Gwynnie had quite forgotten the incident with the young fair-haired woman, and the queen’s stiff response as she watched on. Since then, much had happened, and it surprised her that the ladies spoke of this rather than the king’s accident or of Queen Anne’s collapse.
“Mark my words,” the lady with the long nose said. “We shall have a new queen by Michaelmas.”
There was a collective gasp from the others as Gwynnie walked on. She tarried by the gentlemen, many of whom were shaking their heads. One lady stood amongst them, clutching the arm of a man whom Gwynnie presumed was her husband.
“What happens now?” she asked her husband in earnest.
“A physician will see to the king.”
“You fool, do you not see what I see?” she asked him in a hoarse whisper. “If the king does not wake, who does the crown go to?”
The men in the group looked at one another, none of them having an answer.
Gwynnie walked through the courtyard and toward Donsen Tower. She slowed by the door, reflecting on how different things would be had she had the opportunity to steal Queen Anne’s jewels from her chambers, and had she never stepped into Fitzroy’s chambers.
Stepping in through the open doorway, she found the entrance hall wet with puddles from the rain. Apparently, no one was bothered about closing the door, not when there were other things to worry the household. Gwynnie tried to kick the door shut, struggling under the weight of the heavy sheets, before hastening toward the staircase.
She climbed the steps, trying not to trip on the hem of her gown. As she reached the top of the tower, she came upon two of Queen Anne’s ladies-in-waiting sitting on the stairs. One was crying with great sobbing breaths, while the other stared into the distance, as white as the sheets Gwynnie carried.
Gwynnie tiptoed past them, noting that they didn’t once look her way.
As she reached the door that led to the queen’s chambers, she found a priest in the doorway. He was placing the sign of the cross over the door, with rosary beads clutched in his long bony hand.
“Away.” Another lady-in-waiting, perhaps twice as old as the queen herself, stood in front of the priest, blocking his entrance.
“But madam,” he said in thick French accent. “The traditions must be observed.”
“Traditions?” the elder lady sneered. “The queen holds onto a Protestant God, the true God. She will not take comfort in you preaching now.”
The priest was outraged, his lips parting. He looked ready to argue, but Gwynnie stepped by him, holding up the sheets.
“Come through.” The lady-in-waiting waved her hand hurriedly to Gwynnie.
Gwynnie stepped into the chamber, shocked by the sudden darkness. Curtains had been draped across the windows, even pushed into the gaps of the window frame, in an effort to block out every scrap of light. Just one candle stood at the far end of the antechamber, lighting a path for Gwynnie.
A table was piled high with glass bottles and vials. One had been tipped over, and the distinct scent of turpentine filled the air, making Gwynnie’s nose wrinkle.
She was bustled into the second chamber by the lady-in-waiting, where she found a very different scene to the first room. Where the first had been empty, this room could not have had more people crammed into it.
There were physicians, healers, and even an astronomer who read aloud from a book, straining to see the words by the light of a candle that he clutched in his hand.
“Mars is in orbit. Oh, I fear for the health of this child.”
“Do you think such things are helping?” the lady-in-waiting snapped and took the book out of the astronomer’s hand. “Away. At once.”
He stepped back and Gwynnie was given a better view of the room.
At the foot of the bed were three maids. One of them was mopping up blood, her face pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. The other two maids offered up towels and anything else they could get their hands on.
A physician snatched one of the sheets from Gwynnie’s pile and threw it over the bed.
“Bind her,” he ordered the other physicians.
The linen strip was bound around the waist of the prostrate woman on the bed.
It was Queen Anne. Her French hood had been tossed to the floor, and Gwynnie saw that one of the pearls on the headdress had broken off and rolled away across the floor.
Anne’s dark hair streaked across the pillow beneath her head. She was awake, but her eyes kept fluttering closed. She was moaning, trying to clutch her stomach, but the physician batted her hands away.
A cold chill washed over Gwynnie as she stood at the edge of the room, unnoticed. It was easy to judge what was happening.
The queen was losing her unborn child.
“Take this.” A young physician appeared beside her and pressed a vial into Gwynnie’s hands.
One of the other maids scuttled back from the bed and clutched her hand to her mouth. The next minute, she ran into the other chamber. She must have found a chamber pot or something to be sick in, for the sounds of retching soon followed.
“Are you of a sickly constitution?” the physician asked Gwynnie.
She shook her head, uncertain what good it would do if she said she was.
“Good. Then come here.” He beckoned her forward. He gently tipped Anne’s chin back. “For the pain, Your Highness. It will help.” He took the vial out of Gwynnie’s hand and tipped the liquid into her mouth.
The queen nearly retched herself, but the physician closed her mouth in such a way that she was forced to swallow it.
“Hold this.” The physician passed an empty chamber pot to Gwynnie. “You will need it, for her.”
Gwynnie nodded.
