Isabel
Catherine crept into my room as I was lying in bed reading. I threw my book down. “ I’m so happy you’re here,” I said. “ They’re still not letting me get out of bed for much longer than twenty minutes at a time!”
“How are you feeling? I imagine soon you’ll be back to normal?”
“I feel a little better every day. I can almost get in and out of bed without help now,” I beamed. “ So tell me what have you been doing?”
“I just came from William”
“Again?” I exclaimed. “You’re always with him.
She nodded. “I’m in love with him,” she blurted out.
“What?” I asked laughing. “ Don’t be ridiculous, you’re only seven.”
“So,” she said.
“So, seven is too young to be in love.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “I think that I’m going to marry him one day,” she said.
“Ewe, William.”
“He’s not so bad. You guys just need to get to know each other more.”
“He hates me,” I said.
“He risked his life to save you,” she responded.
“That’s because he felt like it was the right thing to do. Not because he actually likes me at all. He hates me.”
“That’s not true. He’s just thinks that you can be a little spoiled sometimes, and not very nice.”
“Well maybe if he was nice to me once in a while, I would be nicer to him. Let’s not argue,” I said. Deep down, I was hurt that she liked him so much. She was the only real friend that I had, and I was worried that he’d take her away from me. Especially now that I knew he’d been talking to her about me.
The Queen
He was frantic. They both were. Mary and I tried to calm our husbands, but there was no soothing their excitement. Harold was to come to the palace. He wanted to talk about peace, or so he said. We all knew better. He was coming to spy on us. He wanted to see the palace before he launched his attack on us. We all knew that this was a step towards war.
But the King couldn’t refuse it. He swore that his intentions were peaceful, and to turn down his offer of peace talks, would be possibly be even more damaging then letting him come to the palace. No, we would welcome him to the palace and do everything that we could to delay war with him.
“Perhaps we could assassinate him,” Charles suggested.
“No, that would be too suspicious,” the King responded.
Charles threw his hands up in the air. “This is a nightmare,” he said. “ What should we do about the
“Princess?”
“What do you mean?” The King asked.
“We can’t let him see her like that,” Charles said. “We can’t let him see how vulnerable the heir to the throne is.”
“Perhaps that’s why he’s coming,” the King replied. “Perhaps he knows about what happened. He does have spies all around.”
“Maybe we could move her,” I suggested. “There’s always the protection of the blue mountains. We could take her there.”
“No,” the King replied. “She’s not well enough to travel.”
“What about Catherine,” Mary suggested.
“What about Catherine?” The King asked.
“Well,” Mary began. “She’s the same age as Isabel, and they look enough alike. He would have no way of knowing if she posed as the Princess.”
“She’s right,” Charles said. “ And she could certainly pass as your daughter.”
“Are you sure that you would want to put her in that much danger?” I asked.
“I don’t think that would be too much danger in it,” Charles replied.
“No,” the King replied. “ It’s too much of a risk, and I won’t allow it.” I wasn’t surprised at his response. Lately he was unwilling to take any unnecessary risk with any of the children.
“I know how you feel,” I said. “ I know that you’re afraid to put any of the children at risk after what happened. But if we don’t use Catherine, then we could be putting all the children at a much greater risk. And besides, we’ll arrange to have extra guards on her at all times. He’ll have no chance of harming her.”
“How do we know we can trust the guards?” The King asked. “What if they take her to him, instead of protecting her.”
“What if he sees Isabel and he knows how vulnerable the line of succession is?” I asked.
“He’ll want to see her. It would be suspicious of us to hide her.”
He sighed. “You’re right. We have to go through with this. Call for Catherine. We must speak with her.”
Mary bowed, and began to walk out of the room. “Mary, wait a moment. Make sure you tell no one of our plan. No one can ever know that we are using Catherine like this.”
Catherine was agreeable to our plan, but she was nervous.
“What if he knows it am me?” She asked.
