Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer by N. Gemini Sasson

hoisted him to his feet and began to drag him away.
    I tucked my right elbow beneath me to roll over, but the pain burst through me again. With my hands still bound, I could not push myself up with either of them. The scrape of fading footsteps urged me to try again. I lifted my other shoulder and turned my head enough to see, in the silver etchings of a winter night, my uncle being escorted toward one of the tower doors. A virulent sneer tore from his lips.
    “May you rot in hell!” he shouted at me. His crackling voice echoed off the high walls like the shattering of glass. They shoved him headlong through the doorway. He cursed again. The door slammed shut. Then  ... the sound of a beating. His profane oaths were muffled by fist blows, until at last they faded to heavy sobs and drawn-out whimpers.
    On his knees, Edmund shook his head. Slowly, he turned his face toward me. A trickle of blood traced its way from the indent of his temple to the ridge of his cheekbone. “He did not mean it,” he said barely above a whisper.
    At that, one of the guards seized him by the back of his shirt, yanked him to his feet and slammed a fist into his belly. “Keep your mouth shut, you hear?”
    Edmund crumpled against the wagon, his eyes squeezed tight in pain. Before he could recover, they hooked their hands beneath each of his arms and were taking him away, too. Had I any breath to spare, I would have called after him. With stoic courage, Edmund lifted his head, picked up his feet, and kept silent so they would not give him the same pummeling they had given his great uncle. He was escorted to the same door, but when it was opened there was neither sight nor sound of my uncle. Edmund dodged to the side to avoid being slammed into the doorway as they jostled him through.
    Vaguely, I was aware of the clop of hooves, the wagon rattling away over the stones, a barking of orders, the groaning of a gate, and the slow murmur of deep voices from behind me.
    “ – the Lanthorn Tower. There is a room for him there. Mind you, no one is to speak to him.”
    Measured footsteps approached me from behind. I felt a pair of hands lift me carefully up until I was sitting. I winced involuntarily.
    A man in full mail and wearing the king’s red and gold stepped around me and sank to his haunches. His balding head, bare of coif or helmet, was fringed with close shorn chestnut locks and streaked with the first white hairs of middle age. “A bit bruised, aren’t you?” He began to probe about my head with lightly jabbing fingers and worked his way down my neck and shoulders. When he came to my last two ribs on the right, I clenched my jaw, but there was a little groan deep inside my throat he must have heard, for he drew his hands away and stood. “Take him away. And see to his injuries. ‘Tis the king who says whether he lives or dies, and when, not us.”
    Silently, I thanked him for that grace, however morbid.

    *****

    A shaft of white daylight broke through the single window of my room. I stretched my arms outward, only to feel the pain clamp around my ribcage. It had worsened through the night, but I had been so grateful for a mattress and a blanket, despites the lumps and fleas, that I went dead with sleep minutes after lying down. Besides a real bed, I had been given a room with a chair, although its cushion was flat and its red cloth frayed, and a cracked chamber pot. Slowly, I pushed my blanket away and eased my feet onto the floor. I curled my fingers into loose fists and unrolled them one by one. The scabs on my wrists were puckering. I turned my arms over. No fresh blood. No sign of infection. I draped the blanket over my cramped shoulders and hobbled across the room in six small pain-riddled strides. Winter wind leaked around the leaded panes of the recessed window. My view was of the waterfront and the Thames itself. I guessed from my height above the river that I was housed on the uppermost floor.
    I heard a scraping sound and