Enchanting the King (The Beauty's Beast Fantasy Series) (13 page)

The land along the river was craggy with rocks, but further from the shore was the forest with tall pines and scrubby brush. It felt almost like home, although winter here was warmer and dryer than in Lyond. His lips and knuckles were already cracking. Still, he could hardly hope for another rainstorm after the last one.

Godric bent to set a new snare.

“Sir Godric, how lovely to see you. I’ve been looking for you.”

He froze and had his knife half-out as he whirled at the sound of her voice.
Her
. The blood witch. Even as he tensed his muscles to face her, he felt his body lock up, stopping his motion. As pain stabbed all up and down his arms and legs, he swallowed a scream. His muscles flexed and strained, dueling impulses coursing through his blood, her magic burning him from the inside out.

The blood witch stepped out from the line of trees. She twirled her dagger between her two hands and smiled at him. “I have need of a guide and a guard. You shall take me.”

He flexed his jaw, trying to form words, trying to deny her. He managed only to let out a half-swallowed moan. Nausea roiled in his gut as she took a firmer hold on her blade and crossed toward him. With a soft, warm smile she drew her knife across the meaty part of his forearm, a line of blood oozing up. She smeared the blood away with her thumb and popped her finger into her mouth with a long sucking noise.

Her eyes glowed like a candle flame as she wiped her blade clean and resheathed it. All the tension of his body left him as she stripped away even his ability to resist. She made a small
come along
gesture with her hands, and he hopped to his feet as if tugged by an invisible rope, leaving his snares behind.

“We’ll ride hard, Sir Godric. I have surprises I want to leave for your king along the road.”

“Yes, my lady.” Godric followed behind the witch like a trained dog at heel. His face was calm, still, almost lifeless. Inside was different. Inside he was screaming.

In the grim aftermath of the battle, Violette and Aliénor might have walked off in only the clothes they stood in, but Noémi had insisted they linger on that field of horrors long enough to scavenge supplies for themselves: food, weapons, even some extra clothes. They didn’t have much, but it was still some salve to Aliénor’s pride that she and her ladies were not wholly dependent on Lyondi generosity. Although their Jerdic food rations looked just as unappetizing as the ones the Lyondi were eating. Difficult to embellish upon hard bread and dried meat, after all.

Once she and her ladies had forced themselves to choke down a small meal, they took themselves off to wash. Aliénor had never been more grateful to be clean than when she was finally able to drag off her soiled gown, which had gone stiff with drying blood. She scrubbed her skin raw in the chilly river, liking the clean bite of its water. Trading pain for pain felt right. It
should
hurt as she scrubbed her husband’s blood off her skin.

Violette helped Aliénor into a fresh chemise after her wash. Noémi had pinned Aliénor’s hair around her head like a silken crown. Violette usually did everyone’s hair, but her injured wrist had created difficulties. Aliénor returned the favor next for Violette, carefully finger-combing out the tangle of Violette’s tight, tiny black curls once Noémi had shown her how.

Aliénor knew that they could not stand on ceremony in this place. Not anymore. She was a princess, but that did not mean she was too fancy to help her friends. After some fumbling, she managed to put Violette’s hair into two serviceable braids. Violette gave her head a small shake to test if they would fall out, then grinned at Aliénor. “Well done, my lady.”

Aliénor smiled, probably more proud of herself than the simple task warranted. Still, she’d finally been
useful
to someone. Noémi had moved away to start cleaning all their brave red breastplates—a task neither Violette nor Aliénor had had the stomach or the heart to face themselves.

Their armor was too uncomfortable to wear for riding—another irony with symbolic bite to Aliénor—but the ladies all agreed they would keep the breastplates for now. Aliénor privately vowed that, if she were ever in a position to again, she would get real armor for her ladies. Not the pantomime version they were stuck with now.

In her shift and shivering, Aliénor rifled through the one bag of clothing they had managed to pack. Her ladies’ dresses had weathered the battle all right, but Aliénor’s was ruined—torn and stained with Philippe’s blood.

She pulled out her one remaining garment and winced. She had a plain brown skirt left, but the only top she still had was a daring dark purple jerkin with a low-cut bodice and slashed sleeves to tug her linen chemise through.

