"Alais, get behind me," I said quietly.
"Celeste," she whispered, strained.
The wolfhound was braced and snarling, her hackles standing on end. By some fluke of fate, she had positioned herself in front of Sidonie. The Dauphine sat motionless atop her fractious young mare, her face drawn and white. Her mount trembled beneath her, hooves shifting in the soft loam.
"Your highness, don't move," said the Master of the Hunt.
She nodded stiffly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gilot and Ti-Philippe dismount, drawing their swords. Haifa dozen other men did the same, Maslin included. None of them had boar-spears.
The boar scraped the earth with one trotter, whuffled, and charged. It was like a small mountain in motion.
"Celeste!" Alais screamed.
The wolfhound leapt aside, snapping at the boar as it passed. The Dauphine's mare let out a terrified squeal and bolted. Branches broke and crackled as it fled, and the boar rounded for another turn, eyeing us all.
"Guard Alais," I said briefly to Hugues.
He gave grim nod. "Go!"
I turned the Bastard in Sidonie's direction and heeled him hard. "Yah!"
He answered; ah, Elua! I gave him his head and crouched low over his neck. The trees were a blur; everything was a blur. I clamped down hard with my thighs and silently thanked the Tsingani for breeding such a magnificent mount—and yes, Nicola L'Envers y Aragon for gifting him to me.
"Sidonie!" I cried, catching sight of her.
She was upright in the saddle, sawing at her runaway mare's reins. There was a massive deadfall in their path. Coming upon them from behind, I saw her mare check hard, planting her forelegs and refusing the jump; I saw Sidonie soar over her head, falling hard on the far side of the deadfall. I hauled on the reins, veering to the right. "Please," I whispered. "Oh, please!"
The Bastard gathered his haunches and leapt.
He tucked his striped hooves as neatly as a dancer. We cleared the fallen tree; we cleared Sidonie's recumbent form. I dismounted, scrambling on foot. I could hear somewhat stirring in the underbrush, coming toward us.
"Stay down!" I flung myself atop her.
Was it the boar? I couldn't be sure. I angled my body to best protect her, so that its gouging tusks would find my flesh first. And there I heard Sidonie de la Courcel's laugh, her true laugh, deep-throated and unexpectedly buoyant.
I stared at her, gaping.
"Oh, Imriel!" She pointed beyond where I had her pinned. "Look!"
It was a deer; only a deer. A young buck. Like as not, it was the one we had first pursued. It peered at us from the underbrush, ears pricked, its eyes moist and lambent, then beat a prudent retreat.
I sighed. "A deer."
"Oh, your face!" Sidonie gasped. "You should have seen it! It's not funny, I know, but…" Her laughter trailed off. Something in her expression turned soft and quizzical. "You really meant it, didn't you? Your oath."
I swallowed hard. Of a sudden, I was acutely aware of her body beneath mine, all firm curves and tender limbs. Of her honey-gold hair, spilled across the damp loam. Of her face, inches from mine, lips parted. My own hair fell forward, curtaining her face. We were so close our breath mingled.
I saw her realize it, too, the blood rising beneath her fair skin. In the hollow of her throat, I could see her pulse quicken.
I felt… what? Dizzy and disoriented, as though I'd seen the sun rise in the west. I was a stranger in my own skin. Something deep in my chest felt wrong, as though a piece of me had gone missing.
Neither of us moved.
"Yes," I whispered. "I meant it."
The Bastard chose that moment to amble over and investigate. He leaned his spotted head down, snuffling at my hair. I startled and cursed, then got hold of myself and clambered to my feet. I extended my hand to Sidonie.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, helping her rise.
"No. Bruised a little, that's all." Averting her head, she brushed dirt and leaf-mold from her skirt. "Thank you, Imriel."
"For protecting you from a deer?" I asked wryly.
"For protecting me." Sidonie looked at me, her dark Cruithne eyes direct and honest. I saw, for the first time, our shared heritage in her face. Our brows were the same shape, straight and firm, tapering at the ends. Hers were burnished gold where mine were black. Otherwise, they were the same.
It made me feel strange all over again.
"I'll see if I can't catch your mare," I said.
