The candle in my lord's daughter's hand does not gutter. That is the first wrong thing. It burns cold and blue and steady, no tallow, no flame, and she has held it above her face for the length of time it would take me to walk to the mill and back.
She lies flat as the dead. Her eyes do not sleep and do not close. They twitch, up and down, up and down, the way a man's thumb worries a scab.
I have watched her since the bells would have rung for matins, had we bells. She is not at prayer. She is not at work. She reads, I think, though no book was ever this thin nor lit itself, and whatever it tells her is grievous, for her jaw sets hard and her breath goes shallow, and still she will not put it down. It is a scourge she has chosen. A hair shirt for the eyes.
I know this sickness. I have felt it in the field when the rain will not stop and I dig anyway, past sense, past strength, because to stop is to admit the ruin. She digs in that cold light for something that is not there. Sorrow after sorrow after sorrow, and she rakes it toward herself with one finger.
The good Lord gave us the dark so a body might lay down its burdens till the cock crows. She has found a way to carry them straight through. Poor lamb.
She has more than I will ever own, and she has taught herself to keep vigil over grief that is not even hers.