His heart thudded beneath my cheek, far stronger than the flutter in my own breast. I felt a need to tell him that I was in no danger but I did not have the strength. All I knew was that I felt safe and that whatever ailed me could do me no harm. Fanciful, I decided. Did I not know how dangerous my symptoms could become?
Soon, too soon, I was in my chamber and had been laid down on my bed, and there was my physician, muttering distractedly, Guille wringing her hands, Beatrice demanding an explanation. Even Alice had heard and descended hotfoot. I felt comfort from them, their soft female voices, but then Owen’s arms left me and I sensed his quiet withdrawal to the doorway. Then he was gone.
From sheer weakness, I turned my face into my pillow.
‘A severe case of female hysteria. Her humours are all awry.’
My physician, after questioning Beatrice and Guille and peering at me, frowned at me as if it were all my doing.
‘My lady is never ill,’ stated Alice, as if the fault must lie with my physician.
‘I know what I see,’ he responded with a lively sneer that even I in my muddled mind could sense. ‘A nervous complaint that has brought on trembling of the limbs—that’s what it is. Or why is it that Her Majesty would fall?’
I was undressed and put to bed like a child, a dose of powdered valerian in wine administered with orders not to stir for the rest of the day. Nor did I, for I fell into sleep, heavy and dreamless. When I surfaced, it was evening and the room dim. Guille sat by my bed, nodding gently, her stitching forgotten in her lap. My headache had abated and my thoughts held more clarity.
But Owen would not come to me. It would not be acceptable that he should enter my room when I was ill and my women with me. I plucked restlessly at the bed linen. What had they done with my dragon brooch, which I always wore? When I stirred in a futile attempt to discover it, Guille stood and approached.
‘Where is it?’ I whispered. ‘The silver dragon?’ It seemed to me to be the most important question in the world.
Guille hushed me, told me to drink again, and I did. But when she took the cup from me she folded my fingers over the magical creature, and I smiled.
‘Sleep now,’ she murmured with compassion.
It was my last thought before I fell back into sleep.
With dawn I woke, refreshed but too lethargic to stir. I broke my fast with ale and bread, leaning back against my pillows, surprised to find my appetite restored.
‘Your people are concerned, my lady,’ Guille informed me as she placed on the bed beside me a book in gilded leather. ‘From the Young King,’ she announced, mightily impressed with the thickness of the gold embossing. ‘He said I must tell you that he will pray for you when he has completed his lessons. But I have to say—I think you should not read yet awhile, my lady.’
And I laughed softly, for Young Henry’s priorities were always predictable. At the same time, I wished the book had been from Owen—but, then, he would not send me a prayer book. He would send me a book of stories, probably of Welsh lovers. And I would read it, however long it took me.
There was a knock on my door and my heart leapt as Guille went to open it. But it was Alice who came purposefully towards my bed.
‘May I speak with you, my lady?’
I stretched out my hand. ‘Oh, Alice. Come and relieve my boredom. I feel much stronger.’ My vision was clearer and my whole body felt calm and sure. My only hurt from the previous day was the bruising where thigh and shoulder had made contact with the steps. Painful, but not fatal. My fears over my previous symptoms, which seemed to have vanished with the valerian-induced sleep, had also faded to a mere whisper of light-headedness. Perhaps I had been mistaken after all. Perhaps my fears were unfounded.
Alice pulled up a stool and waved Guille and her offer of wine away. She leaned forward, arms folded on my bed, eyes level with mine and her voice barely above a whisper.
‘Let me look at you.’ She narrowed her gaze, scanning my face.
‘What do you see?’
‘You look drawn and there’s a transparency about you.’
‘I will be better after I rest,’ I assured her. ‘My physician—’
‘Your physician is a fool of a man who can’t recognise what’s at the end of his pointed nose. I have come to talk to you, my lady.’
‘I am in no danger.’
‘Danger? That’s to be seen.’
My fears, which I had so light-heartedly cast off, promptly returned fourfold. If what I had suspected was indeed so, that the curse that had laid its hand on my father had touched me also, had Alice seen it too? Had she noticed that sometimes I was distraught?
‘If what I suspect is true,’ Alice remarked, ‘you need some advice, my lady. And from someone who will not mince her words.’
