Chapter 46
Margaretha
Belinda’s chambers were lit with the mild light of twilight, that soft hue that signifies neither night nor day. I had no notion what time it was, what day it was.
My throat burned with thirst. When I moaned for drink, someone propped me up to set a cup at my cracked lips, but swallowing the wine further pained my bruised, acid-raw throat.
I had nothing left to vomit but heaved just the same, my throat swelling with the now-familiar strain of repeated gagging.
How much more suffering could I endure before the kaiser relented his persecution?
Surely he knew by now that I’d abandoned any designs on his son.
“Margaretha, the physician is here to meet you.” Belinda helped me lie back onto my pillows, then sat at the foot of my bed.
Vesalius gave me a quick once-over. “Have you heard anything from the prince?”
“Nothing,” I croaked.
He lowered his head and met Belinda at the foot of the bed, leaning against the post as he whispered, “She looks much worse. It’s clear she’s still being poisoned.”
Belinda nodded, swiping a hand over her cheek. She was crying again. She’d done a lot of that since I’d taken to my bed.
“I only wonder why the prince has made no answer to her letter.” Vesalius started snapping, and Belinda stood up suddenly.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, leaving the room in such a hurry that her concerned maid followed her out.
Vesalius eyed Ilsa stitching in the corner, then pulled a chair close to my bedside.
“I am on my way now to visit your brother,” he whispered. “Can you see out the window from where you sit?”
I raised a brow, pushing myself onto my elbow to look outside. A light snow dusted the tops of the trees.
“They’ll put him in a crypt, then.” I fell back on the bed.
“Yes,” he said excitedly. “I’ll check on him every two hours, monitor his progress, cover him with blankets. I’m feeling optimistic today.” He retrieved a small flask from his jerkin, showing it to me. “My most recent trial with the rats has helped me fine-tune the dosing.”
I caught Ilsa watching us, but she dropped her eyes back to her stitching.
“They survived?” I whispered.
“No, not fully, but I was able to predict their revival with a fair amount of accuracy.”
The door suddenly banged open as four armed Spanish guards marched in, coming toward the bed.
They were arresting me? Now?
Stopping just short of me, they caught hold of Vesalius’s arms and wrenched him upward, sending his flask sliding across the floor. He stammered out protests, thrashing against the soldiers until one jammed the end of an arquebus into Vesalius’s gut, and he crumpled to his knees with a groan.
I had to help him. I tried sitting up, but all I could do was roll to my side, kicking limply at the blankets tangled round my legs. Soon my lungs were too heavy to expend even that small effort, and I fell chest-down on the bed.
Another soldier captured Vesalius’s hands, pinning them behind his back and pulling the physician upright to drag him from the room.
My thoughts couldn’t keep pace with what had just happened. Vesalius gone? To be imprisoned? To be killed? Why?
With my body too weak to go after him, too weak to even right itself, I turned my face into the pillow and cried.
After a moment, the bed creaked as someone sat beside me.
I turned my head just enough to recognize Belinda.
She ran a hand along my back and shushed me while I let out the fear and frustration until I had no tears left.
Sniffing, I twisted my aching head on my wet pillow. “What is happening, Belinda? Why would they take Vesalius?”
“They must have learned of his intent to free Samuel.” She ran her fingers along my hairline, pulling away the damp strands clinging to my cheeks.
My body stilled as her words revealed secrets. “How did you know of his plan?”
“Ilsa.” Belinda turned to my maid, who stood huddled in a corner watching me with pity in her eyes. “You can leave for supper now. I’ll join you in a bit.”
The door clicked to signal Ilsa’s exit, and Belinda walked to the writing table, lifting a bottle of wine. “Are you thirsty, Margaretha?” She poured the wine without awaiting my answer.
“Belinda,” I repeated, “how did you know of Vesalius’s plan?”
Setting the bottle down with a soft thunk, she faced me.
“I overheard you talking that day in his apothecary.” She returned to my side, offering the cup of red wine.
When I didn’t move, she set it on the stand beside the bed.
“I was sorry to imprison him. He seems a good man. But I couldn’t have the two of you killing Samuel with your half-witted scheme when the kaiser has promised to release him as soon as you’re dead. ”
Belinda pushed against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. She adjusted the blankets, smoothing them over my body, then sat beside me on the bed.
“You foolish girl,” she muttered. “Why couldn’t you have just been the prince’s mistress as I asked? Samuel would be free. Our debts would be paid. In the end, all is the same, except now you must die.” Her eyes welled, and she ran the back of her hand over them. “Was it really worth it?”
Her words were clear, but my mind couldn’t arrange them into any order that made sense. Belinda in league with the kaiser? Then it was she who had been poisoning me? My sister, my mentor, my friend?
“Betrayer,” I rasped. Had I the strength, I would have pushed her off my bed. “Don’t pretend you care about Samuel. This is all for the money.”
Her back straightened, and her eyes went dark. “You cannot say what I feel. I care for Samuel. I love him. His rescue, his kindness is in every thought and is the motive for all I do.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then why—”
“Because he doesn’t love me back!” She stood, hugging herself as tears pooled in her eyes. “What else was I to do but marry your father? I needed a home. I needed security.”
How, in the face of my death at her very hands, could I still feel any sort of pity for her?
And yet, I did. She was selfish and wounded and scared.
I could see it in the way she rubbed her hands over her arms, soothing herself because she’d lived a life alone and apart, with no one else to soothe her.
Blinking back the tears, she took a deep breath, letting that cool calm overcome her once more. “Only, your father’s position wasn’t as secure as I’d expected.”
“So you sold your soul to the kaiser for thirty pieces of silver.”
A sad smile came over her face. “It’s a bit more than thirty, dear.
And there are lands too, but you could have had so much more if you had just listened to me.
