Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(128)

She caught his hand in both of hers. She said only, “Foxbrush!”

Sometimes there is no need to say more. Especially when sylphs are catching you up and hurtling you across time and space and worlds. Sometimes the clasp of hands—the one strong, the other weak—is more than enough. For through the clasping of hands, the pulse of blood may be felt; and the equal pulse of love and the understanding of love without words.





17


MEANWHILE, LIONHEART FACED his imminent hanging.

Twelve hours or so of living under the looming threat of death made the certainty of death no more palatable now. His heart beat a frantic pace in his throat as guardsmen hauled him roughly down the stone stairs of North Tower. He could hear shouts going up throughout the House as word of the baron’s rescue traveled.

“Lionheart! Lionheart, I’m sorry!” Felix gasped from behind. Lionheart tried to look around, to catch the young prince’s eye. But he was struck in the jaw and told to face forward, and he did not have the strength to disobey.

So, in the wake of the baron’s wrath, they marched at double-time down the stairs and through the Great Hall. The baron did not pause and waved away all those who flocked to him full of questions and concerns. He led them all out to the courtyard alight with torches that cast an eerie glow in that predawn gloom. A glow that made the scaffold standing in the middle of the yard—right where the old Starflower fountain had been before the Dragon destroyed it—look like some sort of otherworldly creature. Perhaps a dragon itself.

“Iubdan’s beard!” Felix exclaimed when he saw it, yanking against the strong arms of the guards who held him. “Are you all out of your minds?”

Sir Palinurus and other lords of Parumvir staggered down from their chambers and, nearly as frantic as the prince himself at the sight of Felix so near the scaffold, fell upon the baron like so many vultures, pecking him with protests. But guards with fierce and frightened faces pushed them back, using the butt end of their lances roughly enough to show willingness for more violence if necessary.

The baron stood ringed in torchlight, surrounded by his guards, and his face was unreadable. It was not difficult to believe that he could and would order the death of his strongest ally’s crown prince.

Instead, however, he turned to Baron Blackrock, who stood near him. “Have the Baroness of Middlecrescent brought to me,” he said softly. Baron Blackrock, trembling, hastened to obey, only to be caught by Middlecrescent’s restraining hand. “In chains,” Middlecrescent added, more softly still.

“Yes, my liege,” Blackrock gasped, though Middlecrescent was not yet his sovereign by law. He hastened away, summoning his men to follow.

The baron turned to Lionheart and Felix, surveying them with his cold eyes. Then he said, “Where is the girl? My wife’s lady who aided in this little venture?”

“Here, my lord!” cried Dovetree, hastening forward and curtsying deeply before the baron. She smiled most winningly and was very pretty in that place of execution. “At your service.”

“My service?” echoed the baron, eyeing her. His thin lids closed partially over the dark bulbs of his eyes but could not hide the light reflected there. “I do not keep traitors in my service.”

“What?” Dovetree gasped but had no time to say more before guards, at a motion from the baron, fell upon her and bound her, screaming, alongside Lionheart and Felix. “But, my lord! I saw to your rescue! If not for me, you’d still be—”

“Traitors will be granted no voice,” said the baron, adjusting the cloak he wore over his naked torso, fastening the buckles at the shoulder. “Gag her.”

Felix felt sick as he watched rough-handed men stuff rags into the girl’s mouth and tie a gag in place, muting Dovetree’s continued screams. Her eyes kept rolling toward the scaffold, and suddenly her knees buckled and she lay all but fainted upon the courtyard stones. Felix wished he could comfort her and had to remind himself that she had tricked them, had certainly brought about Lionheart’s death and, quite possibly, his own (given the look in the baron’s eye).

Lionheart stood with his head down, staring at the stones beneath his feet. Looking at him, Felix thought how strange it was to be here in this faraway foreign court beside the jester-prince, waiting to be hanged. It was perhaps stranger than their meeting in the Village of Dragons.

“Leonard,” Felix whispered, and Lionheart glanced at him through the thick tangle of hair falling over his forehead. “Leonard, forgive me. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t, Prince Felix,” said Lionheart. But he couldn’t find more words to say, so he stared again at his feet.

Where was the Path? He had been promised a Path! But he saw only shadows and torchlight and the ominous scaffold, so near. Was this it, then? Was this the one and only quest that he, Childe Lionheart of Farthestshore, would face? Make peace with your father and . . . die.

But if so, what then? Had he a right to complain? He, who had plunged into the darkness of the Final Water and stared down the flaming throat of the Dragon . . . he who had been renewed, restored, forgiven.

“Very well,” he whispered to the one he hoped was listening, though he saw no sign of his presence. “Very well, my Lord. If this is what you would have of me, let me die with honor.”

Let me die for the sake of the cousin I have hated. And in my death, let me show love.