The Winter Queen (25 page)

He remembered how he had felt on the battlefield, enclosed by an invisible shield of ice that distanced him from the death and horror. Such a feeling kept fear away, so he could fight on and stay alive.

Now it would help him find his Rosamund.

He leaned further forward, remembering her smile, the way she curled against him in bed, so trusting and loving. His beautiful, sweet winter-fairy. She was all he had thought could not exist in the bleak world, a bright spirit of hope and joy. She made him dare to think of the future as he had never done before. Made him think dreams of home and family could even be real, that loneliness could be banished from his life for ever.

And now she was gone, snatched away from the Queen's own palace with nary a trace. But he would find her, he was determined on it. Find her—and see that her kidnappers paid. That was the only thing that mattered. He listened to his heart now, as his mother had urged him to do, and it pressed him onward.

At last he noticed something, a break in the endless snowy riverbank. As he came closer, he saw it was a sleigh driven into the snow at an angle. It was empty,
and for a moment Anton thought the only living things near were the horses, standing quietly in their traces. No Rosamund, no people at all. Only silence.

But then he heard a faint noise, like a muffled, muttered curse. Anton crouched low as he crept closer, drawing his short sword from its sheath.

A man in a black cloak knelt on the other side of the sleigh, scooping up handfuls of snow and pressing them to his bearded face. He half-turned towards a beam of chalky moonlight, and Anton saw it was the Scotsman, Macintosh.

A Scottish conspiracy, then. Somehow he was not surprised. The concerns of Queen Mary seemed to have permeated every corner of Whitehall of late. Now they had absorbed Rosamund, too, ensnaring her in that sticky web.

But not for long. Anton carefully slipped off his skate straps, inching closer to Macintosh in his leather-soled boots. Silently, carefully, like a cat, he came up behind the Scotsman and caught him a hard hold about the neck. He dragged him backward, pressing the blade of his sword to the man's treacherous neck.

Macintosh tensed as if to fight, but went very still at that cold touch of steel.

‘Where is Lady Rosamund?' Anton demanded.

‘She ran off, the stupid wench,' Macintosh said in a strangled voice. ‘We never meant to grab
her
, anyway, she just got in the way.'

‘You thought she was Queen Elizabeth,' Anton said, thinking of Rosamund's red wig, the fur cloak.

‘I didn't want to hurt the lass, even after she clawed me,' Macintosh said. ‘Not that it matters now. She'll probably freeze out there, and our errand is all undone.'

Anton's arm tightened, and Macintosh gurgled,
clawing at his sleeve. ‘You let a helpless lady go off into the snow and did not even follow her?'

‘That fool Sutton ran after her, wretch that he is. He's the one that took her in the first place. He was in a fury. If he catches her, she'll likely wish she froze to death first.'

So Richard Sutton was involved, determined to take some revenge on Rosamund for her rejection. A man like him, with primitive emotions and urges, would be capable of anything when angered. Anton twisted his sword closer to Macintosh's neck.

‘Are you going to kill me?' the man gasped.

‘Nay,' Anton answered. ‘I'll leave that to the Queen. I'm sure she will have much to ask you, once you're taken to the Tower.'

‘Nay!' Macintosh began frantically. He had no time to say more, for Anton brought down the hilt of his sword hard on the back of his head. He collapsed in an unconscious heap in the snow.

In the bottom of the sleigh were some thick coils of rope, no doubt meant for the Queen—or Rosamund. They served now to bind Macintosh. Anton made short work of the task, depositing the Scotsman in the bottom of the sleigh to wait for the Queen's men, before cutting the horses free so the man could not escape.

Surely Lord Langley and Anne Percy would have alerted Leicester to what had happened by now? Anton had to find Rosamund quickly. He scanned the woods just beyond the river bank, turning his sword in his hand.

At last those beams of moonlight caught on a set of blurred footprints leading into the trees. Large, booted prints, heavy, as if they dragged—or dragged something with them.

