AUDREY FLAMESWORTH

“Where were you?” Audrey asked Renly as soon as he stepped through the door of her bedchamber. She was seated cross-legged on the window-seat of her chambers, watching the moon play hide-and-seek with her eyes, only she did not seek it like it wanted. Whenever it hid behind the clouds that drifted in the night sky which were thick with the sign of rain, she would count the stars instead, fifty they always were, before the moon would peek at her again, grey and gloomy like her nightgown, and take her attention away from the stars she counted, forcing her to watch it once more until it hid behind another cloud.

Night was her favourite time. She loved counting the stars and watching the moon play its games, but with her watch came the longing for what they had, they were all she wanted to be. Free. But that seemed like a fleeting dream beneath these stone walls now, and her steward was not helping in any way.

The door shut, courtesy of the guard that had been appointed to man her bedchamber, and Renly chuckled as soon as it did. “I found a—”

She stopped him from speaking any further. “Where were you during the tourney?” That was the question she asked and she would only hear an answer to it not whatever talk he planned to bring up. The moon peeked for a moment, then drifted and hid behind another cloud, but during its drift she did not count the stars like she had done the previous times.

“I was seated at the gallery.” He paused shortly before he added, “with my kind.” There was a sigh after he was done, one of exasperation. He knew what he said, and he no doubt knew how she would react.

“Your kind?” Audrey flew from her seat and turned away from the window to finally gaze upon her steward, the moon escaping from the cloud it had hid itself behind and casting its light benignly on her mussed up hair which fell over her slender shoulders. “What kind? You should have been with me in the royal box.” She wrapped her arms over each other, her gaze angry and whipping hard at him.

“I was where I was meant to be, my lady,” he insisted.

“You were not,” she brooked no denial from him. “You are my steward. You were meant to be with me.”

Renly shook his head while pulling off the tan leather gloves his hands were covered with. “You know I would always choose to be by your side if I could, but in the royal box there’s no seat for me there.” He walked to the hearth which burned a bright fire, charring the wood it had been fed to give the room warmth in exchange. It was that warmth that brought Renly to it now, and he placed his hand over it, seething an exhale as the fire took the chill off of them. The world had begun to grow colder, winter was nigh.

“I would have made you a seat.” Audrey was not making him a seat now, she was making the fire lose its warmth with her stubborn words, both to her steward and to herself, but she had been colder during the tourney when she had had no one to talk to, cold at heart, and the chill she was feeling now did little to compare. The king she was to marry had paid her no mind. He laughed with his mother and his brother, but he seldom glanced over at her, less thought of he giving her little talks and laughing with her. To him it had been as though she was not there. That feeling Renly did not understand. She was alone up there, she had needed him there with her. She feared the thought of being alone every time she sat up with the king. It feared her.

“You would have given me a seat,” he corrected her, the fire crackling at him gently. “You are the soon-to-be queen and I am just your steward. We are different, and I cannot sit at the same table as you in court, so you could have never made me a seat.” He turned over to her. She still had a mulish expression. All he said had fallen on deaf ears, that much was obvious. “Where you sit now is of no place for someone of my status.” He turned back to the fire.

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Audrey sauntered to the edge of her grand bed and sat on it, its curtains tied to its bedposts, having a glimmering shade of pink that would have taken her mind away from the bitterness she had emblazoned herself in, only if she was at Redflower, here, it only served as a reminder of where she was, it only festered that bitterness.

She missed the garden at home, the smell of the flowers, most especially the lilies—her beloved lilies. She missed the gentle sound of the fountain rushing, and the canopy of the beech that shielded her from the sun. They would have all fallen now, the beech’s leaves, she thought, all of them golden-brown on the floor, and Lucian would be picking them apart. Oh, Lucian… She missed her brother ever so much too. He had been asleep when she had been up and about to depart, but she had left him a kiss on his forehead. She wondered how he had taken it when her mother had told him of her departure. He would have cried, that alone was sure, and she did not like to see him cry, it always hurt her as much as it hurt him. When would she ever be able to see him again, carry him on her lap and play with his hair? When?

“On the morrow you’ll have a seat by my side at the tourney,” Audrey told Renly in a tone hinting that she would not hear otherwise. Well, she had no choice but to hear it. Renly was as stubborn as her.

“A kind gesture, my lady, but one I will not take.” He cupped his hands over his mouth as he yawned after he had finished replying to her talk. There was tiredness lingering in his eyes, after all it was already past the wolf’s hour, he should be well asleep now and so should she, but sleep was the least of Audrey’s concern now, Renly was proving impossible to her and for a stupid reason as “we are different”? She would not have it.

Audrey slammed her hand on the bed as her face tightened wildly. If she kept at it, it would give her wrinkles earlier than she should get them and her beauty would fade faster. That was a concern for later though, not now, at the moment her mind did not think to that. “I said you will,” she kept at it, with a beagle’s penchant for stubbornness nonetheless.

“I won’t, my lady.” Renly was equally as stubborn, more like a mule this one, but howbeit still stubborn.

Audrey smacked her lips frustratedly. “What don’t you get, you dimwit. I need you up there with me, you need to be with me not with your… common folks and whatever kind you think you are. Do you know how lonely I was during the tourney? The king did not say a single word to me, not a single word. Do you still not get it?” It was not enough to make her cry, but it was no doubt enough to make her voice crack.

Renly made sure not to look back at her. The fire took all his gaze. “Did you try speaking to him?”

“What?” Audrey sniffled.

“Did you try talking to His Grace? You know, say something to him?”

“No, I did not.”

Renly tacked his palms together. “Try just that. Speak to him if he does not speak to you. I cannot always be with you, my lady, will you choose to be lonely every time I am not there? I hope you don’t. I hate it when you feel such a way. Talk to the king if he does not speak to you. Ask him why he doesn’t. Say anything, anything at all, and you’ll not be lonely anymore.” He yawned again. “I found a flower garden. The castle’s own. It’s ten folds bigger than the one at Redflower, and no doubt prettier. I’m sure you’d love it there. That was what I had come to tell you.” He turned to meet her eyes now, her face, it had tended to a softer field than what he had seen when he first made his way into her chambers, a lot more. He smiled and bowed. “I would love to have my sleep now, my lady, pardon my leave. A lovely night to you.” Renly turned and left, the room falling into a pit of silence with his absence.

Audrey turned her eyes away from the door to look back at the moon, only it was nowhere to be found any longer, along with the stars she counted. The clouds were the only thing that filled the sky now, dark and grey, and they had begun to cry softly. Maybe their tears were for her, maybe. She dipped her feets beneath her coverlet and dragged it up to her chest as she lay down to look up at the ceiling. “A lovely night?” She sighed. “I wonder how mother’s doing? I should write her a letter. When day breaks for sure…” she yawned. “…for sure.” And her eyes went shut.