The Devil's Whore revisited

jinxed100  challenged me to re-write some of my previous The Devil’s Whore drabbles into the first person.  Here is my response, although Sexby had rather more to say than the other two:

Final imprisonment

It’s dark in this cell, the window lets in little light during the day and the night seems so long.  I don’t need a light as I am permitted no pen and no paper, so there is no need for light.  So what am I now?  No longer a husband, nor a father, for I will never see my family again.  Once I fought alongside Oliver, but now the Tyrant says I am a threat to the country.  What am I, what is my role?  No one knows or even cares that I am here.  It’s dark in this cell,

000---000

Liberty

Thus they lay the great John Lillburne in his last resting place.  I knew him once, at first I thought him mad, but then his words began to make sense.  We fought together, and I have been a fighter all my life.  But no longer was I fighting for money, but for a cause.  Now he’s dead, as is Thomas Rainsborough, the best friend I ever had.  Both of them dead because they trusted Oliver.  But I don’t, not any longer.  He says the country want him to be King, but truly what Oliver wants is what the country wants.

So here I am, wearing a dress and veil.  No-one takes any notice of one more widow.  My physical movement is restricted, for you can’t run in a skirt, but if I move quietly along no-one looks at me twice.  What would she think of me, she who stands there so bravely and whose garter I carry with me to this day?

“Mistress mine,” and she smiles at me and the weeks and months of exile are put aside as we come together.  Our love is consummated and the ghosts of those we cannot forget are finally laid to rest.

000---000

Ending and Beginning

The bells ring for joy and yet I cannot stop weeping.   Oliver may be celebrating but I have lost my husband and the only one who truly loved me through the years.  Oh Edward, why?  Why did you throw your life away?  But how can I ask that when you did what we knew you had to do?

What’s this?  My child quickens within me.  I would have thrown myself into the waves, but now I am responsible for another.  My heart is torn in two, I shall go to Elizabeth; she will share my grief and my happiness also.