The Traitor's Daughter

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hours after the incident, the castle was finally quiet. Most of the courtiers had returned to their rooms and were tucked safely into their beds, ready to sleep off the night's events. The king had locked himself in the queen's bedchamber and sat next to her bed, while the physician kept watch over the queen, to ensure that she wouldn't get worse as the night went on. 

The physician had declared that the queen would live. The poison had killed the son that the queen believed she carried, and the physician wasn't certain that she'd be able to have children again. After all, the man thought it a miracle that the queen happened to survive the poison that had been put into her wine. Whoever had slipped it into her chalice had measured the poison out carefully to ensure that they'd kill the queen. Something had gone wrong, but the physician couldn't tell the king what had caused the queen to live, nor did he know the state the queen would be in once she awakened. All he could say was that it was a miracle and God's will to allow Queen Elinor to continue living.

Elizabeth sat on the floor beside the queen's bedchamber, her knees tucked up to her chest. She rocked herself back and forth, her mind racing as she tried to figure out what had happened. She had planned to plant evidence that the baron and baroness were going to poison the queen. She would have simply sent an anonymous letter to the king, telling him that there was a plot against his wife to kill her, and that she believed the baron and baroness to be at the head of it all. From there, she would plant poison and documents into their room at court in plain sight so that the king's guards would immediately find it and take the two into custody. She never actually intended poison the queen. She didn't want to have the woman's blood on her hands.

She knew that since their daughter, Helen, had almost been poisoned months ago, King Owen would be nervous at the very mention of poison and would immediately arrest the baron and baroness. Her plan would go about flawlessly, nobody would get hurt, and Elizabeth would carry on getting revenge on those who deserved it. She hadn't planned to initiate the plan until she had gotten a feel for the baron and baroness, so when disaster struck during the masque, she had been utterly confused. Both she and Maud were the only two who knew about the plan, or so she thought. But someone else had framed the baroness, who was currently locked away, likely insisting that she was innocent.

Someone else knew about her plan.

The idea caused Elizabeth's heart to race and her body broke out into a cold sweat. She continuously wiped at her forehead with the rough sleeves of the gold gown that she still wore, but seconds later, her skin was dripping with sweat once more. It was useless.

Elizabeth kept her ears focused on the noises coming from inside of the queen's bedchamber, but all she could hear were the sounds of the king and the physician's muffled conversation. She had only heard that the queen would live, which she had been absolutely relieved to hear. She had decided to stay outside of the room, just in case the king would need her. Of course, she only stayed around because she wanted to hear more about the queen, but so far, she had just been ignored.

She continued to sit on the cold, hard floor, the gown that she had loved hours before now feeling heavy and uncomfortable on her body. The sleeves of the gown kept sliding down her shoulders, and she had had to keep pulling them up, but had given up after what felt like the hundredth time fixing it. She had taken the crown off of the top of her head and destroyed the work of art that had been her hair only moments before. Now, it too, looked as tired as she did by the way it hung limply against the side of her head.

Elizabeth stopped rocking back and forth as soon as she heard footsteps approaching the door to the receiving chamber, which she was currently occupying. She took a long, deep breath, then forced a pleasant expression onto her face, praying that the scared expression was gone.The door opened, and in walked Mary, a serious expression on her face.