Juniper sat on the woody and precious desk in his large study.
It was difficult, holding power, more complicated than he had ever thought.
In his head he kept thinking about the story of his uncle, of how for a lifetime he had hated him for an act of revenge.
The young Baron felt so stupid at that moment, stupid and sad.
He felt he missed his wife more than anything else and he would have done everything in that moment to be able to see her again, hug and hold her in his arms.
Rudolph, grew more every day so much so that he was already sitting and interacting with all the surrounding things.
The child looked very much like Gilbert, he had the same dark red auburn colour of the hair and the same grey eyes as the cloudy sky.
Around the baby's delicate nose, small specks began to form on his skin, which must have been freckles, inherited from his mother.
He stammered with commitment.
Rudolph had begun to get his first teeth and soon they fed him, from only milk to vegetable and meat purees.
He was growing up now but without a mother.
Juniper wondered how it must be, in the first year to find himself without anyone.
He turned his chair until he looked at the wall, which behind him, covered the lower part of the huge study, behind the precious cherry wood desk.
Behind him was a clean, very large canvas that covered the upper part of the wall, in a precious carved wooden frame painted in gold.
Abigail was there, she had always been there on that canvas, in that painting, she had always been with him.
Juniper remembered, after months, how his wife was.
He looked at the painting for a long time, in the smallest details of her face.
Her nose covered and surrounded by dark freckles.
She had two large eyes, green, emerald-colored, and very long hair, red as fire which ran down her back to the middle.
She was beautiful, she was his wife, he couldn't wait to see her again.
In addition although he had not yet confessed to anyone about it, Abigail had mentioned in a letter to her husband the likelihood of being pregnant by him of a baby conceived before he left.
And it was so, that Juniper, still deluded himself to be able to see his wife again one day and probably also a child of him.
Two strong blows struck on the door of his study, so as to attract the attention of the Baron and lead him to turn his gaze towards it.
They looked like blows given with force, speed, almost as if someone on the other side was in a hurry to communicate something, to enter.
-Come in!- came hard from the young Baron's lips as his words were turned to white vapour from his mouth.
By now November had arrived and with this also the frost and the first snows, and soon he would have celebrated his eighteenth birthday.
The door opened more delicately this time, one of his servants entered the large room clutching a letter in his hands.
That man was trembling, sweating, seemed to be afraid and at the same time freezing from the cold.
It could be perceived by the dry and reddened color of his cold lips.
-A letter my lord, has arrived urgently this morning- he handed the white and precious letter into his hands.
Juniper looked at it for a long time, observed the seal, in red wax, on which was stamped the lion, the official symbol of the English royal house.
He had no doubts, that letter he was holding in his hands had been sent by Warwick.
The Baron slowly opened it, broke the seal with his fingers and began to read the letters, written in black ink.
He read the fast handwriting of someone who tries to write as fast as possible and knew it wasn't his cousin, he perceived it, as above all he read that the sender had signed himself with the name of W.
He knew it must have been William who wrote those words, but more than the words in that message, it was the content that broke Juniper's heart into a thousand pieces.
Abigail, his beloved wife, had passed away in the morning of the previous day.
That letter had been sent to him directly by a trusted person, so that neither the royal post nor anyone else could suspect anything.
The tears soon rose, cold, salty, transparent, in the young man's eyes and soon stopped.
The messenger realised that the baron was starting to cry, he perceived it and so with permission he decided to leave his lord some time alone to be able to process what had happened.
Juniper fell on a chair, without strength, no more ability to continue, without motivation.
He dipped his fingers into his blond curls and stood there for some time, immersed in depression and sadness as unable to stop them, glittering tears fell down his cheeks, reddened by the cold.
The woman he loved, his wife, was dead and with her also the child whom she was secretly carrying in her womb.
All of this was difficult to process.
He could never see her again, see her enchanting smile, her beauty, her perfume.
Now seriously that Abigail had died, he no longer had anyone in this world.
How come all the people he loved ended up dying? How come it wasn't just like in those stories where good always ends up winning?
He would have killed his cousin for what she had done, he would have cut her head off her body and immediately had it attacked on the walls of Glasgow.