Chapter Fifty-Four
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, in a distant corner of the city, just as the sun begins to drop low in the sky, the hellequin begin trickling over the city walls, using the very same ladder that the French used to breach our defenses. They come spilling over, a shadowed, rippling darkness that makes no noise. The air itself seems to recoil at their presence, and the few soldiers who witness it cross themselves, the utter paleness of their faces giving voice to their fear even though they do not.
My eyes go immediately to Balthazaar. He is at his most human, wearing black leather and chain mail. His cheeks are covered in dark stubble, disguising somewhat his otherworldly pallor.
Fifty of them have volunteered for this mission, including many that I know: Begard, Malestroit, Sauvage, and Miserere, who is the last to scale the wall. I try to assure myself that their presence has nothing to do with their knowing or caring about me—they are hellequin and have assured me dozens of times that they care for no mortal; they are intent only on redemption. Half will be escorting me, and the other half—led by Miserere—will be raiding on the French supply wagons, the diversion they have settled upon.
They will not be coming back. Their only role is to provide us an escape route to allow us to get from the king’s tent back to the postern gate and the safety of the city walls.
Beast has found four charbonnerie to accompany us, their mission to get to the cannon and use them against our enemy and buy us time.
The Arduinnites too have joined us and have offered their archers to act as cover when needed. As they are the best archers in the land, we gladly take them up on it.
Marshal Rieux has secured the strongest, fastest, and most skilled horses to be found in the city, but Aeva surprises me by dismounting and leading her horse to me. “Here,” she says. “Ride this one.”
While it is kind of her—and she is rarely kind—I politely decline. “I wish to ride Fortuna, for she has been with me since the beginning of my journey.”
“My offer is not a slight against Fortuna, who is a fine horse. But my horse has been trained in the ways that Arduinna does battle and has some skills that even the noble Fortuna does not.”
“What sorts of skills?” I ask, intrigued in spite of myself.
“If you whistle, like this”—she puts two fingers in her mouth and lets loose a piercing note—“she will come to you. And if you press your knees and twitch the reins just so”—she demonstrates—“she will stumble and appear to fall, putting your opponent off-guard.” She goes on to show me a half a dozen tricks the horse knows, and in the end, I realize I cannot refuse her offer. Too much depends upon this mission’s success.
Captain Dunois has amassed a small mountain of gear from the mercenaries—hauberks, helmets, gloves, and the like, although in truth, there is not much difference between them and what the hellequin already wear.
It is I who have the most dressing up to do. They have refitted a special saddle for me, one that allows me to sit a little higher on the horse, giving me some much needed height. I am wearing two padded hauberks, which give my shoulders and chest some additional girth and have the added advantage of hiding my breasts. Over that I wear a boiled-leather jerkin, vambraces, and riding leathers. I do not understand how any soldier is able to move once he has been suited up.
When it is time for me to don my helmet, my accursed hair will not cooperate. “Perhaps a linen cap would hold it in place,” Sybella suggests.
“No. Just cut it off,” I tell her.
She pauses a beat, and I turn to look at her. “It will grow back. And it is not worth risking it coming undone at the wrong moment, for how would I explain myself then?”
“True enough,” she murmurs, then lifts her knife to my hair and chops it off.
As I try my helmet once more, there is a faint susurration of sound behind me. When I turn around, I see that the hellequin are pressing upon Sybella, requesting a lock of my hair to carry with them. For some reason, a lump forms in my throat; I do not understand why the hellequin would want such a thing, so I pretend I do not see and busy myself with the last step, smearing my face with charcoal dust to disguise the smoothness of my skin and my cleanliness. Then I take a few minutes to wave my arms back and forth and pretend to draw a bow, trying to adjust to the feel of the hauberks.
Finally, we are ready and mounted on our horses. “The French checkpoint at the main gate is expecting you,” Captain Dunois informs us. “The terms have been set. You will be leaving with a group of nearly four hundred mercenaries, so your presence should not draw any undue attention.”
“Will not the other mercenaries realize they have never seen us before?” Miserere asks.
Captain Dunois shakes his head. “There have been thousands of them in the city and there is no way any one man or contingent has met all of them.”
Though Duval wanted to be here, there was no reason for someone in his position to involve himself with the mercenaries’ departure, so he remains stuck in the palace. Ismae is attending the duchess. It was she who cut the duchess’s hand and squeezed her blood onto the tip of the arrow, then bound the cut with a healing balm and bandaged it. She refused to say goodbye to me in the determined belief that I would be coming back.
In addition to Sybella, Beast is here, appearing right at home among the hellequin. Indeed, he looks as if he would seize a horse and ride with us if not for the death grip Sybella has on his arm. “Be safe,” she tells me. “And may all the Nine bless your journey.”
We begin moving to the main gate. In the northern part of town, far from our small group, fifteen hundred Breton forces wait, dressed for battle, chargers at the ready. If we fail, they will ride out to disable the cannon and destroy the siege towers before they can be used against us. It too will be a one-way mission. As they are not hellequin who welcome death, I pray they will not be needed.
