The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(69)
Without another word, he walked into the shadows, taking the moonlight with him. It felt like waking from a dream. Anne could see the room properly now. Elesbed was stirring on her pallet by the fire, and Madeleine on her cot, lifting her head in confusion. “Go back to sleep,” she told them, shaken. “There is still time before sunrise.” She called softly to the guard and bade them be wary, told them to send for her brother at first light. But she had the sinking feeling that neither guards nor Henri would be of use against a man who could walk an invisible road made of shadows and moonlight.
Chapter
22
When Louis and his escort came to the road that would take them south to Orléans, a few of his men really did think that the duke meant to be shot of Brittany and return to his own lands.
“He won’t,” muttered one man to his fellow. “Don’t you know? Home’s no sanctuary for him. He was made to marry Marguerite’s saintly cripple of a sister when he was hardly out of boyhood. The old king, that ancient spider, did it; he knew his girl could not carry a child. It was to extirpate that whole branch of the family. He won’t go back there.”
And indeed, when they passed the crossroads, Orléans hardly glanced at the southward road. Except suddenly, to laughter, he snatched a leather bottle from one of his men and drained the wine in it to the dregs.
When they drew rein at last in the courtyard of the castle of Gravensteen in Ghent, Louis was met by a very beautiful courtier with yellow hair, wearing a tabard and a worried expression.
“I am Baron von Polhaim,” said the yellow-haired man. “I was my lord’s proxy in the Breton marriage. Have you come from her?” An idle rain was falling; Louis’s horse shook the rain from its ears when he dismounted.
They faced each other in the courtyard’s mud. Louis considered this beautiful young man, with his earnest eyes. He saw perhaps more than Polhaim guessed. Carefully, he said, “A rare woman, the duchess of Brittany.” Men were swarming up to take the horses; Louis handed over the reins and let Polhaim guide him toward the castle.
Polhaim replied, in a burst of unguarded speech, “As I told my liege. And I conveyed to him—all his advisers have conveyed to him—the precarity of his wife’s situation. It seemed he understood it, that he was ready to take ship and go to her.” Polhaim bit his fine red lip in remembered consternation. The Gravensteen castle loomed gray over their heads. Then they passed within, came to an empty anteroom.
Louis demanded, “But why has he not done so?” He sensed that Polhaim’s instinct to shield his master was at war with his knowledge of the risks to Anne inherent in this situation.
Polhaim might have been distressed, but he did not forget all caution. He did not answer directly but said, “We had heard you were a captive of the French crown.”
“No longer, as you can see,” said Louis, with an edge to his voice.
“And yet it is extraordinary that, having been a captive, you would go against French interests to work on the duchess’s behalf.”
There was no rational explanation to give. Louis could sense Polhaim’s wariness deepening. Maybe, Louis thought with grim amusement, this man would accept an irrational one. Polhaim had met Anne too. He said, “The duchess is a woman of great courage.”
Polhaim stared for a moment. Understanding passed between them. “I wanted to help her. This I have tried to do.” His frustration broke through his court-training. “But an apparition is keeping my master in Ghent. Every night he sees it, and every day he says, Just one day more, and refuses to sail.”
Louis was nonplussed. “He is not ill? Is his mind astray?”
“Not as you could tell.”
“What is this thing he sees?” A chill came over Louis as he said it, a premonition of the answer. But surely not.
Polhaim looked grim. “Why—he sees his dead wife, walking through the palace as she used to. My master will not depart lest he miss her if she comes again.”
Louis’s memory was suddenly full of a street in Nantes packed with illusory people staring at something he could not see. He thought, It is connected. This is no accident. Maximilien has been kept here.
“I see,” he said aloud. “Perhaps I may be permitted an audience with your master. To persuade him to put aside fancies of his dead wife, to go and embrace the living one, who sorely needs him.” His voice was arid, to mask the feeling beneath.
“Yes,” said Polhaim with gratitude. “I will arrange it. And pray to God you may convince him where the rest of us have failed.”
* * *
But Louis had broken a dozen lances in the palace tiltyard before the invitation came from Maximilien. He went to make his bow, found the king in a room with velvet and perfume and a tumble of hunting dogs, all gently panting. The precision and the danger, the heat and physical exertion of jousting had dulled the edge of Louis’s wrathful impatience, and he was able, with tolerable composure, to bow and doff his hat and say, “I am come from your wife, Sire.”
Maximilien’s dark, straight brows rose. “We had heard you were a prisoner in France, cousin.”
“I was set free,” said Louis shortly.
“And went to offer your services to my lady, the duchess of Brittany?” said Maximilien with delicate skepticism.