“Don’t tell me you’re leaving already.”
“Good night.” She hadn’t actually been planning to leave the reception, but now that he had asked her to stay, she refused to give him the satisfaction.
“What about your charge?”
“I’ll take him with me.” The dance had started up again; she marched straight through the wheeling couples to Armand, and seized his hand out of la Fontaine’s.
“We’re leaving,” she said, and dragged him with her through the crowd—they were all staring, but who cared?—and out a pair of great glass-paneled doors into the garden. Outside was a long, grassy walk lined by oak trees hung with lanterns.
“Where are we going?” said Armand after a few moments, as she continued to drag him down the walk.
Rachelle had not considered that, but she wasn’t about to tell him. “That way,” she said, and didn’t slow down.
“Not that I mind the fresh air,” said Armand, after another few moments, “but you do realize that everyone in there thinks you dragged me out either to kill me or to kiss me senseless?”
Then she did stop, so she could drop his hand and turn on him. “What?”
“Well, after that display. And you know what people say about bloodbound.”
The anger was so sudden and furious, she was surprised she didn’t strike him.
“I know a good deal better than you do,” she said, “unless you’ve been called a whore to your face.”
Ladies tittered and made eyes at Erec. But men of any kind only made catcalls at Rachelle, unless they were cursing her.
Armand winced. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why? Don’t pretend you think I’m an innocent.” Before he could speak, she went on, “But your second cousin just boasted to us about sleeping with the King. How am I the shocking one?”
Armand’s mouth twisted wryly. “Accepting a man’s favor is elegant. Kissing in public is vulgar.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Welcome to the court. Also, she is mistress to the King, and you know how much royal favor can excuse.”
“Such as being bloodbound?” she asked bitterly.
“But you’re not really excused, are you? I was thinking more about what the royal family gets up to.”
Rachelle pushed a strand of hair out of her face. The sweat had started to cool on her skin. In the distance, the wind rustled in the trees. The night was opening up around her again; Armand, his face half-lit by the flickering lamplight, looked strange and ominous.
Not that he sounded it. “Why are you spouting this nonsense?” she demanded.
“I suppose because it’s easier than thinking about the fact that we’re all alone so there’s nobody to hear me scream.”
“Do you really think I dragged you out here to kill you? I’d get in trouble for that, and you’re not worth it.”
He laughed. It was a curiously open laugh, his shoulders shaking and his eyes crinkling. “You’re very comforting.”
“No,” said Rachelle, “just honest. If I were trying to comfort you, I would promise not to hurt you.”
8
The next morning, they had to attend the King’s levée. Apparently it looked strange if the King’s beloved son did not attend his father at every opportunity, so after a hasty breakfast, Rachelle and Armand squeezed their way into the royal chambers along with half the court so that they could watch the Duc de Bonne fulfill his lifelong dream of handing the King his undershirt.
Rachelle found the levée boring beyond all belief, but she supposed it wasn’t worse than any of the other court functions they might have been dragged to. The most trying part was watching everyone pretend not to notice the weakness in the way the King moved, in his overstudied gestures. The rumors were right: he was ill, no matter how little he wanted to admit it.
Just like the world was ending, no matter how little the entire court wanted to admit it.
A courtier stammered a joke, and the King let out one of his famous booming laughs. Everyone pretended not to notice when it turned into a cough. Rachelle sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
The royal chambers here at the Château were just as elaborate as those of the Palais du Soleil back in Rocamadour. But here, instead of the gold curlicues splattered across the ceiling, there was a huge painting of the moon, decorated with gold-and-silver traceries. It was an oddly stylized painting, and as Rachelle stared at it, she realized it wasn’t much like any of the other portraits that hung framed all over the Château. It was old. She knew very little about art, but she was sure that it was much older than any of the other decorations.
Her heart started beating faster, but she didn’t let herself think what she was hoping until Erec’s laugh rang out above the babble of the crowd, and she glanced at him. He sat, again, at the King’s feet, glorying in his position. He was dressed all in black velvet today, with black leather boots, and the tesserae of the mosaic floor glittered around him. Gold tesserae. The pattern was huge; she couldn’t quite make out what it was, besides golden and swirling.
Rachelle looked down at her feet. She saw wavy golden rays against dark blue.
It was the sun. The entire floor of the King’s apartments was covered in a mosaic of the sun. Below a giant moon painted on the ceiling.
She was careful to keep her body still, her face smooth, but under her skin, her blood was pulsing with excitement, because what if the door was right here?
It seemed like a stupid thought. Mad King Louis had nearly torn the kingdom apart when he tried to burn all the woodwives and melt down Joyeuse. Surely anyone seeking to save the ancient sword would want it as far away from him as possible. Surely, if the door were here, someone of the royal line besides Prince Hugo would have opened it already.
But it made a curious sort of sense. If the nameless woodwife had hidden Joyeuse anywhere at the Château, that meant hiding it under the king’s nose. Perhaps she had simply decided to go all the way and hide the sword in the one place that King Louis would never expect a woodwife to dare go. And there were some woodwife charms, Rachelle knew, that only operated in response to the will of the one holding them. The door might open only for somebody who already knew it was there.
It was worth trying.
But she would have to wait until there were not a hundred people crowded into the room.
Late that night, when the Château had finally begun to still, Rachelle slipped into the King’s chambers.