Chapter Fifty-Six
A GREAT DARK SHAPE BARRELS down on the archer, sunlight glancing off the sword as it arcs toward his head. The archer’s shot goes wide, then his headless body crumples to the ground.
Balthazaar.
There is a clash of steel as the rest of the hellequin fall upon the remaining bow men. I hurry over to the edge of the platform. “What took you so long?”
He steers his horse so that it is directly below me. “We were detained.” Without giving myself time to think about it, I jump down. My breath leaves me in a dizzying rush and for one terrifying moment I fear I will miss, but the horse prances forward and then Balthazaar’s arms are around me.
Infantry with lances and pikes are swarming toward us now. Sauvage and the rest of the hellequin wheel their horses around to engage. “Go!” Sauvage calls over his shoulder, lifting his sword. The weight of Balthazaar’s despair at having to leave his men surrounded and outnumbered presses upon my heart like a stone.
Malestroit lifts his enormous hammer, then gives a nod—of farewell or relief or blessing, I cannot tell. Then he spurs his mount into the fray, his hammer swinging wildly.
I turn away, unable to watch when he should fall. Another contingent of pikesmen come running from the encampment, the sharp points of their pikes gleaming silver in the sunlight. Balthazaar’s arms tighten around me. “Keep low,” he says, then pulls me up close against his chest and covers me with his body as he gallops for the postern gate.
But the French have figured out that is where we are headed, and they know that I was the one who shot at their king. They too make for the gate. Out of the corner of my eye I see rows of archers run forward, then kneel and draw up their bows. I make myself as small as possible and pray to every god in existence.
The twang of bowstrings fills the air, followed by the swish of arrows in flight. I brace myself. Behind me, Balthazaar grunts, then jerks.
Before I can look to see if he has been hit, another volley of arrows comes raining out of the sky, only these come from the city itself. I look up at the ramparts, my heart swelling when I see the Arduinnites lined up along the crenellations, already firing off another round.
We are almost at the gate now, almost to safety. Balthazaar hunkers lower in the saddle and something wet begins to spread across my back.
A second volley of arrows come from the French behind us, but a smaller volley, as the Arduinnites have reduced their numbers. Balthazaar jerks again, his arms around me loosening their hold. When we are half a bowshot from the gate, he starts to fall. I scramble to maintain my balance, to find a way to hang on to him and the horse both and not topple over, but I cannot. As he falls, his weight pulls me from the saddle, and we both go plummeting to the ground. His demonic horse rears up, hooves flailing and nostrils flaring, before turning and galloping directly for the attacking soldiers.
The impact drives all the air from my lungs and for a moment I fear I have broken every bone in my body. But even as he fell, Balthazaar maneuvered himself so he would land first, taking the brunt of it. As we roll apart, I see he has easily a half a dozen arrows protruding from him. Panic gnaws at my heart. I start to crawl toward him but must stop as a fresh salvo of French arrows rain down around us, sending a final arrow into his chest. There is a faint, almost silent twang as the Arduinnites answer with another volley of their own.
Using that as cover, I scramble to Balthazaar’s side. Stark terror clutches at my heart at how white his face, how still his body. No, no, no, my heart screams. This was not how it was supposed to be. In the far distance, a lone hound begins to bray, the sound eerie and chilling even in the full light of day. More hounds take up the lament, and the earth itself seems to shudder, then stop, as if the very laws of its existence have been tested.
The entire field grows quiet as I stare down at Balthazaar’s lifeless form. At the arms I will never again feel around me, the eyes that will never again peer so deeply into my soul, and the lips I will never again coax into a smile. “No,” I whisper, then cup Balthazaar’s pale cheek in my hand and lay my forehead against his. I know that his love does not die with him, that I will carry it with me always, but that is cold, empty comfort. My breath comes in short, ragged gasps and I am not sure I will ever draw a full breath again. This pain is worse than anything I have ever imagined—I, who have been familiar with pain my entire life.
