Death of a queen

I did not post on the death date of one of my favorite characters in Saints, Stephen’s queen, Matilda, who died on May 3rd, 1152, but I knew Rania would take care of it for me; thanks, Rania!
I liked Matilda because she changed in the course of the novel. She was a traditional medieval queen and wife when the book began, but as their world was torn apart by war, she rose to the occasion magnificently, developing self-confidence and even boldness as she labored on Stephen’s behalf.
Part of Matilda’s death scene, Saints, page 627-628
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Matilda had always envisioned time as a river, flowing forward inexorably into the future, forcing people to keep up with the current as best they could. No more, though. Time had become tidal. Lying in the shuttered dark of an unfamiliar bedchamber, she could feel it receding toward the horizon, leaving her stranded upon the shore. As a little girl in Boulogne, she’d often walked along the beach, throwing back the starfish trapped by the ebbing tide. Now, forty years later, when it was her turn to be marooned by the retreating waves, there was no one to save her as she’d saved the starfish, but she did not mourn for herself. Dying was not so terrible, for all that people feared it so. She was in God’s Hands, a feather floating on the wind, waiting to see if He would call her home.
(omission)
“Stephen…..” Not even a whisper in her own ears, but he somehow heard her and leaned over, vivid blue eyes of their lost youth, awash now in tears. “Look after Constance….” But who would look after him? Surely the Almighty would, for even his worst mistakes were well-intentioned. Did this too-clever son of Maude’s have such a good heart? No….God would judge what mattered most.
Stephen was kissing her hand, pressing it against his wet cheek. His beard was grizzled with silver, like an early frost. How old he seemed of a sudden. She wanted to tell him one last time that she loved him, to promise that she’d be waiting for him at Heaven’s Gate. But she could not catch her breath. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, the room was filling with light. She could hear sobbing, but it seemed to be coming from a great distance. It grew more and more faint, until at last she could not hear it at all.
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