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fear. A flower glimmered before my eyes, and I saw that it was a white rose. Aware that the noises had ceased, I uncovered my ears, and the rose floated into my hands. I marveled at its iridescent beauty, which held a strange, almost ethereal quality. Then I lifted my eyes. Sir John Neville smiled down at me. I was engulfed in warmth, and my lips parted with joy and wonder, but in my surprise I dropped the flower. Sir John bent to pick it up for me, but when he stood again, he was a stranger, standing in shadow, and I could not make out his face. The stranger handed me the flower, only now the rose was red, not white. I didn’t want to take it, but it sprang into my hands, and I saw that blood dripped from its petals. It was blood that colored the white rose red! I dropped the flower and backed away, screaming in horror—
    I awoke to find myself sitting upright in bed, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding.
    “My poor child, you’ve had a bad dream, but the fever has broken at last. You will soon be well.” Sœur Madeleine removed her hand from my damp brow. Turning behind her as she sat on the edge of my bed, she dipped a cloth into a basin of water held by a young girl and wiped my face. I flinched, for it was cold. My vision, which sleep had blurred, began to clear. I looked around. There was little to see, only the stone wall of a castle bedchamber, a window, and a coffer. “How long have I been sick? Where are we?” I asked.
    “We are at court, in Westminster. You fell off your horse and have been unconscious for two days.”
    “I don’t remember arriving here.”
    “’Tis because you were already ill and burning with fever. I had great fear for you, child.”
    I frowned, straining to recall the journey, but there was nothing in my head except a dull pounding. Then all at once remembrance flooded me. “Aye, it’s come back to me now,” I murmured softly. With memory had come the ache of leaving Sir John Neville at Tattershall Castle. I laid my head back on my pillow, dimly aware that Sœur Madeleine was speaking.
    “Isabelle, this is Margery. She’ll be taking care of you in my absence, child. I leave for Kenilworth Abbey and shall be gone several days. I shall check on you when I’m back.” She patted my hand, and the girl curtseyed. I gave them a nod, too weary to speak, and closed my eyes.
    The trip from Lincolnshire to Westminster had been exceptionally arduous, perhaps due to the unseasonable heat. Beneath leaden skies that oppressed land and folk alike, we had passed friars; peddlers whose toes stuck through the rags that wrapped their feet; itinerant workers; merchants with their wares; women sagging beneath the weight of the milk jugs they carried on their heads; and farmers headed to market, dragging their carts laden with hay, leeks, and apples. Many looked as weary and low-spirited as I had felt. Unable to bear the prospect of entering a house now emptied of my father’s loving presence, we did not stop at his manor in Burrough Green, though Cambridgeshire lay on the path to London. Instead we spent the night at an abbey on the outskirts of town, where I shared a pallet with Sister. Her rolling snores, my own coughing spells, and the fleas and bedbugs that infested our lumpy straw mattress had kept me awake, and, as I had done since leaving Tattershall, I counted the church bells that tolled through the night and struggled to keep thoughts of Sir John Neville at bay.
    For the last two days of our journey, I had subsisted on a few swallows of bread and wine. It became clear to me that I had caught the ague, but as the remedy for the sickness was to swallow a spider wrapped in a raisin, I made no mention of my fever in case Sister decided to cure me, and I grew progressively fainter. Then, strangely, the world retreated from me into silence and mist. Sister spoke to Master Giles and Guy, merchants greeted us as they passed, beggars put out their bowls to us from the roadside and called for