Bed-Warming Had Its Uses

I was halfway through changing my mother's bandage when the Vale carriage stopped outside our boardinghouse. The driver handed me a sealed letter through the rain. Its black wax bore the crown and the Vale family crest, a white stag with a broken antler. I read the offer once, then again, while my mother watched me from the narrow bed. "Three months' wages in advance," she said. "That sounds like a trap." "It sounds like rent." "It can be both." She tried to sit up. I pressed a hand to her shoulder and waited until the pain eased. Her fever had come back that morning. The apothecary had refused further credit, and the charitable infirmary had a waiting list longer than my arm. I knew what the money would buy. I also knew what the letter asked of me. A private attendant for Lord Chancellor Julian Vale. Night duty. No visitors except the household physician and those permitted by Lady Vale. The final line, written in a different hand, mentioned that the court astrologer had requested "the presence of a suitable winter-born companion." My birthday was December twenty-first. I looked at my mother. "It is a household job." "It says companion." "It says night attendant." "And the astrologer?" "I've never met him." She held my gaze. "You are not required to let anyone make a fool of you because they can afford to." "I'm not going to." I took the job anyway. A month earlier, Julian Vale had fallen from his horse during a royal hunt in the northern woods. He had struck a rock and suffered a severe injury to his head. The court physicians had kept him alive, but after three months he had not opened his eyes. The rumor had reached every street in the capital. The man who could hold a parliamentary majority with a single speech had become a body in a bed. His enemies called it providence. His supporters called it a tragedy. The astrologer called it an imbalance of cold and heat. I arrived at Vale House before dusk. The estate stood above the harbor city of Bellweather, all gray stone and narrow windows, with the sea wind pushing against its iron gates. A housekeeper named Mrs. Pell checked my papers and led me up the stairs. "Lady Vale expects discretion," she told me. "You'll keep your opinions to yourself." "I can do that." "Especially about the astrologer." "I haven't formed any." Her mouth tightened as if my answer were less reassuring than a lie. At the top of the stairs, she opened a door to a bedroom that had been arranged like a sickroom. A screen hid the washstand. Clean linen lay folded beside the hearth. The bed was so broad that its carved posts looked like pillars. Julian lay beneath a white coverlet, his dark hair cut short at the temples. I had seen him in newspapers, on the steps of Parliament, his face stern beneath a winter hat. In person, he seemed younger than his portraits. There was a faint scar at his jaw and a bandage beneath his hair. His hands rested above the blanket, pale and still. A gray-haired physician stood at the bedside. "You're Miss March?" "Yes, Doctor." "Dr. Hales. You'll help keep him comfortable and report any change. You will not give him food or medicine. You will not move him without assistance." "I understand." A woman in a blue dress stood by the window. She was perhaps thirty, with Julian's dark eyes and a narrow gold ring on one finger. "I'm Marianne Vale, his sister," she said. "My brother is not a superstition to be managed." "I don't believe he is." "Good." She glanced toward the hall. "Then we agree on one thing." Dr. Hales explained the routine. I was to watch Julian's breathing, keep the room warm, and make notes if he moved or reacted to sound. My bed, however, was to be placed beside his. "The astrologer believes the warmth of a woman born on the solstice may draw him toward waking," Dr. Hales said, his expression carefully neutral. "I don't endorse the theory. Lady Vale believes it may help the family endure the waiting." Marianne's jaw tightened. "I won't share his bed," I said. "No one has asked you to," Dr. Hales replied. "You'll sit beside him. If the room becomes cold, you may rest under the spare cover on the chaise." "I was told I'd be a companion." "You were told what the family wanted to hear." That was my first clear impression of the Vale household: everyone was making a different bargain, and I was expected to pretend they were the same one. I moved my small case beside the chaise. Then I washed my hands and approached the bed. "Good evening, Lord Vale," I said. "My name is Eliza March. I'll be here tonight." His face did not change. I touched two fingers to his wrist and counted his pulse. Slow, steady, alive. I wrote the time in the ledger. Outside, the wind rattled the window.