The Heir

The screams that echoed off of the walls were that of a woman in agony. Never before in her life had she imagined such pain, such torture, never in her years could she have imagined the searing pain that was consuming her from the inside out.

“Push!” the midwife said sharply, and the woman on the table wailed, the sweat and tears dripping from her chin.

The room was dark and heavy with smoke, and shackled to the main table was a woman, only 20, screaming with the pains of child birth. She moaned and wailed and no one in the room took pity on her, and they had not for the past 20 hours she had been in labor.

Her eyes were riveted on the ceiling as she dimly heard the midwife exclaim that she could see the crown. Her fingers were slick and the pain had traveled to the back of her eyes, oh, who knew if she could make it? With one last heave, her head fell against the table with a thud as her eyes fluttered shut.

The room was silent except for the beat of the flames against the wind and the labored breathing of all in the room, until finally a cry pierced the air. Red and angry sat the babe and as the midwife cleaned it she turned to the other character in the room.

“What would you have done with it your Eminence?”

“Kill it.”

“Please,” came the hoarse reply, and both midwife and King looked upon the woman as she struggled to lift her head “please just,” she sobbed “just let me hold it. Don’t, God please don’t.” The midwife sniffed as she wrapped the babe in rags to disguise its shape and the woman wailed. “Please! Oh God, please. Don’t do this! Don’t,” and she screamed as she watched the midwife walk out of the door.

She screamed, and the king stood by and watched her pain.

“I hope every day you sit in that miserable cell for the rest of your life that you remember this pain, that every time you think of hope, that you remember this moment. Remember the time that I paid back all of the love and hope and happiness that you ripped away from me.” The king said, and the woman only shook her head.

“Oh God, you think that this is right? That this is just? You have no idea! You will rue this day, you think the pain I caused you was awful? The death of your heir was more than just my hand your Eminence, perhaps you should think on that.” She spat, and as he turned to go, she screamed at him. “Don’t sleep too well, because the day will come when I will return this favor.” At this he turned back around with dark eyes

“Don’t seek to destroy what is already broken. That is what you have created, I am broken from your actions, and that makes me very dangerous, I would watch your tongue.”

“Destroy? You think I would destroy you? No, I am going to cripple you. I am going to leave you desolate on the floor as you watch everything you love burn to ashes, and I am going to watch as you crawl towards everything you have built, with no hope of saving it. I will smother everything you see light in, do not doubt me.” She finished with a sob

“I highly doubt that a person who will never see the light again should keep her promise in that.” He said with a finality as he closed the door. Outside the King stumbled a few steps before sinking down against a wall, his breath coming in haggard clumps. He knew that he should never have stepped foot in that room, knew no good would come of it, but his pride and the broken half of him, needed to watch.

He didn’t know why, but he had hoped that watching the look on her face as she had the few things she loved ripped from her would give him some closure. The woman had killed his only family, his wife, his son, and had the audacity to laugh in his face.

There were still things to live for, still a country to live for, but never before had it seemed to be of so little consequence.

“Your Eminence?” his head snapped up at the voice, and saw with surprise the midwife standing before him.

“What?” It came out sharper than he had meant, but the midwife gave no sign of offence.

“I did not want to say this in there, she was too conscience at the time, but I thought you should see something.” She gestured to the door across from him, and he followed her in.

“Two,” he breathed out, at the sight of two newborn babes on the table, still wrapped in rags “How –“

“The second was much smaller; she practically fell out after her sister in comparison. She was so small and quiet, I am not surprised you did not notice.”

The king took a step forward to inspect them more closely, they were small things, the second of the babes no bigger than his hand, but both seemed to have intelligent eyes. He immediately recognized them for their mother’s eyes, and he resisted the urge to flinch.

“The small one, she looks so frail, I don’t know how she survived.” He mused out loud

“It’s most likely that the bigger one sucked up most of the nutrients in the womb, this one probably won’t make it through the night. Best to kill it anyways, it would suffer.” Perhaps it was the words of the woman still shackled to the table, or the broken half of him, or perhaps it was the whole half of him, but something tugged a word out of the King’s lips.

“No.” The midwife glanced at him, and he sighed and even though he had not really meant for the word to come out of his mouth, he also knew that it was the right word. “There has been so much bloodshed, and I have lost so much, and come too far to spill the blood of something so innocent.” Pushing the thoughts of his now dead family away, he picked up the larger of the babes and looked to the midwife.

“You will never speak a word of this night. These children were never born, that woman does not exist, and I was never here.” He turned to go with the child in his arms, before the midwife stopped him.

“What of the other child, Your Eminence?” He looked back at the small thing before turning again.

“If it lives through the night find a place for it somewhere.” He said before he mounted his horse and rode for the palace with a child in his arms. A child, he thought and hoped, would bring about a new peace in his land, and maybe mend the broken half of his self.

Later

The floor here was clean.

She stared at it for the majority of the walk, but perhaps walk was too generous a word. Drag was more appropriate. Here and there would be a stone that had yet to be smoothed by the numerous feet that had walked upon them and it would peel away at the skin on her feet.

