I couldn't leave you hanging. Not on that cliff hanger. And Thomas's treatment of Anne comes straight from CJ Sansom's 'Dark Fire'. I've pinched it because I have always loved that scene (and that book).
Kathy watched Lady Anne fall to the ground as though she were in a dream. All she could think was
‘Papa. Papa must have caused this. It’s too much of a coincidence for him not to have had something to do with this.'
She opened her mouth, choked back a scream. Joanna glanced at her.
“Dr Linacre. Now!”
Without quite knowing how she did it, Kathy picked up her skirts and fled; fled through the palace to the doctor’s apartments. Hammering on the door, she had to choke back blind panic and when the doctor himself answered, she found herself unable to speak coherently. All she could do was pant, “Lady Anne! The Queen! Collapsed. Come, please!”
Luckily, the panic in her eyes spoke volumes that her words never could. In seconds, Dr Linacre was at her side, his medicine chest in his arms and his apprentice on his heels.
“Show me.”
Half-nodding, Kathy ran ahead of him to the Queen’s rooms, hanging back as he hurried over to kneel by Lady Anne’s twitching form.
She felt sick. How could Father have been so callous as to want to poison the Queen? And more than that, if he really felt he had to act against Queen Mary, how could he not have at least made sure it found its way to its intended target? Lady Anne shouldn’t have had to suffer for her father’s ambitions. She was too young, too innocent.
In that instant, Kathy knew that, filial loyalty and duties or not, she would have to tell the King about her father. If Lady Anne died and she'd said nothing, it would be on her conscience forever. She’d never forgive herself.
Whirling round, she dashed out of the room in search of the King.
*** *** ***
Thomas Linacre had been a physician long enough to recognise belladonna poisoning when he saw it. True, he’d never actually treated a case of it, but Lady Anne’s pallor and twitching limbs were highly suspect.
“Roll her on to her back.” His voice was steady, determined. His apprentice rushed to do as he said. A single glance later, Thomas nodded. As he suspected. Lady Anne’s eyes were glazed and her pupils were dangerously dilated. It was belladonna poisoning all right, there was no doubt of that.
“Mustard.”
“Sir?” This time young Andrew’s voice was questioning. Thomas paused in his loosening of the girl’s stays just long enough to glance up at him.
“It’s belladonna poisoning, Andrew. We need to make her sick. Fetch me as much mustard as you can. Quickly.”
The lad nodded and was gone. A few seconds – long, interminable seconds that felt like minutes – later, he was back, a bottle of mustard in his hands.
“What are you doing? What are you doing? Mustard gives her a fever!” The Queen’s voice was frantic. Thomas pitied her, but this was no time to be gentle. Time was of the essence. Already unscrewing the cork, he glared up at her.
“You have the choice, Madam, of having a sister in the grip of a fever or no sister at all. Let me be, please.”
His voice was harsh; he knew he ought to apologise for speaking out of turn, but he didn’t. Instead, he focused on the limp body of the young lady in front of him.
Spooning the mustard between her lips, he forced her to swallow it, then immediately prepared a second dose. And a third.
For a few moments, there was no reaction and he began to fear he might already have been too late, but then she suddenly convulsed. He barely had time to roll her on to her side before she started vomiting, vomiting over and over again until her entire body was empty.
He had never been so relieved to see a patient slump into his arms and let him lay her limply back on the ground, all of a sudden at peace, even as her temperature started to rise, rise into the realms of a dangerously high fever.
“Can we move her to a bed, Madam?” he asked, only now glancing up at the Queen, fresh worry sparking in his eyes as it sank in that she must have witnessed the entire ordeal. She was with child, almost ready to go into confinement. If the stress of this made her lose the babe... Well, he didn't want to think of what the King's reaction would be.
“Of course. Take her into the next room and lay her down there.”
He could tell she had had to fight to keep her voice steady, but her head had been clear enough to give the order and that was enough. For now. Thomas nodded and swept the young girl into his arms.
