Beautiful Defiance- The Final Installment

22 August, 1400

 The Abandoned Tower

Eoin My Love,

After reading your letter, I had a most terrible wave of rage come over me. I know that is an awful way to start a letter, but I love you and I must tell you what I have done. Oh, I wish this wasn’t so. I wish my father hadn’t gone to the extreme and killed my best friend. Her name was Aisling, and she had the most soothing voice. She could calm me down just by saying my name. She was so incredible. I miss her so much. 

So, to essentially, avenge her, I have committed treason against the King. I refuse to call him father anymore. Yesterday, 21 August, I put the juice of several Belladonna berries into one of my father’s courier’s drinks. I am not sure if anyone knows anything. If they do, I will be burned at the stake. If I get away with this, I will have to migrate to a different country to be sure no one finds out. 

But Eoin, I had to tell you. I would not be able to live without you knowing. I hope you understand why I had to do this, and I hope you don’t hold it against me. I don’t want this to wreck our relationship. 

I am not sure how many more letters I will be able to write to you. Please know that I am aching inside because I am unsure of our future. Please don’t give up your job for me, Eoin. You will need it for your future family. 

Yes, your future family. I don’t have much hope that I will live much longer. But I am comforted by the fact that I will see my best friend again soon. 

I suggest that you stop writing to me. I would hate it if you got too caught up in this. You might need to leave as it is. 

I also want you to know that I was never able to bring myself to destroy these letters. I am sending them all to you, so you may keep them and regale your future children with our forbidden love story. I’m sure it will keep them guessing.

If I never see you again, Eoin, I love you. I love you, I love you,

Loving you always,

Blaine

31, August, 1400

Execution day

Blaine

I wrote this the day you died. I love you always.

Execution Day

The guards dragged the Princess out of the hut towards her impending demise. She looked beautiful in her defiance. I stared, emotionless at the place they were bringing her. It was a stake. She was to be burned. 

I dreaded the moment when they would light the wood under the stake, but I knew that the Princess would stand there in glory. They thought she was defeated, but she was far from it. Instead, she held her head up high, not ashamed of her crimes. Not ashamed that her father, the king, didn’t love her. Not ashamed for loving a blacksmith’s son. 

The guards tied her up tightly at the king's command. She refused to look at him, so she looked straight at me.

“I love you,” She called. 

“I love you more than you know,”  I replied.

Then they asked her if she had anything to say. She nodded and looked straight at her father. 

“I did this for Aisling. I avenged her.”

Her father looked taken aback, but quickly recovered.

“Let her burn,”  The king roared.

I had to look away then. I couldn’t watch you die.  

You started to sing as the wood under you burned. It was the most beautiful song I had ever heard, and it was because you were not afraid of what was to come. I had to admire your courage and bravery in that moment. 

A few minutes passed, and the entire stake was in flames. But I swear I could still hear you singing.

Prince Fionn was standing next to me at your execution. I wish we could have had a funeral for you, but I don’t think the king allows that sort of thing for someone who had committed treason. Even if it was his own daughter.

Anyway, Fionn is angry. Extremely angry. But not at you. He told me that he admired you for your sacrifice, even if he thought there was a better way for you to avenge Aisling. He said you should have done something to ‘honor her memory’ and I think I agree. But that is just selfish of me. If you had done something like that, you might not be dead right now. But I also know that was probably the only thought going through your head when you read my letter. 

But no matter how much I can wish you back to me, I know you are  gone. It will take me some time to get over it, but I can do it. 

Fionn and I have decided to stay friends, which I am excited about. I hope you would be excited about that too. I’m not sure what the king is going to do about it, but I don’t think prince Fionn is in as much danger as you and I had been. In fact, we weren’t in any real danger until the king found out. And I think he didn’t like the fact that you were writing letters to someone as lowly as me. I guess we won’t ever know. I think I’m okay with that.

I am putting this on your grave, my love. I will leave you notes as long as I can. I will put flowers here as long as I can.  It will be my way of showing my love for you. But even as I say that I love you, I want to be able to pass this story on to my descendants. So I am not going to give up loving people entirely. I hope you understand. 

I love you so, so much,

Your Eoin.

Four Hundred Years Later:

15, August 1803

Dear Reader

This story is a forbidden love story. My many-greats grandfather and his beau, the Princess of Kilkenny, fell in love. These are their letters to each other. I have compiled them together for your enjoyment, and to show you what it may have been like back in the middle ages. We might be in the middle of a completely new era, but many people still have a soft spot for love stories.

I have been told that my grandfather Eoin was a very thoughtful, soft spoken man. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must have been writing back to the Princess. I am incredibly impressed that they were able to keep their love a secret, because Princess Blaine seems very outgoing and bubbly. 

I don’t know how many times I have re-read the scene where Princess Blaine dies. I get so emotional. I become so wrapped up in Eoin’s words as he professes his love for the Princess one last time. I wonder what I would have done in his shoes. It was so raw, so utterly full of sadness and love. 

I hope this old pile of letters has inspired you to do something amazing. I know it has inspired me. I can’t wait to change people’s perspectives with this.

Sincerely,

Aisling Fionn Byrne

Submitted to Finn’s Leinster Journal

Author’s Note

This story is purely imagination. None of this actually happened in the city of Kilkenny, Leinster. Many elements to this story are real including: King James Butler, St George’s Channel, Kilkenny City and Castle, Finn’s Leinster Journal (Kilkenny’s local newspaper), the poisonous plant, belladonna, and burning women at the stake for committing treason.  Princess Blaine committed treason, but that treason is a work of fiction. 

I loved the idea of having people write letters to each other, and I wanted it to be a little more magical than modern-day people, so that’s why I picked Ireland. 

Addressing the topic of Eoin putting letters at Blaine’s grave- maybe he left more after Execution Day, but those were never found by his family. Or maybe he only left the rest of his letters there for a little while, enough so that Blaine could ‘read’ them, then took those letters and threw them into St. George’s Channel, their first real meeting place. 

Eoin and Blaine’s story does kind of end on a cliffhanger, when we learn about one of Eoin’s descendants, Aisling Fionn Byrne. She found these letters and submitted them to Finn’s Leinster Journal. I might write a story with her as the main character.

The other thing I wanted to address was the topic of grief. Grief plays a huge part in this story, because both Eoin and Blaine are experiencing it. Blaine’s grief is more fresh than Eoin’s, and because Eoin’s mother died when he was little, he is able to help Blaine understand her grief a little more. That aspect helped strengthen their relationship. 

I hope you all enjoyed Blaine and Eoin’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thanks to my good friend Emma for helping me edit this!

Maya Kordatzky