The Serpent Bride. Sara Douglass

and Baron Lixel, riding at the head of the train, was pleased to see them.

      If nothing else the deputation meant food and shelter and a warm bed were nigh.

      There were a few brief words of welcome, faces from the Pelemere deputation peering through the gloom to nod at the Lady Ishbel sitting her mare five or six riders back, and then everyone headed as fast as they might for Pelemere. No one wanted to remain outside in this weather.

      The city had almost entirely shut down for the night, but there was one gate left open and it was through this small, insignificant side gate that the Lady Ishbel Brunelle and her train were escorted to their residence in the eastern quarter of the city. The house was one which the king, Sirus, had lent to Ishbel for the coming weeks as a gesture of goodwill towards Maximilian. It was not particularly large, but it had a covered courtyard, and Ishbel was never so glad of anything as she was of that sudden relief from the wind and rain when she pulled her mare to a stop with cold-numbed hands.

      A servant from the house hurried forward to help her to the ground, then left her to aid someone else.

      Ishbel stood, alone in the milling activity of the courtyard, wishing only for someone to escort her to a bath and a bed.

      For an instant a gap opened in the crowd of horses and riders, and Ishbel saw a heavily cloaked man watching her from the far edge of the courtyard.

      There was a moment when Ishbel felt that their eyes met even though his face was hidden beneath the hood of his cloak, and then a horse moved between them, the moment was broken, and Ishbel turned away.

      Please, please, she thought, let someone lead me away from this cold and misery soon.

      Then Baron Lixel was at her side, and a man who Lixel introduced as Fleathand, who was the steward of the house, and within moments Fleathand was leading her inside, and Ishbel could finally, gratefully, contemplate some solitude, some warmth, some rest and, perhaps amid all that, a little bit of comfort.

      Two hours later, fed and bathed and sitting alone in her chamber, Ishbel finally felt as if she could relax.

      But she dared not. Relaxing meant Ishbel might weep with exhaustion and anxiety and overstrung emotion, and she was not quite ready to give in to tears.

      She sat in her chair by the shuttered window, clad in her night robe with an outer wrap pulled loosely about her, and tried to relax. The past weeks since leaving the Coil had been taxing; she was constantly on edge, alert for any stray word that might betray her, and the emotional wrench at her parting from everything she loved and trusted grew worse with each passing day. Well might Aziel, the Great Serpent, and the entire firmament for all she cared, insist that she would return one day, but right at this moment Ishbel could not see that eventuality. She felt utterly lost and abandoned and, caught in her loneliness and melancholy, she simply couldn’t believe that she would ever return to her home.

      If only she knew why this marriage was so important. If only the Great Serpent would tell her. It was all very well to argue that this marriage was the only thing that would save her homeland from devastation, but Ishbel could not see why. It made no sense to her.

      Ishbel thought about how she had been loved and valued and cherished by the Coil.

      Then she thought about Maximilian, and about her humiliation at his insistence through Star Web’s demands.

      She sighed, the sound ragged and heart-rending. She tipped her head against the headrest of the chair, closing her eyes, and tried to think about something, anything, happier than her current situation.

      It was only after long minutes that Ishbel came to realise she was not the only person in the chamber.

      She jerked to her feet, staring wildly into the dimness beyond the lamp, and finally saw him.

      He was standing in the shadows at the very rear wall of the large chamber, dressed in damp travelling leathers, leaning against the wall, arms folded, as still as the darkness itself, watching her.

      Ishbel knew instantly who it was.

14

       PELEMERE, CENTRAL KINGDOMS

      Maximilian had travelled hard and fast once he’d left his first night’s campsite to reach Pelemere at the same time as Ishbel. He was numb at the realisation that Elcho Falling was probably waking, but as he had no idea what direction he should take, or what he should do, Maximilian simply continued on as he had originally planned.

      Meet Ishbel, discover for himself what she was like.

      The only thing that Maximilian knew was that, whatever else, Ishbel was somehow integral to Elcho Falling.

      No one had spotted him as he slipped in at the back of Ishbel’s train. Maximilian was dressed in clothes similar to those of Ishbel’s escort, plus everyone’s attention was on Pelemere and the necessity to get there as soon as possible, rather than on the actual number of men trailing along behind.

      He dismounted in a quiet corner of the yard, looking about for Ishbel.

      Maximilian had spotted her almost immediately, and his first thought was that she was the woman he’d seen in his vision.

      The second was that he’d never seen anyone more alone than she was at that moment.

      She had no retinue. No one. Not a maid, not a valet, not a single companion that she could trust and lean on for support.

      Absolutely isolated, and looking lost and afraid because of it.

      Maximilian had seen the look on her face, and had recognised it instantly. He’d seen it on face after face of men condemned to the Veins — a hopeless, trapped expression that was impossible to fake.

       She must truly be driven, then, to come all this way for a marriage she could not want.

      Ishbel eventually vanished behind the milling horses and their dismounted riders, and Maximilian had taken the opportunity to slip into the house, and merge with his old friend, the darkness.

      He’d stood there, completely motionless, allowing the dark to curl about and hide him while Ishbel unpacked a single valise, ate a meal brought to her by a servant, and bathed in the hip bath set by the fire. He’d waited and watched, motionless, secreted, as Ishbel had dried herself, pulled on her nightgown and then the robe, summoned the servant to take away the bath, and then sat in the chair by the shuttered window, resting soft and silent and very, very still until the moment she tipped her head back against the chair and sighed with such misery that Maximilian felt his heart turn over.

      It was the ultimate betrayal, this silent watching of a woman’s most intimate moments, but Maximilian had needed to do it. He hadn’t hoped to discover any of the secrets StarWeb had said Ishbel trailed behind her, nor had he hoped to discover the true reasons behind her journey to this point (whatever Ishbel thought they might be). What he’d wanted to do was discover, as best he might, the real Ishbel, the woman behind whatever intrigue she carried with her, and this was, he thought, one of the few times he would be able to observe her completely naked, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

      What he had discovered was that, no matter the exterior she showed to the world, Ishbel was very vulnerable, and very sad.

      He had discovered that she didn’t have the mark of the Coil anywhere on her body.

      And Maximilian had discovered that he wanted this woman for his wife.

      It was not so much her physical beauty — Ishbel was a lovely woman with her mass of dark blonde hair, her soft hazel eyes, translucent skin and strong lithe body — but her quietness of movement that attracted Maximilian. StarWeb had said that Ishbel was very unquiet, but her movements about the room had been so soft, so simple, so contained, that Maximilian thought that she would be a very peaceful woman to have at