Crimson Bound (24 page)

T
he next day was Sunday. All the court was expected to accompany the King to the palace chapel, where every Sunday he demonstrated his devotion to appearances, if not to God.

Rachelle had not attended mass since she became bloodbound, and she hadn’t expected to start now. For the past two weeks, she had gotten Erec to watch Armand while he was in the chapel. But this morning she couldn’t find him, so she had to follow Armand inside.

She knew that the stories about bloodbound screaming and bursting into flame on consecrated ground were false. Justine was proof enough of that. But the last time she’d walked into a church, she hadn’t been bloodbound. She’d been the good little daughter of Marie and Barthélemy Brinon, training to become a woodwife and dreaming of saving the world. She’d still believed that she loved God. That chapel was everything she had lost and renounced and spat upon.

But when she actually walked inside, it wasn’t so bad. The church she had grown up with was a little stone building, the walls plastered and painted with fading, clumsy portraits of the saints. The windows were narrow slits paned with cloudy, pale glass. The altar was a simple square stone with only the jawbone of a nameless martyr sitting upon it.

The royal chapel was a jewel box of a room: the floor was pure, shimmering white marble, while the walls and pillars were coated with a vast tracery of gold leaf. Between the gem-like stained glass windows hung tall paintings in equally glowing colors. Before the marble altar lay the skeleton of le Montjoie, patron saint of the royal line. Every one of his bones was completely gilded, enameled eyes set into his sockets, jeweled rings on his fingers and jeweled chains about his neck. It didn’t feel a thing like the place Rachelle had worshipped as a child, and filing into it with a mass of richly arrayed courtiers didn’t feel much different from filing into the Salon du Mars.

Rachelle and Armand were seated in the lower section. That was the other thing that was different: in Rachelle’s church, the people had all sat watching the priest as he stood at the altar. Here, every seat faced the back of the building, so they could spend the entire time looking up at the King sitting in his elevated red-velvet box with his chosen few. Today that chosen few did not include Rachelle and Armand, so they got the full view of the royal presence.

As the choir began to sing, Armand’s jaw tightened, and then he turned around to stare at the altar.

“I think that’s an insult to the King,” Rachelle muttered under her breath.

“Forgive me if I don’t feel like worshipping him today,” Armand muttered back.

“I don’t think anyone’s worshipping anything in here,” said Rachelle. Certainly the ladies next to them seemed a great deal more absorbed in whispering to each other and playing with a tiny dog than in paying due reverence to their King or deity. For a brief moment, she felt very sorry for whatever priest would be called upon to minister to such a blatantly impious congregation.

Then she realized who was leading the crowd of acolytes: Bishop Guillaume.

She felt hot and cold at once.
Who let him into the Château?
One glance up at the gallery convinced her that it hadn’t been the King.

Well, who cared? She had never yet been forced to sit through one of his sermons, and she didn’t care to start now. She stood, pushed past the other people in the pew, and walked out of the chapel. Whatever trouble she might get into, she’d rather bear it than the sermon.

Outside, leaning with her back against the wall, she knew she was a fool. It was a man she hated muttering prayers to a God she’d rejected. What did she have to fear? You couldn’t get more damned than damned.

“Shouldn’t you be in the chapel?” said Justine.

Rachelle’s eyes snapped open. “What are you doing here?”

Justine stood a pace away, her arms crossed. Her face was grim, though as that was her usual expression, it meant nothing.

“Never mind that,” Rachelle went on. “What’s your precious Bishop doing here?”

“He came to preach to the King,” said Justine. “I came to speak with you.”

Rachelle’s stomach turned. “I know what you’re going to say. And I’ll die before I join him.”

Justine pursed her lips. “Did I ever tell you,” she said quietly, “that before I was a
bloodbound, I was a nun?”

Rachelle stared at her. It was the unspoken rule of the King’s bloodbound that they never, ever talked about their pasts. But Erec had broken it last night, so perhaps she shouldn’t be so surprised at Justine.

“I was pure as an angel and proud as a devil,” Justine went on, frowning slightly as she stared into the distance. “Only, I found that neither purity nor pride was courage, in the end.” Then she looked back at Rachelle. “Your pride won’t be enough for you either. Give up serving the King. Ask to be made the Bishop’s bloodbound.”

“And then what?” Rachelle demanded. “Help put him on the throne? Do you think treason will save your soul?”

“I think I would rather serve him for the last of my days than the King. Why do you think the days grow shorter and the forestborn grow stronger?”

Rachelle threw away her caution. “Because the Devourer is awakening.”

She’d expected nothing else, but it still hurt when Justine’s mouth twisted with disgust. “Do you still cling to your heathen superstitions? The darkness falls because God is judging us for our sins. He has delivered us over to the woodspawn and the forestborn for chastisement.”

“Our sinfulness,” said Rachelle, “is in living and in letting other bloodbound live. If you were truly sorry, you would get out a knife and cut your throat. As for me, I’ve spent more time talking to the forestborn than you ever have, and I much prefer them to the Bishop. At least they don’t pretend they’re holy.”

“Do as you will, then.” Justine stood. “But I will pray for you,” she added imperturbably, and walked into the chapel.

The doors had barely shut behind her when la Fontaine wandered into the hallway, gently fluttering a mother-of-pearl fan. She raised an eyebrow at Rachelle. “Slipped out before the consecration? Perhaps we should call you Mélusine.”

“Shouldn’t
you
be in there as well?” Rachelle asked sourly. She’d come out into the hallway to be alone, not to chat with every member of the court.

La Fontaine shrugged exquisitely, setting her ruby earrings swinging. “I’ve lived my life for one imaginary kingdom. I’ve no patience left for another.”

