The Hedgewitch Queen

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Oh, dear gods. “My thanks, Captain.” I found enough presence of mind to sip the chai. It was hot and sweet with stevya, and I was grateful. I felt queerly light and drained, as if the dream were still happening around me. The predawn hush was immense; even our voices seemed not to break it. “I feel I am dreaming still.”

  Why did he examine me so? “Break your fast, d’mselle. We have a few sweet rolls, and some cheese. We shall stop in Tierrce d’Estrienne for supplies before we enter the Shirlstrienne.”

  I shivered. The forest had a dark name as a haunt of bandits and thieves, and Lisele and I had thrilled to the dangers of the wood in the romances and songs. High adventure, lovers in disguise, honorable thievery and less-honorable menace. Rescues by chivalieri of fair ladies distressed by bandits, always in the very nick of time.

  It did not seem so thrilling now. Then again, with some few of the King’s Guard, I was perhaps safer than I had ever been at Court. I had not even known danger was stalking me, except for the familiar peril of rumor and politicking. “Through the forest.” I sought to sound as if I considered it merely a maying-party.

  “If we take the other way to Arcenne, we go through provinces with garrisons loyal to the Duc.” Brisk now, he moved as if he would straighten, paused. “The forest only has bandits, and we may deal with them easily enough. Rest easy.”

  The chai’s warmth and sweetness helped, though my skin held the damp chill of morn outside. I had never spent the night out-of-doors before. “Am I slowing your journey?”

  He showed no further inclination to move. “I told you I would not leave you. Drink your chai, d’mselle. We will break our fast, and then another hard day’s ride. I am sorry for it, but there is no other way.” The small clearing did not seem a camp anymore; it was, instead, merely an anonymous dirtpatch with a ring of scorched stones in the middle. It took so little to erase the signs of our passing.

  “I know.” And I did. “I shall keep my mouth closed in the future, Captain.” If I can only remember what chaos ensues when I forget myself and open it. My reputation for discretion is suffering awfully.

  “That would be a shame. We would miss your voice.”

  It took every ounce of my self-control not to make a face. I settled for finishing the chai. It was still too hot, but they were in a hurry—and I had no desire to be caught by the Duc’s men. Then I pushed back the blankets, and Tristan helped me to my feet, deftly subtracting the cup from me. “That way.” He pointed, a swift gesture. “None of the Guard will bother you there.”

  He meant the privy. I nodded, hoping my cheeks were not scarlet.

  I found a secluded spot and thanked the gods I was possessed of a small hedgewitch charm to keep me hidden while I attended to nature. Then I found the brook they had fetched water from yesterday. Fog pressed close, threading between the trees, etching every leaf with crystalline droplets. The brook murmured to itself, birds stirring in the distance. It was not like the songs, where a noble girl wakes in the forest and is brought berries by the grace of one of the Blessed—usually Kimyan, for the Huntress is particularly concerned with children and maidens. Once a girl is married or experienced, it is gentle Jiserah she turns to; my mother had been a devotee of the Bright Wife.

  I washed my face and scrubbed at my hands. They held no trace of blood, for which I was grateful—but I still laved them more than twas perhaps necessary, wishing again for a hot bath, and some buttered scones, and morning chocolat. Oh—and a book, and a lazy divan to lie upon and read while Lisele played the harp.

  As I am still dreaming, I might as well wish for a ride in the Moon’s chariot. I shook myself. I was still alive, even if I was stiff, bruised, and aching from too much time spent in the saddle, and heartsick. Not to mention clammy under my borrowed clothes, and oddly light-headed.

  I washed my hands, and washed them again. Rubbed between my fingers, dug under my fingernails to remove all trace of garden dirt and…anything else. Examined my water-wrinkled fingers, then scrubbed at my palms again. I never thought I would yearn for the Court, for well-known faces and voices, for a familiar day of complete boredom.

  I was cupping water in my palm to drink when I heard movement on the other side of the brook.

  I stood in a rush and would have fled back into the quiet fog-hung trees, having no woodscraft but still hoping to hide, but they were too quick, melting out of the brush on the other side of the water’s thin chuckling. Two men, one with a brace of coneys dangling from a work-roughened fist, the other with two woodfowl.