“Don’t worry, he won’t be able to tell.” I tried to reassure her. I hoped that I was right. I prayed that everything would go smoothly. I prayed for him not to find out how weak our daughter still was. My stomach turned in knots, as I thought about how much was at stake.
What if this really was some kind of trap. I knew that he really didn’t want peace. I knew that this was some kind of ploy to see what was going on. He wanted to see our defenses, see our daughter. I knew this was had to be just him, seeing how difficult the invasion would be. But what if it was more than that? What if it was some kind of trap? All that was standing between him and the throne, was my husband, daughter, and Charles. I knew that he had loyal supporters, and I prayed for our servants to be faithful.
Isabel
As the time approached for my other uncle to visit, everyone was tense. I didn’t like the idea of using Catherine at all. Not because I was worried for her safety, but because I was mad that I was missing out. I didn’t realize the danger that we were all in. Looking back, I think that my mother and father were trying to protect me from knowing.
While everyone else was going crazy making preparations, I was going crazy with boredom. To keep people from finding out that Catherine was being used to trick my uncle, I had been confined to my room. Only a hand full of servants had seen me since I had been hurt, and to keep everyone from knowing how injured I was, I was told that they would be the only people allowed to see me. I was confined to my room, until after my uncle had left. In the meantime, they had already begun to use Catherine to pose as me. I was told that it worked. When people saw her, they marveled at how quickly I had recovered from my injuries.
Father said it was a good thing. He was happy that people were spreading rumors, about how quickly I healed, and how resilient I must be.
There was to be a ceremony for William that I wouldn’t be allowed to attend. I didn’t really want to attend anyway. We were back to hating each other, now that we were both feeling better. I was told that he was to be given an award for his bravery that day.
However, he was still to be punished for disobeying my father’s orders. I wasn’t told what the punishment would be, I don’t think that my father had decided yet. Honestly, I don’t think Father ever really meant to punish him, I think he was just letting the threat of punishment hang in the air as the punishment itself.
I sat on my bed with Catherine one day playing checkers. She filled me on all the rumors going around court.
“They say that you must have magical powers to be such a good healer,” she mused. “They don’t think that I can hear their whispers, but I do.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Surely people are wondering where you’re supposed to be.”
“I’m bedridden with fever,” she explained “No one is allowed to see me because I’m highly contagious, and the doctors don’t expect me to live,” she giggled.
“Well, I guess we’re going to both make miraculous recoveries then,” I said. “I wish that I could be part of it,” I sighed.
She thought for a second. “How well are
you feeling?” She asked.
“I’m feeling much better,” I replied.
“Well enough to walk through the secret passageways in the palace.”
I smiled at her because I knew exactly what she was thinking. She was clever.
“Just because you can’t be there, doesn’t mean that you still can’t see him,” she said.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Catherine and I had often used the secret passage ways to spy on people, mostly our parents. She looked at me with mischief all over her face.
“We can’t go now,” I whined. “Mother has someone coming in every hour to put ointment on my face. If I’m caught out of bed, I’ll be in so much trouble.”
“Oh come on,” she nagged. “ The nurse was just in here ten minutes ago.”
I caved. I wanted to go spy on my parents. “ All right, but if we get in trouble I’m blaming it on you.”
I climbed out of my bed. It was still painful, but I didn’t feel nearly as stiff as I had before.
He leaned against the wall, and it spun around to the inside of the secret passages. I smiled. It had been such a long time since I had played inside them. As children our parents had encouraged us to explore them, in case we ever needed to use them. I’m not sure that they ever knew we were spying on them.
If need be, we could even survive inside the walls of the palace for a few weeks without anyone ever knowing that we were there. According to father, the only people that even knew about them, were our immediate family, and only our most trusted servants. I knew that my other uncle couldn’t possibly know about them, because the palace had been built after the
Guardians of the Throne; Part I Page 11
