Chapter 10: The Hum

I did not ask Conroy.

I did the thing a coward does and a general does: I waited until I had more than a question.

My mother's old solar lay between the royal apartments and the sealed west wing.

It had a hidden door at the back that opened onto the physician's rooms, and I had known the door since I was seven.

I went in the afternoon, while the court was at the king's weekly council and Conroy was being walked round the walls by an honor guard.

The door still stuck at the same place.

I put my shoulder to it and slipped through into a small dark room smelling of syrup.

A shelf ran along one wall, lined with brown glass bottles, each with a paper label.

They were in a round, neat hand that I knew at once from a hundred birthday cards.

"Tonic for the Queen. One spoon, morning, in tea."

It was Marigold's handwriting.

I took the bottle off the shelf and stoppered it with my thumb.

I had just slid it into my sleeve when I heard the outer door open.

I had a moment to slip behind the carved screen at the end of the solar.

Light steps crossed the carpet.

A chair scraped, and a cloth rustled, and I heard the small wet sound of someone taking a comb to long hair.

I looked through the gap in the screen.

Marigold sat at my mother's dressing table, in front of the long mirror, in a plain grey gown.

Her golden hair fell over her shoulders in a bright sheet, and she was alone.

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