She didn’t know him.
She heard hoofbeats approaching, and her heart quickened, both hoping and fearing that he had come back. But when she looked up, it was Austra she saw, her golden locks bouncing on her shoulders, her expression quite cross.
“Who was that?” Austra asked.
“A knight,” Anne replied.
Austra seemed to consider that for a moment, then turned angry eyes back on Anne. “Why do you do these things? You came down the Snake, didn’t you?”
“Did anyone see you?” Anne asked.
“No. But I’m your lady-in-waiting, Anne. And I’m lucky to be, since I’ve no noble blood in me. If something happens to you—”
“My father loved yours, Austra, noble blood or no. Do you think he would ever turn you out?”
Suddenly she realized that tears had started in Austra’s eyes.
“Austra! What’s wrong?” Anne asked.
“Your sister Fastia,” Austra replied steadily, blinking through the tears. “You just don’t understand, Anne.”
“What don’t I understand? We grew up together. We’ve shared the same bed since we were five, when your parents died and Father took you in as my maid. And we’ve been playing games like this with the guard since I can remember. Why are you crying now?”
“Because Fastia told me I wouldn’t be permitted to be your maid any longer, if you couldn’t be curbed! ‘I’ll set someone with more sense to her,’ she said.”
“My sister is just trying to scare you. Besides, we share the risk, Austra.”
“You really don’t understand. You’re a princess. I’m a servant. Your family dresses me up and pretends to treat me as if I’m gentle, but the fact is, to everyone else I’m nothing.”
“No,” Anne replied. “That’s not true. Because I would never let anything happen to you, Austra. We’ll always be together, we two. I love you as much as any sister.”
“Hush,” Austra replied, snuffling. “Just hush.”
“Come on. We’ll go back, right now. Sneak in while they’re still looking. We won’t get caught this time, I promise.”
“The knights—”
“They couldn’t catch me. They won’t say anything, from shame, unless Mother or Fastia asks ’em outright. And still, they never saw you.”
“It doesn’t matter to Fastia whether I’m an accomplice or if you duped me.”
“Figs for Fastia. She hasn’t as much power as you think. Now come along.”
Austra nodded, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “But what about the knight who did catch you?” Austra asked.
“He won’t tell anyone, either,” Anne said. “Not if he wants to keep his head.”
Then she frowned. “How dare Fastia speak to you so? I should do something about this. Yes, and I think I know
what.”
“What?”
“I’ll visit Virgenya. I’ll tell her. She’ll do something, I’m certain.”
Austra’s eyes widened again. “I … I thought you said we were going back up the hill.”
“This won’t take any time at all.”
“But—”
“I’m doing this for you,” Anne told her friend. “Come on. Be brave.”
“Can we start back in a bell or so?”
“Of course.”
Austra held her chin up. “Let’s go ahead, then.”
They continued across the inner canals, until they came to the royal quarter, where the streets were all paved with lead bricks, smoothed and slicked by shoes and the brooms of the caretakers, where the stone figures of saints supported roofs flat or slanted and everything was twined thick with pink-eyed primrose and ajister thorn and the doors of the buildings were sealed with sigils and good steel locks.
This last circle was walled in midnight and stars, a bastion of black granite, mica flecked, with spears of wrought iron. The gates were guarded by Saint Under, with his hammer and long, grim face, and Saint Dun with her tear-brimmed eyes and crown of roses.
It was also guarded by a tall fellow of middle years who wore the somber gray livery of the scathomen, the knight-priests who guard the dead.
“Good evening, Princess Anne,” the man said.
“The best evening to you, Sir Len,” Anne replied.
“Here without permission again, I take it.” Sir Len removed his helm to reveal brown braids framing a face that might have been chiseled onto a brick, so stern and angular and flat it was.
“Why do you say that? Has Mother or Fastia been down here asking after me?”
The knight smiled briefly. “I can no more tell you of their comings or goings than I can tell them of yours. It is against my vow. Who comes here, what they do, of those things I cannot speak. As well you know, which is why you come here to do your mischief.”
“Are you turning me away?”
“You know I cannot do that, either. Pass, Princess.”
“Thank you, Sir Len.”
As they proceeded through the gates, Sir Len rang the brass bell, to let the royal dead know visitors were coming. Anne felt a gentle fluttering in her belly, a sure sign the spirits had turned their eyes upon her.
We’ll see, Fastia, she thought smugly. We’ll just see.
Anne and Austra dismounted and tied their horses outside the small courtyard where the dead of house Dare made their homes. There stood a small altar, where lay fresh and withered flowers, candles—some half-burnt, some puddles—mazers that smelled of mead, wine, and oak beer. Anne lit one of the candles, and they both knelt for a moment, as Anne led them in the prayer. The lead was hard and cold beneath Anne’s knees. Somewhere near, a jay scolded a raven, a sudden shrill cacophony. Anne chanted,
She took Austra’s hand. “Come on,” she whispered.
They skirted the great house where the bones of her grandparents and great-grandparents lay, where her uncles and aunts held midnight courts and her youngest brother Avieyen played with the toys in his marble crib, around the red marble colonnaded pastato and wide-arched valve of bronze, past the lesser mansion, where her more distant cousins no doubt plotted, as they had in life, for a position amongst their more august relatives. On to the crumbling stone walls and wild, straggling trees of the horz.
Over the years, Anne and Austra had worn a regular path back to the tomb, enlarging the hidden way as their bodies grew—not by cutting, of course, just by pushing and prying their way along. The Wild Saints had made no complaint, stricken them with no fever or blemishes, and so they thought themselves safe in that small modification. Also in the steps they had taken to hide their secret—strategically placed mats of rudely woven grapevine, a rock moved here or there.
What really kept it hidden, Anne was sure, was Virgenya’s will. She had hidden for over two thousand years from everyone but Anne and Austra. She seemed to want to keep it that way.
And so, after a few moments on hands and knees, Anne found herself once more before the sarcophagus.
They had never been able to move the lid any further, not even with a wooden lever, and after a time Anne had come to believe she was not supposed to look inside, and so she stopped trying.
But the little crack was still there.
“Now,” she said. “Have you got the stylus and the foil?”
“Please, don’t curse Fastia on my account,” Austra pleaded.
“I’m not going to curse her,” Anne said. “Not really. But she’s become insufferable! Threatening you! She deserves punishment.”