The prince would have given you everything.
” She shook her head, her features turning hard.
“But now it’s up to me to secure your brother’s freedom, and I will see him free. ”
The door opened, and Hette peeked inside the room. “Supper, my lady.”
“I must go now.” Belinda reached for my hand, but I pulled it away. Undeterred, she placed a quick kiss on my forehead. “Rest. It will ease your pain.”
She swished out of the room behind her maid, leaving me alone in the darkness.
So this was the end, then? I was to die for Father’s coffers and Belinda’s gowns?
I was to die so that Samuel might live? That might have served as consolation before, but now it wasn’t enough.
Not nearly enough. I’d spent so long living as a ghost, sacrificing myself to everyone else’s causes and whims. I was pushed about as a pawn in Belinda’s games, slid across the board as a rook in the prince’s, and now, finally ready to step forward as the queen of my fate, I’d been cut down.
A hot tear leaked from my eye as exhaustion turned my bones heavy, and I sank deeper into the mattress.
My sights followed a slow circle around the room: over the writing desk crowded with breads and fruits, over the looking glass, the clothes press.
These would continue without me, cold and dispassionate to my extinction.
There’d be no change to mark my time here, no memory of me, no sad little sigh years from now when the cut of my death had dulled to a quiet bruise, only pained when memory touched upon it.
It was such an odd thing, resigning oneself to dying, but I found it happening.
Found myself bidding life adieu with surprising forbearance until my eyes landed on the apple poised conspicuously on the writing desk.
Had it been there all along? In the dark, its red skin was almost purple, but it drew my attention, the fruit pulling at the memory of French lessons in Father’s study.
Of a warm fire and my warm cheeks as Friedrich had recounted our first meeting, admitting that I was the reason he’d left the mines.
What had he said? That my act with the apple had offered him the chance to choose something better?
Closing my eyes, I rested on my pillow, but the image of the apple persisted in my thoughts.
Choose. Choose something better. Friedrich’s words stirred my pulse to something more than the dull thud of the last few days, the thick beats resounding like a battle cry.
Choose to live. I need to live. I deserve to live.
I opened my eyes, surveying the room with intention. What resources did I have? What means of escape?
And then like a miracle, I saw it: Vesalius’s flask. He’d dropped it when the soldiers took him, and now it lay tucked beneath an empty chair. But it was almost across the room, and I barely had strength to lean up onto my elbow.
Even if I drank it, how would I revive with Vesalius imprisoned? At least the snow guaranteed a crypt burial, but I shivered at the thought of waking to a room of half-rotting corpses. If I awoke at all.
I closed my eyes tight, then pushed myself out of bed, landing with a thump on the floor and retching all over the rug.
The door cracked open, spilling light over me.
“Lady Margaretha?” It was Ilsa’s voice. “My lady! What happened?” She rushed in the room, hooking her arms under mine to lift me.
“No.” I weakly fought back. “I need it.”
She stopped straining. “Need what?”
I pointed across the room at the flask. “Give it me to drink.”
“Are you mad? I heard enough from that physician to know you won’t survive it.”
“My body is stupid, but my mind and reason are healthy. You must trust me.”
Ilsa gently lowered me to the floor and retrieved the flask, popping it open and setting it in my hand.
I studied it as I instructed her. “This will make me as though dead. Once I am buried, send Friedrich to check every few hours to see if I’ve revived. Say nothing of this to Countess von Waldeck.”
Ilsa’s eyes dropped to her hands. “Friedrich is gone, my lady. He left days ago.”
“What?” How had I not heard of this before?
“I meant to tell you. I just . . .” She peeked up at me, her cheeks coloring in the dim light.
Ah. The maid was jealous of me, just as I’d been jealous of her.
I considered who else I might call on, who else I could trust to aid me, but my list of supporters was small and dwindling by the minute.
Eyeing Ilsa, I realized this jealous woman was my last hope of survival.
She had withheld the truth about Friedrich’s departure before, but if she’d truly wished me harm, she could have remained silent still.
It seemed I would have to trust her. Giving her hand a squeeze, I said, “Then you come find me.”
I was lifting the flask to my lips when she put a hand over the opening.
“But we’re leavin’. As soon as you’re . .
. gone. Lady Belinda said the kaiser just agreed to free Count Samuel, and she’s eager to get him back home.
” Her hand pushed the flask toward my lap.
“She sent me to her chambers to pack our things, thinkin’ you won’t last the night. ”
“She would know very well, since she’s the one who is poisoning me,” I panted.
Ilsa furrowed her brows. “She warned me not to trust you. She said your thoughts had turned deranged.”
Of course she did. “She murdered me to gain favor with the kaiser. He promised her money and lands.”
Another spasm in my gut had me doubling over. “Try to find a way to stay, Ilsa. More likely than not I’ll die, but I fear being trapped alive in a crypt.” My long-ago nightmare of being buried alive in the mines revived, as did the panic, returning with a vengeance.
“I’ll find a way. I promise.” Her looks were resolute, and I tried to match them, despite my inner terror.
Tipping the flask back, I let the toxin pour down my throat until I’d swallowed almost all of it.
I had to fight to keep it from coming back up, but slowly, a tingling warmth spread through my body.
One by one, my legs and arms disappeared inside the numbness creeping toward my chest. My lungs became heavy.
Every breath was effort, and every effort gave me less and less air, turning my thoughts murky.
My mind spun and floated in a way I couldn’t get hold of to pull it down to reality.
Was this sleep or dying? Would I dream? If I did, I wanted to dream of Friedrich.
I sucked in a strained breath and held it safe in my lungs, not knowing if I’d be able to draw another. I kept the swirling thoughts of Friedrich safe too, harboring my memories of him for as long as I could before I slipped into nothingness.