Bed-Warming Had Its Uses
READING AGE 12+
When Lord Chancellor Julian Vale fell from his horse during a royal hunt and failed to wake, the court astrologer prescribed a woman born on the winter solstice to warm his bed. I was that woman, though I had trained as a physician's assistant, not a charm against death. I agreed because my mother needed medicine and because the Vale household promised to pay for it. I did not expect to become the only person allowed to speak to Julian without an audience, or to discover that his illness had become useful to the people who wanted him gone. The court called me a remedy. The physicians called me a risk. But if Julian opened his eyes, would he remember the woman who kept vigil beside him, or only the bargain that put me there?
Unfold
I stayed outside Julian's room until Dr. Hales let me return.
He was sleeping. Marianne sat beside him, one hand resting on the bed. She looked up when I entered.
"He asked where you were," she said.
My throat tightened. "What did you tell him?"
"That you were giving the doctors room."
I sat on the chair near the……
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