The iron gates opened.
I urged Crimson forward, his hooves clomping on the stone path leading to the wide double doors of the chateau, as a squadron of guards flanked me, keeping their muskets trained on me as they escorted me inside.
At the entrance, I slid down from the saddle, keeping my movements slow and deliberate.
“I’ll secure your horse,” a guard offered, taking Crimson’s reins.
“No!” I said, startling him and Crimson, who reared up slightly. The guards all crouched, ready to fire, as I patted Crimson’s neck to soothe him. “It’s all right, boy. It’s all right. I’m fine. It’s all right.” I turned to the guard, who released the reins. “He prefers to be loose. He won’t cause any trouble, if no one causes him any.”
The guard stared up at Crimson’s fiery eyes, then back at me. He gave a silent nod and stepped back, giving Crimson room.
I led Crimson to stand beside the front step, out of the way but ready to escape if needed, with or without me. I tried once more to convince myself that it would not be necessary.
I entered the palace, flanked by six of the guards and their trained guns. I gave Crimson a final glance over my shoulder before the doors closed behind me, sealing me inside.
The guards led me through the echoing corridors, their boots clomping across the floor. My slippers made no sound at all, compared to the boots I had worn for the last few months. We arrived at another set of double oak doors at the end of the hall. Each of two guards seized hold of the large door knockers and tugged the doors open. I saw the Duke’s velvet-lined throne within at the opposite end.
It was empty.
The guards marched me inside and stopped in the center of the room.
We waited. For what seemed like eons.
Until I heard heeled shoes clicking across the floor from somewhere beyond the flanking guards. I wanted to step past them, to see the Duke approaching. But the guards’ fingers seemed to finger their muskets as anxiously as I fingered my crossbow.
I reminded myself there was nothing to worry about, as the shoes continued to click toward us.
Duke Reichelon came into view. He was tall, lanky, and looked halfasleep. He didn’t look in my direction, but continued straight for his throne to slowly seat himself. He closed his eyes.
He opened them slowly to regard me, his gaze drifting lazily to my slippers and then examining my dress and cloak. He paused briefly to focus on my crossbow, then finally met my eyes and my scarred face. “So,” he said. “You are Helena Basque. The girl who dresses like a boy. And fights like a man.”
He waited, apparently anticipating a reaction. I gave him none.
He sighed slowly. “I am Duke Neuvalle Reichelon. Your new ruler.”
He eyed me, letting his introduction linger. As a warning, perhaps?
“Welcome to La Rue Sauvage,” I said. I almost curtsied, as Father Vestille had advised, but I just couldn’t make myself do it.
The Duke snorted. “Temporarily,” he said, continuing his own thought. “I must split my duties between overseeing both La Rue Sauvage and Dijon. I decided my first task should be to meet the rather unique young lady who went to such extreme measures to lay waste to her own province.”
“Lay waste?” I snapped. “I saved our entire province, from …!” I stopped myself.
He raised a critical eyebrow. “Yes? Go on, Mademoiselle. You were about to say ‘wolves’, I believe? You saved your entire province from a pack of big, bad wolves. Thank you ever so much, Mademoiselle. The nation of France is forever in your debt. Which is why the Queen sent me here. To congratulate you on your efforts. You killed nearly a hundred men. Clothiers. Innkeepers. Coopers. Tanners. Silversmiths. Merchants. Farmers. Because you deemed them all to be dangers to the province.” He blinked slowly. “Wolves.”
I steadied my nerves, reminding myself how Father Vestille had trained me to respond with diplomacy. I forced myself to make a half-bow. “That is correct, Your Grace. I am glad to see that nothing escapes our new Duke’s notice.” He held up a dismissive hand, turning aside with a look of disdain. “Please, spare me your flattery. You don’t even do it well.”
Thank God. I couldn’t stomach hearing any more, either. “Gladly,” I said. “Yes. They were wolves. And there may be more of them.”
