The Sword-Edged blonde

TWENTY-SEVEN

Fifteen minutes,” Anders said.

“We talked about twenty.”

“Yeah, well, it’s an imperfect world.”

He pressed the key to Rhiannon’s cell into my hand. Then he went to wait at the guard station where, moments earlier, he’d dismissed the two men on duty. They had not been happy about it, and left with promises to go straight to their division commander. Those lost five minutes were probably a measure of how upset they were.

The room inside the wall had originally been a siege armory, and the old weapon racks remained, rusted and empty. A bunk allowed one guard to sleep while the other remained on duty. A table bore evidence of a recent card game. And at one end of the room, a new wall closed off what was now the queen’s chamber.

Except for the narrow meal slot, the inner cell door had not been opened since Rhiannon was first incarcerated. The key took some real effort to turn in the lock, and the bolt mechanism scraped like a frying cat. The lamp from the antechamber threw a shaft of yellow light through the opening.

Awakened by the noise, Rhiannon sat on the edge of her bed and clutched the blanket around her. Her ragged clothes, still damp from the rain, lay neatly across the table. “Who are you?” she gasped, fear in her voice. “Please, no one’s supposed to be in here.”

“That’s true,” I said as I lit a candle. “Not even you.” The room smelled of sweat and dirt, a damp odor that invoked the creepy feel of mold and fungus. I held up the light so she could see my face.

“Mr. LaCrosse,” she said blankly.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” I said as I put the candle on the table. I grabbed the blanket and yanked it away from her; the thin fabric ripped as she tried to protect her modesty.

“No, please!” she gasped, pitiful and helpless. She wrapped her arms around her emaciated torso and pressed her legs together. “This isn’t right, you shouldn’t do this,” she said without looking at me.

I pushed her back on the cot, held her down with one hand over her mouth and used my knee to part her legs. She screamed, but it was so thin and muffled no one outside the room could’ve heard it. She had no strength to fight, but she thrashed and struggled as best she could.

I lifted her left leg to see her inner thigh in the candlelight. And there it was: the same horseshoe scar as Epona Gray. I’d touched her, so I knew she was tangible; and now that I’d confirmed the scar, I knew a lot more. I released her, climbed off the bed and tossed the blanket back at her.

She wrapped herself in it and huddled back against the wall. “Why did you stop?” she spat. “Was I too dirty? Now that I’m just a common prisoner, I don’t even rate your brutality? Is that it?”

I couldn’t look at her. My voice was very quiet when I said, “I needed to satisfy myself about something. Now I have.”

Her fury, though, was just getting started. “You still think I’m lying about my amnesia, don’t you? Well, look around you. Would I lie just so I could be kept here for the rest of my life? What secret could be worse than this?” She tied the blanket under her arms and got to her feet. “You said you were Philip’s friend. That meant you were supposed to be mine, too, because he loved me then! Where were you when he was condemning me?”

I faced her. “You didn’t kill your son. I know it, I can prove it, and even more, I know exactly where he is.”

She did not react for a long moment. Finally, in a tiny voice, she asked, “Where?”

“I’ll get to that. First I need you to do something that’s going to seem kind of strange, but if you don’t, you and anyone you care about will never be truly safe.” I reached into my pocket and brought out the small opaque jar I’d claimed at the Dwarf’s house to hold my souvenir. I opened the top. “Hold out your hands. And it’s pretty disgusting, so be ready.”

I poured the contents into her cupped palms. She jumped, but didn’t drop it. She turned slowly toward the candle, as if more light would make it less repulsive. “What is it?”

“It’s a heart.”

She looked at me, eyes wide inside their dark circles. “A human heart?” she whispered.

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

At least it had been once, when a rough-hewn sailor washed ashore on a beach five centuries earlier. And when I’d attacked the Dwarf in his little sanctuary, pinned him with my weight and used my knife to carve the organ from his chest, deep down I truly thought it would turn out to be a normal human heart. Certainly the hot blood that spewed from him seemed mortal, as did his terrified screams for help. Thanks to his overconfidence, though, there was no one in the house to hear them.

But it wasn’t until I held the bloody thing in my hand and stood up that I realized the full extent of Epona’s curse. Five hundred years earlier she’d doomed him to a life of unending pain and torment; that meant that even though I’d removed his most essential living organ, he would not die. He writhed on the floor, experiencing every moment of the agony that would’ve long ago killed anyone else. The sounds he made barely qualified as human.

