The Prince in Exile

Chapter 10

Following the supper with the princess, Herlinde had the good sense not to press when Erzsebet returned to her apartments, but the maid's impatience was hardly subtle. Her voice took on a strange bright quality as she helped Erzsebet undress, and her every sentence seemed to trail off into the unsaid.

They moved to the bathroom, already steamy, and set to work washing her hair. Erzsebet tried to relax beneath the maid's ministrations, but as the girl's fingers worked through her tangles, the motions distracted and careless, at last she could suffer no longer. "You wish to speak," she said flatly, and at once the fingers stopped. "Go on then."

"Apologies, my lady," she said, clearly embarrassed–as she ought to be. "I only wondered how your conversation with the princess went."

"It was lovely," Erzsebet answered. In vain she waited, hoping against hope that such an answer would suffice, but of course the maid's fingers kept still. "The princess was quite candid with her thoughts on the lady Gertrude," she eventually added, "and I am inclined to trust her judgment."

"Then you'll speak with her?" Herlinde could not keep the excitement from her tone, and neither could Erzsebet keep the rebuke from hers.

"That is for me to decide," she replied, "as it is for me to decide whom I might inform of my decision. If I need aught from you, Herlinde, I will so inform you. Until then, recall your station."

There was a brief silence before the maid meekly answered, "Yes, my lady. Apologies, my lady." She set back to her work with better care, and Erzsebet at last could relax into her thoughts.

She regretted her harshness upon the girl, but she had far too much to consider already without having to deal with a presumptuous servant. Indeed, her picture of Gertrude had become clearer, but that had not made clear her path forward. A gentle soul, an honest woman–that honesty might well see her spilling Erzsebet's secrets, her gentleness blinding her to the consequences. If no one else, she seemed likely to tell the prince, and while Erzsebet guessed he would keep her secret well, perhaps even lend her aid, she would still be sullied in his eyes.

Gertrude might as well be the purest woman alive, but Erzsebet was not. Her aims did not align well with purity; there could be no trust between them.

That settled, she could at least focus now on what she would do next. She needed some way to see a doctor outside of the castle, without drawing too much attention from the court. She could not send Herlinde, of course; one of her other servants might serve, but she knew even less of their characters, and they were all chosen for their station by Gertrude.

Perhaps Margit would be willing to help her, despite her suspicions–that boy Iljko might know the city well enough to see her to a reputable doctor, safely and unnoticed. The princess cared for Andras, but would she care for him to know of her possible pregnancy? Erzsebet doubted that the woman would be scandalized by a premarital dalliance–indeed, with how she treated her own marriages, past and forthcoming, it was hard to imagine that she cared much at all for the sanctity of matrimony.

But the prince surely did–and his aunt, knowing this, might tell him for that reason alone.

All that night her mind ran across the members of the court, searching for one that might be trusted. But this was a court of a rebel prince–they were all of them political exiles, stained with their association to Andras, which meant they had nowhere else to set their loyalty, save at his feet. They all served him, and any who might be persuaded to betray his interests would just as soon run to the palatine as to Erzsebet's aid.

Two more anxious days and two more sleepless nights followed. Each morning began with a desperate hope, checking if her monthly guest had arrived but lately, only to be dashed–then the rest of the day spent in plots and calculations. If she could seduce one of the men of the court, he might well see her to a doctor without betraying her to the prince–if he was enough of a fool, she could convince him that her trouble was private, unworthy of his consideration, some womanly ill–but then she would be left with a fool mooning over her, and would need either to break his heart or string him along, either of which might make its way back to the prince. If he was a fool, the doctor might not be safe, but if he was too clever he might figure out what ailed her...