"Yes, thank you," I shifted from one foot to the other as if waiting to see the school princ.i.p.al to explain my misbehavior.
Marthe saved me from further discomfort by arriving with a pot of tea. She, too, surveyed me from head to foot.
"You are better today," she finally announced, handing me a mug. She stood there frowning until Matthew"s mother put down her paper, and then she departed.
When I was finished with my tea, we went to the stables. Ysabeau had to help with my boots, since they were still too stiff to slide on and off easily, and she watched carefully while I put on my turtle sh.e.l.l of a vest and the helmet. Clearly safety equipment had been part of Matthew"s instructions. Ysabeau, of course, wore nothing more protective than a brown quilted jacket. The relative indestructibility of vampire flesh was a boon if you were a rider.
In the paddock Fiddat and Rakasa stood side by side, mirror images right down to the armchair-style saddles on their backs.
"Ysabeau," I protested, "Georges put the wrong tack on Rakasa. I don"t ride sidesaddle."
"Are you afraid to try?" Matthew"s mother looked at me appraisingly.
"No!" I said, tamping down my temper. "I just prefer to ride astride."
"How do you know?" Her emerald eyes flickered with a touch of malice.
We stood for a few moments, staring at each other. Rakasa stamped her hoof and looked over her shoulder.
Are you going to ride or talk? she seemed to be asking. she seemed to be asking.
Behave, I replied brusquely, walking over and putting her fetlock against my knee. I replied brusquely, walking over and putting her fetlock against my knee.
"Georges has seen to this," Ysabeau said in a bored tone.
"I don"t ride horses I haven"t checked myself." I examined Rakasa"s hooves, ran my hands over her reins, and slid my fingers under the saddle.
"Philippe never did either." Ysabeau"s voice held a note of grudging respect. With poorly concealed impatience, she watched me finish. When I was done, she led Fiddat over to a set of steps and waited for me to follow. After she"d helped me get into the strange contraption of a saddle, she hopped onto her own horse. I took one look at her and knew I was in for quite a morning. Judging from her seat, Ysabeau was a better rider than Matthew-and he was the best I"d ever seen.
"Walk around," Ysabeau said. "I need to make sure you won"t fall off and kill yourself."
"Show a little faith, Ysabeau." Don"t let me fall, Don"t let me fall, I bargained with Rakasa, I bargained with Rakasa, and I" ll make sure you get an apple a day for the rest of your life. and I" ll make sure you get an apple a day for the rest of your life. My mount"s ears shot forward, then back, and she nickered gently. We circled the paddock twice before I drew to a gentle stop in front of Matthew"s mother. "Satisfied?" My mount"s ears shot forward, then back, and she nickered gently. We circled the paddock twice before I drew to a gentle stop in front of Matthew"s mother. "Satisfied?"
"You"re a better rider than I expected," she admitted. "You could probably jump, but I promised Matthew we would not."
"He managed to wheedle a fair number of promises out of you before he left," I muttered, hoping she wouldn"t hear me.
"Indeed," she said crisply, "some of them harder to keep than others."
We pa.s.sed through the open paddock gate. Georges touched his cap to Ysabeau and shut the gate behind us, grinning and shaking his head.
Matthew"s mother kept us on relatively flat ground while I got used to the strange saddle. The trick was to keep your body square despite how off-kilter you felt.
"This isn"t too bad," I said after about twenty minutes.
"It is better now that the saddles have two pommels," Ysabeau said. "Before, all sidesaddles were good for was being led around by a man." Her disgust was audible. "It was not until the Italian queen put a pommel and stirrup on her saddle that we could control our own horses. Her husband"s mistress rode astride so she could go with him when he exercised. Catherine was always being left at home, which is most unpleasant for a wife." She shot me a withering glance. "Henry"s wh.o.r.e was named after the G.o.ddess of the hunt, like you."
"I wouldn"t have crossed Catherine de" Medici." I shook my head.
"The king"s mistress, Diane de Poitiers, was the dangerous one," Ysabeau said darkly. "She was a witch."
"Actually or metaphorically?" I asked with interest.
"Both," Matthew"s mother said in a tone that could strip paint. I laughed. Ysabeau looked surprised, then joined in.
We rode a bit farther. Ysabeau sniffed the air and sat taller in the saddle, her face alert.
"What is it?" I asked anxiously, keeping Rakasa under a tight rein.
"Rabbit." She kicked Fiddat into a canter. I followed closely, reluctant to see if it was as difficult to track a witch in the forest as Matthew had suggested.
We streaked through the trees and out into the open field. Ysabeau held Fiddat back, and I pulled alongside her.
