“Yes, he was. Though he took bad advice and it got worse toward the end.” Louis bit his tongue. He had not meant to reminisce with her, still less to fight with her. He meant to urge Charles of France’s suit. That he would like to hold her again, to speak to her without restraint; that he regretted that her father’s fecklessness had put her in an impossible situation—none of those things was important.
But he found himself asking, after a pause: “Isabeau was there when he died?”
The anger left her voice as quickly as it had come. “Yes. I should have sent her out. Not let her see. But both of us were clinging to him. I couldn’t bear to send her away.”
“I am sorry.”
“I am sorry they dragged you off the field and made you prisoner.”
Louis said nothing. He could almost feel De Rieux watching them, bristling. The worst days of both their lives lay heavy between them. As though in some kind of acknowledgment, Anne offered him a truth. “Isabeau is angry that I must marry and leave her.”
Did Anne accept, then, that she was soon to marry? Cautiously, he said, “You could take Isabeau with you.”
“Pack her up like baggage? No. I am not so cruel as to take her from everything she loves except for me. Besides, I want her to know her own—” She broke off.
“Highness?”
She shook her head, smiling a little. “Stop staring into my face as though you cared what I was thinking. You have nearly tempted me into maudlin confidences.”
“Who does not care what you are thinking? You are the duchess.”
She laughed. “They care what I do and what I say. It is not the same.” Perhaps she was jesting. But he heard the desolation in her voice. He thought again of how she’d let him hold her, thought that she, although surrounded by people, might understand the loneliness of the prisoner in a tower that he’d so recently been.
The first reply that came to mind was useless:Speak to me, then. What are you thinking?But she did not need his kindness, and what good would it do for her to lean on him? His unexpected, inconvenient desire, the vulnerability beneath her courage—both were dangerous.
He managed to say, with hectoring reasonableness, “Can’t you see the sensible course here, Highness? Don’t submit to Charles like acaptive, and don’t defy the French like a madwoman. Negotiate for your sons.”
Her eyes flew to his face and he could have bitten his tongue. She said, “I have no sons.”
He made himself go on. “You will have. Highness, you can trade your cooperation in this French marriage for a clause in your marriage-contract that says your first son will be king of France but the second the duke of Brittany, and so preserve the realm’s integrity. It is all you have left to play for.”
“That is good advice,” she said evenly. He got the impression she wanted to spit at him.
No— Anne. Forgive me.He bit the words back. Malicious enchantments or no, she would still marry Charles. The king of France would take her to bed and write the conquest of Brittany into her body while his court looked on. The truth of it left no room for remembered friendship.
She’d already taken hold of herself. Her smile was lovely. “Good, cousinly advice, and I thank you for it.”
“Anne.” Her name slipped out before he knew. She just looked at him, the white embroidery on her crespine catching his eye, reminding him that she kept some secrets close.
“Highness.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Good day, Monseigneur.” She cantered off and her guards stayed with her. He fought the urge to follow.
De Rieux had not been near enough to overhear, but perhaps he’d seen Anne’s face. He spurred his horse up and said, “I don’t care that Marguerite of France has dragged you to Nantes, you will not make her unhappy. She trusted you once; she loved her father. She—”
His voice was cut off as a chorus exclaimed among the trees. Louis sent his courser flying after the sound of Anne’s voice and pulled up at the edge of a familiar clearing, one that had seen a thousand picnics over the years, after the day’s hawking was done.
There was no picnic planned now, yet the clearing was spread for a feast.
A feast now past its best, spoiled past saving, mostly devoured, and the remainder none the better for the day’s heat: wine greasy in overwarm jugs, flies coming to the bread, clustered thick on the cheese.
It was as though some unseen power had heard him and Anne talking and was laughing slyly to itself, reminding them that the feast was over, their stolen peace gone, the voices silenced, friendship impossible. Every hair on his body rose. He almost expected to see Francis step from behind the trees, or his own blithe, brave self of five years ago. Or the korrigan who had wrought this monstrosity. “We have to go,” he said.
Anne did not speak. She put a quick hand to her brow, where she wore her shining white fillet. She stared into the wood with startled eyes.
Someone in the staring crowd muttered, “This is just how His Grace liked the table spread.”
“That was his favorite—that is sugared ginger. How the ants swarm!”
