Her father
The cold glow of the first light of the morning had by now started to shine in the blue English sky, in the form of pink shades, accompanied by the morning sun.
Many still slept at that time, it was just after five in the morning.
Small, pale hands, however, were already leaning against the heavy glass of the enormous and majestic windows.
The big, grey almost purplish eyes of the little girl were illuminated by her first lights, giving her gaze a spark of amazement and hope.
Her hands were pressed against the glass, directly under the calm light of dawn, almost creating a heart around it with her little fingers.
Charlotte had already learned many things.
She was a precocious child in everything.
At a year and a half of age she already knew how to walk and the words, the phrases that came out of her small pink lips already had a complete meaning.
She showed the world a maturity greater than her age and already managed or tried to get by on her behalf, no longer depending too much on her nurse.
Her white hair was shiny and glistening like winter snow.
She wore a magnificent dress, also of fine blue fabric, on which the edges were decorated with white and soft lace.
She looked at the dawn, the pink colors that the sky had taken in accompanying the warm sun.
She loved watching the sunrise, she didn't know why, but seeing the sun brought an innate warmth and happiness to the little princess' heart.
However, Charlotte was not allowed to observe the sun, not directly, her doctors often told her when they came to see her.
The sun could have burned her, damaged her skin, white as paper and marble.
Sometimes the girl observed the bright complexion of her nurse, the rosy colour of her mother's face, they were all so beautiful, those colours, so vivid, so natural.
She didn't know what she would give, even just for once, to feel the warmth of the blush on her pale cheeks, to know, for once, how to feel alive and accepted by the people around her.
Charlotte was born different from all the others, of a unique beauty but weak and often sick.
Her health was like a frayed and weak thread, it tended to break very often and very often to make her feel bad.
Everyone around her thought she was too small to hear them, to hear what the doctors were saying secretly.
That the little girl was weak, sick, not strong enough to handle too much stress, that her health situation was precarious, that if she didn't improve, she could die by the age of ten.
Obviously not all concepts such as death, life and health were very clear to the little girl, but she only heard their voice, their sad tone.
For days Isabelle had stopped coming to visit the child and in her heart Charlotte was wondering if it was her fault, that her mother didn't want to see her anymore.
She clenched one of her little hands into a fist against the window, why had they left her alone? How come no one more than her came to smile at her, greet her, involve her in everyday chores?
The attendants rarely came to visit her, much more disinterested as if they had learned of the child's poor health.
They only came to bathe her, comb her hair, sometimes feed her, but no one ever spent time with her, playing, laughing together.
Those times, she found them strange, no one dared to put a smile not even a false one, on their face the fear, she felt it, in everyone who lived in the castle.
At night she carefully observed the bright heat of the torches, the screams of the people, the dull sound of gunfire and the silence during the day as if the past was now forgotten by all.
In those cold nights of anger the guards stood guard at every possible entrance to the castle, even to the little girl's room as if they were afraid that something could happen to her.
Then nothing during the day, total silence, solitude.
The adults had a name for what was happening, they called it "revolution", what a long strange word for her.
Charlotte had never heard her mother utter that word, nor her nurse, to the point of believing that the word was a bad word, not to be said at all.
The door opened behind her, thus leading the little princess to turn her pale face towards a probable intruder, anyone who could visit her at that time.
She saw who it was.
The face of hers, her complexion was quite dark, almost golden, of a fascinating colour, in contrast with two big blue eyes like the sky.
One of the girl's two eyes was cut by a noticeable, albeit thin scar.
Her curly black hair was closed at the nape of her neck in a short ponytail.
She had never seen that person before so it was strange for the princess that someone unknown would visit her.
-Who...are you? - came out slowly as a whisper from the pink and parted lips of the little girl, leaving for a moment perplexity even in the face of her visitor.
It was true, Brooklyn had never come to visit her young niece so it was only natural that she could not recognize her.
As she had grown up, little Charlotte, the daughter of her late brother, walked, talked, but to her great amazement that little girl looked nothing like Gilbert.
It was so strange for the first time, to be faced with the daughter of the enemy and at the same time her beloved older brother.
A mixture of emotions mixed in Brooke's heart, but she looked at the child's body, she was still so small, innocent, so much perhaps that she didn't understand what she was really going on.
She smiled affectionately, she had to be patient, forgiving, what in front of her eyes she had was only a child.
-My name is Brooklyn Stanley, I knew your father very well...- the young woman admitted placing a hand on her heart and at the same time lowering her gaze, trying to be kind and respectful at the same time.
