The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger

forcing himself to be brave. “ ’ Tis all right, Father. You stopped him. He’s given up.”
    “Bollocks! Never trust the enemy. They’ll play dead as a sturgeon, then rear up and gouge your heart out without even a thought. Who’d you say you were again?”
    “Gilbert, Father, Gilbert Tailbois.”
    “Gilly?”
    “Yes, Father.”
    He waited, almost not breathing, as a veil seemed to lift from the thin, haggard man’s watery blue eyes.
    “It is you.”
    “It is.”
    Gil reached out and struggled not to recoil from the sour odor as he took the hand of his adoptive father.
    “Forgive me. I must have been dreaming.”
    “You must be very tired,” Gil said gently. “I brought you a sliver of marzipan.”
    The older Tailbois smiled. “Ah, ’tis my favorite.”
    “I remember.”
    The formerly powerful sheriff, and servant to the king, took the small confection like a greedy child and pressed it between his lips. The taste seemed to bring him back a little, Gil thought.
    “Thank you, Son. How is your mother?”
    “She writes that she is well, sir.”
    “And your sisters?”
    Girls who were only half sisters. “My mother writes that they are well, also.”
    George’s eyes filled quickly with tears. “I miss her so. . . . How many years has she been dead now?”
    “She is not dead, Father. Mother wrote to me only a few days ago. She is home safe at the estate in Kyme with my sisters, eagerly awaiting your return once you are well enough.”
    As quickly as the tears had come, they dried on his ruddy cheeks and rage took their place.
    “Do not lie to me, Captain! ’Tis war!” He tensed again and sprang from the bed, but he lost his balance just as quickly and fell back.
    Hearing the commotion, the guard opened the door again with another clattering of keys. “Everything all right in here?” he asked.
    “He is just a bit disoriented.”
    “A bit?” The guard chuckled unkindly. “He has been mad like that since they brought him here, weeping one moment, calling out wildly the next.”
    He may have been only fifteen, but indignation brought courage. “Sir George Tailbois is a servant to King Henry, and thus, you are to show him the respect he has earned, do you understand?”
    “Easy, lad. ’Twas no harm intended.”
    “Is there nothing you can give him?”
    The guard struggled and shook his head. “Whatever the doctors do seems to help him less and less.”
    Gil felt a strange mixture then of pity and cold detachment. He bore the man’s name, certainly, but not his blood. Pray God, he would not somehow share George Tailbois’s slow descent into lunacy as well. One last time he took George’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I shall return soon,” he said.
    “Who are you ?” asked George Tailbois with a frightened, disoriented voice in response.

    Very late that evening, after everyone had retired and Bess was at last free to be alone with her thoughts, she sank onto the edge of her small bed. She gave a weary sigh, then drew up from beneath the bedcovers, where she had hidden the delicate cradle blanket. She still could not reconcile the man who would keep such a sentimental object with the carefree, handsome sovereign she had met that day. But she knew well enough that blood ties were indelible and complex. This blanket made the untouchable king seem real. And it made her miss her own brother the more.
    Tomorrow she must write to George. There were so many things to tell him. She must say that she had met the king, that he had actually spoken to her, and that she had begun already to make friends. She must confess to George that she still had possession of something she had stolen, since the guilt weighing upon her was tremendous. Most of all she must tell her brother she missed him desperately—William, Isabella, and Rosa, too. She so dearly longed for the simple games she had played with her siblings, and the days of fantasizing about what life at court would be like. Bess was