The Hedgewitch Queen

safely?”

I watched his hand tense against his knee, I barely dared to breath. See reason. Please, do not force this madness further.

“And how would you draw pursuit away, Vianne?” Yet he sounded oddly relieved. Had he merely been waiting for me to broach the subject again?

I had my list of requirements ready. “I would need a horse. I am fairly sure I could create a commotion, or use enough Court sorcery to be tracked.”

A shake of his dark head, tossing a thought aside. “If d’Orlaans—”

“I wish to give you the Aryx.” If I can tear it from my skin. If I can rip it free, dear gods, I will. I did not let myself pause. “If you have the Seal, you do not need me. I can serve a better purpose distracting the bellhounds. You said yourself di Narborre has likely received word of our course.”

He shifted slightly, turning to me, and before I knew it his hand cupped my chin. He forced my head up until I had no choice but to look at him. His mouth was drawn tight, into a straight line. “You will not leave my care until we are in the Palais d’Arquitaine again and d’Orlaans is dead. If I must tie you to the saddle, Your Majesty, I will. Is that in any way unclear to you?”

I swallowed. My heart leapt into my throat, began to dance a maying there. His eyes burned, pale d’Arcenne blue, fixing my gaze as a serpent would trap a bird. “Cap — ah, Tristan…I would not—”

“At the moment, we shall make no decision until we reach Arcenne. Cease this, Vianne. You will not leave my side until we are in the Palais again and d’Orlaans is dead. Tis final.”

I searched for an argument, found one. “If you think me a Queen, why order me about?” But the heat of him, and his blue gaze, did strange things to my well-ordered wits and my carefully arranged plans.

“Even a Queen needs counselors,” he returned, callused fingers gentle against my cheek. “I was Left Hand once, and it seems you would need one more than Henri ever did. You are not ruthless enough, Vianne. Not ruthless enough by half.”

Thunder rattled overhead. The trees moved uneasily. “So you were the Left Hand.” It was different, hearing him say it so casually. Did his arm shake slightly? It seemed so.

He shrugged. “Did you ever doubt it?” He stroked my jaw with his thumb, the touch spilling a different heat down my throat. “I shall have your word you will not leave my side, m’chri.”

“Why do you—”

“Your word. I want your promise.” Something dark passed over his face, graving lines upon it, the firelight leaping oddly across the plane of his cheek. Seen in this light, he was even more handsome than at Court — but different.

More dangerous.

My heart quivered like a rabbit’s shudder in the snare. “Tristan—”

“Your word, Vianne,” he repeated, inflexible.

I could not look away. “I promise,” I heard myself say. “I give you my word.”

“Good.” He did not press the point, but neither did he look away. We stayed thus — his hand cupping my chin, me perched on a pad of blankets under the giant tam tree — until another vast wallow of thunder filled the air. “Sleep if you can, m’chri,” he said, as soon as the cannonade died away. Someone laughed on the other side of the fire, but twas a hushed, sleepy sound. Someone else — it sounded like Jai di Montfort — was humming a song popular in the Citte about a noble, penniless damsel and her heart-true chivalier.

It was a pretty tune, but oh it made me think of Lisele.

My heart twisted savagely, and water rose behind my eyes. I denied the tears with every ounce of strength I possessed, swallowed the rock in my throat. He released me, and I huddled deeper into the shelter of the cloak. Tristan rose fluidly and stalked away.

It is hopeless. For good or ill, you are bound to his course.

Was it craven to feel relieved? Perhaps.

I stared at the fire, beginning to burn blue now as the rain found its way past the Shirlstrienne’s canopy and sorcery forced the wood to stay alight. My eyes half-lidded, heavy and full of sand. The men spoke quietly over di Montfort’s singing.

He was on the fourth verse now. Telling of how the chivalier gave up his pride and his place in the Guard for the love of the fair noble d’mselle, who sacrificed herself in an act of sorcery to keep the chivalier safe from the blade of a jealous rival. The song had been much sung at Court last season, a backdrop to the affair of the duel between Miche di Varonne and Alois di Cheremorce.

Di Varonne’s mother had been rumored to be a royal by-blow, and he had died on di Cheremorce’s rapier. I never had discovered what their duel concerned, since whatever intrigue it was did not touch my Princesse. I thought I would farrat out the cause later, for no knowledge is ever wasted. Yet I had never discovered another twist to that tale.

The King had been wroth, his face full of thunder at several suppers. I thought long on this, staring into the fire and hearing the storm walk the sky above, prowling through the vaults of the Blessed’s heaven.

The Bandit

Chapter Fifteen

We passed deeper into the Shirlstrienne, days without sunlight because the rain kept washing over us. It was awful weather even for the season of late-spring storming, and I was soon an aching mass of misery from riding a-horseback in the dankness, our cloth damp no matter how many charms we used. At night, thunder walked among the clouds, and we saw lightning-charred trees as we rode.

It sometimes seemed to me that the world had shifted, that we had ridden into the Forests of Night that haunted Damarsene tales, those stories of blood and sorcery under the shade of huge black trees. In Damarsene legends the woods are hungry. There is no sunlight, and their hedgewitches feast on the blood of young children who blaspheme their bull-headed, jealous god. It is enough to make one shudder.

The nights were the worst. Each dusk I repeated the trick of hiding us from pursuit, struggling to keep the Aryx from shoving me through another temptingly-open door. It told on my strength to do so, but twas the only useful thing I seemed capable of. D’Arcenne sought to help, but the tide of sorcery took me so swiftly he could not do much but force me to drink sweetened chai afterward, his mouth drawn tight as the heat of the drink and the sound of his voice brought me back to myself.

Yet that was not the worst of it. Each night I dreamed of Lisele, in many ugly, broken, bloody guises, and I woke in the darkness hoping I had not screamed. I was grateful to discover none of the Guard said aught of it.

Perhaps some few of them had their own nightmares.

Tristan did not speak much. Nor did I, but oft I would feel the tingling in my fingers and toes as he repeated one charm or another to draw some warmth into me. It was a small bit of Court sorcery, and he gave without comment as I accepted without question. It helped me to stay awake, to push back the swirling double weakness of fever and the Aryx’s persistent throbbing against my skin.

Ten days into the forest I felt even stranger, as if we rode under a weight of clear heavy water. The forest shifted and blurred like ink on wet paper. When we stopped for our nooning the tenth day beside a small stream swollen with the recent rain, I had barely enough strength to fall into Tristan’s hands from the horse’s back.

He felt at my damp forehead, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with rain. He had put his hat aside for some reason. “You are fevered again.”

“I am not.” My immediate refusal did not seem to convince him. I could not afford him to think me weak. “Only weary.”