Long May She Reign(73)

“If he did,” Fitzroy said, “I never heard of it.”

“But you think someone could have been poisoning him?” I said. “A different someone from the attacker at the banquet?”

“Or the same attacker. Accidentally. Maybe someone put the poison in the wrong place, or they used too much, or something else went wrong. And a single target became the entire court.”

“Maybe,” I said. Then: “No. That doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t kill an entire court with a dose meant for one person.” I ran my fingers through my hair, thinking. “But the water supply—that might be helpful. Could he have asked for special water for the banquet?”

“Special water?” Madeleine repeated. “As in, water imported from some fabulous mountain spring, rumored to grant its visitors eternal life? That sort of water?”

“Yes. Something like that. If that was the case, the water could have been poisoned long before it entered the castle, and kept locked away until the cake was made.”

Naomi turned to Fitzroy. “Did you hear your father mention anything like that?”

He shook his head. “If he planned that, he didn’t mention it to me. It might be in his letters, but—my father liked to brag. If it was special, he would have told somebody. And he would have used it in other dishes, wouldn’t he?”

But all this speculation was pointless, when we could simply perform a test. “We have to get to the palace kitchens. It’s the only way we can know. We’ll test the ingredients there.”

Fitzroy nodded. “I’ll go tonight.”

“We’ll go tonight,” I said. “You can’t carry everything back here, and you might miss something important.”

“Is that safe?” Naomi asked.

“It’ll have to be.”

The first challenge was getting out of the Fort. My guard was somewhat depleted now, but it wasn’t gone, and people continued to watch both the front gate and the bridge. As queen, I could probably have ordered my way through, but I couldn’t let my guards tail me through the streets. I couldn’t draw attention to the investigation.

In the end, dropping my guards was fairly straightforward, if unpleasant. We all retired for the night, and then left the rooms through the hidden passage we’d found before. Fitzroy distracted the guard placed on the other end, and we emerged slightly damp, but otherwise unscathed.

Leaving the Fort itself was harder, but Fitzroy’s solution was sheer brazenness. With no makeup, wearing plain dresses and coats, our hair in simple braids, Madeleine, Naomi, and I blended into the background. No one would expect the queen to sneak out of her own castle, and so nobody looked too closely when I did. Fitzroy was more noticeable, so he didn’t even try to hide his identity. He strode confidently to the front gate and asked the guard to open it for him and his friends.

“Getting out of harm’s way, are you, Fitzroy?” the guard said. “Can’t say I blame you.”

“Not tonight, Mills. Just wanting to get out of these dreary walls for a while.”

“Can’t blame you for that either,” the guard said. “Wish I could join you. Hang on, then.” And, as simple as that, the front gate opened, the drawbridge lowered, and we escaped into the city.

For the first time I’d ever seen, the palace windows were dark, the sweeping lawns untended and slightly unruly. It looked almost peaceful through the wrought iron fence, undisturbed, the river reflecting the stars.

The gates had been left unguarded, fastened with a heavy padlock. Fitzroy pulled a key out of his pocket and opened it. I didn’t ask where he’d gotten it. “I think we’ll be lucky,” he said. “All the death should have kept away the looters.”

“The looters?”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “The castle is practically lined with gold,” he said. “Of course people are going to take what they can. But the murders probably put them off the idea for a while.”

It wasn’t very reassuring. Surely gold was gold, no matter what superstitions people wove around it. A little unpleasantness wouldn’t stop any otherwise willing thieves.

But as we followed the narrow path down the lawn, we saw no one. The scraps of floating lanterns lay in the grass, and banners flapped sadly between the trees, half ruined by the wind and rain.

“No one’s been here,” I said. “No one’s cleaned up at all.” My voice sounded too loud, shattering the silence.

“Your advisers wanted it left untouched.”

“For the investigation?”

Fitzroy nodded.

We approached the rear of the palace and the double doors that led into the ballroom. Even now, weeks after the event, one of the doors stood slightly open, inviting us in. It was as though the entire palace had been frozen in time, stuck in the moment its court fell.

The door creaked as we pushed it open and stepped inside.

The feasting tables were still in place, but many of the chairs had been knocked backward, the golden plates abandoned on the floor. Doves still cooed in the rafters. Instruments lay abandoned in the corner. And there, there at that table, that was where I had sat, where I would have died if I hadn’t walked away.

Madeleine’s eyes glistened with tears. “So this is it. This is where they all died.”