Act 3

“ Where is Father?” I walked towards the garden where my Mother was having her usual early walks. Just before the sun sets above, she always had her walks with the palace royalties, talking with certainty in the providence of good fortunes and what she called the better-for-all-emmisaries.
    “ You do not bother my early routine, Catherine.”  She replied while busy having some chit-chats with  other Duchesses and Parliament leaders.
    “ I asked politely, Mother, and I intend that you reply me with the same courtesy.”
    “ Why can’t you be like Alice- who walks and talks like dignitaries and respects other people’s noses.” She turned to me.
    My head ticked for a while. I sighed and turned away. It’d be better for me to just turn away rather than clash with her.

    I went down to the abyss where my Father would spend his early days at the old room--his father’s sanctuary. Though the place was considered to be of forbidden among us-- Phillip, Alice and I, my feet would take each steps alightly. My hands held the cold bronze railings among the stairs as if strength can be taken up among the rust it gives off. And by then that I heard soft whispers, mild, gentle and longing,like a wolf cries but it wasn’t. It was a man soft and gentle cries.  As I drew closer at the door, the whisper grew louder.
    “ Father? Are you in there?” I called.
    I waited for a response. Yet, no one answered. A cold and misty air crept from my foot and shot my body with numbness. Shrieks and a gust of sudden icy cold air blew right toward my face. And for a moment, I was struck-frozen to the idea of what it seems to be.
    “ Catherine! Catherine!” I felt my shoulder moved. “ Catherine!” Father was holding down my shoulder shaking me to get back to my senses.
    I sucked in air and looked as if I ran for so many miles.
    “ Father,” My voice trailed off and looked for his eyes.
    “ Oh, Heavens!” He took me into his arms and gave me a bone-shattering hug.
    “ What happened?” I asked him when he freed me.
    “ You gave me a fright, young lady.” He said still holding my shoulders. “ Why did you came down here? Didn’t I forbid you all your siblings to never set afoot in  here.
    “ What was that ambiance? the coldness that I felt?” I asked him in total perplexity.
    “ Get  upstairs and drank some water. I could mistake you for a cold body, ready to be shipped into the coffin.” He then trailed the contours of my face and he looked as if he aged quite a year or so. I nodded and  stalked back upstairs.
    Both of us walked inside his room. He felt uneasy-walking back and forth thinking. I knew he was troubled enough. King Henry has never been in uncertain position nor to be disturbed. But though my mind kept busy on the actions he had made, I couldn’t let my curiosity stagnate. I shuddered at the idea.
    “ Father, please have a seat with me.” I told him looking worried about his sudden behavior.
    He stopped and looked back at me. He took a sigh.  “ You told me that you were looking for me, what about it?”
    Without hearing his questions, I asked him directly. “ Father, are you sick? or even hiding something from me?”
    He shook his head and took a seat beside mine, took my hands and cupped it. “ I’ve seen you last night with Old Ali. What did both of you talked about?”
    My mind was still occupied and fancied to gazed at him. The odd perplexion of the earlier scene deliberately excused momentarily,  as my daughter instinct took abode. I looked at him in his cold aquamarine eyes with the same pair of colors as mine.
    My King, my beloved father.
    He ruled the land when he was sixteen and looking at him in his age of forty-nine, so young, yet he held the world in his hands. All lives depended on him as he struggles to look for certainties to found a prolific world. Wars, victories and triumphs or captivities and losses, he took them inch by inch, got himself along at the sideways of wars for he, himself was a knight alone. But that alone isn’t the victories he won. No battle can consider himself triumphant enough yet his victory was fathering a world, his citizens, his subjects and us alone.
    And now, I am torn between the things that I wanted and the things I needed to fulfill- my own duties. The night Old Ali and I talked, I knew the world around me turned upside-down.  I was in complete diasphora. Nevertheless, it didn’t affect the totality of my own oblivion. Though, what Old Ali told has shook me to my senses, there are still dimensions of my own that are still being kept. Fear has nothing to do with the sudden abruptions of my actions. Maybe.
    “  Catherine,” Father’s voice awoke me to my realization.  “ It seems your mind has wander without direction again.”
    I smiled at him.
    “Father, is there anything that made you thwart everything that you had and have a comfortable life?”
    His brows met and was baffled at the question I threw back to him. Then, it shocked me, for he laughed--laughed to his heart content. I never seen him much overwhelmed and it didn’t bothered me if I was a laughingstock or the words might’ve been ridiculous. The satisfaction it held me was that he was laughing-a rare moment I had with my father or with a king perhaps.
    He cleared his throat and started to recount days among his past.

