Behind them, the men who had shot her were halfway across the field. One of them began hooting and calling for the “monsters” to stop, while another argued loudly that they would still be a catch if they were dead. Anthea weakly urged her charges forward on the hard, clear road. Faster, faster. Don’t stop until we find Jilly.
But apparently finding Leonidas and not being killed by hunters had used up Anthea’s quota of heavenly blessings that day. After half an hour they still saw no sign of Jilly or the broken tractor, which meant they were already past the one safe farm. Anthea looked for a place where they could at least hide, an old barn or a copse of trees, but there were no more breaks in the hedges, only endless green walls with endless green fields behind them.
The road curved, which at least hid them from view for a little while, and as they came around it they saw someone, but it was not their kind farmer, nor was it some casual farmwife carrying eggs or a child loitering on the way home from school.
No, they came around the bend in the road, and through her one good eye Anthea saw a motorcar complete with liveried driver. The driver was leaning against a low stone fence just behind the car, smoking, and facing Anthea and her horses. As soon as he saw them he straightened and tossed down his cigarette.
“Milady,” he called, but not at Anthea, whose foggy mind experienced a momentary confusion. He turned instead to his passenger.
Anthea blinked her good eye, wondering if she was feverish. In the backseat of the motorcar sat an elegant lady, her wide-brimmed hat swathed with veils. She wore a dove-gray driving coat that perfectly fit her slender shoulders, and at the sound of her driver’s voice she stood and turned around, revealing a tall, trim figure that looked as completely out of place on the rough country road as Anthea and her horses.
“Here they come,” the man said, jerking his chin at Anthea and her herd. “But there’s just the one.”
“It’s the right one,” the woman said. “Excellent!”
Anthea sat back and Florian stopped. The other horses clustered around her.
Behind them she could hear the pounding of the hunters’ feet. Ahead of them was this car. She thought of how Uncle Andrew had told her that the horses were trained to fight. She wondered how effective they would be against shotguns and motorcars.
Her side hurt so badly that she thought she might vomit, and the cut above her eye was seeping blood again. If the woman so much as frowned at her, she was going to tell Florian to attack. She didn’t know what else to do.
The woman stepped slowly down from the motorcar. Her hat was the size of a wagon wheel, navy straw with red silk roses all around the brim, and cream-colored veiling. Stupidly, Anthea remembered that she had planned to pick roses to decorate the horses’ bridles before they left Last Farm. She had hoped people would think that they were on an errand for the queen, not just to her, and …
“Oh,” Anthea said as the meaning of the roses on the woman’s hat struck her.
As the woman lifted her veils, Anthea could more clearly see the gold rose pinned to her lapel. She was very beautiful, perhaps forty years old, her face lightly powdered and her lips painted red. She had dark hair and a small mole at the corner of her smiling mouth.
“Anthea,” she said warmly. “I can’t believe how grown-up you are, my darling!”
“Who are you?” Anthea asked. Her voice was thick and strange.
“Don’t be rude,” the driver snapped. “We’ve been waiting hours.”
“Why?” Anthea asked, confused.
For a fleeting moment she thought that Jilly had sent them back to get her. But she couldn’t possibly imagine this woman living anywhere near a farm. And hadn’t the farmer said there were no motorcars here?
“Get into the car, darling,” the woman said. “You look done in! You can rest while Stephen drives.”
“What?” Anthea’s head was swimming. “Who?”
“Now, will the horses follow? Which one is Florian?” The woman looked at them with her head tilted. “I never could tell a chestnut from a bay; your father despaired of me! Get in the car, darling, and tell Florian to bring the others.”
The woman restored her veils and then climbed back into her seat. The driver came cautiously toward Anthea, holding up his hands.
“I’ll help you, miss,” he said.
“Who is she? What’s going on?” Anthea demanded.
“The lady’s name is not your business,” the driver said. “But if she tells you to get in her car, you get in her car!”
