“What?” Rachel spun to face him, struggling to process what he was saying. “That’s impossible. I used sage, parsley, rosemary, nothing dangerous?—”
“Look at the pattern,” he said, pointing toward the writhing nobles with hands that shook like autumn leaves. “There weren’t enough of your herbs, so not everyone was served. Only those who received the dishes with your herb garnish suffered. The royal table...” His gaze flicked to where King Edward stood unharmed, where Queen Elizabeth pressed a protective hand to her rounded belly, where Lady Jacquetta watched the chaos with eyes like winter storms. “They are unscathed.”
The realization hit her like a physical blow, driving the air from her lungs and leaving her gasping.
“They were targeted.”
Someone had replaced her carefully chosen herbs with something deadly—but only on the dishes meant for certain nobles, as if they’d been specifically targeted. The royal portions had been left untouched, ensuring that the highest-ranking nobles would survive to bear witness to the treachery.
And to point their fingers at the obvious culprits.
“Foxglove,” she breathed, recognizing the symptoms even as her mind recoiled from the implications. The irregular heartbeat, the vomiting, the neurological symptoms—it was classic digitalis poisoning. “Someone substituted foxglove for the sage. The leaves look similar enough to fool anyone not expecting... oh God, how much did they use?”
“Enough,” Tristan said grimly, his face carved from stone and bitter understanding.
“Enough to kill, but not so much as to affect those who matter most. Someone who knew exactly which dishes would go where, who could access the herbs after we prepared them, who wanted to ensure the right people lived to see us blamed.”
Through the chaos, she caught sight of Guy de Montague. He stood near one of the unaffected tables, his handsome face arranged in an expression of shocked horror that would have won awards for its sincerity. But she saw the satisfaction in his pale eyes, the cold triumph of someone whose carefully laid plans had come to fruition.
He’d done this. Somehow, during those few moments in the kitchen, he’d managed to switch the herbs on specific dishes—just enough to cause a deadly spectacle without endangering the royal family or his own position at court.
“Seize them!” King Edward’s voice thundered across the hall with the authority of someone accustomed to absolute obedience. His face was flushed with rage, his dark eyes blazing with fury as he pointed toward the kitchen entrance. “Seize the traitors who have brought poison to our table!”
Guards moved toward them with the inexorable certainty of doom, their hands on sword hilts as they closed the distance between accusation and arrest. Tristan tensed beside her, his hand dropping instinctively toward his own blade before he caught himself—drawing steel in the royal presence would mean immediate death, regardless of guilt or innocence.
“Your Grace!” Guy’s voice cut through the chaos—smooth, cultured, dripping with false concern as he stepped forward from the crowd of panicking nobles. His timing was perfect, his delivery flawless, his handsome face arranged in an expression of shocked horror that spoke of either tremendous acting ability or genuine psychopathy.
“Surely this treachery comes as no surprise? Did I not warn you about Tristan de Valois? How his disgrace ran deeper than mere theft? That a man who would steal from his king’s coffers might stoop to any villainy?”
His gaze found Rachel across the hall, and she saw the cold satisfaction in his eyes as he delivered what he clearly intended as a killing blow.
“And now he brings foreign witches to poison your very table! Mark how the strange woman introduced these... innovations... to your feast. What Christian soul decorates food with leaves and calls it advancement? What manner of sorcery guides hands that turn nourishment to poison?”
“Indeed,” came a new voice—cultured, feminine, carrying the kind of authority that made even kings listen. Lady Jacquetta had risen from her seat at the high table, her sharp eyes fixed on Rachel with an intensity that felt like being examined under a magnifying glass.
“What manner of knowledge allows one to transform harmless herbs into instruments of death? Such skill speaks of... unusual... training.”
The word ‘unusual’ carried enough weight to crush a small building, and Rachel felt every gaze in the hall settling on her like a physical force.Foreign witch. Poisoner. Wielder of unnatural knowledge.The words that would see her burned at the stake before the sun set.
But Queen Elizabeth had remained silent throughout the accusations, and when she finally spoke, her voice carried the serene authority of someone who’d survived decades of court intrigue by learning to see beneath surface appearances.
“The pattern of the poisoning is... curious,” she said, her pale eyes moving thoughtfully between the dying nobles and the unaffected royal table. “That the royal table should be spared while others suffer. One might wonder if this speaks to supernatural knowledge... or merely careful planning by those who knew which dishes would be served where.”
The implication hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre. Rachel caught the slight emphasis on ‘careful planning,’ the way Elizabeth’s gaze flicked meaningfully toward Guy de Montague before returning to her with something that might have been sympathy—or warning.
The queen had seen what Rachel had seen—the impossibility of the poison pattern, the surgical precision with which only certain dishes had been contaminated. But recognizing the truth and proving it were entirely different matters, especially when the alternative explanation involved witchcraft and treason.
“I didn’t,” Rachel whispered, but her voice was lost in the chaos of nobles fleeing and guards shouting and the terrible sounds of the dying. The words felt inadequate, pathetic in the face of such overwhelming evidence. “I didn’t do this.”
“The herbs were pure when we prepared them,” Tristan said, his voice carrying clearly across the hall despite its deadly quiet. “I watched every step of the preparation. If poison found its way into the dishes, ’twas added after they left our hands.”
Guy’s laugh was sharp as broken glass, cutting through the air with crystalline cruelty. “Of course the traitor knight defends his witch. Birds of a feather, as they say. Both cast out from decent society, both bearing grudges against those who exposed their true natures.”
“Curious,” Lady Jacquetta said again, her gaze never leaving Rachel’s face. There was something predatory in those calculating eyes, a recognition that went far beyond suspicion into territory that made Rachel’s skin crawl with terror. “That one so young should possess a knowledge of herbs both beneficial and deadly. Such expertise usually takes years to acquire... unless one has access to... accelerated... learning.”
The way she said ‘accelerated’ made Rachel want to run screaming from the hall. There was knowledge in those eyes, an understanding that cut through centuries and saw straight to the impossible truth of who and what she was.
Time traveler. Witch. Wielder of knowledge that wouldn’t exist for another five hundred years.