Rachelle had not imagined that the court concealed many true believers, but she also hadn’t expected anyone to be so blatant. Then again, if you were the King’s mistress, she supposed you weren’t going to impress anyone with your piety anyway.

“Who’s Mélusine?” she asked.

“You don’t know the story?” said la Fontaine. “And you the beloved of Fleur-du-Mal.”

“He’s not my beloved,” said Rachelle. “And he doesn’t tell me bedtime stories.”

“You might like it, for it’s a grim tale.” La Fontaine snapped her fan shut. “Once upon a time, a certain lord lost his way as he was hunting through the woods. He stumbled upon a clearing that he had never seen before, and there on the grass sat a woman of dazzling beauty, naked as the day she was born, combing out her long yellow hair. Of course you can imagine how deeply he fell in love with her. He bore the strange lady, who said her name was Mélusine, back to his castle and married her with all due pomp and ceremony. For years they lived happily and she bore him three sons and four daughters. Only one curiosity marred their life together: the lady always found a reason not to go with him to chapel. She was too tired, or she had a headache, or she needed to be shriven. Finally the lord demanded that his wife come with him. After many protestations, she consented, but as the mass progressed, she grew more and more restless, until at last she leaped out of the pew and fled for the door. On the threshold, her husband caught hold of her, but with a great shriek, she grew tusks and wings and claws. The lord let go of her in horror, and she flew away, never to be seen by mortal eyes again. That lord’s name was Marcelin Angevin, first duke of Anjou, and ever since a shadow has lain upon his line.”

“And thus,” said Erec, emerging from one of the side doors, “we are called the devil’s children. A title even bastards can inherit.”

“And yet you are not the only one who could be called the devil’s child,” said la Fontaine. She carefully did not look at Rachelle, and the line of her turned-away jaw was a more pointed accusation than any glare.

Since Rachelle would someday change into a creature hardly better than a demon, she could not object to the comparison.

“If you’re referring to the pair of us in our capacity as bloodbound,” said Erec, who had no sense of when to stay silent, “the devil’s lovers might be better. I assure you, there was nothing parental in the forestborn who brought us to this state.”

Rachelle winced, remembering her forestborn’s kiss.

La Fontaine saluted him with her fan. “You will never lack wit, my dear Fleur-du-Mal, not even on Judgment Day. Best hope the Dayspring finds you as amusing as I do.”

“I thought you didn’t believe,” said Rachelle.

“I believe in making threats when it’s convenient,” said la Fontaine. “Doesn’t everyone?” She gave them a slight curtsy, just barely treading the line between
sarcasm and respect. “Give my respects to my cousin, Mélusine. I look forward to seeing him again. You, too—if convenient.”

“Oh dear,” said Erec, watching her skirt swish as she walked away. “She isn’t jealous, is she?”

Rachelle remembered the way la Fontaine had found her and Armand at the reception, her distress the next day when he wouldn’t eat. “I think she’s protective.”

“So long as she keeps attacking with literary references, I think we can withstand her.” Erec looked at Rachelle. “Did she guess correctly? Did the holy chapel make you sprout horns?”

“No,” said Rachelle, “I just didn’t care for the preaching. What’s your excuse?”

“Myself, I don’t care to worship anyone who got hacked to pieces. It doesn’t inspire confidence. The Dayspring is the image of the invisible God, isn’t he? Maybe that’s what really dwells in the Unapproachable Light: just a pile of bloody limbs.”

She was so far past damned that it didn’t matter what blasphemy she listened to, but Rachelle still winced. “I’m sure the Bishop would like that,” she said. “A dead God who could never contradict him—that would be his dream come true.”

“And you? Have you seen any sign that the world is governed by something besides hunger and devouring?”

She remembered Aunt Léonie’s futile, gasping prayers as she died.

“No. But I’d rather worship bloody bones than the murderer who makes them.”

“And yet instead of worshipping, you stand here gossiping with a fellow murderer.”

She grinned at him. “When have I ever followed my principles?”

“Never. And far too often.” He took her hand. “I wish you’d reconsider some of them.”

Then she laughed out loud. “If you’re asking me to be your mistress again . . . blasphemy is a terrible way to start.”

“I’m only wondering if you truly regret your choices as much as you claim,” he said.

She remembered his soft voice as he told her about his brother the night before, and her throat tightened.

“Do you?” she asked, and she truly wondered.

“I think it doesn’t matter what either one of us regrets,” said Erec. “We are going to live forever, in darkness and in dancing. Because I know you, my lady, and you don’t have it in you to be a lamb for the slaughter any more than I do. The same wolfish greed beats in your heart: to have what you will, and kill for it. Or why would you be alive? And you are alive, and have your will, so what should you regret?”

It was like when Justine dislocated her arm: something familiar, swinging painfully out of place. Because Rachelle had told herself those same words, or near enough, a thousand times. She had wanted to live. She had gotten her wish. She could not claim to regret. Only minutes ago, she had snarled at Justine:
If you were really sorry, you would get out a knife and cut your throat.

But now that she heard Erec say those words to her . . . they sounded wrong.

She thought,
I regret.

“Speechless?” asked Erec. “Don’t be ashamed. I bring all ladies to that state sooner or later.”

Rachelle had always thought Erec understood her. No matter how she hated him, she had always loved him a little too, because he knew what she was in the darkest part of her soul. And yet now he really thought that she was speechless with desire for him. He really thought that she did not regret what she had done.

“Too bad for you,” she said, “I’m not a lady.”

He chuckled, clearly thinking that this was only another step in their dance together.

It was the most exquisite kind of freedom to realize that he could be wrong. It was terrifying too.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

T
alking with Erec had made everything more clear. She
did
regret. She
was
willing to die. And that meant there was only one path for her to take: weave a charm and try her best against the lindenworm.