The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell Read Free Book Online Page B

Sand,” he said, but his mind was ticking over and over. The ruler of Boisblanc was a countess in her own right, but since her husband was a prince of France, most everyone referred to them as the Prince and Princess, not the Count and Countess. The woman everyone still called the Countess was the dowager, the mother of the Princess.
    As for the Princess’s father, Count Derien of Boisblanc had died before Sand was born. This girl looked Sand’s own age, about twelve or thirteen. She might be the daughter of the Prince, he supposed, but she could not be the daughter of the deceased count. . . .
    Well. Except for the fact that until very recently, this girl had been dead . And who knew for how long? Maybe her father was a Count of Boisblanc from a hundred or more years ago.
    â€œUm,” Sand said, and stood.
    â€œUm,” she mimicked, swinging her legs out of the bed, but not yet standing.
    â€œYou . . . you were dead, last I saw you,” he said.
    â€œ. . . my lady,” she said.
    He frowned.
    â€œAddress me as ‘my lady,’” she said.
    He swallowed. She was awfully prickly. But he nodded, trying to maintain an amiable face as he said, “You were dead last I saw you, my lady.”
    A number of expressions chased across her face in quick succession, and he felt like he only recognized any of them long after they had been replaced. Fury, sadness, grief, despair—he knew those, but there were a dozen others.
    â€œI was,” she said, and closed her eyes. “I was dead, and I thought I remembered it—but it’s only a memory of a memory anymore.”
    â€œHow long ago?” Sand asked, but he knew it was a stupid question. “Um, who was the king when you—?”
    â€œThe King?” Her lip curled the way only a Breton’s lip could when the King of France was mentioned. “Charles. Laughably called ‘the Affable’ by his sycophants.”
    The flesh above Sand’s eyes prickled. “King Charles the Affable died some twenty years ago. Or so. He hit his head on a doorway and died.”
    Again, expressions fled across her face so quickly that none ever landed. Humor, perhaps, for the way in which Charles died, and some sort of triumph, but also grief again. Always grief.
    â€œTwenty years?” she whispered. “I’ve been dead for twenty years?”
    Sand was a truth-minded person. “More. It’s been more than twenty-five years since the castle was sundered.” Then he regretted what he’d said, so he added a late “My lady” to make her feel better.
    â€œWhat of my duchess?”
    â€œYou mean Queen Claude, who is also the Duchess of Bertaèyn?”
    â€œQueen Claude? I mean Duchess Anna!”
    â€œ Queen Anne died . . .” Sand counted on his fingers, trying to remember the seasons since he and his father had come in from the smithy to find Agnote weeping at the news. “Some three years back.”
    The girl lay down on the bed and buried her face in his pillow. “That can’t be,” she said, muffle-voiced. “How old was she when she . . . died?”
    Sand had no notion. “She was near to my father’s age, I think.”
    â€œThat is impossible!” The girl sat up again. “Anna and I were born the same year. In another month, I was going to her court to wait on her! She can’t be old and dead.”
    â€œNot so old, when she died, and she had been Queen of France twice over, and mother of two daughters . . .”
    â€œQueen of France.” She appeared devastated by this, which Sand understood. The duchy had been trying to slip the yoke of the French for years; Sand’s own uncle had died for Bertaèyn’s independence. It had been a blow to all her subjects when Anna Vreizh was forced into marriage against her will, to become Anne, Queen of France.
    The girl blinked, looking