The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(77)

“Anne, no!”

He caught Isabeau by the hair; she cried out in pained rage. Softly, Moreau said, “Highness, put your gift in my service; what glories could we not win?”

Anne took a breath, thinking fast. “Isabeau, close your eyes.”

Moreau said, “It will not matter if she sees—”

Anne scrabbled through the layers of the world. There. A sunlit brilliance. For just a moment she thought she saw a man with long white hair, staring back at her narrow-eyed, and then there was only light. She dragged it forth, gasping at the pain of it, as the whole world seemed to warp.

White brilliance filled the room.

Moreau shouted and stumbled, pressing his hands to his face.

Isabeau threw herself forward and stumbled into Anne’s arms.

Anne sought in the turmoil of light and shadow for the moving candle-flames of her own chamber. Time, she needed time. She pulled Isabeau toward the nearest door. If they could just get on the other side of it, perhaps bar it, and win themselves a moment…

Anne was not quick on her feet. It had never mattered before. But Moreau caught them just as she was pushing the door open, hurled himself upon them both, and they all fell through together. Anne had the breath knocked out of her and lay on the ground wheezing, while Isabeau begged her to get up.

Isabeau was shouldered aside, yelling, and Moreau pulled Anne to her feet. She was still trying to draw a full breath. He glanced uneasily up at the walls. “Of course, here,” he muttered. “Always here, if I do not take care. Well, damn them.”

He had one of Anne’s wrists in an iron grip; she could not yet tell where she was, not daring to take her eyes from his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said gently into the space between them. “Please. Highness, let us be friends and not enemies. Come into the Lost Lands with me. I will teach you sorceries and enchantments and how to travel rightly by shadows. When we are wed in the ancient hall of Keris, I shall put my sons in you, that they might wed girls of the korriganed and hold Keris for all time. And then it will have been worth it, that day so many years ago, when first I rode into the Lost Lands. Please.” His voice cracked. In his eyes was madness, a soul-eating longing. “I gave my whole life for this chance. Please.”

Where was Isabeau? She had fallen silent. Had he hurt her? Words, Anne must keep him back with words. “What kind of husband would you make? What kind of king? You could not even keep me in Nantes when I wished to leave. Is that power?”

He retorted, “Do you think I can’t rule you? I shall give you to France this very night and ask them for Isabeau as my royal wife, in exchange for my great services. See? The threat of that is all I need to rule you.” His grip was bruising her wrists.

She fought back her recoil, tried to read his face. “Am I to believe that the future king of Keris can only make fountains in oxcarts and rotten picnics in the wood?”

His grip loosened. “I can do anything you ask.”

“Except behave like a gentleman.” How in God’s name would she get him to let go? Then she frowned. There were figures standing behind him, half-familiar.

Women. Four dead women. One strangled and one drowned, one burned and one with a great dripping wound at her throat. The girl with the cut throat was the one who’d given her the mirror. Her eyes caught Anne’s: sad in her bloody face. And finally Anne, with a shock of recognition, knew where they were. They were standing in that red-walled chapel at Paimpont, with the graves set in the floor.

“Who are those women?” she whispered. “Why have they haunted our steps from Brocéliande? Is it you they are following? What have you done?”

Moreau didn’t turn. His lips thinned. “They failed me,” he said. “But you are better than they, Duchess.” He cupped her face in his hand. Over his shoulder, Anne glimpsed Isabeau at last. The dead women had hidden her. Her sister had a big blue sword in her two straining hands—the one the throat-cut lady had been dragging. Anne put up her hand to cover Moreau’s, just to keep him still. He smiled a little, but then he must have seen something in her eyes change.

Just as Moreau turned, Isabeau gave him the most furious slash she could manage. It wasn’t very effective. But Isabeau was clever enough to strike Moreau at the knees; the sword bit deep into the leather of his boots and he fell back, gasping and swearing.

Isabeau dropped the sword and Anne caught her, trembling.

They had to go back. Now, now. How had the shadows lain, how had the candlelight filled her bedchamber? There was an altar here in this red-walled chapel. Almost like— She remembered the swaying of the candlelight on her own altar in her private oratory in the Guardhouse.

Congruency, the haruspex had said.

As she thought it, memory became a road, from there to here; suddenly this altar was that altar.

Moreau had recovered, staggering to his feet. He was actually reaching for them when Anne pulled Isabeau forward, stepping into another candlelight.

They fell, alone again, to the ground in the oratory of the Guardhouse in Rennes. Anne could hardly get her breath. She clung to her sister, panting. “Isabeau, are you all right?”

“Can he follow us?” cried Isabeau. “Can he— Henri!” she cried, loud as she could yell, and next moment there were footsteps above taking the steps two at a time. In a moment Henri and Louis and Anne’s guardsmen were all there shouting questions. Let Moreau come; they’d chop his head off. Anne could close her eyes for a moment at last. She could not stop shaking, and neither could Isabeau.