‘Shall I lock the door again?’
‘No – housemaids don’t, do they? I want you to keep watch near the door while I look around.’
Letya takes up her position next to a table – duster in hand – while I tuck another cloth into my waistband and begin examining the bookcase. I find nothing remarkable there, or tucked inside the chimney breast, or hidden inside the harpsichord, so I switch my search to the bedroom.
There isn’t much furniture in this room either. It doesn’t take me long to look under the bed and in the various drawers and the wardrobe; Siegfried really has surprisingly few clothes and personal possessions, at least here. I stand with my hands on my hips, tapping my foot, trying to think: where would I conceal something secret?
Beneath me, the floor creaks slightly. We’re here to see to about the loose floorboard … I gasp as memory flickers into life: me, hiding in the sitting room, as the maid and a workman walked in. The next moment I’m on my hands and knees, trying to wrench up the floorboards, hoping desperately that Siegfried’s man sent them away before they could carry out the repair.
One of the boards shifts beneath the pressure of my nails. I prise it upward far enough for me to reach into the cavity below –
There’s something here. My fingertips brush across paper. Letters, I see when I draw the bundle out. Shoving them into the pocket of my apron, I replace the board and leave the bedroom. Just in time: the main door opens and one of Siegfried’s servants walks in, the same man I saw the other day. He groans.
‘Always fussing. It’s clean enough – get out, the pair of you.’
Letya curtsies silently and moves towards the door. I copy her movement and follow …
‘You, girl –’
Dread almost takes my breath away. But I force myself to turn back, keeping my gaze lowered. ‘Sir?’
‘You forgot your broom.’ He sighs and mutters, ‘Halfwit.’
I snatch up the offending implement, bob another curtsy and escape. Letya and I hurry back to my rooms, silent until we are both inside with the door locked.
‘Letya …’
‘You forgot your broom!’
The relief is too much for us; we collapse with laughter. Eventually, though, Letya recovers herself and reminds me that the clothes and so on need to be returned to the laundry before they are missed. When she leaves, I summon Turik and ask him to send me word the instant Lucien returns to his room (I refuse to allow myself to consider the possibility that he could be arrested). Then I sit in my favourite seat and begin to examine my discovery.
The letters, eight of them all together, form a manual on how to poison the king. They address such topics as dose; timing; inventive methods of administration. Suggestions include impregnating his bedsheets or painting the venom onto the bedroom furniture. But the happiness that arose from our small strike against Siegfried quickly dissipates: it takes no longer than the first letter for me to recognise my father’s style and handwriting.
I suppose I should be grateful to Lucien for showing me my father’s notebook; the shock, the nausea brewing in my stomach, are less than they might otherwise have been. At least there are no pleasantries among the words my father wrote. No sign that he considered Siegfried a friend. Every phrase is businesslike and to the point. Even the way the letters are addressed …
Frowning, I scan the letters again. My father’s signature is at the foot of each one. But there is no name at the start. They are all addressed to My Lord.
I sigh. I have more evidence than I had before, but still not enough. It will come down to my word, again, that the letters were in Siegfried’s room in the first place, that my father was writing to him and not someone else. And it’s still not clear how Siegfried accomplished his task, what mode of delivery he employed, how he gained access to the king’s rooms. I chew my bottom lip, considering. Perhaps Siegfried’s letters to my father still exist at Merl. And if I send Lucien to find them, at least he might be out of harm’s reach. Perhaps. If. Might. The only certainty is that my father’s part in this plot cannot be kept secret. To save my home, and my friends, I’m going to have to sacrifice his memory and reputation.
So be it. The living are more important than the dead.
The soft chiming of the clock on the mantlepiece draws my attention to the fact that Letya is not here – she should have been back long before now. Anxiety needles my spine. I jump up and yank on the bell pull, trying to ignore the fears that instantly spring into my mind – that someone saw us leaving Siegfried’s room, that she too has been taken in for ‘questioning’. Another half an hour passes, as I pace up and down across the room. I’m on the point of going in search of my friend when Letya finally comes through the door carrying a tray of food.
‘Where were you?’ I exhale some of the tension that is cramping my shoulders. ‘I thought you’d been arrested.’
‘I’m sorry. But I had to get you some supper. And then you asked me to keep my ears open for anything that might be useful. So that’s what I’ve been doing, in part.’
‘What have you learned?’
‘Food first. You’ve not had a bite since breakfast, I imagine. I’ll feel less guilty about taking wages from Lord Lancelin if I at least make sure you’re being fed while I help you risk your life.’
I suddenly realise that I’m ravenous: the smell of the food – toasted cheese, a slice of fruit cake and a jug of apple juice – is making my mouth water.
‘That looks delicious, thank you. Now, tell me everything while I eat.’
‘Well, there was a delivery this morning. Food for the wedding feast, including some sort of fancy cakes and what have you from Olorys.’ Letya pulls a face that suggests she does not have a high opinion of Oloryan delicacies. ‘Anyway, when I left the laundry I went back through the kitchens, and the Oloryan cart drivers were sitting there eating and drinking, which I suppose is fair enough, them having driven a long way, and probably overnight …’
‘Yes …’ I nod, hoping to hurry Letya’s narration along.
‘One of them asked me to take a glass of wine with him, so I agreed, thinking I could ask him about Lord Siegfried –’
‘But you were careful, weren’t you?’
‘Of course. And I actually didn’t even need to ask; he just kept talking at me.’ She smiles grimly. ‘Like he had too many words in his belly, and if he didn’t get them out his guts would explode.’
‘But what did he say?’
‘First he went on about how wild Lord Siegfried’s father – Aurik Redwing – had been as a young man. And how Lord Siegfried was controlled, instead of wild, but how everyone was all the more afraid of him because of that. And then –’ she pauses and lowers her voice – ‘then he got to talking – about the queen. Saying there are rumours that she isn’t really the daughter of the man who’s said to be her father. That the queen’s mother was secretly the mistress of this Aurik, right up until her marriage.’
I drop the piece of cake I’m eating and grip the arms of my chair, half-stifled by the sudden acceleration of my heartbeat. ‘Then the queen, and Siegfried …’
Letya nods. ‘If the rumours are true, she’s his half-sister.’