Thirty-Five
Thirty-Five
They all sat waiting for me in the vast drawing room: the Queen. Her son, the Prince of Wales, who’d just arrived, looking
particularly miserable. Her servant John Brown, who grew more faithful by the day; her secretary Ponsonby; her ladies Harriet
and Mrs. Phipps and a handful of other attendants. They sat spread across the room, the cheerful mood from the ballroom festivities
dashed. The other guests who’d danced with us had already left. This was a more intimate gathering—one of the Queen’s inner
circle.
Here, secrets would be shared.
I wondered when Bertie had received his summons to Balmoral. I hadn’t seen him since Mulgrave, hadn’t bothered to contact
him. Now stiff, with his lips curled in indignation, Bertie sat on the ornate chaise on the wall farthest from me, next to
the fireplace with its marble mantels and its black slate hearth. Mrs. Phipps and Harriet were attached at the hip on the
leather love seat, much to the latter’s chagrin. Harriet kept her eyes on the white ceiling medallion, her fingers intertwined
on her lap.
The Queen stood in front of the row of windows lining the walls—the centermost of five. With the curtains drawn I could see the Highland woods under the moonlight. The stars streamed into the room, casting light upon John Brown, who stood next to the bust of the Queen’s husband, black as her robes.
No one spoke as I passed a fretful Ponsonby and walked through the doors.
It was the Queen who was to always speak first. A rule that endlessly bothered me. But this time, I was curious as to what
she was going to say.
“Before I summon the priest to commence your wedding, there are a few loose ends to tie up,” the Queen said, her hands behind
her back as she gazed out the window. “Bring it out, Harriet.”
“Go on.” Mrs. Phipps nudged her in the ribs, drawing a pained yelp from her daughter’s mouth. She narrowed her eyes, biting
her lip, and for a moment, it looked as if she might defy her mother and the Queen. But then the most malevolent glare from
Mrs. Phipps had her jumping to her feet. She reached inside her jacket pocket and threw it upon the carpeted floor.
The Queen of Spades. Its plain black and white didn’t seem to suit the carpets colorful spread of primary colors.
“It has not gone unnoticed that you and Sally have been gallivanting around England,” Queen Victoria said. “Now tell me the
truth. Is Sally the cause of recent misfortunes?”
Harriet buried her head in her hand.
I waited.
“It’s true,” she whined, her voice muffled by her palms as my spectators gasped. “She was behind everything. She destroyed
them all: Mr. Bellamy, the former editor of the London Illustrated News . William Bambridge, the royal photographer. William McCoskry and even the Forbeses...” She sniffed, brushing her fingers
through her hair, and I could tell from her wide, bloodshot eyes that she was truly distressed. That didn’t make the betrayal
sting any less.
“The Forbeses,” the Queen repeated. “Fine men, who brought you here from the jungles of Africa out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“Oh, did they?” My laughter shocked all in the room. The Queen glared at me, her small body rigid. “And as for Harriet, I
wonder how willing she’ll be to tell you her role in these supposed ‘crimes’?”
“Quiet, you evil little wench!” Mrs. Phipps spat as Harriet whimpered and cried on the couch next to her. “Harriet had the
wits to catch on to your little schemes in time before you could ruin any more lives!”
Such praise would have drawn a cry of joy from Harriet’s lips if they weren’t based on lies. As Harriet hid behind her hands,
Bertie let out a mocking laugh.
“You’re all mad.” He sat up. “Sally wouldn’t do those things, you know that. You know that and yet even still, you try to
frame her all because I expressed my affections.”
“Affections!” Mrs. Phipps, thoroughly scandalized, made a face and covered her mouth. “Affections for this vicious little
African girl?”
“You try to frame her all because I defied you, Mother!”
“Quiet!” Queen Victoria whipped around, the white train on her black bonnet twisting behind her. “Do not presume that you
know better than your queen.”
Bertie hushed up, but he still boiled where he sat.
“The girl is guilty of heinous acts,” said John Brown, only infuriating Bertie further.
“And what is your queen guilty of?” I took a defiant step forward. “What heinous acts has she committed? Shall we ask her?”
The Scotsman gaped at me as I spoke, his disbelief clear as he whipped his head from one side of the room to the other, his
little braided ponytail flailing with him.
“What did she whisper to you, Brown, before you took out your revolver and shot Dalton Sass in the head?”
Mrs. Phipps and Harriet gasped. Surely it couldn’t be true, Harriet’s face begged me. But the Queen and her servant returned my steely glare without remorse. While Ponsonby shifted guiltily on his feet, Bertie turned to his mother.
“What did you whisper, Mother? Before Brown killed Sass?”
“She gave the order to kill,” I answered for him. “And her manservant obliged. All because no one was to know about how you
curated and controlled the children you called Wards of the Empire.”
Queen Victoria’s clear blue eyes widened, but my hands had already found the letter in my cape. “October 22, 1855. In a letter
to her precious Duleep Singh, she wrote her confession: Do not speak of the past. I’ve spoken many words to my captains as they search the far-flung regions of the world for treasures
to bring back to me. What Sir John Login told you was only half the story. The ‘Wards of the Empire.’ ”
“Stop it!” The Queen clenched her frail fists, looking to John Brown for some kind of help, but Brown looked back at her,
paralyzed in his confusion.