He grabbed hold of Anthea’s waist to lift her down and she screamed. The man let out a curse, shouted it into her ear, actually. From behind her there came the sound of thudding boots, and a shotgun being cocked.
Anthea did the only thing she could do, under the circumstances, and fainted again.
26
THE ROYAL TRAIN
When Anthea woke she thought that her body had turned to wood. She couldn’t move. She wanted to scream, but she thought that if she opened her mouth and no sound came out, either, she would go completely mad.
Then she realized that she was frantically wiggling her fingers and toes.
“Oh!”
And her voice did work after all.
She moved her head then, and found that she could. There was a thin line of heat near her left eyebrow, and with a moan she remembered the wire from the snare cutting her face. She envisioned an angry red scar slicing across her face and gave another moan.
“Are you awake at last?”
Anthea turned her head and saw an elegant woman sitting in the chair beside her bed. She was reading a book, which she set aside when she met Anthea’s gaze.
The woman’s cream linen suit sparked a memory in Anthea’s fuzzy brain. Then she saw the gold rose brooch on her lapel and everything came flooding back.
Anthea tried to say something, but her throat was so parched that she could only squeak another “Oh!”
“Here, drink this,” the Rose Matron said.
She lifted a glass of water from the bedside table. To Anthea’s mortification it had a spoon in it, and the woman fed her a spoonful of water.
Once the water was in her mouth, however, Anthea realized that a spoonful was the most she could swallow. And it wasn’t until she had had three spoonfuls that she felt she could really talk, although she still couldn’t move her arms and legs. Of the many questions she had, that became the most urgent.
“We had to tie you down so that you wouldn’t injure yourself further,” the woman explained. “Though I suppose I could undo you now.”
She adjusted something on the side of the bed, and the pressure across Anthea’s chest was released. She lifted her arms and looked at her hands: they seemed fine, if pale and shaky. The woman released her legs, and Anthea rolled her ankles a little, then she struggled to sit up.
“You shouldn’t move until you’re used to the motion of the train,” the woman said.
“The train?”
And now that she wasn’t tied down, Anthea felt her body swaying slightly. She sat up on her elbows and saw that she was in a train car, albeit one decorated like a lady’s bedroom. The trees flashing by the windows made it clear that they were moving, and swiftly.
“Where am I …? How long have I …? What is going on?”
“You were shot, I brought you onto my private train to take care of you,” the woman said. “I removed the bullet myself and stitched up your face.” She clucked her tongue. “It will leave a scar, but that can’t be helped.”
Bits of images came rushing back: the tractor. Caesar’s injury. Leonidas in the snare. The bullet wound in her side.
“Where are they?”
Anthea felt a pang. She should have asked about the horses immediately when she woke! Leonidas’s cuts … and Florian! Was Florian safe?
She said this last aloud. She quickly sent out a thought to them: Don’t be afraid, my brave ones. I’m coming for you!
“The horses? They are well
,” the Rose Matron said. She shook her head as though this was of no importance. “We put them in one of the cars near the rear. I was not prepared for an entire herd, though I assumed you would have Florian with you, so they have some food, and plenty of water.”
“How do you know his name?”
Anthea sat straight up. Her head spun a little, but she ignored it. There was a startled flapping from the foot of the bed, and now Anthea saw that her clothes had been neatly folded onto a bench there, and Arthur was on top of it. She snapped her fingers and he flew at once to her lap.
“Ah, yes. The owl,” the woman said. “Quite the menagerie, I must say!”
“I need to see them,” Anthea said. “My horses.”
“You’re white as a ghost. Why don’t you lie down again and—”
“I need to see them. Now,” Anthea interrupted.
She tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed, but her wounded side sent her a furious message. Anthea hissed with pain and grabbed at the bedclothes.
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, young lady!”
“Who are you?” Anthea demanded.