"Have you ever seen a vampire kill?" Ysabeau asked, watching my reaction carefully.
"No," I said calmly.
"Rabbits are small. That"s where we will begin. Wait here." She swung out of the saddle and dropped lightly to the ground. Fiddat stood obediently, watching her mistress. "Diana," she said sharply, never taking her eyes off her prey, "do not come near me while I"m hunting or feeding. Do you understand?"
"Yes." My mind raced at the implications. Ysabeau was going to chase down a rabbit, kill it, and drink its blood in front of me? Staying far away seemed an excellent suggestion.
Matthew"s mother darted across the gra.s.sy field, moving so fast it was impossible to keep her in focus. She slowed just as a falcon does in midair before it swoops in for the kill, then bent and grabbed a frightened rabbit by the ears. Ysabeau held it up triumphantly before sinking her teeth directly into its heart.
Rabbits may be small, but they are surprisingly b.l.o.o.d.y if you bite into them while they"re still alive. It was horrifying. Ysabeau sucked the blood out of the animal, which quickly ceased struggling, then wiped her mouth clean on its fur and tossed its carca.s.s into the gra.s.s. Three seconds later she was swinging herself back into the saddle. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and her eyes sparkled more than usual. Once mounted, she looked at me.
"Well?" she asked. "Shall we look for something more filling, or do you need to return to the house?"
Ysabeau de Clermont was testing me.
"After you," I said grimly, touching Rakasa"s flank with my heel.
The remainder of our ride was measured not by the movement of the sun, which was still hidden behind clouds, but by the increasing amounts of blood Ysabeau"s hungry mouth drew from her kills. She was a relatively neat eater. Still, it would be some time before I was happy at the prospect of a large steak.
I was numb to the sight of blood after the rabbit, the enormous squirrel-like creature that Ysabeau told me was a marmot, the fox, and the wild goat-or so I thought. When Ysabeau gave chase to a young doe, however, something p.r.i.c.kled inside me.
"Ysabeau," I protested. "You can"t still be hungry. Leave it."
"What? The G.o.ddess of the hunt objects to my pursuit of her deer?" Her voice mocked, but her eyes were curious.
"Yes," I said promptly.
"I object to your hunting of my son. See what good that has done." Ysabeau swung down from her horse.
My fingers itched to intervene, and it was all I could do to stay out of Ysabeau"s way while she stalked her prey. After each kill, her eyes revealed that she wasn"t completely in command of her emotions-or her actions.
The doe tried to escape. It almost succeeded by darting into some underbrush, but Ysabeau frightened the animal back into the open. After that, fatigue put the doe at a disadvantage. The chase touched off something visceral within me. Ysabeau killed swiftly, and the doe didn"t suffer, but I had to bite my lip to keep from shouting.
"There," she said with satisfaction, returning to Fiddat. "We can go back to Sept-Tours."
Wordlessly I turned Rakasa"s head in the direction of the chateau.
Ysabeau grabbed my horse"s reins. There were tiny drops of blood on her cream shirt. "Do you think vampires are beautiful now? Do you still think it would be easy to live with my son, knowing that he must kill to survive?"
It was difficult for me to put "Matthew" and "killing" in the same sentence. Were I to kiss him one day, when he was just returned from hunting, there might still be the taste of blood on his lips. And days like the one I was now spending with Ysabeau would be regular occurrences.
"If you"re trying to frighten me away from your son, Ysabeau, you failed," I said resolutely. "You"re going to have to do better than this."
"Marthe said this would not be enough to make you reconsider," she confessed.
"She was right." My voice was curt. "Is the trial over? Can we go home now?"
We rode toward the trees in silence. Once we were within the forest"s leafy green confines, Ysabeau turned to me. "Do you understand why you must not question Matthew when he tells you to do something?"
I sighed. "School is over for the day."
"Do you think our dining habits are the only obstacle standing between you and my son?"
"Spit it out, Ysabeau. Why must I do what Matthew says?"
"Because he is the strongest vampire in the chateau. He is the head of the house."
I stared at her in astonishment. "Are you saying I have to listen to him because he"s the alpha dog?"
"You think you you are?" Ysabeau chortled. are?" Ysabeau chortled.
"No," I conceded. Ysabeau wasn"t the alpha dog either. She did what Matthew told her to do. So did Marcus, Miriam, and every vampire at the Bodleian Library. Even Domenico had ultimately backed down. "Are these the de Clermont pack rules?"
Ysabeau nodded, her green eyes glittering. "It is for your safety-and his, and everyone else"s-that you must obey. This is not a game."
