monarch

Edward leaned on a recliner by the window, put his arms on the window sill, and gently grabbed the morning glories and creepers that poked their heads into the house with his hands. These vigorous plants had covered the entire outer wall. .The setting sun, still warm, sprinkled its ruddy light on the tall oaks and lindens in the garden, and the breeze gently carried the scent of geraniums and hollyhocks into the king's chamber.

When His Majesty first woke up, he expressed a strong desire to return to London at once, but, as the cautious Doctor Paganini said, King Edward was not completely recovered.So the king's request was tenderly but resolutely rejected by Robert—Edward was not allowed to go anywhere until the healthy red color had once again stained that paper-pale face.

There was the sound of the door shaft turning, followed by the familiar footsteps.

"You're here." Edward said softly, and then coughed a few times uncontrollably.

Robert stepped forward quickly and pressed the blanket covering Edward's body tighter.

"The sun is going down soon, you will catch a cold." He said and was about to close the window.

"Let me breathe." Edward raised his head and demanded, and then he added, "It's good for me, the doctor said."

Robert hesitated for a moment, but finally did not close the window.

The gentle breeze of the summer evening, mixed with the salty sea water and the intoxicating fragrance of the flowers and plants in the garden, gently caressed the faces of the two of them.

"It's so beautiful..." Edward looked at the red glow of the sunset outside the window, "I've never noticed before that the sunset and sunset can be so spectacular, and something so commonplace is so exciting."

Robert drew up a chair and sat down beside the King.

"I used to think that I had plenty of time." The king said to himself, "but now I'm thinking... such a sunset... How many times can I see it again? Maybe five times, ten times, Thirty times, hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times... but who knows? It could be the last time."

"Don't think so." Robert put his hand on the back of Edward's hand, and said in a soft but firm voice, "Your complexion is much better, and it will only get better in the future. How many times do you want to watch the sunset? Okay, a hundred times, a thousand times or ten thousand times, until you get tired of watching it."

The king shook his head slightly and smiled slightly.He stared at the bright red glow in the sky with fascination. The gorgeous glow hung on the sky, making the sky look like a white cloth splashed with blood. The outline of the hills around the castle gradually became blurred. After the sun went down, It won't be long before the outline will be nothing but a dark shadow, just like the ruins of the magnificent city of Babylon that remain in the world today.

"It's time for us to go back to London," Edward said softly. "We've been stuck here for too long."

"Your body hasn't fully recovered yet." Robert picked up a peach from the fruit plate on the small tea table, and carefully cut it open with a small knife with a silver handle. "The doctor said that you need to continue to rest."

Edward sighed softly, "It's too late, the current situation has become a mess, and the civil war has broken out. Although you don't let me read the documents and bulletins, I still understand the general things."

Robert picked up a piece of peach, gestured for Edward to open his mouth, and then put the still dripping flesh on Edward's lips.

"Let them kill each other. You have the Imperial Guards in your hands. As long as we drive the army back to the capital, this farce will be over. Before that, you should treat it as if you were watching a show." Robert Watching Edward stick out his tongue and roll the piece of peach into his mouth, "The more intense they fight, the smoother it will be for you to clean up the situation."

"Many people have died, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost for every day this civil war drags on."

"And most of these people who lost their lives are your enemies, and the rest are not your friends." Robert shrugged, "My father and your sisters will help you solve those inconveniences The guy you dealt with yourself. If you were to execute hundreds of nobles, then everyone would regard you as a tyrant, but now that they start killing each other, you don't have to be messed with by that dirty blood Dirty your hands."

Edward looked out of the window silently. A skylark landed from the sky on the branch of a big chestnut tree opposite the window. Those two small eyes like black beans looked at the king curiously.

"I'm sorry about your father," he said softly.

Robert turned his head away uncomfortably, and his fingers tapped nervously on the arm of the armchair as if he were playing a piano.

