The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,14
her, sounding as impatient as I feel. “What is the reason for this concern?”
“I’m just thinking of your safety, ma’am.”
“Well, at this moment I am simply writing to my mother, as I do every week. Unless one of you has poisoned the ink, I don’t see why this letter compromises my safety.”
“Of course. I just fear that since . . . the incident.” Lady Marguerite peeks up at me. “When you rode out with the king. I fear that not all support you as they should. I would not wish the letter to fall into . . . enemy hands, as it were.”
“The enemy, whoever they may be, would be very bored with this letter,” I tell her. “From daughter to mother, with no matters of state discussed or anything of import. Unlike, I presume, the missive that arrived this morning and was sent directly to His Majesty.”
“Your Majesty.” She backs out of the room, almost stumbling on the hem of her dress. I wait until the heavy door clangs behind her before I turn back to my desk and the blank sheet.
I can’t write a word. I’m seething. Apparently I’m the queen of this realm, but important letters arrive for Hansen’s perusal only. If something is happening in Stavin, it should be considered by both of us. And now I can’t even sit down to write a letter without being interrogated about its destination. What does Lady Marguerite think—that I’m writing a love letter to the Chief Assassin? Who is this “enemy” who plans to pounce on a letter to my mother?
Maybe she knows more, sees more, than she reveals to me. Perhaps I’m wrong to discount the opposition to me in Montrice. I must be careful about what I write, I suppose, and keep in mind that anything I send to my mother may be intercepted and read—or misread—and used against me.
This is so frustrating. I write to my mother on this day every week, and now I feel as though I can’t write a word. Still, she’ll be expecting something from me, and I mustn’t delay. It’s a difficult journey for the messenger, for Renovia is a place of secrets and deep hollows, of misty moors and damp gullies. Even expert travelers can find themselves disoriented and lost in its miles of dense scrub and birch forests.
I dip the quill into black ink and start to write—benign drivel, really. Even if I had no fear of the letter being intercepted, I wouldn’t want to tell my mother about the ride with Hansen when the people expressed their displeasure. Where I was booed, and villagers looked at me with horror and disgust, as though I were a witch. I won’t endorse the story about the lilac ice in the village of Stur by committing it to vellum. It’s unlikely to be true, and even if it were, the sight is evidence of black magic, not malfeasance on my part. If this letter is intercepted, or falls into the wrong hands in any way, nothing in it must suggest I’m afraid.
So I write to her of the new marble in the floor of my chapel and the bustle of troops training in the courtyard below my window. The king, I tell her, is in his usual good health. I assume that this is true, because I would surely have heard by now if he was ailing in any way. Lady Marguerite, at the very least, seems to know the gossip.
Outside my window a crow caws, and even though I’m wrapped in a shawl spun from fine Argonian wool, I shiver. The sun is weak and all the warmth seems to be leaking from the day. There’s something about the castle here in this rocky city of Mont that makes it feel like a prison. When songbirds of summer are gone, we’re left with nothing but grim crows, the same color as the ink in my pot. They swoop onto my windowsill and glare at me with beady eyes, as though they’re my jailers. The sound of them sets my nerves on edge. Some days it feels like we have more crows in the castle than soldiers patrolling the parapets or rats scurrying in the cellars. I’m tempted to pluck my bow from the wall where it hangs near the window and scatter a few well-aimed arrows across the courtyard. No one would miss those crows.