Violya

Chapter 7 Jessima-2

Her baby began to bawl. His little face scrunched and reddened.

“Sorry, you’ll have to tell me that story another time. The baby needs feeding,” Jessima said, in no mood to hear one of the prince’s rambling tales, and shifted her son’s position in her arms.

“Right, certainly, I’ll fetch a wet nurse,” Ernie said. He hurried to apprehend one of the many servants in the room.

Jessima gazed at her baby before he was peeled from her arms.

Edward. His name is Edward.

Jessima tossed and turned. She flung back the bedcovers.

I need some air.

She donned her bedgown, went to the open door and stepped out onto the balcony. The courtyard was dark and still. The entire household was sleeping. She looked across to the balcony of the next room where Eddie slept with his night-time wet nurse. The window was ajar, like most of the windows in the fortress.

Although it was autumn, the air was still and stifling. It was warmer in Lian than Fertilian, due to its proximity to the desert. She needed to move, to create her own breeze, and headed out on one of her night-time wanderings.

Ever since she had married Hugo, nearly ten years before, she had wandered around Cleland Castle at night. It was her time for reflection. All day she was ushered here and there and had a full schedule that she had no say in. She was expected to attend engagements and reside over ceremonies and be at her husband’s – and his advisors’ – disposal.

But now her husband was no more. King Hugo was dead. Eddie, a mere babe, was the King. She gently pushed her door open and glided silently down the corridor, past Princess Georgina’s room. It was quiet, for a change.

Jessima walked in a loop around the square fortress, staying on the first floor. She paused at a large hallway window that overlooked the internal courtyard. The small pond in the centre reflected the moon, the still water a molten silver. Eddie had been conceived on a night like this, in the pool at Cleland Castle.

She missed Toby. Is he even alive?

A chill settled over her. It was time to return to the luxury of her bed. To fluff the goose-down pillows and attempt to sleep again. But first, she wanted to look in on Eddie sleeping. His peaceful, beautiful chest rising and falling was a calming tonic to Jessima’s overactive mind.

Not wanting to wake her baby, or his nurse, Jessima silently opened the door to Eddie’s room, deftly slipped inside and pushed the door to with no noise. Years of moving silently at night having made her skilful in the art of slinking like a cat.

Eddie’s cot was in front of the window. As usual, the curtains were open and moonlight streamed through. In front of the cot stood a dark figure.

The nurse?

She flicked her eyes over to the bed and saw Eddie’s nurse. Her eyes were open and her hand was stretched towards Eddie. The bedsheets were tangled around her legs, one of which slumped off the bed. Her bare, white foot touched the carpet. In the centre of her chest a blooming red mark seeped into her nightgown.

Jessima’s eyes jerked back to the figure. A broad-shouldered man, for it was definitely a man, dressed in a black overcoat, leaned over Eddie’s cot. He slowly raised a bloody dagger up and over the wooden frame.

An assassin.

Jessima grabbed the large, ceramic jug from the baby’s washstand and ran forward. She raised the jug up and smashed it down on the man’s head.

Pieces of pottery flew at Eddie and in her face. She prayed none had hurt her baby. Eddie woke at the noise and grumbled. The man grunted and stumbled backward. He turned to face her, swiping his dagger in the same movement.

The knock on the head had momentarily rendered him unsteady and his jab missed its mark. She grabbed his wrist and pulled, using the momentum of his thrust to carry him forward.

She stuck out her foot and he tripped, falling face first onto the floorboards. His hand slapped down and the dagger skittered from his grasp.

She lunged for it, but a heavy grip tightened around her ankle and she fell too. She kicked out at him and stretched for the dagger, touching the handle with her fingertip, but he yanked her back.

She screamed viciously and with a momentous effort grabbed the dagger. She twisted and sliced at the arm that clasped her ankle.

The man hissed and let go. He stared at her. His face was covered with a black cloth, only his eyes bare. She saw death there. He’d come to kill. To kill Eddie.

She sprung forward with a snarl and plunged the dagger into the man’s shoulder, retreating hastily before he could grab her. He groped for the dagger’s hilt, found purchase and pulled it out with a huff.

Jessima scrambled to her feet. She picked up the ceramic washbowl from the washstand, stepped forward and slammed it down on the man’s head with a roar.

It shattered noisily. In a daze the man yanked Jessima off her feet. She slammed down on her back, her feet towards the man. He grabbed her nightdress and pulled her forward with one hand, with the other he stabbed the dagger in her thigh. She screamed again.

He straddled her, rammed a knee in her belly and held her neck between thick, calloused fingers. She clawed at his arm that pinned her down. He slid the dagger from her flesh and raised it for a second strike. Jessima squirmed. With all her strength she punched him between the legs. He buckled, but kept a firm hold on her and his blade.

A second dagger glinted in the moonlight, tucked in his waistband. His head was close to hers and his grip around her neck had loosened. She bit his nose at the same time as reaching for the second blade.

He moved to stab her in the neck just as she stabbed him in the gut.

“Queen Jessima,” a guard’s voice shouted.

The man was hauled off her before his strike could land. Hands under her armpits dragged her away.

The assassin fought back against the guard, and the second guard dropped Jessima to join the skirmish. Jessima pressed a hand to her blood-dampened thigh, and realised she still clenched the dagger.

She clambered to her feet, took a step forward on her unharmed leg and watched the three-man tussle. She waited until the assassin showed her his back and punched the blade between his shoulders.

“Queen Jessima!” Lord Chattergoon shouted. She could hear the thunderous footsteps of more guards in the corridor.

