“I hope you are right, my own true heart.” Edward had kissed her on the cheek and she had smiled at him. He had been glad to see her dimples flash again. He had something else to say, however. “If anything should happen to me, the people will look to you as their queen for guidance.”

“I know.” Ermintrude had spoken calmly, though the dimples had once again disappeared. “Just don’t let anything happen to yourself, Edward.”

The Queen stood by a window peering out, watching Edward, who was everywhere at once. Her guards begged her repeatedly to come back into the center of the room, away from the window, but Ermintrude ignored them. She chafed at being cooped up inside the castle, unable to see what was going on. She would have been out on the walls herself if she could have managed it. Edward would have had a fit, and, more important, she could not leave Marcus.

Ermintrude shifted her worried gaze from her husband to her son. Marcus had insisted on going out onto the walls himself, though his left arm was still in a sling and he was running a low-grade fever, according to the Lady Izabelle. Marcus had ordered that his armor be brought to him in his room, but he lacked the strength to put it on.

When Ermintrude went to see him, she found him sitting in a chair by the fire, watching the Lady Izabelle work on her embroidery. Ermintrude noted an odd look in her son’s eyes, like those of an animal trapped, caged. The look was so very odd that she was startled and uneasy.

“He is only fretting that he cannot join his father,” she said to herself She was impressed with the Lady Izabelle, who could find the strength of character to work at embroidery at a time like this.

Hearing the Queen enter, the lady covered her work with a cloth. Ermintrude had never laid eyes on the lady’s fancy work, and she was not of a mind to do so now.

“We are all to move to the great hall,” she said. “The commander of my guard deems it will be safer for us there.”

Marcus was established in a chair near the fire with the Lady Izabelle close at hand. He continued to stare at her, and Ermintrude thought to herself that she’d never seen a young man so much in love. She prayed that she and her beloved husband would live to see them married. At the thought, tears filled her eyes, and Ermintrude scolded herself, for she had determined in the night that she would keep such debilitating fears at bay. She had to be strong, for the sake of those around her.