Free While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell Page A

groom, in which case his company would be an honor. As a chambermaid I was expected to sit with the greenest, youngest maids; in a pinch I was permitted to join the upper housemaids at their table, but to do so often would be considered presumptuous. The ladies’ maids, who attended to the needs of the noble ladies-in-waiting, sat at their own table at one side of the room, speaking only to one another and pointedly ignoring the rest of us. They were the Lower Hall’s royalty.
    Petra, bless her, found me an intriguing novelty rather than a nuisance. It seemed half the castle staff was related to her in some way, and she enjoyed conversing with someone whose life was not already known to her. She would ask me about the farm with the wistful expression of one who has never had to milk cows at dawn. When I told her about my mother and my brothers—slowly and briefly, for the wound still ached—she wept along with me. And when she found out I could read and write, she asked for my help in learning her letters. This is what it must be like to have a sister, I thought as we sat companionably together, poring over scraps of parchment begged from Mrs. Tewkes. Without Petra my life would have been dismal indeed, and anything I made of myself at the castle was due in part to her generous spirit.
    During those brief moments when my duties were complete and Petra was not available to act as my defender, I lingered outside the queen’s rooms, hoping to take on any humble errand that might bring me into her presence. It was there that I came face-to-face with the woman who had intrigued me ever since her name passed Petra’s lips.
    I have vowed to recount my tale without benefit of hindsight, depicting events as they happened. So while it is difficult for me to separate my early memories of Millicent from the knowledge of what she would one day become, I speak the truth when I say our first encounter left me shaken. I had seen the king’s aunt occasionally from a distance, among the other elderly ladies of the court. Up close, however, I was taken aback to realize she had once been beautiful. Though age had whitened her hair and loosened her skin, it had not altered her most striking features: a straight, narrow nose; large green-gray eyes; full lips; and a broad, curved forehead. She wore her hair pulled back tight in the old-fashioned way, without tendrils to soften the lines of her cheekbones, drawing all the more attention to her regal face. She walked with a determined stride, each step punctuated by the tap of a cane I suspected she carried not from necessity but to warn others of her approach.
    Her eyes bored into mine with such intensity that I felt frozen to the spot, unable even to curtsy as etiquette demanded.
    “Have you nothing better to do than idle about?” she demanded. Her voice was husky and rich, each word issued with commanding authority.
    The lie slipped effortlessly from my lips. “I have been given leave to assist the queen’s ladies.”
    “Hmph.” I could not tell if the sound indicated satisfaction or doubt. “In that case make yourself useful. I left a cape on my bed. Go fetch it.”
    “Yes, madam,” I said, dropping my head respectfully. “Begging your pardon, but where will I find your room?”
    Millicent exhaled sharply, put out by my ignorance. “The North Tower. First door at the top of the marble staircase. Go.”
    Her words were a jumble to me, but I would not risk her displeasure with further questions. As Millicent marched off toward the queen’s rooms, I made my way toward the central servants’ staircase. At the time I knew nothing of the North Tower’s sad history, and I could not have imagined the terrible role it would play one day in my own life. Yet a sense of foreboding sank over me as I followed the narrow passage pointed out to me by one of the footmen, a lonely, deserted extension of the castle’s otherwise bustling service corridors.
    I put my nervousness down to fear of