His mare tried for a mouthful of leaves; he booted her behind the girth and said evenly, “First, tell me: What will you do now?”
“Go to Rennes, gather what men I can. Prepare for a siege and wait for my husband.” Unspoken between them was the memory of the siege of Nantes, the fear and hardship and cannon by night. She could not meet his eye; she looked straight ahead.
Louis said, “But will your husband come to you? France might take the city first. They have allied with this—sorcerer, have they not? Who knows what he can do? And they will move quickly.”
His questions echoed those whipping round her mind. “We shall find the means to thwart him. Perhaps the Guild in Rennes can help me. And my husband’s diviners will aid us, when Maximilien comes. To invest a city, and take it, is not the work of a few days.”
She would not sayif Maximilien comes.She would not thinkif he comes.
Though she was no longer drugged with the sea-drake’s blood, she could still see the layers in light and shadow that made up the world. If she concentrated. She hadn’t told anyone.
“Ah,” said Louis.
She added, too quickly, “It will be all right. I will welcome Maximilien and be his wife and he will safeguard my family and my realm, and that is more important even than my life, do you understand?” She had not meant to say so much. “I ask again, what will you have of me?” she finished.
He was looking straight ahead. Then he said, with equal stiffness, “I do not know.”
“You shouldn’t have done it.” Ruin his life for her sake, she meant.Why did you?She didn’t dare ask.
He made an impatient flicking gesture. “It is done.”
She hurried on. “I will do what I can to mend it. Do you want to go? You may have an escort to my border, and money—” Though she had no idea where she was going to get money.
She actually heard him grinding his teeth. “Very well—for reward, I will ask you not to treat me like a subject to whom you can grant favors. I am not going to leave now to go and be a vagabond.”
She felt the color creep into her face. They rode in silence for a while. “I am sorry.”
“There is nothing to forgive. I did ensnare myself, after all,” he said shortly.
Perhaps he would have said more, but Isabeau had touched up her pony to trot between their walking horses. She asked Anne, sounding happy, “When will you drive the French away?”
Anne blinked. “When my husband comes with an army, I suppose.”
“No,” said Isabeau blithely. “With sorcery. Like Emrys.” She’d picked that name up from Elesbed. “The one we call Merlin.”
“Well—never, I fear.” Henri was on the road just behind them, and Anne was certain that he and Louis were listening.
“But we escaped Nantes with enchantments,” said Isabeau. “It cannot be much different.”
“I nearly died escaping Nantes,” Anne retorted. “And that was only the dragon blood. It’s gone now. My husband wouldn’t like to hear of it.” Henri, behind them, made no sound, but his silence had its own quality. Damn him and Louis with their craning ears. The word “enchantments” seemed to float in the air among them.
Isabeau protested, “But what can he have to say about it? Maximilien hasn’t come yet, or helped us.”
Anne said, “I cannot risk my life trying such a thing again. You need me. The realm needs me.”
“But you—”
Anne’s head had begun to ache again. “Isabeau—” Mercifully, she didn’t have to finish. The cavalcade was pulling up at a spring, and Henri, with some tact, called Isabeau away.
When they and the horses had drunk their fill, Louis drew her aside, to the far side of the small, perfect spring with its worn stone shrine. The trees closed about them. Louis said to Anne, “Highness, I think I shall leave you here after all. I don’t want to be bottled up behind the walls of Rennes; I can’t do any good there. But I can go and stir up your Maximilien.”
She was silent, doubting. Did he really mean to go to her husband? Perhaps he would simply go south, take the road to Orléans. She couldn’t blame him if he did. She’d told Isabeau that people did not have to love you so much that they ruined their lives, and she’d meant it.
Stiffly, she said, “Thank you. And—go with my blessing, wherever the road takes you. I think you know the debt that we owe you now. That I owe you now. I will pay it as I can.”
She remembered his refined voice, fraying like cloth, telling her not to go when she lay dying in his arms beneath the rowan-tree, before the unicorn came. Now he merely looked wry, impervious; it was a courtier’s face. “God, Anne! Will I say it again? You cannot discharge my temporary insanity with words or jewels or lands.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you think me a liar and I shall not go to Ghent?”
“I did not say so.”
