A HIGH, CURTAINED BED stood against the right-hand wall of the room, and a fire burned brightly on the hearth opposite. At first there appeared to be no one inside other than the occupant of the bed, but then a rustling sound drew Alys’s attention to the inglenook beyond the hearth, and she saw a scrawny, elderly woman on a floor cushion, her knees hunched to her chin, dozing. Alys did not recognize her but decided she looked harmless. Alys entered the room and shut the door behind her.
The old crone opened her eyes and lifted her head but showed no sign of alarm until Alys moved toward the bed. Then she said in a high-pitched, croaking voice, “Dinna uncover ’im, m’lady. He mun be kept full covered.”
“You know me?”
“Aye, tha’ dost be ahr young Lady Alys come home again.”
“And you?”
The old woman straightened a little but made no attempt to stand up. “Goody Spurrig, m’lady, from over t’ Browson village. I be the herb wooman. Nane other’d bide wi’ the auld lord.”
“I thought there was a servant with him.”
“Gone.”
Alys had pulled back the bed curtains, and although she glanced over her shoulder at the blunt response, she said nothing before turning back to gaze for a long moment at the man who had awed her so in her childhood. All that was visible of Lord Wolveston now was his face, glistening with sweat but drawn and gray, even in the little light provided by the fire.
“Will he live?” she asked the herb woman. There was silence, so she turned.
The woman shook her head.
“May I speak with him?”
“Aye, gin tha’ canst wake him.”
Spying several wax tapers on a table near the hearth, Alys shrugged off her cloak, letting it fall to the floor, then moved to light a candle at the fire. Going back to the bed, she held the taper so it would light his face but not drip wax on him or set the curtains ablaze. “Father,” she said urgently. “Father, my lord, it is Alys. Please, sir, you must wake up.”
His eyelids flickered, then lifted, revealing dull gray eyes that shifted rapidly back and forth before focusing at last on her face.
“Father? It is Alys, my lord. I have come home.”
“Alys?” The voice was no more than a rasping croak. The frail body stirred beneath the heavy blankets. “Bless thee, child. I sent for thee, did I not?”
“Aye,” she said. Then, glancing over her shoulder once more, she said, “Leave us, dame. Tell no one that I am here. Do you swear?”
“Aye,” muttered the crone, getting stiffly to her feet. “B’ain’t nane left t’ tell.”
“Go.”
She shuffled stiffly to the door, opened it, and went out. Alys waited until the latch had clicked into place before turning back to the figure in the bed. “My lord, pray tell me what has happened here.”
“Dead, all dead.” His eyes widened, the pupils flicking wildly, first right, then left. “Soldiers … sickness … mustn’t stay. Safe, Alys is safe. Saw to that. Get the lads, get them safe … to Alys … no, to Tyrell. Alys at Drufield. Saw to that. Good, my liege. Loyalty binds—” He broke off, gasping, then repeated clearly, “Dead, all dead.”
“Father, please, look at me,” she said with a hint of impatience in her voice. “It is Alys, my lord, and I am here, not at Drufield. I am to go to London, sir. The soldiers you speak of are the Tudor’s men. I would not have been let to stay at Drufield even if I were still there and had wanted to do so.”
“Find Roger. Must find Roger.” His eyes focused on her again. “Where is Roger, wench? Send him to me at once.”
“I know not where he is, sir. I have had no word of him or of his man, Davy Hawkins. Indeed, I had hoped that you would know. We were told that Lincoln and Viscount Lovell had been killed, so Roger and Davy, too, may be dead.”
He stirred restlessly. “Not dead. Message. Keep safe.”
She had barely been able to hear his words. “You had a message, you say? What was it, sir? Who must be kept safe?”
He still looked at her, but now she thought his look was full of cunning. “Brothers, Alys. Thou hast brothers again.”
“Aye,” she retorted, glancing swiftly over her shoulder at the closed door. “So I have been told. My brother Robert died less than two days ago, they tell me, and they say that my brother Paul left the castle a fortnight past. How can that be, sir, when both Robert and Paul died of the plague eight winters ago?”
“Dead, all dead.” His eyelids fluttered and the eyes behind them drifted out of focus.
“Father,” she urged, “you cannot sleep yet, sir. What do you know of Roger? Who was the lad they called Robert? Who is Paul? Is there someone hiding here at Wolveston now?” The possibilities stirred by that last thought were frightening. “Who must be kept safe, sir?”
