While Beauty Slept (14 page)

So it came as a great relief one afternoon when the queen threw aside her embroidery with an irritated sigh and sent for the king, declaring that she could not tolerate another minute of imprisonment. He came quickly, his face tight with concern.

“Do not fear, all is well with the child,” she said. “But I am so very melancholy, shut away in here. Could I perhaps join you in the Great Hall for supper?”

The king narrowed his eyes but did not say no.

“Is this not a happy time, love?” she asked.

“Indeed it is.”

“Then why must I pass these months as if I were in mourning? Should we not celebrate our good fortune?”

It would have been impossible to resist her then, with her eyes sparkling and her voice calming him like a caress. The king’s sense of propriety was no match for her charms. He moved his hand from her cheek to her hair, smoothing it under his fingers.

“I see no reason I should deny myself the pleasure of your company this evening,” he said.

“Might we have music?”

“Music, eh?” I could see from the twitch at the edge of his lips that the king was teasing her. “Who could say no to such a pretty plea?”

“Oh, thank you!” she cried, embracing him with a delight that caught him off guard. He rocked back for a moment, then righted himself and laughed.

Thrilled by this turn of events, I could have embraced the king myself. Catching sight of my relieved smile, Queen Lenore waved me forward.

“Did you hear, Elise?” she exclaimed. “Music! Perhaps even dancing!”

“Now, now . . .” the king admonished.

“I would not dream of dancing myself. I meant only that it would give me great pleasure to watch.” She tilted her head back and planted a peck on his cheek, then turned to me. “Come, we have work to do. Do you think my violet gown could be let out enough that I might wear it?”

That night was the first of many banquets Queen Lenore attended even as her stomach grew more pronounced. After eating my own meal with the servants, I would creep upstairs and watch them through the doorway of the Great Hall, the graceful ladies and courtly gentlemen embodying all that was noble. On those nights the menacing shadows that so unnerved me were banished to the farthest corners of the room, and scores of candelabra bathed everyone in a youthful, golden glow. I can still remember Queen Lenore’s dark eyes reflecting the sparkle of the silver candlesticks, King Ranolf watching the proceedings with benevolent delight. I had never seen them as beautiful as they were on those nights, nor would I ever again.

“To my son!” the king would announce, raising his glass for a toast. Courtiers would cry out, “To the future king!” and the hall would echo with the sound of brass and silver goblets clinking together, a metallic clash that I imagined sounded like swords on a battlefield. None of us doubted that the child would be a boy, a solace for all the years of waiting. We did not allow ourselves to picture any other outcome.

Yet it would be a lie to say the days passed in a haze of happiness. Deftly pushing aside Lady Wintermale and the other ladies-in-waiting, Millicent clearly relished her role as the protectress of the future heir, and she turned to me as an ally, demanding I reveal the most private details of Queen Lenore’s health: what she ate, how often she used the chamber pot, whether the king spent the night in her bed. I attempted to feign ignorance or said I could not recall, but Millicent was relentless in her questioning. Time after time I gave way and told her what she wanted to know. When she smiled and said I had done well, I felt a rush of pleasure that blotted out the shame of my disloyalty. For despite the warmth I felt for Queen Lenore, a love that rivaled the love I felt for my own mother, Millicent’s approval was harder earned and therefore the more valuable. I believed it possible to serve two mistresses, thinking it within my power to keep peace between them.

If only Millicent had been content with our private bargain, savoring her knowledge of the queen’s life in secret! But that was not her way. She boasted openly of her influence and laughed dismissively when King Ranolf grumbled that her constant hovering was overtiring his wife. And I allowed it to happen. I told Queen Lenore nothing of Millicent’s intrusive questions or her snipes at the king. I did not understand—how could I?—that Millicent and her nephew were drawing ever closer to war, with Queen Lenore as their prize. I was the one person who could have warned against Millicent’s deviousness. Yet I stood dumbly aside. For that I shall never forgive myself.

The cataclysm, when it came, was swift and devastating. Queen Lenore’s pains began in the middle of the night; with typical selflessness she suffered them in silence for some time before her restless turning awoke me. I pulled myself up to my knees and saw her lying on her side, arms clutching her belly.