He followed their erratic pathway until he discovered a small clearing, a smudged spot just beneath a tree where perhaps someone had sat for a time. And, just beyond, a crumpled white fur-cloak, lightly covered by new snow.

He knelt down, lifting up the soft, cold fur. It still smelled of Rosamund's roses, and the Queen's richer violet-amber scent. Along its edge were a few flecks of dried blood. Macintosh's—or Rosamund's? His heart froze at the thought of her bleeding, hurt, alone.

Slowly, he stood up, examining the tracks leading away from the clearing—small, dainty feet, blurred as if she ran, zigzagging. Followed by those heavy boots. Dropping the cloak, he trailed those tracks, every sense heightened, fully aware of every sound and motion of wind in the bare branches.

Rosamund gave a good chase, he thought with pride, veering around trees, over fallen logs. Then, at last, he heard a noise breaking through that eerie, glass-like night: a man's hoarse shout, a woman's scream.

Holding his sword firmly, Anton followed the sound, running lightly through the snow until he found them. It was an astonishing sight—Rosamund was high up in a tree, balanced on the split trunk, her skirts tucked up and her white stockings glowing in the moonlight. Richard Sutton was at the base of the tree, shouting and waving his sword at her, even though she was too high for the reach of the blade.

Rosamund tottered on her perch, grabbing harder onto the trunk. The freezing wind had to be numbing her bare hands—yet another thing to kill Sutton for.

‘Sutton!' Anton shouted, advancing on the man with his sword held out in challenge. ‘Why don't you face someone your own size, rather than bully defenceless females?'

Richard swung towards him, waving his own sword about erratically. The steel fairly hummed in the frosty air. ‘Defenceless? You are deluded, foreigner. The witch has defences aplenty, as well as a cold, fickle heart. She will desert you as sure as she did me.'

‘Anton,' Rosamund sobbed, her fingers slipping on the bark.

‘Hold on very tightly, Rosamund,' Anton called, struggling to hold onto his icy distance. The sight of her pale, frightened face, her tangled hair and torn gown, threatened to tear away that chilly remove as nothing else could.

But it also made him determined to protect her at all costs.

‘You will never be worthy of her, not in her haughty eyes,' Richard cried. ‘Nor with her family. None are good enough for the mighty Ramsays.'

‘Ah, but I have something
you
will never possess,' Anton said, tossing his sword lightly from hand to hand as he advanced on his quarry.

‘What might that be? Money? Land?'

‘Nay. I have the lady's love.' Or he had once—and he would fight for it again for the rest of his life.

With a furious shout, Richard dived towards Anton, swinging his blade wildly. Anton brought his own sword arm-up, and the blades met with a ringing clang. He felt it reverberate down his whole arm, but he recovered swiftly, twirling his sword about to parry Richard's blows.

At first he merely defended himself, deflecting Richard's wild attacks, fighting to keep his balance on the frozen ground. But his opponent's burning fury quickly wore him down, while Anton was still fresh, still fortified with his quiet, cold anger. When Richard
faltered, Anton pressed his advantage, moving forward with a series of light strikes.

He drove Richard back towards one of the looming trees, until the man clumsily lost his footing and stumbled against the trunk. With a roar, he tried to shove his sword up into Anton's chest, unprotected by armour or padding. But Anton was too quick for him, and drove his own blade through Richard's sleeve, pinning him to the tree.

‘It seems I have something else you lack,' Anton said. ‘A gentleman's skill with the sword.'

‘Foreign whoreson!' Richard shouted. He ripped his sleeve free, driving forward again, catching Anton on the shoulder with the tip of his blade. Startled by the sting, Anton was even more shocked by what happened next. Richard took off, running through the woods, crashing like a wounded boar.

Anton ran after him, following his twisted, half-blind path as they headed back towards the river. His shoulder ached and he felt the stickiness of blood seeping through his doublet. The sweat seemed to freeze on his skin, but he hardly noticed. He ran on, chasing after Richard as the coward fled.

