“We have little choice,” Matthew said grimly. “If we delay, he’ll only send more men to hurry us along. Better to do what he asks.” Later that day, when I was ready to weep with fatigue, Matthew lifted me into his saddle without asking and rode until the horses ran themselves out. I was too tired to protest.
We reached the stone walls and timbered houses of Saint-Beno?t on schedule, just as Philippe had commanded. By that point we were close enough to SeptTours that neither Pierre nor Matthew was much concerned with propriety, so I rode astride. In spite of our adherence to his schedule, Philippe continued to increase the number of family retainers accompanying us, as though he feared we might change our minds and return to England. Some dogged our heels on the roads. Others cleared the way, securing food, horses, and places to stay in bustling inns, isolated houses, and barricaded monasteries. Once we climbed into the rocky hills left by the extinct volcanoes of the Auvergne, we often spotted the silhouettes of riders along the forbidding peaks. After they saw us, they whirled away to carry reports of our progress back to SeptTours.
Two days later, as twilight fell, Matthew, Pierre, and I stopped on one of these ragged mountaintops, the de Clermont family chateau barely visible through swirling gusts of snow. The straight lines of the central keep were familiar, but otherwise I might not have recognized the place. Its encircling walls were intact, as were all six of the round towers, each capped by conical copper roofs that had aged to a soft bottle green. Smoke came from chimneys tucked out of sight behind the towers’ crenellations, the jagged outlines suggesting that some crazed giant with pinking shears had trimmed every wall. There was a snow-covered garden within the enclosure as well as rectangular beds beyond.
In modern times the fortress was forbidding. Now, with religious and civil war all around, its defensive capabilities were even more obvious. A formidable gatehouse stood vigil between SeptTours and the village. Inside, people hurried this way and that, many of them armed. Peering between snowflakes in the dusky light, I spotted wooden structures dotted throughout the enclosed courtyard. The light from their small windows created oblong cubes of warm color in the otherwise unbroken stretches of gray stone and snow-covered ground.
My mare let out a warm, moist exhalation. She was the finest horse I’d ridden since our first day of travel. Matthew’s present mount was large, inky-colored, and mean, snapping at everyone who got near him save the creature on his back. Both animals came from the de Clermont stables and knew their way home without any direction, eager to reach their oat buckets and a warm stable.
“Dieu. This is the last place on earth I imagined finding myself.” Matthew blinked, slowly, as if he expected the chateau to disappear before his eyes.
I reached over and rested my hand on his forearm. “Even now you have a choice. We can turn back.” Pierre looked at me with pity, and Matthew gave me a rueful smile.
“You don’t know my father.” His gaze returned to the castle.
Torches blazed all along our approach when at last we entered the gates of SeptTours. The heavy slabs of wood and iron were open in readiness, and a team of four men stood silently by as we passed. The gates slammed shut behind us, and two men drew a long timber from its hiding place in the walls to secure the entrance. Six days spent riding across France had taught me that these were wise precautions. People were suspicious of strangers, fearing the arrival of another marauding band of soldiers, a fresh hell of bloodshed and violence, a new lord to please.
A veritable army—humans and vampires both—awaited us inside. Half a dozen of them took charge of the horses. Pierre handed one a small packet of correspondence, while others asked him questions in low voices while sneaking furtive glances at me. No one came near or offered assistance. I sat atop my horse, shaking with fatigue and cold, and searched the crowd for Philippe. Surely he would order someone to help me down.
Matthew noticed my predicament and swung off his horse with enviably fluid grace. In several long strides, he was at my side, where he gently removed my unfeeling foot from the stirrup and rotated it slightly to restore its mobility. I thanked him, not wanting my first performance at SeptTours to involve tumbling into the trampled snow and dirt of the courtyard.
“Which of these men is your father?” I whispered as he crossed under the horse’s neck to reach my other foot.
“None of them. He’s inside, seemingly unconcerned with seeing us after insisting we ride as though the hounds of hell were in pursuit. You should be inside, too.” Matthew began issuing orders in curt French, dispersing the gawking servants in every direction until only one vampire was left standing at the base of a corkscrew of wooden steps that rose to the chateau’s door. I experienced the jarring sense of past and present colliding when I remembered climbing a not-yet-constructed set of stone steps and meeting Ysabeau for the first time.