Courting Darkness

by Robin LaFevers

  “I have no father.” Beast’s voice is like two rocks rubbing together.

  “Captain Dunois was not talking about Lord Waroch, but the man who sired you.” My voice is as gentle as I know how to make it, but a thick wall begins to grow between us. “He meant to tell you himself,” I rush to explain. “But you were out looking for Pierre, and once you returned, it was time to leave for France. He simply ran out of time. But he didn’t want you to run into the man at court and be caught unaware.”

  “How could he have been so certain?” Beast’s voice is achingly hollow. “My mother claimed she did not even know his name.”

  Such an easy lie to tell a child. “Dunois said the man was not shy about speaking of the ravages of war he had visited upon the lady of the manor. And that there were physical similarities that might stand out.”

  Beast stares at the confessional wall. “He cannot be uglier than me.”

  “Dunois did not say that he was. Only that you were of the same height and build, and that some of your features were similar.”

  A low growl erupts from Beast. He tries to pull away, but our small quarters give him no room. The ugliness of what he is feeling seeps into the air around us. I can sense his withdrawing from me, like an animal wishing to be alone to tend his wounds, but I grab him and hold fast.

  I open my mouth, but before I can speak, he brings his hand up between us, angling it toward the votives that light the confessional. “Do you see this scar?” He indicates the large, shiny red patch on the back of his wrist. “I gave it to myself the day my mother marched me to the paddock and forced me to watch a stallion covering a mare in heat. ‘That,’ she whispered with her sour breath, ‘is what your father did to me.’ ”

  I want to place my hand over his mouth, to halt the words that I know are causing him pain, but I do not. “Your mother was a vile woman.”

  “She was gravely wounded—​and it festered. That was the day I vowed to cut all traces of my father from me, like mold from a cheese.”

  Unable to help myself, I run my finger along the shiny red patch. It looks like a burn.

  “It turns out one’s lineage is harder to remove than a cheese rind. My sister found me and stayed my hand.”

  I close my eyes and say a silent prayer of thanks to Alyse. Just one of many I owe her. I take Beast’s face between my hands and force him to meet my eyes. “Dunois told me all this so that I would be ready should you try to distance yourself from me. I will not let that happen.” His be-damned honor is so great, it would be just like him to do such a thing from some misbegotten sense of nobility or desire to protect me. “If you even try something so dumb-witted, I will have to stab you to prove that however monstrous you think your past might be, mine is every bit as much so.”

  Tension radiates for a moment longer, then, like a thunderhead blown away by the wind, recedes. As he places his forehead on mine, a realization hits me with all the force of one of Arduinna’s arrows. It takes far more courage to love than it does to hate. And even more courage than that to have faith in that love. “If you are allowed to love a monster,” I whisper, “then so am I.”

  * * *

  On my way back to my room, I come face-to-face with the king himself. I do not know who is more surprised. I’d thought the heartbeat I sensed was Katerine’s again, but I was wrong. “Your Majesty.” I fall into a deep curtsy.

  “My Lady . . . ?” His face is relaxed, pleasant even, and his manner friendly.

  “Sybella, Your Majesty. I am Lady Sybella.”

  “Ah, and what are you doing roaming the halls at so odd an hour?” He sounds more curious than suspicious.

  “I fear I am a restless sleeper, made worse when cooped up too long. I walk the halls late at night to avoid driving my fellow ladies in waiting to distraction.”

  The smile he gives me is bland, but his eyes speculative. “We have been poor hosts indeed if we are forcing ladies to wander the halls looking for sport.” I cannot tell if he is flirting or even aware of all the possible meanings his words have, but if so, it does not show on his face.

  “I bid you pleasant walking, Lady Sybella.” And with that, he bows and moves past me, leaving the faint scent of lilacs and musk trailing in his wake.

   Chapter 62

  Genevieve

  sleep so deeply that when I open my eyes the next morning, I am disoriented. A moment later I jolt fully awake when the memory of the previous night falls on me like a hammer.

  Lust was not a part of my plan. It is a decidedly bad idea. Even worse, this morning I feel as if a thin, complex web now connects the two of us more firmly than before. As if what we shared mattered.

  My heart skitters in my chest. It cannot matter. I do not want to be connected to him any more than a farmer wishes to be connected to the sheep he is leading to market. Unwilling to face him until I have my wits and armor firmly in place, I glance over to see if he is still asleep.

  His space is empty and panic spurts through me. Was it all a ruse? A way to lull me into lowering my guard? With frantic hands I reach for the pack that holds the antidote, relief pouring through me as my hand closes around the vial. He won’t have gone far. Not without the antidote.

  Around me, the hall is still littered with sleeping bodies. A few industrious souls wander among them, nudging them awake. Ignoring the others, I rise and begin to dress. Just as I am pulling on my boots, a tall figure slips in from outside, moving purposefully toward my corner.

  It is not until the man is a dozen paces away that I realize it is Maraud, and his beard is gone. When he sees me, he gives a rueful grin and reaches up to stroke his newly shaved cheek. “It itched.”

  His hair, too, is wet. He must have risen early and found a bath house or barber. When I realize I am staring, I give an uninterested shrug. “That is too bad. It worked so well with your costume.”

