Chapter 8: The Writ

"No," I said.

The Dowager turned her calm face to me.

"No?"

"A queen is not carried out of her own palace in the dark with a paper nobody read," I said.

"If I am to be put away, it will be done in the great hall, in front of the court."

"My dear, this is a family matter."

"I am the Queen of Caldermere, and I have a right to hear my sentence in the hall."

It was an old right.

I had learned it from a dusty book in my second year, when I was reading everything because there was nothing else to do.

Nobody had used it in a hundred years.

Edmar looked at me and at his mother, and at the paper shaking in his hand.

"Let her," he said.

The Dowager's mouth tightened.

"Edmar."

"Let her, Mother. I want to hear it too."

The great hall was still full of the evening's guests, lords in velvet and ladies in silk, finishing their wine.

They fell silent when I walked in with the king and the Dowager behind me and four guards behind them.

I took the writ from Edmar's hand and climbed the two steps to the herald's stand.

Then I read it aloud, in the voice I had used to read a hundred charters, level and clear.

"By the king's seal and the advice of the court physician, the Queen of Caldermere is to be conveyed this night to the Abbey tower."

"There she is to be held in quiet for her health, until such time as she is judged fit."

A hush went through the hall.

"Until such time as she is judged fit," I repeated. "By whom, my lords? The writ doesn't say."

Nobody answered.

"I'll ask a different question. Is there anyone in this room who has seen me unwell? In eight years?"

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