The fresh air was strange. She couldn’t remember the last time she had smelled it.

Maybe it had only been days, but it felt like years and years and years.

Arms aching from being dragged so indignantly away she attempted to adjust her eyes to the light. Most days when the door to the cramped cell opened it was for a few seconds as a bucket was tossed into the room before the door shut. So even though it was surprising to be dragged out at long last, it was mainly a relief.

Having to wait for execution in the dark had slowly begun to gnaw at the ropes of her mind. The thoughts that she had believed to be her own had slowly begun to grow into monsters that lurked in the corners of her body and her cell. They would grab at her face and hiss ugly menacing things in her ears, and when she slept they would wrap their arms around her waist, cooing away the manners in which they would like to break her.

The walk was short, so when the two guards deposited her unceremoniously onto the floor of a lobby, she found herself somewhat confused. Shallow breaths escaped her as she glanced up to see that she was not alone. Pushing herself up onto her knees she began to shakily get to her feet.

“I suppose,” She began, wincing at the grinding rasp that came out of her throat “that you will have to excuse my attire. Had I known that his Highness Crown Prince would be joining us, I would have put my good rags on.” She sneered.

Only a few feet away sat the boy prince. He could be only 16 perhaps 18 if you wanted to stretch it out. Put in his finery and his ridiculous crown, he was no more than a boy at play. How foolish was his father to bring him here? To put him in a chair so close to her. She couldn’t decide if she should be insulted or pleased at the outcome. At her comment one of the numerous guards posted throughout the room tensed.

“I must admit, and perhaps that this is ignorance on my part,” she continued to muse out loud “that I have never heard of any member of the royal family attending the executions.” The shackles about her jangled as she rolled her shoulders, and watched as the boy prince attempted to put a fierce look upon his face, but she could practically smell the apprehension sticking to his skin.

“Perhaps, a new tradition, as heir I am quite entitled to that.” Oh, she barked out a laugh, how delicious he was. She wanted to feel the snap of his windpipe being crushed beneath her foot. How much bravado he provided.

“Oh look,” she crooned “look at the boy in his fine play clothes, and his shiny toy crown. Look at how he strives to make his father’s shoes fit his own, how large the throne feels on his back, oh it must burn you to be so pathetically suited for the livery you wear. Your Highness.” She sang out, and only laughed when a guard behind her shoved her to the ground

“I would watch you words, mind you, but I doubt you have forgotten where you stand.” He said standing

“Or what?” she cracked “You’ll throw me in the dungeons, or execute me? Oh.” she said softly “It seems daddy dearest has already beat you to the punch. Tsk. How heavy is the crown on your head?” The guard behind her kicked her in the ribs, and the prince watched as he continued to beat her into submission.

“I’m here to ask you a few questions about some people that I’m sure you want very much to learn about.” He said calmly, and she pulled herself to her knees, spitting and wiping away the combination of spit and saliva and blood that had spun like webs across her face.

“Questions. That is what you drag me here for? Do you have any idea how many times I have been questioned? Most of the time they like to use fire, they think for some stupid reason that I have a particular weakness to it. Other times they like to use sharp tools and blunt force on my skin and bones, but I have never said a word. So what, dear Prince, makes you think that a clean room and a pathetic mutt,” she snarled at the guard behind her “will make me speak to you of all people.”

“Because I came here to tell you about your children.” And even though she knew that he must be taunting her, that he must of twisted it out of his pathetic father, that even though she knew, she knew he was a liar, it still made the breath in her chest stop and reverse for a moment.

“You’re a worse liar than your father.”

“I suppose you would know.”

“Did he send you here? To taunt me, to hold and lord all of this above me? Did he think that this would somehow make me give something up? My last will and testimony” she sang out “how pathetic. Did he think that the guilt of nothing would make me say something? What did he think you would accomplish here?” and when she saw the hesitation in his eyes, she felt the load in her stomach lighten a bit.

“Oh.. oh, no. It can’t be. Don’t tell me, that daddy doesn’t know you’re here?” She cackled as the prince winced “Oh, that’s good. Did you think you could prove yourself to him if you could break me? That you would be a man if you could break a woman? I bet you don’t even know how to hit a woman, let alone touch her? Do you know what that thing in your pants does child, or is it still a piece of dead jerky to caress on the dark nights and foggy mornings?”

“Enough!” He said, red-faced as he stood, pacing back and forth

“Go home, your highness, this is not your place.” She said softly, more out of pity than anger. He was a boy, attempting to fill the shoes of a great man, and this was no great man before her.

“Do you ever think about them? About your children?” He asked, looking her in the eyes

“It was only one, and no, I don’t. Sometimes I think about the weight of them, but that’s all I know.” She lied easily, but he shook his head.

“There are two.” He said adamantly, and she was so tired from the day that she didn't even care to be irritated with his lies.

“I was captured, tortured, beaten, shackled to a table as I labored for 20 long hours and they ripped away my child and killed it. There is nothing left.”

“What if I told you, you were wrong? What if I told you that you bore two daughters, and what if I told you they both lived? What would you say?”

“The guards tell me I am to be executed at sunrise, so I would tell you to speak quickly.”