Richard broke free of the trees, sliding down the steep, snowy banks towards the sleigh as if he meant to drive away and escape. But the horses were gone now, broken from their traces, and Macintosh, still unconscious, lay bound in the bottom of their sleigh.

Richard, though, kept running, straight out onto the river itself. Anton pursued him, but skidded to a halt as he heard an ominous cracking sound, one he heard all too often in Swedish spring-times. He eased back up onto the bank, watching in shock as a thin patch of the river cracked beneath Richard's heavy weight. Scream
ing with horror, a terrible sound indeed, Richard fell down into the water below.

His head surfaced briefly, a pale dot above the jagged, diamond-like ice.

‘I can't swim!' he cried. ‘I can't…'

Carefully, Anton crept out onto the ice, watching for tell-tale fissures. But he was lighter than Richard, leaner, and he knew the ways of the ice. It held for him. Near the edge of the hole, he held out his sword towards the flailing man.

‘Catch onto the blade!' he called. ‘I can pull you out.'

Richard's hand grasped for the lifeline, but he just kept sinking down. Creeping closer, crouching down, Anton managed to grab Richard by the collar of his sodden doublet, yanking him upward. But his hands were cold, his muscles tired from the sword fight, and Richard fought against him. He tore away from Anton's grasp, sinking below the water one last time.

Anton braced his palms on the ice, exhausted, horrified, saddened. It seemed the Queen's river had exacted justice for her, before he could.

But his own task was far from finished. He made his careful way back to the bank, though it seemed the river was done with violence now, and the ice held beneath him. Once back on solid land again, he ran for Rosamund's tree.

She met him on the forest path, sobbing as she stumbled into his arms. ‘I knew you would come,' she cried. ‘I knew you did not mean it when you sent me away.'

Anton held her close, kissing her hair, her cheek, over and over, all quarrels forgotten, the past gone. She was alive, safe and warm and vital in his embrace. ‘
Alskling
,'
he muttered, over and over. ‘I was so scared I would not find you in time. My love, my brave, brave love.'

‘Brave? Nay! I was frightened as could be. I was sure Richard would catch me, and would—oh. Richard!'

‘Never fear, he won't hurt you now.'

Rosamund drew back, staring up at him with wide eyes. ‘You—killed him?'

‘I would have. But in the end, I did not have to. The ice did it for me.'

‘How terrible.' She leaned her forehead against his chest, trembling. ‘But you are hurt, Anton! Look, your shoulder.'

In truth, he had quite forgotten the wound. The cold numbed it; finding Rosamund had made it completely unimportant. ‘'Tis just a scratch. I cannot feel it at all. Come, my love, you will catch a terrible chill. We should find one of the horses and make our way back to the palace.'

‘I
am
cold,' she murmured. ‘I didn't even notice when I was in that tree, but now I'm frozen to the core. Isn't that odd?'

She was also worryingly pale, he saw. He lifted her in his arms, holding her against his unhurt shoulder as he carried her hastily out of the woods. He retrieved the Queen's cloak, wrapping it tightly around her as a meager shelter against the biting wind.

‘We'll have you in your own chamber very soon,' he said. ‘With a warm fire, spiced wine and plenty of blankets. Just hold on a bit longer, my love.'

‘I'm not frightened now,' she responded, resting her head on his chest as her eyes drifted closed. ‘I'm not even cold now. Not with you.'

‘I'm sorry, my love,' he whispered. ‘I'm so very sorry.'

She grew heavier in his arms, as if she sank into a
chilled stupor. For the first time, he was truly, deeply afraid. She could not be ill! Not when they were together at last.

Where were those cursed horses? He had been a fool to set them free!

At the river's edge, he saw a flicker of light in the distance—torches breaking through the darkness. It was a procession of horses, led by Lord Leicester.

‘You see,
alskling
?' Anton said with a wry laugh. ‘We are both rescued.'