“Safe?” The pale eyelids opened wide again. His body moved, the body she remembered as being gigantic and fearsomely powerful, but which now was frail and helpless beneath the great pile of blankets. “Keep Alys safe,” he murmured, “at all cost.” He paused as though he were listening, his eyes narrowed, stern. Then he said quickly, “Agreed, agreed, but my daughter must be kept safe, out of it all. Send Tyrell … no, not Tyrell, he is known, too well known. I’ll not see him, your grace. ’Tisn’t safe. Safe, safe … Alys … all must be safe.”
The last words came in a singsong rhythm. She knew that he was delirious and wondered if he had said anything at all to the purpose. He was talking to someone else, not to her, and his words made no sense. “Father, who are these brothers of mine—false Robert, false Paul? Who are they? Of what must I beware? Please, you must tell me. I go to London, to the enemy. Must I go in fear? Help me, Father!”
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” muttered the figure in the bed. “Have mercy upon this miserable sinner.” His eyes were closed now, his lips barely moving with the last words.
“Father, look at me,” Alys begged desperately. She dared not touch him; she did not wish to die. Yet she wanted to shake him. She could see that the old herb woman had been right. He was dying. Time was fleeting. “Speak to me! Tell me!”
His eyelids lifted and his eyes focused again, briefly but sharply. “Go now,” he murmured much more clearly than before. “Thou must not take the sickness. But go warily, lass, lest thou drawest the Tudor wrath unto thyself.” His eyes closed.
“Father! No, that is not enough. Tell me!” But it was no use. Though he still breathed raggedly, the muscles in his face had slackened. There would be no waking him again.
Alys wondered if the old woman knew anything that might help her, but dismissed the notion when she recalled that the crone had come from a nearby village. If there were secrets here, as it seemed there must be, Goody Spurrig was not party to them.
Suddenly chilled despite the heat in the room, she moved to the fire, snuffing the candle and setting it down on the hearth, then rubbing her hands together, trying to think. Absently noting the caked, drying mud on her skirt, she drew a fold up and flicked at bits of dirt with a fingernail while she pondered, and after a time she sat down by the hearth and rubbed at the muddy patches more carefully, still trying to focus her thoughts.
If someone were in hiding at Wolveston Hazard, how safe could he or they be? There were soldiers everywhere, looking for stragglers from the Yorkist army. Ought she to search the castle? What if she found someone? What would she do? The servants were all gone, she remembered. Even the manservant who had cared for her father. The crone had said he was gone. Perhaps he had died; perhaps not. But who would feed the ones in hiding if such there were? Ought she not to look?
The fire was dying. Looking around, she saw a small pile of logs beneath the window, which she had not seen before because the bed hid them from view from the doorway. She got to her feet and carried two to the fire, putting them on carefully so as not to send sparks flying; and only when she had finished did she realize something was missing from the room. She had been thinking, then moving about, and for a moment she could not imagine what she missed. Then she recognized the silence.
His harsh breathing had provided a background for her thoughts. She had paid no heed to it, but it had been there. Now it was not.
Fearfully she got to her feet again and moved toward the bed. His lips were parted, but there was no movement, no sound. She reached to touch him, then snatched her hand back when a frisson of fear shot through her body. Backing away, she felt a surge of panic, overwhelming, terrifying panic; and whirling, she ran to the door only to stop with her hand on the latch. Frozen, she fought to regain control over her emotions, to think.
Remembering that there might be men hidden in the castle, she knew she dared not give any alarm that would bring soldiers running. For that matter, she dared not raise any alarm at all, not because of the men who might be hiding, but for her own sake. What Sir Nicholas would do if he discovered that she had slipped away to be at her father’s deathbed did not bear contemplation.
For the first time she gave thought to the fact that she had exposed herself to death. It had been easy to keep the thought at bay while her father lived, while she needed to speak with him. Her determination to see him and to get information from him had outweighed every other consideration. But, alone with his dead body, she had been nearly overcome by a fear deriving from something far older, more primitive, and much more powerful than mere concern for possible fugitives. That same terror of death still urged her to run screaming from the room.
Forcing herself to stare at the door, not to look back at the corpse in the bed, she made herself breathe slowly and deeply, a technique Anne had taught her. Anne had discovered it for herself after years of coping with her father’s sudden whims, whims that had often resulted in drastic, undesirable changes in Anne’s life. Alys had never known the formidable Earl of Warwick, for he had died when she was three, but she was certain that should she ever encounter him (if she were unfortunate enough to displease God and be sent to Warwick’s undoubted place of unrest), she would know him at once, so much had she heard about him from Anne and his long-suffering countess.
