The Tapestry by Bilyeau Nancy

Author:Bilyeau, Nancy [Bilyeau, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2015-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

22

The man who bent over me, frowning, wore a black cap that fit his head as tightly as a second scalp. I wanted very much to speak to him, but a heavy object pressed on my own head, crushing it. I couldn’t make my eyes focus, and a deep ache pulsed through one of my arms.

“Her eyes are open,” said the man to someone else, though I couldn’t see whom.

“I can’t be late,” I said. Or I thought I said it. I didn’t hear my own words.

The black-capped man by my side said, “Late to what?”

Relieved I’d been understood, I said, “The Great Wardrobe. I must ride there today.” I swallowed and then said, my voice croaking, “His Majesty willed it.”

He stood up and walked over to the second man, who I now could get a glimpse of. He seemed older. He wore a cap, too, but also long sweeping robes. There was insignia woven into the robes but I couldn’t tell whose, because my eyes weren’t working properly. I blinked and blinked but everything in the room was fuzzy. I did grasp that I was in bed in my room in Whitehall wearing only a shift and suddenly I felt humiliated by the presence of two strange men. What were they doing here while I lay abed?

The older man approached.

“Mistress Stafford, I am Doctor William Butts, physician to the king,” he said in a soft but deliberate voice. “The man you just spoke to is Samuel Clocksworth, the principal barber-surgeon of the court. You set out to the Great Wardrobe this morning. It is now the afternoon.” He paused and then continued, “There was an incident in London. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“No, I am sorry. That’s not correct.” I tried to take control of this state of affairs. “Please fetch my man Richard, he must be just out in the passageway. We must prepare to ride.”

The two of them exchanged a significant look and withdrew a little, as if to enter a private discussion. They made no effort to fetch Richard.

Everything about this was wrong, and I had had quite enough of the confusion. I pushed myself up—and plunged into a pit of fiery, stabbing pain. Crying out, my head and my left arm and shoulder in agony, I fell back, fighting waves of dizziness and nausea. There was nothing pressing on my head, I knew now: just bandages.

Master Clocksworth rushed to my side. “You must not move,” he said sternly. “Do not do that again.”

“My arm,” I said, half groaning and half weeping. “What happened to me? How will I weave tapestries?”

As he struggled to calm me, the door burst open and Catherine Howard appeared, shouting, “She is awake, she is awake. Why did no one tell me?”

The barber-surgeon put out his hand as if to push her back, but Catherine ducked past him and threw herself onto the floor, so that her face was inches from mine. Through my pain, I was glad to see her, though she looked quite unlike herself, with a red nose and tear-ravaged cheeks.

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