The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(30)

Isabeau didn’t look round. “No. In daylight there are tutors and governesses and attendants and Hawiz, and they will tell me I have to be sensible for my sister’s sake.” Shadows appeared in the corners of Isabeau’s mouth, as if she was trying not to cry again.

They went down one stair, through three darkened rooms, across a short stretch of courtyard, and finally up a third stair, to a door that was closed. A guard stood before it, leaning on a spear. Isabeau lifted her chin and marched up to him.

“Monsieur, I must speak to the sick person within. I am sent by my sister, the duchess.”

The guard looked very doubtful and did not stir from his place. “Forgive me, Demoiselle, but I have orders to let no one pass, save the physician and the priest.”

“And me. For I am the duchess’s sister.”

The guard looked anxious. “Well, no. I should hate for the duchess to behead me if any harm were to befall you, Demoiselle.”

“No harm will befall me, I tell you—”

“What is that?” asked Elesbed, urgently.

They both fell silent.

A muffled voice sounded from within the room. It was speaking Breton, strange snatches of words. “Let me go. Did I go? Where am I? The king—who is the king? He shall have a new bride. I am the herald. I remember.” The voice cracked, choked, fell silent.

Even the guard was listening intently.

Isabeau whispered, “What king?”

“Look!” cried Elesbed. Beneath the door glowed a light. Not fire—streaming bright daylight, though it was the blackest hour of the night. The guard made the sign of the Cross.

“The master of the Lost Lands,” said the muffled voice. “Where am I? I must go, I must—” The voice broke off and there was a heart-rending scream. A shadow passed across the pure daylight pouring from beneath the door.

“There is someone in there with him!” cried Isabeau.

“No,” muttered the guard. “No—he was alone, the door locked.”

“Go away!” screamed the sick man. “Get you gone; you have no power—none—” Another scream and a great thud.

“Open the door!” cried Isabeau, and this time the guard obeyed, with trembling hands. But as the door swung open, the light behind it winked out. They darted in to find only the baffling darkness and the stranger prone by the fire.

Next moment, torchlight bounded up the stairs, borne by a servant, with a tall man just behind. He’d probably been in the courtyard and heard the shouting. The tall man stopped short in the doorway, taking in the sight of the unconscious stranger lying facedown on the floor with Isabeau on one side and Elesbed on the other, trying unsuccessfully to turn him over.

“I should have known,” said this man, sounding exasperated. “You are relieved,” he said to the guard very coldly. He dispatched his servant for the physician and a new guard, picked up the unconscious stranger, and put him back into bed. Then he turned a gimlet eye on Elesbed and Isabeau. “Come on,” he told them both. “March. Don’t think I won’t carry you.”

Elesbed quailed. But Isabeau merely crossed her arms and said, “Where?”

“Where do you think?” said the man, with impatience, and finally Elesbed recognized him in the deceptive torchlight. The baron of Avaugour, Isabeau’s elder brother. “Back to the duchess.”

Isabeau finally looked remorseful. But with dragging steps and many looks back, she followed Avaugour down the spiraling stairs. “You too,” said Henri to Elesbed without turning around. “Now, child.”

Elesbed bit her lip and came after them. Only Butter was untroubled. She trotted down the stairs, purring loudly and trying to trip them all.



* * *





Anne wanted to be cozy in her bed with a hot brick at her feet. Instead she was sitting in her chair before a remorseful Isabeau while Elesbed effaced herself in the shadows near the door. Henri had delivered her runaway and slipped out again. Presumably to find his own bed, with a hot brick to hand. Anne sighed. “Isabeau, what possessed you to try to visit this man in the middle of the night?”

Isabeau said, “In stories, sometimes the korriganed change in the dark and show their true nature. I thought he might have been lying to us about being a man.” Anne gave her a look of pronounced skepticism. Isabeau hurried into more speech: “He talked! About a king, and the master of the Lost Lands, and he told someone to go away, but no one was in the room, except that we saw strange shadows moving. What does that mean?”

Anne was faintly disturbed. “Did you also hear him speak?” she asked Elesbed. The orphan girl, her cat between her feet, was wearing the expression of someone trying her best to blend with the tapestries. Elesbed swallowed and said, with unexpected crispness, “The man said, The king—who is the king? He shall have a new bride. I am the herald. I remember. But I didn’t know the word ‘herald.’?” She pronounced it carefully.

Isabeau said, helpfully, “A herald is—”

“Not now,” said Anne and they both, blessedly, fell silent. “We shall ask the stranger what he meant. If he is awake and can speak. For now I should like very much for us all to go to—”

She broke off. She’d seen the kerchief that Isabeau had wrapped about herself over her robe. It was a pretty, dreamy thing, blue with embroidered forget-me-nots. She whispered, “Where did you get that?” Gooseflesh prickled her arms.