Chapter Twenty-Four #3
Adelaide was dubious. “How am I to do that if he loves another woman?” she asked. “I think I know who it is. Do remember the nun who visited Wark not long ago? The one who was going to Edenside? He showed her great attention. I would be willing to wager it is her!”
Hilde shook her head. She placed the blue shift upon the bed and held up the dagger to Adelaide.
“Do what you do best,” she said encouragingly.
“Bring your blood forth and tell Sir Thomas that you wish to die. He always comes when you do this, does he not? It has always brought him to you in the past. What better to spur a husband’s regret and desire on his wedding night but the sight of his wife bathed in blood?
He shall be sorry he was ever so cruel to you. ”
Adelaide eyed the dagger, her anger at Thomas diverted by Hilde’s suggestion. Her mind was easily swayed, especially when it came to the dramatics she was so capable of.
“Do you think so?” she asked. “You do not think I should be a tempestarii again?”
The old woman shook her head. “Nay, my lady,” she said.
“No more tempestarii, no more fertility amulet. Be defenseless and near death. Lay down upon the bed and cut your arms, and I will summon Sir Thomas to come to you to save you. He must love a wife who would love him so much that she would die for that love.”
It was a thin premise, but Hilde knew her charge well.
She knew that Adelaide was always willing to cut her arms or pretend to be deathly ill if it would gain her what she wanted.
In this case, it was Thomas’ attention. The old woman was successfully diverting Adelaide’s anger away from death and revenge and towards the very thing she took pleasure in – putting on an act for others.
She had done it for her father her entire life, and for others to bend them to her will.
This was nothing new. It was what she lived for.
Only this time, Hilde was going to help.
“Go, now,” the old woman said. “Lay upon the bed. Shall I help you cut your arms? I shall find the best place.”
Adelaide was swept up in the suggestion, agreeing to it because it was something she did so regularly. “Do not cut over a scar,” she said. “It will hurt too much. Find clean flesh.”
“I will, my lady.”
“And you will run and tell him that I am dying?”
“Of course I will. Right away.”
Adelaide lay down upon the lavender-sprinkled bed in a pose that looked very tragic but very innocent.
When she was comfortable, Hilde had her hold out both hands close together with her palms up, making the tender undersides of both arms exposed.
With the very sharp, and somewhat large dagger in-hand, Hilde lifted the blade.
“Are you ready, my lady?”
Adelaide nodded. “Be quick. And not too deep.”
Hilde didn’t reply. Instead, she swung into action.
Taking the dagger, she sliced the blade across both of Adelaide’s tender wrists, so deep that it was like she was carving into a side of beef.
Adelaide screamed as Hilde cut so deeply that she nearly cut off Adelaide’s right hand.
Blood spurted, gushing all over Adelaide’s green silk dress, all over her neck, and down her arms.
There was blood everywhere.
Adelaide lowered her damaged arms as Hilde moved away from the bed, rushing over to the door, still holding on to that bloodied dagger.
Adelaide’s extreme blood loss was so much, so quickly, that by the time Adelaide put her feet on the floor in an attempt to rise from the bed, she immediately fell to the floor, bleeding all over the stone.
Her pale face turned to her old nurse, her eyes wide with accusation.
“What did you do?” she cried. “What did you do to me?”
Hilde was surprisingly unemotional. For a woman who had lived in fear her entire life, the sight of her charge bleeding to death didn’t upset her in the least. In fact, there was something quite cathartic about it but she maintained a grip on the dagger in case Adelaide suddenly stood up and charged her.
She would defend herself.
“I did what needed to be done, my lady,” she said in her heavy Germanic accent.
Then, she shook her head in a gesture of sorrow and disgust. “You were going to kill Sir Thomas just as you killed those other young men. Fine young men that you threw away like rubbish. And me… you see me as rubbish, too. I will not let you throw me away, not when I have spent a lifetime being abused by you. What I did needed to be done.”
Adelaide collapsed onto the floor as the puddle underneath her widened. It was clear that she wasn’t long for this world.
“You… old bitch,” she hissed. “What have you… done?”
With that, she made an odd noise that sounded like choking, but there was no more breath going into her lungs. She twitched a couple of times, her body going through death throes, before finally falling still with her sightless eyes wide open.
Hilde stood there a moment, holding that razor-sharp dagger, until she was sure Adelaide would rise no more. Then, she calmly walked over to her and put the dagger in her hand, making it look as if Adelaide had cut herself again, only this time, she had succeeded in cutting too deeply.
And that was how Thomas found her.