Chapter 5
“Your Highness!” The crowd gasped as Edmund staggered, collapsing to the ground. He coughed blood, staining the
cobblestones crimson.
His eyes trembled, fixed on the litter’s door, his hand reaching to open it. But his strength failed, and he fell limp.
Servants cried out, rushing him into the prince’s manor.
Lady Eleanor, hearing the commotion, alighted from her litter, tears streaming as she flung herself upon him.
“Edmund, my love, you must not leave me! What shall I do without you?”
He weakly touched her hair, yet his gaze lingered on the unmoving curtain of the second litter.
Physicians swarmed, their faces grim. “His breath is faint,” one said. “He may not last the night.”
The queen, frantic, cried, “Save my son, whatever the cost!”
physician knelt. “Had His Highness rested, we might have prolonged his life half a year. But these past three days, he has
squandered his strength. No healer, no miracle, could save him now.”
Edmund’s eyes widened, death’s shadow clouding his mind.
With a trembling voice, he pointed to the litter. “Margaret… bring Margaret to save me. Her blessed fertility… if we wed, I
might yet live.”
“But was that not a rumor?” the crowd murmured. “Where is Lady Margaret? Find her!”
“Margaret, save me…” he whispered, desperate.
Panic and regret surged within him. He rued his choice to wed Eleanor, casting Margaret aside.
In his past life, Margaret’s love had been the cure for his ailments. But in this life, following Eleanor’s every whim, his time
was quickly running out.
Memories flooded his mind-of Margaret, heavy with child, caring for him. She tended to his needs, cleaned his room, bathed him, prepared remedies, and brewed his tea.
Even the night before her travail, sweat beading her brow, she baked his favorite cakes, smiling through her pain.
He had scorned her, deeming her a schemer who stole Eleanor’s place, her care a mere ploy.
He flung her offerings to the floor, mocking her. “What use are these? You’re with child, yet toil to win my pity?”
Margaret stood amidst the mess, biting her lip. Her eyes held no anger-only a quiet sorrow.
“You’re not in good health,” she said softly. “The physicians say you must take your remedies every day to heal. I feared that after giving birth, I would be too weak to prepare them for you.”
Her voice trembled as she bent to gather the scattered food. “If you find it displeasing, I will stop.”
Chapter 5
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As she shuffled out, heavy with child, a pang of guilt had stirred in him. When she cried out, her waters breaking, he felt a fleeting tenderness.
Perhaps, he thought then, I could accept this. Though she schemed to share my bed, deceiving the queen and robbing Eleanor of her place, her heart was true. She would soon bear me twins.
Could I not set aside my love for Eleanor, my resentment of Margaret, and live well with her?
But in that moment, Eleanor’s maid burst in, sobbing that her lady had been beaten to death by her wastrel lord.
The maid knelt, presenting a bloodstained letter.
It spoke of a night in the outlying wing, where Eleanor and Edmund had lain together, conceiving a child. Her lord, noting the child’s term, had struck her down.
Eleanor wrote: “Had the physicians not misjudged your barrenness, had that woman not falsely claimed blessed fertility,
would we not have been spared this fate? Would I and our child not live?”
Rage consumed him.
He cursed the erring physicians and Margaret, whose lies, he believed, cost Eleanor and their child.
Blinded by vengeance, he stormed to the birthing room, his sword carving his twins from Margaret’s womb to feed the
hounds.
He sealed her in a crypt, slaughtering her kin for their supposed deceit.
Now, as death loomed, a truth dawned. Margaret’s blessed fertility might have been real. Without her at his side, he was
perishing.
With his last strength, Edmund pointed to the litter. “Margaret is within… she vowed to marry me…”
“Fetch her swiftly, let us wed, that I may live…”
“Margaret, I wronged you. When I recover, I’ll make it up and treat you well.”
But as he pleaded, the maid opened the litter’s door.
Beneath lay only a bridal gown, pink and torn to shreds.
Edmund’s face blanched, and he fell still.
Chapter 5