  “The wolf’s head covers most of my face, and what is not covered is cast in shadow.”

  It does not matter that he is right. The bearded Maraud was rough and unkempt, a convenient reminder that he was—​is—​a prisoner. This beardless Maraud looks leaner, sharper, the fierce intelligence on his face even more plain. His rich brown eyes are even more commanding without the dark beard to distract from them.

  The man has never been easy to ignore—​not from the moment I first felt his heart beating in the dungeon—and this . . . this will not help matters. Surely the gods are testing me. Or punishing me. Or simply finding amusement at my expense.

  I grit my teeth and reach for the vial of antidote. “Before you wander off again,” I say too sharply. “Let’s not forget this.”

  His expression never changes, except perhaps for the left corner of his mouth, which twitches faintly, in amusement or disappointment, I cannot say. Surely if there were any connection between us, I would be able to tell such a thing.

  * * *

  We are a quiet group when we set out for the city of Angoulême. For one thing, the dark clouds have returned, and the day’s journey will be longer. But mostly, everyone has had too little sleep and too much wine.

  Everyone except the children, both those who belong to the mummers and those from Jarnac who are tagging along for the first portion of our day’s travel. They leap and frolic and chase one another. It would be amusing if they were not so very loud and energetic.

  Maraud handles the children good-naturedly. He is just approachable enough that they are able to work up the courage to try to tweak his wolf tail, but not so friendly as to rob them of the thrill of terror they derive from doing so.

  This good humor of his is nearly as annoying as his pretty face, and it makes me want to stab something. Mayhap during our next performance I will be less careful with my sword. That thought makes me smile.

  My hope that he is as eager to put last night behind us is soon quashed. When he looks at me, there is an unnerving warm light in his eyes. Twice he tries to break the silence between us, but I successfully rebuff both attempt
s.

  I need time to reason with myself, to wrestle my mind back under control. My body has been too long deprived of such pleasure and is simply being greedy, that is all. Not to mention that Maraud himself has not been with a woman in, what—​a year? Surely a goodly portion of his skill was simply due to pent-up demand.

  Any thread that connects us is merely having lived through a shared escape. We are joint survivors of narrowly averted disaster. The intensity of my feelings is nothing more than still being slightly drunk with my newfound freedom. Surely that is all there was to our coupling. To think it was anything other than that is to make the same mistake all the noblewomen at court make—​to think that it matters only leads to broken hearts, tears, and unwanted babes.

  With my thoughts untangled, I breathe deeply and look around, taking in the utter emptiness of the countryside. There are no buildings, no nobles, no one watching. There are no demands to pretend I am something I’m not. Just gently rolling green hills, a wide open gray sky, and an empty road. Yes, I am awash in an intensity of feelings, but very few, if any, have to do with Maraud.

  That is when he decides to break my hard-won silence. “Don’t worry.” He speaks quietly. “It will not happen again unless you wish it to.”

  I stare at him in horror, but his face is resolutely on the road before him. My need to shout that I do not have maidenly qualms is tempered only by the knowledge it would simply make things worse. Every other time I have taken a lover, we have both moved on immediately. That was no accident. But now I am stuck with Maraud for several more days. Several more nights with an attentive, skilled lover rather than a rutting bore, lying just within arm’s reach. There is only one way to end this.

  When I reply, my face is utterly blank. “What?” I ask. “What will not happen again?”

  There is a brief flash of disbelief on his face—​incredulity that for a second time I am denying something we both know to be true. His jaw tightens, and he turns his face to the road.

  Remorse crashes through me like a wave, but I harden my heart against it. His feelings, my feelings, are not what are important. The convent, the younger girls, the older nuns—​they are what is important. That is why we are riding side by side. He is a weapon in my arsenal, a bargaining piece. Nothing more.

  * * *

  Shortly after noon, thunder rumbles through the air. I look up into the thick gray clouds overhead, but they do not have the appearance of storm clouds. And there is no rain.

  It is Maraud who understands what is happening first. “Riders,” he shouts. “Get off the road.”

  There is a moment of inaction as everyone tries to make sense of what he is saying, then we all begin scrambling to make way for the company of mounted knights barreling in our direction.

  They are visible now, a standard bearer riding in front, the blue and gold banner he carries streaming behind him. At least fourscore mounted knights follow.

  “They’re not slowing down,” Herbin says uneasily as he tries to steer the oxen to the side of the road.

  “They won’t.” Maraud grabs the head of the closest ox to shove him along. “They have the right of way and these knights in particular will take their due and more.”

  The two women next to me both carry sleeping children. While I rack my brain to remember which house bears the blue and gold standard, I reach out and steady their elbows so they can cross the deep ruts and reach the safety of the side of the road.

  Two of the children eager to see the horses slip from their mothers’ sides and edge back toward the road. I let go of the women, grab the children by the hands, and haul them back to safety. The riders are coming fast now, recklessly fast. The road is full of deep ruts that could easily trip one of their mounts and cause it to break a leg.

  But they do not slow or check their speed. The churning hooves turn up small clods of dried mud, sounding like a smattering of hail along with the thunder of their stride.

