This is a response to @mariannewest's recent freewrite prompt, intrigue.
The Court
Take your hand in mine, my love, and let us pass the accusing stares.
We see the whispers travel through cupped hands, received by eager ears.
We feel their spite-tipped arrows of scandal, outrage, shame...
Yet your hand is in mine, and little else gives me concern.
Out through the castle gates we go, for it was exile and poverty, or the executioners' block...
And we choose to live, though we can never again return to the land that holds our heart.
There he stands: his grim face looming through the chill air and the restless clamour of the crowd.
He has an axe by his side: warning us of what awaits, if ever we are seen again.
Let us turn away, my love, for we are the scandal that grips frenzied minds today
Yet we will soon be forgotten
In the deluge of greater uproars, fresh uprisings, the ever-shifting alliances of an imperiled court.
We will be safe in our solitude
When the mouths that blacken our names hatch fresh plots
And incline their ears to gossip they have not yet heard.
I am impressed and pleased to find this here. What a beautiful unashamed pen 💙
Thank you!