But no one saw her.
She brought up the rear, eyes down, trying not to pant and alert the boy. She swatted a woolly tail, willing the beasts to obey, to stay close, and to give her cover, and she strolled through the east gate as though she had every right to do so. No one stopped her—there wasn’t another soul in sight—and when the last bleating animal trotted past her, she simply veered off into the shadows to await the darkness.
8
The queen had a beautiful voice. It carried across the mount on fairy wings, light and lilting, and Bayr sat atop the garden wall, listening, with his eyes on the stars. Baby Alba was whimpering—sometimes she cried in the night. Dagmar said Bayr had done the same when he was small, crying for no apparent reason, needing comfort and warmth and a gentle touch. The queen walked with the baby, patting her tiny back and singing songs that quieted the entire castle and drew lonely ears.
The night was temperate and the gardens fragrant, and ofttimes the queen wove her way around rosebushes, plucking petals as soft as her baby’s cheeks, and Bayr would watch, wishing he could hold the child, wishing he could be held.
Dagmar had made him scrub in the cold iron tub. The weight and the woolly coat of the injured ewe had irritated his neck and rubbed him raw beneath his rough jerkin. The cold water had soothed the sting, but his heart was heavy, dragging his thoughts to lowly places, and he’d crept out of his bed and made his way up the wall. Now he sat, watching the queen and her infant daughter.
She was kind, the queen. It wasn’t hard to see. She was soft where the king was hard, a light against his darkness, and the boy was quite bewitched by her.
“I see you there, Temple Boy,” she called out, her voice a singsong croon. “If you can climb the garden wall, you can surely climb down and join us. I’ve been wanting to thank you for some time.”
Bayr’s pulse quickened and he considered slipping away, back to his room beneath the eaves. Instead he abandoned his poor hiding place and dropped down into the garden. He sidled to the queen’s side, his eyes shifting between his feet and the infant in her arms.
“Your name is Bayr . . . Is that right?”
He nodded, grateful he needn’t reply.
“You saved us . . . little Alba and me. In the procession. You were very brave and so skilled.” The queen set her hand on his shoulder, anointing him with her thanks, and he shifted closer, drawn to her touch. The baby in her arms cooed and reached for his hair, tangling her tiny fist in the unbound black mass. Dagmar had not plaited it after his bath, and it had dried in unruly waves. Bayr laughed, stepping even closer, allowing her better access.
“Would you like to hold her?” the queen asked.
Bayr gasped and tried to withdraw, but the girl child squalled, refusing to relinquish his hair, and he froze midstep.
“I c-c-can’t,” he breathed, though he would have liked nothing more.
“If you can calm a crazed horse, you can hold a baby girl,” the queen insisted gently.
Bayr lifted his eyes to the infant, and she smiled in delight, kicking her tiny legs.
“Sh-she s-smiled,” he stammered, forgetting his fear.
“Yes. She smiles often. She is a happy child, most of the time. The nights make her restless . . . or maybe she just likes to come to the gardens. It is our favorite place.”
Bayr held out his arms as though preparing to receive a bundle of sticks. Queen Alannah laughed and, with one hand beneath Alba’s bottom and one hand beneath her right arm, brought the two children chest to chest. Instinctively, Bayr enfolded the babe, taking her weight against him and notching her downy head beneath his chin.
“See? You know what to do,” the queen crowed. Bayr’s cheeks flushed with pride and his eyes found the queen’s before drifting down in bashful ebullience, but he didn’t relinquish the baby.
“Would you like to walk with her?” the queen asked.
Bayr twitched in agreement and stepped forward with a tentative tread, moving as though he traversed a broken bridge suspended above a bottomless pit. The queen laughed again but inched along beside him.
“Master Ivo tells me you are blessed by the gods. He says you are Alba’s protector. I feel very safe when you are near,” she said quietly.
Bayr could only nod, his arms tightening on the princess in his arms.
The queen did not seem to mind that he did not converse, and they crawled along the petal-strewn paths, the queen softly singing, Bayr barely breathing.
The babe became boneless in his arms, her sweet breath tickling his throat, and before long, her hand fell from his hair.
“Alba feels safe with you too, young Bayr.”
“I l-love h-her,” he whispered. He hadn’t meant to speak, but the queen didn’t laugh at him. She only smiled, and her eyes shimmered down at him.
“I love her too. So very much,” she said.
“I m-must g-g-go,” Bayr said. He didn’t want to. But Dagmar would check on him. He always did, and he would worry if Bayr was not in his bed.
“You will visit us again, won’t you?” Queen Alannah asked.
He nodded, the joy in his chest stealing his breath. The queen kissed his cheek and slid her arms beneath the sleeping child. Bayr relinquished her with a whispered goodbye, and without another word loped toward the far wall. He scrambled up it, feeling the queen’s gaze on his shoulders and the phantom weight of a sleeping princess in his arms. He thought he caught a shiver of white on the far side of the garden, but it must have been a trick of the moon, a glimmer of stars upon the garden stream, for when he looked all was still, all was dark, and nothing was there.
Ghost had fallen asleep in the palace gardens between the rosebushes and the southern wall. It had been cool and fragrant, and her belly was full. She’d raided the turnip patch and pocketed as many carrots as she could swiftly pull before ducking behind the greenery. The carrots were delicious, though the soil clung to their sunset flesh. Her hands had been even dirtier than the vegetables, but beggars—and thieves—could not be too fastidious or impatient. She had no plan, only purpose, and she’d waited for hours, hiding behind riotous blossoms, listening to the sounds of the castle yard, and resisting introspection. Avoiding despondency had made her drowsy.
Night had fallen while she slept, the darkness deepening from purple to black, from sunset to starlight. The soft cry of a child had pulled her from her dreams, and her body had reacted, sending milk to her glands and soaking the front of her dress. She had clutched her chest, remembering where she was, remembering her purpose, and she’d pushed the prickly vines aside, peering out from the shadows.
The rising moon cast the queen and the babe in a reverent glow, and Ghost tightened her hand around her knife, not realizing she held it by the blade and not the handle. The tickle of warmth beneath her sleeve, not the pain, was what alerted her to her mistake. Since her child had been taken, she’d been wracked by an agony so great, the sting of the knife did not register at all.
Her mouth moved around Alba’s name, and she drank her in, remembering the tired cry and the flailing fists, the silk of her hair and the creamy scent of her warm, wrinkled skin. Being so close to her child, so close to salvation, drew the tears from her eyes, and she prayed to Freya to guide her steps and direct her blade.