From Warwick, her thoughts flashed instantly and of their own accord to the present earl. Neddie was less than ten years old, nephew of the late king, and no doubt now in Tudor hands. This sharp reminder of her changing world steadied Alys as the careful breathing had not. She could not run screaming from this place of death. She had to devise a plan, to make decisions.
First she decided she would find the old woman and tell her Lord Wolveston was dead. Then, while the crone did whatever needed doing, Alys would search. That thought came to a dead halt, however, when she remembered how ill-lit the castle was. She dared not light torches, nor could she carry one from room to room, and certainly not down into the murky depths of the place. Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that even if she might have done so undetected, she did not have the courage to do so alone.
It was chilly by the door. Without looking at the bed, and without really thinking about what she was doing, she moved back to the hearth to warm herself. Once there, she looked down into the fire as though she might find answers in its leaping flames. Her conversation with her father repeated itself in her head, but his words still made no sense. She was calm now, her fears gone, kept at bay so long as she did not look at the bed, so long as she kept her mind on other things. She decided at last to get the old woman, and found herself hoping she had not gone far.
The fact that Goody Spurrig might have gone away altogether occurred to her as she lifted the door latch, bringing a fresh wave of fear that threatened to undo all her calm, but the fear proved groundless. The old woman was hunkered down near the parapet wall opposite the door, her black gown making her appear wraithlike in the glow of firelight that spilled onto the gallery’s stone floor when Alys opened the door.
“I think he is dead,” Alys said quietly.
“Aye, he was near,” the crone agreed, rising with difficulty and moving toward her.
Alys stepped aside to let her pass into the room. “Will you tell them below?”
“Wi’ the dawning. No need afore that. They care not.”
Alys nodded. “You say there is no one else in the castle?”
The crone shrugged. “Nane as I know, m’lady. Ain’t seen no one. Best tha’ goest now. He hath no further need o’ thee.”
“Aye, or ever, I suppose.” Alys turned back to the door.
“Thy cope, mistress.” The crone picked up the heavy dark gray cloak from the floor where Alys had dropped it.
Alys stared at it, feeling an inexplicable desire to laugh. She would, she thought, make a poor conspirator. She had forgotten all about Sir Nicholas’s cloak, had not looked toward the bed, and thus had not seen it lying nearby. She took it and draped it over her shoulders. It was heavy and still damp from the mists. Even so, it was enveloping and made her feel warmer.
“I will go now. Thank you, dame, for your care of him. I shall see that you are properly rewarded.”
The old woman’s eyes gleamed, but there was skepticism there, too, making Alys determined to see that Sir Nicholas provided recompense for her loyalty.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back on the hillside, hugging the heavy cloak about her, wondering if she had really ever been hot. It was almost cold enough now to be winter instead of early September. She had encountered no difficulty in leaving the castle the way she had entered it, and now, ahead and below her, she saw the golden glow of three small fires, the encampment. She hoped she would be able to recognize her tent. It was the largest, she thought. But suddenly she was not certain, and the panic that had lain dormant within her leaped at the thought.
Hurrying, hearing unfamiliar noises with every step, she glanced around, fearing that ghosts or worse might fly out at her from the dark mists. One noise up ahead sounded like a shout, but she could not be certain because the murmuring of the nearby river muted the sound. Holding up her skirts; she moved as quickly as she dared, hoping she would not stumble over the treacherous bracken, would not kick against a stone and fall.
The change of light ahead alerted her. She had been watching the ground, using the glow from the fires as her beacon without actually looking at them, to see shadows of higher shrubs, of rocks and other obstacles in her path. But suddenly it was easy to see where she was going, far too easy. She stopped in her tracks and looked up.
There were torches now, lighting shadows that moved around the three fires, and more torches moving toward her, their light casting shadows of men approaching on foot. Recognizing what had happened put no strain on her imagination, and her first impulse was to run toward the river, where she knew from her childhood there were places she could conceal herself at least until daylight. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to run away and hide, to do anything rather than face Sir Nicholas. He would be angry. She did not know why she was certain of that; she just was. And though she did not know exactly why she feared his anger, she did fear it. That he was a man was enough. Masculine displeasure was something to avoid.
But Alys was no coward. Though it took effort, she stood her ground, watching the small procession draw nearer and nearer, as if he had a string attached to her, she thought, knowing even as the thought flitted through her mind that it was a foolish one. He was moving up the hill toward Wolveston, and she stood in a direct line between camp and castle.