“Oh?” he said, in a vague lilt that might have been interested or mocking. “Then it is fortunate we have the Lieutenant-General of Police in place to handle such matters. I would hate to have to assign his tasks to more young girls like yourself. For my part, such matters are hardly my concern, and certainly none of yours. I am here on assignment from Dijon to clean up a large mess. And to see to it that no further messes are made, by any civilians who find themselves better equipped to maintain peace in the province than the royal court or the police. The sooner it is done, the sooner I can go home.”
“I see,” I said. “Well. We’ll do our best to speed along your return.”
He halfsmirked. “Be clearly warned. The Queen doesn’t know what to make of you.”
“Oh, no?” I asked. “Perhaps the Queen has forgotten that I saved her life.”
“So you say. In any event, she suggested that I let you alone, unless you cause difficulties. So I advise you, Mademoiselle, in the strongest sense: do not give me added reasons to dislike you.”
I held my tongue long enough to exhale slowly, giving my rage time to cool, as Father Vestille instructed.
Then I spoke.
“I recommend the same, ‘Your Grace’. Your predecessor didn’t give us much reason to trust new ‘rulers’, and so far, you’re giving me little confidence in the future of our province.”
A thin smile spread slowly across his face, as his lazy eyes remained fixed on mine. “Well. So long as we understand one another. Do you need anyone to see you home, Mademoiselle?”
I fumed, not sure whether I was angrier at him or the thought of returning to my devastated house. “I’ll find my way, thank you.”
“Very well,” he said. “That is the last kindness you will be offered here. Good day, Mademoiselle. I hope to see less of you hereafter.”
I gave a firm nod. The feeling was mutual.
7.
I rode through the forest toward my parents’ house, my heart beating in rhythm with Crimson’s footsteps as I anticipated my return home. Assuming it could ever be a home for me again. I imagined the blood on the walls of our stable – the blood of Mama and Suzette.
Crimson half-stumbled on a large tree root buried in the path. I recognized it. This was close to the spot where Papa saw one of the wolves and chased after it. I tried to charge after him, with Suzette in the saddle in front of me. Until we struck this tree root and her weight shifted, toppling Crimson. It was several minutes before I found Papa. That is, found Father Vestille clutching his bloody tunic to his chest, while Papa’s remains lay strewn about the forest.
Papa would not have missed. But bullets didn’t sto p a Lycanthru wolf.
As we neared the clearing where my old house sat, something struck me odd. I remembered a similar feeling, the last time I came here, expecting to find my mother and little sister. Instead receiving the wafting stench of their drying blood.
That was what seemed so different. No stench. From them, from the slaughtered sheep, from our border collie, Valiant.
No stench at all.
I pushed Crimson harder. We emerged from the woods, into the expanse of my parents’ farm.
I gaped at the open pasture, where Papa once tended sheep. Fresh and green and inviting. I had expected to see small swarms of flies hovering over scraps of unseen sheep flesh left by the wolves. But there were no sheep carcasses or blood left. It had all been swept clean and everything now seemed undisturbed.
I urged Crimson forward at a slow canter. Toward the table where Papa cleaned animals from a hunt before handing them to Mama to cook. I remembered the shock we felt when he brought home a dead wolf, finding no other meat, and how I begged hi
m afterward to teach me how to hunt. I remembered all the animals I had helped him lug onto the table over the next few years, until I grew strong enough to heave even a small deer onto it without any help. Despite his initial reluctance, Papa trained me to become a skilled hunter, just like him. Enough to allow me to continue providing food and protection to Mama and Suzette after he was killed.
I slid down off Crimson’s back and stepped to the carving table, putting a hand on its grain.
This was my home.
I looked around at the pasture, empty of sheep. I could picture them now, bleating and wandering aimlessly about the clearing. Could picture our border collie, Valiant, yapping at them playfully and barking a warning at any sheep that wandered too far off. Could see him running circles around me and Suzette as we played with him, whenever I tired of teaching Crimson a new trick.
