Crimson Bound (29 page)

“That is true,” said Zisa. “And now I am glorious.”

Before he took another breath, she sliced his head from his shoulders.

The people trembled and were silent. But Zisa’s mother rose to her feet. Quietly she asked, “Does Tyr still remember his name?”

“No, my mother-that-was,” said Zisa. “Now come to my side.”

And her mother came to her.

“He will remember it again,” Zisa whispered in her mother’s ear.

“Then I can die in peace,” said her mother, and Zisa raised the sword to her neck.

Zisa cut out the hearts of her mother and father and put them in a silver chest, and back she went to the only family she had left.

“Now cook a soup and eat it with me,” said Old Mother Hunger.

I tell you, there was nothing she would not do for her brother.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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S
he woke up when Erec pinched her cheek. “Good morning, my lady.”

She batted his hand away and started to sit up. Then she realized that Erec’s servants were crowding into the room, and she was naked under the blankets. She dived back down even as Erec got up.

“Getting up?” he asked.

“No,” she growled.

“Don’t worry,” he said, ignoring the men who were pulling his shirt on over his head, “my valets know how to help a lady put her clothes back on.”

“No,” said Rachelle. “Send them away.”

“You aren’t planning to wear clothes today? My, that will cause talk.”

How could he be saying these things in front of everybody? But he was Erec d’Anjou:
he wouldn’t hesitate to say anything in front of anybody, especially when “anybody” was the servants whose names he probably didn’t even remember.

“I am not going to display myself in front of your servants,” she said.

He slanted an ironic gaze over his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you’ve grown modest overnight.”

There was nothing she could say that he wouldn’t make to sound even more foolish, so she curled up under the blankets and waited until he was done dressing and the servants had gone before she got up and dressed herself.

Erec still watched her, but she couldn’t very well complain. She’d chosen this, hadn’t she? She had said she belonged to him. What right did she have to resent him?

“Well?” he asked her as she laced up her shirt. “Was I worth the wait?”

“No,” snapped Rachelle, because contradicting him was a habit that would take more than one night to break.

“Then you shouldn’t have waited so long.”

She threw a boot at his head. He caught it easily, and leaned forward to kiss her.

Afterward, he hung the ruby pendant around her neck. The stone was as big as her thumbnail, a faceted, glittering teardrop that hung just below the mark on her throat.

“Now all the world can see you’re mine,” he said.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re already planning how to show me off.”

“Surely you don’t want me to hide you away.” Erec’s hand had rested on her shoulder; now he slid it up to cup the side of her neck. It was a surprisingly gentle gesture and she couldn’t help relaxing a little.

She’d always hated the thought of being his prize on display. And yet now that it had happened . . . it was comforting to know that somebody was not ashamed of her.

“But we can hold the grand display later,” Erec went on. “I have prisoners to question and you have . . .”

“Nobody to guard anymore,” said Rachelle.

Erec was silent, and she raised her eyebrows. “Or do I?”

“Possibly,” he said. “We’re not going to reveal what he did just yet.”

Because if people knew he had turned against the King, they might support him. She remembered the way Armand had looked at her last night, and she felt cold and hollow.

She would have to face that loathing again. After she left Erec, as she wended her way back through the Château to her quarters, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She had to make Armand tell her where he had put Joyeuse. So she would have to face him
again, and he would rake her with another one of his disdainful glances, and she felt absolutely sure that it would take him only one look at her to know what she’d done.

He had never thought any better of her. Why should she care?

She spent the day hunting for Joyeuse along every possible path from Armand’s rooms to where she had captured him. She found nothing, and she began to wonder if Armand had managed to dump it down a well. Or if he’d gotten someone to smuggle it out of the Château for him.

The thought made her want to beat her head against the wall. She had been so close, and if only she hadn’t trusted him—

He would have to tell her what he did with it, she decided. She would have to make him talk.

That meant getting Erec to let her see him, and
that
meant keeping him happy. So when Erec told her that the King wanted to dine tête-à-tête with them that evening, she obediently went back to her room to dress.

Sévigné helped her with both the clothes and cosmetics. It was no comfort now to sit still with someone painting beauty onto her face. With Amélie, it had meant that she was loved. Now it just felt like pretending.

Amélie was gone from the Château. Rachelle had tried to avoid thinking of her all day, but now she couldn’t escape the memories: Amélie’s frightened eyes, the way she had flinched. And now she could understand what she hadn’t then: that Amélie was probably terrified because her friend had turned up gripping a sword and spattered with blood. Of course she’d been scared. And Rachelle had thrown her away because of it.

At least she’d be with her mother when Endless Night fell. It was probably for the best.

Erec turned up at her door just as Sévigné finished painting her. He kissed Rachelle’s fingers and said, “It’s a most enchanting illusion. You look almost like a lady.”

“Almost?”

Rachelle had seen herself in the mirror: skin rendered flawless by powder, the glistening red lips, the precise triangle of blush on her cheeks. Her dress was pale blue silk embroidered with roses; there were little silk roses in her hair and a tiny black velvet patch shaped like a rose on her cheek. She looked so much like a lady, she could hardly recognize herself.

“Perhaps only because I know you,” he said. “Beneath the silk and lace, you are still a forest creature.”

Her face burned, and she didn’t dare answer back. Because this was not like every other time they had walked together. With every movement he made, she was helplessly aware of him, and she knew that he could use that against her any time he pleased.

