Crimson Bound

by Rosamund Hodge

  She had imagined a lot of things about Armand, and none of them seemed to be true now. And none of the things she had actually learned made sense.

  He could see the Great Forest all the time. She had never heard of anyone who could do that, bloodbound or woodwife. To have that power, he must have been touched by the Forest somehow.

  But if he really had met a forestborn, if he really had been marked, then how did he survive?

  It took him over an hour, but he did find an answer. The bells had just tolled four when Armand looked up and said, “The wine cellars.”

  “What?” Rachelle turned; she had been at the other side of the room, slowly weaving through a sword form.

  “Listen. ‘It baffles me not that my cousin would risk her reputation in a rendezvous, but that she would attempt it in the wine cellars; for I have heard it said that the ghost of Prince Hugo still walks those corridors, searching for the way home.’”

  Rachelle snorted. “Clearly the court hasn’t changed in a hundred years. But just because somebody once claimed to see his ghost there, doesn’t mean it’s where he disappeared.”

  “It’s a place to start, anyway,” said Armand. “And it makes sense; those cellars are one of the oldest parts of the Château.”

  He was smiling; he seemed genuinely excited about hunting for the door. Without meaning to, Rachelle found the edge of her own mouth turning up, and a tiny shiver of excitement growing in her own heart.

  It might be nothing. But it was more of a clue than she’d ever had before.

  She’d try anything to find Joyeuse.

  “Then let’s go look,” she said.

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  The problem was not getting down to the royal wine cellars. Rachelle had the authority to go most places in the Château. All she needed to do was ask a footman, and they were shown the way.

  The problem was in getting there without attracting an entourage of onlookers. They got enough attention just walking through the public areas of the Château; once they stepped into the servants’ corridors, nobody could look away.

  Rachelle knew that they could just wait until the middle of the night, and sneak down under cover of darkness. But she didn’t want to wait. Now that she finally had a hope of finding Joyeuse, she couldn’t stand to wait another hour.

  So instead, she resorted to telling the truth. Almost.

  “Please keep everyone out of the cellars,” she said to the gaping majordomo. “In order to secure the safety of the Château, I must perform an inspection.”

  “Of course,” he said dazedly, and then seemed to notice the sword hanging at her side. “But—but why are you bringing Monsieur Vareilles?”

  Armand smiled self-deprecatingly. “I promised I’d go with her, to lend whatever help I can.”

  There was going to be gossip. Erec would hear and doubtless tease her. But if she had Joyeuse in her hand, she wouldn’t much care what happened after.

  The wine cellars were long, low tunnels, their sloping walls paved in the same cobblestones as their floors. The air was cold and still, with an absolute, muffled quiet; even Rachelle’s boots hardly made any noise against the floors.

  “I’m surprised they obeyed so easily,” said Rachelle.

  “You offered to protect them from the Forest,” said Armand. “Everyone’s afraid of it except the nobility. And some of them are too, they just won’t admit it.”

  “So instead they turn to treason,” she said.

  “Or saints. I’m sure the King will find a way to outlaw that as well, soon.”

  Rachelle snorted. “That was a nice little lie you spun for them. Do many people think you can bless the Great Forest away with a wave of your hand?”

  “That was a nice little lie you spun for them,” said Armand. “A pity you aren’t actually trying to protect them.”

  She caught her breath in anger, then remembered that she had not actually ever told him that she was trying to find Joyeuse and save the world from the Devourer.

  “How do you know I’m not?” she said.

  “I don’t know, are you?” He was turned away from her, so she couldn’t see his face, but his voice was light and teasing. It shouldn’t have felt like a fishhook between her ribs.

  For one moment, she wanted to tell him the truth. She also wanted to slam him against the wall and scream at him to be silent. Instead, she asked him evenly, “Do you see anything?”

  “Moss.” The light, easy tone of his voice didn’t waver. “And flowers with teeth.”

  “Well, the moss isn’t real.” She peered at the stone walls. “Maybe a little of it’s real.”

  He laughed. “Be careful of the flowers, then.”

  A chamber split off from the main tunnel; they looked inside and saw the racks of wine bottles gleaming in the lantern light.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  Armand strode forward into the chamber and looked around. He was truly looking, she realized: he scrutinized the room in every direction, and his shoulders slumped slightly before he turned back to her and said, “Nothing.”

  No matter what he thought of her, he was trying to help her. Maybe he was trying to help her.

  She hadn’t met anyone that foolish since Amélie.

  “Did you really mean that?” she asked. “About supporting Raoul Courtavel?”

  “Are you shocked that I’d imagine there could be a king after my beloved father, or that I’d want someone on the throne besides myself?”

  “I’m curious,” said Rachelle, “why you even care.”

  Armand laughed then: sudden, wild snickers that made his shoulders hunch and shake. He laughed and laughed and laughed.

  “Whatever it is,” Rachelle said after a few moments, “can’t be that amusing.”

