The Red Gown Witness

Beatrice did not answer the child.

She answered the court.

"The line needed stability," she said.

There it was.

Not denial.

Not grief.

A justification.

Rowan's guards moved closer to the doors. No one left the hall.

Beatrice lifted her chin. The small scar at her jaw whitened. "You all remember that winter. Rebellion at the gates. Fever in the servants' quarters. The treasury exposed. A newborn girl would have become a flag for every faction that wanted to rule through her. The princess was dying. The king was half-mad with loss. Rowan was away with the army. Someone had to protect the kingdom from being governed by a cradle."

"By stealing the cradle?" Rowan asked.

"By preventing civil war."

Mara stared at her. "You threw me away."

Beatrice's eyes flicked toward her, and for the first time the cruelty changed shape. Not softened. Never that. But something like old terror moved beneath it.

"I sent you where you would live," Beatrice said. "Had the factions found you, they would have cut you into banners before you could speak."

"You sent her to hunger," Rowan said.

"I sent money."

Madame Virelle gave a dry, broken laugh. Everyone turned.

The old seamstress stepped forward again, her hands clasped so tightly the knuckles shone. "No. You sent orders."

Beatrice's face sharpened. "Careful, old woman."

"I have been careful for fourteen years. It has cost enough."

Rowan nodded once.

A guard brought forth a narrow wooden case sealed with old wax. He placed it on a small table near the red gown. Rowan opened it and removed three things.

A page from a birth ledger.

A ring bearing Crown Princess Elianor's crest.

And a folded letter, brown at the edges.

Beatrice stared at the letter as if it were a blade.

Rowan unfolded it.

"This was written by Anne Finch before she died. She sent it to the royal chapel, where it was hidden by a priest too frightened to act and too guilty to burn it. In it she names the person who placed the living infant in her arms and ordered her to raise the child under another name."

Mara could hear her own breath.

Rowan read the final line aloud.

"Lady Beatrice Morn said the child must never return, for the kingdom had already learned to live without her."

Beatrice closed her eyes.