  Just as they are nearly upon us, one of the straggling children clambers over the berm back into the road. Perhaps he thinks it is a game. Or he wants to see the knights more clearly. Perhaps he thinks he is quicker than the oncoming horses or that he is small enough to dart between their legs. Who knows what thoughts children have in such moments? But now he is on the road with fourscore mounted knights bearing down on him and none of them—​not one—​is breaking stride or slowing in the slightest. The sight of them strikes all reason from the child’s head, and he freezes with terror. And still they do not slow. They will simply run him down.

  “Stay here!” I thrust the children next to me farther from the road. Before I can run out to snag the boy, Maraud launches himself from the ox cart like an arrow from a bow. His long arms reach out and snatch up the child, curling his body around the boy as the momentum from his leap carries them both to the far side of the road. There is a loud thud and then the riders are upon us.

  Unable to do anything but watch the streaming knights and flailing hooves, I grab the children’s hands again and hold them tight. My heart beats so hard I fear it will break one of my ribs. Is it Maraud’s and the child’s heartbeats I feel? Or simply my own? The thunder of the passing horses reverberates so heavily from the earth through my legs to my chest that it is impossible to tell.

  I glare in impotent fury at the riders. Their visors are down, their spurs lowered, their horses covered in sweat. The knights’ armor is dark, their faces hard and cruel-lipped. That these men can ride down others with no consequence to themselves causes my stomach to twist into a seething knot.

  When at last they have passed, there is a muffled sob as one of the women dashes across the road to Maraud and the child.

  With the sound of hooves still ringing in our ears, a small voice calls out. “Get off! You’re squishing me!”

  A near hysterical laugh escapes me, and I squeeze the two boys’ hands before letting them go check on their friend. I am halfway across the road before I realize I have even moved. The child wriggles out from under Maraud, bouncing up like a spring rabbit and running to his mother, complaining that the wolf threw him down on the dirt.

  Jacquette grabs him tightly to her bosom, then clouts his head and tells him to be grateful because that big wolf just saved his scrawny life.

  When I reach Maraud, he is still lying on the ground, staring up at the sky. His face is deathly pale. No, no, no. I will not go through this again.

  I drop to my knees as my frantic fingers begin gently probing his body for signs of injury. “Are you all right? Can you speak?”

  He turns to look at me, the expression on his face both distant and disturbing. “You care,” he says, almost offhandedly.

  “What hurts?”

  He answers with a hollow voice. “It is just a bruised rib.”

  I nearly reach out and clout his head in relief, like Jacquette. “Then why do you look like Death?”

  He blinks, turning to stare back up at the clouds. “Because those knights are of the house d’Albret, and riding at their helm was Pierre d’Albret. Every one of those men knows exactly who I am.”

   Chapter 63

  he city of Angoulême comes into sight just as dusk is beginning to fall. As we approach the gates, Maraud puts a hand on my arm, drawing me back to the edge of our group.

  I glance at his hand, and he quickly removes it. “So now that we are here, I need to know what our plan is. We are entering not only your enemy’s territory but, with d’Albret’s arrival, mine as well.”

  I want to ask why they are enemies, but instead say, “Will d’Albret and his men spend the night in the city?”

  He glances up at the darkening sky. “Most likely. It is a convenient stop on the way to his holding in Périgord.” He is silent a long moment. “Why are we spending the night in Angoulême? I thought you were escaping. It makes no sense to run to one of the count’s strongholds.”

  “Is there another way to reach the route north?”

  His eyes scan the poplar tree
s that line the road like upright soldiers. “Where north?”

  “Poitiers. And we will need horses to get there.” Poitiers is only a stop on the way to Plessis-lès-Tours, but I do not want to share our destination with him. He has traveled these roads far more than I have, and I do not wish to give him so much information that he thinks he can begin plotting against me.

  He tilts his head, thinking. “There are not any horse markets in Angoulême this time of year.”

  “We do not need to buy them. They are already mine.”

  His eyes narrow as he begins to sense where this is leading. “Where are these horses of yours stabled?”

  It is hard not to squirm under that gaze. Obtaining horses has always been one of my greatest challenges. “At the count’s stables in Angoulême.”

  Maraud stops walking and gapes at me. “Are you mad? Surely that is too dang—”

  “Is it any less dangerous than stealing a horse? When the punishment for such is death?” It is hard to explain why I do not want to return to the convent—​or face those who used to run the convent—​empty-handed. To have lost Margot, to have achieved nothing in five years, and to have abandoned the few tools they gave me feels like too great a defeat.

  “But the count—”

  “Is not in residence. I told you, he is spending Christmas with the Duke of Orléans and will not be home until after Epiphany. No one at his castle in Angoulême knows me.”

  “So how do you plan to collect these horses of yours?”

  “It is simple. In exchange for their entertainment, the mummers are given hospitality in the castle’s lower halls or stables. Tonight we’ll make our way with the other mummers to the castle, settle ourselves into the stable, and wait. The best time for us to leave the city will be during the performance. All eyes will be on that. If anyone does see us, we can claim to be latecomers or part of a surprise ending act.”