A moment later the searchers were upon her. She stood straight, knowing she must look very small to them. Certainly, Sir Nicholas loomed over her. In the torchlight now surrounding them, she saw that his eyes blazed with anger.
“Where have you been?”
“If I told you I had been walking in my sleep and somehow wandered up the hill, would you believe me?” she inquired softly.
He grunted, his right hand catching her upper arm in a bruising grip. When he turned, pulling her with him, the men parted before him, letting them pass. She saw their faces, grim faces, the men as displeased with her as their master was.
Alys swallowed, wanting to speak but unable to do so as long as he forced her to hurry along at such a pace. A moment later he seemed to realize that she was having nearly to run to keep up with his long strides, for he slowed a bit.
“You are hurting my arm,” she said.
“You deserve more than a sore arm,” he retorted.
“My father is dead.”
Sir Nicholas halted abruptly, turning to face her. “I am sorry for your loss, my lady, but I told you there was nothing you could do to help him. You ought not to have disobeyed me.”
She glared at him, having nothing to say, wanting only to defy him and not knowing in the least why she should wish to do any such thing.
He returned her look for a long moment, then turned away, urging her forward again, though at a slower pace than before, and his grip no longer bruised her. When they reached the encampment he did not take her to her tent as she expected him to do, but led her toward the central fire.
To her horror she saw that a whipping post had been erected there. Even as the fear shot through her mind that she was the intended victim, she saw that two soldiers were forcing a third to the post, a mere lad, thin, with tousled russet hair. In a twinkling he was secured, his arms stretched over his head, his back bared. When Alys saw the larger of the other two—a truly enormous man—reach for a whip, she shuddered and turned away.
Sir Nicholas’s grip tightened, and he forced her to turn back. “You will look,” he said grimly. “This is your doing.”
“Mine! How dare you?” she demanded, glaring up at him. “How can such a dreadful business be aught to do with me?”
“That lad yonder is Ian MacDougal,” he said. “Since he is only a Scotsman, I do not expect you to feel remorse, but you will watch because he is being punished for his carelessness on your behalf.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Ian was guarding your tent, Lady Alys. He has a weakness for pretty young women, and he trusted you. Had he fallen asleep, I would order him hanged. As it is, he will merely be flogged.”
Horror engulfed her mind, making her dizzy, and with the first crack of the whip she cried out and tried once again to pull away, but Sir Nicholas would not allow her to do so. When she shut her eyes at the second stroke, swaying against him, he muttered curtly, “You may shut out the sight, wench, but if you try to cover your ears, I’ll order your wrists tied behind you. It disappoints me to find you such a coward that you cannot look upon the result of your own misdeed.”
Alys winced at his tone, then winced again when young MacDougal screamed at the third stroke of the whip, but Sir Nicholas’s words echoed in her head, and she could not ignore them. Her misdeed, he had called it. The young Scotsman was being cruelly punished because of her, his dreadful suffering the direct result of her own disobedience.
She could not regret her visit to the castle. That was something she had had to do. But she could and did regret this. Never before had her actions resulted in such dire consequence to someone else. Because the lad had trusted her to remain where she was, because he had thought it unnecessary to watch the back of her tent as well as the front, he was suffering untold pain. The fault was her own, just as Sir Nicholas had said it was. She could not look, could not bear to watch the whip slashing against Ian’s bare back. But she would not attempt to stop her ears. She deserved to hear his screams. In faith, she deserved more than that, and when she remembered that Sir Nicholas had said a sore arm was little compensation for what she had done, she wondered if he would extract greater payment from her when Ian’s awful punishment was done.
The screaming stopped at last, and she opened her eyes in time to see Sir Nicholas sign to the man with the whip to stop the punishment. Ian hung by his wrists, limp, having passed out from the pain. For a moment Alys was afraid Sir Nicholas was only waiting for him to regain consciousness before ordering the punishment continued, but the two men moved forward and the smaller one drew his dagger from its sheath and cut the lad down. As she turned away with Sir Nicholas, she saw them lifting Ian gently between them. His back was marked with stripes, clearly visible even by firelight, and she saw that some were bleeding.
She said nothing until they reached her tent, but then she turned to face him, drawing on courage she had not known she possessed. “Do you intend to punish me, too, Sir Nicholas?”