-Father?- repeated the little girl, leaving a grimace of perplexity on her pale face.
No one had ever talked to her about her father and was not even aware if she ever had a father.
Her mother rarely spoke to her and when she did, she certainly tried to divert the subject, passing the child's thoughts to something else and certainly not to a person she didn't even know.
-He was called Gilbert, you know, he was an important person, an army general... - Brooke pointed to her, looking up into a past full of memories.
She hadn't seen her brother in so long and she would never see him again.
However, it seemed that the little girl did not yet fully understand what a general was so Brooklyn just explained all this in a simpler way.
-He was a good person-.
She slowly felt the little hands, the small arms of her young niece settle over her pants, over her legs, to hear better.
Although she still did not fully understand what the woman was telling her, she seemed curious to hear that she too had had a father.
-Where is he?- asked Charlotte looking into the blue eyes of the other, looking for an answer in them, where she, perhaps could find her father.
But Brooke knew Gilbert was dead and that was the problem.
The little princess was still too young to know what it meant to die and surely her hopeful heart would break into a thousand pieces to discover that she could never meet her father.
So Brooke just aimed for the sky, because that was where Gilbert had to be right now, somewhere, in the land of those who never die.
The little girl also turned her gaze to the sky, at dawn, at the sun, which was rising higher and higher in the sky.
He thought, now that that warm sun, that immense mass of light was her father, who was greeting her.
Charlotte loved to believe so and it was nice to know that still somewhere her father could see her.
-The sun?- asked the little one pointing one of her fingers towards the sky.
Brooke felt so bad at that moment knowing that once the revolution was over, even that innocent little girl could, as her father, take a place in heaven.
They would certainly have killed her if they had had the chance, no mercy, not even for a little girl.
Was it seriously right what they were doing? Was it really right to rebel for a just cause but at the same time sacrifice thousands of innocent lives?
Brooke already felt a strong attachment to that little one and how with her brother she could not have accepted that she was equally brutally killed.
If only there was a way, she could save her niece's life, if only she could take her away from there.
She took the girl on her lap, as a sign of affection, hugged her, smelled her hair, it seemed in part of her, Brooke remembered her brother.
That little body was so cold that it seemed almost no longer alive.
-What are you doing with my little girl?- a voice picked up the situation from her shoulders.
Brooklyn recognised that voice, all too well, it was a known voice but at the same time an enemy.
She recognised her, from her very long and wavy golden hair from her blue eyes.
With a pale face, but at the same time red on her cheeks.
She whom everyone feared and hated at the same time.
The one who had killed her own younger half-brother, had sent her older half-brother to jail and lately had also killed Gilbert.
Each of her victims had had a different treatment, a different way of dying and none of them remained on the conscience of that emotionless girl.
Thomas Cross, the king's illegitimate son, had died at the age of twelve, thrown out of a window.
Henry, at the age of twenty-five had been sent to prison by his own sister and only thanks to Brooke had he managed to escape and reach France.
Gilbert, was only twenty-three when Isabelle had used him only to bare her long-awaited heir and then stab him to death.
Brooke hugged her niece's body to her, she felt in a way, she had to protect her, save her from her own mother.
-I only came to talk with her, to finally get to know my brother's daughter- the woman admitted further, as she hoped, the princess would not make further scenes or cruel thoughts.
-Get out of here immediately, I'll just give you ten seconds if you don't want me to call the guards ...-.
Brooklyn was aware that leaving her niece alone that time she would never see her again, all this only for her fear, for a whim of Isabelle that her little girl could become more attached to her than to her own mother.
But she didn't even want the guards to take her to prison, she knew Isabelle and it would have been enough to lie, it would have been enough for her to say that she had tried to assassinate her daughter and Brooke's head would have been hung on the city walls in one evening.
The revolution was too important to her, her friends, Francis and Dickon, could not betray them, she could not abandon them to their fate, to certain death.
So Brooke decided for her greater good, let Charlotte go, got her off her lap and turned away from her, left her, abandoned her, which she didn't want to do.
She saw, as she was going away, how the little girl extended her hands to her, tried to call her, even not remembering her name, wanted to know more about her, about her own father, wanted to be with her.
Isabelle immediately took the girl in her arms, hugged her, tried to make a connection with her as a mother makes her with a daughter.
But she couldn't, Charlotte still held out her little hands to her aunt as she watched her leave the room.
Why was she leaving too?