The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(78)

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They retired to Anne’s chambers. She was covered in fear-sweat and could feel her wrist coming out in bruises where Moreau had gripped her. Louis saw the red marks, and his eyes went sharply to her face. He did not speak, but she could see that his composure cost him; his shoulders were rigid.

Isabeau told them what had happened, soberly. “I woke up somewhere else—”

Anne was fighting a headache, trying not to shake.

“Four anaon?” Henri sounded bewildered.

Anne roused herself a little. “I think he married these women and killed them. Like the king in the faerie-tale. He was looking for a wife to make him king of Keris, and they could not.”

“Maybe he is the reason for the faerie-tale,” said Isabeau.

Anne said nothing. Louis watched her, perfectly still.

“It is like the story,” added Isabeau. “The king of Comorre had four wives and one was strangled and one was drowned, one was burned and one died by a sword.”

Elesbed, seeing their stricken faces, got up and went away and came back hoisting a rug of rabbit fur that she could barely lift. She draped it decisively over Anne’s shoulders. Anne sank under the weight of it into her accustomed chair near the great hearth and smiled her thanks. Isabeau came and sat on the wolfskin rug at her feet, and Anne pulled a fold of the rabbit around her. “Elesbed, come get warm too,” said Isabeau.

They sat shoulder to shoulder. Louis and Henri were both standing, watchful as sentry-dogs. Madeleine had taken the other chair, her hands knotted together.

Anne found herself straining her eyes on the shadows, as though each could contain a watcher, an illusion, a cold snatching hand. Maximilien was not coming, and all Rennes buzzed in anticipation of the French tourney, thinking it meant that there would be no war. Anne felt danger on every side, and she didn’t know what to do. Her only recourse that night had been a power she ill-understood and could hardly use. She stroked her sister’s hair and bade herself stop shaking.

Isabeau said, “Was Moreau in the Lost Lands too long? Could he be mad, do you think? Or getting worse? He seemed more—sensible. Before. Today he had a wild look. I told him I would marry him if I must. But I told him that he had to save Brittany from France first, so that you could stay here. He didn’t answer. Then you appeared.” A single tear ran unguarded from Isabeau’s wide-open eyes before she dashed it angrily away.

“Isabeau,” Anne said very quietly. “No one is marrying him. For God’s sake, we are haunted by the ghosts of his first four wives. He is fit for execution and nothing more.”

Biting her lip, Isabeau said, “But what are we going to do now? What if he comes back?”

Anne didn’t know. In the spring of that year, she had laid her plans so carefully. A marriage, a victory. But that was before she learned that the world contained enchantment and sorcery and a madman wielding both. A madman who called himself the king of the korriganed, a madman who wanted her, who would try again to have her. And now? A low throb of pain still filled her temples. She closed her eyes. Louis stood just behind her chair, and she wished he would speak.

Henri said, “But, sister, I still don’t understand how you found her.”

Anne said, “The haruspex told me of it, as though it were a wonder-tale. That the old sorcerers could travel by shadows. So I have done.” God knew what the consequences would be.

Then she thought, We left from this chamber, and came back to the oratory. We traveled in the living world, yet crossed no distance.

A wild idea filled her mind.

“Anne?” said Henri.

“It’s all right,” said Anne, her heart beginning to race. “Come, Isabeau, let us see if you can’t sleep a little more.”



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Elesbed and Isabeau slept, and Anne left Henri and Madeleine to watch over them. Her brother and her maid-of-honor had stopped bothering to be discreet in their affection. Her head lay against his shoulder.

Louis waited for her just outside, his eyes tired.

“Did he hurt your wrist?” Louis asked her, before she could say anything. His eyes were hard.

“What— Oh.” She flushed. “Yes. But it’s not important.”

“Anne—”

“Not now. Do you understand what happened? I left one room and returned to another, passing through the Lost Lands.”

He rubbed his face. “Anne, it is not dawn yet. What are you thinking? Tell me plainly.”

“I am going to try again.”

Horrified alertness finally came to his face. “Try—to do what you did—again? Just disappear? Why? What if you never come back? What happens to your sister?”

“You will have to protect her. If she does not want to be duchess, Marguerite will let her abdicate, I am sure of it. She may be a private lady. But I will come back.”

She took up his hands. He looked from their locked fingers to her face.

“Anne, I don’t understand.”

“I am going to go and talk to Maximilien of Austria.” Somewhere in the liminal space of shadows she thought she sensed the unicorn, watching her, gleaming like a far, cold star. Disapproving, Anne thought, though she didn’t know why. I doubt the beast gave you a lock of its mane to make you great among men, Hawiz had said. Anne shook away the memory. “I must persuade Maximilien myself. If he doesn’t come, I am lost.”