Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,102

help him become the man his father wished him to be.”

“Not if I—or Gen—can help it,” I mutter to his retreating back.

 Chapter 56

After my confrontation with the general, I attempt to speak with the queen and inform her of Pierre’s departure, but she is receiving one of the many illuminators who have flocked to court to ask for her patronage. I decide to seek out Gen, surprised that I did not see her in the meeting. With Pierre gone and the king now aware of the regent’s perfidy, mayhap we can finally gain ground with him. Or, more accurately, Gen can, so that we may all benefit.

But when I knock on her door, there is no answer. Surely she is not in with the queen and her illuminators? “Gen?” I call out. She has looked tired of late. Mayhap she is still abed. Finding the door unlocked, I let myself in.

The bed is empty—empty of all but the heavy silver necklace that glitters in the morning sunlight like a malevolent serpent. I cast a quick glance around the room. It feels abandoned, though when I check her cupboard, her gowns are there.

But not, I notice, her travel bag. As I survey the room, my eye lands on a small, white square nestled against her pillows. It is addressed to the king. “Gen, what have you done?” I pick the letter up and consider opening it, but decide not to in case I must deliver it to him untampered. I slip the note inside my pocket. Perhaps Father Effram will know where she is.

In the chapel, I do not find Gen, but Father Effram administering a blessing to a man kneeling at his feet. The man looks up at my arrival, a wide smile breaking across his face. Yannic.

My heart hitches in my chest—is there some dire news?—until the little man wobbles his head, then scampers away, glancing over his shoulder to be sure I am following him.

Before I do, I pause long enough to ask Father Effram, “Have you seen Gen this morning?”

“No, is something amiss?”

I run my hand along my skirt where the letter to the king hides. “I don’t know yet. Keep an eye out for her if you would.”

Once he agrees, Yannic leads me through the courtyard past the wine vendors and pie sellers and fruit stalls, past the old lady selling birds in wicker cages and an old, tired man with an equally old, tired dancing bear, toward the pungent scent of the palace stables and barns. Of course Beast would find his way to the animals.

Yannic grins, then bows as if presenting me to the queen. I have missed this man’s humor. I murmur my thanks, then, before he can scamper away, call out, “Wait.”

He pauses, sidling back to stand beside me. I fish in my pocket to look as if I am giving him a coin for his trouble. “That pebble you gave me, before I left for France.”

Yannic slides his gaze up to mine, then quickly drops it back to the ground as he nods.

“You indicated it was not from Mortain. Did it come from the Dark Mother?”

His head swings up, a wide grin on his face, and he bobs his head up and down enthusiastically. Well and so. “Thank you,” I say, meaning more than the answer he gave me.

His face sobers, and he bows, this time grasping one of my hands in his old gnarled ones and bringing his forehead to touch it, as if receiving a benediction. It makes me profoundly uncomfortable, but I do not pull away for fear of insulting him.

He smiles once more, then scuttles away like a crab toward the cow barn.

I find Beast wearing the traditional homespun tunic and hood of a peasant, mucking out one of the stalls. Although I move silently, he looks up as I reach for the latch to let myself in. He does not pause in his shoveling, but the horse—an enormous chestnut gelding—swings his head around to study me.

I glance back at Beast. “A friend of yours?”

He grins. “Animals like me.” He reaches out to scratch the gelding, his big fingers calm and soothing along the creature’s nose. It is wrong to be jealous of a horse, I remind myself.

The gelding seems to sense my thoughts and stamps his hind leg, ears twitching. “Stop that, now,” Beast tells him, and he does.

Beast returns to his shoveling. “With so many guests and nobles gathered at court, there is always need