The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(64)

“But we escaped Nantes with enchantments,” said Isabeau. “It cannot be much different.”

“I nearly died escaping Nantes,” Anne retorted. “And that was only the dragon blood. It’s gone now. My husband wouldn’t like to hear of it.” Henri, behind them, made no sound, but his silence had its own quality. Damn him and Louis with their craning ears. The word “enchantments” seemed to float in the air among them.

Isabeau protested, “But what can he have to say about it? Maximilien hasn’t come yet, or helped us.”

Anne said, “I cannot risk my life trying such a thing again. You need me. The realm needs me.”

“But you—”

Anne’s head had begun to ache again. “Isabeau—” Mercifully, she didn’t have to finish. The cavalcade was pulling up at a spring, and Henri, with some tact, called Isabeau away.

When they and the horses had drunk their fill, Louis drew her aside, to the far side of the small, perfect spring with its worn stone shrine. The trees closed about them. Louis said to Anne, “Highness, I think I shall leave you here after all. I don’t want to be bottled up behind the walls of Rennes; I can’t do any good there. But I can go and stir up your Maximilien.”

She was silent, doubting. Did he really mean to go to her husband? Perhaps he would simply go south, take the road to Orléans. She couldn’t blame him if he did. She’d told Isabeau that people did not have to love you so much that they ruined their lives, and she’d meant it.

Stiffly, she said, “Thank you. And—go with my blessing, wherever the road takes you. I think you know the debt that we owe you now. That I owe you now. I will pay it as I can.”

She remembered his refined voice, fraying like cloth, telling her not to go when she lay dying in his arms beneath the rowan-tree, before the unicorn came. Now he merely looked wry, impervious; it was a courtier’s face. “God, Anne! Will I say it again? You cannot discharge my temporary insanity with words or jewels or lands.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you think me a liar and I shall not go to Ghent?”

“I did not say so.”

“You thought it.” How could she not think it? He had the face of a man who was doing all this despite himself, perplexed at his own actions. He added, more stiffly, “Don’t look so solemn, my madness is not your affair. I am going to Ghent.”

“Certainly it is my affair, since it has saved all I hold dear,” said Anne. She thought, and then pulled the kerchief out of her sleeve. Her glove for Maximilien, which she gave Polhaim in Brocéliande, had been a dignified thing, a pretty favor of white kidskin. This kerchief was only one of her sillier experiments in embroidery, made because she enjoyed her needle and an evening’s gossip. It had an interlocked pattern of green hedgehogs and canary-colored pomegranates. She gave it to him. It was not grand or costly or…But a lady’s favor meant something. Could he want it? He met her eyes and hesitated.

He put the kerchief to his lips. And said, conversationally, “I think I will ask a boon after all.”

She straightened. This was easier, this was courtly business. “Name what you will, Monseigneur.”

“May I kiss you?”

She stood still, the color flooding her face.

Humor touched his. “Have I offended you?”

She was blushing hard. Stiffly, she said, “No. Not— I—don’t understand.”

“No? But you did not see yourself as I did, silver with a dragon’s blood, your hand on the horn of a unicorn.”

She answered him with a truth, every nerve taut. “I have always thought that—wanting—someone—that it would make everything worse.” She bit her tongue. Harder to be coin for the realm’s need, she meant, when she remembered she had a body that could want and be wounded. She had said marriage-vows. She hardly knew him.

“Ah,” he said. “Very well.” A little color came up in his face. But he turned away.

She caught his arm with a quick impulse, pulled him back around, then his hand came up to her face and he kissed her very suddenly. He was as warm as he’d been in the chapel, his fingers curled round her jaw. He tipped her face to his and closed the distance between them, dragged his gloved knuckles down her spine beneath her cloak, caught her gasping breath, and kissed her again. What are you doing? she asked herself, as she twisted her hands in his doublet and kissed him back. There is your sister and your court just beyond the trees, someone will come at any moment.

The thought was enough to make her stiffen and draw away, gather the pieces of her pride. His hands flexed as though he’d reach for her again, but he didn’t. “Anne—”

She had her fingers against her own lips. Her dreams of love had always been abstract ones, set at a remove from her body, which had belonged to Brittany before it belonged to her.

Perhaps he saw her confusion and guessed the reason. “Have I made everything worse?” he said.

She nodded.

“Should I apologize?”

“Never in life.”

He laughed, darkly, and took her hand and kissed it, and then he turned it and kissed her wrist where her riding-glove ended, so she made a faint sound that brought color to his face. And then he left her.

Standing, still dazed, she saw him speak to Henri. And when the cavalcade took the northern road to Rennes, he peeled off east with a half-dozen of the guard, riding fast and not looking back.