A trumpet sounds just then—three shorts blasts. I do not know what it means, but the French soldiers do. Reluctantly, with mumbling and dark glances, they sheathe their weapons and point their spears down. A mounted knight comes riding before them and motions them back.
He is chasing them away.
Once they are out of arrow range, the knight turns and nods to me, and I want to shout at him that he is too late.
But others begin to reach us now, as soldiers from the city gate swarm forward, the Arduinnites covering them with their threat of another rain of arrows. Someone grabs me by the arms and tries to pull me back to the safety of the gates, but I refuse. The Brigantians come next, bringing a stretcher with which to carry Balthazaar back. Before they transfer him onto it, they stop to examine his wounds. Two arrows have gone straight through his chest, the arrowheads fashioned in such a way as to pierce even the mail that he wore.
Carefully, the Brigantians break the arrowheads from the shafts, then pull them slowly from his chest. As the shafts leave his body, Balthazaar arches up off his back. He gasps and draws in a huge gulp of air. His face spasms in pain, his hand going to his chest, and I stare down in disbelief.
“It hurts,” he croaks, and I laugh, a giddy, frightened sound.
“Of course it hurts,” I tell him, then bend down and begin raining kisses over his face. “You’re alive.”
He pulls his hand away from his chest and stares at the red blood that covers his palm. “I am alive.” The marvel in his voice matches my own. A shadow falls across us just then, and when I look up, I see Father Effram. “He’s alive,” I whisper, afraid that if I say it too loudly, someone will hear and take it away.
Father Effram smiles. “He is alive.”
“But how?”
He smiles gently at me, but before he can speak, Balthazaar begins to cough, clutching his chest. I start to panic, but Father Effram lays his hand on my shoulder. “This wound will not kill him. The first death makes him mortal; it is the second death that will carry him from this world.”
“How do you know this?”
He looks from me to Balthazaar. I follow his gaze and see Balthazaar staring at him, recognition slowly filling his eyes. He gasps out a laugh, then clutches his chest again. “Salonius.”
Father Effram bows his head. “At your service, my lord.” Then he turns to my gaping self. “I know because I was once a god as well.”
“You are—were—Saint Salonius?”
“Yes.” He turns to Balthazaar once more, his face growing serious. “And this,” he says to the man who was once Death. “Does this put right all that lies between us?”
Balthazaar stares at him a long moment, then nods. “It does.” He puts out his hand. Father Effram grasps it and closes his eyes, almost as if receiving a benediction.
Balthazaar is taken to the Brigantian convent so they may tend his wounds, but it is hard—so hard—to let go of his hand. I wish to accompany him, to stay by his side forever if need be, to ensure that this is real and will not be snatched away.
But I have others I must see to.
A truce has been made, and the Breton forces have left the safety of the city walls in order to recover our dead. Every soldier seems to know that if not for the hellequin, it would be his own dead body being carried back on a litter.
Of the fifty hellequin that rode out, twenty-eight bodies are returned to us, among them Begard’s, Malestroit’s, and Sauvage’s. Slowly, I drop to Malestroit’s side. His face is no longer filled with sorrow but with serenity. I kiss the tips of my fingers, then press them to his lips. “Goodbye,” I whisper. “And thank you. May you find peace at last.”
Sauvage too is much transformed, his terrifying ferocity replaced by a peace so deep, he is hardly recognizable.
Begard looks even younger in death, relaxed, with no pinch of regret or guilt shadowing his face. I bid him goodbye as well. Father Effram joins me, and, together, we walk among the fallen hellequin. He gives them a final blessing and I bid them each farewell.
Some bodies are not recovered, and I do not know what that means. Most of those not recovered were on the sortie to the supply wagons, including Miserere. I think of his fierce, implacable face and mourn
that he may not have found the redemption he so desperately wanted.