  Tis illegal to hunt in the King’s forests. My eyes were round as platters; I stared as if they were sprites or demieri di sorce, those spirits of night and mischief.

  They stared back, perhaps thinking the same. Ruddy-cheeked and dressed in rough homespun, they were obviously peasants or smallholders. One had a thatch of dark-blond hair, and the other was dark, with a winking milky eye under a scar. They both had seamed faces from time spent in the weather, and hard hands from hard work.

  We regarded each other over the brook for a ridiculously long time, I having nothing to say, my heart hammering so hard it precluded rational thought, and they obviously suffering the same dilemma.

  Finally, the blond elbowed the dark man, who coughed. That broke the spell, and I backed up a step. Two. A stick snapped under my garden-boot, very loud in the foggy quiet.

  “Now, do not be going, d’mselle.” The dark one stretched out his free hand, as if I were a stray dog he wished to coax. “We are honest folk, and we want no trouble.” His hair was indifferently trimmed, and his accent almost too thick to be understood. Peasant, then, not smallholder. A small, dark-dripping bag slung by his side, full of something that looked heavy. More small animals?

  I swallowed dryly. “Then we are alike, sieurs.” I searched for good manners. Nothing in my Court training had prepared me for this. “For I wish no trouble either.”

  “Tha’s good, then.” The blond dropped the woodfowl with a thump that brought bile to my throat. They landed in a sodden, graceless heap, their slim necks terribly twisted. His hands were suddenly full of a bow, half drawn back. “Now, just you step lightly over the brook, d’mselle, and we’ll have a fine morn of it.”

  I did not—quite—understand what he meant, but the snigger of his companion made it clear. I froze, indecisive. Should I run and risk an arrow in the back, or do as they said, and risk more?

  “No.” I had not come through the impossible events of the last two days to be accosted by a pair of peasants, by the Blessed. “Return to the woods, sieurs, and take your game with you. Forget you ever saw me.”

  Their eyes grew large. I doubt they had ever heard a woman speak so.

  “Well, we would, noble d’mselle, but you see, we have the bow. And you’re here, dressed like a lad. You must like a bit of rough—” The dark one was warming to his theme when there was a slight sound behind me.

  I did not turn.

  “Drop your weapon, peasant,” Tristan d’Arcenne said. I was beginning to associate that calm, reasonable tone of his with danger. Something in it was a warning more effective than a shout.

  The crude bow promptly dropped to the forest floor. The arrow bounced into the stream, floating and bobbing away on the water’s chuckling surface. My sharp, surprised exhalation sounded almost like a word.

  Four of the Guard advanced on the peasants, one with a bow, two with drawn rapiers, and one with leather thongs. In a matter of moments, both men had their hands tied behind their back. “We meant no—,” the dark one started, and Pillipe di Garfour cuffed him so sharply blood flew from the man’s mouth.

  “Speak when you’re spoken to.” Di Garfour’s pleasantness had turned to a dismissive snarl.

  Wait. I found my voice. “And it please you, offer them no violence, chivalier.”

  He shot me one amazed glance, but at least he did not strike again. The two were thrust to their knees, and I started to protest again, but a hand on my shoulder halted me.

/>   “D’mselle?” Tristan’s face was set and white under the fading bruises. I wondered why he did not use my name, then answered my own question.

  He could not risk having me known to them.

  “They simply startled me,” I said quickly. “Tis all. They meant no—”

  “And the bow?” His blue eyes had turned cold. D’Arcenne, most probably, could guess at what two men would do to an unattended Court girl on a foggy morning far from the Citté.

  My tongue ran away with me. “Would you not have a bow drawn, if you were he? Leave them be, Cap—ah, chivalier. I beg of you, leave it be.” For I had an ugly intimation of where this situation could lead.

  “They will speak of this.” Tristan’s chill expression did not alter.

  I doubt it. “And admit to poaching in the King’s forest, with all the penalties that implies? No. Let them go on their way. They simply startled me.”

  The blond peasant stared at me, perplexed. The dark one, his mouth half open, looked as if he had been struck with a sudden thought, and his gaze dropped to the stream.

