The evening bells of Atehar had rung an hour ago yet the market square still teemed with people going and coming, lantern smoke and gossip. I pulled my hood lower and made my way through the crowd.
”The king has sold her,” a fishwife hissed to her neighbour. ”Sold the queen to the Morvane for more gold to get us out of debt. Mark me words, we'll be at war by the harvest moon.”
I slowed my steps at the whisper of those tales.
”I heard she was poisoned,” said a man haggling over turnips. ”They found it in the marsh, you know. Her cloak, torn and bloody.”
I almost laughed because my cloak was wrapped around my shoulders, damp at the hem and perfectly intact. True, they had found a cloak in the marsh but it was a decoy I had left myself, sprayed with rabbit's blood. A small lie to buy a few days of freedom.
”Nonsense. You all are saying nonsense,” a cobbler with a hump on the back muttered. ”The king loves her. Everyone knows it.”
I shook my head beneath my hood at the rumours. They were all wrong and the truth was so much uglier than their stories.
There was no betrayal by the king. My husband lay in his chambers, pale and half-conscious, fed a slow tincture I had prepared each night by the hands of my trusted maid. Lord Raleigh, the chancellor, had been patient. He had built his web of lies with the Morvane envoys at his table to take over my kingdom. My husband's ‘illness’ and my inconvenient disappearance from the palace were the last two obstacles between him and the throne.
When I found a map of their plan and the poison vial hidden in the chapel, prepared for me, I ran out of the palace. Not out of cowardice because a dead queen can save no one.
I knew disguising myself as a peasant to seek military help from the Rowick and Phowgha was the best course of action.
A child started past me, laughing, chasing a hoop between the stalls and pulling me out of my thoughts. Her mother scolded her, flour on her apron, a loaf of wrapped sourdough bread under her arm. For a moment, I envied her so fiercely it hurt.
To have bread to carry and worry only about rent and rain. I thought of the simple life I might have lived if I had been born to a miller or a baker, and I let the thought wash through me like cold water. Then I let it go. Crowns are not chosen; they are inherited like debts and mine seemed the worst.
I slipped from the square into the narrow lanes of the Tanners’ Row where the smell of hides soured the air and no lanterns burned. At the end, a crooked house leaned against its neighbour, its door patched with mismatched planks. I knocked three times, paused then thrice more.
The door opened a crack, an eye studied me and widened almost immediately. Then the door swung wide open.
“Majesty,” Arkhad whispered and bowed, though the effort made him wince. He had been my father's bodyguard once and my confidant before a Morvane blade ruined his knee during the last war. I conquered and won but lost my father. The Morvane were back again.
I scanned the small room. A single candle lit a table with a bowl of cold porridge upon it. Arkhad wouldn't meet my gaze.
“I'm sorry to be such a bother at this time,” I said, pushing back my hood.
“The kingdom says you are dead.”
“People say many things.” I sat, suddenly aware of how exhausted I was. “Do you know they say the king betrayed me? Ha! They also say war is coming.”
“And is it?” He finally looked at me, his nostrils flaring.
“It is, if Lord Raleigh succeeds. He will use my ‘death’ to justify opening the borders and gates to Morvane soldiers.” I sighed. “I need to get back into the palace, Arkhad, unseen. Before the king's tincture is given again at dawn. It's the last dose. They must not know the king's illness is a pretense to buy time."
He was silent for a moment, then pulled a rolled parchment containing a map from beneath a loose floorboard. He spread it between us and our heads bent together over the faded lines.
“The old servants’ passage under the kitchens.” He pointed crooked fingers to the place on the map. “Your father had it sealed but I never forgot the way.”
I traced the route with a trembling finger and thought once more of the simple life I would never have. Then I straightened my back.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “We have until dawn to save this kingdom again.”
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "they found it in the marsh”.
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Image by Vicki Hamilton from Pixabay