  He had leaned against the wall now, and he looked back at her with a grin. “Believe me, it is exactly that amusing. However you interpret it.” Then he licked his lips and straightened up, composing his face. “If you want to know why I’d like to see Raoul on the throne, it’s because he’s the only possible heir that doesn’t hate me.”

  “The rest didn’t like being related to a saint?” asked Rachelle.

  “I mean when we were young,” he said, turning away from her. “When I was nothing. My mother was exiled from the court, you know, but she would visit other nobles at their estates sometimes. She particularly liked to visit relatives of the King. Raoul was the only one who didn’t hate me, and he was also the only one who spent more time reading the chronicles of past kings than chasing after scullery maids. And since then, he’s become the only one to drive the pirates back into the Mare Nostrum. So yes, I would rather see him king than anyone else alive today. But none of that’s going to matter, is it?”

  “No,” said Rachelle, because as much as the common folk might hope or Vincent Angevin might fear, Armand would never get any say in the next king. Not unless he raised a peasant army in bloody rebellion, and she realized—with a sudden, hollow shiver—that she didn’t believe he would do that.

  And the succession wouldn’t matter at all if the Devourer returned to eat the sun and moon.

  They went on. They kept looking. And finally they got to the end of the wine cellar.

  They found nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” said Armand, when they stood in the last corner of the cellar, yet another rack of wine gleaming before them. “I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Rachelle. “There has to be something.” But she was already remembering how fragile their suppositions had been to begin with. Because somebody a hundred years ago said that Prince Hugo’s ghost might haunt the cellar, he must have found the door and died down here? It was absurd.

  She didn’t give up right away, of course. They went over the cellars again and again. Rachelle pressed her hands to the walls and reached for an
y hidden charms a hundred times.

  None of it made a difference. They found nothing at all.

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  The next day, the King decided that he wanted to go hunting, and he must have all his favorite people with him, including his beloved son Armand. So they had to get up barely past dawn and join a seething crowd of people, horses, and dogs that spent most of the morning ranging through the grounds.

  Rachelle hated every moment of it. The evening before, Erec had come to tease her and ask why she had needed to take a saint into a wine cellar, followed by a torrent of clever insinuations that she couldn’t even decipher, so all she could do was glare at him in silence. Afterward, once the hallways were dark and empty, she had dragged Armand out to explore the Château again. But they had no direction, so they wandered for hours without learning anything. When Armand started leaning against the wall and dozing off whenever she stopped to examine a room, she had to give up for the night.

  Now she was trapped again, playing the court’s wearisome game. And she hated it. She hated the sunlight pounding into her eyes. She hated the laughing, chattering nobles who thought the sunlight would last forever. She hated Erec, who kept smirking at her.

  Most of all, she hated Armand, because she had really believed that his idea about the library and the wine cellar might work.

  Worse: she couldn’t stop seeing him.

  She was supposed to watch him. But now she kept noticing every detail: his embroidered cuffs shifting against his silver wrists. The sliver of pale throat visible above his collar. The peculiar way he planted himself when he stood, as if bracing for a heavy wind. Even sitting on a horse, his shoulders had the same stubborn set.

  He still smiled at the lords and ladies who talked to him, but now there was something wry to the expression. Sometimes he would draw out a word a little longer or clip it off a little shorter than she had expected, as if a bit of his thoughts had bled through. As if his thoughts were something separate and lonely that had no place in the role he was playing.

  At noon, there were pavilions and a baskets of food and jugs of wine. The day had grown hot, so it was a relief to sit down in the shade; Rachelle overheard several ladies complaining about the heat and then giggling as they loudly wished that there really would be an Endless Night.

  La Fontaine drew Armand away to sit with her and the King, and Rachelle would have followed, but somebody grabbed her shoulder.

  There was an instant where she nearly drew her sword. Then she turned, and there was Vincent Angevin.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I just wanted to meet you. Won’t you sit down with me?”

  Everyone was sitting down around them. Rachelle supposed that the next hour was going to be horrible no matter what, so she sat down next to him on one of the rugs that the servants had thrown down.

  “Tell me, is it very boring to guard my cousin all day long?” he asked.

  “Not as boring as I’d like,” she said. “Especially with the assassins that keep attacking.”

  Vincent didn’t seem the slightest bit disturbed by her remark. “Poor Armand,” he sighed. “Nobody ever liked him much. Except Raoul, who never could stop feeling sorry for the oddest people.”

  “I don’t like you much,” said Rachelle, and instantly regretted being so blunt.

  Vincent grinned. “You’re so pretty when you’re resentful,” he said, and pinched her cheek.

  Nobody had pinched her cheek since she was ten. For one moment, she couldn’t believe it had happened, until the pair of ladies sitting nearby started giggling. Vincent’s eyes were crinkled up with laughter.

  “If you could see your face,” he said, in a genial voice that invited all the world to laugh with him.

  Rachelle gave him her most balefully blank look. “I’m a murderer. Do you really think you ought to upset me?”

  “But that’s what makes it so exciting. Will she kiss me or will she kill me—I think every man secretly wants to play that game.”

