Dream a Deadly Dream, page 33
part #2 of Enclave Book Series
The shared breakfast was chaotic, with not enough bowls and children chasing around them. It was over too soon, cut short when buff-clad soldiers rode past, the thunder of hoofbeats drowning conversation. Before they left, Alstera managed one final private word with the old woman. “Tell me, good mother, have you heard what ails the king?”
“Stomach trouble. Came on `im sudden-like, just a week past. Happen it was days before he heard Comtesse Muirée had been arrested.”
“And have you heard what caused his ailment?”
“Nay, none has. Mysterious it is. No plague, that’s sure, fer no one else at the palace came down with it. The king left in hopes his daughter wouldn’t get it, if `twere plague.”
“No, he wouldn’t want to endanger his heir. Bless you, good mother, for the food and the gossip. And the prophecy.”
“The blessings on ye, child. Ye’re the one trouble will be shadowin’.”
Chapter 27
Alstera rejoined Cherai and Raul and without explanation swept them away from Lillunde. Raul held his protest until they passed the last wagon, then his question burst out. “Where are we heading? I thought we were going to Lillunde.”
“The king’s not there. He’s gone to a country estate. He’s ill.”
Cherai missed a step. “Oh, gods, Medreaux’s spell. It’s started.”
Alstera nodded while Raul protested, “Which estate? He has five, scattered all over Vaermonde. We could be on the road for months.”
“The old woman said the king traveled this very road yesterday afternoon.”
“He has two estates north of here,” Cherai said. “Garde Malleison and Palais Berengar.”
Their tracking was child’s play, for everyone knew the king had passed. When the road forked, their choice was east to Vellaine and Malleison or north to Palais Berengar. Luck smiled on them in the shape of a garrulous drover eager to tell about the coaches, the fancy-feathered courtiers, and the dragoons who had herded his sheep off the road so the king’s black-and-silver coach could take the east fork.
“I know this shire,” Raul said. “We can go overland and be at Malleison by early evening.”
He led them cross-country, avoiding villages and outlying farms, sure of his way around hillocks and through woods. His boyhood had been spent here, he told them, shepherding. He’d had his own dog and a promising future, until plague took his da then his ma. A freehold family had adopted his toddling sister, but they hadn’t wanted a shepherd boy. Rather than apprentice himself for years, he’d taken to the road and never regretted it.
He shared the last as they emerged from a low-lying wood that wended with a creek. A cold sun watched them climb a barren knoll. As they topped it, the wind struck. Before them stretched a country estate. Like Muirée, the grand manor house commanded from a neighboring hill, divided into parterres and a manicured lawn. The pastures and cross-planted fields rolled away like waves of brown and gold and green.
Raul started down, but Cherai seized Alstera and held her back. Heart in throat, she wondered what trap he led them toward. “What is this estate, Raul?”
“Garde Malleison.”
“No. No, it isn’t. My father described Malleison to me. Ruby marble and granite, pediments of white chalky stone. Windows upon windows, opening onto water gardens the old king built for his wife. This isn’t Garde Malleison. Where are we, Raul?”
“Well, it’s true we ain’t there yet. It’s about ten miles farther on, but that road yonder—see it winding behind the carriage house—that’ll take us there.”
She didn’t look at him. Her gaze remained on the old-style manor. Blockish towers flanked the concave central house. The high walls were chiseled from quarry stone, and gray limestone chimneys dotted the slate roof. Two staircases curved symmetrically down from the entry to the forecourt. A long parade of boxwoods marched down the hill from the house.
Cherai braced against the biting wind with the sinking realization that Raul had betrayed her, had always betrayed her. “Where are we?” she demanded a third time.
“Now, Cherai—.”
“Don’t. Just—don’t. It’s Fauteil, the Orlesse ducal seat, isn’t it?”
“How do you know?” he challenged. “I thought you’d never been in this district.”
“I haven’t, but my father described Garde Malleison to me. He described all of the king’s estates as well as the seats of the chief peers of the realm. The Orlesse estate adjoins Garde Malleison, and this is it. You led us here, deliberately led us here. Would you have walked us to the very door?”
