Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [99]
I clamped my thighs around the filly, nocking an arrow without thinking. "Hold!"
She shivered and held.
It was a viper. It had been sunning itself on a low, flat rock. Now it coiled, ready to strike, its thick body ochre-red and marked with black. It raised its wedge-shaped head and tasted the air with a forked, black tongue. I breathed in the same air and tasted its fear. Like the hares, it was frightened by this invasion.
Unlike the hares, the viper had recourse.
Amid cries of alarm, Prince Thierry scrambled backward, eyes wide with fear. At his movement, the viper lunged.
"Oh, hell!" I swore and shot.
My arrow pierced the viper clean through. It caught it midlunge, pinning its writhing body to the earth.
The Master of the Hunt came at a dead run, yanking a big knife from a sheath at his belt. With one swift blow, he lopped off the snake's head. Its headless body continued to squirm unnervingly. The huntsman extended his hand to Thierry. "Are you all right, your highness?"
"Yes." The prince rose, his gaze on my face. "Thanks to Moirin."
Others came to take in the scene. Jehanne took one look at the dead viper and went white. She rounded on the huntsman in a perfect fury. "Messire Gabon, this is unacceptable. Is it not part of your duties to see that the royal hunting grounds are tended? Were they not combed this morning?"
"Aye, but—"
Her voice dripped poison. "Do you find your duties too onerous? Well, then—"
"Leave off, Jehanne," Thierry interrupted her. "The man can't be expected to account for every stray snake."
It did nothing to abate her anger. "He most assuredly can! You'd make excuses for the wretch when you came within a hair's breadth of dying?"
He scoffed. "As though you wouldn't rejoice to have me out of the way!"
"And leave your father without an heir?" Her delicate nostrils flared. "Your argument would carry more weight if I'd given him one of my own blood. Mayhap it's escaped your notice that I haven't yet?"
"Because you're too vain to disfigure your perfect body!" Thierry shouted at her. "It doesn't mean you wouldn't gladly see me dead!"
"Oh, I'm sure the sainted Moirin would have worked some miracle to bring you back from death's doorstep," Jehanne said in a cold voice. Her gaze moved on to me. What had passed between us only yesterday, whether genuine or false, might never have been. It seemed quite impossible to believe that I had ever seen that beautiful face soft with pleasure. "You shot the viper?"
I nodded. "Aye, your majesty."
She gave me a curt nod. "House Courcel is in your debt. You"—she pointed at the Master of the Hunt—"are dismissed from your post."
The man bowed without comment, his face heavy.
Beneath the silk pavilions, we endured a repast that would have been pleasant under other circumstances. Everyone wanted to hear about how I'd shot the viper midstrike. Thierry, recovered from his scare, told them, laughing, how he'd made fun of my bow and teased me about being unable to hunt. I smiled reluctantly. My rustic, unadorned bow of yew-wood and sinew was passed around and admired.
But the Queen's mood cast a pall over everything. I understood better that day why people spoke of her temper in awed terms. It radiated out of her like a cold fire, withering everything in its path. Raphael danced attendance on her, doing his best to coax her into better spirits to no avail.
There was talk of famous hunting accidents going back into history. It seemed Prince Imriel de la Courcel had saved his cousin the Dauphine from a boar, which had been the start of the realm's most notorious romance of the day. The details of the story were argued and Lianne Tremaine was consulted.
"Half-true," the King's Poet said. "As I recall the tale, her horse bolted, and it was Prince Imriel who went after her. Someone else killed the boar. But that was where it began." She gave Thierry and me one of her quick, foxy smiles. "Mayhap you'll follow in their footsteps and give me a great, epic romance to capture in verse."
Thierry grinned. "Mayhap we will."
"Does your