Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(7)
The Eldest’s grounds ended abruptly at a cavernous gorge. Far below, the Wilderlands’ thick treetops veiled what else might lurk down there. Once, it was said, great rivers had flowed through the land, carving these myriad gorges. But the rivers were long gone, the Wilderlands had spread to fill their dry beds, and no one ever ventured down the ancient paths into the shadow of those trees.
Indeed, Southlands would not be the united kingdom it was today were it not for the mighty bridges—unparalleled architectural marvels—that spanned the gorges, arching above the treetops and linking barony to barony.
Daylily drew near to Swan Bridge. Evenwell Barony lay beyond; she could see the bridge keeper’s house on the far side, small as a doll’s from this distance. The bridge keeper would hail her if he saw her crossing. He would not let her pass into Evenwell but would hold her until her father’s men came. And then they would drag her back.
She stopped at the stump of a once mighty fig tree. Like most of the patriarchal trees of the Eldest’s grounds, it had been torn apart by the Dragon, its ragged stump now the only remaining testament to its existence. Here, the lady fumbled with the clasps of her shimmery overskirt embroidered in silver leaves, edged in still more pearls. With a certain amount of ripping, she freed herself at last and stepped from the collapsed billow of silk and wire structuring, wearing only her underdress . . . which was still far too sumptuous and heavy for what she had in mind. For now, however, it would have to do.
She reached into her bodice and pulled out the prince’s fool letter.
There, on the edge of the gorge, feeling the wild exhilaration of dangerous heights, she drew a long breath and read the scrawled lines again. Not a man alive could have deciphered the expression on her stone-quiet face. But when she came to the end, she crumpled the letter with both hands and tossed it over her shoulder.
When she spoke, it was without malice but with a deep resignation. “That’s what I give for your fine sentiments, Prince Foxbrush.”
A spasm shot through her body. Hands clasped to her temples, she doubled over. Then, neck craning, she turned her head as though trying to catch a glimpse of something that stood upon her back.
The moment passed.
The lady straightened, her shoulders squared. “It’ll drive me mad if I stay,” she whispered.
Perhaps it had driven her mad already. Why else would she, on her wedding day, stripped of her glory down to her underdress, her dainty shoes worn to shreds, hike up her skirts and, taking a narrow dirt path that was all but invisible, ancient and worn as it was, descend to the waiting darkness of the Wilderlands below?
She only knew she had no choice.
“I’ll disappear,” she told herself. “I’ll disappear even as Rose Red did. And like her, I’ll never come back.”
In the quiet by the old fig tree stump, a bird with a speckled breast alighted on the ground and pecked gently at the discarded letter lying there. Tut, tut, tut. O-lay, o-leeeeee! he sang.
But Daylily was too far away to hear.
There was no wedding.
Yet there was still a wedding feast. Far too much of Baron Middlecrescent’s coin had been spent on fine foreign and expensive delicacies meant to impress dignitaries from far and wide. And the baron declared he would be dragon-blasted before he let any of those sniveling foreigners trundle back to their colder climes without at least one fabulous Southlander meal with which to season their recounting of the day’s extraordinary events.
The Eldest was not consulted on proceedings. He, dribbling slightly at the mouth, was hastily bundled off to his royal chambers and tucked away out of sight, the crown removed from his head, the silken cloak removed from his shoulders. Stripped of this finery, he looked little better than the drooling beggar at the city gates. He smiled wanly at his servants and asked after his wife, who had died long ago.
The prince was not consulted either, nor was he offered any of the wedding feast, however hungry he might be. His pride shredded to utter rags, he still managed to clothe himself in just enough dignity not to beg, “Might I have a bite of the, you know, the fish, maybe?”
No, he sat quietly, if hungrily, in a corner of the baron’s study, doing everything in his power not to let his stomach growl and draw the furious eye of his prospective father-in-law.
The baron was not a man to storm or rage. That reaction might have been more bearable. Good shouting never hurt anyone, and often the shouter vented all that pent-up emotion in the shouting itself, leaving little energy for any real action. But the baron did not shout.
From the moment Foxbrush, flanked by the baroness and the maiden aunt, found the baron and informed him of his daughter’s disappearance, Middlecrescent went . . . quiet. His eyes, rather too large for his face to be handsome, may have narrowed a little; his nostrils may have flared; his mouth compressed. But when he spoke, it was in a voice of such calm that his wife went into hysterics on the spot.
“I see,” he said. Then after another long breath, in an equally mild tone, he said, “Summon my guard.”
When the baron spoke in that way, no one hesitated to obey. He went on to give a series of commands, including an order for the baroness to shut herself up in the North Tower so as not to make a scene. He also sent for barons Blackrock and Idlewild, both trusted men in his entourage, though officially his peers.
To Foxbrush he said only, “Stay by me and, for Lumé’s sake, don’t speak. I can’t stand the sound of your voice just now.”