Isabeau went to the window. “Someone let out all the horses. The courtyard is full of them. The soldiers can’t move around, they are swearing.”
“No one wants the duchess to be French,” piped Elesbed triumphantly, pushing in behind her.
All very well,thought Louis,but how to get out of the castle?
Henri had broken free of the women; he said, low and savage, “Why would you do this? Orléans, on your honor, why? Is this a trick?”
“A fit of madness,” said Louis. “On my honor.”
Henri’s face relaxed a fraction.
Then Anne’s diviner passed the guard outside and came staggering in, his face like chalk. He said, slurring, “Highness, Highness, thereare soldiers at the gate.” He was carrying an empty cup. He must already have drunk it, never mind what a terrible state he was in. “I will tell you where to go.”
“Calyx, you can’t divine now,” said Anne sharply. “It is dangerous; you hurt yourself earlier when your divination touched the Lost Lands. You can’t help me. It’s all right. You must go back to bed.”
“I can,” he said. His eyes were scarlet and bleary. He tilted the cup into the firelight.
“Don’t!” cried Anne.
Too late. His eyes rolled back, the cup clutched convulsively in his hands. He whispered, “The servants’ postern, out through Nantes, cross the river. It is unguarded yet.” Calyx’s voice faltered, then rallied. He stared harder than ever into his cup. “I see—there is a city in the sea. That is your salvation, Highness. A city in the sea.”
Diviners could not make prophecies. They knew the world as it was. But at the moment of death, the limits of the mind faltered and a diviner could see a little more. Anne’s voice was thick with tears. “Calyx, no.”
Calyx slumped into a chair, and the cup fell away, clattering on the stones. They were all shocked at the suddenness. His face was gray and still.
Now, outside, there were the shouts of guards, squealing horses, arms clashing in the courtyard, the running feet of servants.
Louis and Henri put the old diviner’s limbs straight and covered him with a cloak.
Anne wiped tears from her eyes. “Stay with him,” she told three of her maids-of-honor. “It’s safer here; they seek only Isabeau and me. My guardian is not cruel; he is doing this out of love and fear. He will protect you.”
They all nodded, though Louis saw that they were crying. “Madeleine?” said Anne.
“I’m going with you, of course,” said the tall, fair girl. “You will have to break your journey at Châteaubriant. My father will think I am a true coward if I am not with you.”
“Never that,” said Anne, sadly.
The noise rose again outside: thudding and shouting, the scream of splintering wood. “Elesbed, you must come with us,” said Anne. “Moreau wishes you ill. Leave your cat with Hawiz.”
Elesbed started to cry. But she nodded, her chin wrinkled and quivering. She put her fat yellow cat into Hawiz’s arms. The cat made an irritable noise, but she let herself be passed. Elesbed said, “I love you, Butter. I’m ready, Highness.”
The shouting was mounting toward the castle. Anne had bitten her lip bloody. Her eyes fell again on the unmoving Calyx.
“We have to go,” said Louis, and offered her his arm.
When Anne blinked, she felt her eyelashes clumped wet. “Yes.” She kissed Hawiz. Isabeau and Elesbed were holding tight to each other. “Now.”
The group went fast and quietly, with Anne and Louis ahead, Henri and Madeleine behind with Isabeau, and a dozen of her guard following. Anne and Isabeau had snatched up cloaks and sturdier shoes. Henri and Louis were in court-dress. Any delay, and they’d be bottled up, trapped. She would not think of De Rieux.
“Help me,” she told Louis at the staircase. She was clumsy on stairs. She put an arm around his neck; he took her weight on his shield-arm and they ran down together. She still could not believe he was there.
“Are you sure?” she whispered as they ran.
He looked down into her face. “No,” he said. “But I could not do otherwise.”
She did not ask again. Outside the castle proper rose the sounds of wild confusion now, men at the gate, men fighting on the wall, her Bretons rallying, the furious servants with pikes and cleavers.
Then, with only one more room to cross before the servants’ door, Anne saw the wrongness in the shadows.
