“Your mission is to contain him,” said Erec. “Somebody is fomenting a rebellion, and that somebody will probably attempt to recruit Monsieur Vareilles soon, at which point he goes from annoyance to danger. You know the people will riot for him.”
Her chest tightened with frustration. The Devourer was returning soon—before summer’s end, which could conceivably mean today. And yet she had to stand here in the sunlit courtyard, discussing politics with Erec and pretending to care, because nobody believed in the Devourer and she had to avoid getting arrested before she found Joyeuse.
“Why don’t you just throw that somebody in the dungeons,” she asked, “along with everyone else you don’t like?”
“Because that somebody is good enough that we’re still trying to work out who he is.”
“Well,” said Rachelle, “I know one man who would like to see the whole court burn. In this life and the next.”
“And much we’d all love to see him burn instead,” said Erec. “Unfortunately, harming a bishop would also provoke riots. Unless we really did have proof that he was helping fugitive bloodbound. And we don’t. So instead of leading a raid on the Bishop’s residence, you’re going to accompany Monsieur Vareilles to Chateau de Lune, where he won’t have access to the mob every day, and you’re going to ensure that he remains a court fixture until he is a harmless joke.”
“I refuse to spend the rest of my life at Chateau de Lune,” said Rachelle.
“Why not?” asked Erec. “Since you’ll have to actually attend court functions, you’ll see such a lot of me.”
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That afternoon, Armand gave an audience so the people of Rocamadour could grovel at his feet. Rachelle had orders to serve as his escort, whether because the King was taking no chances or because Erec wanted to torment her, she wasn’t sure.
It was just as awful as she had expected.
They held the audience in the wide square in front of the cathedral. There wasn’t a scrap of shade; heat shimmered off the cobblestones. Armand sat on a little folding stool. To his left was an oriflamme banner, so that people wouldn’t forget his presence was a gift from the King. To his right was a painting of the Dayspring, so that people wouldn’t forget he was holy. It was hideous. Most paintings showed the Dayspring resurrected, or at least as a not-too-bloody severed head in the arms of his weeping mother. This showed the gory jumble of limbs into which he’d been hacked by the soldiers of the Imperium.
Flies buzzed as if drawn by the painted blood, but Rachelle had to stand still and tall and menacing as a vast line of people crawled forward to see Armand. They blessed his name; they wanted him to bless them. They brought babies and lame boys and blind old women, and they begged for healing. They brought rosaries and tried to touch them to his wrists, so they would have relics to protect them against the encroaching darkness.
The nobility might pretend that the shrinking daylight hours were no more than an aberration, but the common people knew. Some of them had brought clumsy little yarn weavings for Armand to touch—the fake woodwife charms sold in the marketplace. They wouldn’t do a thing to protect anyone against the power of the Forest, but city folk didn’t know any better. And they were desperate.
That was why they thronged to meet Armand. They hoped his holiness would protect them.
And Armand used that hope against them. He squinted against the sunlight and gave them smiles that looked brave and self-mocking at once. When an old woman begged him to pray for her health, because surely God would hear the prayers of a saint, he shook his head and said, “I’m nothing. Certainly not a saint. But I will pray for you.” The old woman sobbed, and Rachelle knew she had just decided he was the greatest saint since la Madeleine.
He was playing them as expertly as a court musician played a violin. And Rachelle was helping. She was also keeping him under control so he couldn’t turn his false heroism into a crown, but she was still helping him.
She hoped that when Endless Night fell, the forestborn hunted him first.
The audience lasted nearly two hours. By the end, Rachelle was starting to feel dizzy from the heat. Armand didn’t look much better. So as soon as the other guards started to push the crowd away, she hauled Armand to his feet by his collar, dragged him into the nearest tavern, and demanded a private room and a pitcher of beer at once.