Long May She Reign(92)

“I never intended that. I assumed he would hoard it for himself, poison himself slowly, until he told me he was getting more for the banquet. And even then—so many people could have survived before me. It was never about becoming queen.”

“But you didn’t stop him. You knew hundreds of people could die, and you didn’t stop him.”

“It had to happen. Epria needed it.” She looked away, eyes settling on a half-finished canvas on the other side of the room. “It is medicine, you know. That’s what the merchant told me, when I bought a tiny pot of my own. It cost a fortune, but I’d never seen a color like it, and I needed it for my collection. He leered at me and told me it was a cure for the pox—and for sweating sickness, too, for many things. Of course, I just wanted the color.” She glanced back at me, smiling softly. “And then I fell ill. I saw the lines on my fingernails and I knew it must contain arsenic—I don’t paint with it normally because it ruins your hands, and this yellow was the only new color I had, so it had to be the source.”

“So you sent some to the king?”

“I sent all I had left, along with the painting I had just completed. And I told him the truth. It was a color, but also a rare and miraculous medicine that people in Rejka thought brought good health and good fortune. I wished for him to have it, as a gold color fit for a king.”

“And he put it in his wine.”

“I assume so. It gave him stomach pains, of course, as it poisoned him slowly. But he didn’t connect those with the dye. Why would he? He thought he was ill, and no one thought to investigate something that the king himself added to his food.”

“You said he had been sick for months and months. Long before you last left the castle.”

“I lied,” she said, and for the first time, I heard a slight hint of remorse. “I am sorry. You were so intent on solving the murder. I couldn’t let you find out he had only been sick since I left the capital. I wanted you to think someone had been poisoning him for months, before and after I left.”

And that was the detail she seemed to regret. Not all the deaths, but a couple of small lies, to interfere with my investigation.

I’d trusted her too much. I hadn’t checked her story. Fitzroy had agreed that his father was hiding an illness, and I’d just assumed that all the details she’d added were true, too.

“Of course,” she continued, “his arrogance wouldn’t stop there. He needed more and more. I didn’t have any more to give him, so he sent men to hunt some down. He named it after himself, even though it already had a name, and he wanted to own all of it. I was concerned that someone would warn his advisers that it contained arsenic, but either no one knew, or no one cared. They just knew it was a dye that cured certain illnesses, as long as people did not take too much. And of course, his extravagance meant he could not keep it to himself. He needed to make a big show, to bestow that good health and good fortune on everyone he favored. He had to throw that rare dye away at a banquet, just to show how rich and kingly he was. But I knew he would only give it to people he liked, which meant that those he didn’t like, those less extravagant than himself . . . they would survive. It would be far more effective at creating a new court than I had ever imagined. I would not stop that.”

“Even if your own cousin might die, too?”

“I trusted in him. I knew he wouldn’t eat it. The king was angry with him, and Sten was angry with the king, with his wastefulness . . . he wouldn’t eat the gold cake, out of principle. And he didn’t.”

“But everyone else—you just left them to die?”

“Not everyone. I thought perhaps Fitzroy might rule. I wanted to make sure he survived, so I told his father that a rumor had reached me, that Fitzroy was bragging that he’d be king. I didn’t say it quite like that, of course . . . I congratulated the king on his decision, said I’d heard it from Fitzroy himself. I knew it would enrage him, just in time for the banquet, and he’d deny him any golden cake, to put him in his place. He’d be safe.”

“So you’re the reason Fitzroy was going to be exiled?”

Madeleine shook her head. “I didn’t know about that. But you must understand, the king was always changing his opinion about Fitzroy. Even if he wished to make him his heir on the day he received my letter, he would have been furious to think that Fitzroy was assuming it would happen. And even if he was furious with Fitzroy because of my letter, he would have forgiven him, soon enough. If he had not poisoned them all. That was how the king behaved.”

“And the king just happened to have made a more permanent decision, this time?”

“I do not know. He might have been posturing, ready to change his mind again. But his sickness had made him reflective. And considering what we know about Holt’s beliefs . . . he may have been influenced to finally dismiss his son for good.”

“And everyone else . . . you killed them. All your friends.”

“The king’s greed killed them. Not mine.”

Her expression wasn’t guilty. It didn’t show any remorse. It was . . . honest. She met the truth with the same poise with which she met everything else.

“If I arrest you,” I said, “people will think it’s because of your cousin. They won’t believe you were responsible. And when Sten arrives, I’m sure he’ll be happy to free you.” He’d never believe me if I said Madeleine was responsible. He wouldn’t stop the attack now.