The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(50)
“Who does not care what you are thinking? You are the duchess.”
She laughed. “They care what I do and what I say. It is not the same.” Perhaps she was jesting. But he heard the desolation in her voice. He thought again of how she’d let him hold her, thought that she, although surrounded by people, might understand the loneliness of the prisoner in a tower that he’d so recently been.
The first reply that came to mind was useless: Speak to me, then. What are you thinking? But she did not need his kindness, and what good would it do for her to lean on him? His unexpected, inconvenient desire, the vulnerability beneath her courage—both were dangerous.
He managed to say, with hectoring reasonableness, “Can’t you see the sensible course here, Highness? Don’t submit to Charles like a captive, and don’t defy the French like a madwoman. Negotiate for your sons.”
Her eyes flew to his face and he could have bitten his tongue. She said, “I have no sons.”
He made himself go on. “You will have. Highness, you can trade your cooperation in this French marriage for a clause in your marriage-contract that says your first son will be king of France but the second the duke of Brittany, and so preserve the realm’s integrity. It is all you have left to play for.”
“That is good advice,” she said evenly. He got the impression she wanted to spit at him.
No— Anne. Forgive me. He bit the words back. Malicious enchantments or no, she would still marry Charles. The king of France would take her to bed and write the conquest of Brittany into her body while his court looked on. The truth of it left no room for remembered friendship.
She’d already taken hold of herself. Her smile was lovely. “Good, cousinly advice, and I thank you for it.”
“Anne.” Her name slipped out before he knew. She just looked at him, the white embroidery on her crespine catching his eye, reminding him that she kept some secrets close.
“Highness.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Good day, Monseigneur.” She cantered off and her guards stayed with her. He fought the urge to follow.
De Rieux had not been near enough to overhear, but perhaps he’d seen Anne’s face. He spurred his horse up and said, “I don’t care that Marguerite of France has dragged you to Nantes, you will not make her unhappy. She trusted you once; she loved her father. She—”
His voice was cut off as a chorus exclaimed among the trees. Louis sent his courser flying after the sound of Anne’s voice and pulled up at the edge of a familiar clearing, one that had seen a thousand picnics over the years, after the day’s hawking was done.
There was no picnic planned now, yet the clearing was spread for a feast.
A feast now past its best, spoiled past saving, mostly devoured, and the remainder none the better for the day’s heat: wine greasy in overwarm jugs, flies coming to the bread, clustered thick on the cheese.
It was as though some unseen power had heard him and Anne talking and was laughing slyly to itself, reminding them that the feast was over, their stolen peace gone, the voices silenced, friendship impossible. Every hair on his body rose. He almost expected to see Francis step from behind the trees, or his own blithe, brave self of five years ago. Or the korrigan who had wrought this monstrosity. “We have to go,” he said.
Anne did not speak. She put a quick hand to her brow, where she wore her shining white fillet. She stared into the wood with startled eyes.
Someone in the staring crowd muttered, “This is just how His Grace liked the table spread.”
“That was his favorite—that is sugared ginger. How the ants swarm!”
“The shadows,” Anne whispered. “The shadows are wrong. Can you see? The sun is not coming from that direction. Those are shadows of men, but no one is casting them.” Her mare was sidling, throwing her head. Anne was turning, bewildered, in the saddle.
Louis had drawn his sword; her guard had done likewise. He nudged his horse in nearer, skin prickling. One of the spilled cups on the table was gently rolling. Anne was still staring into the trees. Almost Louis thought he saw bodiless shadows of men that stepped across the grass.
“Father,” she whispered. And then— “Can you see the light? It’s like—” She pressed her horse forward a step, her expression strange. Like a girl in a dream. “It’s like the last day we picnicked here. Look at the light. Could I go back? Could I—?”
Louis caught her bridle. “Highness, we must go!”
“We must!” De Rieux echoed urgently at her back. Louis didn’t know how to protect her at all. Neither from this, nor from France. When she would have pressed her mare forward again, he kept his grip on the rein and wrenched the mare about as the guards pressed close around them. He did not let the rein go until they were all out of the water-meadow.
She did not protest.
Nor did she smile at him again. She rode with abstracted face and dismounted in the courtyard; her attendants surrounded her and they all left him there without saying a word.
Chapter
17
Anne hardly saw her feet on the way back to her own chambers, hardly heard the voices of courtiers bracketing her in. What had Moreau said? Three signs? Water, fire, memory?
She had thought, just briefly, after the water in Nantes, that she could make an ally of this korrigan, if he appeared. The chronicles did say that men long ago traded with the fair-folk, and treated with them too.