Page 79 of Heart of Snow
“With... me... ? I’m going to see Samuel?” My voice rose an octave in my excitement, and I hugged Felipe.
He laughed. “If we’re quick.”
We trotted up the steps from the Coperbeek Valley, crossing through the arcade and into the main building, where we navigated deep into a corridor that was wholly unfamiliar to me. When we’d passed through a short, thick set of doors, Vesalius retrieved a waiting lantern and pouch from a table, then led the way to a flight of circular stone stairs.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “This isn’t the way to theMaison du Roi.”
Felipe and Vesalius exchanged glances.
“Your brother isn’t with the Landgrave of Hesse or the Elector of Saxony,” Felipe answered. “They keep the lower nobility here. In the dungeons.”
I stared in disbelief. “The dungeons? Then it is little wonder my brother’s health is failing.”
Felipe dropped his eyes but didn’t answer me directly. “I go no farther,” he said. “Vesalius will take you on.”
My hands shaking and my breath coming fast, I let the physician lead me down the steps to the palace dungeons. At the top of the stairway the windows had been wide, pulling warmth and light to flood the space, but down here, they were nothing but begrudging slits, jealously holding back all but the barestslivers of sun. The damp was heavy, and the smells of filthy bodies and waste grew stronger. With every step downward came the rising panic of walking into dark, icy waters that would soon cover my head. The physician’s lantern light was the only thing of warmth, and I leaned toward it.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Vesalius offered a handkerchief. “For the smell.”
“I thank you.” My voice was muffled behind the kerchief.
I followed him down a row of barred cells, past guards and dim torchlights.
“Why is my brother here, Vesalius?” I asked. “Why is he not with the Landgrave and Elector?”
Vesalius shrugged. “Is there ever sense in the rules of war?”
I pulled down the kerchief. “But he’s ill!” My protest echoed off the walls.
“Margaretha?” A weak voice carried from somewhere deep in the dungeon. Though hoarse and rough from misuse, I’d have known that voice anywhere.
“Samuel!” I ran ahead, finding my brother struggling to prop himself up on a filthy tick mattress.
The physician motioned to a guard standing outside the cell, and the man flipped slowly through a ring of keys until he’d finally unlocked the door. I yanked it open and found my way into Samuel’s arms, giving him a hug so tight he started coughing.
“Careful, Margaretha,” he panted. “I’ve only one set of lungs.”
I prompted him to lie down, helping his head to his pillow before pulling the ratty, moth-eaten blanket up to his chest.
“Best stay back.” He scratched his neck, exposing red bumps. “I’m f-food for the fleas. Fleas now, maggots later.” He smiled, but a shiver overtook him.
“Samuel, your humor is as ill-timed as ever,” I chided, fighting back emotion with a smile of my own. I knelt in the filthy strawbeside his cot, pulling off my gloves to hold his hands in mine. They were warm. Too warm. “Do you get enough rest? Do they feed you well?”
The tremor of chills shook his hands. “Food is better than anything Cook served,” he teased, and I wondered that, even as sick and in danger as he was, he was still Samuel, making jests at every turn.
“How fare Father and M-Mistress Hatzfeld and... everyone?” he asked.
“All well, though Father worries about you. So do I. When I saw you at the Ommegang, you looked so ill. Though the light is dim, I still think you too pale and thin,” I prattled as I watched the rapid, straining movements of his chest, tallying all the symptoms of his malady in my mind to form a frightening conclusion: pneumonia.
“Youaccuse me of being pale?” He closed his eyes, his bravado fading with his strength. “I’m tired and cold.”
I looked to Vesalius, whose expression showed some of the concern I felt. He settled his lantern in the straw and moved to my brother’s mattress, resting two fingers on my brother’s neck. He touched the back of his hand to Samuel’s brow, then studied the bumps on Samuel’s neck.
I quietly waited while Vesalius moved through his examination process, squeezing Samuel’s hand whenever the rattling wheeze vibrated through his chest.
“His pulse is quick, and he’s febrile,” Vesalius whispered. “I’ll prepare a tonic.” Carrying the lantern to the corner of the cell, he surveyed the contents of his pouch to retrieve his supplies. A desperate helplessness weighted down my limbs. My elder brother, always bigger and stronger, always my protector, lay frail and weak before me. I studied him—his brow beaded in sweat, his eyes swollen, and his lips cracked—and a tear escapeddown my cheek. Scrubbing a hand against my tingling nose, I sniffed.
Samuel cracked an eye open. “There you go, rubbing your nose again. I th-thought you would have outgrown such a habit by now.”
