The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [171]
Yes they are, he thought. And they’ll hurt you, too. But if we can keep them from examining Mery, from noticing the wrongness about her, she might have a chance.
“Listen,” he began, but then the door opened.
It wasn’t a sacritor standing there or even Sir Ilzereik.
It was Neil MeqVren, Queen Muriele’s bodyguard.
It was like waking up in a strange room and not knowing how you got there. Leoff just stared, rubbing the bent fingers of his right hand on his opposite arm.
“You’re all right?” Neil asked.
Leoff plucked his voice from somewhere. “Sir Neil,” he said cautiously. “There are Hansan knights and warriors about. All over.”
“I know.” The young knight walked over to Areana and cut her bonds, then Leoff’s, and helped him up.
He only glanced at the dead men on the floor, then at Areana’s swollen face.
“Did anyone still living do that, lady?” he softly asked her.
“No,” Areana said.
“And your head, Cavaor?” he asked Leoff.
Leoff gestured at the dead. “It was one of them,” he said.
The knight nodded and seemed satisfied.
“What are you doing here?” Areana asked.
The answer came from an apparition near the door. Her hair was as white as milk, and she was so pale and handsome that at first Leoff thought she might be Saint Wyndoseibh herself, come drifting down from the moon on cobwebs to see them.
“We’ve come to meet Mery,” the White Lady said.
Neil watched the stars appear and listened as the hum and whirr of night sounds rose around him. He sat beneath an arbor, half an arrow shot from the composwer’s cottage.
Muriele was there, too, still wrapped in the linens from Berimund’s hideaway. She’d made most of the trip unceremoniously tied to the back of a horse, but once in Newland, they’d found a small wain for her to lie in state on.
She needed to be buried soon. They hadn’t had any salt to pack her in, and the scent of rot was starting to remark itself.
He noticed a slim shadow approaching.
“May I?” Alis’ voice inquired from the darkness.
He gestured toward a second bench.
“I’ve not much idea what they’re talking about in there,” she said. “But I got us this.” She held up a bottle of something. “Shall we have the wake?”
He searched for something to say, but there was too much in him to let anything come out right. He saw her tilt the bottle up, then down. She dabbed her lips and reached it toward him. He took it and pressed the glass lip against his own, held his breath, and took a mouthful. He almost didn’t manage to swallow it; his mouth told him it was poison and wanted it out.
When he swallowed it, however, his body began to thank him almost immediately.
He took another swallow—it was easier this time—and passed it back to her.
“Do you think it’s true?” he asked. “About Anne?”
“Which? That she slew forty thousand men with shinecraft or that she’s dead?”
“That she’s dead.”
“From what I can tell,” she said, “the news came from Eslen, not from Hansa. I don’t see what anyone there would have to gain from letting such a rumor circulate.”
“Well, that’s a full ship, then,” he said, taking the again proffered bottle and drinking more of the horrible stuff.
“Don’t start that,” Alis chided.
“I was guard to both of them.”
“And you did an amazing job. Without you they would have both been dead months ago.”
“Months ago, now. What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know. Does it make a difference if you live one year or eighty? Most people seem to think so.” She took the bottle and tugged at it hard. “Anyway, if anyone is to blame for Muriele’s death, it’s me. You weren’t her only bodyguard, you know.”
He nodded, starting to feel the tide come up.
“So the question,” Alis said, “is what do you and I do now? I don’t think we’ll be much help to the princess and the composer and Mery in whatever it is they’re doing.”
“I reckon we find Robert,” Neil said.
“And that is excellent thinking,” Alis agreed. “How do we do that?”
“Brinna might be able to tell us where he is.”
“Ah, Brinna.” Alis’ voice became more sultry. “Now there’s an interesting subject. You have acquaintances in very