Page 98 of Heart of Snow
I had to help him. I tried sitting up, but all I could do was roll to my side, kicking limply at the blankets tangled round my legs. Soon my lungs were too heavy to expend even that small effort, and I fell chest-down on the bed.
Another soldier captured Vesalius’s hands, pinning them behind his back and pulling the physician upright to drag him from the room.
My thoughts couldn’t keep pace with what had just happened. Vesalius gone? To be imprisoned? To be killed? Why?
With my body too weak to go after him, too weak to even right itself, I turned my face into the pillow and cried. After a moment, the bed creaked as someone sat beside me. I turned my head just enough to recognize Belinda. She ran a hand along my back and shushed me while I let out the fear and frustration until I had no tears left.
Sniffing, I twisted my aching head on my wet pillow. “What is happening, Belinda? Why would they take Vesalius?”
“They must have learned of his intent to free Samuel.” She ran her fingers along my hairline, pulling away the damp strands clinging to my cheeks.
My body stilled as her words revealed secrets. “How did you know of his plan?”
“Ilsa.” Belinda turned to my maid, who stood huddled in a corner watching me with pity in her eyes. “You can leave for supper now. I’ll join you in a bit.”
The door clicked to signal Ilsa’s exit, and Belinda walked to the writing table, lifting a bottle of wine. “Are you thirsty, Margaretha?” She poured the wine without awaiting my answer.
“Belinda,” I repeated, “how did you know of Vesalius’s plan?”
Setting the bottle down with a soft thunk, she faced me. “I overheard you talking that day in his apothecary.” She returned to my side, offering the cup of red wine. When I didn’t move, she set it on the stand beside the bed. “I was sorry to imprison him. He seems a good man. But I couldn’t have the two of you killing Samuel with your half-witted scheme when the kaiser has promised to release him as soon as you’re dead.”
Belinda pushed against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. She adjusted the blankets, smoothing them over my body, then sat beside me on the bed.
“You foolish girl,” she muttered. “Why couldn’t you have just been the prince’s mistress as I asked? Samuel would be free. Our debts would be paid. In the end, all is the same, except now youmust die.” Her eyes welled, and she ran the back of her hand over them. “Was it really worth it?”
Her words were clear, but my mind couldn’t arrange them into any order that made sense. Belinda in league with the kaiser? Then it was she who had been poisoning me? My sister, my mentor, my friend?
“Betrayer,” I rasped. Had I the strength, I would have pushed her off my bed. “Don’t pretend you care about Samuel. This is all for the money.”
Her back straightened, and her eyes went dark. “You cannot say what I feel. I care for Samuel. I love him. His rescue, his kindness is in every thought and is the motive for all I do.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then why—”
“Because he doesn’t love me back!” She stood, hugging herself as tears pooled in her eyes. “What else was I to do but marry your father? I needed a home. I needed security.”
How, in the face of my death at her very hands, could I still feel any sort of pity for her? And yet, I did. She was selfish and wounded and scared. I could see it in the way she rubbed her hands over her arms, soothing herself because she’d lived a life alone and apart, with no one else to soothe her.
Blinking back the tears, she took a deep breath, letting that cool calm overcome her once more. “Only, your father’s position wasn’t as secure as I’d expected.”
“So you sold your soul to the kaiser for thirty pieces of silver.”
A sad smile came over her face. “It’s a bit more than thirty, dear. And there are lands too, but you could have had so much more if you had just listened to me. The prince would have given you everything.” She shook her head, her features turning hard. “But now it’s up to me to secure your brother’s freedom, and Iwillsee him free.”
The door opened, and Hette peeked inside the room. “Supper, my lady.”
“I must go now.” Belinda reached for my hand, but I pulled it away. Undeterred, she placed a quick kiss on my forehead. “Rest. It will ease your pain.”
She swished out of the room behind her maid, leaving me alone in the darkness.
So this was the end, then? I was to die for Father’s coffers and Belinda’s gowns? I was to die so that Samuel might live? That might have served as consolation before, but now it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. I’d spent so long living as a ghost, sacrificing myself to everyone else’s causes and whims. I was pushed about as a pawn in Belinda’s games, slid across the board as a rook in the prince’s, and now, finally ready to step forward as the queen of my fate, I’d been cut down.
A hot tear leaked from my eye as exhaustion turned my bones heavy, and I sank deeper into the mattress. My sights followed a slow circle around the room: over the writing desk crowded with breads and fruits, over the looking glass, the clothes press. These would continue without me, cold and dispassionate to my extinction. There’d be no change to mark my time here, no memory of me, no sad little sigh years from now when the cut of my death had dulled to a quiet bruise, only pained when memory touched upon it.
It was such an odd thing, resigning oneself to dying, but I found it happening. Found myself bidding life adieu with surprising forbearance until my eyes landed on the apple poised conspicuously on the writing desk. Had it been there all along? In the dark, its red skin was almost purple, but it drew my attention, the fruit pulling at the memory of French lessons in Father’s study. Of a warm fire and my warm cheeks as Friedrich had recounted our first meeting, admitting that I was the reason he’d left the mines. What had he said? That my act with the apple had offered him the chance to choose something better?
Closing my eyes, I rested on my pillow, but the image of the apple persisted in my thoughts.Choose. Choose something better.Friedrich’s words stirred my pulse to something more than the dull thud of the last few days, the thick beats resounding like a battle cry.Choose to live. I need to live. I deserve to live.
I opened my eyes, surveying the room with intention. What resources did I have? What means of escape?