Aliénor shivered but still felt foolishly reluctant to don these clothes, even though they were the only ones she had.

“Princess?” Violette murmured. Noémi, perhaps hearing something in the other handmaid’s voice, left the riverside to stand beside Aliénor too.

Aliénor shook her head. Tears stung her eyes as she looked down at the bodice, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. “Philippe hated this jerkin. He forbade me to wear it.”

Noémi sighed and looked away.

“And now I must wear it in mourning for him.”

Violette pressed Aliénor’s shoulder, her eyes shining with wetness. She had lost her husband John in the battle too. “Your husband would want you to be warm. Cared for. We can cover the jerkin with a cloak or something. It’ll be all right.”

Aliénor shook her head, a bramble bush of emotions tumbling through her, pricking at her heart.

“Violette, you look tired. Why don’t you sit a moment over there?” Noémi jerked her chin. “I’ll tend the princess.”

Violette narrowed her eyes, looking suspiciously back and forth, but then she tromped off to the shady trees, pouting only a little and cradling her wrist.

Noémi watched her go, then turned back to Aliénor with raised eyebrows. “Well?”

Aliénor shook her head and shivered, hugging the fabric of her chemise closer to her bare skin. “I don’t want to cover the jerkin. I love it. I’ve always loved it. But…”

“Philippe is dead.”

Aliénor winced, her chest hurting. “He’s barely been dead a day. Shouldn’t I honor his wishes? Now?” Emotion clogged her throat. “I was such a horrible wife to him. I couldn’t be obedient while he was alive. Shouldn’t I—”

“
Shh, shh
.” Noémi flung an arm around Aliénor’s shoulders and drew her close for a tight, comforting hug. “This isn’t about a jerkin, my lady.”

Aliénor pressed her eyes closed and turned away. A tear slipped free to slide down her cheek in a chill drip onto her chest. “What sort of woman am I?”

“A lonely one. A frightened one. You cared for your husband, didn’t you? You were sorry to see him killed?”

“
Of course
.”

“But you were never in love with him.”

Aliénor swallowed, the brambles tugging at her heart, making her insides sting with shame. “No.”

Noémi eased her back to sit on a boulder with her, her arm still a comforting weight around Aliénor. “My second husband died barely a month before I signed up for this journey.”

“Oh?”

“He would have hated this. Would have forbidden my going. And never mind it was my own money we were living off all the time we were married.” Noémi snorted.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you can’t lock yourself up for Philippe’s memory. You didn’t let him have that power over you while he lived. Don’t do it now he’s dead. Not out of pity. Or guilt.” Noémi met Aliénor’s gaze with a directness that made Aliénor squirm. “You have the power to do what makes you happy, what feels right to you. So do it.”

The brambles shifted in Aliénor’s heart, scratching, but maybe breaking apart too. She let out a small laugh. “What I want is not so very wise, Noémi.”

“Well.” Noémi shifted off the rock and stood. She plucked the purple jerkin out of Aliénor’s hands and shook it out, holding it up for Aliénor to slide her arms through. “Come on, my lady. We shouldn’t linger.”

“No.” Aliénor wet her lips as the soft leather of the jerkin slid her over her shoulders. “No lingering.” And no hesitation. Not now.

As the three ladies walked over the hill, it was to find a camp in chaos. King Thomas’s men were furiously packing their supplies and distributing them among their too-few horses. Thomas glanced up at her arrival and walked briskly toward her. “Good, I was about to send for you. We must ride at once. One of my men has gone missing. Sir Godric.”

“Missing?”

“There was no sign of a struggle. We found only his snares in the forest. No sign of him.”

“The blood witch.”

“That was my thought as well. But we can’t take the risk that it might be the Tiochene catching up to us, either.”

Aliénor wrapped her arms round her middle. “Set a guard on your magician and yourself. Let none of your men go out alone again.”

“You think she is that dangerous?”

“Yes.” Aliénor took a deep breath, then let it out, trying to calm her racing heart. “She tried to convince my husband to let her use her powers on you. To control you and take the kingdom of Lyond under Jerdic control.”

He jerked back in surprise, and his brows lowered in rage. “After killing all my men, no doubt.”

