Between Two Queens

2. Fortune's Wheel

  Bosnia, Spring 1349

 Spring was coming.  Elizabeta was in the courtyard playing ball with the boys.  She paused to take a look at the messenger who had just ridden in.  He was out of earshot, and talking to Jelena, Ursula, Anthony, and a few others.  The messenger looked in Elizabeta's direction, saw the children, and then gestured to his audience to go behind a nearby wall.  The messenger had a grim look on his face.  This could not be good news. 

     Curious, Elizabeta walked over and followed them to the wall.  A tutor reached his hand out, and tightly grabbed her by the wrist.  Elizabeta struggled. 

"Let me go!  I must know what news this man brings!  Let me go!  I am Elizabeta Kotromanic, daughter of your Ban!  You must listen to what I say!"   

     Another man stepped forward and grabbed her other hand.  "None of this concerns you!"  he snapped.  "The messenger says that he does not want you to hear it right now."  Elizabeta did not stop screaming until Ursula came out.  

     When Ursula did emerge, Elizabeta saw tears on her face.  The men released Elizabeta, and she ran to her governess.   

"What's wrong?"  Elizabeta asked.  The anger in her eyes had disappeared.  She was now looking at Ursula with soulful brown eyes.  Ursula let out a sob.  She pulled Elizabeta closer.  When Ursula got the news, she knew that she would have to be the one to tell her.  No one else could bear telling her this news, and since Ursula was the closest to Elizabeta, the duty fell on her.  

Ursula took a long, shaky, breath.  "Theodora is dead.  She died of the pestilence on Monday last."  

Elizabeta screamed and lost her footing.  Quickly, Ursula caught her.  

"No!  Not Theodora!  It can't be her!  It can't!"  She took off through the courtyard, towards the castle, and then inside.  Ursula ran after her.  Once she made it inside, there was no sign of Elizabeta, but a servant pointed towards a stairwell.  As she went up it, and though a corridor, Ursula could hear running, a door opening, and then slamming.  The sound was coming from Elizabeta's room.  When Ursula got there, the girl threw herself on her bed, buried her head in her pillows, and wept uncontrollably.      

     In all of her ten years, Elizabeta had never faced such a tragedy before.  Not even her own mother's death had hit her this hard.  All day long, she would not leave her bed.     

"Why Theodora?"  Elizabeta said later that day.  "She was my best friend.  She was going to be my permanent companion when I reached womanhood.  She was supposed to go everywhere I went."

     Ursula thought about that day when Theodora's father came to take her away.  How he thought he was protecting her.  How he thought she would be safe from the pestilence at his home.  How wrong had he been.  Just days after Theodora's death, he too had succumbed to the pestilence.  She did not share this information to Elizabeta, she already was too devastated. 

"It's God's will."  was all that Ursula could say.  Elizabeta bolted to the window.  "She would of still been alive had not her accursed father taken her from here!  It is all her father's fault!"  

"Let the girl grieve."  Ursula whispered to herself.  All day long, she stayed with the girl in her bedchamber.  Throughout the day, Elizabeta would go back and forth from screaming out for Theodora, to cold silence, where she would not move or speak a word.  That night, Ursula prescribed a sleeping drought for Elizabeta.  Once the girl was sleeping at last, Ursula picked one of Elizabeta's books off the floor.  It was one of the girl's favorite books, up until that day, she would be looking thought it all the time.  It was not a book that was important to Elizabeta's prayers or education, it was just a book about the forbidden art of alchemy.  Many places would not allow such a book, but Bosnia was an isolated land, where laws where loose.  Of course, Elizabeta herself had no thoughts about participating in alchemy, but she enjoyed learning about it.  This particular book focused on life and fortune.  Ursula had not looked at this book before, and she opened it up in the middle.  A large wheel was drawn across that page.  The Wheel of Fortune.  Ursula looked at the sleeping girl.  Until recently, Elizabeta was on top of that wheel, she thought.  She may be on the bottom now, but she will rise again.  But Theodora's death would not be the last difficulty in her life.  As difficult as it was for Ursula to think about it, she knew from her own experience that the wheel keeps turning.