“The duc can help you, Cherai. He’s a better choice than the king. You’ll never get an audience with the king, not unless a regiment brings you in, and a regiment is just as likely to take you to the Iron Gloves. The duc only wants the succession for Princess Aisdeinne. He wouldn’t want wars about the succession starting up.”
“Raul, that’s the very reason I can’t trust him. He’ll kill me, he’ll kill all of us because of the queen’s confession. I won’t go to him.”
“But you’re safe with Orlesse. He’s on your side, Cherai, same as DuBarrée is.”
Cherai inhaled sharply. “How do you know this?” But Raul shut his mouth.
Alstera stepped a little forward, as if defending Cherai. “Tell her. Or I will.”
He huffed, but then his shoulders dropped. “How do I know?” He jerked up his left sleeve. “See this,” and she saw a sigil inked into his forearm, much as Alstera had tattoos around her wrists. “This is how I know. That’s the duc’s sign. DuBarrée used it to keep track of you through me. He wants you kept safe. And you were safe with me. You always were. Still are.”
“You’ve been working for Guy all this time?”
“His troop’s never been more than a day’s ride from us.”
“That regiment knew we were at Muirée?” Alstera asked.
As he nodded, Cherai’s nails dug into her arm. “Raul, the duc will gain if Aisdeinne succeeds to the throne. He would want the queen’s confession destroyed so the bastard princess would inherit. Would he destroy us with it, Raul?”
“No. That I’d never agree to.”
The wind whipped them, scouring through them, as biting as the pain in Cherai’s heart. “Orlesse is your lord, and you owe him that loyalty, but I thought—I thought our friendship counted more than that.”
“It does. It does, Cherai. I would never turn you over to be killed—or imprisoned. That wasn’t the deal. It never was.” He spoke rapidly, knowing Cherai was ready to cut her ties to him. Worry creased a brow that had never known it. “DuBarrée don’t want you hurt. He paid me to keep an eye on you, so he’d know where you were, so he’d know Selbourne's people hadn't got you. Then, when the king fell ill and you escaped him in Marsden, everything changed.”
“How long?” She felt hollow, boneless, weak. She didn’t want to feel weak. She had sworn never to be weak again. “How long have you been working for DuBarrée?”
“It wasn’t—.”
“Do not lie, Raul,” Alstera snapped. “The time for lies has flown. Answer her question truthfully. If you can speak the truth.”
He looked like a lost child, the gilded looks not helping him slip the reins of honesty. “Three years.”
“The whole time?”
“Yes. Cherai!” She spun away and skidded the first foot down the hill. Raul caught her quickly, but when he grabbed her arm, she whirled, belt knife in her hand.
“Get off!”
Lifting his hands, he fell back. “Easy, Cherai. I don’t mean you no harm.”
“All along you knew who I was, why I was on the road. The ready coin you always had, it wasn’t lucky bone-shaking, it was DuBarrée. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”
“Aye. The colonel gave me coin to report to him, to keep you safe.”
Her hand clenched on the knife. She wanted to stab him as he’d stabbed her, but she reined in the hurt. Constraint left her voice toneless. “Why, Raul? You didn’t even know me.”
“It began for money. Then I liked you. I didn’t want—he had me in a vise, Cherai. So I told myself I was helping you.”
“By informing an officer in the king’s regiment of my whereabouts?”
“Has DuBarrée been on your heels anytime these past years?”
Raul’s thrust cut her anger. Her eyes narrowed as she considered it. So, Guy DuBarrée could have found her anytime. He’d mentioned something like that. But he had held back. Why? What had he been waiting for? Orlesse’s plan to reach fruition? “You told the troop we were going to Muirée?”
“I told the blacksmith; he told DuBarrée.”
“Why the blacksmith?”
“They work with secrets in the iron, and they’ll keep our secrets.”
Alstera laughed but without humor. “That old legend? They have no power.”
“It may be legend, but not once did they break confidence. We’ve been over the same roads how many times? And you never knew until today, and that’s only because we got to get you safely to Orlesse.”