“It has begun,” she whispered. In the darkness the only things I could see were her eyes, looking at me fearfully.

I leapt up and lit a candle. Then I poured water over a cloth and put it to her forehead.

“I will inform the king,” I said.

I rushed into the hallway, stumbling in my hurry with only the candlelight to guide me. I rapped on the door to the king’s chambers, and one of his guards emerged, wiping his bleary eyes.

“Send for the midwife,” I said. “The queen’s time is come.”

Immediately the guard straightened and nodded. I waited while he pulled on an overshirt and a coat. Then he lit a candle from mine and hurried away. The midwife, Ursula, had already been paid a healthy sum to check the queen’s stomach throughout the pregnancy, and she had pronounced the baby hearty. She had a jolly, confident manner that I thought would serve Queen Lenore well during her ordeal.

After whispering the news to the king’s valet, I rapped on the doors of Lady Wintermale and the other ladies-in-waiting, then returned to Queen Lenore’s side. She remained as I had left her, with the cloth lying across her forehead.

“Elise,” she said, stopping to wince for a moment. She panted for a few breaths, then continued. “It’s early. Ursula said the baby would not come for a month or more.”

I, too, had worried at the timing as I dashed back and forth in the halls. But it would not help the queen to linger on such things. She would need all her strength for what was to come.

“A child arrives when it’s ready,” I said, in what I hoped was an assured manner. “My mother was never correct in her calculations. One of my brothers appeared a full two months before she expected, and he was as healthy a child as she had.”

“Really?” She seemed to believe me.

I was spared any further lies by the arrival of Lady Wintermale. If I had seen her under different circumstances, I would have been amused by the sight of her bedraggled hair and ill-wrapped robe. But tonight I felt simply gratitude that she had come so quickly. The woman usually took such pride in her appearance; it was a testament to her love for the queen that she had dashed from her rooms attired thus.

“How does she?” Lady Wintermale demanded, looking at me.

“I am well,” Queen Lenore said with a brave smile. “Well enough to speak, at least.”

“Good, good. Elise, light the candles. We must make it as bright as possible. You’ve sent for the midwife?” I nodded. “We must ready the supplies.”

Roused from the servants’ quarters, a huddle of maids arrived to take Lady Wintermale’s orders. Sweaty-palmed with nerves, I stepped aside, only to hear Queen Lenore call out my name.

“Yes, my lady?”

“You must fetch Millicent. She promised me—” She winced as her stomach contracted. “She promised me something to ease the pain.”

Lady Wintermale rolled her eyes but said nothing. I hurried to the North Tower, concern for the queen overpowering my fear of those dark, echoing hallways. Millicent did not answer the door until my third, pounding knock. With her hair covered by a nightcap and her eyes sagging with weariness, she looked, for the first time, like an old woman. Defying that first impression, however, she quickly readied herself once I announced my mission. She swept out of the room and paused at the door next to hers, giving it a sharp rap. The door creaked open almost instantly, as if Flora had been perched in readiness, waiting to be called into action.

For months I had wondered about Flora, pitied her, even feared her. My imagination had conjured such visions of madness that I’d forgotten she was a real woman, aunt to the king, flesh and blood of a royal family known for its striking good looks. And Flora, in her prime, would have been the most striking of all. She had the same strong nose and chin as Millicent, but her large, smoky green eyes gazed at me softly, almost wistfully. Her mouth curved naturally in the hint of a smile, and her cheeks were tinged a delicate pink. Framing her angelic face was a mass of fine white curls, so fragile they could have been made from a spider’s silk; the rest of her hair was tied back with a girlish ribbon. She must have been past sixty, but in her virginal white nightdress, lit by the flame of a single candle, she appeared ageless.

“The queen has gone to her childbed,” Millicent said briskly. “Do you have the herbs?”

Flora disappeared into the darkness of her room. From the little I could see, it had the same imposing proportions as Millicent’s and similarly lavish furnishings. I was puzzled by several dim shapes that hung from strings tied to the bed frame, until I recognized the jagged edges of leaves and branches. It seemed odd that a noble lady would dry herbs like a common apothecary, and I wondered if this was a proof of her disturbed mental state.

Flora returned and handed her sister a small glass vial filled with a dark green substance.

