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Like an eel eluding the net meant to catch it, one of Sarah’s letters reached the Queen. Abigail wasn't sure how it had happened. Perhaps it had been an especially taxing day, holding the Queen’s hair as she vomited. Perhaps Sarah had bribed one of the servants to hold the letter back from Abigail's daily perusal. Whatever had happened, Abigail came to the Queen’s bedchamber one day and was confronted with a scene from one of her old nightmares: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, attending the Queen in perfect tranquility, as if she had always been there. The tiny sound of Abigail’s foot hitting the doorframe was enough to alert Sarah, even as the Queen snoozed on, lost in her own little world of grief, dreaming of rabbits. The cousins eyed each other for a moment before Sarah smiled, sweetly wry. “Good morning, Abigail. How are you?” A breath. Don't let her see you sweat. Abigail smiled back, calling forth her disused sincerity. “Why, Sarah! I'm astonished that you were able to come in here, for all your transgressions.” Sarah cast down her eyes. “The Queen, in her immense generosity, has chosen to forgive me.” “Has she?” Abigail looked at the Queen, who was just beginning to wake up again. For a moment, with Sarah’s hand on the top of her head, she smiled. But then Sarah relinquished her grip and she remembered herself. “Your highness,” Abigail began to say. “Mrs. Morley, what would you like to do today?” “I'd like to ride with you, Mrs. Freeman,” said the Queen. “Abigail, you know, does not ride with me.” “But you have never asked me to -!” The both of them ignored her. Abigail seethed. She had gone too far to be pushed back now. *Despite the Queen’s bravado, of course she could not ride with Sarah, even if she had truly wished to. Abigail hardly needed to lift a hand to scuttle their plans. Besides, as glad as the Queen was to have Sarah back, she still did not quite trust her, which was only to be expected. “She is a viper,” Abigail murmured as she brushed the Queen’s hair. “I hope for your sake that she does not harm you again, your highness.” The Queen raised her gaze at Abigail, her dark, haunted eyes housing a more shrewd expression than usual. “How does one guard against vipers, dearest one?” “Let their poison kill them,” Abigail said and leaned down to place a kiss on the Queen’s forehead. “But I can see that she has brought some life into your eyes. I can’t begrudge her that.” “Can’t you?” The Queen frowned. “Then Sarah isn’t working hard enough, it seems.” *In her anger for having been exiled from court, Sarah had taken to writing bawdy verse about the Queen and Abigail, and disseminating them on the streets. Perhaps the company of whores and cutthroats that had rescued her from her tumble from her horse had helped her along, but however it had happened, Abigail personally thought the whole thing to be poorly done, especially for one who called herself a lady. She decided to bring up the subject of the verses when they were playing Pope Joan together. The game took more concentration than whist, and as a result, the Queen had already abandoned the field to Sarah and Abigail, who were locked into deadly combat. “Cousin,” Abigail said sweetly, “I had lately read some verse that was attributed to you, but I cannot believe you could have penned such doggerel.” “Indeed?” Sarah said, not raising her eyes from her cards. “You are right that I do not tend to write doggerel.” “What’s this?” said the Queen with a waking snort. “You’ve been writing nasty letters again, Sarah?” “I haven’t,” Sarah said. She tilted her head so that her scar was visible even in the dim candlelight. There was something cold and unforgiving in her gaze, but Abigail held it, refusing to accept defeat and look away. “Well, I’m glad that’s resolved,” said the Queen with a yawn. “Dear, my leg’s aching --” Both Abigail and Sarah stood to attention, but it was Abigail who came forward with a smile. She was still the favourite. She would attend to the Queen. *It was a beautiful spring day -- hardly even drizzling -- and Abigail walked energetically through a hedge maze, looking for Sarah. It had been one of the Queen’s whims that they should take a meal out-of-doors and Abigail had indulged her. She did not want Sarah to drip poison into the Queen’s ear about her, and so had suggested the two of them take a walk inside the hedge maze. She was astonished when Sarah accepted. They had taken but two steps into the maze when Sarah seemed to melt into the greenery, leaving a mocking laugh trailing behind her. Mind inflamed, Abigail pursued her and became hopelessly lost. She cursed her foolishness -- her haste -- when suddenly she collided with the object of her search.Sarah was prepared. She pulled a blindfold over Abigail’s eyes with a triumphant laugh and took hold her waist. “Let me lead you,” she