While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell

Author:Elizabeth Blackwell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

Eleven

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

I wrote to Marcus, inviting him to the castle to meet Mr. Rees and hear of his future prospects. To my dismay he greeted me at the gates not with an embrace but with a terse nod.

“I have no intention of groveling before the castle shoemaker,” he said sharply, and I was alarmed by his unexpected coldness. I had left him foolish with love after our last meeting. What had changed?

I insisted he accompany me inside, to an alcove just beyond the Great Hall, where we would be somewhat hidden from the comings and goings of the castle’s inhabitants and visitors. It was the sort of place where Marcus once might have taken advantage of the semidarkness to slip his hand into mine and sneak a furtive kiss. Instead he glared at me with an expression halfway between anger and bewilderment.

“How could you accept such a bargain on my behalf?” he demanded.

“It is a great honor! The queen has made the offer out of affection for me. You should be grateful.”

“Grateful to start over as someone else’s apprentice? When I have just been admitted to the Merchants’ Guild?”

“I am sure you would not start as an apprentice,” I said, but he cut me off with an adamant shake of his head.

“You cannot understand, can you? How much it means to me and my father that we have our own shop, that we have made something of ourselves. My father worked all his life to ensure that I would never have to answer to a master.”

Dazzled by the majesty of court life, I could not imagine anyone choosing to forsake it. How blind I was, not to see that Marcus’s self-sufficiency, the quality that first drew me toward him, also guaranteed that he would never follow me into royal service. I did not understand that a modest man can also be a proud one, unwilling to do what others might perceive to be in his best interests if it conflicts with his own deeply held beliefs. Marcus had always been so kind, so accommodating, that I underestimated his will when it counted most.

Thinking him still capable of being swayed, I tried again. “It would be an easy life for you here. You’ve told me you never know from month to month how much money you will make. There will be none of that uncertainty here, and I am sure the queen will see that the pay is generous.”

“Oh, yes, it will be a comfortable living,” he said. “But for how long?”

“The queen is not fickle in her affections. Once you prove yourself—”

“That is not what I meant,” Marcus interrupted, looking quickly to either side to make sure we were not overheard. “The queen may protect those she favors, but who is to say how long her word will be obeyed?”

I was shocked. I had heard of men being imprisoned for publicly disparaging the king.

“You cannot say such things,” I hissed.

“I am hardly the only one,” Marcus said. “The king’s position will never be secure as long as his brother has a claim to the title.

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