Purpleland: Chapter 12

We took a small hunting lodge in the southwest and lived together as man and wife. I choose your mother for a single misguided reason, but during those days I began to see that there was so much more to her. She was impulsive, but I think the years could have cooled her blood and accentuated the qualities already strongly marked in her. She was generous, kind, and there was a sort of nobility about her that I was never able to quite describe. The beginning was hard. When two people who do not know each other try to make their lives one there will always be conflicts and my love for her was certainly not what it should have been. But I set to the task of marriage. Marcus and Alena were far away and my rage was now only small embers in the deep recesses of my heart. Her generosity carried us through.  So that when she told me she was with child I began to think that I could be happy with her. I did not forget Alena and there was not a day when I did not long for her but a fondness for Aria was growing in me and I knew that I loved her child. I dared hope that I could sooth my father’s anger and that someday we could rule together, companions if not lovers.

               I thought it best to wait until after the birth of the child to face my father. If it was an heir that might sooth him, and it would be easier to travel once she was recovered. Aria was relieved that I was finally making plans to present her at court as my many delays had pained her. Those were good days. We walked together every day and sometime rode. We would read to each other and talk about the child we both already loved. My tenderness for the child translated to Aria and I treated her as I should have all along.

               In the 5^th month of her pregnancy Aria heard that a lord and his wife had taken a lodge only a few miles from where we were. She was beginning to feel the loneliness of our extended honeymoon and so she determined on visiting them. I had a cold that day so I sent her off with two of my men servants and went to bed. She returned full of happiness and news about the young couple and their new baby. I was only half listening as the cold had given me a fierce headache when I heard the name I had for years been holding closer than anything else.

               “Who is Alena?” I said sharply.

               “The wife. Haven’t you been listening?”

               “And her husband’s name is?”

               “Marcus and their son is John.” She saw the anger in my eyes. “What is it Kail?”

               I did not lay a hand on her but I came close. She left sobbing. I almost smashed the bottle of wine she had brought back but in the end I had a servant take it away. The rage I had been holding back was unleased that night on everyone I saw and it was a terrible thing to behold.

Purpleland: Chapter 11

I held on to my anger as a drowning man will clutch at a piece of sail cloth. I was determined to revenge myself on Marcus and immediately my mind was occupied with how best to do that. I was the son of the king so you would think that I could take away his lands or throw him in a dungeon. But as prince I had very little direct power and Marcus was one of the most powerful of the northern lords. In fact he was descended from It was then that fate took a hand in my affairs. By merest chance at one of the countless formal functions I had to attend I met the woman who had rejected Marcus years ago. Her name was Aria el Jamus. She was very beautiful and very different from Alena. She had grown up in the southern country and was impulsive, robust, and with long red hair very beautiful. The outdoors was her love and I have never known a better rider.

It is hard for me to write this next part for, of everything I have done, I believe this to be the worst. You will already have realized that this Aria was your mother. How she became such was my worst folly and blackest sin.

At the time when I met her I was like a man imprisoned deep within his anger. I thought only of my hatred for Marcus and was blind to everything else.  And so the idea came to me that if Marcus had taken my first love from me I should take his first love from him. I did not stop to think that he had clearly moved on. I did not think how cruel it would be to marry for revenge. I did not think at all.

Aria was, as I have said, Impulsive. I convinced her that I loved her and I think she fell for me in earnest. I knew my father would not approve a marriage to her as she had no connections to any of the major lords, who I needed on my side once I became king. I convinced her to marry me secretly and two weeks after we met again we were married.

As I came to myself I began to see what a fool I had been. It was doubtful that my marriage to Aria would have any effect on Marcus other than an admission of weakness. I was desperately ashamed and terrified that either my father or Alena would find out. I decided to take Aria somewhere we would not be known or recognized to make what I could of our ill started marriage.