Page 28 of Veil of Winter

“Say that again.” The trapper spoke in English, shocking them all. “Who are you speaking of? Astrid?” He looked truly shaken as he said the name.

“She was being chased,” Elyce said in English. “I saw her. It happened eight years ago, but I vividly remember his sword—this very sword, with the red jewel catching the sunlight and the unusual etchings on the blade.”

“What are you saying?” Still speaking English, the trapper’s voice was hoarse as he stumbled back against the wall.

“The man was pointing the sword at her as he closed in. It happened so fast, and I couldn’t see his face, obscured as it was by his hood, but the sun was shining on his sword. Astrid turned and fell off the cliff. The man went to the edge of the cliff and stared down. He must have thought she was dead, because my guard shouted at him and he ran away.”

Sir Gerard and Sir Oswalt both took another step toward the trapper, who crumpled to his knees, his sword going limp in his hand, the tip sinking to the floor.

A shiver crawled across Elyce’s shoulders. This was the coward who had chased a young woman and frightened her so much she was willing to take her own life to get away from him.

Astrid’s would-be murderer.

***

Gerard remembered the beautiful woman, Astrid. And here was her attacker speaking English—he’d understood them all along, the cowardly deceiver.

“Put down your sword,” Gerard ordered, stalking closer to the man.

But the trapper was no longer threatening them. His head hung almost as low as his sword.

He lifted his head slightly, but not enough to look any of them in the eyes. “Tell me, please. Is Astrid alive?”

“Yes, and you will not get an opportunity to threaten her,” Gerard told him. “The four of us will make certain of that.”

“Alive, all this time.” The man lifted his eyes to the ceiling.His expression was so altered, so pained, he seemed a different person. Even his voice was different.

“I will not allow you to harm her again,” Princess Elyce said, her voice more tense than Gerard had ever heard it.

The man leapt to his feet, grasping his sword tightly and pointing it at Gerard. “It was not I who harmed her!”

“I saw you,” the princess said. “I remember your sword.”

“There is another who has a sword identical to mine. One other man—my brother.”

Gerard was not sure if he believed him, though the changing expressions, the emotions on his face, did seem genuine.

“And who is your brother?” Princess Elyce asked.

“Claude, the King of Valkenfeld.”

The princess and Ysabeau both gasped.

“It is the crest of Valkenfeld, see?” He held up the sword to show them the flat of the blade.

The etching just above the ruby was indeed some kind of crest, now that he got a better look at it.

“Is it the Valkenfeld crest?” Gerard asked the women.

“It is. But that would mean that you are... Bertold, the younger brother of King Claude. But Bertold is dead. No one has seen him for many years. He just disappeared, so King Claude declared him dead.”

Gerard rarely paid attention to the politics of foreign countries. But he listened closely to what the princess was saying, still keeping his sword trained on this trapper who looked nothing like the brother of a king.

“If the Astrid you know is my Astrid,” the trapper said, “thenshe will have golden blonde hair, straight and fine like silk, and her eyes are a light blue-gray. She is also a bit taller than I am.”

He described the woman at the cottage perfectly. Perhaps some of what he was saying was true.

“Yes, but she never said she was connected to the royal family of Valkenfeld.”