In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“I must. Or Mathilda must be betrothed, to make an advantageous alliance.”

“Mathilda!”

“Hush, I pray you, Holy Mother. I do not want her to wake.”

“If no suitable alliance exists for you, how should it exist for her, Your Majesty?”

She did not answer. From the other chamber they heard the ring of a soldier’s footsteps. A woman came running in.

“Captain Falco has urgent news, Your Majesty.”

“I’ll come.” Adelheid handed the dead child to the nurse, who accepted the burden gravely but without any of the tears that afflicted the rest of them. Her eyes were hollow with exhaustion, that was all.

Adelheid rose and shook out her gown. Strange to think of her dressed when she ought to have been sleeping, but she often watched over the child at night these latter days since everyone knew that the angel of God came most often in the hour before dawn to carry away the souls of the innocent.

Captain Falco waited in the outer chamber. He was alert, his broad face remarkably lively. “You will not believe it, Your Majesty! Come quickly, I pray you.”

o;Yet look!” She was more shadow than shape, but with a sharp breath she shifted and Anna felt the pressure of her hips against her own as Elene stretched out her hand again. “That’s someone come through the crown from elsewhere. Who could it be? Who might have survived?”

Anna shivered again, mostly from the cold. “Who else knows the secrets of the crowns, my lady?”

“Marcus and Holy Mother Anne and my grandmother are dead, as is that other woman out of the south. Sister Abelia, they called her.”

“How do you know they are dead?”

“I wish to God I had not witnessed, but I did. They are dead. Yet one of the others might have survived. The ones in the north I could not see after the weaving was tangled.”

“If it’s true, could you trust them, my lady?”

“Not one of them, so Wolfhere says.”

“Can you trust Wolfhere, my lady?”

“So you have asked before!” Elene laughed, although her amusement was as bitter as her tone. “He is the only one I would trust. Well, him, and my grandmother, and my poor dead mother, may she rest in the Chamber of Light, but she can’t help me now.”

“What of your father, the duke, my lady?”

She shrugged, shoulder moving against Anna’s arm. “He gave me up, knowing I would die. He did as his mother asked, and I obeyed.”

Daring greatly, Anna placed a hand over Elene’s as comfort, and Elene did not draw her hand away. They watched until the spit and spark of light vanished, and for a long time after that they continued watching, although there was nothing to see.

“Holy Mother! I pray you. Wake up.”

Antonia had the habit of waking swiftly. “What is it, Sister Mara?”

“Come quickly, I pray you, Holy Mother. The queen has sent for you.”

She allowed her servants to dress her in a light robe and a cloak. For so late in spring it was yet cool as winter when it should have been growing steadily warmer as each day led them closer to summer. Lamps lit her way, although a predawn glamour limned the arches and corners of the palace.

A score of folk blundered about on the open porch before the queen’s chambers. They parted to let her through, and she made her way inside to find another score of them cluttering the chamber and all of them dead silent, even those who were weeping. Within, Mathilda slept. Adelheid sat on her own bed with Berengaria limp in her arms.

Only the dead know such peace.

Adelheid looked up. “So it has come, Holy Mother. She has breathed her last.” Her eyes were dry, her expression composed but fixed with an inner fury caged and contained.

“Poor child.” Antonia pressed her hand on the cold brow, and spoke a prayer. The tiny child had lost almost all flesh during its long illness. With its spirit fled, it seemed little more than a skeletal doll, its skin dull and its hair tangled with the last of the sweating fever that had consumed it. “Even now she climbs the ladder that leads to the Chamber of Light, Your Majesty. You must rejoice for her, for her suffering has ended.”

“Mathilda is all I have.”