“You bastard! ” he finally gasped. His hands flopped like the fins of a landlocked bass. “I have… all of your life… to get you back for this!”

I looked at the heart, then at the man without it. For the first time in this whole nasty business, I was absolutely sure I was right. “Remember what you said about information? You gave out a little too much. You told me how to kill you.”

His back arched, and blood poured from the ragged gash in his chest. “You… can’t kill me, you… asshole! ” he spat through clenched teeth.

“You’re right.” Although I was covered in blood, in my head I was somewhere very calm, completely clear about what I needed to do. “And I won’t.”

Then I’d gagged him, wrapped him in a blanket, tied him with rope and buried him in the center of his own hedge maze. His struggles and curses grew weaker but never stopped entirely, and I imagined that when I’d pounded the last spadeful of dirt on top of him, I could still faintly hear his muffled voice. I carefully put the sod in place and hid all evidence of my tampering. Then I dug a fake grave in the wine cellar to throw off anyone who came looking for him. As far as I knew he was still buried, still in agony, and would probably, eventually, worm his way out like a blood-drained grub. And I had no doubt he would make good on his promised revenge if I turned out to be wrong.

Now Rhiannon stared down at the heart of Andrew Reese in her trembling hands. “It’s still warm,” she whispered.

“Yes. I need you to crush it.”

Her eyes popped wide. “What?”

“Crush it, rip it apart, tear it up. Destroy it. Only you can do it, and you won’t ever be safe unless you do it.”

She swallowed hard. “Whose heart is it?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell you. But it was the person behind everything that’s happened. You have to trust me, Rhiannon.”

After a moment she smiled a little. “I never heard you say my name before.”

I heard a distant thud, like a door slamming somewhere within the wall’s network of tunnels. “There’s not a lot of time,” I said.

She nodded, bit her lip and squeezed the organ in her right hand. Blood oozed out between her fingers. Then she twisted it, wrenching the tough muscle tissue until it finally began to tear. She grunted with the effort, the tendons straining on her skinny arms. Her face darkened, and her repressed fury and rage flowed into her hands. The heart slipped and popped as she thrust her fingers into the holes and tore ventricle from auricle with all her strength, at long last literally breaking Andrew Reese to pieces.

Finally it lay in ragged chunks on the floor, and they quickly shriveled into hard, blackened blobs. I crushed one beneath my boot; it fell to powder. Hopefully back in his long-overdue grave, the same thing happened to the Dwarf.

Rhiannon’s fingers were bloody, and droplets spattered the blanket and her bare shoulders. She breathed in great ragged gasps. Then she looked at me and raised her crimson hands. Her eyes gleamed with tears barely held in check. “Who am I, Mr. LaCrosse?” she asked softly. “ What am I?”

You’re a goddess, I wanted to tell her. You visited this world twice unsuccessfully, once in your real form, and once as an actual human being. Except that the knowledge of your true self tripped you up both times. Your first try created your greatest enemy, and your second one blindsided you with the utter intensity of being human. This time, though, you made yourself forget your divine origin, and so you experienced humanity as one of us, both the noblest and the most base.

But I only said, “You’re my best friend’s wife.”

Anders appeared at the door. “Time’s up,” he said urgently, then as an afterthought nodded at Rhiannon. “Your Majesty.”

“We’re taking her out of here,” I said.

Anders blinked. “We are.”

“We’re going to get her son. Then we’re bringing them both home.”

I heard crisp soldier-shouts down the hall behind Anders. “That could be a little bit of a hassle,” he pointed out.

I grinned. “Nah. Just follow me.”

Halfway down the hall, a torch burned in a bent and corroded sconce. Beneath it I pressed a single loose stone and a hidden door scraped open. Anders, then Rhiannon, and finally I slipped through, and the door closed behind us just as the reinforcements obliviously ran past.

“How’d you know about this?” Anders whispered in the dark. “I spent half an hour today looking over the diagrams of this place, and it wasn’t there.”

I didn’t answer. The story involved me, Phil and a badger that escaped from us when we tried to sneak it into the castle. Phil still had a tiny scar on his right thumb where the animal expressed its displeasure. I can’t recall why we wanted a badger-I think we were nine years old-but one side effect of trying to find the little shit was that we learned some secret passages forgotten since the wall was first built. And without asking I knew that was exactly why Rhiannon’s cell had been placed here, near an escape tunnel known only to him and me.

