“Blast, nothing about what to expect,” I murmured.
The round blue eyes, anxious and wide, fixed on my face. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”
“Nothing. I suppose Aquinas has told you that Sir Simon’s health is failing completely now?” He bowed his head, dropping his eyes to the carpet. “I doubt that your stay in the sickroom will be of any long duration,” I said softly. “I simply want him comfortable. I will be here often myself. I see that you have left off your livery. I will tell Aquinas to have a bed made up here for you so that if he wakes, he will not be alone.”
Desmond inclined his head further, assenting.
“You did well referring your question to Aquinas. You must not hesitate to tell him, or myself, if there is anything you think Sir Simon requires. You’d best go and have your supper now. I will sit with him.”
He withdrew and I took his chair by the bed. I slipped my hand into Simon’s. It was warm and damp with sleep, like a child’s. After a while he opened his eyes and turned to me, blinking slowly.
“You were moaning. Are you in pain, dearest? I could give you some more laudanum.”
He waved a hand. “No. I’ve had the most appalling dreams.” He licked his lips and I poured out a glass of water. I held his head while he sipped. When he was done I laid him back against the pillows, settling him gently as an infant.
“Not long for it now, am I, Julia? No, don’t look like that. I won’t be brave and make speeches. I will be so glad to go.”
I picked up Desmond’s basin and began to sponge his brow, wiping it slowly.
“You are not afraid?”
His expression was dreamy. “How can I be? You should have learned by now, darling, it is life that holds all the terrors, not death.” Something clouded his eyes then, and his hand tightened on the coverlet. “I used to be afraid of it. So afraid. I cannot think how it changed.”
I wrung out the sponge and put it into a saucer.
“Perhaps because you have seen others pass.”
“Edward,” he said softly. I nodded. I resumed my seat and picked up his hand again.
“Perhaps it makes us brave when we have watched others.”
He nodded slowly. “Perhaps. I was so terrified, I used to think I would do anything to save myself. But there is no way. I have come to know that, Julia.” He was growing animated now, almost feverish, and I could hear the rattle beginning to sound in his chest. A few weeks, Doctor Griggs had said. I was beginning to think days, instead. “Do you remember the stories, the myths we used to read together as children?”
“Yes, of course. I always fancied myself as Artemis.”
He gave me a feeble smile. “Is that why you always ran around with Benedick’s castoff bow?”
“Of course. Lady of the Wild Things. I used to pretend my grandmother’s moth-eaten old spaniel was my faithful hunting hound, don’t you remember?”
This time he laughed, but I was sorry I made him. A painful interlude followed, with much gasping and coughing. I gave him more water and persuaded him to let me order some broth from the kitchen. We talked of nothing in particular while we waited, and then I held the bowl as he spooned it into his mouth, spilling a little on the coverlet. After a very few sips he waved me away and patted his mouth with the napkin.
“The Fates,” he said suddenly.
“I beg your pardon?” I resumed my seat.
His fingers were plucking at the damp patch on the coverlet, but his expression had grown dreamy again, perhaps an aftereffect of the laudanum. “I was thinking of the Fates. When we used to read myths, they always frightened me. Those three old crones, spinning and measuring and cutting the thread of life. What were they called? Clotho spun, I remember that, and Lachesis measured, but the last…”
“Atropos,” I supplied. He nodded.
“That is the one. Atropos. The cruelest Fate of all. There is no bribing her, you know. No putting her off when she decides you are done. Snip!”
His voice was growing loud and I half rose, but he shook his head at me, angrily I thought.
“What does it matter now? Let me shout a little, Julia. What harm will I do?”
I sighed. “None, I suppose. I feel perfectly helpless, you know. I keep thinking there is something I could do, should do, but there is nothing. Is there?”
But Simon could not give me absolution. He had retreated deep into himself and was brooding. Probably on the cruel Fates and their obsession with the men of his family. I rose and kissed him on the brow, smelling lavender and sweat.
