N urse dressed me in my plainest garb, strapped on my three knives, and followed me as I slipped into my parents’ bedchamber to wake Mamma.

No need. She sat in a chair, surrounded by glowing candles, brow puckered as she hemmed a baby blanket.

She put it down at once and stretched out her arms to me.

“Nurse told me.” Her gaze flicked into the shadows where Nurse hovered, silent and discreet for once.

I rushed into Mamma’s arms, needing her embrace and knowing she needed mine.

To think of Nonna Ursula hurt by cruel hands, her spark of vitality dimmed, brought tears to our eyes.

As the scent of smoke drifted on the breeze, and flames glowed on the horizon toward the river, she feared for Papà, and now, as I ventured out, for me.

Yet when I lifted my head from her shoulder, neither of us wasted time in lament.

“Mamma,” I said, “I have come to think that with recent events, I’ll be wise to have protection.

Last night, I spoke to Tommaso, and he boasts a good fighting record, a good mind, and a fervent dedication to our family.

He’ll train Teodor to take his place as footman and as manservant.

May I have him as my personal bodyguard? ”

Mamma placed a soft hand on my cheek. “Rosie, you’re the best daughter any woman can have. You look to the future so frankly and take measures to handle any future problems and relieve my mind of worry. Of course, you may take Tommaso!”

I warmed to her praise.

She continued without a hitch. “Two of the house guards will escort the sedan chair on your journey to Friar Laurence’s and the palace.”

“Mamma, no!” My protest was shocked and sincere. “To leave Casa Montague unguarded on such a night—”

“We are not unguarded. We are sending two of our own to protect our precious diamond jewel of a daughter. That is our decision.” When Mamma started talking like a queen, using plural pronouns, she left no room for argument or negotiation.

“As soon as I arrive at the palace,” I declared, “I’ll send them home.”

“Of course.” She smoothed my hair. “You’ll take Nurse.”

Nurse moved restlessly in the shadows. She was torn.

“No. She must remain with you, Mamma.” I put my hands on her belly, where the babe kicked and rolled. “This little one is now lively, and you have two months before you can let him out!”

“He’ll come when God announces his arrival. In the meantime, Rosie, my daughter, you’ll be careful.” She hadn’t argued that I must take Nurse.

I noted that, and that worried me. But fate had caught us in its fangs and we had no escape, so I assured her, “Mamma, I must be, for Nonna Ursula’s life may depend on it.”

Leaning forward, she kissed my cheek, and flinched as the babe shoved its foot under her ribs. “You children,” she muttered darkly.

I gave her belly a last rub, rose, and made my way to the prince’s sedan chair waiting at the door.

The luxurious conveyance couldn’t keep out the smoke or subdue the sound of men’s shouts and the clash of steel.

Cal and Papà would be in the thick of battle, and knowing their expertise, I fervently believed they would be unharmed, lest it be by unscrupulous means.

When I again remembered the flagellant’s hellfire eyes, I knew that creature could embrace and justify treachery.

The chair carried me through the slowly brightening streets at a speed I hadn’t imagined possible.

Tommaso and Papà’s guards ran with their knives drawn.

I touched the blades Nurse had given me, tucked into the scabbards strapped to my arms, and I had also Cal’s blade strapped to my ankle. Knowing they were at the ready strengthened my courage. Preparedness had a way of doing that.

We halted at Friar Laurence’s shop, and while the men paced outside, I compounded the poultice for Nonna Ursula.

I heard their low voices muttering in ominous worry, but I dared not hurry.

The complex preparation required concentration and exact measures, so I moved deliberately through the formula. I owed that to Nonna Ursula.

When the poultice rested safely in a jar, we proceeded to the palace in silence and at the same brisk pace; I was glad to reach our destination. As soon as I dismounted from the sedan chair, I ordered the Casa Montague guards home, and they went willingly and at haste.

I entered the palace and hurried to Nonna Ursula’s suite, and there found Friar Laurence on a bench beside the bed where Nonna Ursula reclined, streaks of dried blood staining her slack, pale face.

“A resourceful villain broke in to plunder the riches of the palace,” Friar Laurence said in a low voice.

“Princess Ursula’s mind dwelled on her son and the heartless murder that took him too soon.

While she rested on the bed, she sent Pasqueta to the kitchen to make her a posset.

