman.
"If you shall not pray for me I plead with you that you pray for my children ..."
My children. My children whom I shall never see again. Hear them laugh or chatter to one another with never ending excitement, hear their footsteps crashing through the hallways or see their words scrawled throughout their letters. I never loved them like I should. Never took to heart the unconditional love they bore to me and that I should have returned. I loved them and love them still but I am not a man who can love proper. Who can look into the eyes of his daughter and tell her that she is beautiful and at the same time singlehandedly condemn himself to treason. I am too much a man I never wished to be, too little a man that my children and wife deserved.
"... And for my wife. Who carries within her no trace of sin or scandal. To whom the King she is forever loyal and loved. May He live long and prosperous."
My wife. The child she carries. The child I shall never meet. Another child that I shall not have the chance to do wrong. Too not love proper.
"I take my leave of this world and of you."
There is nothing else to be sad. Nothing else to be done. All my life I had made my way towards this block, to the crowd of those who hate me and the axe dripped of blood of all those I sent before me. My brother. Thomas. Shall I be reunited with him again? Be reminded of a time when were just children and friends before we became adults and thus enemies. When power was just a distant thought and the throne an unattainable dream we did not question or think twice on.
"Hurry up! Stain the axe with his blood."
I find her eyes again, lock myself in their gaze and all at once I am terrified. I am just a man. Just a husband. Just a father. Not a King. Not an Angel. Not God. And I am afraid. I know what awaits me on the other side and I am not ready to be confronted with it. For a lifetime of mistakes and crimes that now I cannot repent myself of. A small smile of encouragement is at her lips and I slowly kneel, the thud of my knee to the wood like a collision of my fear and courage as my other knee follows until I am knelt before the block.
"Finally! Traitor! May you rot in Hell!"
I brace my hands on either side of the block, the wear and tear of my skin with the dirt coated under my nails to blacken them. I take a deep breath and clench the splintered wood. I cannot make myself lean forward. Cannot make myself lean my head into the groove and now that this is the end. That it is over and I am lost. I am damned.
"May you burn! Traitor! Long Live the King."
I close my eyes and I can see a thousand moments. Hundreds of shattered pieces brokenly placed back together to create a life. To create a poor excuse of them that now is all I have left. A life and a love one which broke me and one which put me back together over and over again. The taste of her lips, the light play of her fingers over mine, the gentle weight of my newborn child in my arms, the soft scent of their hair, the power and corruption weighed on me when the crown was placed on my nephew's head, the knowledge that I stood behind him closest and most trusted to the throne and now damned because of it ... I force my head over the block and rest my neck into the groove. It fits perfectly. Like it was made for me. Reinforcing my belief that my entire life that I had been making my way towards the block and all along it stood here waiting for me.
"Hurry up its cold! Burn in Hell! May you Rot!"
I open my eyes and I search for her again in sudden panic. One more time. I have to see her face one more time. And she is there. Still where she stood, frozen in the crowd and the same sad, encouraging smile on her lips. A thousand moments collide together. They crash and burn and consume me in hundred of memories until I am but ash between my fingers and but a shell of a man that I had always been. A shell forced into action by greed and corruption and a love that broke and made me again and again.
"Get on it with it!"
I pry my fingers from the block and start to stretch them out before me. The silent command that I am ready. That I am willing to die. My arms seem to take forever before they are stretched to their limit. Out to my sides like wings but heavy and chilled like they weigh me down. I lock my eyes with her again as I hear the Executioner step closer with the axe in his hand, the weight of it creased into his fingers with its edges soon to be lined with blood. My blood. Her lips move but I cannot read what they say. What silent message she is trying to bear towards me. The whistle of the axe is broken in the air, a desperate memory cutting through my thoughts as my one last futile attempt on sanity. The first moment I pressed my lips to hers, when we were but children and she pulled away, when I was struck and I was gone and I was hers and never mine ... The axe falls and I can read her lips, the last words she can ever say to me. The last confession and tale that I shall ever hear or know.
I love you.
And I am gone.