  But she couldn’t kill him, any more than she could have refused to accompany Armand on the hunt. She had to keep pretending she was a part of this court. She had to keep playing their game, and there was only one role for her.

  The nearby ladies were giggling again, no doubt delighted that they got to watch Vincent Angevin make a conquest of a bloodbound.

  Her face burned. She thought: You murdered your own aunt. Do you really deserve dignity?

  Then one of his hands dropped to rest on her thigh.

  “Excuse me,” said Armand, “but I need Mademoiselle Brinon right now.”

  “You’ll have to wait your turn,” Vincent started, but Armand was already sitting beside Rachelle.

  “The sunlight has given me a terrible headache,” he said. “May I rest my head in your lap?”

  It was such a bizarre request, it took Rachelle a moment to believe he had really said it. “Yes,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Armand, and in one fluid movement, he lowered his head into her lap and closed his eyes, as calmly as if there weren’t people staring and whispering.

  Rachelle was caught in a kind of stupefied surprise, like the smudged colors that would hang in her vision after staring at a fire.

  Vincent laughed nervously. “Of all the strange—” He reached toward her, but now Rachelle had an excuse to take action. She caught his wrist in a grip so tight he gasped.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you disturb him,” she said blandly. “Maybe we can talk later.”

  “Of course,” said Vincent, sounding rather strangled. She released him and he scrambled to his feet and stalked away.

  “Is he gone?” Armand asked softly.

  “Yes,” Rachelle muttered. “I didn’t need you to save me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. But some of the ladies wouldn’t stop talking about my marvelous virtue. I got a little tired of it.”

  “So you needed a little defilement?” she asked.

  “I needed,” he said flatly, “to be left alone.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind their adoration before.”

  He sighed, and his breath stirred against her face. “I suppose the heat is getting to me.”

  “Do you need to take your hands off?” she asked, remembering the audience.

  “No,” he said.

  And then they were silent. Rachelle dared a look around; a few people were still staring, but most were chatting with each other now. La Fontaine leaned against the King and fed him grapes; a quartet of musicians played violins. Erec lounged against a nearby tree; when their eyes met, he raised his eyebrows. Her face burned, and she looked away.

  She couldn’t look at Armand. But she couldn’t ignore his warm weight in her lap. She felt him shifting slightly as he breathed; it was as unnervingly comforting as when Amélie painted cosmetics on her face.

  The song ended, and there was a smattering of polite applause. Then the King said to Erec, “You look bored, d’Anjou.”

  “Do I, sire?” Erec asked languidly.

  Armand sighed and sat up. He pushed a lock of hair out of his face, and Rachelle’s fingers twitched with the impulse to smooth it back for him.

  “I confess I’m bored as well. Propose an amusement for us.” The King leaned his chin on his hand and surveyed the glittering crowd that waited on his every move.

  Rachelle vaguely remembered Erec having once told her about the King’s penchant for demanding a courtier to decide on his next amusement. It was supposed to be a test of elegance and taste. At the time, she’d just been grateful that, unlike Erec, she’d never have to attend court herself.

  “A duel,” Erec said promptly, and Rachelle’s stomach lurched.

  “I have heard that I outlawed dueling,” said the King.

  “As did your glorious father and grandfather,” said Erec. “But those were duels o
f honor carried out to the death. I propose a duel to three strikes only, myself against Rachelle Brinon. Any blood that we shed, you have already sentenced to fall.”

  Rachelle bolted to her feet. “Sire,” she said, and then stopped. She needed a clever retort, a way to turn his suggestion into a joke that nobody would dare to take seriously enough for the duel to go forward.

  “Well?” The King raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not good enough to perform before you,” she said finally. That was at least flattering.

  “She brawls often enough with the Bishop’s bloodbound, and bests her half the time,” said Erec.

  “But—” said Rachelle.

  “She’s just shy,” Erec went on. “We have a wager between us, you see, that the next time we fight, the loser must give the winner a kiss.”

  And he winked at her.

  Rachelle’s face heated. That’s not true, she wanted to yell, but she knew that protestations would only seem like proof, and Erec would just make her look even more ridiculous.

  Armand was still sitting right behind her. She didn’t dare glance back at him.

  “Really?” said the King. “How charming. Duel her, then, and may the best one of you enjoy the spoils of war.”

  Rachelle bowed numbly. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  A minute later, they had cleared a wide space in the lawn and Rachelle stood a pace apart from Erec, her sword drawn.

  “Why did you have to lie to him?” she hissed.

  “But, my lady, how can you object? Surely either way, the victory is yours.”

  “I hate you,” she muttered, and knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say, because his eyes crinkled with suppressed laughter.

  “Excellent.” He smacked her shoulder lightly. “Then you’ll fight better and have the delight of disgracing me before the King.”

  He knew she wouldn’t. He knew she had never been as good at sword fighting as he was. Her brawling with Justine had been just that—wild, enthusiastic violence for the sheer satisfaction of throwing each other across the room.