  “Your soft heart, d’mselle.” Tristan’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Kill them.”

  He started to turn, to lead me away, but I found my voice again. “No!” I slipped from under his hand. “No,” I repeated firmly. “I will have no more death on my account.” The brook chuckled merrily, laughing at me. Vianne, you idiot. Idiot Vianne.

  His shrug was a marvel of disdain. “Tis not on your account, d’mselle. It is on mine. Now come.”

  “Do not presume to order me about, chivalier.” I drew myself up, though my height was no match for his. “You were quick enough to promise me obedience when it served you. Now you must abide by it. I will have no more death on my account.” The words rang against fog and a rising chorus of birdsong. There was no more silence. The wood was alive once more.

  He folded his arms, cocking his head and staring through me. “They are beyond your mercy, d’mselle. Poaching in the King’s woods is a treasonable offense. Even had they not threatened you, their lives would be forfeit.”

  “If I am what you say, even that point becomes academic. Release them.”

  He gave in suspiciously easily. “Very well; they will be released. Now, if you please, d’mselle, come with me.” His hand closed around my elbow, and I let him pull me away. He cast one look over his shoulder, but I was too busy, my feet slipping on moss and rocks, to wonder at it.

  We plunged into the trees, moving so quickly I had difficulty keeping up. I set my jaw and did my best. When he rounded on me, blue eyes flashing, I almost lost my footing. But he had my shoulders instead of my elbow, and he shook me, once, as he had in the passageway two days—or a lifetime—ago.

  “You noble little fool. You will cost us all our lives. Do you think this is a game? It would take only one peasant in his cups to tell the Duc’s spies we have gone this way, and the entire countryside will be roused against us. My men are few enough. I have no wish to lose more of them.”

  I merely let my gaze accuse him. His fingers bit into my shoulders and I winced—I was already bruised there, and would be again. He did not notice, or care. And why should he?

  I was only a thing to him. A means to an end.

  D’Arcenne shook me once again, so sharply I flinched. “Gods above and below, Blessed witness me, why is it nothing I do pleases you?”

  “I could ask you the same question.” I seemed to have been possessed by a completely different person—a Vianne with no discretion and none of my usual quiet. A strand of my hair fell in my face, the mixture of being disheveled, aching all over, clammy-cold, terrified, and heart-wrung as volatile as the sylph-aether used to fuel burners for distilling hearth-binding charms.

  He stared at me for a few moments, his jaw working. I had never seen him angered thus. He looked on the verge of murder.

  I remembered Baron Simieri’s plum-colored face with an internal shiver. But that had been a poison killspell. D’Arcenne would have used his dagger, or his sword.

  But he has murdered, Vianne. The Guard in the donjon, do you think Tristan merely gave him a rose and a courtsong? And he is right, twould take only one peasant in his cups to rouse an entire province against us, if the Duc has laid his plans aright. Years this conspiracy was in the making; of course the Duc would plan for this. He has foresight enough.

  Yet I could not brook it. Something in me rose up in rebellion, hot and brittle. The fog had begun to thin as birdsong exploded, every winged thing greeting the Sun’s fiery chariot wheels. I heard—but no. I could not hear that, not with the bird noise.

  It sounded like a choked cry.

  As the Captain of the Guard needed nothing but a single glance from his King to understand an order, so those of d’Arcenne’s Guard would need only a single glance—a nod over the shoulder, perhaps—to comprehend him.

  And obey.

  My body drew up against itself, every muscle tightening, yet my knees felt queerly loose. “Oh, no,” I whispered, my lips numb. A thin trickle of sweat touched my back. “You did not. You did not.”

  His face darkened with something I did not want to name, so I took a step back. He let me, his hands dropping.

  He did not even have the grace to look shamed. “Tis not on your conscience; it is on mine. I cannot risk the lives of my men for the sake of your gentle feelings.” His dark hair had fallen over his forehead, and the dew had been at him, too—either that, or there was a sheen of sweat on his sharp mountain face.

  My throat was dry as the Days of Forgiveness. “They meant no harm.” They did mean harm, Vianne. You are lying even to yourself. The voice of good sense was faint and lost. My entire body quivered with a feeling too unsteady to be anger and too hot to be sorrow.

