“He’s a good man,” said Ransom.
“Indeed,” said the queen, who gave Claire another imploring look that Ransom didn’t understand.
He sighed. “I’m sorry about your father, Claire.” He looked at her, feeling her loss keenly. “I met him . . . well, I should probably confess that I surrendered to him on behalf of the queen’s . . . son. He had already captured Prince Benedict by that point and blocked a bridge. I did notice he seemed to be injured.”
“His leg, was it?” Claire asked, her countenance falling.
“It was his leg, yes,” Ransom said. “I heard that he died at Atha Kleah shortly thereafter.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She quickly brushed them away. “Yes. Yes, I know.”
“I’m sorry to bring you pain. I respected him. It’s a grievous loss. I’m sorry, Claire.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, nodding briskly. He hated how helpless he felt. How he wished he could do something to help her, to soothe her grief.
“Your Highness,” he said, turning back to Queen Emiloh. “There is something about that night that I haven’t told anyone. I feel a bit foolish, but it needs to be said, I think.”
“Go on,” said the queen, looking at him seriously. Claire’s eyes shot open, and she looked at him in confusion.
“After I crossed the bridge, when I was going to see Lord Archer, I felt the presence of . . .” His words trailed off. “Forgive me. This won’t make sense unless I go back further. Remember the night I first began serving your son? I reported that there was a lady in a cloak.”
“Yes. Of course I remember. You brought my son safely back to the palace. The dock warden never found the woman or her guards.”
“Your Highness, she was there that night. When we surrendered to Lord Archer.”
The queen’s brow furrowed. “She was among Lord Archer’s knights?”
“No,” Ransom said. “She was in the woods nearby.”
The color leached out of Claire’s face.
“How did you see her?” the queen asked.
He sighed again, hesitant to explain himself, given he could not offer a rational explanation. And yet . . . what he’d seen and felt that night had haunted him in the long months since, even more so since the tournament. “I didn’t. Nor did I get a good look at her that first night in Kingfountain,” he said. “I didn’t just stumble upon her in that alleyway. I went looking for her because I could sense her presence. I don’t know how to describe it, only that I knew she was coming to the tavern. I felt her coming. And she . . . felt me. That was why she turned and fled. I sensed her that same way in the woods by Lord Archer’s knights.”
“Did she harm my father, do you think?” Claire asked pointedly. “Was his death more than a happenstance? ’Twas that very night he formed a pain in his foot.”
Ransom’s stomach clenched with dread. He’d never considered the possibility before, if only because he’d assumed the lady had been there for Devon—to watch him or perhaps even protect him if Devon had it right. It had never occurred to him that she might have come for revenge, but it made a sick kind of sense. If she really were an Occitanian spy, surely she would be inclined to murder the person whose presence had ensured the Elder King’s victory.
“I don’t know, Claire,” he finally said, meeting and holding her gaze. “I only know that his foot was injured that night. I saw him limp, but it went deeper than that. I knew he was injured. I could sense his pain.”
“Sir Ransom . . . are you indeed Fountain-blessed?” the queen asked.
“I don’t . . . really . . . know.”
“Have you had this feeling about others? Or was this lady the first?”
“The first. They say one of the Black Prince’s knights is Fountain-blessed, but I’ve never gotten such a feeling from him. It’s just talk.”
The queen began pacing. “I’ve long suspected you might be. Lord DeVaux insisted that you were, which is why it cost so much to save you.”
“I was saved by a loaf of moldy bread and bandages,” Ransom said.
“Isn’t it possible the Fountain might work its miracles by simple means rather than grand gestures? The legends of the Fountain-blessed go back to the reign of King Andrew and his court. This palace,” she said, gesturing to the room, “was built in emulation of it. No one knows where he lived. Some say the original is in Occitania. Others claim it was in Brythonica. There are so many legends about them, the men and women and Wizrs of the court.” She gazed at him. “It feels like the world keeps returning to these stories. That they must be real because they keep happening, over and over again. Sir Ransom, if you are Fountain-blessed, then the legends say that you need to seek a sign of it.”