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

sick. I apologize for scolding her about supper. I tell her she can eat whatever she wants whenever she wants if she’ll just come back to me. I tell her she must return so she can become a great lady and serve in the queen’s chambers someday. I tell her I am going to arrange a marriage for her with a strong, handsome knight.
    I tell her she cannot leave because no one loves her like I do.
    She does not move.
    No matter, she just isn’t awake yet. She just isn’t awake yet, yes, that is it.
    The princess enters collected and composed late that evening with two gentlemen servants.
    â€œYou must let her go now, my lord,” she tells me. “She must be interred soon.”
    I shake my head. “I have heard of things . . . of miracles. . . . She might not be dead. She may be in that deep sleep some people go into and it takes them months or years to wake up. . . . What if we bury her and she is merely asleep?”
    The princess’s eyes mist over with a pity I loathe. I avert my head. Why doesn’t anyone understand? Why do they all look at me this way?
    â€œShe isn’t coming back, Thomas,” she says.
    It is the first time in our thirteen years of marriage she has ever called me by my first name.
    She steps forward. “You must give her over now.”
    â€œNo!” I cry, clutching the child to my breast. “You cannot take her!” I kiss my daughter’s cool forehead, stroking her cheek. “I won’t let them take you from me, Maggie, not ever. I will be here when you wake up. I will always be here when you wake up.”
    The princess nods to the servants. Some understanding passes between them and at once my arms are seized. The princess has taken Maggie in her arms and is carrying her away from me. I struggle against the men, crying for Maggie, cursing my wife.
    I am too weak to break free, however. Perhaps some part of me knows I can no longer follow where she goes. I go limp, ceasing my struggling.
    It is over. It is all over.
    I press my face against Maggie’s pillow. It still smells of her, of lavender and roses and little girl.
    I do not attend her interment.

    My son Thomas isn’t the same after the echo of Maggie’s laughter can no longer be heard ringing throughout our house. He takes to his bed with severe headaches and requires possets to alleviate the pain. My wife attends him, sitting by his side, singing softly, stroking his brow and massaging his throbbing temples.
    With me he discusses the other children; we talk about Heaven.
    â€œYou don’t feel any pain there, do you?” he asks me one day as I sit beside him while he clutches his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. “There is no pain in Heaven?”
    â€œNo pain,” I whisper, taking his hand. I swab his head with a cool cloth.
    â€œAnd I will see my brothers and Maggie again?” he asks me, his eyes filled with hope.
    I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “When it is your time, when God calls you to Him. But that will not be for many, many years.”
    Thomas shakes his head. “No,” he tells me. “The angel who visited me last night said I will be coming home soon.”
    I draw away from him in horror. “You are just sick with grief, Tommy,” I tell him. “We all are. Sometimes when we are agitated, we take on peculiar fancies. That is what has happened. One doesn’t really see angels or anything of that nature.”
    â€œMummy sees them,” says Thomas. “Only she calls them faeries.”
    â€œMummy sees nothing,” I say with a little more harshness than intended.
    â€œWhat about the people in the Bible?” Thomas asks. “They saw angels all the time.”
    I had never really read the Bible. I want to say I always intended to, but it isn’t true. I can’t bring myself to pick it up. I shrug. “Times were different then” is the best thing I can think of to say. “Do