  “Of course they did. Had you been alone…” He did not complete the sentence. We both knew what could have happened. There were stories and songs of young noblewomen caught in the woods without the protection of chaperone or male relative, left for dead or dishonored and committing suicide afterward. The mother’s blood is all that counts, the proverb ran—but dishonor tainted even that.

  Tristan d’Arcenne and I stared at each other. What difference was there, between the peasants and the man who stood before me now? Either would seek to use me for their own ends; and what protection did I have? My wits, and the fact of the Aryx at my throat. Both such fragile protections.

  “Blame me, Vianne,” he said finally. “You did seek to save their lives; let that be enough.”

  I willed my hands to stop shaking, made myself as tall as possible. I am Duchesse Vianne di Rocancheil et Vintmorecy, and I must act like it. “You swore me your obedience.”

  “I did not order their deaths on your account, d’mselle.” His voice turned taut and low. “I might have spared them for your asking it of me, had the lives of my men—your Guard—not been at risk.”

  “They are not my Guard.” My throat ached with an unutterable scream. “They are yours—and the King’s.”

  “The King is dead.” His hands had curled to fists, and I wondered if he would be so base as to strike me. “You hold the Aryx, and have the last drop of royal blood in Arquitaine not tainted by regicide.”

  “I only hold the Aryx in trust.” My hand slipped up, touched the warm curve of the Aryx under my shirt. The peasants had not seen it, thank the gods—but that did not matter now. “I shall return it to a true Heir when it is time.” Gods willing. Please.

  He tipped his head back, his jaw working again, and I took two nervous steps backward. My ankle turned on a rock, and I almost fell. By the time I had regained my balance, he had somewhat mastered himself. His blue eyes were incandescent, and a muscle ticked steadily in his cheek. “Under Arquitaine law, until the time the Aryx chooses another holder, you are the Queen, and you should act like it. You should not risk our lives, d’mselle. Tis not noble of you at all.”

  I could have screamed, yet again. But it was useless. I possessed enough knowledge of th
e Law of Succession to know he was right. I was the Queen while I held the Aryx. It mattered little why Lisele had it, or how she came to entrust it to me. Entrusted it was, and I was trapped. Lisele had made me promise to keep the Seal safe, and traveling with Tristan d’Arcenne and the Guard was the safest place for the Aryx—and for me.

  But I had cost Lisele her life, perhaps. If I had been with her, mayhap I could have distracted the men long enough to buy her an escape. And the King—if Tristan had not been with me, perhaps he could have saved the King.

  Now I was responsible for two more deaths. Peasants, to be sure—but still, two more awful murders.

  So much death. We were wading in it, and it rose like the Airenne’s infrequent floods.

  A great chill settled over me, far deeper than my skin. It pushed all the way down to my bones. I cupped my elbows in my hands and hugged myself, shivering. I could find nothing more to say.

  D’Arcenne said nothing, either, and we heard the footsteps of the Guards returning. Who had killed them? Perhaps di Garfour? No—he was too kind. Luc di Chatillon? No, his eyes were so merry, and he had offered his oath in a voice that shook just a little. Robierre d’Atyaint-Sierre? No, I could not imagine it.

  You do not need to imagine, Vianne. It is done.

  They filed into the tiny clearing. “Is the Queen harmed?” Pillipe di Garfour asked shyly, faith shining in his gaze.

  He believed. The Captain had made them all believe they were the Queen’s Guard, and the Queen’s Guard they would be, to the last man. There would be no better defense for the Aryx.

  I set my chin and raised my eyes. “Unharmed.” My voice that sounded strange even to myself. “My thanks, sieurs. The Captain has informed me we are departing this place.”

  With that, I brushed past d’Arcenne. He gave a subtle push to my shoulder, telling me which way the camp lay. I was grateful for that, at least. I tried my best not to stumble, though my eyes were dry and felt full of sand. His fingers slipped, as if he had sought to catch me as I passed, but I did not let him.

  At least I was not weeping. The tears had turned to stones, and settled behind my beating heart.