As it happened, I couldn't. I spent some time at it, stamping and swearing. The fractious beast skittered away, showing the whites of her eyes, her reins trailing. The Bastard watched the proceedings with mild interest. Sidonie laughed. Not the same laugh, but a laugh.
"Never mind," she said. "Someone will fetch her. We'd best find out what's happened." She sobered, shivering. "Elua! I hope no one was hurt."
So I boosted her astride the Bastard and led him on foot. We hadn't gone farther than a few hundred paces before we heard the searchers calling. I gave a shout in reply. And my cursed luck held true; Maslin de Lombelon was the first to find us, bursting from the forest on horseback, his face a mask of streaked blood, none of it appearing to be his own. He rode us down furiously, drawing his sword and pointing its tip at my heart. It, too, was bloody.
"Unhand her!" he said tautly.
I stood stock-still, holding the Bastard's reins with one hand. "Maslin," I said cautiously, raising my free hand and showing it empty. "The Dauphine is unharmed."
His blade trembled. "Unhand her!"
"Maslin!" Sidonie's voice was sharp. "I'm fine. Leave him be."
He breathed hard, staring at her. And I knew, in that moment, with utter surety, that he loved her; or thought he did. There was somewhat between them. I knew it. He bowed his head and sheathed his sword. "As you command, Dauphine."
In the glade, we found the others; or most of them. The boar was dead, lying in a vast unseemly mound. Alais was sitting on the ground, weeping, cradling Celeste in her lap. I winced, seeing the wolfhound's side gored, a long slash laid that laid her ribcage open nearly to the bone. Celeste beat her tail feebly at my approach, unable to raise her head, brown eyes apologetic.
"Oh, Imri!" Alais raised her tearstained face. "Help her, please!"
I got the whole story from her later. How the boar had charged and charged again; how Celeste had snarled and fought. How she had been gored, and how Maslin de Lombelon had stepped into the breach, shoving his blade home in the boar's mighty breast, sinking it to the hilt, holding it while it raged, until others came forward and struck a succession of death-blows, until it sank and subsided.
None of that mattered, then.
"Needle and thread," I snapped, gazing around at the ring of silent faces. "Name of Elua! Does no one carry it?"
"Here." A calm voice; Sidonie's lady-in-waiting, Amarante. From somewhere in her purse, she procurred an embroidery kit. Kneeling at my side, she handed me a threaded needle. "Do you know what you're about, highness?"
"Not really," I said grimly. "Anyone?"
No one answered. So I set about the unpleasant process while all the fine gentry of Terre d'Ange busied themselves trying to catch Sidonie's mare. I thought about the Tiberian chirurgeon, Drucilla, whom I had known in Daršanga. I remembered the advice she had given, dying; the lives she had saved. I thought about Phèdre and Joscelin. She had done as much for him, once, when they were lost in a Skaldic blizzard. He bore the scar to prove it.
I sewed up Alais' dog.
It was a messy business, but I did it. Amarante of Namarre knelt at my side, blotting away the welling blood with a wadded piece of what looked to have been fine embroidered cloth. Alais wept, holding Celeste's head. For a mercy, the wolfhound was too weak to struggle.
"Will she be all right?" Alais pleaded when I finished. "Will she?"
I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, unwittingly smearing it with blood. "I don't know, Alais," I said honestly. "Let's get her to a proper chirurgeon and see."
Maslin had not been idle while I worked. He had sent for a wagon and ordered his men to built a makeshift stretcher out of a pair of saplings and his own cloak. I stood aside, watching them ease Celeste into it.
"Hold out your hands, highness." It was Amarante who spoke, her apple-green eyes grave. I obeyed and she tipped a waterskin over them, sluicing away the blood. When she had finished, she drew a silk kerchief from her bodice, wetting it. "Here, bend down."
"My thanks, lady." I let her mop my brow. "You were a great help."
She smiled slightly. "The young princess loves her dog very much."
It was an oblique comment; but then, she was a priestess' daughter. I merely bowed in response and said, "Yes, she does."
