Ella cleared her throat and dismounted her horse, rubbing her hands together. She stared at the cramped little cottage, the roof in shambles and the paint peeling. The guards hesitated behind her. "Stay on your horses," she commanded with one hand, taking a few slow steps towards the place. The fever her mother had succumbed to in the lateness of her live had, after all, left her delirious and nonsensical. But the will she'd written had seemed clear and concise. Ella had no choice but to follow it, and see if it was true, what her mother had not revealed until both her and Ella's father- or not- had died.
The reader of the will had picked it up in his trembling, old hands and adjusted his glasses. Ella wore all black, and she twisted her wedding rings as she sobbed softly against her husband's shoulder. "To whom it may concern," he'd started.
If it is true, that the great queen Zelda has fallen, we desire to wish these items bequeathed unto those: our entire estate is to go to our beloved daughter, Ella, for her and her kin. In accepting this estate, there are certain conditions that must be met before and after I am in the ground.
Before I am to rejoin the soil of this great country, I wish to be buried with the rose gold rings my daughter wears. She may take mine, as they are now hers as part of her estate.
Ella had refused at first, gaping and staring, but her husband hugged her and assured her that he would happily buy her new rings, and Zelda's could become the new heirloom. She reluctantly peeled them from her fingers and handed them to her husband for safekeeping in his purse.
After I have been safely buried, I wish my daughter to go to a small cottage to the south of the castle, and ask the man inside, if he still lives, if he forgives your mother what she had done in her life. This man is your true father, Ella.
Ella stopped cold and snorted. "Impossible. Mother and Father… she would have been beheaded if I was anyone else's child!" Her heart thumped strangely in her chest, and Ella knew that it was the truth. Though Bertrand had been the one to raise her, she had felt only connected to him at a distance, like a dignitary. And that would explain the strange man who had insisted on dancing with her at the wedding. Zelda had never offered a good explanation for who he was.
Please forgive me for never telling you, my darling child.
The three stared at each other in a dead silence. Ella cleared her throat, and the reader of the will sighed heavily. "Your mother is intelligent; she cannot be beheaded now that she is dead. It is a disgrace to her memory to violate the … her in such a way."
Ella shook her head. "What if he is not my father? Or dead?"
"Then don't worry about it," the reader suggested kindly.
Ella hesitated, taking her first few steps towards the cottage. Beyond the dark windows, she faintly saw movement. Was someone alive? Or her imagination? She took another step forward and gasped in shock as the door was thrown silently, but quickly, open. The man that barricaded it had thick, graying hair past his shoulders, and a long beard. He eyed Ella with suspicious blue eyes, and his clothes were worn and moth-bitten. They stood still for several minutes, until the old man gasped, and his jaw went slack. "Zelda?"
Ella felt tears rolling down her cheeks. "N… no… forgive me, kind sir. I am… Queen Ella. I have come on behalf of the late maj-"
"Your mother," he replied in a cool tone, stepping forward and eyeing the guards. He snorted in derision, and walked forward casually. "You look exactly like her." He took her by the chin and looked into her face, turning it this way and that. Ella could see a flicker of her own face around his nose, something about the curve of it or its bluntness.
"Sir, forgive me, but I have come on behalf of my late mother to ask you… if you forgive her for what she had done."
Link stepped back and sighed heavily. "Come in," he finally spoke, gesturing to the door and going in. Ella hesitated, and looked at the guards. "If I was going to kill you, I could've by now twice over," Link called from inside the house. Ella swallowed and headed in.
The house was mostly dust, but Link was heating a pot of hot water and preparing an ancient and rusty tea ball, getting out two cups that were faded and well-used. "Sit down," he offered. Ella did so, settling at the table and folding her hands primly together. Link let the tea steep- "How do you like your tea?"
"Bitter."
"That's different."
He poured them cups and set down across from her at the table. "Your mother loved her tea sweet, so sweet it could make ye sick."
Ella studied the chipped cup, tracing a faint crack with one nail. "Sir… we buried my mother a few days hence."
He swore and spat. "She outlived me! Because I've gotten useless and fat…" Link wasn't fat at all; he was, in fact, scrawny. But Ella shook her head instead of pointing it out.
"Sir, she made an unusual request that I come here and ask you if you forgive her everything. What did she do that needed forgiveness?"
Link swirled his tea and sighed heavily. "She… betrayed her heart for her country, in so many words." He took a sip.
"So… is it true that you are my father, and not the late King Bertrand?"
Link nodded. "I believe so."
"My mother… chose the king? Why?"
Link cleared his throat. "She loved me with her heart. But we were not to be."
Ella sipped her own tea, silent, trying to take it in. She was not expecting this; she was anticipating a fling, a love-making borne only from a fight with her king husband. "You had an affair?"
Link nodded. "I loved her first, and deeply. Far more deeply than Bertrand ever could." He drained the last of his tea in one fast swig.
Ella bit her lower lip and looked at her hands. "She had me bury her with… different rings than the ones she had always worn. I was wearing them. They were rose gold, and swirled with filigree. Were… those…?"
Link sighed. "We were never formally married, never even engaged. I hid them until a friend knocked sense into me to give them to the rightful owner."
Ella swallowed against the lump in her throat.
Link looked up at her again, and there were tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "Where was she buried?"
"Her grave is in the mausoleum in the royal graveyard."
Link nodded; he would visit it, even if it was the last thing he did. He took a deep shuddering breath and let his tears fall, gripping his arms tightly with his fingers. "Yes, Ella. I forgive her everything."
The next time Ella visited her mother's grave, there were little signs that someone else had been there; the grass was tended, and small flowers grew from the floor, bright yellow and smaller than her big toe. She put her left hand on the grave and closed her eyes. "I forgive you mother," she whispered. She stood there a moment longer, swearing that she could feel someone watching her, or smell a whiff of pipe smoke. But no matter how quickly she turned around, there was no one to see. She left in a rush, climbing back up on her horse and riding off.
Link watched her go, perched in a tree that arched over the graveyard. He took a deep draw off his pipe and smiled sadly. "My queen, I'll love you always. I promise."