Silence Please

10 May, 1359. Magdaline Castle, Islia

Camilla sat in an armchair near her bedchamber window, her knees pressed up against her chest and her eyes staring vacantly. A part of her mind vaguely registered the brilliant blue sky outside, but most of her thoughts were bleak.

It was ironic, she thought. This time last year, almost to the day, she had been spending most of her waking hours shaking with fear in a window seat in Magdaline Castle. She had sat in the bedchamber she'd been allocated when Prince William had first brought her to Islia, orphaned and alone. She'd thought at the time that it would have been impossible to feel more hopeless.

She had been wrong.

So much had changed in a year. But she was still utterly alone and scared.