The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(49)

She woke still crying, with the new day but a single egg-white brushstroke on the horizon. She crawled sweating from bed, left Isabeau sleeping, and drank some cider, watered down, with a little of last night’s bread. It settled her stomach, but the fear would not leave her.

Was Maximilien even now coming to her? Were the korriganed here, watching, mocking, unseen? Should she yield to France? She felt trapped in the castle, as though the siege of years ago had never ended. She felt trapped in her own skin.

I shall go riding. I will take Jonquil into the water-meadow and clear my head. A duchess does not hide in her chambers, afraid of shadows, or of the future.

Of course she could not merely set off for the stable. An escort must assemble. De Rieux, hearing of her preparations, thought she should stay indoors, considering recent events. With exasperation Anne told him that she was going with a guard and furthermore did not mean to start living like a toad under a stone. He said he was going to ride with her, armed. “Naturally,” she said. “If we might get off before midday?”

At least Isabeau was asleep still. Oh, Anne thought, as a vast peacocking crowd assembled in the courtyard, this would all be so much easier, so much more straightforward, if her castle was not roiling with unfathomable enchantments and Maximilien had already landed at Saint-Malo.



* * *





Louis of Orléans had gone riding at first light, unable to sleep or think or do anything worthwhile. It was with a certain resignation that he saw the duchess’s party come after him into the water-meadow. Why would she not haunt his waking hours, as she had haunted that night’s fragmented dreams?

Quelling the urge to disappear between the trees, he spurred across to her, bowed from the saddle, and said, with some vexation, “Highness, did no one try to make you stay safe in the castle?”

Her face had a fine-drawn look under the maquillage. “Certainly they did. Jean thinks I shall be snatched out of the meadow like a rabbit when the hawk stoops. But I wished to ride.”

De Rieux was on her other side, shooting Louis dark looks. He said, “Do you jest about it, my daughter?”

“No,” said Anne shortly. “But we are here now, and I have you to keep the korriganed at bay.” She bit her lip, effectively distracting him, smiled at them both, and changed the subject. “Remember how it was here before? The hunting and picnicking? Father loved this place.”

“We all loved it,” Louis answered. “Poor Francis.” Francis and his elder daughter were alike in some ways, but Francis had been sweet-tempered, and there was something implacable in Anne’s face, for all her delicacy.

Anne had not taken her eyes from his. He felt his breathing alter.

De Rieux cleared his throat. “Orléans, I should like you to know that—”

Anne looked away abruptly and said to Louis, “Did they tell you how Father died?”

“I heard—a fall from his horse.”

Anne’s mare took a sly nip at Louis’s courser, and the duchess paused to recall her to her duty. They were riding in dappled shade, so he could not read her expression. De Rieux made an exasperated noise. Anne said, “Yes. After the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier—Father changed. He had given up somehow. He was coming to Isabeau and me at Coiron, when his horse shied. He fell badly. De Rieux picked him up broken and brought him to us.” She threw her guardian a warm glance, though the down-sweep of her lashes shadowed her cheek and there was darkness there that the tints could not hide. “He made Jean promise to act as our guardian, and he made me promise to”—she hesitated—“care for Brittany.”

“As he himself could not?” Louis was startled to feel the undimmed heat of four-year-old anger. How often had he tried to stop Francis putting his faith in weak men? In his opinion, Jean de Rieux was such a one, and Anne trusted him as her father had done.

Anne’s voice turned wintry. “My father was a good and generous man who loved his people.”

“Yes, he was. Though he took bad advice and it got worse toward the end.” Louis bit his tongue. He had not meant to reminisce with her, still less to fight with her. He meant to urge Charles of France’s suit. That he would like to hold her again, to speak to her without restraint; that he regretted that her father’s fecklessness had put her in an impossible situation—none of those things was important.

But he found himself asking, after a pause: “Isabeau was there when he died?”

The anger left her voice as quickly as it had come. “Yes. I should have sent her out. Not let her see. But both of us were clinging to him. I couldn’t bear to send her away.”

“I am sorry.”

“I am sorry they dragged you off the field and made you prisoner.”

Louis said nothing. He could almost feel De Rieux watching them, bristling. The worst days of both their lives lay heavy between them. As though in some kind of acknowledgment, Anne offered him a truth. “Isabeau is angry that I must marry and leave her.”

Did Anne accept, then, that she was soon to marry? Cautiously, he said, “You could take Isabeau with you.”

“Pack her up like baggage? No. I am not so cruel as to take her from everything she loves except for me. Besides, I want her to know her own—” She broke off.

“Highness?”

She shook her head, smiling a little. “Stop staring into my face as though you cared what I was thinking. You have nearly tempted me into maudlin confidences.”