While Beauty Slept (43 page)

“Elise,” she said, waving me over. “You know how long Rose has begged to travel beyond the kingdom’s borders. The king agrees that this might be a suitable time to undertake such an excursion. Can you imagine her face when we tell her?”

It had been so very long since I had seen the queen look toward the future with happy anticipation. It sickened me to cut her short with my dreadful news.

“I have come from Millicent’s room. She is close to death.”

“You bring good tidings, then,” the king said with a smile, but Queen Lenore shook her head quickly.

Though I had planned to couch my suspicions in carefully chosen words, I found I could only speak the truth. In my heart I knew what had befallen Millicent. I had seen the same signs before.

“She has the pox.”

Queen Lenore’s eyes widened, but the king’s expression remained unchanged.

“Nonsense. She’s a sick old woman. It is her time.”

“Sir, with my greatest respect, you have not seen her. Her skin is covered in boils, and she is bleeding from her mouth and nose. My mother died of the pox, and she had exactly these afflictions. I had it myself. I know.”

I saw the shock of it in their faces, the fear that raced in the wake of my announcement.

“The soldiers,” I said, turning to face Queen Lenore. “I fear they have been stricken as well.”

“Impossible. I have been told that pox turns the skin black and swells up the body. I saw no such disfigurements.”

“It can take different forms. The surest sign is the boils. When you visited, did you see eruptions on any of the men’s skin?”

Worry began to cloud her eyes. “They had been sleeping outside, on the ground. Insect bites, I thought—”

The king interrupted, angry, as if by saying the words I had brought this affliction upon them. “We’ve had no pox in these parts for years!”

“Millicent came to us from Brithnia,” I said. “Our soldiers have been struck after fighting at the Brithnians’ side. Perhaps their men brought it with them into battle.”

Faced with disaster on his doorstep, King Ranolf might well have crumbled with despair or raged against the cruelty of fate. Instead he rose abruptly, blazing with resolve, and announced there was no time to be lost. After kissing his wife’s cheek and reassuring her all would be well, he marched from the room, shouting commands to his footmen and summoning his advisers to the Council Chamber.

Within an hour of my visit to Millicent, the castle was in tumult. The king ordered the wounded taken from the castle grounds to the convent of St. Lucia, escorted by the servants who had tended to them. Though sunset approached, carts and wagons were sent to St. Elsip to gather stores of ale, flour, and other provisions. Pages traveled to neighboring farms with bags of gold to buy livestock. None of the king’s subjects knew the nature of the danger facing them, yet all did his bidding without hesitation.

It was not until that night, in the flickering candlelight of the Great Hall, that the king announced what some had already guessed. By then servants had returned from St. Elsip with tales of men in town whose wounds would not heal, who appeared frailer now than when they’d returned from battle. A sense of foreboding drifted through the castle like a damp mist, slowing our pace as we’d made our way to the king’s assembly.

King Ranolf did not shy from speaking plainly. Our soldiers had been stricken with the pox, he said, to scattered gasps. St. Elsip—indeed the whole kingdom—might be swept by this pestilence, but he would not bow down before it. The sick men had been banished from the castle, and the next morning he would close the gates to protect us from any further threat of disease. Those who wished to join their families elsewhere were free to leave. For the weeks and months to come, the rest of us would remain sealed inside the walls, alone.

Seventeen

DESPERATE TIMES

H
ad the pox spread as quickly as our fears, we would have been dead by morning. Fires blazed in the Lower Hall fireplaces long past the hour they would usually have dimmed to ashes. Reluctant to face a morose Sir Walthur in my quarters, I chose to sit among the servants as I hastily wrote a letter to Prielle, urging her to remain in her home until the sickness had passed through town. Around me voices blended with the crackle of the flames, and I gazed into the heat even as it glazed my face with sweat.

A shadow loomed beside me, and I turned to see the young maid Liya staring at me with haunted eyes.

“Is it true? Lady Millicent has the pox?”

Though King Ranolf had not spoken her name during his address to the court, I had heard it whispered by others. I nodded.

