Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(65)

“I wouldn’t tarry, Thomas.” Eleanor’s voice stabbed at the next word. “My Henry is not a patient man.”

With a fierce exhalation and whirl of black robes, Becket lunged down the steps. As Eleanor watched him go, I released a breath that flapped the jewel-encrusted ribbons sewn onto the queen’s sleeve.

“Hectare took to her bed earlier this evening.” Eleanor turned to us. I could see worry flit across her face before she began to ascend the steps toward the upper chambers of the castle, where Rachel and I’d been the day before. “I summoned the Jewish apothecary and his granddaughter to tend her. She . . . She is dear to me.”

Fatigue carved faint lines in the queen’s face. She grasped the rail and hauled herself up.

When we didn’t immediately follow, she snapped over her shoulder, “Well, come on, then. Hectare insisted the two of you would appear here this night and that I must bring you to her at once.”

Phoebe and I exchanged a look.

How? Phoebe mouthed.

I shrugged in answer as we followed Eleanor’s train up the marble steps.





Chapter 32


SISTER HECTARE LAY BENEATH A MOUNTAIN OF FURS, her small form dwarfed by the huge four-poster bed in a chamber that rivaled Eleanor’s own. She shivered, despite the heat from two enormous copper braziers and a crackling fire in the small open fireplace, the first I’d seen in this time.

Papery eyelids closed, the little nun’s cracked voice whispered for Rachel to add more coal. An elderly man brewed a pot of medicine over the fire as Rachel dumped more coal into one of the braziers. The moment we entered, Eleanor rushed to Hectare’s bedside. Rachel’s tired face transformed with delight at the sight of us.

I breathed in the scent of simmering herbs and camphor as we watched the queen take one gnarled hand in hers and kiss it. “The girls were below, just as you said they would be.”

Without opening her eyes, Hectare smiled. “Thank you, my child. Now, please, go back to the Tower. Your babe needs a rested mother. And you have much to do on the morrow.”

“And how many nights did you and Amaria sit at my bedside, nursing me through childhood illnesses? How many nightmares did you soothe after my father died and left my sister and me all alone? How many times did you stand at my side when everyone else in Louis’s court turned on me?”

“Yes, child.” Hectare’s eyes opened. She turned her head on the pillow and fixed her rheumy eyes on the queen. “But you are precious. Your name will last through the ages as a queen of legend, though there is yet great sorrow in your path. You’ll bear Henry more children. Too many, I think,” she said with a chuckle. “Mayhap you’ll want to bolt your door from time to time, eh?”

Phoebe and I exchanged a startled glance. How could she know all those things?

Eleanor’s response was cut off when Hectare’s laugh morphed into an alarming cough. It racked the woman’s bird-like frame. Between them, Rachel and Eleanor raised the sister up. The old man hurried to the bedside and handed the queen a pewter cup. She placed it to Hectare’s cracked lips.

When she’d taken a couple of sips, her breath eased, though the map of wrinkles around her mouth remained a dusky color. “Thank you, kind physician. I wish we had more with your skills here.”

The man bowed. His clothes were plain. A clean, but patched, brown tunic. A conical yellow hat slumped on his head. As he approached, I saw Rachel’s honey eyes peer out of his leathery face. “I take it you are the friends of my Rachel, yes?” He gave a quick bow, speaking in a thick accent. “I wish you good eve. I am Aaron ben Yitzhak, and I owe you my thanks for helping my granddaughter. If I may ever be of service, you have but to ask.”

Even from our place near the foot of the bed, I could hear Sister Hectare’s labored breath. Without waiting for a response, Aaron hurried back to his concoctions.

“You shall not leave me.” Tears roughened Eleanor’s voice. “I am your queen, and I order you to stay.”

“Sweet child,” Hectare rasped. “Even someone with your strength cannot tell God when to call His children home. And why have me moved from my own chamber? All this”—her gnarled fingers flicked toward the animal skins covering the floor, the lush pastoral tapestries, the heaps of plush pillows behind her head—“seems rather like setting an old crow into a lark’s cage.”

Ignoring the comment, Eleanor settled her bulk on an embroidered chair next to the bed and swiped a hand beneath her eyes. “Nonsense. And besides, now you have room to receive your guests properly.”

The old woman’s gaze shifted in our direction. “Ah, the lost lambs who are so very, very far from their own pasture.”

A fierce urge overtook me, to fall sobbing at the little nun’s side and confess everything that lay so heavy on my heart. How I’d always been such a coward. How I’d disappointed my mother so many times, and how I was going to fail her yet again. How I was petrified for Collum. How I felt so small, and how badly I wanted just to forget everything and go home. A strangled sob escaped. Though I tried to stifle it, Sister Hectare’s gaze lit on me.

With a gesture, Hectare drew Eleanor close and whispered in her ear for a long time. When she was finished, the queen drew back, stunned. Her head pivoted incrementally toward us, her face gone moon pale.