Waiting for the End

This is such a small place.

Once, I could roam free all over this land. It was my land then. I owned as far as I could ride in three days. Even then, I could sit astride my horse and look down upon lands that could be mine, and taken by force, politics or intrigue, if I wished. Some of those further lands connected to me by family relationships too. I could sit there on a hillside looking over all that lay around me, with my men at my back and feel as though I was someone substantial. Feel that my name would be writ large in my family's history. That my name would be the one name my descendants would remember far into a future that is too far to imagine.

Now, I am here, confined to this one room.

No, I am not under arrest, not imprisoned; not officially anyway. But if I dare to venture from this room, attempt to take the long curving staircase down to the land that used to be mine, then I find myself my daughter's guards accompany me. They do no order, or forbid, they would not dare, even now when I'm a frail old man, but there is reluctance, a growing reluctance, to allow me freedom of movement.

There are tales, stories and songs about young beautiful princesses imprisoned in towers, none about old men suffering the same fate, and I doubt any handsome prince, or even a comely princess, is out there now riding to rescue me.

Instead, I sit at the window, watching over the lands that were once mine. Like everyone else in this castle, that was once mine, I wait only for my death.