Her Majesty Gloriana, the Queen, Elizabeth Regina
I kneel, and once knelt I clasp my hands and tuck my chin to them. There is the reverent hush of the church all around me, the whisper of outside sounds being filtered through the masonry until they are thin and pale shadows of the court's bustle. The gold of my ring is still cool against my skin but warming, and my breath and pulse are in my ears. My ladies sit in utter stillness behind and beside me, and my subjects, my advisers, my guard are all beyond, and in this moment I am as alone as I ever am. Which is to say surrounded on all sides, but quiet. I take such solace in my reticence, it is a wonder I should not live at church all the day. But then there are some matters that beg inconsistency, and flavors of solitude must vary, or else it would become a prison instead of a keep. How could I choose which isolation is sweeter, between the quiet of the chapel or the middle of a banquet?
I wonder how alone I was when I danced the Volta with Robert so long ago. Perhaps it had not yet set itself so firmly into my nature, as though my bones were thick with marrow then, and have hollowed over the years until they are as resoundingly full of emptiness as this house of God. A misleading emptiness, though; not a space filled with nothing, but a space filled with the Lord. God, keep my bones. God, keep my marriage upright and holy. God, keep me a virgin.
I close my eyes to the face of Mary, that bitter name that clings to so many parts of my life, and see instead… mists. The rolling hills of Woodstock where I was so long kept. The tumultuous seas of my channels turning their white-lipped arms against my would-be invaders. It is perhaps not proper prayer, but it is the deepest part of me, I dare think, that I imagine I see. I am England in this deepest of quiets. It is what I must be. Yet beyond mists…
Beyond England…
What would there be to see, there? A new world, he told me of, appeared as if a beacon. A palpable answer to prayer for life. What would I see, if the deepest prayers of my heart that I may yet myself not deign to know were answered? An ocean, perhaps. A distant shore. Unfamiliar. Exhilarating. My pulse gently quickens, and I feel it more strongly at my temple as a sensation of warmth, like high summer sun casting down upon my back, steals over my body. There is a tug at the veil mounted upon the back of my dress, and at an errant curl of my wig. At my sleeves. A perfumed breeze pulling at my skin. It is possible I have fallen ill. It is possible I have, in the tradition of my family's short history of queens, gone mad. I blink rapidly against a new brightness as I lift my face toward heaven and open my eyes. Not mists, and not mortar but sky. Bluer sky than any I have seen, of a quality so pure it is almost as a painting done poorly. There is no derivation of brush against paper to imply clouds or a shifting light. Simply blue.
My knees are no longer resting on a cushion but against fine white sand. The whispers in my ears are not the rustle of cloth and the scrape of sole against granite but of an ocean, and a gently gusting wind through unfamiliar trees. I stand in wonderment, slowly, turning to the shore to gaze down its lengths and at the endless expanse of ocean beyond. My clothing is heavy for the weather but I have born it so long in all conditions that I scarcely notice. I turn further, still in all my body save my legs which move carefully that I might not miss a step and wait with poise for the spell to pass.
The wings of the veil billow around me, and my skirt drags a pattern in the soft glittering Earth until I cease turning and am frozen, staring at a bountiful, lush and livid greenness that overtakes the vision and grows so thick as to turn black barely a tennis court's length from the water's line. I lift a hand, palm up, to see how far the breeze reaches, to see if the vision will allow such an extending away from my center, and the jewels of my dress glitter madly until I feel I could disappear into the whiteness of the sand and the brightness of the sun, and happily so.
"What glory," I say aloud, and sound almost young to myself.
[For a glimpse at what she's wearing, check the wiki. There's a lot of outfit there. Open to all, traditional debut post, so excited, etc!]
I wonder how alone I was when I danced the Volta with Robert so long ago. Perhaps it had not yet set itself so firmly into my nature, as though my bones were thick with marrow then, and have hollowed over the years until they are as resoundingly full of emptiness as this house of God. A misleading emptiness, though; not a space filled with nothing, but a space filled with the Lord. God, keep my bones. God, keep my marriage upright and holy. God, keep me a virgin.
I close my eyes to the face of Mary, that bitter name that clings to so many parts of my life, and see instead… mists. The rolling hills of Woodstock where I was so long kept. The tumultuous seas of my channels turning their white-lipped arms against my would-be invaders. It is perhaps not proper prayer, but it is the deepest part of me, I dare think, that I imagine I see. I am England in this deepest of quiets. It is what I must be. Yet beyond mists…
Beyond England…
What would there be to see, there? A new world, he told me of, appeared as if a beacon. A palpable answer to prayer for life. What would I see, if the deepest prayers of my heart that I may yet myself not deign to know were answered? An ocean, perhaps. A distant shore. Unfamiliar. Exhilarating. My pulse gently quickens, and I feel it more strongly at my temple as a sensation of warmth, like high summer sun casting down upon my back, steals over my body. There is a tug at the veil mounted upon the back of my dress, and at an errant curl of my wig. At my sleeves. A perfumed breeze pulling at my skin. It is possible I have fallen ill. It is possible I have, in the tradition of my family's short history of queens, gone mad. I blink rapidly against a new brightness as I lift my face toward heaven and open my eyes. Not mists, and not mortar but sky. Bluer sky than any I have seen, of a quality so pure it is almost as a painting done poorly. There is no derivation of brush against paper to imply clouds or a shifting light. Simply blue.
My knees are no longer resting on a cushion but against fine white sand. The whispers in my ears are not the rustle of cloth and the scrape of sole against granite but of an ocean, and a gently gusting wind through unfamiliar trees. I stand in wonderment, slowly, turning to the shore to gaze down its lengths and at the endless expanse of ocean beyond. My clothing is heavy for the weather but I have born it so long in all conditions that I scarcely notice. I turn further, still in all my body save my legs which move carefully that I might not miss a step and wait with poise for the spell to pass.
The wings of the veil billow around me, and my skirt drags a pattern in the soft glittering Earth until I cease turning and am frozen, staring at a bountiful, lush and livid greenness that overtakes the vision and grows so thick as to turn black barely a tennis court's length from the water's line. I lift a hand, palm up, to see how far the breeze reaches, to see if the vision will allow such an extending away from my center, and the jewels of my dress glitter madly until I feel I could disappear into the whiteness of the sand and the brightness of the sun, and happily so.
"What glory," I say aloud, and sound almost young to myself.
[For a glimpse at what she's wearing, check the wiki. There's a lot of outfit there. Open to all, traditional debut post, so excited, etc!]