“Philippe did not agree to the plan.” King Thomas sent her an assessing look from under his lowered brows, and Aliénor felt her cheeks warm in a blush. “She is a powerful witch and ambitious. I do not like to think what she might do if she were to get yourself or your magician under her control.”

“All right.” King Thomas called out instructions to all his men to pair up. As soon as he’d spoken, Llewellyn jogged over to stand beside King Thomas. The magician gave Aliénor a friendly nod in greeting, but she walked away without speaking to him. She found it hard to trust magicians at just that moment.

The next several days passed in a blur of riding and exhaustion. Their path was circuitous but well-kept, and the river seemed content to behave itself for the moment. No winter storms had troubled them yet. They did lose half a day when one of their scouts spotted a Tiochene raiding party farther downriver.

King Thomas’s troops split into two and hid in the nearby forest, keeping quiet and still as the Tiochene warriors moved past. The Tiochene remained oblivious, laughing and joking with each other as they rode along on their furry little ponies.

Aliénor huddled in the shadows of the forest, and her gut roiled as she spotted several of the Tiochene in Jerdic surcoats and others with stolen chain mail. Spoils. Brow knit, she cast a glance over at her two ladies. Noémi stared on stone-faced, lips pursed into a thin white line. Young Ned had his arms round Violette, helping to smother the sound as she sobbed into her hand. Maybe with fear or rage. Or simple grief.

Soon enough, the raiders had passed them by, but King Thomas waited another half hour before he let any of them move, his face calm, his steady gaze assessing their situation. Aliénor’s admiration for the Lyondi king grew with every moment. He seemed to her like a rock along the seaside—solid, immovable. Centered in himself and sure. How desperately she envied his certainty, his calmness.

Everything inside her felt like a luggage trunk with the contents tossed all about. She was sad for Philippe’s death, relieved to be out from under his thumb, guilty to
be
relieved, grateful to be alive, drawn to King Thomas but hesitant, scared, exhilarated, exhausted, worried, fascinated, giddy. Most of the time, she felt like the wreck of her wagon—something once elegant and ordered that’d been smashed all to pieces. And she wasn’t sure if she could put herself back together or not. Certainly, even if she did, she would never be quite the same Aliénor again.

The magician Llewellyn brushed her sleeve and nodded for her to get moving. With a sigh, she shook away the troubling spin of her thoughts to remount her horse and fall into the line of riders.

They rode for several hours that night until the ground became too rocky and uneven to risk traveling by moonlight. They made no camp and ate only the supplies they had in their packs: dry bread and smoked meat. Aliénor longed for one taste of a bright orange fresh from her garden at home. Or a strawberry. Even some of that violently yellow, sweetly tangy fruit they’d had at Ordinobl. The pineapple. She forced herself to keep chewing anyway and washed the dry, tasteless food down with an ice-cold mouthful of river water that she could feel inside as it trickled through her chest.

When they all bedded down for the night, she shivered and wrapped her blanket more tightly around herself. The days were chilly but manageable—the nights she often worried she might freeze to death before sunup. Noémi and Violette sandwiched her in between themselves, and they all huddled close for warmth. Her two ladies dropped off to sleep almost at once, Violette snoring softly, Noémi muttering through her dreams.

Aliénor’s rest eluded her.
No hesitation. No regrets
. She had regrets about so many things in her life. Was it selfish to want one less? Not that there was anything to be done tonight, but still…

Well, the least I
can
do is let my ladies sleep
. She, at least, seemed incapable of sleep at the moment. She pushed onto her elbows and gently kicked the blankets away from her legs as she stood.

The men had made no fire when they bedded down, not wanting to risk anyone spotting the light. The moon was up, and bright enough for her to pick her way through camp. Aliénor tugged a blanket free and threw it around herself. One of the Lyondi knights sat posted as guard. She could just make out his silhouette where he sat propped against a boulder with his sword to one side and his legs stretched out ahead of him.

As she drew closer, she frowned and paused.
Surely not
—and yet something in her was vibrating, thrilling with recognition. She dropped down beside him with a small murmured “hello” and felt him jump beside her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” She kept her voice low.