I looked up. “Thank you, Mother.”
“You are welcome, Princess. As you see, I have kept my word. Now it is your turn. I will listen to you as promised. But first I want you to know I have already written a letter to Don Andrés, telling him you are safe and that Don Julián is our prisoner. I was only waiting for you to wake up to send it to him.”
“But you cannot do that, Mother. Don Julián is not my prisoner. He saved my life. He stepped in front of me to protect me from the arrows. And then when we fell into the river, I would have drowned without his help. Don’t you see, Mother, that is why I couldn’t let him die. That is why I brought him to you.”
Mother stared at me for a long time. “You did the right thing,” she said at last.
It was the first time, ever, that Mother had approved of me. I felt warm inside, and the pressure of tears built up behind my eyes. I pushed them back. “But Mother, if you tell Father that Don Julián is here, I have saved him for nothing. For my debt to him to be repaid, he must go back to his kingdom as a free man.”
Mother frowned. “Princess Andrea, to let Don Julián go would be a terrible mistake. I don’t think you understand how much he means to his people. Under his command, his men will die to the last, and the losses to our troops will be on our conscience. But if Don Julián remains our prisoner, with Don García’s help the war will be over soon and the victory will be ours.”
“Don García?” What had Don García, my sister Sabela’s forbidden captain, to do with the war?
Mother nodded. “Yes, Don García. He is the one responsible for the attack on the bridge. A pigeon came this morning with a message for Princess Sabela. Apparently it was not the first. But this time she shared the news with me. According to the letter, Don García heard of the impending war and came from the east with his troops. He was spying on Don Julián’s camp when he discovered the bridge. They attacked and destroyed it. Now he is on his way to join Don Andrés’s army. The battle seems imminent.”
Just as I was asking, “Did the letter mention whether Don Alfonso was among the dead?” the door into the next room opened, and my sister Margarida appeared in the doorway.
Mother, who had her back to the door and had not seen her yet, answered my question. “No, it didn’t. Why do you ask, Princess?”
Margarida, her face as pale as the moon of my uncle’s world, stumbled inside. Mother turned toward the noise.
“Don Julián is awake, Mother,” Margarida said with a curtsy.
“Tell His Majesty I’m coming,” Mother said, as if she were referring to a king. It took me a moment to realize this was actually the case.
Already at the door, she looked back at me. “Princess Andrea, we will finish this conversation later.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, I fell back against the pillows. Mother had not sent the letter to Father yet. At least for the moment, Don Julián was safe.
I was almost finished with my toilette when I heard the door open. My hand still on the brush stuck in my tangled hair, I looked back from the mirror and saw Mother leaning on the threshold. Against the black of her dress, her face, usually unreadable, seemed weary to the point of exhaustion, and wrinkles I had never noticed had formed around her eyes. I frowned. But before I could ask the reason for her concern, her eyes met mine. Immediately her back straightened, and her face hardened once more into a mask.
“If you are ready, Princess Andrea, you must come with me.”
I nodded and, dropping the brush, jumped to my feet.
Mother did not move. “Just a moment, Princess. There is something I must tell you first. I know you didn’t mean this to happen. But things don’t always turn out the way we think they will. I want you to come and see, so you understand that your actions may have consequences you had not anticipated, and that for those, too, you will be held responsible. Come now, Princess, and see for yourself.”
Her words wrapped around my shoulders like a cloak of impending doom, I followed Mother through the open door.
19
The Time Reader
The room had been rearranged once more, and any signs of the morning’s activity had been removed. To my right, Don Julián, his eyes closed, his face as pale as one of the marble statues carved on the tombstones that flank the chapel walls, was lying still under the gray woolen blanket. I shivered, and my feet, heavy with fear, refused to move further. But Mother, already at the king’s side, motioned me forward.
I stumbled inside, barely breathing, while Mother bent over the bed and grabbed the sheet that hid the king’s body. I closed my eyes, certain that she was about to pull it over his face. When I opened them again, the sheet was down at his waist and Mother was removing the bandage that wrapped his naked torso.
Don’t, Mother! Please don’t. I don’t need to see. I know what I have done. Let him rest, I wanted to say. But my tongue was frozen and made no sound. Mother went on unwrapping until the entire bandage was in her hand, and the king’s swollen open flesh came into view.
I moved back, averting my eyes from the wound. But Mother came over and, grabbing my arm, forced me forward. “Look!” she said in a hushed voice. “You must look and remember. This is what war is about. This is what men do to each other. You were too young to know. But I . . . I have seen too many young men, strong and healthy, leave and never come back. Dead in a battlefield for a stupid fight words could have solved. What a waste! But men don’t learn. They care only about their honor. Then it is up to us women to fix the mess they have made.”
It was then I saw the blood welling between the swollen lips of the gaping hole before streaming down the skin in a thin red line. My whole body aching with relief, I gasped. “He’s alive.”
Mother stared at me. “Of course he is alive, Princess. I have kept him alive as I promised you, even when I know that it is hopeless, that as soon as he can walk he will rush again to get himself killed. Because that is the way of men. That is why I don’t want you to be a knight. Ever. I don’t want you to end up like this.” She paused for a moment, lost in thought. Then very softly, as if talking to herself, she continued, “As you may well have if . . .” Again her voice rose. “Princess, if you promise you will never leave the castle again, I will listen to your story. I guess I owe Don Julián that much for saving your life.”
“I will, Mother. I will stay in the castle. I promise. I didn’t want the war to happen, either. You see, Mother, the other day on the bridge, before the attack, we were trying to talk Don Julián into apologizing to Father. But—”
“Wait, Princess. Bring me some water first. I will dress his wound while we talk.”
I rushed to the table, poured some water from the jug into a basin, and brought it to the bed. Mother dampened a clean cloth in the container and started to wash his wound. But as soon as she touched him, Don Julián moaned and raised his right arm to push Mother’s hands away.
Mother moved back. “Would you hold him still, Princess?”
I walked to the other side of the bed and, trying hard not to look at the bloody opening, grabbed Don Julián’s arm. Mother resumed her washing. “What do you mean by ‘we’?” she asked as if there had been no interruption.
“Don Alfonso and I. Don Alfonso doesn’t approve of this war either. He’s willing to marry Margarida so our Houses will be united—”
“Princess Andrea, hold his arm please.” Carried away by my speech, I had let go of Don Julián who, still unconscious, was again fighting Mother. Annoyed at being found at fault, I did as told, while Mother stared at me, her eyes lost in thought.
“Why would Don Julián accept your offer?” she finally asked, returning to her washing.
“Because he wants to go to the other world.”
Mother’s hands stopped in midair, and her body tightened. Then she turned, dropped the red-stained bandage on the floor, and grabbed a fresh one. “And Don Alfonso wants to marry Princess Margarida. Why?” she asked as she carefully dried the lips of the wound.