The axe fell swift and silent, a missive from the Crown Office sealed with wax and disdain. James returned at dusk, his crutch dragging, his face ashen beneath the brim of his battered hat. “They’ve done it, Nell,” he muttered, voice a husk. “No use for cripples.” His dismissal writ y crumpled in his fist—six shillings severed, their thin lifeline snapped. Eleanor stood frozen by the hearth, the fire’s sputter mocking her, as Eldric’s wooden horse y still on the floor. She reached for him, but he turned away, shoulders hunched, a man unmoored.

  Dawn found him gone, the pallet cold. “Work’s out there,” he’d growled the night before, and she’d pleaded, “Stay safe,” her words swallowed by his silence. She waited, stirring watery gruel, her eyes darting to the window where fog pressed thick against the panes. Margaret’s murmurs filled the room—“The cow’s run off”—and Henry stared at nothing, his breath a faint wheeze. Hours bled into dusk, and panic cwed her chest. She bundled her shawl and stepped into Wolthrope’s mire, Eldric’s “Papa?” echoing in her ears.

  The alley reeked of gin and filth, a crowd buzzing like flies over carrion. She pushed through, heart hammering, and saw him—James, sprawled in the mud, his crutch splintered beside him. Blood pooled from a hole in his chest, his eyes fixed skyward, unseeing. A pistol’s crack had ended him, they said—a brawl over a docker’s wage, a rival’s rage. Eleanor sank beside him, clutching his coat, its wool sodden with crimson. “You promised,” she sobbed, her voice lost to the wind’s howl.

  She dragged him home, the weight of his corpse breaking her hands, her soul. Eldric’s cry pierced the gloom—“Papa!”—and she held him as he touched James’s still face. Margaret rocked, heedless; Henry blinked, mute. Eleanor’s world crumbled, the king’s shadow victorious, and she knew this loss was but the first thread in a tapestry of ruin.