The Rose Matron threw back her head and laughed. “I suppose it would be too much to ask that you remember me. But really, my dear, I thought you would have guessed!” She smiled at Anthea. “I’m your mother, of course.”
When Anthea awoke for the second time on the train, she didn’t need a moment to remember where she was. Everything came rushing back at once, culminating in the elegant Rose Matron announcing that she was Anthea’s mother. Anthea didn’t feel embarrassed for lying back down and going to sleep after that revelation. She was injured, after all, and really: What else could she have done?
It did take her a moment to figure out why she had woken up, but then Arthur gave her ear a particularly hard nip. Feeling her ear, she didn’t think he had been chewing on it for long, but she gave him a stern tap on the beak anyway.
She was alone in the lovely bedroom, and this time she found sitting up and drinking water painful but still possible. Then she pushed aside the blankets and tried to get out of bed. The world tilted, more than the movement of the train warranted, but by holding on to the bed rail she was able to manage.
Anthea found herself in a starched white nightgown, edged with so much lace that it covered her hands, and long enough to drag on the ground. Her clothes were neatly folded, but still filthy, and there was a silk dressing gown hanging on the hook by the window.
As she slowly pulled it on over her nightgown, she gazed out the window. Fields were rushing by, but they could have been anywhere. Bell Hyde might have been just around the bend, or they might have been back in the north for all Anthea could tell.
It was morning, and the glass was still chilled. Anthea’s breath fogged the glass. Before it could dissipate she wrote her name with a shaking finger. Then she put Arthur in the pocket of the dressing gown and fumbled her way out.
Anthea managed to stagger across the walkway and into the next car, which was decorated like a combination sitting and dining room. The end Anthea stood in had a sofa, occasional tables strewn with magazines and books, and lamps with stained glass shades. Beyond the sofa was a dining table, set for two, and standing beside it speaking to a waiter, was her mother.
The waiter saw Anthea first, and his eyes widened. Her mother finished what she was saying, and waited for him to go out the door at the far end before turning.
“Darling, you should be in bed!”
“I’m fine,” Anthea lied, gripping the back of the chair in front of her to remain upright.
“At least sit down,” her mother urged.
Anthea walked around the chair and fell into it, which sent a jolt of pain through her side and made her gasp. Her face was also throbbing dully where it had been cut and then stitched. There had been a mirrored dressing table in the bedroom car, but Anthea had been too scared to look.
Her mother came around the sofa and took the chair nearest to hers. She put out a hand and squeezed Anthea’s knee, still smiling with great delight.
“I can’t believe it’s really you, my darling!” she said. “After all these years!”
“Yes,” Anthea said. “It has been a long time. Why?”
A sob was trying to push its way up Anthea’s throat. She suddenly longed to squeeze into her mother’s chair and put her arms around her. Anthea put one hand on the arm of her chair, ready to stand up and move, when Arthur struggled out of her pocket and settled on her knees with an annoyed hoot.
Anthea breathed deeply. She looked at the rose on her mother’s lapel. It was gold with a ruby at the center, like Belinda Rose’s but considerably larger. It was pinned to the same place where Anthea had pinned her own silver-and-pearl pendant.
“Why did you leave me?” Anthea asked again.
“Darling, I had to,” her mother said. “I know it makes me seem like such a beast! But you see, even after my marriage I was needed by the Crown. I never retired to the life of high teas and garden parties like Deirdre. His Majesty needed me far too much!” She gave a little laugh and glanced away, exactly the way Miss Miniver taught you should when receiving a compliment.
Anthea started to raise her eyebrows but it hurt, so she smoothed her face and didn’t show any expression as she asked, “Did you know that I thought you were dead?”
“Oh, no! Really?” Her mother put her hands to her cheeks. “How awful!”
“I suppose it was naïveté on my part,” Anthea said. “No one actually told me you were dead, but when they told me my father died in a train crash, I assumed that you and he would have been together.”
“Oh, poor Charles!” Her mother waved a hand in front of her face. “Let’s not speak of it!”
