The Girl Who Tempted Fortune by Jane Ann McLachlan

Author:Jane Ann McLachlan [McLachlan, Jane Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: medieval historical fiction
ISBN: 9781999383671
Publisher: Kay Crisp Books
Published: 2020-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Autumn, 1299

Court of King Charles II, Naples

Princess Violante’s infant, a tiny girl, died at birth. Violante nearly followed her but I would not allow it. I had the midwives pack her opening with a poultice of sage leaves to staunch the bleeding. I fed her teas of comfrey root and motherwort to close her womb, valerian and yarrow to help her rest, fennel to prevent jaundice and burdock and vervain to lower her fever. I ordered hot broths and organ meats from the kitchen and forced her to swallow them. I would have made her eat the afterbirth, my mother did that once with a woman who was dying, but at court I would be branded a witch for something so bizarre. The court physicians watched my every move for something they could object to, but who could protest against teas and broth?

When she asked for her baby I told her the infant was sleeping, that she could hold her when she was stronger. I knew she would hate me later for this lie, but I also knew she would die without it. I made her ladies-in-waiting leave the room with their tear-stained faces, and ordered the court physicians to maintain my falsehood or I would tell Prince Robert they had let his wife die. Outraged, they demanded I leave the room. But I am my mother’s daughter; I drew myself up to my full height and looked them straight in the eyes and said nothing. And that put an end to that.

When Violante was strong enough to learn the truth, I was the one who told her. I also told her that Louis and Charles needed their mother, Prince Robert needed a wife, and Naples needed its future queen—in that order. Prince Robert might find another wife and Naples another queen, but no one else could ever be Louis’ and Charles’ mother. I told her that bluntly, in all its harsh kindness, and she nodded because I spoke true. She asked me about my son and I told her everything I remembered, speaking about him as though he were dead, for dead to me he was. We mourned her daughter and my Antonio together in that dark room while she waited for her bleeding to stop. Then we walked out, her holding my arm as tightly as when we walked in, as full of sorrow as she had then been full of fear. I brought her out as I had promised myself I would, but it was a different woman who left that room with me.

After that she would have no other maid. I slept in the servants’ rooms but during the day I sat in her presence chamber with her and her ladies-in-waiting. I combed out her hair and chose her outfits and dressed her in them. I brought her jewels to her and helped her select which ones to wear and adorned her with them myself. I fetched her boys from the nursery to visit her every day, sitting little Charles on her knee.

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