The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [136]
“No,” he managed weakly, eyes still bulging. “You aren’t.”
“The fleet is coming—I know that. You know how to fight wars. Can we work together?”
Artwair held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s discuss this, but quickly. In one bell I’m going to Eslen.”
A bell later, as she approached Robert’s boat, Anne felt a sudden jolt. It was like waking from one of the dreams she’d had as a child, a dream of falling. What made those dreams so disconcerting was the fact that they often happened when she didn’t know she was asleep.
She felt a bit of that now. She remembered her confrontation with Artwair well enough, and the conversation that followed, but the memory possessed an unreal quality, suddenly thrown into focus as the sights, smells, and sounds around her returned with such acuity that they were distracting. The iron-and-iodine scent of water was overpowering, and falls of liquid gold seemed to drop through the clouds. She noticed the fine wrinkles in the corners of Artwair’s eyes and the soft crush of her feet on yellowed grass, followed by the hushed friction of stone and leather.
And Eslen. Above all Eslen, her white towers burning here in sunlight and ghostly pale there in shadow beneath the broken clouds, her pennants fluttering like dragon tails in the sky. Off to the right the lesser twin mounds of Tom Cast and Tom Woth showed fawn crowns above shoulders of evergreen. She felt lifted and at the same time disoriented.
She had not feared Artwair at all, but now her terror was back.
What was she doing?
She wanted to run back to her cousin, place herself in his care, let him take the responsibility and power he so clearly desired. But even that wouldn’t save her, and for the moment that was what kept her going. She had seen the arrival of the Lierish ships, just as she had told Artwair. She had seen the passages only women could see.
But she had seen something else, as well: the monstrous woman of her Black Marys, crouching beneath the cold stone in the city of the dead.
She’d been eight when she and Austra first had found that crypt, and like the little girls they were, they had imagined it to be the tomb of Virgenya Dare, though no one really knew where the Born Queen had been buried. They had scratched prayers and curses on lead tissue and pushed them through the crack in the sarcophagus, and they more than half believed their pleas were effective.
As it had turned out, they had been right. Anne had asked for Roderick of Dunmrogh to love her, and he had been driven completely mad by love. She had asked for her sister Fastia to be nicer, and she had been—most apparently to Neil MeqVren, if Aunt Elyoner was to be believed.
What they had been wrong about was who lay in the crypt, who was answering their prayers.
She came out of her reverie and realized that Robert was leaning against the stone retaining wall of the dike, watching her.
“Well, dear niece,” he said, “are you ready to return home?”
Something about the way he said it seemed odd, and she wondered again if this had somehow been all his idea.
“Pray that I find my mother well,” she answered.
“She is in the Wolfcoat Tower,” Robert offered helpfully. He nodded toward his only male companion, a short man with wide shoulders and blunt features garnished by the same prim mustache and beard Robert wore. “This is my trusted friend Sir Clement Martyne. He carries my keys and my authority.”
“I am your humble servant,” the man said.
“If harm comes to her, Sir Clement,” Neil said, “you shall know me better, I promise you.”
“I am a man of my word,” Sir Clement said, “but I should be happy to become further acquainted with you, Sir Neil, under whatever conditions you might care to set.”
“Boys,” Robert said, “be nice.” He reached for Anne’s hand. She was so startled, she let him take it. As he raised it to his lips, she had to choke back the urge to vomit.
“A good journey to you,” he said. “We shall all meet back here in a day, yes?”
“Yes,” Anne replied.
“And discuss our future.”
“And discuss the future.