“It should be placed under her tongue,” Flora said in a quiet, breathy voice. “No more than could cover her smallest fingernail.”

“Yes, good,” Millicent said.

Flora looked at me curiously, and Millicent hastily explained that I was the queen’s attendant. At this, Flora asked, “How does your mistress fare?”

Disarmed by Flora’s evident concern, I answered honestly. “The queen fears the ordeal before her.”

“So she does, poor thing. So she does.”

She spoke as if she were privy to the queen’s most secret thoughts, and I felt a ripple of unease.

“Come,” Millicent announced, motioning me toward the stairs. I dropped a quick curtsy to Flora, and she smiled wistfully, her expression such a mix of sweetness and sorrow that I was momentarily baffled. Only the rapping of Millicent’s cane brought me out of my trance and reminded me that my duties lay elsewhere.

As we entered the hallway leading to the queen’s rooms, Millicent suddenly stopped, her path blocked by the king and two of his knights.

“The queen is being attended to by the midwife,” he said sharply. “She needs no other distractions.” Jaw clenched and arms crossed before him, the queen’s loving husband was transformed into a self-righteous ruler who would tolerate no threat to his authority. The same man who had publicly shamed his own brother, regardless of the consequences.

“There is something I must give her,” Millicent insisted.

She stepped to the side and made as if to walk around the king. The insult of the gesture fueled the fire already simmering within him.

“You shall not enter!”

The knights each took a step forward, and Millicent retreated. Smiling as if amused by the whole scene, she waved the glass vial in front of her.

“My dear Ranolf, you misunderstand my intentions. I have been summoned here on your wife’s orders. Ask Elise.”

I hugged the wall, reluctant to be drawn into their skirmish. “The queen sent for a tonic to lessen the pains of childbirth.”

“The last thing the queen needs is one of your potions,” the king said to Millicent with obvious contempt. “This is another feeble attempt to insinuate yourself with Lenore, hoping she will take your side against me. I will not allow it! You will not drive a wedge between me and my wife!”

Despite Millicent’s propensity for troublemaking, I was alarmed that the king chose this moment to make such a stand. Would he deny Queen Lenore relief from her agony simply to spite his aunt? Millicent held herself perfectly still throughout the king’s tirade, her face never shifting from its impassive expression. Only I, standing so close, could see the way her fingers clutched her cane until the veins popped from the skin. Then she smiled, as if she had remembered the final weapon in her arsenal.

“You still fail to grant me my due, dear Ranolf. I spent hours with Lenore at the shrine of St. Agrelle, praying even as our bodies shuddered with cold. Now, thanks to me, she presents you with an heir. Yet have you shown me gratitude?”

King Ranolf’s eyes narrowed as she continued.

“I was with your wife when she cried at the barrenness of her womb. I caught her tears with my hands. I will not be denied my rightful place beside her as she welcomes our heir into the world.”

“Our heir?” The words came out in a whisper, as if King Ranolf could scarce believe he was saying them. Then his face flushed and he waved a hand contemptuously in her direction, the same gesture he used to dismiss servants who displeased him. “You have no place here, not today. Begone!”

Stunned, Millicent stumbled backward, and I leapt forward to steady her. Her breathing was heavy and deliberate, her chest a bellows pumping up her rage. Terrified of where her anger might lead, I bowed obsequiously to the king and tugged at Millicent’s sleeve, urging her to return to the North Tower. King Ranolf turned away with a stomp of his boots, followed by his men. Lady Wintermale’s face peeked around the edge of the doorway, and she nodded when she saw I had Millicent in hand. I only hoped the voices had not carried as far as Queen Lenore’s bed. She must not be upset, today of all days.

I can still see Millicent as she was in that moment, a vision that haunts me even now. Tall and regal, her striking face set in an expression of arrogant determination, she had a terrible splendor that weakened my already shaky resolve. Could I have stood against such a force? If I had bent Millicent to my will and pulled her away, would I have prevented the scene that followed? These are questions that still trouble my sleep, when exhaustion allows such thoughts to creep in. I tell myself a servant girl of fifteen could not have altered the course of events. My affection for Queen Lenore was no match for Millicent’s dark powers.