“We’re not going to Orlesse.” She took another step away then stopped and looked back. “And when we met you outside Geistre? That wasn’t just chance.”
“DuBarrée pointed me in that direction, after he got me out of trouble in Feuton. He sent me overland while the dragoons scoured the roads.”
“Has your every word been a lie, Raul? No,” she held up her hand when he started to answer. “No, I don’t want to know. Go away. Don’t ever come near me again.”
She turned and strode down the hill, slipping a little on loose rocks but not looking back, not stopping, not slowing. When she gained the trees, her blinded eyes walked her into a trunk, and she clung to it for the support that had been yanked from under her.
When she heard leaves rustling behind her, Cherai wiped her eyes and braced herself to blast Raul, but it was Alstera, gaining on her with long strides, her skirts kited up.
She looked politely away from Cherai’s damp face and red eyes, back over the path they’d come. “He has gone to Orlesse. We’ll have to move faster, before the duc can intercept us. Can you find the way?”
Determined to shed no more tears, forcing the hollow betrayal into a corner, to rend it apart later, Cherai looked back at the knoll. The straight pines threatened to blur, and she glared at them and the wending path. “From here, yes. We can cut across the back of the estate and approach Malleison from the north road.”
They walked in silence, crushing dead leaves under their feet as the sun worked its way across the sky. Purple clouds built in the west, heralding rain or early snow. Alstera finally said, “Raul had a point, about DuBarrée.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
The wizard took her arm and stopped her. Her scalded emotion boiled into anger, and she twisted to get away, but Alstera held on tightly. “You cannot keep running, Cherai. You cannot deny a part of something, no matter how much the whole of it hurts you.”
“Is that what you think I’ve been doing? Running because I can’t face some damnable truth! Do you think I wanted to s-s-spend these years on the road? Do you think I wanted to st-starve and freeze and—and get beaten!”
“I think you ran from your grief, when you saw your father dead, because you feared a life entirely alone. Instead of finding a safe harbor, friends you could live with, you have remained on the road. It would have been possible, even with the king’s regiment looking for the comtesse Muirée, for a young woman to lose herself in a country the size of Vaermonde. It would have been possible to live quiet and settled, not what you were, but not aimless and wandering. You did not. You backed away from any emotional attachment because you were afraid of being hurt again.”
“Or betrayed?” She jerked her arm free and spat the words at her. “Don’t forget that, Alstera. As Raul betrayed me. I dared to trust him, and he was never truthful with me. Don’t you think I was right to be cautious?”
“You did not listen to his reasons. You did not listen to him say that DuBarrée could have arrested you any time—and did not. The colonel let you run at the end of a tether you never even felt.”
“Now he’s coiling it around his arm, as if I’m some falcon he’s decided to present to Orlesse on a platter, confession and all. You s-said yourself that—that Orlesse would have to destroy the queen’s confession and us with it. Didn’t you?”
Alstera’s hands dropped to her sides. Her gray eyes looked flat. “If that is his plan. You called him ruthless once. You said also that he was obscure. Do you think DuBarrée kept a watch on us without Duc Orlesse knowing? I do not. I begin to think he plays a deeper game than we can divine.”
Cherai didn’t know what to think anymore. Her solid world had crumbled beneath her yet again. She had only one thing to hold onto. “Because we hold this confession, our lives are worthless unless we reach the king.”
“Who issued a warrant for you, when your father was only days dead. Who can you trust, Cherai? The king who does that? Orlesse, who keeps a watch on you but does nothing more? Selbourne? Bishop Cuille and his aide Medreaux? What does logic tell you? This Colonel DuBarrée could have killed you, with none to wonder at the mysterious death of a nameless bard. Instead, he lets you live. He treated you well in Marsden and in Muirée, when he could have chained you. I think DuBarrée is a friend, not an enemy. And DuBarrée works for Orlesse.”
