Chapter 7: The Cup

Conroy reached the girl before I did.

He went down on one knee on the wet marble and turned her over, and her head lolled against his arm.

Her lips were blue, and her whole body was jerking in small hard spasms.

"She's breathing," he said. "Get me milk. Now."

Nobody moved.

"Milk!" I shouted, and a footman ran.

Conroy pulled something from inside his coat, a small stoppered vial, and thumbed the cork out.

"Hold her jaw."

I knelt in my borrowed green gown and held a stranger's face between my hands.

He tipped the vial against her mouth and made her swallow.

She choked, and she swallowed again.

The footman came back with a pitcher, and Conroy poured it down her throat in a slow white stream.

A minute went by.

Then the girl coughed, rolled to her side, and was sick across my skirt.

"Good," Conroy said under his breath. "Good girl."

The great hall began to breathe again.

Somebody was crying, and somebody else was calling for a physician.

The Lord Chancellor had risen from his seat with his hand over his heart, a picture of horror.

"A dreadful accident," he said. "A tainted cask, perhaps."

"A cask," I said.

I stood up, and I was shaking, and I let everyone see it.

"I was about to drink from that cup."

"Then thank heaven for the girl," said Fenn smoothly. "The taster did her duty."

"Who filled it?"

I turned in a slow circle, looking at every face on the dais.

"Who poured this cup, and who carried it, and whose hand was on it last?"

The page who had brought the tray went white.

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