They Gave My Crown to an Adopted Daughter. The Queen Raged novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: After
The feast that night was held at one long table, because my mother would not have two.
She sat at the head in black.
I sat at her right hand with the crown on my brow, because she had told me to leave it on.
Conroy sat on my right.
Below him sat the old lord with the white eyebrows and the tired captain of the west wing.
Next came a stout lord who had been one of the six, and who wore a sheepish face and an apology.
At the foot of the table sat the old linen woman, in her best apron, holding her fork.
"Nobody watches the laundress," said my mother, when she saw the lords look. "So tonight we shall watch her eat."
The linen woman gave the lords a look I would have paid gold for.
The sealed packet lay beside my mother's plate.
She had not touched it all through the soup.
She had looked at it once or twice.
She had gone on shouting at the footmen about the temperature of the bread.
"Open it, Mother," I said at last.
"I said a year."
"It has been ten days."
"I said a year, and a Queen who breaks her word before the soup is cold is not a Queen."
"You are a Queen who has been staring at it for an hour."
She picked it up and turned it over.
The seal was grey Skarn wax with a small wolf in it.
Under the wolf, written in a round neat hand:
*For Mama.*
My mother broke the wax with her thumb.
She read in silence for a long time, and I watched her face go through several seasons.
"What does she say?" asked the old linen woman, who feared nothing.
"She says," said my mother, and her voice cracked, "that the porridge at the fortress is not fit for pigs."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of They Gave My Crown to an Adopted Daughter. The Queen Raged are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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