“All right,” Anthea said.
She found that she had to concentrate very hard on her breathing. If she breathed too deeply, it hurt her wound. But if her breathing was too shallow, she felt dizzy. Breathing just the right amount, however, required her to focus not just on her lungs and ribs, but also on the words she was saying.
“Then why now? Why after more than ten years have you come for me?”
“Pure maternal luck,” her mother said. She leaned forward and stroked Anthea’s hair away from her face. “There I was, going about my business, as I have sworn to the king that I shall, when I stumble upon my only daughter—”
Anthea frowned.
“But you were waiting for me.”
“What’s that?” Her mother frowned as well. “Oh no! Stephen had to stop for a cigarette, and I was consulting a map when you—”
“You weren’t surprised to see me,” Anthea insisted. Her memories were coming clearer. “Stephen said you were waiting. You knew Florian’s name.”
“So clever!” her mother said, smiling with her full red lips, but not her eyes. “Well, I was traveling, and the last village I stopped at mentioned seeing a girl with horses, a brown-haired girl with a rose on her jacket. Who else could it have been?”
Anthea didn’t say anything.
“Did you really think I wasn’t keeping an eye on you? My only child?” Her mother laughed. “Oh, darling, I have watched over you most anxiously! I’ve seen how your relatives shuffle you about, and I knew the very day that you were sent back to Andrew, and Florian.”
Anthea tried to raise her eyebrows again but stopped herself in time.
“Oh yes, I know all about Florian! Your father’s great experiment, to see how closely bonded horse and rider could be!” Her mother plucked idly at the fringe on a cushion. “It seems to have worked, too, judging from the beast’s reaction to your fainting.”
Anthea felt a sudden thrill at that. She and Florian, meant to be together, bonded closer than any other horse and rider. But all the same she kept her face blank. This was not how she had imagined meeting her mother, when she had learned her mother was still alive.
“You let my father experiment on me?” Anthea asked. “Your only child?”
“Goodness, Anthea, you make me feel like I was some sort of stage villain!” Her mother fanned her cheeks. “Your father loved you as much as he loved his horses; he would never have done anything to hurt you! He wanted to test that foolish Leanan superstition … what is it?”
“The Way?”
“That’s right.” Her mother shook her head ruefully. “Speaking to dumb animals! Nonsense, and yet …” She gestured at the far door, beyond which the horses waited, and then at Arthur.
Anthea did not bother to defend the Way. She did not have the strength. Instead she scooped up her owl in one hand, and used the other to haul herself to her feet.
“I would like to see my horses now,” she announced.
Her mother didn’t argue but instead led her through the train car, across the walkway to another car that housed the kitchen and the laundry. The staff looked up, startled, as mother and daughter passed through. Then they entered a large, unfurnished compartment that held the motorcar at the near end, and at the far end …
“Florian!”
He was standing at the front of the group, the mares and Leonidas behind him. They looked like they were ready for an attack, but Anthea could see that Florian’s head was drooping, and she could feel how exhausted he was.
When she called his name, however, he snapped to attention and greeted her with a gentle whicker. All the horses perked up, ears flicking forward as Anthea greeted them.
My good, brave darlings! I am here!
Anthea somehow found the energy to run to them, nearly crushing Arthur as she threw her arms around Florian’s neck.
Yes, Florian was tired, they were all tired, and sore, and scared. And Bluebell was hurt now as well as Caesar and Leonidas. Anthea pulled Arthur out of her pocket and plopped him on Florian’s back to keep him out of the way as she pushed between the horses to look at Bluebell, who was leaning against the back wall of the train car.
“She’s been shot,” Anthea said in a daze.
“Yes,” her mother said. “There was a pack of locals following you down the road. I think they wanted to keep the horses, or sell them as a curiosity. They even followed us to the train, howling that the animals were their property now. One of them fired off a shot just as we were loading you all in.” She rolled her eyes.