He was silent long enough to stir the horrors again before he said quietly, “By the rood, I ought to do so. You endangered your own life by your foolish actions, and thus, since I am responsible to the king for your well-being, you endangered my future and that of my men. But I have no right, for all that, to punish you, being neither father, brother, nor true guardian.” He paused before adding very gently, “In future, mistress, I do advise you to take more caution.”
He would have turned away then, but repressing the chill stirred by his words, she stopped him. “You will bury them all—my family—in the morning before we leave here?”
He gave her another steady look. “Do you think us barbarians, that you must ask such a question?”
“No, sir, but I would look upon their faces before they are set to rest. In faith, I must.”
“As God is my witness, you will not. It is not safe.”
“By heaven, sir, I have stood by my father’s bed! If I am to contract the disease, I will do so whether I look upon my mother and brother, or do not.”
“Nonetheless …”
“You do not understand,” she said desperately. “Their souls will not rest if I do not speak a proper farewell!”
His eyes narrowed. “Not rest? What mean you by this?”
Thinking swiftly, she said, “’Tis custom hereabouts. If the dead are not bade proper farewell by at least one of their close kin, they will walk. No one will step near Wolveston then, for fear of the haunts. You must allow me to do this, Sir Nicholas.”
He hesitated, then pushed aside the tent flap and motioned to her to precede him inside. Jonet, sitting on her pallet, scrambled to her feet and stepped forward.
“My lady, you are safe then! I knew not what to think, what with all the commotion.”
Merion answered, “She is safe enough. Tell me, Mistress Hawkins, is it true that the people hereabouts will believe the castle haunted if certain customs are not observed?”
Alys held her breath, but she need not have worried.
“Aye, sir,” Jonet replied wide-eyed. “There must be a proper burial service, with a priest and all, and a member of the family to bid the dead a proper farewell beforehand.”
He nodded. “I will see to it then.”
A moment later he was gone, and Alys rushed into Jonet’s arms. “I was afraid you would stare at him in wonder or deny the nonsense outright,” she said. “You said just the right thing.”
“Aye, I was listening. Only ran back right before he opened the flap, and feared he’d see I was nigh out of breath from the terror of being caught.” She held Alys away from her. “What was your purpose, mistress? ’Tis a dangerous thing you mean to do.”
Alys nodded. It would be dangerous all right, and not only because she might be exposing herself again to the dreaded sickness. If Sir Nicholas discovered she had lied to him, he might not be as forbearing as he had been tonight. She was trusting Fate, which was never a wise course to follow.
“I have to see my brother Robert,” she said now.
“Then his lordship did tell you naught.”
“He was delirious. He said much but little that made sense. He said, I think, that either Lincoln or Viscount Lovell still lives, and maybe Davy, or even Roger. ’Tis possible, in fact, that someone is hiding right there in the castle.”
“Then the sooner we be gone from here, the better,” Jonet said practically, helping her off with the heavy cloak and then moving to deal with belt, shoes, and laces.
Alys realized she was right. The fugitives, if indeed there were any, would be all the safer for their departure with the soldiers. “Sir Nicholas said we would leave directly after the burials,” she said.
Some moments later, tucked beneath her furs, she tried to relive in her mind the events of the night, but her imagination failed her. Her head ached, and she felt tired enough to sleep for a week. When she did sleep, her slumber was troubled and she felt hot under the furs, throwing half of them off by morning.
Jonet woke her early, exclaiming over her flushed complexion and the dark circles beneath her eyes, but Alys ordered her to cease her fretting. “You only make my head ache worse,” she snapped. “Leave be. We will be gone soon, and I shall sleep better tonight, and better than ever when we reach London.”
The mist was gone when they emerged from the tent, and the sun shone brightly upon the landscape, purple and green now with heather and bracken. Wooded areas to the south, outskirts of the vast, legendary Sherwood Forest, made darker splashes of green, and although Alys had never traveled that way, she knew that beyond the forest lay Newark and Nottingham Castle, the latter long a stronghold of the Plantagenets but probably now, like the rest, in the Tudor’s hands. Nearby to the east flowed the river Trent, wide, deep, and blue, hurrying north to join the Humber. Beyond sprawled the fens and marshlands of Lincolnshire, but the sight, though she once had loved it, held no interest today.
Breakfast was only dried meat and ale, for there was no more bread, but she didn’t care. The thought of food was an unwelcome one. No doubt, she thought, her stomach still writhed at the evil she had brought upon young Ian the night before.
