The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [61]
“I don’t want to talk anymore about this,” she said. “Later. Later.”
“Very well,” Austra said in a mollifying voice. “Later.”
Anne took a deep breath. “You just said you know me better than anyone. I think that’s true. And so I need you to watch me, Austra. Pay attention to me. And if ever you think I’ve lost my mind, you must tell me.”
Austra laughed a little nervously. “I’ll try,” she said.
“I’ve kept things from you before,” Anne said. “I need—I need someone to talk to again. Someone I can trust, who won’t tell my secrets to another living soul.”
“I would never betray your promise.”
“Even to Cazio?”
Austra was silent for a moment. “Does it show?” she asked.
“That you love him? Of course.”
“I’m sorry.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Austra, I have friendly affections toward Cazio. He has saved our lives several times, which can be most endearing. But I do not love him.”
“Even if you did,” Austra said defensively, “he would be below your station.”
“That’s not at issue, Austra,” Anne said. “I do not love him. I do not care if you do so long as I can trust you not to tell him anything I ask you to hold in confidence.”
“My first allegiance is, has always been, and will always be to you, Anne,” Austra said.
“I believe that,” Anne said, gripping her friend’s hand. “I just needed to hear it again.”
In the westering light, they reached Glenchest.
It looked just as Anne remembered it, all spires, gardens, and glass, like a castle spun by the phay from spider silk. As a child she had thought it was a magical place. Now she wondered how, or if, it could be defended. It didn’t look like the sort of place that could stand a siege.
At the gate there were ten men on horseback, wearing black surcoats. The leader, a tall, gaunt man with hair cropped right to his skull and a narrow beard, rode up to meet them.
“Oh, dear,” Elyoner whispered. “Sooner than I would have hoped.”
“Duchess,” the man said, bowing in the saddle. “I was just about to ride out in search of you. My lord will not be pleased at your behavior. You were to await me in your mansion.”
“My brother has rarely been pleased with my behavior,” Elyoner said. “But in this case, he may not be so displeased. Duke Ernst, may I introduce my niece, Anne Dare? She seems to have been misplaced, and everyone has been scrambling about to find her, and look—I have.
“And as I understand it, she has come to take your master’s crown.”
“ARE Y’ GOING to tell me what that was all about?” Winna asked as their horses took them over a low ridge and out of sight of the princess—or queen, or whatever she was—and her newfound entourage of knights.
“Yah,” Aspar said.
After a few more minutes of silence Winna drew Tumble’s reins and brought the brindle mare to a halt.
“Well?”
“You mean now?”
“Yes, now. How did you convince Her Majesty to release you to follow Stephen?”
“Well, there was no need for convincing, as it happened. She wanted me to go after Stephen.”
“That was nice of her.”
He shook his head. “No, it was weird. She seemed to know he’d been taken. She said he’d need our help, that we had a task to perform, and that our going with Stephen was as important as her reclaimin’ the throne. Maybe more so.”
“Did she say why?”
“She didn’t know why, exactly. She said she’d had a vision of the Briar King, and he put it in her head that Stephen was important, somehow. And in danger.”
“That doesn’t make an ale cup of sense,” Winna said. “The slinders came and got him, and they’re the creatures of the Briar King. So why should he be in danger? And if His Mossy Majesty wanted us to come along, why didn’t he just have us kidnapped, too?”
“You’re asking the wrong fellow,” Aspar said. “I don’t even believe in visions. I’m just happy she let us go. Although…”
“What?”
“You saw the utins, yah?”
“Utins?” She paled. “Like that thing that—” She stumbled off.
“Yah. Three of ’em, at least. The slinders killed ’em. Maybe they were after Stephen, too. Maybe that’s why the king sent the slinders: to protect him.”
“I thought you