cynthia sykes

Weddings And Funerals
Inspired by Shakespeareapos;s Hamlet. October 2008

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He had not come to the funeral.

The priestrsquo;s chanting was muffled and foggy behind the miles of black veil. She stared straight ahead and watched the slight sway of the delicately embroidered roses inches from her eyes, wondering vaguely what was causing the movement. The air in here was charged, humming with electric dissent ndash; perhaps it had become solid and was clamouring for her attention with the rest of the dissatisfied congregation that kept turning heads her way. They had also noticed and knew.

Her sonrsquo;s eyes had not left his fatherrsquo;s casket ndash; it was clear that the only absence he felt hammering at his gut and dragging on his limbs was the one he shared so much with, his name and blood alike. She glanced over at him, reaching out a slow hand to rest on his arm as one of the priestrsquo;s murmurs made him close his eyes hard and hunch his shoulders against the world.

He was crying tears for them both, she had realised early on, and once again she felt distant frustration at that undeniable fact. Perhaps, she speculated darkly, she would have been able to mourn were her mind not so damnably preoccupied ndash; and she hated him for it, she realised with a blink, hated him for making her think of him when she should be praying for her husband, hated his haunted eyes and gruff, scarred face deep with shadows for emerging in her mindrsquo;s eye exactly as they had appeared before her two days ago the morning after they had told her that her husband ndash; his brother - was dead.

Irsquo;m sorry, he said, his dark eyes serious and sad.

She had looked up at him from where she stood cupping his horsersquo;s muzzle in her thin hands. It was almost strange, looking up at him ndash; in the past year hersquo;d spent in court, shersquo;d grown used to their similar heights and her greater weight, subconsciously enjoying the slight physical advantage she held over him after being so used to her husbandrsquo;s bulk. It was rather comical sometimes when they were engaged in a spirited argument to be able to stand on tiptoe and meet his gaze with a sceptical raised eyebrow, but there was no humour in this occasion and she knew it. Are you, my lord?

Her sonrsquo;s arm shifted beneath her hand ndash; she blinked and realised the congregation was rising without her. She felt for her offspringrsquo;s silently proffered hand and stood slowly, closing her fingers around his cold, smooth ones in an unconsciously protective gesture as the unfamiliar volume of a hymn pierced through the fine netting of the veil to strike harshly at her ears.

He had not come, and she realised she was angry because she had been expecting him to. That lasting pressure on her cold, uplifted hands, the brushed warmth of a kiss, the hard electric stare he had given her as she waited breathless in the frozen silence of the stable before spurring his horse and riding off without another word ndash; that stare had promised a return as much as it had abated her demand to know why he would choose to flee the day after his brotherrsquo;s death. He was just as confused as she.

ldquo;Mother.rdquo;

They were outside the cathedral, following the torchlight of the murmuring funeral procession to the mausoleum. Her sonrsquo;s face was pale but hard and determined in the winter darkness, mirroring a mix of his fatherrsquo;s stubborn resolve with a hazy trace his unclersquo;s unnamed, blurred sorrow.

ldquo;You mustnrsquo;t marry again. Promise me.rdquo;

And as much as she protested, excused his bold, forward insistence as blind grief, scolded, eventually promisedhellip;she could not erase his dark, burned eyes looking back at her from her mind.

cynthia sykes, cynthia swann, cynthia swain, cynthia street twelfth vincent.