I could hear Suzette’s laugh. Feel her on my lap, sitting on the porch, making up one of her silly songs to sing, whenever she took a break from sucking on her blanket. Her “fuzzy woolie” that Mama made her.
My fingers clenched against the wood surface. I drew my hand back, tried to relax.
Beyond the house lay the stable, where I stood petting Crimson when I was only nine, that day when Papa agreed to teach me to hunt. Where I later found the remains of my mother’s dress. And my sister’s bloodstained woolie.
It seemed like a century ago, instead of a few months. Yet I still expected to see them. Mama stepping out onto the porch to call us in for dinner, while Suzette begged for a little more time to play. Papa adding a stern warning to come in before it got dark.
Before the wolves came out.
I stepped up onto the porch, feeling self-conscious in my white dress and flat leather shoes. I pulled my cloak tighter around me as a sudden wind whipped my hair up.
I stood before the closed door, letting the wind ripple my cloak, stir up my hair, chill my cheeks and spine. The last time I opened this door I found Mama and Suzette’s blood spread throughout the house.
I took a deep breath, then pushed it open. It creaked like a tired old man struggling to rise. I stepped inside, prepared for the odor or dried blood.
There was none. Only the smell of wood and floating dust clouds, highlighted by rays of sunlight lighting the room.
I blinked. Even the tidiness outside had not prepared me for this. The last time I was here, everything had been thrown about in disarray. Nothing had been in its place, and blood covered every inch of the walls and furnishings.
Now the pots and pans hung from their hooks. Tables and chairs were set upright, back in their original positions. Even Mama’s rocking chair, which the wolves reduced to splintered shards, had been replaced with a new one. Clearly not my mother’s. Clearly not the same chair she rocked me in as a child. It was darker wood that matched the oak walls better. Made it more of a home.
But not the home I knew. Though it was similar, almost like the chair Mama rocked me in when I was an infant, where she stroked my hair as a child. Where she let me cry on her shoulder as a young girl, when I insisted I could never be pretty enough for a boy to love.
I scanned the living room. Apart from the replaced rocking chair, everything had been restored. Mama’s sewing table stood upright, no longer the way I found it, knocked on its side from her struggle to escape the wolves. The trail of blood that led to the rear door had been scrubbed clean from the floorboards. I squinted to find any trace of red stain.
It was almost as if it never happened. As if I had woken from a strange nightmare, finding my house perfectly intact.
Almost.
I turned toward the window that Papa looked through whenever he sat smoking his pipe and thinking deeply or resting after a long day. The same window he kept locked every night after the attack.
Everything was back in its place. Everything. Except for my family.
My memories had become nothing more than a pile of dead ashes that would never breathe again.
I looked about at the corners of the walls, finding barely a cobweb. I moved to the dark rocking chair, noticing a fuzzy cloth laid over its armrest. I lifted it in my fingers.
It was Suzette’s blanket. Her “fuzzy woolie”.
I lifted it. Clutched it to my chest. Closed my eyes. The last time I saw it was in the stable, matted with blood. Buried beneath a pile of hay. Next to her skeletal hand.
Something touched my shoulder. I jumped and spun, ready to punch.
Pierre withdrew his hand and took a step back. “Easy, Red. I just – just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
I forced my nerves to calm. It was a reflex, from fears that might never leave me. “Sorry,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to collect you for dinner. Father Vestille said you’d probably be here.” He lowered his chin, studying me. “You all right, Red?”
“Fine,” I said, hugging my shoulders as I looked around the room again. “What happened here?”
“After the – After what happened, Father Vestille spent a few weeks fixing things up. I helped him a couple times. He’s been keeping it clean the last few months.”
I scanned the living room. Its tables and chairs and cabinets. The doors and windows, no longer fractured or shattered. The floors wiped clean, pictures hung on the walls. “He never told me,” I said, amazed. “Neither did you.”