"I understand, Ysabeau." I was losing my patience.
"No, you don"t," she said softly. "You won"t either, until you are forced to see, just as I made you see what it is for a vampire to kill. Until then these are only words. One day your willfulness will cost your life, or someone else"s. Then you will know why I told you this."
We returned to the chateau without further conversation. When we pa.s.sed through Marthe"s ground-floor domain, she came out of the kitchen, a small chicken in her hands. I blanched. Marthe took in the tiny spots of blood on Ysabeau"s cuffs and gasped.
"She needs to know," Ysabeau hissed.
Marthe said something low and foul-sounding in Occitan, then nodded at me. "Here, girl, come with me and I will teach you to make my tea."
Now it was Ysabeau"s turn to look furious. Marthe made me something to drink and handed me a plate with a few crumbly biscuits studded with nuts. Eating chicken was out of the question.
Marthe kept me busy for hours, sorting dried herbs and spices into tiny piles and teaching me their names. By midafternoon I could identify them by smell with my eyes closed as well as by appearance.
"Parsley. Ginger. Feverfew. Rosemary. Sage. Queen Anne"s lace seeds. Mugwort. Pennyroyal. Angelica. Rue. Tansy. Juniper root." I pointed to each in turn.
"Again," Marthe said serenely, handing me a bunch of muslin bags.
I picked the strings apart, laying them individually on the table just as she did, reciting the names back to her one more time.
"Good. Now fill the bags with a pinch of each."
"Why don"t we just mix it all together and spoon it into the bags?" I asked, taking a bit of pennyroyal between my fingers and wrinkling my nose at its minty smell.
"We might miss something. Each bag must have every single herb-all twelve."
"Would missing a tiny seed like this really make a difference to the taste?" I held a tiny Queen Anne"s lace seed between my index finger and thumb.
"One pinch of each," Marthe repeated. "Again."
The vampire"s experienced hands moved surely from pile to pile, neatly filling the bags and tightening their strings. After we finished, Marthe brewed me a cup of tea using a bag I"d filled myself.
"It"s delicious," I said, happily sipping my very own herbal tea.
"You will take it back to Oxford with you. One cup a day. It will keep you healthy." She started putting bags into a tin. "When you need more, you will know how to make it."
"Marthe, you don"t have to give me all of it," I protested.
"You will drink this for Marthe, one cup a day. Yes?"
"Of course." It seemed the least I could do for my sole remaining ally in the house-not to mention the person who fed me.
After my tea I went upstairs to Matthew"s study and switched on my computer. All that riding had made my forearms ache, so I moved the computer and ma.n.u.script to his desk, hoping that it might be more comfortable to work there rather than at my table by the window. Unfortunately, the leather chair was made for someone Matthew"s height, not mine, and my feet swung freely.
Sitting in Matthew"s chair made him seem closer, however, so I remained there while waiting for my computer to boot up. My eyes fell on a dark object tucked into the tallest shelf. It blended into the wood and the books" leather bindings, which hid it from casual view. From Matthew"s desk, however, you could see its outlines.
It wasn"t a book but an ancient block of wood, octagonal in shape. Tiny arched windows were carved into each side. The thing was black, cracked, and misshapen with age.
With a pang of sadness, I realized it was a child"s toy.
Matthew had made it for Lucas before Matthew became a vampire, while he was building the first church. He"d tucked it into the corner of a shelf where no one would notice it-except him. He couldn"t fail to see it, every time he sat at his desk.
With Matthew at my side, it was all too easy to think we were the only two in the world. Not even Domenico"s warnings or Ysabeau"s tests had shaken my sense that our growing closeness was a matter solely between him and me.
But this little wooden tower, made with love an unimaginably long time ago, brought my illusions to an end. There were children to consider, both living and dead. There were families involved, including my own, with long and complicated genealogies and deeply ingrained prejudices, including my own. And Sarah and Em still didn"t know that I was in love with a vampire. It was time to share that news.
Ysabeau was in the salon, arranging flowers in a tall vase on top of a priceless Louis XIV escritoire with impeccable provenance-and a single owner.
"Ysabeau?" My voice sounded hesitant. "Is there a phone I could use?"
"He will call you when he wants to talk to you." She took great care placing a twig with turning leaves still attached to it among the white and gold flowers.
"I"m not calling Matthew, Ysabeau. I need to speak to my aunt."
"The witch who called the other night?" she asked. "What is her name?"
"Sarah," I said with a frown.
"And she lives with a woman-another witch, yes?" Ysabeau kept putting white roses into the vase.