“ I say these words ,” I continued, my heart beating fast because the time had finally come. My hands were wet and shaking, but the words slipped
from my lips without fail. “I say these words because a line must be drawn. There are children who possess the potential to lead the empire into a new
stage of enlightenment. On the other hand, there are those who would only validate the closed-minded fools in the world who
believed that the Indian and the African and the Native can only remain savages.”
Bertie stood, appalled. “The letter has the Queen’s royal seal. Mama? What is this?”
Gritting her teeth, the Queen turned back toward the window, placing a hand upon the square pane. “So my Duleep has betrayed
me....”
“I searched for the letter and took it myself. Do not hurt him like you hurt Aarush.” My lips trembled. “Like you killed Ade.”
“What?” Bertie yelled while Mrs. Phipps gripped her daughter’s arm.
John Brown’s growl could have frightened a bear. It certainly frightened me though I stood my ground valiantly. “You dare accuse the Queen of such horrid things—”
“She has revealed her true nature herself.” I waved the letter. The rest I recited from memory. “And what would have happened if that boy Aarush would have arrived in England with you? If he would have been presented to
me in court alongside you? With his reportedly boorish ways and uncivil manners, he would have only proven those right who
insist that the savage is but a brute that cannot change. That the Black cannot be assimilated. At such a delicate moment,
such a mistake cannot be made. The East India Company has been given its orders to find the proper children. Those that are
discarded are but a sacrifice for the future.”
“Enough,” said the Queen over her shoulder, her voice strained. “That’s enough, Sally.”
My throat hurt. I felt like I could barely breathe and yet I was gulping in air greedily as if I’d run here. I have been running
toward this moment. All my life. Running toward this very scene, knowing it could be the end of me.
The Queen faced me, her black mourning dress fanned out across the carpet. She placed one hand upon the other, proper and
regal. The Queen of Ruin.
“Some children are not fit to be in your position, Sally. And what matters more? The lives of those children? Or the immortal
life of my empire?”
I nearly crushed the letter in my hand as my body began to quake, the blood rushing from my head to my limbs. All of me was
ready to batter this murderer who stood unapologetically in front of me. “And so she confesses,” I whispered. “And so she
confesses.”
“Confesses to what ?” Mrs. Phipps stood. “It’s you who should be confessing, you witch. My daughter has told you everything!”
“I haven’t.” Whimpering, Harriet rubbed her long brown braid over her shoulder. “I... I haven’t told you everything, Your Majesty.”
Harriet and I looked upon each other, our eyes locked for what felt like an eternity. Her mother gripped her sleeve and she
tore it away, first sliding to the edge of the love seat. Then, with what ounce of courage she had left, standing, and stepping
toward where she’d thrown the Queen of Spades. She stared at the Black Queen, her shoulders slumped, before she lifted her
head and faced the White Queen.
“Everything I told you that Sally did. She could not have done it without me. I aided her in everything.”
Mrs. Phipps blinked. “Wh-What?” She turned to Bertie, then to Ponsonby. “What did you say, Harriet?”
“I betrayed the Crown willingly. And I did it for Sally, whose intelligence and courage, I freely admit, far exceed mine.
I am nothing next to her.”
“Why?” Queen Victoria demanded, her voice cold as the blue in her eyes.
Harriet answered, “Because I hate you, Mother.” She said it without flinching, looking directly into her mother’s eyes. Mrs.
Phipps grasped the pearls around her neck. “I hate you so much I can barely see straight.”
Harriet began crying again. Mrs. Phipps gasped and slid further into the love seat, her hands sliding against the fabric.
“This isn’t—this isn’t—” And she turned to the Queen. “Don’t listen to her, Your Majesty. We, the Phipps family, are forever
your faithful servants.”
“And yet I would gladly betray the Queen if it meant I could see you suffer, Mother.”
Harriet’s words drew a wail of tragedy from Mrs. Phipps’s lips. It wasn’t what I had planned. But it was a fitting enough
punishment of the woman I’d long wanted to see suffer. Like her daughter, Mrs. Phipps began to cry into her hands.
“I’m ruined,” she bawled. “My family name is tarnished!”
“What in the bloody hell is going on here?” Bertie whispered to himself in disbelief before striding across the room to me.
I let him snatch the letter from my grip and he read it out loud to its completion. I took it back from him after he stumbled
back and fell upon the floor.
“What am I to do?” Bertie said, his legs spread out over the floor. “Who am I to believe?”
“Even if both tales are true, Albert, your choice is clear.” Queen Victoria lifted her chin and glared down at her son, lifeless
on the ground. “I am your mother. And I am the Queen of England. What Her Majesty says is the law of this world.”
“And I am Omoba Ina: Princess of the Egbado.” I felt all the weight of my ancestors behind me as I declared it. My chest swelled,
whatever fear that was in me dead and gone. I lifted my chin to match her arrogance. “And I will make you suffer for what
you’ve done to me.”
The windows burst. Everyone screamed and covered their faces. John Brown lunged for the Queen, but he was thwarted by the
impact of a body crashing into him. Hastily packing the letter away into my cape, I lowered my other hand from my face to
see Rui with his gun pointed at Brown’s skull.
“We will make you all pay,” he said before pulling the trigger.