Too often, the Queen wished to let her hair down.
But every time—as hands snaked up to grasp pins holding each strand in place, the King would intervene. “You mustn’t.”
And she listened, because he was her rescuer.
Until the day she found him with those scullery-maids in the pantry. He looked not at all regal with his breeches at his ankles.
Her hair cascaded over the King, over everyone. Free of its prison at last, it descended from the tower of her body.
Satisfied, she tied it again. Her pinned-up hair muffled their screams against her head.