The walls of the women's prison were stained with the damp of the rainy season. Edna Mark sat on a narrow cot, her back against the concrete. She no longer wore the lace or the coral beads. She wore a faded yellow jumpsuit, her hair cropped short and greying.
She held a small piece of charcoal she had scavenged from the kitchen. On the wall of her cell, she had drawn a sprawling, intricate tree. It wasn't a family tree. It was a map of the palace.
A guard tapped on the bars. "Visitor, Edna. A man from London. He says his name is Richard."
Edna didn't move. She didn't even blink.
"Tell the man from London that the Queen Mother is not receiving guests today," she said, her voice still carrying the cold, sharp authority of the palace. "Tell him that he is twenty-seven years too late for the coronation."
The guard sighed and walked away.
Edna returned to her drawing. She traced the lines of the West Wing, the Great Hall, and the secret passages she had used to move her pawons. In her mind, she was still there. She could still hear the drums. She could still feel the weight of the gold.
She had lied the family into disaster, yes. She had lost her brother, her son, and her freedom. But as she stared at the concrete wall, a small, dark smile played on her lips. For seventeen years, she had made the world believe a lie. For seventeen years, she had been more powerful than a King.
To Edna Mark, that was worth the thirty years of silence that lay ahead.