Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [80]
“It was the other way around! Cecilia caught the disease from him!”
“That is not what Queen Isabelle believes,” Lady Margaret said wearily, “nor Queen Caroline, either. Rupert is her brother. She believes as she wishes—and so do you, Roger. You believe Cecilia, that foolish child, because you want her to be the victim. But the truth is more complex than that.”
“As if anyone here cared for truth!”
“Everyone here cares for truth,” Lady Margaret said, “just not the same truth. And yours is this: You helped Cecilia obtain medicine for the crawls early in her infection, and she sent you for the milady posset because she knew what she was experiencing. Queen Isabelle did not know, and waited too long, and has paid the terrible price. There will be no heir to her throne. Queen Caroline will gain no help from her, and is practically a prisoner in her own palace. The messenger with the news arrived while you were in your fit, and the queen rushed away from the tower. Somehow the door must have become locked behind you.”
“And Lady Cecilia ...” I could barely get out the words. All those men who had refused to swear fealty to the queen, vanished to who-knew-where, dead, tortured . . .
“Cecilia escaped.”
“Escaped? How?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. Someone warned her, just before the queen sent for her. I was with Her Grace; her other attendants had been sent to bed. I was there when the messenger arrived and the queen received him. She had only minutes before Lord Solek was alerted and joined us, and in those minutes the queen . . . I have never seen her that bad,” Lady Margaret finished simply.
I had. I could picture the scene: the queen raging, Lady Margaret trying to calm her, the messenger terrified for his life. Then Lord Solek striding into the room, so that the two women and the messenger must pretend that all was well, that this was a routine message from her brother. And as soon as possible, the queen would have given the order to arrest Cecilia, and take her . . . where? To what punishment? I shuddered.
“My lady, did you warn Lady Cecilia?”
“No. I remained with the queen. So did Lord Solek, for some hours. Whoever warned Cecilia had time to do so. Cecilia has so many admirers; it could have been any misguided Sam Slip-Lip.”
“But who else would have known what the messenger said?”
“I don’t know. But I think you understand what the palace is. Spies, spy holes—still, it is strange that someone knew to warn Cecilia. There has always been something strange about Cecilia. But it is the queen I am afraid for. As are we all, with our supposed savior as the gaoler. The savages have their fire-sticks, their poison-tipped knives, their brutality. I am afraid for the queen, and I cannot forgive him his treachery.”
I didn’t care what she could or could not forgive him, nor that Lady Margaret remained loyal to her queen, still. She was one of those who, having given her allegiance, would never change it. I cared only about Cecilia. “But . . . how could Lady Cecilia have escaped the palace that night? The gates were barred!”
“I don’t know. And neither do I greatly care. Cecilia brought this on herself, on all of us, and she deserves whatever she gets. But you should know the truth because it will help you to better serve Her Grace.”
Lady Margaret actually thought I was going to do that. I was not. But I bowed my head again and said, with sincerity, “Thank you for nursing me, my lady.”
“I didn’t do it for your sake,” she said irritably, rising from the table. “In truth, I didn’t do it at all. The nursing was done by my woman and by your friend from the kitchen, a Maggie Someone.”
“Maggie?”
“You called for her so insistently that I finally sent a page for her. She nursed you like a sister. But now you seem well enough, and I am glad to have both of you out of my rooms. The queen has been asking for you. Go serve her, fool, with whatever it is you do.”
“Yes, my lady.” I rose, fortified by the good food, and left the ladies’ chambers. But not to go to the