Chapter 9: The Herb Count

"That's a lie," I said.

The maid only cried harder.

"My mother's never been north of the river in her life," I said. "She can't ride. She's sixty-three and her knees are worse than the miller's mare."

"She sent it," the maid wailed. "By a man. In a packet."

"What man?"

She shook her head and wouldn't say.

By noon the whole palace knew.

By evening Corvan Marrin had stood up in the Queen's council and asked, very gently, for the Rushford midwife to be brought north for questioning.

"For the princess's own safety," he said.

Four days later they brought Mam into the Queen's hall in chains.

Iron on her wrists. Iron on her ankles. Two guards holding her arms.

Her gray hair had come down. There was mud on her skirt to the knee from being made to walk beside the horses.

The whole court had come to watch.

I stood up from my seat before anyone said I could.

"Take those off her," I said.

"Princess," said Corvan, "she's accused of trying to murder the crown's heirs."

"She's sixty-three and she walked here. Take them off or I'll take them off myself, and I've got a very good knife in my bag."

The Queen looked down from her chair.

"Take them off," she said.

They did.

Mam rubbed her wrists. She looked round that enormous white hall, at the floating lights, at the five hundred elves in silver.

Then she looked at me.

"You've gone thin," she said. "Are you eating?"

I almost laughed. I almost cried. I did neither, because I wasn't going to give Corvan either one.

"I'm eating, Mam."

"Plums?"

"Too many."

"Good."

The Queen tapped her cane on the floor.

"Princess," she said. "You say your mother is innocent. Show me."

I'd had four days. I'd used every one of them.

"May I have the packet?" I asked.

A guard brought it on a silver tray, the little twist the maid had kept in her apron.

I held it up so the hall could see.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Elf Prince Is My Baby Daddy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.