When the Queen tells the King that she thinks she has been poisoned, Carlos sets to discovering the truth. From the names of those who have an audience with him, he sees the name of Candamo, the court playwright. Then he cancels all the audiences except that one, and when Candamo goes to see him, Carlos tells him that he knows that he is also a doctor of the law. Candamo admoits to having studied law, but he only practised for a few months. Carlos knows that Candamo is an honest man, and what Carlos wants is for him to investigate and find out who may want the Queen dead. Then some of his courtiers come to tell him that the Queen has died.
The request of the King does not sit well with Candamo because whether he discovers the truth or not, he knows his fate is doomed. If he discovers the truth, he will uspet many people in court, which will mean the end of his career, and if he doesn't, he will upset the king, which will stop his royal favours. When she tells Catalina, his lover, she thinks that he agrees with the king and needs to find the truth, and he shouldn't think more about it.
Candamo hopes that the King has forgotten about his request, but eight days later he receives a letter from the king himself, and when he goes to see him, Charles is adamant that the queen was poisoned. After talking to the queen's physician, he realises that the doctors are lying and hiding things. It is true that the queen's doctor has reason to believe that María Luisa was poisoned, but his colleagues all tumbled down his arguments, and they threatened to go after him if he recants the diagnosis that they agreed to have.
After his interview with the king, Candamo realises that he has no option but obey. What he needs to know is about the poison, so he talks to the apothecary of the chemist's where he and other writers meet to discuss literature. The apothecary tells him that if the Queen was poisoned, the odds are that the posion was arsenic.
Then he goes to talk to Coella, the court painter, and he has to tell him about the request of the king, and what Candamo wants is to know if the noblemen near the queen have something to hide. A painter may hear things, and Coello agrees to help, and there are some of his fellow painters or disciples who are engaged to paint portraits of those in court. They will then report if they have learnt anything.
I am enjoying the book, not just about the investigation that Candamo is carryign out but the parts about the relationship between the king and queen in their marriage, and how they really loved each other.
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