"I admit that I pushed him too hard before, leaving him with no other choice but to raise the flag to rebel." Edward continued, "I don't want to deal with him. What I want to weaken is his position. There's the class he represents, and in fact, I really hope someone else is in that seat so I don't have to worry about implicating you."

"He has a choice." There was a hint of frustration in Robert's voice, "He just doesn't want to accept the reality, and he doesn't want to admit that a new era has arrived. He always misses the old glory, so he can only Choose to be buried with that old era...Since it is time for him to leave the stage, he should bow in a dignified manner, otherwise he will only be kicked off stage by the audience."

He was silent for a while, and then said: "He made his choice, and I also made my choice, just like two ships being carried by different waves and going in opposite directions."

"I originally thought that I could save you from making this choice... I thought that as long as your father saw the situation clearly, he would retreat in spite of the difficulties." Edward instead held the hand that Robert put on the back of his hand. hand, "but it has come to this point in the end."

"The day my father died, he told me that the throne was the best seat in the world, that the mortal man who sat upon it could become some sort of demigod; yet it is also a cursed chair , and it is accompanied by eternal loneliness." Edward's eyes became a little dazed, "Everything is illusory, only power is eternal."

Robert stretched out his arms and took the king in his arms.

"Everyone in this court is more or less cursed by power," the king continued. "Kindreds and friends kill each other just for the momentary joy of dancing with power... this crazy The show made me sick, but I had to go on because it was my fate, it was doomed from the day I was born: for a man like me, only death can take me off the stage, The only difference is being carried down in a beautiful coffin, or being dragged down covered in blood."

"I think you are the only one who does not approach me because of my identity and the power in my hands." Edward smiled wryly, "What you are interested in is not the king, but Edward Tudor, I think I should You should be happy about it. What other people see of me is just a body carrying a crown and a scepter, like a basket for fruit."

"Look at the two of us." Edward stretched out a finger, pointing first to himself and then to Robert, "how lonely we are... our family members are predators, and our friends It is the vultures circling in the sky, under the vast sky, the only thing we can trust is each other."

"Isn't that enough?" Robert gently held the king's chin, turned the other's face, he leaned down, and kissed Edward's lips.

The lips were cold at first, but Robert felt heat rising up the pink lips, and within a few seconds, he got a warm response that surprised him.

"Enough." He heard Edward say softly when the two finally ended the deep kiss.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, just like this, watching the sunset outside the window.

"I've been meaning to ask you a question," Edward whispered after a few minutes, "what would you do if I were really gone? You hold the Praetorians in your hands like Jupiter's." You hold Thunder in your hands, you can do whatever you want, you can get whatever you want... When I feel that I am about to die, this is the only thing that comforts me in my heart, you can protect yourself, you can do something The possibility of finding happiness and peace for myself..."

Robert pursed his lips slightly, "No, there will be no happiness, and there will be no peace... In that case, everything will be over for me, and I won't care if I can protect myself."

He looked out of the window, as if speaking to the vast wilderness: "In those few days, I felt that I was no longer a person living in this world, but I was not a soul who had passed through the gate of the afterlife...but some kind of Wandering souls, trapped in this world because of obsessions they don’t understand, will be wiped out once their wishes are fulfilled. For me, there was only one thing left to do at that time, and that was revenge.”

"To your father?" Edward asked softly.

"To him, to your sisters and kin, to all who secretly rejoice at your misfortune." Robert's voice was tinged with anger, "and this ungrateful kingdom, which deserves to die in the fires of hell burning inside."

"Fortunately, I don't have to do that." He took Edward's hand and kissed it softly again.

"I'm sorry," Edward murmured.

"why?"

"Because I have put you in this terrible situation." The king looked wistful. "I was so arrogant that I forgot that the wild beasts cornered are the most dangerous. I thought I could jump out of this chess game. Looking down on it the way a chess player does... I thought I was winning."