They dined outside, on a small terrace that was ringed with marble statues of women holding lanterns. The lamps were lit, and crimson butterflies swirled about them in thick red clouds. Then Rachelle blinked, and there were only moths flitting next to each lamp.

The King arrived a few moments after them, and there were bows and curtsies and kissing of hands, and then they were seated.

“So,” said the King, wheezing a little. “I hear you have been doing your duty excellently as my son’s bodyguard.”

Rachelle hoped she was still smiling, but the King’s gaze had dropped, and she knew he must be staring at either her breasts or Erec’s ruby. She didn’t know which embarrassed her more.

“I have tried, sire,” she said. “What is to be done with him?”

The King seemed to find this hilarious; he let out one of his famous booming laughs. “What
is
to be done with him? D’Anjou, do you have any idea?”

“Teach him manners and keep him out of sight,” said Erec. “You know he’ll soon be irrelevant, sire.”

Rachelle hadn’t known she could feel pity and revulsion at once. It was disgusting how they laughed over the night before, as if Armand betraying them and people
dying
were no more than a joke. And yet she couldn’t help pitying them, because their words were more true than they could guess. Once the Devourer had returned and humans were the cattle of the forestborn, it would be truly irrelevant who had claimed to be king of Gévaudan.

The meal wore on. Rachelle could tell the food was exquisite, but she could barely choke it down. Out here on the terrace, with the evening breeze on her skin, the elegantly trimmed trees of the garden in the distance, she couldn’t forget that Endless Night was coming. For all she knew, she could be watching the next-to-last sunset the world would ever know.

Unless she could get Armand to tell her where Joyeuse was.

The King seemed to have lost interest in her; he spoke to Erec, discussing plans for hunting parties and dancing parties and the grand ball to celebrate the solstice night. What had made Erec think that this dinner was an honor worth sharing with her? But as
she watched him, the way he smiled and exchanged little epigrams with the King, she realized that he was glorying in this moment—that while he respected the King no more than she did, being the special guest of King Auguste-Philippe actually meant something to him.

What was it he had said about his half brother?
He was legitimate, and heir to everything I lacked. At the time, that seemed very important.
Was it still important to him, to steal the glories and honors that his dead brother might have once enjoyed?

If so, it was a very foolish wish. He claimed to be ready and willing to cast all humanity aside, yet he was still trying to satisfy the longings of the child he had once been. But it made her heart soften a little toward him.

And how could she blame him? She was trying to kill the Devourer because she wanted to save Gévaudan and all the people she loved, but in truth, she was also trying to justify the dreams of the headstrong girl who had dared speak to a forestborn.

The sky was deep purple when Rachelle started to hear what sounded like people shouting very far away. She looked at Erec. He looked back at her, shrugged faintly, and went right on talking to the King.

She was just about ready to get up and investigate and damn etiquette when a blue-coated guardsman arrived and whispered in the King’s ear.

The King sighed. “It seems there’s some sort of rabble approaching the Château. Would you care to play cards inside, while the guard deals with them?”

“How tiresome,” said Erec, rising.

“Deal with them?” said Rachelle.

The King waved his hand. “You’ve heard of the upset five years ago. They’re quite experienced with this sort of thing.”

Rachelle’s stomach turned cold. Five years ago, a drought had caused food shortages and a crowd of hungry people had marched all the way to Château de Lune to demand the traditional midwinter alms. Whether the guardsmen had fired unprovoked or whether the crowd had been preparing to riot depended on whom you asked, but nine people lay dead at the end of it.

“What are they here for?” asked Rachelle.

“The same sort of foolery,” said the King, rising from his chair. “They miss their saint, because they imagine that groveling before him will keep the woodspawn from their doors. And they think they have the right to make demands of their King. Come, the cards await.”

Erec gave her an amused, superior look, as if to say,
I could have told you this would happen.

He didn’t seem the slightest bit worried about what might happen next.

“Sire,” Rachelle began desperately, “don’t you think—”

Erec’s hand pressed over her mouth as one of his arms wrapped around her waist. “Yes, my thought exactly. Your Majesty, would you mind if we joined you in a moment? My darling has some words for my ears alone.”

The King grinned. He clearly knew that Rachelle had been about to beg him to intervene and that Erec was intervening against her.

“Of course,” he said. “Take all the time your lady needs.”

When he had left, Erec released her mouth but maintained his grip on her waist. “Now, please don’t hit me, my lady? You know as well as I what would happen if you gainsaid him.”

Rachelle knew he was expecting her yell at him. But she was silent, her mind working furiously. There was no point appealing to the King, that much was obvious. The Bishop might have enough influence to calm the crowd, but he probably wouldn’t
want
to calm them.

“Erec,” she said. “Let me have Armand back, just for this evening.”

“Oh?” His voice showed only polite curiosity, but his grip dug into her arm. “And what were you planning to do with him?”

“Show him to the crowd,” she said. “He’s their saint, isn’t he? He could make them disperse peacefully.”

“You think the King would like that?”

“The King doesn’t have to know until it’s too late. He doesn’t even have to know that I had anything to do with it. Do you honestly not care that there could be a slaughter?”

“Care? Do you forget we’re both murderers?”

“No,” said Rachelle, “but right now, I don’t give a damn. Tell me where you’re keeping Armand and let me take him out and show him to the crowd. I’ll do anything you want after that. Just let me stop this.”