Martha looked away “Listen closely Samantha when they take you they will find out how you are, so you will be kept better but you will not be truly safe. So take the best care of yourself, don’t worry about Primrose or us or the village take care of yourself you are a Royal and should be held to that standard. so don’t let them forget the gods have their hands on your fait.”

I packed as much as I could think I would need for a long trip and life of isolation, as Martha had explained I would likely be in prisoned for life but be relatively safe as long as my brother could ignore me. So I brought more books then cloths. Martha had packed a few trunks for me as well. 

The carriage that came for me in the morning was as much a knacker cart as they could possibly send, it was meant as a great disrespect. So I was slowly driven though town and made an example of to all the people I had learned to love and respect. I had never hated my form more then at the moment of knowing if I had been born a real man these would be my people I would have the power to help them save them. now they were condemned to suffer the cures my body had brought on us all watching in shame and instance as I was removed from the world. 

We traveled a long way and to my surprise James had sent one of his men along, as it was a royal decree that Jame looked after me his been would be taking stents and reporting back on my care. he had arranged this as it was his head that would roll if any one harmed me. I eat slept and took care of all necessities alone in the carriage As I had been locked in. After two week of travel we reached not a prison but a fortress! we were still on the cost I could smell the sea and jutting stones made a forest of out of the large cliff the fortress was jammed into. 

 I was marched from carage straight into the large stone building past what I could only thing was a mess hall in into a Large empty room. Looking around I took in large ground floor suit with a small spring on one side and three barred tall narrow windows on the other side. When James man looked over the room and protested the lack of furniture he was quickly answered with a “prisoner’s don’t get nice things that is what the floor is for.” luckily they did let me have all the belongings that I had brought. Then before I knew it happed I was locked in alone by my self with my four chests of belongings. In a large room of stone and iron with only the echos of the men outside the cell door.

 I was down the hall from the mess so could clearly hear all of the solders and quickly learned this was a place of forgetting. It was made for some distant crazy uncle and that about every other generation a royal was put here to be forgotten. I sat on the floor and morned my confinement till a try of food was slid through a flap on the bottom of the door. Someone bark “You wont get more food till you push your tray and the gear back through. so If you want to eat you’ll be quiet, clean and obedient.”  I tried to stand to get the food as i hadn’t eaten yet but my legs wouldn’t work it was like the stone had drained the life out of my lower half I started to shiver and had to roll my self over and really work the blood back into my legs. I remembered on of the old miner men back in the village had talked about new miners sitting down for their first lunch and not being able to get up and earth stone steal you heat and if you don’t sit on your gloves you can die from cold with out knowing your in danger. I had almost fallen in to this on my first day on my own. Martha was right I needed to take care of my self. 

I made a bed by the door, out of every dress I had brought so I could hear better what was going on, I hadn’t even explored my room, it was just a big room but the mess was entertaining.  I only heard peaces of what was discussed on my behalf. I did pick up that only men we in the fortress so James man negotiated to be the only person with the key to my cell. I also learned that there was no other cell like this so if any other Royals went mad they would be my roommate for life.

On the whole I knew I had it better then most prisoners, as a few of my books had described much worse circumstance. Life wasn’t even much different than back home. My meals were delivered, I was confined but surrounded by people I couldn’t really interact with, I watch them go about their lives from my window or listen to their meals… alone again. The one good shinning light in my seclusion was that Martha sent me care packages of soap bedding and at one point a load of furniture! We could never exchange letters or information but each time James men switch out the new relief would bring some small bit of life to me. I learned  over one of the mess meals that the only reason I was aloud such luxuries was that the fort didn’t have to pay for it and that they were all things that they could take away if I started to ack out. I was strictly controlled none of the solders ever spoke to me after the original instructions on my food trays. the only time i could talk to any one was when one of James men would bring me something and the more we tried to talk the faster he was removed. once i even herd him complain that it felt like he was leaving gifts for a ghost as our intonation was limited to him saying “all is well in Grayfield Lady Martha ask your needs?” as he walked in and place the box she had sent I had to quickly say “Soap, embroidery things, a blanket?” the brief interaction was let be becuse I had learned that if i was close to the door they would belly let the man in but if i was sat on my be away from the door and mad no move to leave we both were aloud a brief sentence. 

I asked for another blanket as it was stating to get cold outside, my room so in the side of the cliff staid cold. never warm, never chilly just the constant earth temperature but with winter coming I didn’t want to risk it. I also thought that I could maybe spend the long hours embodying the blanket. The biggest difference of my cell was I was not allowed any candles and there was no fireplace. some thing so a part of my life that with out the nightly glow of warmth light and comfort it felt like they had remove part of my skin. 

I found the lack of exercise and walks to be the worst part of my prison, keeping up my cell was the most sanity I could ask for as each chore was something to do. I treasured all the needle point Martha sent me but found running out of it broke me a little, so I started holding it back for my darkest hours.

 I also arranged my large room like no other room. The big hard wood furniture set was uncasramoiously shoved in to my cell. so it took all of many days to get the bed, two shelves and two side tables set were I wanted, clustered then in the middle of the room blocking any view from the cell door to the fridge little bathing shallow made but the stream. I also placed my new dressing screen in front of where the little stream emptied out of the room and from what I had gathered flowed into the sea. There was a hallowed stone seat formed over the streams exit that explained itself as the only kind of lavatory I could expect. All of this was to make some kind of privacy while allowing the full length and breath of the large room for me to pace in large circles. 