said, her breath warm against Abigail’s neck. “If you kill me, the Queen will have your head,” she warned Sarah, even as her heart beat hard against her chest. “That would be fine, if you were dead.” “I tried to be good to you --” “When?” Sarah snapped, her hands tightening around Abigail’s waist. “Presumptuous cousin, you do not know how the cycles of favour and disdain go. You think you are at the top and will always remain so? Think again.” It was so dark, under the blindfold. It seemed as dark as Sarah’s imaginings, of the things she had accused the Queen and Abigail of doing. Abigail was being led deeper and deeper into the maze, and she had to make it stop. She dug her heels into the rain-softened turf and tugged off the blindfold. Sarah pouted. “Spoilsport.” “Kneel down,” Abigail snapped. Sarah’s eyes widened and it seemed that she would refuse. But at the very last moment, she made an awkward sort of bow -- and slipped, rather than knelt down. She lifted up her head, brow raised. She was still very beautiful, and still very proud. When Abigail slapped her, the flush in her cheek only added to both. “Do not think I will allow you to act here unimpeded,” Abigail said with gritted teeth. She took a handful of Sarah’s dark, curling hair and jerked it upwards. “If you wish to remain here, dearest cousin, you will have to make yourself my favourite. And I am not so forgiving as the Queen.” Sarah looked at her for a moment with wide, disbelieving eyes. Then she smiled, with her teeth bared. “What do you ask of me, cousin? Do you wish for me to eat your cunt?” Abigail took a breath to steady herself. “Go on, then. Show me how skilled your tongue is. Perhaps that time at the whorehouse improve your technique.”“I didn’t need the whorehouse to learn that,” Sarah replied. She tore through Abigail’s undergarments like some kind of animal, losing patience at the lower petticoat and stealing a small knife that Abigail kept in her pockets underneath her panniers. She cut through the fine silks and linens of Abigail’s shift to come to flesh at last. “If you were truly as wanton as the ballads say, you would’ve worn less to be fucked, my dear.” “You wrote those ballads,” Abigail said, outraged. “And you are ruining my foundations.” But still she gasped when Sarah’s fingers pressed against her slit, and groaned when Sarah’s tongue joined it. Sarah, for all her airs and graces, ate one’s cunt as coarsely as any whore, and Abigail told her so with considerable relish. If her cousin saw fit to pinch her black and blue in revenge, so be it. The tight, hot feeling of pleasure built and built until it was nigh-unbearable. Abigail needed more -- more places she could touch and be touched, she needed to be kissed, needed to pulled apart and pushed together. She collapsed into the ground, letting the skirt of her dress fall over Sarah. When the other woman pushed it aside, Abigail kissed her roughly, smearing the juice from her mouth across both her face and her own. There was a thin thread of spittle that seemed to connect her mouth to Sarah’s, before they untangled themselves. Abigail’s mood soured quickly and when Sarah reached for her again, Abigail batted her away. “Don’t touch me,” she said sharply. “Don’t -- I can’t stand it.”“Prude,” Sarah replied, licking at her thumb. “Set me to rights, we’ve neglected the Queen for long enough,” Abigail said sharply. And to her considerable surprise, Sarah did exactly that. They wandered out of the hedge maze arm in arm, the very picture of cousinly affection. When they reached the Queen, now awake and considerably roused at her seeming abandonment, it was Sarah who soothed her ruffled feathers and whispered in her ear. Abigail stood off a little ways, feeling as unneeded as she had the first time she had seen the Queen and Sarah as they really were. There was simply no room for her now. “Abigail, stop dawdling,” Sarah said, reaching for her. She grabbed Abigail’s hand and pulled her towards them -- she was far stronger than she looked. “The Queen has a request for you, don’t you, dearest Morley?” The Queen, who looked neither vague nor aggrieved for the first time in a long time, smiled. “I hope this will be a good era for the both of you, and for me. I have fought, you know, against many who would wish to push this country back into the past. Because my body is weak, and because I am a woman, they said it would be better if my brother-in-law should rule, before, or my pretender-brother, after. But I am an Englishwoman, and I am the Queen! God has made me so. If you two are to serve me, truly, than I -- oh! Bother, I’ve forgotten the rest of what I was going to say. Freeman, help me up. You too, Abigail.” Abigail helped the Queen up, and Sarah took up her other side. Together, they marched towards the palace, the little footmen and servants scattering before them as the heavens cracked open at last and in poured the rain.