Our plan is known to only a select few, so as we pass soldiers and men-at-arms in the city, they jeer at us and throw rotten food and rocks, thinking we are mercenaries leaving them to their fate. At least until Sauvage nearly rides a group of them down so that they must leap out of the way, after which they restrict their displeasure to slurs and taunts.
I ride in the center group, just behind Miserere, with Malestroit behind me. Balthazaar is in the lead. I am the weakest link in this chain we have constructed, for I am smaller than nearly all the others, except for Begard. With my padding and saddle platform, I am about the same size as he. Luckily, Captain Dunois has assured us that not all mercenaries are as enormous as the hellequin, so once we join the main group, we should be even less noticeable.
The throng of defecting mercenaries waits just inside the city gates. They believe the duchess and her councilors have no knowledge of their defections, and so they simply threaten the sentries with their lives. The sentries have been instructed not to resist or attempt to engage, so they give them no argument.
I am tense as we ride out under the stone arch, terrified that somehow someone has leaked word to the French of our plan and they are looking for us among the others. But the few French soldiers and officials who wait just outside the gate simply motion for us to pass on through. They are alert and on edge at first, and have a division of archers with bows drawn in case we are some warring sortie in disguise. But as the last of us rides out and no one charges, they lower their guard.
“Where do we get our gold?” one of the men shouts out.
The French captain does not try hard to hide his disdain. “Over there.” He points toward the camp. “At the quartermaster’s tent.” Balthazaar and I exchange glances, pleased at this development, for it brings us even closer to our target without drawing any attention to ourselves.
As we wend our way through the camp, we can feel the French soldiers’ regard upon us. Some stare in open disgust, others with mere curiosity. Mercenaries are not well loved by soldiers who fight for their liege.
As the minutes crawl by, we mill about with the others, waiting for our back pay. Each captain must dismount and sign for the purse, which he is then responsible for disbursing to his men. When it is Balthazaar’s turn, I do not think I am the only one holding my breath. He still does not look wholly human to me, especially in the harsh, unforgiving light of day. But the soldiers do not notice. Or do not appear to. They all watch him warily—in truth, he looks far more dangerous than any of the others who have collected their purses. Once he has signed, he takes the purse, bounces it in his hand as if weighing the contents, then gives a grunt of approval. The quartermaster turns his attention to the next mercenary, but I do not breathe easy until Balthazaar is back on his horse.
One of the hellequin, one of the ones I do not know well but recognize from my time with them, pounds his chest. “I am hungry! With nothing to eat but rats for the past week, I have a serious appetite.”
I wince, fearing he may be overplaying this, for we in the city have not come to the eating of rats. Yet.
But someone points him toward the center of the camp and the supply wagons where, he tells him, there is food for sale. He winks. “And a woman?” The soldier grins and nods—that common need forging a link between them when their loyalties could not.
It was well done of him. With a purpose to our wanderings, we begin trickling through the camp, avoiding the tents, the hellequin talking amongst themselves, some even in German, which impresses me somewhat.
I scan the sea of tents, looking for the king’s pavilion. It was so easy to see from the walls of the city, but here on the ground, it is harder to discern. “This way,” Balthazaar mutters, drawing his horse nearer mine and shifting our direction. I keep my head down, as if I am sullen and ill-tempered.
We begin moving toward the center of camp, veering east slightly, so that when the diversions come, we will seem to be running toward them, like the rest of the encampment. Initially, no one pays us any heed. It is not until we have passed a dozen rows of tents that anyone hails us. “Hold there! What are you doing?” one of the patrolling soldiers asks.
It is Sauvage who answers. “The quartermaster told us that the food wagons and women were this way.”
The soldier looks less than pleased but is no doubt put off by Sauvage’s terrifying visage and intimidating manner and simply grumbles under his breath.
We have made our way past another dozen rows when the king’s pavilion comes into sight. The tent is even larger up close, nearly as large as one of the chambers in the palace. It is of purple- and gold-striped silk and has the king’s banner flying atop, flapping cheerfully in the warm breeze. My entire body quivers with anticipation, but I try to keep my head down to avoid calling attention to myself. It is hard—so hard. I want to look and see, plot out my course and consider the hundred possible ways this could go, but I dare not risk drawing anyone’s eyes for too long.
When we are but three rows away from the king’s pavilion, I hear it: the shouts and scramble of soldiers accompanied by the distant thunder of riding horses. The soldiers near the king’s tent crane their necks in curiosity as the sally port opens and the second group of hellequin ride out. Our diversion has arrived.
I look at Balthazaar, for now timing is everything. We have only a few moments to get to the tent, shoot the king, then retreat. If I take too long at any of those steps, the hellequin’s chance of returning to the city with me will evaporate.
He nods, and I twitch my reins the way Aeva showed me. My horse whinnies and rears, throwing me to the ground. Since I am expecting it, I am able to roll off her somewhat gracefully and avoid too painful a landing. But now I am on the ground, on foot, and no one is paying any attention to me, except for two squires, who snicker. Then their knight barks at them and they hurry to help him into the armor so he may ride after the Breton raiders.