“What shall I do?” she pleaded. “I cannot bear to go in there again.”

When I had last seen her, Millicent was scarcely human. Food would be wasted on the decaying shell she had become.

“She’s dead by now, or close enough,” I said with firm authority. “Leave her to rot.”

Liya, taken aback by my harsh tone, nodded quickly and scurried away. I did not care if she thought me cruel. Millicent deserved to lie on her deathbed unmourned and alone.

Exhausted from agonizing over their possible doom, the other servants began drifting off to their quarters, well aware that this crisis would not excuse them from performing their tasks the next morning. I took aside one of the boys who worked in the food storerooms and gave him a coin to deliver my letter that night. Having done my duty to what remained of my family, I returned to my room but spent the remainder of the night in a dazed stupor, denied the oblivion of sleep. When I heard sounds from the sitting room soon after dawn, I rose from the bed, relieved that Anika had brought breakfast, for I had barely eaten the day before. But when I walked out from the bedroom, I saw Sir Walthur pulling his prized collection of books from their perch on top of a chest and piling them inside a leather satchel. He stopped when he saw me.

“I am sorry I wakened you,” he said.

“I could not sleep.” I noticed two sacks lying at his feet. “Are you leaving?”

Sir Walthur nodded curtly. “I have decided to return to my estate in the country.”

I had never imagined that the king’s closest adviser would desert him during this desperate time. My face must have shown my shock, for Sir Walthur rushed to explain himself.

“’Twill be far safer there. Despite the king’s assurances, I fear that the castle will not be spared the pox.”

“I fear the same myself.” It was the first time I had spoken my doubts aloud. Sir Walthur did not look surprised, only resigned.

“I confess, since Dorian’s death I have felt drawn to what remains of my family. My older son has none of Dorian’s charms, but he is loyal. His children are my heirs now, my legacy, and it is time I share what little wisdom I can with them. As Dorian’s wife, you are entitled to a place with us.”

I could not tell by the tone of his voice what he hoped my answer might be.

“Thank you,” I said, “but I cannot desert my mistress or Princess Rose. They will have need of me.”

“So they will.” He turned back to his books, and I wondered if I had been dismissed. As I made my way toward the door, Sir Walthur stopped me.

“The king tells me you were the one who brought the pox to his attention.”

“I saw the signs on Millicent. I wish with all my heart I had not.”

“You have seen such signs before?”

I nodded. “The pox took my mother and three of my brothers.”

Sir Walthur assessed me solemnly. “And you escaped unscathed?”

“It felled me for some days, but I returned to health.”

“Then you should be spared this time,” Sir Walthur observed. “You are indeed blessed.”

No,
I wanted to tell him,
I am cursed
.
What sin have I committed to have this scourge brought upon me again?

“You do well to stay,” Sir Walthur continued, closing the clasp on his satchel. “I fear that the castle ranks will be much diminished, and the king and queen will need your strength.” He reached down and picked up his bags. “It’s time I set off. If I start now, I might make the journey in two days.”

“Have you called for a carriage?” I asked. “I will send Anika—”

Sir Walthur stopped me with a wave of his hand. “The carriages have long since been spoken for. Did you not hear the commotion last night? Lords and ladies arguing like children over who could make the quickest departure. No, I will travel as I once did, alone on horseback. My white mare will do well enough.”

“Then allow me to help with your bags,” I offered. “Unless you plan to have a word with the king first?”

“I said what I had to yesterday evening.” A pained expression flickered across Sir Walthur’s face, and I wondered what had passed between them. Sir Walthur was more than a counselor; he was one of the few men the king trusted completely. By the look on his face, the parting had been distressing for both men.

He allowed me to carry his satchel of books while he lifted the bags and flung them onto his back. Though his face had aged with grief since Dorian’s death, he carried his twin burdens with shoulders firmly upright, aware that all eyes would be upon him. We walked downstairs and past the kitchens, stepping out of the doors opposite the stables. The scene before us in the back courtyard was one of disarray: Sheep and pigs brought in from neighboring farms wandered listlessly, while ladies in elegant traveling clothes haggled over horses and carriages, piles of possessions stacked beside them. In the mad rush to escape the castle, courtly manners had been replaced by greedy desperation.

