Summers at Castle Auburn (31 page)

“Corie, it's
me
,” she said. We pulled each other against the nearest wall, out of the unsteady flow of traffic. And we stared at each other.

“What
happened
?” she demanded. “Did Bryan do that on purpose?”

“
Why
did he do that?”

“I thought Jaxon was going to kill him!”

“Will she be all right, do you think?”

“I don't know! And Bryan! His face—!”

A few more sentences like this, and then, almost at the same time, we remembered the last participant in that little drama. Our eyes grew bigger and our hearts grew smaller.

“Andrew,” I whispered.

“Bryan will kill him,” she whispered back. We fell into each other's arms and cried like schoolgirls. The room emptied around us, and we paid no attention.

Jaxon seemed safe enough, though even that was debatable. But no servant could assault a member of the royal house and survive.

 

I
HAD FALLEN
asleep on Elisandra's bed by the time she returned, sometime past midnight. I had dismissed Daria as soon as I entered and then settled in for a long wait. It had not occurred to me that I would actually be able to sleep this night, so it was with a shock of disorientation that I came awake to see Elisandra seating herself before her dressing table.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn't want to disturb you,” she said when she saw me sit up groggily. She was pulling pins from her hair and the long, thick locks were falling like so much abandoned night down her back. It did not seem to occur to her to be surprised to find me there.

“What
happened
?” I demanded, hugging my knees to my chest. “Will Bryan be all right? Will Rowena? What did Jaxon say? What did Matthew do? What—”

She shook her hair back, picked up her brush, and began to untangle the curls. “Bryan's bruised from Jaxon's attack and bleeding from Andrew's, but he doesn't seem to be in any danger. Matthew put him in his room, and sent Giselda up to him. I believe Kent will spend the night with him. He's furious, of course, but a little too stunned to do more than mutter. I think he'll be fine.”

“But he—Elisandra, he did it on purpose. He tried to hurt her—”

Three more brushstrokes before she answered. “I know. He's a very jealous man, is Bryan. He did not like so much attention
being diverted to—to someone he does not even respect. An aliora. A woman.”

“Jaxon's
wife.
”

“I know,” she said again.

“And Jaxon! What will happen to him? Surely he had cause—surely the regent will not put him on trial or—or punish him—”

“He's gone,” Elisandra said. “He and the queen. As soon as Cressida had tended to Rowena's face, Jaxon had his carriage brought around. Matthew made no move to stop him, so I cannot think there will be a trial ahead.”

“Bryan will never forgive him,” I said.

Elisandra brushed her hair five more times. “Jaxon will never forgive Bryan,” she said. “I don't think we'll ever see him again at Castle Auburn.”

I nodded, my throat closing against grief and assorted terrors. I had an even more awful question to ask. “And Andrew? What will happen to him?”

Elisandra laid her brush aside and rose to her feet. Moving slowly around the room, she snuffed out the half dozen candles that flickered along the walls, leaving only the one on the bedside table. She climbed into bed beside me and I blew out the last candle. Instantly the room was full of hulking shadows, pitch black against the filmy gray of the walls. Moonlight made a halfhearted effort to filter in through the heavy shutter, but mostly stayed in a small dispirited pool on the floor beneath the window.

“Andrew,” Elisandra whispered in the dark, “cannot be found. They searched the castle for him, Roderick and all the other guards. They were still looking when I came up to bed.”

I whispered back, using Angela's words, “Bryan will kill him.”

“Matthew is afraid that, if they don't find him, Andrew will kill the prince,” Elisandra answered.

“I don't think he has the strength,” I said.

“I don't, either. But because of this fear, Andrew has been put under a sentence of death.”

I could not keep the whimper from escaping, though I covered my mouth and tried to force it back in. I heard Elisandra's freshly
brushed hair move against the pillow as she nodded. “I know,” she said, and laid an arm across my shoulders to comfort me. “I know.”

The next morning, we learned that Andrew had escaped in the night. Matthew suspected that he had climbed over one of the garden walls, for the roped ivy had been torn partway from the brick as if someone had used it to support his weight. And the soft ground on the other side of the wall showed the faint marks of footprints—and palm prints, as if the man had landed clumsily and had had to break his fall. None of the guards had seen anything.

“But he won't get far,” Kent told us, buckling on his leather fencing vest and checking the fit of his gauntlets. He had stopped briefly in Elisandra's room to give us the news, showing absolutely no surprise that I was there, still in my nightclothes. Daria had refused to let him any farther than the sitting room, but we had quickly emerged from the bedroom, dressed as we were.

“Why not?” Elisandra asked.

Kent glanced over at her, his face extremely grave. “The shackles,” he said. “He'll be able to run, but he won't be able to hunt, or swim, or even fend for himself. And Roderick thinks he may have hurt Andrew last night, when he pulled him away from Bryan.”

“He would be safe,” I said, almost to myself, “if he could make it to Alora.”

Now Kent redirected his serious look to me. “He won't make it that far,” he said. “I doubt he'll make it to the forest.”

“Who rides with you?” Elisandra asked.

“Kritlin and Roderick and a half dozen guards. And, of course, Bryan leads the hunt.”

“Bryan!” she exclaimed. “He's not well enough to ride!”

“He says he is. And he looks strong enough this morning. Just a few cuts and bruises. And I'd say,” Kent added grimly, “that he's looking forward to the expedition. He's as excited as a little boy.”

Elisandra shook her head—her whole body seemed to shudder. She drew her bedclothes tightly about her as if seeking extra warmth. “Kent, this is dreadful,” she said.