He smiled wryly, "What a terrible price. My father said that monarchs are different from mortals. We can be regarded as some kind of demigods, but demigods are not gods after all... Achilles died under the arrow of Paris , Theseus was thrown off a cliff by such treacherous men as Lycomedes, Alexander died by poison, and Caesar by the daggers of conspirators. Such is the way of fate, that it puts It pushes people off the cliff, and it lifts up the failed ones who were thrown into the dust by it."

"But you didn't lose after all." Robert kept holding Edward's hand, and from time to time he gently pressed the hand held by him with his fingers, "Maybe that should have been your fate, but so what? You have defeated And now you are the master of your own destiny."

He picked up a lock of Edward's black hair and played with it gently.

"After everything is over, I will leave your father the ancestral manor of your family." The king said, "He has done a lot for me in the past ten years, maybe out of self-interest, but no matter No matter what, I should give him a corresponding return."

"You don't have to." Robert lowered his head.

"It's not necessary, but I want to do it." Edward paused for a moment, a blush stained his cheeks, "I didn't do it for him, you know."

"Thank you." Robert said in a low voice, his voice was a little dull, as if his nose was blocked.

They leaned against each other, watching the red sunset fade away, the bright and gorgeous day of this summer day was about to fade away.

Servants entered the room with oil lamps and candles, and one of them carried a tray with a document in it.

"I remember I specifically emphasized not to bring these things here." Robert glared at the servant displeased.

"It's okay, give it to me." Edward patted Robert's cheek lightly. "It's just a bulletin, not the Magna Carta. This thing won't tire me out."

He reached out, picked up the paper from the tray, and unfolded it.

"What happened?" Robert took a candlestick from the servant, and watched Edward finish reading the report in his hand by the dim light of the candle.

"Mary has occupied London." Edward refolded the piece of paper and placed it on the tea table beside him. "Your father and Guildford went to Elizabeth's place, and he left the rest of your family in London."

Robert's face turned pale all of a sudden, "Are they safe?"

"It wasn't mentioned in the report." Edward glanced at Robert reassuringly, "But Mary has just entered London, so I'm afraid it's too late to harm them, and besides, she is busy trying to win people's hearts, which is not conducive to her creating a gentle image. .”

"He's such a horrible monster." Robert clenched his fists, "Leaving his wife and women... throwing them to the enemy." There was a miserable smile on his face, "Because they are useless, no Is it? For useless people, he has always been abandoned, just like me."

Edward rubbed his cheek against the stubble on Robert's chin.

"It is said that Mary will not stay in London for too long. Her army has already suffered heavy losses. She is currently gathering the army and plans to use the existing numerical advantage to solve Elizabeth, the last obstacle, in one go." Edward continued, " I think we should go back to London: it will take about ten days for the Guards to drive to London from here, and by that time they should have just decided the winner... This should be over."

"Doctor Paganini says you need to rest," protested Robert. "England and Europe can wait while you rest."

"I am here to be Edward Tudor, and I am very happy." Edward rested his head on Robert's shoulder. The audience in the theater has returned to their positions, and it's time to perform again." He sighed softly, "I am the king after all, and whether it is to fulfill my responsibilities or to consolidate my position, I will do everything I can. Must go back to the capital now."

Robert seemed to want to refute, but he finally nodded, "I will let them prepare a large carriage, and set up a soft couch in it so that you can lie down."

The transparent shadow of the night, like a soft curtain, covers everything outside the window. Stars protrude from the sky, scanning the earth with melancholy eyes. A gust of wind blows through the garden, and the endless leaves on the branches are in the shadows. Trembling faintly.The king suddenly felt a little uneasy in his heart, which made his trembling fear pass through his heart, and then quickly spread throughout his body along with the nerves.He thought again of the trembling dome of roses that covered the sky in the dream, the thorny thorns, and the red juice dripping down the stem like blood.

He held Robert's hand even tighter, like a cat lying on the stove, he clung to Robert's body tightly, and buried his cheek on the other's neck.

The night grew thicker and darker, until finally the whole earth was immersed in this dark and melancholy night.