I make as if to kick at my horse in disgust, then grab her reins and begin limping behind the others. As we pass behind a large tent, I lift the bow from my saddle hook, then toss my reins to Balthazaar. He catches them neatly, then acts as if he is still making for the food wagons.
A quick glance shows me that no one is watching. Most of the surrounding French soldiers are scrambling toward the attacking Bretons, eager to engage after so many days of inactivity.
I sprint as if heading in the same direction, then veer around the back of the king’s pavilion. Balthazaar raises his crossbow to offer cover should anyone spot me before I reach the tent.
For a moment, the sheer audacity of my plan steals my breath away. Because of me, Mortain has consigned himself to a mortal fate. If I fail, I will have robbed myself of not only a lover, but the god who has sustained me my entire life, and the father of all the girls at the convent. They will never know him, not as a man, not even as a god. This is what following my own desires has brought me to.
If the Dragonette or the abbess were here, how they would mock my pride, my willfulness, the sheer selfishness of my dreams.
But they are not here, only I am. For some reason, the gods have put this task in my hands. I grasp that thought and hold it tightly in my heart. Surely that is a sign of their belief in me.
Either that, or Salonius the god of mistakes has tricked us all.
With no one there to see, I throw myself to the ground and crawl toward the edge of the pavilion so I may slip under. But the tent is held firmly in place by a wooden peg. No matter how hard I pull, it will not budge. Swearing, I take a knife and begin stabbing at the dirt around the peg, trying to loosen it. Finally, after long painful seconds, I am able to wiggle it out. I pause to be certain my actions have not been noticed—either inside the tent or out—then slip under the heavy silk.
I pause, listening. There. Voices. Arguing. It is a man—the king?—and a woman.
“And I told you I did not want to use cannon.” As he talks, I begin to creep forward on my belly, using the trunks by the royal bed to hide my movements. “The entire point of this exercise was to intimidate her, not to destroy the town and all its inhabitants. She is utterly surrounded; her country is in our hands. We have only to wait for her to recognize it.”
“You are too soft.” The woman’s voice is thick with scorn. “She has given us no indication she is even considering surrendering.” I slowly pull Arduinna’s arrow from my quiver, then raise my head to peer over the thick leather chest in front of me.
“Her sister has just died.” The king’s voice is gentle, compassionate even. “She is likely clouded with grief, as I would be should you die, dear sister.” There is a faint dry note in his voice that has me wondering if he would truly be as distraught as he claims.
“We must put an end to this farce.”
“And we will. In good time. But we will not be using the cannon. Now, would you like to give the order? Because I know how much you dislike it when I countermand your orders in front of the men.”
There is a long, tense moment before the regent says, “I will do it.”
Boom! An earsplitting crack of thunder fills the camp, reverberating through the valley.
The king’s head snaps up, and he glares at his sister. She shakes her head. “I did not order that,” she says, then hurries from the tent. To my surprise, after a moment’s hesitation, the king follows her.
I am frozen to the spot with shock as I watch my chance for averting this war stride out of the pavilion. What now?
I shove the arrow back in my quiver and rise to my knees. The king’s tent is empty except for the two guards that stand just inside the tent flap. If I go back the way I came, I will run into Balthazaar, who will do everything he can to prevent me from burrowing deeper into the enemy’s encampment.
Which means I will have to fight past the two guards.
I withdraw two regular arrows, clench one between my teeth, then nock the second one to the bowstring. Still crouching in the back of the tent, I release the first arrow, which catches the guard in the windpipe, ensuring his silence as he dies.
Before I can nock my second arrow, the other guard draws his sword and leaps toward me. He is faster than he looked, and I barely have time to drop my bow, grab the long dagger from my waist, and get it up in time to block the thrust of his sword. The force of the blow sends a shock all the way up my arm. As our blades lock together, I see in his eyes the moment he decides to call for reinforcements. As he opens his mouth, I reach up with my free hand as if to place it on the dagger handle for extra leverage. At the last minute, I grab at the second dagger hidden at my wrist, then spin inside his guard and bring it across his throat, cutting off his cry for help. Red blood spatters across my face like warm rain, but I hardly even notice.
Instead, I roll the smaller guard over, unbuckle his sword belt, and wrestle his French tabard over his head. The tabard marks him clearly as one of the royal guard, and wearing it may help me get closer to the king. I slip it on, then grab his helmet and sword as well.
I snag my bow from the ground, my heart hammering—not in fear, I realize, but with anticipation—and use the exhilaration to propel me to the door. Two more sentries wait outside, but with the king gone, their attention is focused on the smoke and noise coming from the northern part of the camp rather than on the empty tent behind them. Which makes it easy to slip up silently behind them and slit their throats, cutting through their vocal cords just as Sister Arnette taught me to do all those years ago.
Only this time, I do not throw up, or even feel a sickening lurch in my stomach. Instead, a grim satisfaction fills me, for I am that much closer to my goal.