It was a somber party that returned from the Queen's Wood. Maslin's men did their job, carrying the injured wolfhound out of the forest with care, slung between them on his cloak. Once we were out of the forest, I rode with Alais in the wagon while Gilot led the Bastard for me. Together we cradled Celeste, cushioning her as the wagon jounced along a rutted path. Alais wept steadily, tears forging two shining paths down her cheeks.
"She saved us," she said. "She did, Imri!"
"I know, love," I said softly. "I know."
On one side of the wagon, Maslin rode, glancing at me with stony hatred in his eyes, dried blood flaking on his face. On the other side was Sidonie. I didn't dare look at her; for fear of remembering the feel of her body beneath mine, for fear of the strange flutter in my chest.
Ah, Elua!
What had happened between us?
I was not sure.
And I was afraid.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alais' dog celeste lived, and I turned eighteen. The credit for the former went to the Queen's Eisandine chirurgeon, Lelahiah Valais, who tended her with the same deft professionalism she accorded her human patients. She clucked her tongue over the shoddy workmanship of my stitches, crude as they were. When the wolfhound's wound festered, she induced maggots to clean it, then packed it with an odd allotment of bread-mold and spiderwebs. It looked ghastly, but it worked.
The dog survived.
And I gained my majority.
I had thought, a great deal, about Tiberium. Since Eamonn had departed, I had thought about little else. The thought of leaving Phèdre and Joscelin filled me with anxious misgivings; and yet there was exhilaration, too. I yearned to escape from the web of rumor that surrounded me; the suspicion, the sly mockery. I yearned for the freedom to reinvent myself; the freedom to learn and explore the world. But on the day of my natality, the Queen herself begged a boon.
"Stay," she said simply. "Please stay, Imriel; at least until Drustan returns."
I glanced at Phèdre, who was frowning. She had that look about her, like a soldier who hears horns in the distance, but cannot yet discern their call. Meeting my eyes, she shrugged.
"All right," I said to Ysandre. "I'll stay."
Drustan came, along with a panoply of Cruithne. His sister's son Talorcan, Prince Talorcan, was among them. I watched them enter the City, my arms folded, thinking of Alais.
I found little with which to quarrel on first glance. He was a well-made young man, not tall, handsome in the manner of the Cruithne. Intricate woad tattoos covered his arms and the upper half of his face, indicating he was a skilled and tested warrior. He bowed respectfully to Alais when they met, showing no sign of presumption. When we were introduced, he clasped my forearm firmly and gave me a pleasant smile.
"Well met, Prince Imriel."
His D'Angeline was flawless. Drustan, I thought, had been grooming him for this for a long time. I stole a glance at the Cruarch out of the corner of my eye. His face, behind its tattoos, was unreadable.
Talorcan bowed in the Queen's direction, then turned and beckoned. "And may I present my sister, Dorelei."
The ranks of Cruithne guards parted, and she trotted forward astride a bay mare, her face at once shy and vivid with excitement. There was a murmur of surprise and a few good-natured cheers from the assembled crowd. Beneath it, I heard Phèdre's soft indrawn breath, and a cold finger of foreboding brushed my spine.
When my time came, I bowed over her hand. "Well met, Princess Dorelei."
She laughed; almost a giggle, catching in her throat. "Thank you!" Like her brother, she was pure Cruithne, slight and dark, with twin lines of blue dots etched high on her cheekbones. Something in her manner made me think of a woodland animal, curious, yet poised to startle. "Well met to you, too."
There was a formal reception following their arrival.
I attended it, going through the empty motions of courtesy. I wanted, urgently, to speak to Phèdre; but there was no time. She merely shook her head at me, cautioning patience. So I watched her, instead, reminding myself how the game of intrigue was played. In her own way, no one played it better.
"Comtesse de Montrève!" Amarante, Sidonie's lady-in-waiting, greeted her with a deep curtsy. "It is an honor to meet you."
Phèdre smiled and raised her up, giving her the kiss of greeting. "Amarante of Namarre. You have a look of your mother. How is she?"
"Very well." Amarante smiled in reply. She had a ripe mouth, her lips as plump as cushions. I hadn't noticed that while we were busy sewing up poor Celeste. "She sends her greetings," she added, sliding a sealed letter from her bodice and passing it to Phèdre. "And says that Naamah does not forget her Servants."