"...I'd never be able to turn over in bed again without feeling that body beside me, not there but tangible, like a leg that's been cut off. Gone but the place still hurts."

- Margaret Atwood, Life Before Man

…forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall upon my breast,
it will rain on my soul both night and day,
snow will burn within my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
and my feet will want to march to where you lie sleeping,
but I shall go on living,
because above all things
you wanted me unconquerable…

- Excerpt from "La Muerte" by Pablo Neruda

I was still holding your hand when they came for you.

I have no idea how long I sat crumpled upon the forest floor, stroking your fingers, your face, your hair. You had grown pale, Francis—so pale—but the fingers that I held in mine were not yet cold.

How could you truly be gone when I still felt your warmth?

Then the others had arrived, shuffling slowly through the fallen leaves and petals as they came to take you home one last time. I did not even glance up to acknowledge them, so fearful was I to lift my eyes from you for even a moment. Only your mother dared to approach me, and she did so with cautious footsteps, as if I were a wounded animal who might easily be frightened into hurting myself.

Which I suppose I was, in a way.

"Mary," she said gently. "That isn't Francis. He's gone."

Of course you were gone. I had seen the light fade from your eyes, known the you-ness of you was lost to me forever. But though the heart that had loved me had ceased beating, the body that had loved me remained. The arms that had comforted, the hands that had soothed, the shoulders that had shared my burdens without complaint…they were still there, still where I could touch them.

And your hair, Francis—those lovely golden curls which suited you far more regally than any crown—was still just as soft and just as silky and just as beautiful as it had been when I had run my fingertips through it and clutched it in great handfuls when we made love by the lake only an hour before.

Only an hour…

I did not want to hear your mother say that it was just a body. I did not want to hear anyone say it. Even now, I crave the weight of it lying against me. Just a body?

No.

It had been yours and I had loved it as I had loved you.

"I can't let him go."

I heard the rustle of her skirts as she had knelt down into the leaves beside me. "Then hold onto me," she whispered, and she had sounded so kind, Francis.

How odd that our love for you has driven your mother and I apart just as much as it has brought us together, and how odd that all of that was swept aside in instant in the wake of this tearing, unimaginable loss. At that moment, she was the only person in the world capable of understanding even a modicum of my pain, and when she had opened her arms to me, I knew her offer to be sincere.

I wish you had been there to see it, darling.

I wish you were here to see a great many things.

It was only after she managed to wrest me away from you that the others had stepped forward to lift you up and carry you away. I watched the procession through streaming eyes, and had your mother not held onto me in a grip like a vise, I know I would have leapt to my feet and chased after you. I think I may have called out to you once, but I do not know for certain. What I do remember is how weightless you had seemed as the men had raised you up, up into the air, and how dark and angry the blood had stood out on your shirt. There was a dry leaf from the forest floor caught within the tangle of your curls, and I had wanted to cry out for someone to brush it away, to go find your splendid green tunic and your magnificent robe, to please—please—not send you back to the castle covered in blood with dirt in your hair like an animal that had been slaughtered in the hunt.

Please.

And perhaps I would have done, if only I had been able to breathe.

Your mother did not release me until they had carefully wrapped you within a long linen sheet and deposited you gently inside the horse-drawn litter which had been brought from the castle to retrieve you. All of this I saw, standing mute and stricken while your mother kept a supportive arm firmly about my waist. It was only as she had attempted to steer me toward the royal carriage that I sprang back to life, planting my feet firmly in the soil and refusing to budge.

"We must go, Mary," she prodded me, her voice both understanding and stern. "Into the carriage now. It is time to leave."

"I will ride in the litter," I said hoarsely.

"Mary—"

"I am going with him, Catherine."

"My child—"

"I will not be ordered by you or by anyone!" I snapped, and there had been a hysterical edge to my voice that prompted several of the guards to eye me warily. With effort, I gulped past the lump in my throat and made sure that my next words were clear and unyielding. "I am a queen in my own right," I said, with as much steel and dignity as I could manage. "I take orders from no one, and I am telling you now, Catherine, that I am riding back to the castle in that litter. So unless you are prepared to employ physical force against me, I suggest you stand aside and allow me to return home with my husband."

She had narrowed her eyes at me as if to appraise my determination, then released me without further protest or comment. "As you wish, my dear. The carriages will follow behind you, should you need anything."

I nodded stiffly, like a marionette on a string, then turned to clamber up into the litter just as another small detachment of guards reemerged from the depths of the forest. Squinting into the waning light, I saw that one of them lagged slightly behind the others, wielding a bulky fabric bundle in his hands, and I leaned out to observe it more clearly.

When the guard had finally stepped forward, his eyes—so full of pity—could hardly meet mine as he held the bundle out like an offering. "We found these down by the lake shore, your Grace," he announced somberly. "What would wish us to do with them?"

I swallowed thickly, my throat burning with fire. There, stacked in his arms and folded clumsily, had been my velvet cape and your exquisitely embroidered tunic and fur-trimmed cloak. Atop them glittered a small tangle of precious metal and gemstones: a golden coronet, a pair of bejeweled earrings, a shining signet ring.

Your ring.

"I will take them," I told him, my voice trembling. With a wordless nod, he had passed the pitiful burden to me as I stretched out my arms from beneath the canopy of the litter, and by the time I had settled back inside, he was gone.

Though I had fought for that final journey home together, I soon realized that the sight of you wrapped within your makeshift shroud was simply more than I could bear. With quaking hands, I shook open your cloak and draped it tenderly over your chest, then pulled the pale linen cloth away from your face so that I could see you again.

So that I could memorize you.

So that I could commit you to memory and in fifty years still be able to trace the freckles under your eyes.

Your hand had been cool in mine as I lifted it free and slipped your ring onto your finger. I then held onto it, stroking my thumb across your knuckles as I had always done, just as the horses began to move.

The dusky late afternoon air was full of the crunch of leaves and the rhythmic creaking of carriage wheels. Before long, a chill wind had begun to blow, a harbinger of the colder days that would soon be upon us and a bitter reminder that my seasons with you had come to this unimaginable end. With some maneuvering, I managed to shrug my cape over my shoulders while never once letting go of your hand, so careful to arrange the folds of fabric so that they concealed the stain of your blood on my dress.

Nothing felt real.

I tried to block out everything except the feeling of your hand in mine, the sight of the last glints of the fading sunlight as it struck gold upon your hair. For the moment, they had been just enough to keep the terror at bay as I had brought your hand to my lips and kissed it tenderly.

As I had said to you for the last time on this earth, "We're going home, my love."