With Sir Evan on one side and the physician on the other, they pushed her along until she was inside the keep, then propelled her to her chambers, a crowd of servants trailing behind them. Once inside Gillian’s chambers, the physician shooed everyone except Earie out.
“Tell me what happened.” The physician was a barrel-chested old man with a short graying beard and long, silver-gray hair. He wore a fine blue robe over his plaid trews and carried a wooden box. Gillian told himeverything she could remember about the incident. The physician—he said his name was Gilchrist—listened closely, scratching absently at his beard.
When she finished he only nodded, frowning wisely.
“It was at least a twenty-pound ballast that fell on her,” Earie said, speaking for the first time. She had been silently removing Gillian’s arisaid and bodice so Gilchrist could examine her. “Isawit hit her.”
Gilchrist made Gillian sit on a stool with her back to him. He instructed her to untie the top of her shift, then pulled her shift back so he could examine her back. He grunted a few times and probed at her skin with rough fingers, asking her periodically if it hurt.
“Not at all. I vow I am fine.”
He grunted again, then gathered his things together. “I can find nothing at all wrong with you, not a mark or bruise.”
Earie goggled at this. She moved around behind Gillian to look for herself. “Yer leave, my lady?”
“Go ahead.”
Earie gently touched Gillian’s back. “My God,” she breathed. “It’s a miracle. Yer back should be broken at the very least, and yet there is not a mark on ye.”
Gillian rubbed at the dull throbbing that lingered in her temples.
Gilchrist eyed her shrewdly. “Mayhap. Mayhap not. For now she needs rest.” He came at her with a vial of dark liquid. “Drink this and take ye to bed.”
Gillian drank the thick brew and shuddered with disgust. “What was that?”
“Theriac. Will help ye sleep.”
“What’s in it?”
“Juice of the poppy, honey, brandywine, and various other ingredients. It’s verra good. I make it myself.”
Earie tucked Gillian into bed, snuffed all the candles but the fat one near the bed that marked the hours, and eased quietly out of the room. The theriac made Gillian think of Stephen and how he’d said poppy juice made him not care. Already she felt odd, as if she were floating. When she closed her eyes, colors swirled behind her eyelids. When she opened them, the room tilted and with it her stomach, so she closed them again, willing sleep to come.
When it did, it brought dreams, fevered images of a woman gliding along a cliff, fog parting for her. A dark figure loomed behind her, and Gillian knew he meant to push her. When she turned, the hood of the cloak fell back, and Gillian saw her own face. Then she was running, heart in throat, the heat of her pursuer’s breath on her neck.
The scene slowly faded and changed. She was in a dark room. It was so cold. She shivered, chill bumps raising on her body. The hour candle gave her enough light to see that her breath was a white mist before her. It was summer, she thought distantly. Why was it so damn cold?
Then she saw him, kneeling beside her bed, his face in his hands. He had a shag of brown hair and wore a dirty and torn plaid. Gillian’s arms and legs were leaden. She wanted to speak, to ask what was the matter, but she couldn’t move her lips.
He looked up as if she’d spoken. Tears tracked hisdirty face. He was so young, no more than sixteen. His large, dark eyes were as soft and luminous as a doe’s. “I’m so sorry, my lady. Forgive me. He made me do it.”
He buried his face on the bed and wept brokenly. He lifted his head again and turned, looking at something behind him. The grief that etched his face transformed to exultation. His body began to waver and fade, the furniture behind him faintly visible, then growing sharper until he was gone.A dream.Effects of the theriac.
She didn’t like this dream, but the room wouldn’t go away, and she couldn’t leave. Slowly she became aware of movement across the room. Someone worked busily and silently near the fireplace. Gillian tried to call her maid’s name, but it was too hard, her lips were too stiff. She tilted her head on the pillow, squinting across the room.
Someone swept out her fireplace . . . through the fire. Gillian blinked, watching as the maid stuck her hand right into the fire, sweeping through it as if it wasn’t there. Then the maid turned, picking up a goblet on the floor beside the chair and downing it in one swallow. She stood, rinsed the goblet in the basin, dried it, and returned it to the silver tray. Then disappeared.
Gillian gasped, only to sense the movement again. She forced her head up. The maid was back at the fireplace, sweeping and sweeping, right through the fire. And then she drank the wine again. And washed the goblet again. Then she was at the fireplace again. And again. And again.
Gillian dropped her head back on the pillow andclosed her eyes tightly, willing the nightmarish maid to go away.Nicholas.Where was he? She wanted her husband.
When she woke again, she was able to raise her hand to her head. It throbbed sickeningly, and Gillian vowed never again to let anyone give her that nasty medicine. The candle showed she’d only slept two hours. It had seemed much longer. A glance at the shutters showed no light peeping through.
With great effort she dragged herself out of bed. Her body felt as if it had been trampled, every muscle sore and heavy. Her neck ached, too. That’s when she remembered what had happened. The cannonball. The cold, the pain in her head. It was all very strange. She wished desperately for her sisters. Had something protected her from harm? A twenty-pound ball of iron should have done her significant damage, dropped from that height. She’d felt something, just before the blow, something cold and strange, wrapping itself around her.
With sudden resolve she went to her desk and lit more candles. She took out her quill and began composing a letter to Rose.
She started violently, as if waking from a falling dream. The room was freezing. Her hand ached. The candles on her desk were gutted. Wax spilled onto the surface, hardening already at the edges. Gillian looked down and saw the top of her desk littered with parchments, words scrawled across them in an unfamiliar hand, written so deep and violently at times that they tore through the parchment. She gripped the quill,white-fingered, hand cramped. Gillian released it as if it were a firebrand, pushing away from the desk and staring at the pile of ruined parchments as if they dripped blood.
