The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(70)
“Her father was my friend. And she is a lady of courage.” He stepped nearer and dropped his voice. “Marguerite of France discovered your marriage, Sire, and swayed the duchess’s guardian to treachery. They meant to carry her to Charles of France by force, only she was warned and fled in time.”
Maximilien looked dubious. “She might as well have saved her efforts, and you too; she is wedded to me in law, and what can France do against that?” His eyes were heavy with fatigue.
“Marguerite of France would not wait for you to wrangle it out in law. She means to pack the duchess off to France at the first chance, and send a fine bribe to Rome for the pope to annul your marriage. The duchess would be wed to Charles and kept close at court until she was pregnant for all to see. Forgive me, Sire, but it is the truth.”
Maximilien was frowning, unconvinced. “Surely such outright villainy is unlikely. Do they think I count for nothing in this world? I have married the duchess of Brittany. What God has joined, let no man put asunder. One day or another before I see her will not change the fact of it. And in the meantime, I have business that keeps me in Ghent.”
It went against Louis’s very soul to have to beg on Anne’s behalf. Especially since he strongly suspected that Maximilien could not love this girl who embroidered with unicorn hair and shouted at sea-serpents. He was merely chasing his own lost lady, the other duchess. With as much steadiness as he could muster, he said, “The duchess has charged me to beg you to hasten. The French will soon besiege Rennes.”
Maximilien said, “You must not agitate yourself. A few days only and I shall go. Will you watch with me tonight? You will understand then why I tarry.” His hands twisted together, as though they pleaded silently for understanding.
Louis said, between his teeth, “A night, Sire. Then I must ride back to Rennes with your answer to the duchess, who is depending upon you.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Maximilien. “And I trust I shall soon bring the duchess with me back to my father’s court and all shall be well.”
“God send that it end so simply.”
Go and save her, he did not say. Make her your wife in truth, he could not bear to say. Madness, Sire, to think you could have Brittany, the world’s green jewel, and its duchess, and instead you sit here pining like a maiden for your wife who is gone.
And then he remembered their flight from Nantes, the street packed with people who were not there. He thought, This is a dark power at work and not entirely my lord’s fault.
God save us all.
Chapter
23
The French closed upon the city of Rennes as quickly as men could be induced to march, and with them rode the grand lady Marguerite of France. And also a stranger called Julien Moreau, whose sly, sorrowing eyes were often downcast, always deep in thought.
They hurried because France feared that Maximilien of Austria would have a fair wind to Saint-Malo and reach Rennes before them.
“Where is Maximilien now?” Marguerite demanded of her diviner, Volucris. Her question was a little unreasonable, for no diviner could be accurate across the distances in question—anywhere on land or sea between the city of Ghent and the port of Saint-Malo. But she was hungry for information, and Volucris could at least tell her whether Maximilien had sailed or still tarried ashore.
“I do not know, lady!” cried Volucris, with more emotion than ever he showed. They had stopped that day’s march at the end of a long afternoon and he’d set out his sand tray in the sunny potager of a convent where they were to pass the night, setting his beetles to run on the hot sand. For this was his method of divination, to read truths in the tracks of beetles. He was pale, sweating, a sickly green. Marguerite was relentless. Where was Maximilien? She expected and feared a trick. All her spies brought were rumors, and none of them made any sense.
Volucris squinted at his beetles, a wheeze in his breath. “The beetles say only dark and cold and lost. Dark and cold and alone. All alone!” His voice pitched up shrill, bringing every head in the garden round. Moreau strolled into the potager and overheard. His brows rose.
“Red walls,” muttered Volucris. “Thorns…” The sweat dripped from his pallid face.
“No,” said Julien, in a strange voice, “you cannot—” just as Marguerite said, “What ails the beetles?” They had begun to run in wild circles.
“It’s the thorns,” Volucris said, his voice choked suddenly, his tongue sagging purple from his mouth. “Thorns thorns thorns…”
Moreau strode forward, so suddenly that the guards’ hands twitched for their weapons, and seized Volucris’s beetles. He crushed them one-two-three in his hands, then swept clawing fingers to obliterate the marks in the sand. Finally he shoved Volucris away. “Men cannot divine the korriganed,” he said coolly as Volucris fell back, panting, the sweat pouring sickly down his face. “You go mad if you try. Or die.” Volucris had fallen to the sward, a terrible dull blue flush coming into his face.
“The korriganed?” said Marguerite. “I thought—” That they stayed in their own lands. That Moreau had used the seeming of them for his own ends, and the fact of them could be safely forgotten.
Moreau spoke lightly, wiping the carapaces of beetles from his gloves. But she thought he was disturbed. “For example, when one attempts to divine anything connected to the korrigan-queen, the diviner sees only thorns. They say it is an enchantment she put on herself long ago. If Volucris has divined thorns, it means the queen has her hand on the king in Ghent now. God knows why.”