Thinking of him now, she gathered both her strength and her courage and went to find Sir Nicholas. “Where is Ian MacDougal?”
“In the tent I shared,” he replied briefly. “He will remain there until we are ready to strike camp.”
“Is he a prisoner?”
“No, but he is too stiff to be useful. He is still in pain, as you might guess.” He peered suddenly into her eyes and frowned. “Are you well, my lady? You do not look so.”
“I am well enough,” she retorted, conscious again of her aching head and her fatigue. “Have you sought out a priest?”
“Aye, there are two monks from the priory at Bawtry who are caring for the sick in nearby villages. One has agreed to speak the service for the dead. He will be along soon.”
“I want to see Ian MacDougal first.”
Sir Nicholas nodded. “As you wish. Tom will take you.” He shouted for his squire.
After one look at Ian, a wiry lad with russet-colored hair, who lay on his stomach with his bare back still exposed for the simple reason that he could not bear anything to touch it, Alys sent for Jonet. “Fetch your herbal salve,” she commanded. Then, to Ian, she said, “It will soothe the pain and make you better.”
He managed a wan smile. “I niver thought tae see the day when I’d bid a bonny wooman tae keep her hands from me, but i’ faith, I canna bear it. Ye musna touch me, mistress.”
But when Jonet returned, Alys ordered her and Tom to hold Ian while she smoothed the salve directly onto his wounds with her own hands. Though she was as gentle as she knew how to be, she knew how much she hurt him, and so heavy was her guilt that every gasp and groan sent a slice of pain through her own body.
“I am sorry, Ian,” she whispered with tears in her eyes. “’Twas my fault. I am as sorry as I can be.”
He protested weakly, and although she did not know whether his protest was at her words or at her touch, she did not stop until his wounds were covered with the aromatic salve.
“He can wear a shirt now,” she said to Tom. “Not armor or a jacket, but the day promises to be warm, and by nightfall he will be better able to endure the weight of heavier material.”
Tom, who had watched her every move with undisguised curiosity, went at once to fetch a shirt. When he returned, Alys stood to leave. “Sleep, Ian, if you can, till it is time to go. Riding will be unbearable if you are still exhausted.”
“Aye, mistress,” he murmured. “I thank you.”
She left, discovering when she emerged from the tent that preparations had begun for the burial of her family.
Three rough coffins were being carried from the castle to the graveyard on a nearby rise, above the river. She hurried to find Sir Nicholas, cursing the headache that still haunted her, wishing for more energy, knowing the day would be a long one.
The wood coffins had been placed next to three hastily dug holes in the muddy ground. A brown-robed monk stepped up to the first of them, making the sign of the cross above it. Sir Nicholas, beside him, motioned to Alys to come forward.
“I do not approve of this,” he said, “but the priest agrees that you ought to look upon your dead.”
“’Tis the right of the living,” murmured the monk.
“Aye, and it may be her death as well,” Sir Nicholas retorted. “Men who die of the plague are buried rapidly, often without ceremony, in order to protect the living.”
“This sickness is not the plague,” the monk reminded him, “and even those who die of plague have the right to a proper burial, my son.”
“I have agreed.” Merion signed to one of his men. “Open her ladyship’s coffin.”
Alys stepped forward, not really wanting to look upon her mother’s face, but knowing she must if she was to see the boy who was said to be her brother. When the coffin lid was raised, the figure that was revealed meant little to her. She had scarcely known her mother, and she was able to look at her face with little emotion. Alys had brought her rosary, and silently she prayed, made the sign of the cross, and stepped back.
The second coffin was opened. She stepped forward and stared down in amazement. To the best of her knowledge she had never seen the boy before, but his blond good looks were more familiar to her than her mother’s face had been. She had seen King Edward more than once, and she knew Neddie, who was the son of Edward’s second brother, the late Duke of Clarence. If this boy was not as much a Plantagenet as either of them …
Her thoughts froze her in place. When she realized who the boy might be, she told herself she was mad to think such a thing, but the thoughts that tumbled over themselves, racing through her mind, made her dizzy. Conscious of Sir Nicholas standing beside her, she knew that she must do nothing to arouse his suspicions. She must click her beads and move her lips, no matter that her muscles refused to obey her. Tears spilled from her eyes, her headache raged, her skin felt as though it were aflame, and her breath came in short, ragged gasps. Her face felt numb, her hands and feet, too. One moment they burned, the next they tingled with pins and needles.
When she collapsed, Sir Nicholas caught her in his arms.