“I thought the Wild Hunt took place in the Mists of Memory,” I said, trying to find logic in these prophecies of doom.
“That’s only the memory of it from another age, and ’tis bad enough! The real thing will harrow us to our bones. Did you not see Death himself on his pale horse?”
I paused as the door creaked open.
“That was Death?”
“Who did you think it was?” his voice was shrill with fear and drew up higher and higher with every word.
“I thought he was one of the Wittenbrand to whom I had not yet been introduced,” I replied smoothly. “There are a great many of you, each more bloodthirsty than the last, I find. But if it was Death, then perhaps we ought to find him again.”
“Find Death? Find him on purpose?” Grosbeak was practically squealing. “To what end? Do you think he will be swayed by compassion for your mortal bones as I am? He’s not so soft. He’s not tainted by an ungainly affection for a mortal. You’re too mad for this world, Izolda. You should have stayed with the other mortals and fought their Last Battle with them.”
I frowned. “Perhaps I fled from Death too quickly. If we’d followed him, could he take us to where Bluebeard has gone?”
I realized after a heartbeat that the keening sound I heard was Grosbeak. It finally dissolved into words.
“To the Barrow? Are you so lost to sense that you would die with your husband?”
I barked a laugh as I stepped through the door. “Isn’t that what the poem says? ‘Die with your lord?’”
“It meant with the Bramble King, obviously. And Coppertomb twisted it so that he could take your husband’s heart and offer it to the Barrow and watch him die alongside his lord while the great Lord Coppertomb was crowned the new Bramble King.” Grosbeak’s words almost tumbled together he was speaking so quickly. “Were you not paying attention? We can’t live it twice like a play we enjoyed. You have to sink into these things and soak them up or you’ll miss them entirely. Sometimes I despair that you have learned nothing from me.”
“You think I should have soaked up my husband’s death?” I couldn’t keep the censure from my voice. “Coppertomb reached within his chest and ripped out his beating heart.”
“And wasn’t it wonderful? Didn’t it give you a thrill? Lord Coppertomb — or maybe I should say, the new-crowned Bramble King — is a great master of drama and portents and I applaud his excellent ascension. We will be singing the tale of it for centuries to come.”
“I thought you said the sky was falling and we were all caught in a cataclysm?” I said wryly, still caught on the threshold just inside Bluebeard’s door as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I was afraid to enter. Afraid of what might greet me within. Would his friends and servants within reject me? Would the fire burn me up or the rooms shift and swallow me?
“I’ll admit,” Grosbeak said glibly, “a reign shadowed with such portents as Death walking amongst the living and the sky falling in ash is sure to be a short one.” He paused, considering, and the fear in his voice was suddenly replaced by speculation and something that sounded very much like delight. “A short but entertaining one. Perhaps I will enjoy it after all.”
I gasped as my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness of Bluebeard’s home. There was no fire burning. I saw no cats or other creatures moving in the heights above. No raven. No folk. No smells of food or drink. The door swung closed behind me and slammed shut.
I gasped, feeling my way to the mantle. Hollowness rung in every corner of my husband’s home. It felt as though the heart of this house had been removed just as his physical heart had been, plucked away by an enemy. I choked on a swell of that swirling emotion I could not name.
“Ooof. Take a care! You are bumping me into furniture!”
I found the tinderbox and a candle one-handed and then sank to the ground, cradling Bluebeard on my lap so that I could work with the tinderbox to light the candle. It took four tries and even then my shaking hands barely managed it.
“Where is the fire?” I asked, my voice forlorn. I had hoped the fire could help to transport us to somewhere safer than this. But beyond that hope, his loss was even greater, for Bluebeard’s home felt dead without its blazing heart.
I looked down at my husband’s lovely face, flickering in the pale candlelight. Had I bargained for the wrong thing? Was I merely spinning out his torment by dragging his near-corpse everywhere with me? I’d heard once of a mother whose child had been snatched by fever. It had taken four men to hold her as they wrested the child’s body from her sobbing grasp. She could not bear to set his tiny form down.
“Dead, I’d wager,” Grosbeak’s words sliced into my thoughts. “Rotting now like the rest of this mausoleum, if fires can rot. It cannot live now that he is dead. Perhaps the same is true of you. After all, of what use are you in the Wittenhame when you are flesh and mortal bones without a single breath of magic to sustain you.”
“And yet, if these mortal bones did not carry you, you’d soon find the Wittenhame considerably less entertaining,” I reminded him.
I stood, carefully drawing Bluebeard up with me, and the candle also, so that I could scoop up the silver thread and needle and with great care, I carried my husband to the settee where once we caressed one another and set him upon the plush brocade.
He looked so vulnerable here, beautiful but broken, once-strong, now nothing but a wisp that was once a powerful man. I remembered yet how he came to me from the sea, how he strode over the water and divided out punishments upon his enemies. Now, he was vulnerable as a newborn lamb and cold as one stillborn.
The candle lit nothing more than a tiny pool around us, so that I felt as though I dwelt only in this small patch of lonely house. Perhaps, all that remained was this one settee with this single dead man lain across it. I hitched up my skirts and set his palm on my bare leg so that I could work with both hands. I must keep his flesh pressed to mine or he would flee this life entirely.
With care, I threaded the silver thread into the eye of the needle and then drew his shredded coat and shirt apart so I could see his ruined chest sagging inward where once a heart and rib were found. Nausea washed over me at the sight of his torn flesh and pale skin. I had to take a moment to look away and take deep breaths of stale air to compose myself. When I felt strong enough, I turned back and I drew in a shuddering breath at how very, very dead my beloved appeared.
“The view from here is ghastly. I’ll have you know that I am in no mind to help you when you abandon me to the flights of chance,” Grosbeak complained in a muffled voice. “You should consider that right now I can see nothing but your skirts and the cloth is not so fine as to require a close study.”
“I have to mend my husband’s rent breast. Is it too much to ask for a small dose of mercy from you?” I asked him.
