Four

 

Three days Rosamond waited for the queen's gift, while watching the crowds at court dwindle as other guests returned to their homes. When Rosamond hinted at her plans to depart, too, Queen Margareta insisted that the princess's gift would be ready within the hour, but hours came and went with no sign of any cloth.

Finally, Rosamond lost patience and sent Monika to find the weaver. The maid returned with a puzzled look on her face.

"Did you say the weaver was a woman named Penelope?" Monika asked.

Rosamond nodded. "That's what the queen called her. Yes."

"I found a Penelope. She is the queen's own dressmaker, not just a weaver, and a noblewoman in her own right. Lady Penelope is a knight's widow and the queen's companion. She has not been at court because her daughter is ill." Monika frowned. "She says that if you are willing to come to her chambers, she will measure you for a new gown directly."

"I do not understand. The queen said..." Rosamond stopped. She had been the queen's companion in place of Lady Penelope. Queen Margareta evidently did not wish to give her up until her original companion was at her side again. "No matter. I shall go now."

Monika led the way back to Lady Penelope's chambers, an airy apartment that was bigger than the one Rosamond had been given. Evidently the queen's companion was held in high regard.

"Her Royal Highness, Princess Rosamond," Monika announced.

Movement in the window alcove drew Rosamond's attention as a petite, dark-haired woman climbed down from the window seat, setting down her sewing. She bobbed a curtsey. "Your Highness. I'm Penelope. Queen Margareta told me you wanted a gown like her red velvet one, but when my daughter took ill, I could not leave her side." Penelope tilted her head to the side, like a curious bird. "I don't think the red would suit you. Too dark. Perhaps pink or sage..." She crossed the room and knelt by a chest beside a small couch that Rosamond realised was occupied.

The pale girl on the couch looked perhaps ten years old, but her skin had a waxen sheen like she was not long for this life. Rosamond's heart went out to the girl, and to her poor mother.

"Melitta fell ill so suddenly. For three days, she unpacked the chests of cloth that arrived in port last week, exclaiming over all the new colours. And on the fourth...she could not rise from her bed." Penelope's tears spilled over and she wept into her hands.

Melitta looked like she would never rise again, in Rosamond's opinion. Unless she could heal the girl. Rosamond glanced around the room, looking for something sharp. She spotted a strange contraption with a wheel mounted on a low table, and a short staff with a spindle sticking up from the table. Rosamond swiped her finger across the spindle, wincing at the sting as the sharp point drew blood, then knelt beside the girl.

Laying her hand on Melitta's forehead, Rosamond closed her eyes. She focussed first on cooling the girl's fever, then on ridding the girl's blood of the disease. As Rosamond felt her own head grow fuzzy, she released the girl and rose unsteadily to her feet. She fumbled blindly for the windowsill, then cried out as something sharp pierced her hand. Yet something about the pain cleared her vision almost instantly.

Rosamond glanced down. She had grasped a briar rose growing through the window, and the thorns had bitten deep into her palm. In the back of her mind, somewhere in the memories of how her magical gifts were supposed to work, Rosamond remembered that her healing ability was linked to plants. Suppressing a second cry of pain, she wrapped her hand firmly around the flower stem, burying the thorns even more deeply, and reached for the girl with her free hand.

Within moments, the girl's eyes fluttered open. She coughed wetly before she murmured something that sounded like, "Mitera?" and coughed again.

"I am here," Lady Penelope said.

The disease had settled in Melitta's lungs. Rosamond felt blood trickle down her wrist, but she closed her eyes once more to focus on the girl's lungs, where fluid was making it hard for her to breathe. Rosamond concentrated, and the fluid seemed to lessen a little. Slowly at first, then more strongly, she poured what magic she had into the girl. Melitta coughed again, not so thickly this time, and Rosamond took hope as she rid the girl of the disease that had plagued her.

In triumph, Rosamond pushed away from the girl, panting, as black spots danced before her eyes. She would not swoon today, she swore. Today, weak as she was, she was mistress of her own magic.