Queens of Fennbirn (Three Dark Crowns 0.5)(45)

“Now,” Francesca whispered angrily, “we use it.”

Stepping out of the morning shadows, she drew her hood down nearly completely over her face. She walked lightly and quickly, moving through the back of the crowd, slipping between people in that way that was natural to all poisoners, that way that made it easy for them to sink a poisoned dagger into a thigh or drop a poison-coated berry into a drink. But that morning, it was poison of a different sort that needed to be spread.

“Oh,” she murmured in a gentle voice. “That is one of the queen’s girls. One of the queen’s maids! And she was coming from the queen’s lover’s apartment!”

That was all it took. The people latched on to it and filled in the rest. “The queen is often jealous,” someone said. “How foolish of the boy,” said someone else. “But who could blame him? Look how lovely this girl was. Lovely as our queen is not. That’s why she’s so jealous in the first place. Poor queen. Poor girl.”

“Poor queen? This is murder! Murder over a lover’s tryst!”

Francesca smiled. When she returned to Sonia she nearly laughed as the two of them walked out of the square unnoticed.

“How did you know to do that?” Sonia asked.

“You know what they say. An Arron is ready for anything. Now let us go. Our plans have changed.”





THE VOLROY

Elsabet ordered Bess’s body brought to the Volroy. She ordered healers and priestesses to look upon it, to provide her with what answers they could. But there was only so much that could be told about an arrow to the back of the head.

“Get away from her, then,” Elsabet said, and draped herself over her friend. Her cheeks were red and wet with tears. She kissed Bess’s cold hands. “What good am I?” she asked, wiping her eyes. “What good is an oracle queen who cannot see enough to protect those she loves?”

Rosamund, Jonathan, and Gilbert stood by helplessly. They too were full of sorrow. Even Rosamund had wept when she heard the news. Wept and raged when she saw the arrow struck through Bess’s pretty head. Now they were alone in the throne room, the healers dismissed, the priestesses’ prayers said. No other members of the Black Council were brave enough to show their faces with Bess’s body stretched out across the council table.

“How could this happen?” Elsabet stalked back and forth, long legs shaking.

“Elsie,” Gilbert ventured softly. “Let me get you something.”

“What, Gilbert? What do I need?”

“I don’t know. I could summon your king-consort. He will want to know of this.”

In the corner of her eye, Elsabet saw Rosamund bare her teeth.

“William?” Elsabet laughed. “He is hiding somewhere like the rat he is. He knows he does not need to put on an act anymore.” She turned back to Bess and wiped her eyes again. “Where is Catherine Howe?” she demanded, voice booming.

“We don’t know, Elsie. She is not yet at the Volroy this morning.”

“Where is Sonia Beaulin?”

“She is here,” Rosamund answered. “I don’t know where just now, but I have seen her.”

“Where is Francesca Arron?”

“We have not seen her yet this morning either.”

Elsabet looked at Rosamund. “Things will move quickly now.”

“Yes, my queen.”

“What will move quickly now?” Gilbert asked. He had not heard the news that Rosamund had delivered to her that morning that thanks to Catherine Howe’s spies, they knew her king-consort was betraying her with Francesca Arron. Nor had he heard the message of poisoned tonic that Jonathan had whispered into her ear.

“Then give me a moment alone with Jonathan.”

Rosamund nodded and tugged a sputtering Gilbert from the room.

“My queen,” said Jonathan, his shoulders square. “Queen Elsabet. What can I do to help you?”

“You can run.”

“What?”

Elsabet wiped another tear from her cheek, the last she would allow herself to cry today. “The capital will not be safe for you for a time. Not even here in the Volroy. You must find a way to get out of the city before it begins.”

“But”—he gestured sadly toward Bess—“it’s already begun. I can’t leave you, not now.”

“You can and you must, because I order it. I have arranged for enough coin, and you will find a fast horse awaiting you in the stables.”

“No,” he said, and to her surprise, he came and took her by the shoulders. “I am supposed to be here. You dreamed of me. You dreamed of me so I could fight for you.”

Elsabet smiled. She touched his face. How she wanted for that to be true.

“No, Jonathan. I dreamed of you for solace. So you could be a moment of peace for me when everything around me crumbled. But it was not a vision. It was only a dream.”

After Jonathan had gone, Elsabet summoned Rosamund and Gilbert to return.

“Tell me,” she said to them, “in your short time waiting in the halls, what are they saying? What are the whispers?”

“They are trying to say it was an accident,” Rosamund muttered. “As if an arrow to the head can be an accident.”

“It can be,” Gilbert said softly. “It could be. Bess could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been a case of mistaken identity.”