“I know,” he answered somberly. “I do not see how it can be made right.”

She made one small, hopeless gesture with her hand. “If you—do what you can to keep him safe,” she said.

“I will.” He crossed the room in three strides and took her in a close embrace. Elisandra, who never sought comfort from anyone, dropped her dark head against the leather of his vest and let her hair fall in curtains around her face. I saw Kent kiss the top of her head. He saw me watching him, and, keeping his gaze upon my face, kissed her again.

Elisandra was the one to pull away. “Come to me when you return,” she said, and hurried through the door back to the bedroom.

I was left staring at Kent across the room. He made no move to leave. “Which one of them are you going to try to keep safe,” I asked, “Bryan or Andrew?”

His eyes were guarded; his face gave nothing back. “Which one do you think?” he said.

“Andrew does not deserve to die,” I said.

“I agree,” he said.

“But Bryan is your prince. He will be your king. You have to protect him.”

Kent turned toward the door. “I know which one you would save,” he said, pulling on the handle and stepping into the hall. “I wonder if you know me as well.”

And he was gone.

 

T
HAT DAY WAS
, without exception, the longest of my life. I only left Elisandra's room to go to my own and dress. There was no sign of Cressida; I did not expect there to be. I supposed none of the aliora would be fit for human company this day, but as it turned out, there was another reason I did not see her: Matthew had ordered all the aliora confined to their quarters. He did not want the events of the night before—and today—to lead to unrest and dissatisfaction.

I wondered if he had thought the aliora ever felt rest and satisfaction under his roof.

We got the news of the incarceration of all of the aliora from Daria, who brought us food and tiptoed around the room and left,
sensing our desire for privacy. Elisandra and I spoke very little that day, but we could not bear to be apart from each other. It did not have to be said. We could not stand to be alone, and no other company was endurable.

For a while, she sewed and I attempted to read a book. Later, we played board games for more than two hours. She set up an easel and made a sketch of me as I wrote a letter to my grandmother. I did not have much to tell her and the ubiquitous Milette. Finally Elisandra read while I tried my hand at embroidering a pillowcase that she lent me. The results were execrable. I had no skill with a needle, and no desire to learn, either.

“I wouldn't shame a dog by laying this upon his bed,” I remarked, showing Elisandra my efforts. She actually smiled.

“I like it,” she said. “I'll put it on one of my pillows.”

“Bryan won't let you sleep in the same bed with him if you bring this as your dowry,” I said with an attempt at humor.

She bent her head back over her book. “Then stitch me another.”

I had to wonder at that: make her another pillowcase, better than the first, so she would not be ashamed of my handiwork; or make her another just as bad as this one, to make sure Bryan would not allow her near?

I did not ask. Some questions Elisandra would not answer.

The afternoon stretched out more and more slowly until its gold became so thin it had to break reluctantly into crimson evening. Daria brought us trays of food for our evening meal.

“No one's eating in the dining room tonight,” the maid observed. “Everyone's having a tray brought up.”

“Where's my mother?” Elisandra asked, for Greta had not been in once this entire day.

Daria tried not to sniff, but she and Greta had no love for each other and never bothered to hide it. “With the other ladies of the castle in Lady Sasha's suite,” she said. Lady Sasha was Angela's mother, even more adept at scenting scandal than her daughter. “They've all spent the day there gossiping.” Elisandra gave her a level look, and Daria amended, “Talking amongst themselves.”

“I suppose there's no news?” Elisandra asked.

Daria shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Thank you. You needn't wait,” Elisandra said. Daria curtseyed and left the room.

We picked at our food. Neither of us had an appetite, but eating was at least a diversion. We had each eaten a forkful of dessert when we heard shouting outside below us. We exchanged glances, then scrambled to our feet, running for the window.

There was just enough rosy twilight left to make out the cavalcade riding through the castle gates. Two liveried guardsmen were in the lead, followed by Kent, followed by Bryan. There was a strange gap between Bryan and the next several riders, all of them guardsmen; Roderick, bringing up the rear, was a few more paces back.

Elisandra and I stuck our heads out the window as far as they would go, clinging to the stone windowsill to keep from pitching forward. “There's Kent—there's Bryan—I don't see Andrew. Where's Andrew?” Elisandra asked.

I couldn't see any prisoner, either. “Do you suppose they couldn't find him?” I asked.

“I don't think they'd have come back without him. Not so soon,” she said.

“They've been gone all day.”

“They would have ridden into the forest, looking for him, don't you think? They wouldn't have given up until they couldn't find another track. But I don't see him. Maybe they didn't—”

Just then, Bryan stood up in his stirrups and loosed a
whoop
of triumph. He raised both fists in the air, prince victorious, and his horse shied nervously as Bryan kicked its ribs. Someone in the courtyard cried back a welcome or a congratulations. Elisandra leaned out even more perilously to see.

“Wait—I see something—what's that tied to the back of—” Her voice trailed off. She didn't need to ask; she knew. I knew. We had both seen it.

Tied behind Bryan's horse was a body, head and shoulders dragging along the ground, heels up in the air where the rope lifted to the saddle. In this light, and covered with dirt as it was, the corpse
was impossible to identify, but we did not need to see face and features to know who had been hauled brutally back down the trail. All we could hope was that the creature's suffering had been short—that some friendly rock had smashed in his skull not half a mile from the point of capture, or that the own natural anodynes of the body had caused him to lose consciousness almost as soon as the return journey began. I could not really see that well in the fading light, but I was sure I could make out the shackles still on the aliora's hands. He could not have put up much resistance at all.