THIRTY-THREE
Rosamond scanned the crowd, looking for Siward, but by the time she spotted him, he was already mounted and riding away. She screamed for him to come back, but he never heard her. He just kept on going. She slumped against the wall, defeated. Curling her fingers around the vine at her side, she whispered, "Bring him back to me safe, and keep him from harm."
Across the kingdom, a million leaves rustled in their promise to obey her command.
"There she is! The king's whore." Two men seized her arms, and when she struggled, a third grabbed her around the knees, too, lifting her off the ground and out of reach of the obedient vine. Between them, they dragged her to the foot of the cathedral steps.
"Is this the one, Lord Fodor?" the man on her left asked. He was the one who ha