The villain came through the window, and when she perhaps spoke or sat up, he struck her on the side of the head, not once but twice, probably with the pry he used to rip the iron bars off the wall and enter. She fell, and he escaped the same way.”

I leaned over the old grande dame, already so dear to me—I liked women who spread terror like a farmer spreads manure—and stroked her brow with a cool cloth.

By the time I had arrived at the palace, and carried the poultice inside, Friar Laurence had staunched Nonna Ursula’s profuse bleeding, had calmed her two maids, and had set them to work cleaning the evidence, with the stern admonition that when their mistress returned to consciousness, she would not want to wake on bloody linens.

Now, using the poultice, he bandaged the wounds.

“Did no one see or hear anything?” I looked around when I said that, seeking Elder as a source of information.

“When Pasqueta arrived with the tisane, she found the princess unconscious on the bed and . . . this.” Friar Laurence gestured at the destruction of the room and its contents. “She screamed, but even that didn’t wake Old Maria, for she was asleep in her bed and she’s as deaf as Princess Ursula.”

I examined the clutter of belongings that had been flung hither and yon, then walked to the open window and looked out. Two of the bars had been wrenched from the stone wall. “A mighty effort for one man.”

Friar Laurence came to look, too. “Perhaps more than one man?”

“Perhaps. It’s known there are treasures to be found here.

Let me at once send for the metalworker to repair the damage.

” I spoke to one of the prince’s messenger boys and sent him off, then returned to the good brother.

“Nonna Ursula is not so deaf as she presents, and I suspect she heard the disturbance. Perhaps confronted the creeping reptile of hell.”

“Thus she would know him by sight. No wonder the attack was so brutal.”

“He left in a panic, for the prince would rightly order him racked, drawn, and quartered, to make an example of him—”

Friar Laurence grasped my upraised, clenched fist. ““Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord.’ ”

“I can exalt in the Lord’s vengeance.”

“When it occurs,” he conceded.

I looked around again. Where was Elder? Why was he never where he could do some good? If his only task in the afterlife was to haunt me and make sarcastic comments, he might as well be dead.

Yes, gentle reader, I was aware of the irony of that thought. “What was taken?” For all the mess, I saw nothing awry.

“Nothing. The waiting ladies say nothing is gone that they know, but a jewel is a little thing and hard to note, and the princess owns many jewels. Or maybe the wrongdoer came to steal and had to flee before he found something he deemed of value.”

In a second sweep of the room, I stiffened like a hunting dog on point.

The bag containing Yorick’s skull was gone.

I’d left it there for Nonna Ursula’s maids to put away; had they?

Or had the intruder removed it for some unknown reason?

In a chamber filled with treasures, only someone who feared his guilt would be discovered would remove Yorick’s skull. Right?

Before I could inquire of Old Maria or Pasqueta, a timid knock sounded on the door.

Princess Isabella stood there, wreathed in worry and twisting her hands.

When she chose to don her royal presence, she was the very portrait of composure, but now I remembered how young she was and how few family members peopled her life.

I gestured her in, and she hurried to her grandmother’s bedside and whimpered at the sight of the sagging wrinkles that no one noticed when Nonna Ursula’s sharp tongue spoke and her dark eyes snapped.

“Will she recover?” the princess whispered like a child who fears the coming dark.

I knew Friar Laurence couldn’t tell her; all his learned knowledge couldn’t speak to the vagaries of human frailty.

Yet, like Princess Isabella, I begged for reassurance. “Yes, will she?”

He understood. “A head injury is grievous, for we know not what happens within the skull. If God favors us, the lady will live. But you must both know her age works against us, and the longer she’s without wit, the more grievous and desperate the danger.”

I nodded, and when Princess Isabella sobbed into her hand, I embraced her.

“She needs sustenance. She needs wine. She must come awake to partake of life or we have no hope.” He told me what I already knew.

I tightened my grip on Princess Isabella’s shoulders. “What can we do?”

“Sit with her,” he commanded. “Hold her hand. Brush her hair. Speak to her.”

Princess Isabella caught back her sobs and looked up. “Of what?”

“Of what you do all day. Of your weaving, your readings. Talk about the paintings in this room, your friendships, what you eat. Remind her of life.” He looked sideways at me. “You could speak to her about last night’s séance and your repentance for the sin that you committed.”

Now, how had the good brother learned of that? For I had rather hoped he wouldn’t know until told in the confessional.