Gregory Keyes - The Charnel Prince

The second encounter came on the outskirts of the village, when he made out four horsemen coming toward them. He tensed in the saddle, putting his hand on Cuenslec’s pommel. In outline they didn’t seem to be armored.

“Who’s there?” a man’s voice barked from the darkness—in the king’s tongue.

Neil gripped his weapon tighter, for though the voice sounded familiar, he couldn’t place it.

“Put that away, Aspar,” another voice said. “Can’t you see who it is?”

“Not in this light. I don’t have sainted vision, like you do.”

“Well met, Sir Neil,” the lighter voice said. “I suspect we have a lot to discuss.”

Anne found herself staring again at the girl in the mirror, recognizing her even less than she had the last time she looked, only a few hours earlier. This time she wore a bride’s wimple of pale gold safnite brocade that concealed even the few wisps of hair that remained to her. The gown was bone, with long fitted sleeves and edgings in the same color as the wimple. The face surrounded by all this seemed lost and strange.

Vespresern seemed rather pleased by the effect. “It fit you nearly without alteration,” she said. “A good thing, too, as we had little enough time to spare. My lord is in a terrible hurry.” She patted Anne’s arms. “He does so love you, you know. I’ve never seen him go against his father in even the slightest matter, before this. I do hope he’s right about everything.”

Vespresern waited, plainly looking for a response.

“He is always in my heart and my thoughts,” Anne said at last. “It’s my greatest desire to bring him all the happiness he deserves.”

She meant that much, anyway.

“It’s rare that anyone in your position is able to marry for love, my dear,” Vespresern blithered. “You cannot know how lucky you are.”

Anne remembered Fastia telling her the same thing, on more than one occasion—Fastia, who had married so unhappily. Fastia who had once played with her and made her garlands of flowers, whom she had left in argument, whom she could never apologize to.

Fastia, now meat for the worms.

Anne heard footsteps in the corridor.

“Here he comes,” Vespresern said. “Are you quite ready, my dear?”

“Yes,” Anne responded. “Quite ready.”

“Here,” the old lady said. “We’ll bundle you up in this old weather-cloak. There shouldn’t be anyone to recognize you, but safe is what we’ll be.”

Anne stood still as Vespresern draped the woolen garment over the gown. A knock sounded at the door.

“Who will that be?” Vespresern asked—disingenuously, in light of her former statement.

“It’s Roderick,” the answer came. “Is she ready? This is the time.”

“She’s ready,” Vespresern said.

The door creaked open, and Roderick stood there, looking regal in a deep, rust-red doublet and white hose.

“By the saints,” he said, staring at her. “I’ve a mind to see you in the gown this moment.”

“That’s ill luck,” Anne said. “You’ll see it soon enough.”

“Yes,” he said. “I cannot believe I was without you for so long, Anne. Now even a bell seems far too long to go without gazing on your face.”

“I missed you, too,” Anne said. “I spent long nights at the coven, wondering where you were, what you were doing, praying you still loved me.”

“I can do nothing else,” he said. “The saints have inscribed you in my heart, and there is no place for anyone else there.”

You don’t know how truly you speak , Anne thought. Indeed, you do not .

“Come, let us go,” Roderick said. “Vespresern, you go ahead to spy the way. We’ll go down the servants’ stair and through the kitchen, then out the Hind Gate, where the stables are. I know the guard on duty there, and he will not betray us.” He took Anne’s hand. “You have nothing to fear now,” he said. “Your troubles are over.”

“Yes,” Anne said. “I see that.”

Roderick knew his castle and people well—they met nearly no one but an old man in the kitchen, baking bread, and the guard Roderick mentioned. The baker didn’t even seem to notice them. The guard clapped Roderick on the back and said something in Hornish that sounded encouraging and perhaps a bit risqué. It seemed strange to her—the guard was Roderick’s friend, as she and Austra were friends. How could someone so ripe with betrayal, so filled with it, be loved by anyone?

Perhaps they could not, in truth, in the heart. Perhaps that was the real reason Austra had left her—because in her soul she no longer loved her—perhaps even hated her. Not for any particular thing she had done, but because there was nothing left in Anne to love.

But let that pass. It no longer mattered. All that mattered now was finishing this, however it would finish.

Then they were alone in the carriage. Vespresern rode with the driver, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Outside the last of day’s light was fading and shadows crept along the ground. The moon was a narrow horn thrust into the horizon. In another night it would be new.

“Kiss me, Roderick,” Anne said after the carriage had rattled along a bit. “Kiss me.”

He reached for her, and then hesitated. “Shouldn’t we wait for the ceremony?”

“We’ve kissed before,” she pointed out. “I can’t wait, it’s been so long—don’t make me wait.”

There was no lantern, and she could not make out his face, but she felt his fingers trace the line of her jaw, and then rest gently at the back of her head as she felt his lips on hers, warm and soft. She remembered that night in Eslen-of-Shadows, how his hands had burned on her like metal just come from the forge, how her breath had quickened and her heart had raced, and how she had loved him—and just for the tiniest instant she really remembered and really loved him again, the way only a girl can love for the first time.

Their lips parted, but she pulled him back, both her hands clasped behind his head, and kissed him with all the darkness in her heart, pushing it into him, filling him through his mouth until it rushed out. He moaned, but could not pull away from her as—in her mind’s eye—she erased his face. Then, still gently, she pushed him away. He began to shudder and sob.

“I . . . Anne . . . ah, Saints!” his voice rose to a hideous shriek, and the carriage jarred to a halt.

“You are nothing, Roderick of Dunmrogh,” she said. She opened the carriage door and walked out into the night, ignoring the protestations of the driver and Vespresern. She limped back along the road, toward the forest, or where she thought it was. She hoped her leg wouldn’t start to bleed again.

As the moon rose higher, Anne felt more and more certain of her way, and though the crescent’s light was vanishingly pallid, she found that with each step it seemed to brighten and bleed through the shadows. A bell sounded in the distance, and then another, and the music of it seemed to float by like a breeze. She was somehow both calm and angry. She wondered abstractly what precisely she had done to Roderick, but didn’t feel too concerned about it. Something bad, and permanent—that was certain, she could feel it in her bones.

She stepped beneath the groping trees as the eleventh bell sounded, and there she stopped. She knelt on the damp earth and closed her eyes and pushed away the world.

When she opened them, she was in a different forest, but it was still night, the moon still a sickle above. In front of her stood a woman she had never seen. She wore an ivory mask and a black gown that glinted with jewels.

“The fourth Faith,” she said.

The woman bowed her head slightly. “You have called me, and here I am.” She lifted her head back up. “You should not do this, Anne. You are free—return to Eslen.”