The assassin’s ferocity slackened and he slumped to his knees. She put a hand on his back and pulled out the blade. With an ungodly roar that shocked even her, she thrust it into the side of the man’s neck. Blood spurted from the wound and covered her hands.

The guards edged back as the assassin collapsed face-first on the floorboards.

“Is he dead?” Jessima asked.

“Queen Jessima, move back. Let’s get you out of here,” a guard said.

She swatted away his hand. “Is he dead?” she demanded.

The guard dropped to his knees to feel for a pulse. He looked up at her. “Yes, my Queen.”

She nodded.

It was only then that she heard Eddie’s screams. She flew towards his cot, and saw him in Prince Ernest’s arms.

“Give him to me,” Jessima said, wiping her bloody hands on her bedgown but Ernie backed away.

“You’re injured and in shock, my dear,” Ernie said. “We need to get you to a medic, you’re bleeding.”

“Give him to me,” Jessima yelled. “Now!”

Ernie gasped. He held the baby out to her, and she whipped the boy from his arms.

“There, there, Eddie,” Jessima soothed, checking him over for any scratches or signs of injury from the sharp, broken ceramic. “No one will ever harm you,” she whispered to her son, “not so long as I’m here to protect you.”

Holding Eddie close, she slumped in a nearby chair.

“We need to take the baby now,” the medic said.

She was an efficient, no-nonsense woman with greying blond hair pulled into an orderly bun on top of her head. Her hands, although always busy, were cold. Ernie had sent for the best, and the most discreet, medic in the city to tend to Jessima’s stab wound. Ernie had introduced her with a comment about how all the male medics had left the city to fight in Fertilian proper for Hugo, and that she was the best of the female medics who remained.

In a fog of pain and headiness from blood loss, Jessima hadn’t caught her surname, but her name was Martha. Jessima remembered that vividly. Her mother’s name was Martha.

A wet nurse hovered nearby as Martha attempted for the third time to prise Eddie from Jessima’s arms. She hadn’t let him go since taking him from Ernie, perhaps an hour earlier.

“I’ve examined the wound and you’re going to need stitches,” Martha said patiently. Her voice calm and steady. Trustworthy.

“I will hold Eddie while you stitch me up,” Jessima said. The pain in her thigh throbbed so loud that she scrunched up her forehead.

“I’ll need to administer poppy. You’ll fall asleep and you’ll drop the baby. Do you want that to happen?” Martha said.

Jessima noticed she’d forgotten the royal niceties, not addressing Jessima as ‘your Grace’ or ‘my Queen’. Jessima found she didn’t care. All that mattered was keeping Eddie close to her, protected from all other would-be assassins lurking out there.

“Do it without poppy then,” Jessima said. “I’m not letting him go.”

“It will be painful,” Martha said, already reaching for her bag filled with her healing tools.

Jessima was already in excruciating pain, but she’d not cried or whimpered. Eddie was sleeping soundly on her chest; she didn’t want to wake him. “Do it,” she muttered. “Quickly.”

Martha shrugged and held a needle in a nearby candle and then up to a thread.

“You’re not going to convince me otherwise?” Jessima said.

“You’re an adult. If you’ve made a decision then you’ve made a decision. Why say it if you don’t mean it?” Martha said. “Have you changed your mind?”

Jessima looked away. Could she really bear this pain? She studied her son. She wasn’t ready to let him go, not yet. Perhaps, not ever.

“Ready?” Martha said.

“Yes,” Jessima replied.

Martha’s cold, steady hands rested on Jessima’s exposed flesh. She winced and clenched her teeth.

As the needle pierced her skin, she gazed at Eddie and did not make a sound, although inside she screamed and screamed.

“What are you going to do?” Martha said, while her cool hands continued to stitch Jessima’s flesh back together.

“What?” Jessima pushed out the word through clamped teeth.

“What are you going to do, about this assassination attempt?” Martha said. When Jessima didn’t reply, Martha continued, “Talking will help distract you from the pain. Any ideas?”

“I… I don’t know,” Jessima uttered.

“Don’t know?”

Jessima shook her head, gasping from the pain.

“I know what I’d do,” Martha said.

“What?”

“Find out who the bastard was, how he got in and who sent him,” Martha said.

Jessima bit back a scream. “Got… in?”

“To Lian. All the men are gone, pretty much.”

“The Gruesome Twosome sent him,” Jessima hissed.

“The who?”

“The Thorne twins!”

“You know that for certain, do you? Sometimes things aren’t so obvious.”

“Hmm,” Jessima managed.

“And once you find out, then what are you going to do?” Martha continued.

“Ah, I… ah… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you,” Martha replied. It wasn’t a malicious comment, she was simply stating fact.

Before Jessima could reply, Martha said, “All done.”

Jessima let out a long breath.

Martha packed up her bag. Eddie’s face furrowed and he cried. Jessima shushed him but the babe was relentless. A wet nurse came forward but Jessima waved her away.

“He’s hungry,” Martha said.

She had a kindly face. Open and caring, like her mother. In that moment, Jessima wanted to know how to nourish her son, she wouldn’t let him be taken and fed by another. He was her responsibility. Jessima said, “Will you help me? I’ve… I’ve not fed him yet.”

Patiently, and with no judgement, the medic showed Jessima what to do: expose a breast, hold the baby like so, latch the mouth on.

When Eddie was successfully feeding, after a painful latch that paled in comparison to her stab wound and a sense of relief that her swollen breasts were finally releasing milk, Jessima said, “Thank you, Martha.”

Martha nodded and stood from her stool. Her knees creaked. “I can tell you how to change his nappy and bathe him too, if you’re interested.”

“Yes, please.”

Martha told her precisely what to do in an efficient, straightforward manner.