The last words meant nothing to her, for she was remembering DuBarrée’s touch, his kisses, their tangled bodies at Muirée. Was she fool enough to trust a man who arrested her then used seduction to slip past her defenses? She didn’t dare trust him. He came too close to her heart. And his cryptic words warned her: ‘If you do know nothing, I can’t help you.’ She knew many things now, too many things, yet she couldn’t divine how any of it would keep her alive.
“Do not let your hurt drive you off a sure road,” Alstera cautioned. “Think. Plan. Listen to your head.”
“What does your head tell you?”
“That we should go back.”
“No.” She thrust Alstera’s hand off her arm. “Do you want logic? This is logic. I walked the road freely a week ago. Since then, the king’s regiment, led by Colonel DuBarrée, has been on my heels. DuBarrée serves the king, but his first loyalty is to Orlesse. When the king falls ill, Orlesse acts to protect his great-niece Aisdeinne. That I can accept, even though I’m caught in his wide-flung net. Am I to be eaten or tossed back into the river? No answer? Then let me go, Alstera.”
“To where?” she asked before Cherai had taken a step.
“To the only place. To the king. Let him decide.”
“What if he destroys the confession and you with it?”
Cherai stared at the barren trees surrounding them. The rushing wind tossed the stripped limbs, snatching the last stray leaves. “Then I’m lost.” Her mouth twisted in mockery of a smile. “Unless a certain wizard I know can walk me out of a dungeon before my execution.”
Alstera gripped her shoulder. “This wizard will do her poor best.”
With time against them, they ran along the creek until it had circled behind the manor house. Then they worked along the windbreaks to the north road. By then, hours lost and the sun sinking, Cherai’s uppermost fear was that someone would block their attempt to contact King Edvard even after they reached Malleison. So they cut overland, buying time. When they regained the road, the marble-capped chimneys of the grand hunting lodge jutted into the sun-painted sky. Surrounding parkland hid the house itself.
They limped along the road, following the iron-barred fence, giving in to tiredness now their destination was in view. When horsemen galloped around the bend ahead, Alstera tugged her toward the woods’ safety on the other side. Cherai dug in her heels. The riders’ livery wasn’t regimental red or army buff; nor was it Orlesse’s bold blue and white. They filed to the roadside, hoping the riders would take them for innocuous travelers.
The horses thundered down on them, then a shout drew them up, with snorts and prancing. One horse detached from the body to block their passage. Cherai looked up and saw fair hair glinting in the last rays of the sun, a leonine profile, a black cloak billowing open to reveal regimental colors. Her heart sank. Had the regiment captured her after all? So close to her destination? “Gault. Captain Gault.”
“We meet again, Cherai. Most fortuitously.”
“Yes. Yes, it is. Can you get me an audience with the king, Gault?”
“I could, but I won’t. Someone else wants to see you.”
The other riders had encircled them. They wore gray slashed with red, a livery she identified with horror. “Selbourne. It’s Selbourne.”
“Lord Selbourne it is. He’s been looking for you, for three long years. He’ll be quite pleased I’ve caught you.”
She whirled, but the horses crowded into a circle, leaving no room to scurry between them.
White light flashed to her left as wizardfire arced from Alstera’s hands over the riders. A man screamed, and his mount and the others flanking it spooked, opening a hole. Alstera yelled at Cherai and scrambled toward the break. The circle closed before they reached it. Looking for another opening, Cherai whirled and saw a sword raised above Alstera’s head. She swung her lute. The blade shattered it, scattering the broken pieces of wood and strings. The force of the blow knocked her back against a horse. She slipped along its flank, dodged a reaching hand, and got confused in the mass of horses.
Wizardfire flashed brightly again, then a golden flash, like sun glinting on steel. There was a sickening boom. Smoke and the stench of burned flesh enveloped them all. Steel shards rained down. When the wind tore the smoke away, she saw Alstera lying motionless on the road. Blood covered half her face. The riders closed again, hiding the jumble of scorched fabric and the white bones of a man and a horse on the dirt road.
Fear kept Cherai moving. The riders shifted to intercept her, crowding in, and one of the big horses bumped her. She bounced off its shoulder into another, and a hand seized her hair, yanking hard. She cried out and stabbed with her fingernails.