    “ I never thought that among my three wonderful children, it was you, the youngest, the vulnerable and the timid one would come up with a query with the same one my father has asked me on his death-bed.”
    “ He did?” Of course, I never seen my Grandfather. He was killed on a war and I wasn’t even breathing on the planet.
    “ He did.” He replied and prompted a look outside his own fortress. He probably was thinking how he outlived the grandeur he had during his early years and the sumptous glory that never fades away. His eyes dazzled at hiw thoughts. He took a relief sigh and tuned toward me.

    “ During that time, I lived comfortably that it didn’t crossed my mind the aftermath of my own dominion. I lived like any kings would- life of luxuries, power and glory, unsurpassing wealth and victories over victories. I am the king of everything, it’s as if I held the world. I am the world, conqueror and the only heir. Everything here was mine and revolves around me. I didn’t intend to share it to anyone. It was all but mine.
    His eyes met mine. As he says those words, I could see the very things he had just thrown to me. I could even see his greed, his power and his dominion.
    Everything.
    He owned the world-like he was Zeus.

    “ When everything I wanted became mine, everything fell back. The marriage between your Mother and I ruined what was the ideal life I already had. I’ve never been angrier in my life back then and had a scheming father. I never had intend to have a marriage or settle back then. I am in control of what I am. I hated the world, more likely on your mother. But he was completely different from the mistresses I had affairs with.”
    I let a soft chuckle and went behind my father and let him sat down.
    He continued. “ Much as I hated her, she too, loathed me. The hatred that stirred up inside me was the night she slapped me right in front of everybody at the ball. How could a noble  duchess hit a mighty rock like I am. I am a King-conqueror of the world. I was mad at the whole world that I decided to drop the marriage. Then, the King told me, ‘ You made her victorious against you again.’ So I decided to become her worst foe. But look at where we are right now, the loss I have announced to the world was the gain I could never have if I didn’t took chances of. She never complained and wept silently behind my back.”
    “ Was it the feministic side of mother that brought you to your senses?”  I asked him.
    “ No. When Phillip came in, of course, I was beyond merry but that didn’t kept me from being what I was, Alice came and still the same. That was when I decided to go far beyond the walls of this kingdom. I seeked victory over victories all over the kingdom and made myself glorious beyond anybody else.  I wasn’t there for the two of your siblings. They grew up to be the finest one, a father could always be proud of, but never be me. It was the declaration of fatherhood at my household, capable of being held by your mother on my neck. I wouldn’t be like any other King who was too lofty and soft on every family ties.
    The loss we had at the small kingdom in Persia, was undeniably the turning point of everything. I lost. I lost thousands of greatest warriors, great generals and great armies including the King, himself. The world lamented as the last words of Father haunted me down. The death of the greatest King, turned everything to crumble. The colonial kingdoms seek revenged against their mother country. Without my Father, I thought I couldn’t do. The darkest days of my life has found its light on your mother. As the kingdom was sought to be on attack, I was trapped inside the kingdom and had left inside. There’s nothing I could do but to be a knight herein, or the only things I had could be lost, forever. I saw the beauty of your mother, how foolish I was to disregard everything she had done until she was undeniably in loss of her life. She conceived you but our merriment deteriorated when her life was at the brim of Hades’ kingdom.
    A king, most powerful in the world was yet again, powerless. That was the irony of life. That was when the Kings last words echoed on my ears, hunting me every time I would see your mother suffering. To no ones eyes, we confided every clever and wise man on this kingdom, far and wide to search for cure. I had never been so fearful in my life than I was that time. And we never found. It was like I  was hopeless and fervorly anxious. I was losing. One night, your mother and I talked, it was the first decent talk I had with her.” He gazed upon me, looking warily uncomposed with himself.
    “ You know the story then, Catherine.” He added.
    I nodded.
    “ The tale your mother and I have talked often was half-truth.” He gazed at me again.
    “ And what is the reality?”
    “ Both your mother and I conceals the tale behind it, professed that it should be kept till our grave.”
    “ I didn’t understand, Father. Wasn’t it better for me to know the truth behind it? It concerns me, therefore, I could possibly have the rights to know it.”
    “ It is, but of age to come. The question you asked simply was yours to know inside you. As for me, living comfortably was mere an illusion. I simply cannot be where am I today if I had left everything out. Happiness, everything has its own, in due course. Much more to the triumph I had with you. The past was bitter enough to savour the future’s sweetness. I wouldn’t savour nor lavish the small wealth I had if it were not because of the fear, anxiety, loss and catastrophe. But never hope for the grave misfortunes to come upon you. As long as there was enough time, be wise enough to judge and carefully work out the whole thing-without resolving to a bitter end. Do not wait for a dire things or a hellish moment to arrive until you realize the consequences of your actions.”
    He smiled at me as he patted my head. “ Ah, my dear, alas! To no one’s heart, you are simply a fragile little girl but in my heart, you are always the daughter I would have. Phillip and Alice will forever be my little ones but with own mind, principles and heart. Of courage and valour, they do have but what you have can never be like them-a wise mind and a heart, bigger than I am. You cannot be like them so never be in comparison with them. They have chosen their path while you stood at the crossroad.
    Ali, I fear he had talked to you last night, seems to have opened your mind at last. It was too sooner than I thought. Now, the anxiety I felt before has come again. The doubts and worries of a father has come forth at last and I cannot be a master over it. Fate chooses its way to unfold the story.”
    “ Father, I fear for your words. I beg you to...”
    He shook his head.  “ I should have been prepared for this but I was but a coward to even lose one among my children.”
    Lose? The pounding in my heart started to knock.
    “ Perhaps,”

