The Dragon Queen's Gambit novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Midwife

The midwife confesses what the law allows and why exposure now would lose; by morning she is dead in the well.

The midwife came to the queen's tower that night, because Ysmera sent a guard to fetch her.

She was a stout woman of fifty with flour-white hair, and she stood in the doorway wringing her apron.

Ysmera sat by the fire with a dagger across her knees.

"Close the door," she said.

The midwife closed it.

"Majesty, I can explain."

"You can tell me everything. Who planned it, who knew, and who else you have told."

The woman's knees gave, and she sank onto the rug.

"Lord Aldous came to me in your seventh month," she said.

"He said the girl he loved was with child too."

"He said the crown needed a servant's child in the cradle."

"A servant's child on my throne," Ysmera said.

"He said you would never learn. He said you would love whichever baby was put in your arms."

"Who else knows?"

"Only his brother. The Lord of the River Fleet paid me."

Ysmera turned the dagger over once.

It would be easy. One scream from the roof, one dragon over the palace at dawn, and every bell in Emberhall would ring.

Aldous would be in chains by noon.

"Tell me what the law says," Ysmera said, "if I name the swap tomorrow."

The midwife lifted her wet face.

"Majesty, you know the law better than I do."

"Say it anyway."

"The heir is whoever stands before the Crown Dragon at twenty and is not burned."

"Until then the heir is whoever the court calls the heir."

Her voice dropped.

"If you say the princess is not yours, the Harrowbys say you are mad with childbed fever."

"Lord Aldous's brother holds the river ships."

"Half the council eats at his table."

"And I hold the Dragonguard."

"Twelve riders against the fleet, and nothing else but a mad queen's word."

The midwife's chin trembled.

"I will not stand before the council and say it for you."

"He will kill me."

"He will not touch you," Ysmera said. "I will put you in the north, where he cannot reach."

The woman cried quietly into her hands.

"Thank you, Majesty."

Ysmera sat looking at the fire.

She understood now why the law had held for eight hundred years.

The only proof the realm accepted was the Standing.

On her twentieth birthday the heir walked before the Crown Dragon, and the old beast chose.

Anything before that was a quarrel between a queen and her consort.

And Aldous had spent nine months making sure the court loved him better.

"The girl you took to the cottage," she said slowly. "What does she look like?"

"Gray eyes, Majesty. Dark hair. She looks like her mother."

"And the one in the royal cradle?"

"She has your eyes, they say. Amber." The midwife swallowed. "Every baby has their mother's eyes the first week. It means nothing."

Ysmera nodded and let it go.

"Go to your bed," she said. "Be ready at dawn. A rider will take you north."

The midwife bowed and went out into the dark corridor.

Ysmera did not sleep.

She sat until the fire was ash, working through every stage of the years ahead.

Twenty years.

Twenty years for Aldous to grow arrogant.

Twenty years for his brother to grow careless.

Twenty years for the court to love the false princess, so deeply that the fall would never be forgotten.

She would raise the true child in the mountains where no Harrowby could find her.

She would smile at her husband across every table.

And on the day of the Standing she would stand before the Crown Dragon.

The whole kingdom would watch her tell them what he had done.

At first light she went down to the guard post to send the rider.

The guards were standing in a ring around the palace well.

They parted for her without a word.

A woman in a flour-white head cloth lay on the stones beside the bucket, with water running from her hair.

Her eyes were open.

Ysmera knelt and touched the cold cheek.

"She fell, Majesty," one of the guards said. He did not look at her. "She was fetching water in the dark."

Behind the ring, at the top of the kitchen steps, stood Aldous in his dressing gown.

He lifted a cup of spiced wine to her in greeting.

"A sad accident, wife," he called. "I have sent for the priest."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend