Make Believe...

As a child I was particularly melodramatic. If I wasn’t acting out a tortuous deathbed scene with dolls, then I was fearfully envisioning the unknown horrors in the dark corners of my bedroom, or pretending to be someone else entirely. (A Russian princess was, for a long time, a personal favourite).

I’ve always considered my vivid imagination to mean either a) One day I will write a damned good novel. b) Perhaps if I were a little prettier and plenty louder I could consider acting. Or c) I am in fact stark raving mad.

And so this week, whether due to reminiscence or madness, I offer a little piece of melodrama. Imagine the kind of scene in which the characters look charming in cinematic soft-focus and there is a sudden emotional and dramatic swell of music...

*

Her steps across the inner bailey were hesitant. There was a battle raging deep within the heart of her, warring between the safety of ignorance and the fear of knowledge. The Earl had returned and news of his victorious campaign had quickly spread. Yet she knew that the price of victory had been paid with the lives of common men. Men like her husband. She did not know whether he would be among those trudging wearily through the gatehouse now or if he was buried in haste at some far off place.

Anxiety chilled her bones to numbness until she was unable to move forward, whilst her skin beneath the heavy wool gown prickled uncomfortably with sweat. She watched the moving mass of bloodied and soiled men with wide eyes, all the while her fingers tensed and clenched against the clasp of her cloak. There was no logic to her desperate search as her focus switched from first one face to another. Then her wild eyes centred on the only face that she had needed to see. In that moment she felt the relief loosen her muscles until she trembled. The jubilant clamour within the bailey seemed to quieten to a distant hum until all she could hear was the thud of her heart that matched the sound of her feet running towards him.

His own strong stride cut the distance between them. Her arms wound themselves around his neck as he encircled her waist and lifted her clear off the ground. He spun them around and around until their laughter became breathless with dizziness. Her hands fisted in the bedraggled length of his hair as her lips sought his. The kiss was hard and fierce, their teeth clashing a little in their rush to taste one another again after months of uncertainty. The metal links of his armour pressed painfully hard against the yielding softness of her body, but it only confirmed to her that he was truly there. No dream could feel so real.

“You came back to me.” Her words were muffled between them but he felt the slight tremor of her fingertips against the coarse growth of his beard. The hardships of the past months were evident beneath her touch. His bones were sharper under his skin and the puckered line of a scar disappeared below the protection of his armour. They were unwelcome reminders of what might have been lost.

“Always.” He pressed a reassuring kiss to the soft down of hair at the crown of her head.  The perfumed water with which she had washed teased his senses. She would have fanned her hair across her shoulders like a mantle as she sat in front of the fire to dry the thick curls. It was a familiar ritual and the memory of it struck the core of him. He held her tight as if the impression of his arms would continue to hold her the next time they were parted. “Always.”