    “ Perhaps, my King, you needed rest.” The door opened with my mother . She held her head high and stared at me. “ And you Catherine, off you go for your daily duties.”
    My eyes went from father to mother as the two converse with their stares and glares. “ But Mother, we aren’t through.”
    “ Yes, you are, Catherine. when I said you needed to go along, you go along.” She said commanding and strong.
    Once again, my ill-will beyond my Mother, arises. “ And if you say that I would kill myself, I heed for your words?”
    “ Do not provoke me, Catherine, you might as well, don’t like the reply I would be having.”
    “ Stop it, Vittoria!” Henry’s voice soared up. He looked at me and nodded. “ Go along, now Catherine. I’ve changed your course for the day. Heed for the archery and swordsmanship.”
    I bowed my head and head for the door. As the door closed, I could hear the exchange of words they would be having. To no avail, the blame was on me.

    I went back to my room and took my bows and arrows together with a silver dagger. The door flung openly with Alice outside.
    “ I hear that you...”
    “ Yes, you heard. The King and the Queen had a row and was duly my fault.” I couldn’t helped but to cut short her accusations.
    “ How dare you!” Alice was furiously red.
    “ You do not know the whole thing, Alice, so don’t pick it.” I hurriedly put on the hand stabilizers on my arms and tied it.
    “ You do not tell me what to do, Catherine. I still am your older sister.”
    I stopped midway and turned to her. “ I do, Alice.”
    “ Phillip and I left you the care for our beloved King and Queen and simply this was your way of doing your sense of responsibility?”
    “I tell you, Alice, the responsibility that you’re trying to make me understand is the responsibility that held your neck from doing the very responsibility that’s supposed to be yours. This isn’t about you chasing your own dreams but having the sense of duty duly for your family. Neither you nor Phillip understands what the King wants. Forget what lies beyond the past.”
    “ That’s easy for you to say. Oh, you wouldn’t even know unless you put yourself on our shoes. You wouldn’t even know the life without having a Father to call on. Yes, perhaps, he was physically there but he was a walking corpse with us. You didn’t know how hard it was for both of us-Phillip and I.”
    “ Then don’t pity yourself, Alice. Perhaps you were right. But we’re just the same, or much more worse than you are. You had everything. While I only got Father’s. You had the whole kingdom’s love as well as mother’s and even Phillip does, but they treat me as worthless crap. Now, which of us was treated fair?”  I took my sword and left her there.