Hafold shook with rage. Gareth. The Queen’s own son. Poisoning his mother. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach.
"How long?" Hafold asked, suddenly wondering how much of the Queen's condition had to do with the stroke.
The girl cried.
"Since her husband’s death. I'm sorry. I didn't know. He said it was for her health.”
"Stupid girl," Hafold shrieked, and threw her halfway across the room. The girl screamed, stumbled, and ran from the chamber, sobbing as she went.
Hafold knelt down beside her Queen, and examined her in a whole new light. From all her years as a nurse, Hafold knew exactly what Niamroot could do—and she also knew how to heal it. Its effects were not permanent, if caught in time.
Hafold pulled the Queen’s eyelids low, saw the yellowish color beneath them, and confirmed she was a victim of this poison. Hafold felt certain that this was why she had been catatonic. It was not from mourning her late husband. It was from being poisoned by her son.
She had to hand it to Gareth: he had chosen the perfect timing to poison her, to make it seem to the world as if his mother were merely in mourning. He was even more devious than she had thought.
Hafold crossed the chamber, rifled through each drawer of her medicine chest, and found the yellow liquid that she needed. With trembling hands she mixed a drop in a cup of water, then hurried back and put it to the Queen’s mouth, forcing her to drink.
The Queen drank and drank, shaking her head, trying to stop, but Hafold forced her to drink the whole thing.
After the Queen, protesting, emptied the cup, finally, the Queen shook her head and reached up and pushed Hafold's hand away.
Hafold was shocked and delighted. It was the first time the Queen had raised her hand in weeks.
"What are you making me drink?" the Queen demanded.
Hafold leapt in joy at the sound of her voice, her first words, realizing she was back. She reached out and hugged the queen—the first time she had hugged her in her thirty five years of serving her.
The Queen, back to her old self, indignant, stood and gasped.
"My Queen, my Queen!" Hafold cried. "You’ve come back to me!”
The Queen shoved Hafold off, her old proud self.
"What do you speak of?” the Queen demanded. “Come back where?”
"You’ve been poisoned,” Hafold explained. “Gareth has poisoned you!”
The Queen’s eyes widened slowly, in recognition, and suddenly, she understood.
"Bring me to him,” the Queen commanded.
*
Queen MacGil marched down the corridors of King's Court, corridors she knew too-well, Hafold beside her, feeling herself again. For the first time in she did not know how long she felt aware, filled with energy. She also felt infused with rage, and eager to confront her son.
With every step she took, the more she was beginning to come back to herself, the more it was dawning on her what exactly had happened, the role her son had played. It made her sick, and a part of her still did not want to believe it. What could she have done so wrong to raise such a monster?
"My Queen, this is not such a good idea," Hafold said beside her. "We should leave this place at once, flee while we can. Who knows how Gareth might react—he might have you killed. We must get far from this place. We must go to Silesia, to Gwendolyn. You will be cared for there.”
"Not until I speak to my son," she said.
Nothing would keep the queen from knowing the truth, from hearing the words from Gareth himself. Queen MacGil had never been one to back away from a confrontation, and she was not about to begin now—and certainly not from her own son.
The Queen slammed open the familiar door to her late husband’s study, resentful that her son could think he could occupy it. She gasped as she stood at the threshold of the room, horrified at the sight of the place, her late husband's precious books and scrolls scattered and torn on the floor, the room in shambles, destroyed.
There, across the room, sitting slumped in a chair, looking up at her with an impervious smile, was her son.
Gareth sat in the center of all of this, and looked up at her with black, soulless eyes. She could smell the faint odor of opium in the air. He hadn't shaved in days, there were dark bags beneath his eyes, his clothes were soiled, and he looked as if he’d gone mad. He looked nothing like the son she had mothered, the boy she had raised. Being king had aged him twenty years, and she almost did not recognize him.
"Mother," he said flatly, hardly looking surprised to see her. "You have finally come to see me.”
The Queen scowled down at him
"What have you done to my husband’s study?” she demanded.
Gareth laughed.
"I don't think he'll be needing it now,” Gareth said, “but I find it quite an improvement, don't you?”
The queen stormed forward.
"Did you poison me?” she asked.
Gareth stared back, expressionless.
"We found the powder, today, on the servant girl, my lord," Hafold interjected. "She said you commanded her to.”
“Is it true?” the queen asked softly, hoping it was not.
Gareth slowly shook his head.
"Mother mother mother," he said. "Why should you take a sudden concern to me now, after all these years? When I was young, you reserved all of your love for Reece. Kendrick was the best of all of us, but you couldn't bring yourself to love him because he was your husband's bastard. Godfrey disappointed you in his taverns. Luanda had one foot out the door and was no threat to you. And Gwendolyn—well, she was a girl, and you were too threatened to love her.
“So Reece found your love. And the rest of us were looked over. I did not exist for you. It took my doing all of this for you to finally acknowledge me.”
The Queen’s scowl deepened; she was in no mood for Gareth’s sophistry.
"Is it true?" she repeated.
Gareth chuckled.
"The truth has many layers, doesn't it?” he said. "What would it matter if you were poisoned? Your life had turned a corner, you were inching towards the grave. A queen without a king. I can’t think of anything more useless.”
Queen MacGil felt a rage boiling up inside. She felt sick to her stomach.
"You are an abomination of a son,” she spat back at him. “An abomination of a human being. I'm sorry I ever had you.”