"You are most kind," the woman said, rising with a fluid grace that seemed less natural than practiced. Her eyes, the warm brown of oak leaves in autumn, swept over Gisela in a lingering gaze that felt less like concern and more like an appraisal draped in courtesy. "Forgive my forwardness, Your Majesty, but you look rather pale. The sea wind here holds a damp chill. Might I fetch a mantle for you?"
The presumption was subtle, a velvet-wrapped intrusion. It positioned this stranger as the caretaker, Gisela as the fragile, ailing invalid in need of tending—a role she refused to play.
"I am quite well," Gisela replied, her tone cooling like metal plunged into shadow. "I require only solitude."
"Of course, Your Majesty." The woman did not leave. Instead, she gestured with a graceful, slender hand toward a thriving bush of rosemary clinging to the sun-warmed stone. "A tisane of this, with a touch of wild honey from the southern meadows, does wonders to steady one's spirit. It is a local recipe I prepare. I could bring a phial to your chambers." The offer was a tendril, probing, seeking to weave itself into the private fabric of Gisela's domain.
Gisela's instinct was to snap it. "You are knowledgeable with herbs."
The woman smiled, a warm, generous expression that, to Gisela's eye, did not quite reach the quiet watchfulness of her gaze. It felt like a door being gently, firmly closed. "One learns, Your Majesty. How to tend to things that ail. To soothe fevered tempers. To nurture what struggles to take root in unfamiliar ground."
The words, layered and deliberate, landed with a soft, unsettling weight. They did not speak of shared hardship, but of entrenched, knowing stability. I belong here. You do not.
A cold, precise dislike crystallized in Gisela's chest, sharp as a shard of ice. This was no humble servant offering solace. This was a player. Each word was a stone placed with care on a board whose game Gisela had only just begun to discern.
"The King," the woman said, her voice lowering to a confiding murmur as her gaze drifted toward the regimented rose beds, "often seeks this walk at dusk. He finds a… particular peace here. Perhaps you shall as well, now that you are feeling more yourself." The casual intimacy with which she invoked Henry was a silent slap. The reference to Gisela's state—feeling more yourself—was a deft, cruel reminder that her earlier distress was public currency, a subject for servant gossip.
Gisela's spine straightened to its full, regal height. The ember of defiance within her glowed hotter, cutting through the garden's chill. "You seem to know a great deal about the King's habits for a keeper of herbs." She let the observation hang, sharp and unmasked in the fragrant air, before delivering the dismissal. "Your concern is noted. You may go."
The woman inclined her head, the very picture of obedient humility. "Of course, Your Majesty. My name is Emily. Should you have any need." She offered another curtsey, deep and flawless, then turned and glided away, her steps silent on the gravel path as if she were a creature of the garden itself, leaving no trace but the faint, clean scent of rosemary in her wake.
Gisela watched her go, the fragile peace of the afternoon now irrevocably poisoned. Emily. A simple, lovely name. It clashed, discordantly, with the complex and unsettling creature who bore it. The encounter left behind not solace, but a lingering sense of trespass, as if the garden's sanctuary had been mapped and claimed by another.
"Emily," Gisela murmured to the rustling leaves, the name now bitter on her tongue. "That girl has spoiled what little peace I had."
She turned and retraced her steps through the labyrinthine castle, her good memory guiding her back through the dim, silent arteries of stone. With each step, the cool dread she had momentarily escaped began to coil again in her stomach, a serpent awakening. The defiant thrill of her flight was gone, replaced by the heavy certainty of consequence. She reached the heavy, iron-banded oak door of her chambers and paused, pressing her ear against the cold wood. Silence from within. A fragile, foolish hope bloomed—perhaps he had not yet discovered her disobedience.
She eased the door open, inch by careful inch, wincing at the faint, sighing protest of the hinges. She slipped inside like a thief into her own prison, her back meeting the solid wood as she leaned against it, shutting her eyes in a momentary wave of dizzying relief. She had made it back unseen.
Then she opened her eyes.
He was seated on the edge of the vast, empty bed, still as a statue carved from shadow and judgment. One booted foot was planted flat on the floor, the other resting on his knee. He had been waiting, his posture one of infinite patience, his hands steepled before him. The fire had burned low, casting his face in planes of amber and gloom.
Her heart gave a single, sickening lurch against her ribs, then began to hammer, a frantic, trapped drumbeat against the cage of her chest.
"You… You…" The words died in her throat, a choked, breathless stammer. She swallowed, her mouth as dry as stone dust.
Slowly, he turned his head. "I… what?" he inquired, his voice a silken thread of ice drawn taut across the silence. A sly, unnerving smile touched his lips, not reaching his eyes, which held the cold, flat gleam of polished flint. He unfolded himself from the bed, his height seeming to fill the chamber as he stood. He began to walk toward her, each step slow, deliberate, the soft crunch of his boot on the rush-strewn floor echoing like a pronouncement. "Are you so shocked to see your husband, little one?"
He stopped before her, too close. The scent of him—leather, winter spice, and the cold, clean air of authority—enveloped her, stripping the garden's freshness from her senses. He lifted a hand and placed it flat on the stone wall just above her head, his arm a bar of solid muscle caging her without touch. She flinched, her gaze dropping to the intricate weave of the rug at her feet, her eyes squeezing shut against the overwhelming reality of his presence.
"You went against a direct command," he stated, his voice low, firm, and devoid of the roaring rage she had braced for. This controlled, quiet certainty was infinitely more frightening.
"I… the room was stifling," she whispered, the excuse sounding pitiful and thin even to her own ears. "I needed air." She could feel the frantic rhythm of her own pulse fluttering in her throat, a captive bird. She waited, muscles coiled, dreading the fall of his hand, the bite of his words, the next move in this terrible, silent game. The silence between them stretched, thin and razor-sharp, a thread ready to snap, vibrating with the ragged sound of her own desperate breath.