Part 7

The sun had come up, the moon had set. The stars had hidden themselves away behind the morning sky. The clouds still moved in the gentle breeze, and birds were singing. Voices were heard from down below, orders, shouts for more hands. I could hear footsteps along the hallways and the sounds of mais whispering outside my door.

Why was the world still going? Had it not heard what had happened? That my mother, father, uncles and aunts, cousins, and brother were dead in the throne room? On my bedroom floor? That my mother in his grief had tried to give me mercy before he left too?

How could it go on? How could it go on as if nothing had changed? How could it go on as if nothing had changed when everything was different?

“Little princess?” Lionel tries again, “You need to eat and rest. It's a shock, I know, all that's happened. Eat and rest and we will speak afterwards.”

Again I said nothing, for there was nothing I could say. He seemed to understand this, he opened the white-painted doors of the guest room and spoke to the group of maids that awaited him outside. What felt like mere seconds later I was being gently positioned in the bed, into a better sitting position with more pillows behind me and blankets wrapped tight around my lap and shoulders. A tray was carefully placed over me. I remember it was filled with food but I have never been able to remember what was on it. I do not remember the taste or the smell of it, nor if I had been able to eat it at all. I remember that some sips of water, or wine, were slipped down my throat by careful hands at worried murmuring.

The next thing I remember was waking when the duck had set into the sky, Sir Lionel was looking over me from behind the doctor my father had always called upon when my brother or cousins and I were ill. That was the only face I recognized throughout the blur that followed, for all the faces and people around me whom I know I must have known, I could not keep any of them in mind long enough to recognize them.

Words were said, but again I did not hear them, however close to me they were spoken. The months I stayed there, in the palace I had once called home after it all had happened, were just a mindless blur filled with constant silent tears and pitying looks from all who saw me.

Except for Lionel, he had shed a tear or two in the time we were there.