Sovereign Silk by Elizabeth Gilligan

Author:Elizabeth Gilligan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2017-04-28T10:43:15+00:00

Maria della Guelfa tucked her skilled hands into her pockets and then out, worrying at the edges of her apron. It was an anxious habit she’d had since childhood.

Until a few weeks ago, she had been contented to be housewife to a gentleman farmer and military man. With him away often, it had kept her busy. Thankfully, they had a son turned into a youth. He was free where his father was not, and the two of them ran the farm with the help of hired hands; now her son was running the farm alone. With five generations of midwives before her, Maria carried on the tradition and was well-known for her skills.

Serving the village wives and those of his hired hands, the occasional desperate stranger or Romani, Maria was content providing this service to her community. She had never thought, not in all her lineage, not even in desperate dreams, that she might come to be known to or recommended to the White Queen of Tyrrhia, much less be summoned away from her comfortable farmhouse to serve her or her children. After no more than a couple of weeks at the palazzo, the others treated her like a fixture here.

No recommendation to a queen came lightly and without complications, for it seemed every married, recently widowed, or newly wed attendant to the White Throne was also pregnant and from simple farmer’s wife and midwife to horses, cows, and the local women, she first served the White Queen, then the Araunya and now the courtiers! She was not to work completely alone, for she was to be assisted by the Royal Physician and Barber! The two men did not take kindly to her arrival since they had been accustomed to caring for the court’s health by themselves for many a year!

But for reasons still not completely clear to her, her friend—did a “friend” recommend you to such a position, for most surely this one had?—the chemist and apothecary who had provided Maria with the medicinal goods she needed but did not grow herself all these years; this woman, Donna Rui, now served beside her, though mostly concentrating her time on the newborn boy in another room in the suite. This new position included living at the palazzo so as to be at the beck and call of the White Queen’s infants and in a place to make crucial decisions that would affect all of Tyrrhia and everything she held dear.

She had just moved herself from her beloved home to an apartment in the palazzo she shared with Donna Rui, her referring friend, and, on rare occasion, her own husband!

“Are you sure?”

Maria turned toward the voice. Donna Nunzia. “The Araunya needs the air. A truffle hunt where she gets outside and does nothing but lie upon a couch and watch? What difference, from the tent she insists on living in for the rest of the week?”

She turned at the sound of raised voices. As she spoke, so came the Araunya, the Regent Guardian, and her husband, the Lord Regent.

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