It was a measure of how far standards already had fallen that no one ran up to assist the king’s chief counselor. I noticed a young stableboy nearby, watching the proceedings with mouth agape. I grabbed him by the ear and pointed toward Sir Walthur.

“Fetch his horse and saddle, quickly!” I ordered.

The boy scuttled off, and within a few minutes Sir Walthur was on horseback, ready to depart. He leaned down toward me, raising his voice from its usual low rumble so as to be heard above the commotion.

“You will not reconsider my offer?”

I shook my head.

“Then I wish you continued health. And happiness. It’s what Dorian would have wished for you as well.”

My eyes filled up at the sound of his son’s name. For that brief moment, I felt Dorian’s presence, silently watching over us with his familiar amused smile.

Sir Walthur shook his reins, and his horse stepped gingerly through the press of people. Aimless amid the commotion, I could think of nothing else to do but follow him. Avoiding the horses and carriage wheels, I edged my way along the rough stone wall and passed through the arch into the front courtyard. The usually serene expanse of space had not been spared the tumult that had upended the rest of the fortress. The open space where children had once rolled their hoops and where knights had paraded for the admiration of Queen Lenore’s ladies-in-waiting was overrun with pigs and chickens. Sacks of grain lay in haphazard piles, and knots of servants huddled together in unaccustomed idleness. A cacophony of voices almost drowned out the rattling carriages, but the people I saw in the courtyard were silent, wary observers to something I could not yet see. As Sir Walthur’s horse approached the partially open gates, I took a few steps forward, then stopped in shock.

Through the narrow opening, I saw a swarm of people, pressed against one another, shouting for attention. My first thought was that they were angry at the king’s decision to close off his court. Soon I saw that the truth was quite the opposite. These people, townsmen and country folk alike, were begging to join us. Forced shoulder to shoulder, they jostled and swayed against the guards’ outstretched arms, a throbbing mass of bodies. Frantic mothers pushed their young children before them. One caught my eye and held her baby toward me.

“Take him!” she pleaded. “Keep him safe!”

I pulled back, horrified. I wanted to tell them the pox was already among us, that the castle might well become a tomb rather than a refuge. But such truths could not be said aloud. In any case I doubt that the hundreds gathered there would have believed me. They were desperate for salvation and thought the castle their only hope.

As Sir Walthur’s horse and the last of the carriages approached the gates, the guards began to bellow, “Stand back! Stand back!” They heaved the heavy gates inward, widening the opening, and the crowd surged forward. A young boy of no more than five or six was the first to scamper inside. He gained but a few steps before a whip snapped and he fell with a piteous whimper. Another crack cut through the din, and I looked up at the carriage that had pulled alongside me. Elgar, now one of the groomsmen, stood on the driver’s platform, reins in one hand and whip in the other. I caught a brief glimpse of the carriage’s passengers through the window, two sisters who were distantly related to Lady Wintermale and had been at court for some years under her supervision; the older one swiftly yanked the curtain shut to hide their faces.

“Make way, you animals!” Elgar shouted.

Slowly, cautiously, the crowd parted, and Elgar’s carriage clattered through the gates. It was followed by two others, then Sir Walthur. He did not look back. As soon as the last of the horses had passed, the guards returned to their defenses and the people outside resumed their pleading.

I turned back into the courtyard, narrowly missing a rooster being chased by a flustered boy. Such a sight may have diminished the castle’s dignity, but I was grateful to the king for putting the needed thought into our provisions. It would take a considerable amount of livestock to keep the castle fed. Perhaps we would be forced to eat as men do under siege, allotted a small portion of porridge each morning to last us until sundown, the portions growing smaller as the days passed.

“Mistress Elise?”

I stopped at the sound of my name. Before me stood a young footman whose face I recognized, though I could not recall his name.

“There’s a man out front who asked for you. The guards have orders to keep everyone out, no exceptions, but he tossed me a coin to do his bidding.”