A few minutes later, we emerged outside the wall through another hidden and forgotten door into the dense trees of the King Hyde Memorial Park. The oaks and maples grew higher than the wall, and beneath them were many shadowed clearings. Hidden in one of them, we listened to the commotion caused by our escape on the other side of the wall, and I knew we didn’t have long.

“Now where are we going?” Anders hissed.

“To the royal hunting preserve,” I said.

Rhiannon looked surprised. “That’s where Philip found me.”

“Yeah.” I turned to Anders. “Can you go get the horses?”

He scowled. “Back where the entire Arentian army is mobilizing to find us? Oh, sure. Would you like a cup of tea, too?” Before I could respond, he’d vanished into the darkness with barely a rustle of the thick vegetation.

I took off my jacket and handed it to Rhiannon. She pulled it gratefully over the tattered blanket. Then she tentatively reached out and touched the closest branch of the tree that shadowed us.

“I never thought I’d feel living wood again,” she said softly. “And don’t make a snide comment.” She rubbed one leaf gently between her fingers. “Can you feel when something’s alive? Sometimes I think I’m the only one who can. Especially now, after being kept away from living things for so long.”

She was only an outline in the darkness. I stepped toward her, put my hand on her shoulder, and felt it small and bony beneath my coat’s fabric. I turned her toward me. I couldn’t see her face, but she gasped.

My hand slid down to her waist and I pulled her close. She was so small and weak it was easy, and I felt her hands on my shoulders. She didn’t push me away, though. She did turn her face up, so that the moonlight filtering through the trees glinted off her eyes. “I won’t stop you,” she said, a whisper so quiet the crickets almost drowned it out.

I held her like that for a long moment as the night flowed around us. If she’d done or said anything, I would have released her. But she didn’t. I held my best friend’s wife, my own old lover, and an actual goddess in my arms, and I knew she loved me. Not the way she loved Phil, or Pridiri; something reserved only for me, something for which even she didn’t know the source. Then I pulled her against me, and held her tight. I needed one last chance to know she was truly real.

Her fragility made me ache in sympathy, as Epona’s had thirteen years earlier. I was careful as I wrapped my arms around her. Her unwashed body and oily hair should have been revolting, but they weren’t. I felt as if I held a treasure, all the more valuable because even she didn’t know what she was.

She shuddered, and for a moment I thought I’d squeezed her too hard. Then she sniffled, “Thank you,” into my shoulder. She put her arms around my neck and shook with quiet sobs. I let her cry herself out, until I heard someone approach through the trees. I pushed her into the shadows and drew my sword.

The brush rustled, and Anders stepped into the clearing. “We should go. I’ve got your horse and mine, but it wasn’t feasible to get one for Her Majesty. I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to catch a ride with one of us.”

We followed him to the spot he’d left my horse and his own. Lola tossed her head in greeting to me, and I scratched her cheek in return.

Rhiannon stepped up to Lola. Her eyes were as big as the horse’s. “This is a strange question, but… have I met your horse before?”

“Not in this life,” I said, the irony all my own.

She stroked Lola’s cheek. “I feel close to all horses, but somehow especially this one,” she said, almost a sigh. “She’s so smart, and strong, and loyal to you. This mare would die for you, you know, because you’ve treated her with kindness, and more importantly, respect. She’s been your partner, not your property.”

Anders looked at me, his eyes wide and skeptical. He clearly thought the queen had gone a bit stir crazy after all that time in her cell, and even I was a little uncomfortable, but for a whole different reason. “She’ll do,” I agreed.

Suddenly Rhiannon realized how she sounded, and nervously laughed. “I’m sorry, I can’t explain any of that. I must’ve been a horsewoman in my earlier life. Too bad I can’t remember it.” She smiled sheepishly and handed me Lola’s reins.

“Yeah, too bad,” Anders agreed. “Can we go now?”

I helped Rhiannon onto the saddle in front of me, both her legs hanging off the right side. She snuggled against my chest as we trotted off toward the road that connected Hyde Park with the royal forest.