Pierre shrugged. “You were kind of preoccupied.”
I nodded. “Sorry I jumped. I was just remembering them.”
“Yeah,” Pierre said, kneeling beside me. “I miss them, too.”
“You lost your first mother, too,” I said casually. “You must miss her a lot.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “But Papa remarried, and Lisette’s fantastic. She makes him happy. And I think she helps him reason things out, when he gets overbearing about something.”
“Something like me?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry. He was just upset about the wolves. Nothing more to worry about. And trust me, Mama will help bring him around. You know he’s not usually like this. I think this whole mess with the wolves just spooked him. He’ll get over it.”
I folded my arms quietly. “Did it ever feel – like a betrayal
– to call Lisette your Mama? Doesn’t it seem like would be forgetting your first mother if you called someone else Mama? Or Papa?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes it did. But I know it’s not. My mother died. Papa never likes to talk about it. But we’re a family now. We don’t have to forget the family we had, to enjoy the new one we’ve got.”
“No,” I said. “It’s actually a blessing, isn’t it? To have a new family.”
I felt myself about to cry. I started pacing suddenly, dropping the blanket on the chair. “The past doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re gone now and we have other things to do. I have to figure out what to do with this house, whether to sell it, or … or …”
He put a hand on my shoulder again, and I stopped. “Or to live here.”
I felt my body tense and grow rigid. “I don’t know if I can do that. It’s not – It’s not really my home anymore.”
“But it could be. You just said, we have other things to do. Your parents would want you to have a good life. They’d want you to be happy. This is your home, Red. You fought for it, and won it. You should live here. Everything’s been fixed up for you.”
I turned from him, still staring at the walls and floors and tables and chairs and pots and pans. Behind me sat the new rocking chair, with the one thing that didn’t fit in this beautiful house. Suzette’s wooly white blanket, spotted with a remnant of blood that wouldn’t wash out. “I don’t know,” I said.
He moved close behind me, his arms on my shoulders. “You can come home again, Red. You can live here.” He turned me about gently to face his kind eyes. “Maybe someday – this could even be our home. Together.”
I felt like I could melt into him, into the warmth of his love. To let his sweet embrace wash away all the n
ightmares. I stroked his cheek. “You know, my mother told me someday I would find a boy who loved me in spite of my scars. Someone kind and gentle, who knew how to treat a girl.” I gazed into his smile. “Look how lucky I am.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he said. “So you’ll stay?”
I surveyed the room once more, noticing the other doors that led to our rear bedrooms. I noted the door to my old room, where I would wake up screaming at night after dreaming of wolf attacks. “I don’t think I’m ready to stay here,” I said.
“But – where will you stay?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll talk to Father Vestille again tomorrow. Then I’ll decide.”
Pierre nodded. “All right. Ready to go?”
“To your parents’ house to meet your father again?” I asked, sighing at the thought of Monsieur Leóne’s intolerant rage. “And you said my fights were all over.”
8.
From the front stoop of the Leónes’ house, I could hear loud laughter and conversation coming from inside. It sounded like they were hosting other people besides Father DuChard. Several horses and even carriages were hitched up to poles out front. The last thing I wanted tonight was to greet a crowd. I could even tolerate Monsieur Leóne’s disapproval, if it also meant some quiet time alone with Pierre. Especially now that I wore a dress and felt like a real girl again. Like someone Pierre would want to kiss.
I patted Crimson’s neck and left him to stand beside the other five horses tied outside, next to the carriage and its team. Whoever was here, perhaps they wouldn’t stay long, now that our dinner was starting. I stepped up onto the porch, feeling strange in my soft slippers instead of my noisy boots, and knocked on the door.
The door flew open. Upon seeing me, Monsieur Leóne ’s face fell. I inhaled sharply as he frowned down at me, while people continued to talk and laugh behind him.
Red Rider Revolution Page 5