A Lady Under Siege - By B.G. Preston Page 0,9

little caring that one of the sheets had slipped from her shoulder, and that her long hair hung loose instead of coiled and hidden beneath the barbette expected of a married woman. At the doorway it seemed that virtually the entire remaining populace of the castle had assembled. They parted like cattle, deferentially, but without hurry.

The room smelled of meat cooked on the flame. The ratcatcher was busy by the fireplace. At the bedside, the priest rose to give her his place. Sylvanne knelt, grasped her husband’s hand, and held it to her breast. His eyes were open. He studied her with an immense weariness. He was trying to speak, she could tell, but no words came.

“Has he said anything to anyone?” she asked.

“No,” said the priest. “Yet his eyes move about. He sees.”

Sylvanne leaned close and kissed him on the mouth. He seemed to draw strength from it, and ever so weakly, he whispered her name.

“I hear, my love. Speak to me.”

He looked up at the ceiling as though it were the sky.

“So he’ll have you after all,” he said finally.

“I’ll die first.”

His eyes met hers.

“It is I who am dying,” he whispered.

“They’re cooking you a rat—a mouse.”

He laughed a feeble, soft cough. A faint twinkle shone in his eye.

“Likely it’s as skeletal as I,” he mused.

“I should have told you it’s rabbit,” Sylvanne attempted in a light, jaunty tone. “Apparently that’s been the protocol around here for some time.” But she was fighting tears.

“I’ve no appetite,” Gerald murmured.

“Taste it first.”

He shook his head. His body shuddered, and when he spoke again it was with great effort.

“Do you know your Bible?”

Sylvanne began to cry. She wiped her tears on the white linen and pretended a laugh.

“You know I never troubled with it. Many’s the time you scolded me for that.”

“Ask the priest how Judith slew Holofernes.”

“You tell me,” she said.

His eyes grew wide for a moment, as if he’d seen something beyond this earth. A faint wheeze, the soft rattle of death, issued from his mouth.

“Tell me,” Sylvanne pleaded. “Tell me. Tell me!”

She took his hand, pulled it to her breast, and began to weep. The crowd in the doorway pushed closer for a better look. Mabel lifted a corner of linen and wiped her Mistress’s eyes, then her own. The ratcatcher, oblivious to all but the fireplace and the skinned carcass cooking there, now turned and announced excitedly, “It’s ready, Madame, it’s ready!”

5

Meghan awoke and felt her face wet with tears. She stumbled downstairs to the kitchen in a trance, opened the refrigerator and squatted there, grabbing anything that came to hand—pita bread, grapes, a block of cheddar— stuffing bits from all of them into her mouth. Ravenous, she yanked the lid from a half litre of yogurt and tipped it up to her lips to suck at its runny thickness. Yogurt dribbled down her chin.

“What are you doing?”

Her daughter Betsy, in pyjamas, stood barefoot on the cold kitchen floor, taking in the sight of her mother tearing at food like a stray dog. Meghan instantly became self-conscious, thinking how strange she must look at this moment. She wiped her face and mouth with her sleeve, and put the yogurt back in the fridge without its lid.

“I—I woke up starving,” she said.

Betsy picked the yogurt lid off the floor and set it on the counter. “Dreaming your dream again?”

Meghan nodded.

“What happened this time?”

Meghan tried to say it calmly: “Her husband died.” She felt weak. She closed the fridge door and slumped with her back against the cabinets below the counter. “He died. Oh God. He died,” she whimpered. Tears welled in her eyes. She tried—and failed—to hide them from her daughter.

“You’re scaring me,” Betsy said.

“Don’t be scared. It’s just a silly dream,” she lied. It was more vivid and intensely felt than any dream she’d ever known, and the strange, painful emotions of grief and loss that gripped her now were a token of its power. But for her daughter’s sake, she attempted a light tone. “As if I don’t have enough going on in my life, I’ve got to cry over someone else’s.”

Betsy got herself a bowl and some cereal from the cupboard. “If the husband is dead, then the siege should be finished, right? And that’s good, right?”

Drying her face with the back of her hand, Meghan said, “It would be good if I stopped dreaming.”

Betsy stepped over her to get to the fridge. “I need milk.” Pushing at Meghan’s leg with her foot to make