“Arcenne is yours, Vianne. My father swore so last night, and he is not one to make a promise lightly. You must have impressed him.” Tristan’s mouth curled, a trifle. This morning, freshly shaven and dressed plainly, he looked more the Captain I remembered from Court.
“I do not think so. I’ve been a silly goose ever since I s-saw you in the p-passage—” Words deserted me. Just a moment. Just give me a short while to catch my breath.
I did not, you see, quite believe I had reached Arcenne. The spring inside me had wound itself so tightly, and its release left me shaking with conflict.
Tristan stopped short and enclosed me in his arms, rested his chin atop my head. This hall was thankfully deserted, stands of armor and marble busts on pedestals tucked in small alcoves, a tapestry of yet another battle to my right. “Tis behind you now, Vianne.” A warm spot in my hair, his breath as familiar to me as my own. “I swear, I will not leave your side again. Ever.”
I nodded against his chest, my pulse thundering in my ears. Sinking into his strength was a novel sensation, and a welcome one. “Tis hard to believe,” I said into his doublet. He smelled familiar — leather, and steel, and the smell of him, male and clean. “I lived to reach Arcenne, and now that I am here I cannot tell what to do. What next?”
“Next?” He laughed, kissing my hair. Though he was gentle, the laugh was not. “Now that you have gifted us with hope again? We knew not if you were dead, or alive and in di Narborre’s hands. Every day we have waited for news. D’Orlaans struggles to consolidate his power — several of the border provinces are jostling for position, nobody quite sure whether to revolt or not. Rumor racks Arquitaine no less than the plague — though Arcenne has escaped the plague; we are not certain how, but grateful nonetheless. Since d’Orlaans has not found you he is frantic, and since we had not found you we doubted our very lives. For two months, night and day, everything has hung in the balance, and we have been laying in provisions and preparing for war. Now we know you are safe, we may stop fretting and begin doing.” He sighed.
I found I had little desire to ask after his plans just yet, and cast about for a safer subject. “What befell you? I had neither the time nor the strength to ask last night. How did you come to be here?”
He stiffened slightly. “We were hunting di Narborre. I cursed myself for that, for listening to di Cinfiliet when I should have stayed with you. Yet we had to track d’Orlaans’s dog; we had to know. We found his trail an hour before nightfall, I wished to return to the village, but…there was no time. We tracked him until dark fell, then made camp. I thought of you, before I went to sleep.” Now his tone dropped, became fierce, as his embrace tightened considerably. “The next morn we found his tracks, and they led directly for the village. We found Adersahl wounded, following our trail, hoping to bring us as reinforcements. I sent di Chatillon and Jierre to collect you, Adersahl swore you were hidden near the village, and the rest of us set to following di Narborre again. For Adersahl told us he had taken some of the women, no doubt thinking you might be among them. When I found how narrowly you had escaped…
“Luc and Jierre returned, saying they could not find you. But by that time, we had discovered the women. It seems di Narborre had found none of them were you. Their end was not kind, Vianne. I…I thanked the Blessed you were not among them, and cursed the idiocy that had led me from your side. We returned to the village and searched, but the rain had started, and we could not find you. Adersahl cursed himself; he had thought you safer hidden than traversing the forest with only one Guard for protection. We buried the bodies we could find and searched the Shirlstrienne — as much as we dared. It took three weeks for Jierre to convince me to flee to Arcenne. He threatened to tie me to the saddle, and di Cinfiliet had some fool’s fancy of broaching the thinnest pass to Navarrin. We could not believe you could survive in the Shirlstrienne without even a waterskin.”
I am glad to see you, Tristan, but I wished you had listened to di Cinfiliet. It would do my heart good to know you safe in Navarrin, where the Duc could not touch you. “I do not know what might have befallen me, if not for the R’mini.”
His arms tightened. “I owe the tinkers my life, then.”
I leaned against him. “I did not know if you were alive or if di Narborre had fought a pitched battle with you, then razed the village. When I could not find Adersahl, it seemed I had to reach Arcenne myself, or die trying. For my Lisele.”
He paused, as if searching for words. “I would have had you wait for me, but you could not have known. I am simply glad the gods have seen fit to give me another chance at honor.” He had turned steel-hard, and I wondered at it. It seemed impossible he could be so worried; I could not imagine a dishonorable Tristan.
I did not wish to move, and there seemed no answer I could make. So I simply rested against him, content, breathing him in.
A few moments later, he reluctantly loosened his arms. “Come. We are late.”
“Late?”
“They are eager to see you again, m’chri, no less than I was.”
“They?”
“Your Guard, Your Majesty. Your Guard.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Guard was housed in a long barracks hall, and when we stepped inside Jierre let out a whoop and leapt from his chair. Cots ranged along either side of the hall for a distance. There was a space of long tables and benches, a fireplace with chairs and benches set before it, a large cauldron of something familiar-smelling bubbling over the fire.
I had missed the smell of their stew, without knowing it.
I found myself surrounded. Luc di Chatillon embraced me, Jierre kissed me on both cheeks, Tinan di Rocham, blushing fiercely, clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to hurt. The hall became a hubbub of shouted questions, congratulations, and oaths cheerfully yelled.
Though I have been greeted in many ways, I believe this is the welcome I cherish the memory of most.
I was hugged, kissed, buffeted from one place to another before Tristan gave a sharp bark of an order and the fuss died. I looked around the wall of leather doublets and swordhilts. I did not see Adersahl. Tristan offered me his arm, but I peered around Jierre, whose lean dark face held two tear tracks none commented on.
Adersahl sprawled in a low chair tucked almost behind the chimney, a deeply shadowed corner.
I looked up at Tristan. “A moment, please?” I had fallen into sharply accented Court Arquitaine again. The R’mini drawl so quickly fled my tongue, for all I still carried Jaryana’s medallion in my skirt-pocket.
An expectant hush fell over the Guard, broken only when Luc di Chatillon let out a sharp breath. “He is drinking himself to death, d’mselle.”
Jierre’s hand closed over di Chatillon’s shoulder. “Let her.” He nodded to me. Jespre di Vidancourt folded his arms over his lean chest, his blond eyebrows arched.
I approached Adersahl quietly, my skirts brushing the clean wooden floor. A scabbarded rapier lay across his knees. You could scarce see Adersahl’s face, but his shoulders slumped and he seemed frailer now.
Older.
I was less than six feet from him when Adersahl lifted his head. He’d lost his fine mustache. His chin and cheeks were marred with stubble, hollows lay under his eyes, and his gray-salted hair stuck up in wild tufts.
“Oh.” I could not help myself; I sighed. “Adersahl.”