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.”
Elsabet looked at him sharply. “Now that I do not doubt. Covered in a heavy cloak in the early light of morning? Having just left Jonathan’s apartment? Mistaken identity, indeed. That arrow was meant for him, and it found her instead.”
Gilbert’s lips trembled around his words, cautious, as if he feared whatever he said next could lead them down dangerous paths. “Who? Who would dare? Have you seen something?”
“Seen something? No, I have seen nothing.” Elsabet closed her eyes, then opened them, fixed upon his face. “Though perhaps I could, if I were to have more of your tonic.”
He twitched but did not speak. He did not confess. And that hurt her as much as anything else.
“Did you know, Gilbert? All this time that you were poisoning me, poisoning my sight gift right out of me, did you know?”
His lower lip wobbled, and he closed his eyes. “I had no choice.”
“No choice?” Elsabet exploded. “No choice but to betray me? Your own foster sister? Who has loved you since we were children?”
“I had to. Francesca poisoned my way onto the council, and she swore she would poison me, too, or reveal my secret—”
“Francesca Arron does not give commands! I give commands! Francesca Arron does not rule! I rule! And you should have known better, Gilbert.”
Gilbert dropped to his knees. He clasped his hands together. “Forgive me, Elsie. I never wanted to—”
“Be silent.”
He tried to obey, though he began to weep. “What would you have of me? What can I do?”
“I don’t know yet what I am going to do with you,” Elsabet replied. “For now, get out of my sight. Return to your rooms and stay safe. Stay there under guard. Until this is over.”
“This?” he asked.
“Go!” she roared, and he scurried from the room, so afraid of her that she would have laughed, had she not been so angry and heartbroken.
Finally, it was only she and Rosamund.
“What now, my queen?”
Elsabet looked at her friend, her warrior, her hair so blazing red and her reputation so fierce that rumors persisted of her dyeing it that way with madder root just to make it look like blood.
“You know what now,” she said. “Now you take your queensguard and arrest Francesca Arron. Arrest her and throw her in the cells on charge of murder.” Rosamund nodded grimly, and Elsabet bared her teeth. “Now we end it.”