Before Nelle could utter a sigh of relief, the sound of a sword leaving its sheath rang out across the field, and Branford took a single step forward. He grabbed Nelle by her long tresses, pulled her head backwards, and slid the sharp blade across her throat, opening her vessels and spilling her blood over her chest and down to the dirt.
“But you will still die for it,” Branford said softly as the light dimmed from Nelle’s eyes, and he released her hair, allowing her lifeless body to fall sideways to the ground.
“I want Lady Kimberly and Sir Leland,” Branford said to Rylan as he wiped the edge of his blade across the thigh of his trousers. “I’m willing to offer a bounty to any mercenary who can bring them to me, preferably alive, so I may kill them myself.”
“I will put out the word.”
Branford placed his hand on Rylan’s shoulder for a moment and looked into his eyes.
“Where do we stand now?”
“Where we always should have been,” Sir Rylan said with a nod. “Allies.”
They clasped forearms.
“Forgive me for ever doubting you,” Rylan said.
“There is nothing to forgive,” Branford replied. “You see the light now—that is all that is important. Edgar has shown his true colors. He will lose followers who had always supported him before. To interfere with a royal bloodline…”
Branford glanced at me and then at Lady Suzette.
“Did you find it?” he asked. Lady Suzette nodded. “What was in it?”
Lady Suzette held a small pouch in her hands, and I recognized it as the herb bag Janet used when making tea for me.
“There is willow bark and ginger,” Suzette said, “which would likely not cause any issue by themselves and would help with any pain Queen Alexandra might have felt in the Women’s Room. But this”—she held up a small, feathery, dried set of leaves—“this is hemlock and quite deadly in large amounts. In smaller doses, it will kill a child before it can begin to grow inside of its mother.”
Branford stepped out behind me as I felt myself begin to swoon. His arms pulled me against his chest.
“She was killing our…our children?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Branford replied.
“She knew she was doing this?”
“Yes,” he said again.
My stomach churned again as I tried to understand what had happened during this day. At first, I had thought my worst fear was going to come to pass—that Branford would renounce me to take Whitney’s hand. Now I had discovered my own handmaid had been part of the plot to make it happen. I could not focus enough on the thoughts inside my head to know what to make of them.
“I will never allow anything like this to happen again,” Branford said softly. He turned my face toward him and crouched down to be eye level with me. “Never again. I am truly sorry you saw any of this.”
Branford stood tall as he spoke to Sir Rylan with words that I did not hear. I could only nod, my mind still trying to understand what was happening around me. One of my only friends had betrayed me—willingly and knowingly—for years. I had been letting her destroy Branford’s children with every cup from her hand I drank.
I felt quite sick.
“Come, my queen,” I heard Branford say softly against my cheek. “Let us retire to our rooms. You need your rest.”
“She was…she was my friend…”
Branford wrapped his arms around my waist as he pulled me backwards against him.
“She lied to you,” he replied.
I looked into his eyes, and they were still solid green gems.
“I believed her.”
“I know.” He touched the edge of my jaw. “I did not see her for what she was either. She slipped past my senses and got close to you.”