Shear boredom forced me to attempt the strange exercises the men did in the yard. I didn’t have the best view of the drills but each morning the newer solders that came at the my arrival were borated by the commander for not being able to keep up. The commander would often say things like the woman of his home town could do better, work harder, hit harder. So I started to wonder how hard it could really be. so after cycles of failing and giving up, then being so achingly board that I tried again for months, I too learned to keep up with their daily exercise. This helped more then anything. having a schedule not just for food but to do something that helped me feel more alive! I needed it, I soon noticed that on days I skipped the next day was miserable, so I become a creature of strict habit with my self, oing dills every single day. I have alway been thin almost willowy but now I was slowly gaining lean muscle I was able to do more in a day and felt more my self in my body then I ever had.

Life again changed when James man came to the door and told me things were going badly and that James had not sent  replacement and not to expect one any time soon he was staying on but for how long he didn’t know. I asked that if he did go back to thank everyone for what they had sent and if or when they could send more sustaining things books, needed point, soap so I could make it though the longer times without. The time between James men coming had slowed a so much I knew they could stop at any time so had started pacing out all of my few entertainments.

The men of the fort treated me like a ghost, they did not talk to me or respond to anything I said. A tray of food was dropped and collected three times a day through the flap at the foot of the door. I didn’t get food till my try was returned, so all things said it was cold but respectful transaction. The food was good quality much better then many in our village made do with. So I sank in to quietly acting the beraly present specter.  Many times I heard them discussing how thankful they all were that I wasn’t a hand full. Not long after James last man left to check on the estate promising he would return, I notice the men of the fortress got more ruckus and really wondered what had happed to the key to my cell? 

One night I was awoken by giggling of two of the younger men that were new to the fortress I crept to the window not even sure why I was being quiet maybe part of me really was becoming a ghost. To my great surprise two young men were aggressively kissing and moving agent each other, before long then one with a mop of blond hair turned to the wall in the corner and pulled his pants down. I was shocked but couldn’t look away. I have never been educated on how such things were done and my staggered brain was really getting something new to digest. the sounds they made the the way they griped each other the force they put to their passion. All as quiet as they could make it. witch made me think I had witnessed a secret. It was over as soon as it started just a tight embrace then the taller man left while the other cleaned himself up and returned to the fort. 

I spent the next week pouring over every book I had for anything that would mention the feverous thing I had witnessed. The closest I found was one book of pirates and how men at see tended to prefer the company of men once they had been away from culture for too long. Was that what had happened here?

Though only on occasion it somehow seemed my vantage point was not the only place the young solders meat up for these activities but I always watch amazed by the act, almost desperate to know more of how such things were done. Then it stoped and they didn’t com back to my view it was like the birds nesting over one of the windows I saw them come and go bringing food for their young but one day the family of birds were gone and I could only hope the chick had flown off but the not knowing made me sad. Then as spring came so too did the parent birds again. So too I hoped that the passionate solders would find another spring in the courtyard corner I could just see into.

To my surprise months later the first soldier with the mop of hair reappeared but with a new partner this solder look similar to the first partner but a bit younger and far less sure of himself or their activities. This time the more experienced blond soldier kissed the new man till he was out of his wits. Made quick work of the new mans pants till his trophy was made free. The first solder that with the moon light I could now see his a mop of dark blond hair  was only so poppy because of bouncy curls. He made a most unmanly giggle of delight at the new solders newly exposed trophy he wrapped his hands around it in the way you aline casing for making sausages up and down in a way that I found my self desperately wanting to try. It looked so confirming in embrace and motion. before I cold get to lost in my own inappropriate ideas the blond made a noise in a mixture of pride and disappointment and the other solder was clearly embarrassed and tucked himself away straightened up and after a quick exchange walked off into the night. The blond leaned against the big stone wall and smiled to the moon clearly enjoying the nights activity but also trying to calm him self down so he to could return to his night. he was a pretty man long lashes fair skin and a build not dissimilar to mine. I wondered if he was made to wear women's clothe if he would be far prettier then me? 

A thought I had on occasion as young ladies discussed the virtues of many a sweaty hulking young men. The other girls seemed to think if a man was a brother he was dull or repugnant but if that same boy was a possible suitor then the virtues of his sweat soaked manliness were the topic of endless praise. I fond the only boys that caught my eye were the ones I wondered if they would look as well in a dress as Daisy or ever be as clean or smell as good…it had made me more content in my life to not have to share a life with a reeking loud overlord like all my friends had been doomed to. Now I wondered if that would have been a better life then my impeccably clean almost comfortable cell? 

The mess times and the conversation that came with those meals were my main source of entertainment. With some trial and error I had learned how to set some of my things against the the door to prop the food try flap open and focus the sound to my little rug along the wall by the door. Each meal I would hungrily pull my tray through set it on a bed side table forgotten till the conversation in the mess died a way. I lay stock still on the little rug to hear any conversation that would reach me. I would even close my eyes and focus only on listening. 

The men talked so openly about so many things. Now that James man had gone they had all but forgotten me so were free with various discussions, often revolving around women they had left behind or stores from the front line. They Never said anything about the king, famine was taking over the south. That riots wouldn’t be far behind so they all were extremely lucky to have this post. The stories of the front were nightmare and it very much seemed like we were losing from what I had gathered was a war on an island no one knew why we had started. There were a lot of discussions about the lack of food and the quality going down so I knew my food was not worse then their own. I had picked up we eat the same things, large portions made that we all eat so no one could poison the food. So I was with them in that at least and though I got less food I was always fed.