It was late enough that the traffic was thin, and the alarm from the queen’s escape did not overtake us. I knew that once we reclaimed Pridiri, we could return to the city by the main gate and march right up to the castle door.

When we got within sight of Prince Pridiri’s hiding place, we hid off the trail in a thick grove of trees. Mosquitoes, drawn by our sweat and the blood splattered on Rhiannon, swarmed us. I pointed up the path ahead. “He’s in there.”

Rhiannon gasped. “ That’s who took him?”

“No. But that’s where he is.”

Anders looked skeptical. “You’re sure? I mean… ”

“I’m sure.”

“ Why? ” Rhiannon said, packing outrage and incomprehension into her whispered query.

I dismounted and handed the reins to Rhiannon. “Give me five minutes. Mike, if I haven’t signaled you by then, use your best judgment.”

I walked out of the woods and down the path to the cottage door. No lights showed behind any of the curtains. I knocked like I really meant business. “Hey! Open up!”

A lamp blazed in a window, and somewhere a baby started crying. I knocked again, and used the same voice that once sent tough mercenaries into battle. “No bullshit, open up! I mean it!”

The door opened, and royal game warden Terry Vint appeared. He held up the lamp to verify my identity. “Eddie?” he said sleepily. “What the hell-”

“I’m here for Pridiri, Terry,” I said. “His mom’s down the road, and she’ll be here in about five minutes. I don’t want any trouble.”

Shana Vint appeared behind him, holding a fidgety baby. Two other small children clung to her nightgown skirt. “Terry? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Terry said, but I saw the flash of genuine terror in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Just tell me if I’ve got this right. The night Queen Rhiannon supposedly murdered her son, a scary blond guy showed up here with a baby. He figured one more face in this brood wouldn’t be noticed. He wouldn’t tell you who the baby was, but he told you to keep him, and threatened your own kids if you let anybody know. You’re a good judge of people, Terry, and you could tell he was for real. Once word got out of what happened at the castle, though, you knew who he’d given you. Hiding him right under the king’s nose was brilliant. When the crisis started, Phil had no spare time for hunting, so nobody came out here. And you kept quiet, just like you promised.”

Terry swallowed hard. “I couldn’t risk my family, Eddie,” he finally choked out.

“I know. And you were right, the guy would’ve killed any of your kids without blinking. But not anymore.”

“How do you know?”

“I was there.”

He absorbed this for a moment. Then he sighed, with both relief and apprehension, and motioned Shana forward.

She disengaged from her own brood and stepped to the door, holding the same fat, dark-haired baby I’d seen in her arms weeks before. Tears ran down her face. “He already feels like one of mine.”

“Eddie, man, damn. How’d you know? ” Terry asked.

“When I visited you, you told me you had five kids. Mentioned it a couple of times. I counted six, and since the baby doesn’t look a thing like either one of you, I could guess who he was.” Oh, if only I were so bright. It took weeks for that nagging detail to finally announce itself. But nobody else needed to know that.

Shana held Pridiri out to me. I shook my head, and whistled sharply to signal Anders. To Shana I said, “You can give him back to his mother.”

Rhiannon emerged from the woods like a ghost materializing from the darkness. Her pale skin and flaxen hair glowed bone-white in the moonlight. Shana gasped, for a moment actually convinced this was some ghoulish banshee. Then Anders appeared behind her, leading the horses. I stepped aside so Rhiannon could see her son.

With a cry she ran forward, practically knocked me over and took the baby from Shana. She swayed as she clutched him, murmuring, “Pridiri, Pridiri, my baby.” Terry and Shana slowly knelt, and gestured at the rest of their now-awakened clan to do the same.

Rhiannon spun in place, laughing and crying. Finally she stopped, saw the Vints on their knees and wiped at her tears. “I don’t know why you hid him from me, Terry,” she said, torn between relief and anger, “but thank you for at least keeping him safe.”

“They’re not the bad guys,” I said. “They’re victims just like you.”

Rhiannon and Shana exchanged a significant, probably mother-exclusive look. Then the queen smiled. “Then I thank you even more for caring enough to protect him. Please, stand up. Under the circumstances it seems silly to be formal.”

“Would you like to come in?” Shana said, reflexively polite before she could stop herself. The thought that the queen might accept the invitation visibly terrified her.

Rhiannon looked at me over Pridiri’s fuzzy head. “I’d really just like to go home now.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.