Rivals in the Tudor Court by D. L. Bogdan Read Free Book Online

start to laugh at the insanity of it all. I strike myself again and again until my arm is too weak and my throat is too raw from the laughter that has converted to screaming, racking, useless sobs.

    Thomas does not understand what has happened. He does not understand death. He asks about Wills daily, so much so that I have to extract myself from him. I take long walks and longer rides. I swim, immersing my body in the coolness of our pond. Sometimes I wish I would drown.
    One day the princess finds me there, floating on my back, staring at the sky. I do not think of anything but the gray sky, gray as the Gypsy woman’s eyes, and the water that envelops me and comforts my broken soul.
    â€œCome back to me, my lord,” she pleads in her soft voice.
    She stares at me pointedly, then walks away.
    In that moment, tears of gratitude replace those of sorrow. I rise.
    Indeed, no one on this earth is wiser than my princess, for there is nothing that can be done but to press on. I cannot abandon the children who are here, looking to me for guidance. I cannot teach them that it is permissible to wallow in selfish grief while life surges on about me.
    With new determination I dress and go into the house. To my children. To my princess. To the life I still have.

    It is a vain goal, trying to seize something that is not mine to have, trying to hold in this hand, this hand that is said to be so powerful, the thread of life that binds my children to this world.
    In early 1508 my daughter, my precious little Maggie, succumbs to an imbalance of the humors of the bowels. She doubles over in pain one evening at supper and we allow her to take rest in the nursery. I had thought she was trying to avoid eating the eels; she never had a robust appetite and hated trying anything new.
    â€œYou’re a manipulative little creature,” I tell the six-year-old, my voice stern. “Feigning a stomach ache to get out of eating supper. Well, you shall have nothing to eat, not one thing, for the rest of the evening, and I don’t care how much you cry or beg. You have to learn that you cannot always have what you want.”
    How was I to know those would be the last words of mine she would ever hear?
    The nurse fetches us moments later, her eyes wide with fear. “The little one has taken ill, my lord,” she whispers, crossing herself. “She is in such terrible pain . . .” She bows her head. “Such terrible pain.”
    The princess and I rush to the side of the writhing child, her face flushed with fever, her black hair matted to her fair forehead with sweat.
    I take her in my arms, rocking back and forth. She is clutching her little belly, her head lolling about from side to side in restlessness. There is no outlet for her pain. She reaches out for my face, seizing it between her tiny hands.
    â€œIt hurts, it hurts,” she cries. “Make it go away . . . please, make it go away!”
    There is no physician to call. He would have done nothing but bleed her, anyway, and I could not have suffered it. I hold the little girl to my breast as she slips into delirium. She drops her hands. Her face relaxes, the black eyes glaze over, her small body goes limp.
    And she is gone. In less than twenty-four hours she went from a healthy, jolly girl to this. Gone.
    I stare at my princess in horror, but she cannot abide to be in the same room with death this time. She runs from the sight as though demons surround us, holding her hands to her ears to blot out my cries.
    I hold my Maggie in my arms, rocking back and forth. I cannot let her go like this. She was just here. Maybe she isn’t dead. Maybe she will get better. I have heard strange tales in which people appeared dead only to have a resurgence of life moments later. Yes, this can happen for my Maggie. I must hold her a while, will my strength into her so when she wakes up she won’t be afraid.
    I talk to her, I tell her she will get better, she is just