The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(109)

She whispered, “The unicorn came. I had to go. I made Gralon Meur promise to send you here if I lived or take you home if I died. Forgive me, forgive me.”

Slowly, Louis answered, “He did send me, as you see. He opened a door in his own house and there you were, as I see you now. I do not understand traveling in these Lost Lands. Although I will admit to unseemly fury. I woke and you had gone alone to win a kingdom.”

Anne crossed the room to him, and saw the light in his eyes. “I am sorry,” she whispered.

“Do you apologize for such a victory? Why? I do not begrudge it, though I would have liked to have been there.”

He put up a careful finger and traced it along her cheek. “Do you know how you glow now?” he said. “Like starlight in your skin. Is it from riding a unicorn?”

“It is the sorcery,” said Anne. “Moreau was the same. It sets light about you sometimes that isn’t there.”

She wondered if he would pull away.

“It is very beautiful,” he said only.

She tipped her face into his hand and he put his other arm around her. “I like this fashion of Keris,” he said into her ear. “An absence of layers.”

She drew away, and his hand dropped.

She said, “I am not—I will not give up sovereignty. Not even for love.”

He burst out laughing. “Do you think I am come to take the city away from you? They would not allow it. Why would you think I want you to give up sovereignty? It is what you were born for. The unicorn came for you; there is this light in your face.”

She was silent. Then she asked, “But what do you want, truly?”

He made an exasperated noise. “To let my Jeanne go to a convent forthwith; sainthood is the only thing she’s ever wanted. She’ll weep tears of gratitude and put all France right with God. Then I shall marry you, and lead your army, if you will have me. It is possible that France will object to my adding the duchy of Orléans to the crown of Armorica; that we will have to see. No matter. I shall take you to bed as often as you’ll let me, and we shall learn what this world holds for us, this world that you have changed forever. Is that enough, to begin with?”

When she stared at him, disbelieving, he shook her very gently. “Anne—I am not angry. You did what you must; it is in our blood. Has it not yet come through your head that it need not be a penance, being married? You were so willing for so long to yield up your very self, so long as your realm was saved, that you have utterly failed to notice that the case is altered. It is I coming suppliant, with a disputed dowry. If you marry me, you need not leave home. You need not yield sovereignty. You do need help, and I do not think—I very much do not think—that you are the kind who will like sleeping alone.”

His fingers traced clavicle and throat and shoulder; his hands were hot. “Anne,” he whispered, into the hollow of her throat. “I’ll have no one else.”

And because he was a conniving man, as were all born to his position, he kissed her, there in the privacy of the empty council-chamber, and sent white lightning through all her tired limbs.

“Oh, very well,” said Anne. She tried to sound resigned, but she could hardly breathe. “With an ironclad marriage-contract, and Keris our capital.”

“As you say,” he said, not looking up. Anne laughed suddenly with joy. “Would you even love me?” she whispered, into his hair.

“Until the end of my days. But didn’t you know?”

“I knew,” said Anne, and kissed him.





Chapter


36

    Marguerite of France had much to think of. The brave duchess, her younger sister, and her bastard brother were lost. Fallen out of the whole world in pursuit of Julien Moreau, and no one could find them. And Louis of Orléans with them. It was a tragedy.

But it was also very convenient.

The next in line to the duchy of Brittany was arguably the king of France himself. Marguerite’s father, in his foresight, had long ago approached the last scion of the Panthièvres, an ancient lady who boasted a dubious claim to the Breton throne after Anne and Isabeau. France had purchased that claim for a handsome sum. Now, with Anne and Isabeau dead, France was in a position to inherit and annex the duchy outright.

Marguerite thought they could placate Maximilien of Austria, who was currently fuming in Saint-Malo. They could offer Charles’s hand to Maximilien’s daughter, Margaret.

Tidy. Neat. Perfect.

She was sorry about the girls. Anne had deserved better, and Isabeau had been but a child. But truly it could not have fallen out better for France.

Naturally, the Bretons were displeased. Rumors shot up and down the length of the country—and surely all across the breadth of Christendom—that France had done away with the young duchess. But the rumors could be refuted. Naturally, they had witnesses to say that France had done nothing of the kind.

A week passed in a frenzy of letters, auguries, messengers. She and La Trémoille invited Maximilien of Austria to treat with His Majesty Charles of France, and he came with great ceremony, considerable hauteur. Whatever sickness had kept him in Ghent so long was quite gone. He was lean, decisive, angry. He too thought the duchess had been murdered.

They sat together in the great hall of the Guardhouse in Rennes, with the boards and trestles laid out for a council meeting, scribes and secretaries crowding the back of the room, councilors packing the table. The great men of two realms were glaring at each other. Well, Maximilien was glaring.