It is only when they have all been seen to and tended, and I confirm with my own eyes that the truce continues to hold, that I allow myself to return to the palace long enough to strip out of my blood-soaked clothes, scrub the worst of the filth from me, then head to the Brigantian convent.
I am not questioned at the convent but ushered immediately to Balthazaar’s room. It is clean and smells of pungent herbs. At the door I pause, staring at the still figure on the bed, marveling that his chest rises and falls as he draws breath. Marveling that the pallor of death has left his face and he no longer appears to have been chiseled from the whitest marble.
He is, I realize, pulsing with life.
We have done it, he and I. We not only evoked one last gasp of magic from Arduinna’s sacred arrow but managed to upend the order of the world and create a place for Balthazaar in it. At my side, hopefully, although we have not discussed that.
“It is a miracle, is it not?” I turn to find a grizzled nun standing beside me, her wrinkled face alight with wonder and awe.
“It is,” I agree.
She looks up at me, tilting her head. “Are you the one he did it for?”
Her question makes me pause, uncertain of how to answer that. Did he do it for me? Or because he was finally offered a chance? Perhaps the two things cannot be separated from each other.
Seeing my discomfort, the nun smiles warmly, pats me on the arm, then goes about her business, leaving me alone with him.
“Quit lurking in the shadows.” Balthazaar’s voice rumbles up from
the bed. “That is my role, not yours.”
I cannot help it, I laugh and go to stand beside his bed. He has a most curious expression on his face. “Are you still in a lot of pain?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, but without bitterness or distress, merely wonder. He lifts one hand and stares down at it, then looks up at me. “But pleasure too. Everything”—he looks around the room, staring at the shafts of sunlight that play upon the shadows—“everything is so much more—more delineated, nuanced. And”—he turns his gaze back to me—“exquisite.”
The warmth in his eyes almost unnerves me. I do not know what to do with a joyous Balthazaar. He takes my hand—wincing as he does so—then presses it to his lips. “I cannot believe that you have done it. Created a place for me in life.”
“We did it,” I remind him. “Not just me, but us. Together.”
He stares at me a long moment, his dark gaze unreadable, and I long to know what he is thinking. He shakes his head, as if he is not quite able to grasp it all. “No one has ever invited me to share her life before.” Then he tugs sharply on my hand, causing to me to stumble and fall onto the bed. I try to pull back, afraid to cause him more injury, but his other arm comes up around me and he shifts, making room for me beside him. Afraid I will cause him more agony if I fight him—and also because it’s where I desperately wish to be—I allow myself to be tucked up against his side.
His hand runs down my back in a long, slow caress. “The hellequin?” he asks.
I press myself closer against him, as if our closeness will diminish the sting of the words. “Most have found the peace they were looking for,” I tell him. “We recovered over half of the bodies, including those of Malestroit and Begard.”
His hand on my back stills. “And the others?”
“We found no trace of them.”
I glance up at his face as a fresh wave of an entirely different sort of pain washes across his features. “I had hoped they would all end their journeys on that field.”
“I know. What will happen to them now?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it and frowns. “I do not know. I am not sure what will happen to any of them now. Do we know yet if the arrow worked?”
I am relieved to have good news to share with him. “We know that they have called a truce and that the hostilities have ceased, at least for the moment. I would like to think that is at the command of the king as he decides how best to follow the direction his heart now points him in.”
In the silence that follows, I can hear Balthazaar breathing, a faint, ragged sound. I long to ask him about us, what will happen with us now. We had spoken of how to live without each other but had not dared to dream of what we might do if our bold gamble worked. “Have you given any thought to what you will do now that you are free?” I say.
“As long as you are at my side, I care little. Except . . .”
“What?”
He shifts uncomfortably on the bed. “At some point, I would like to meet my daughters, to see them face to face and somehow be a part of their lives.”
In that moment, I realize that if I was not already besotted with him, I would fall in love all over again. I rise up on my elbow and stare down at his face, losing myself in those eyes that now hold far more light and hope than bleakness. “Then that will be where we go first.”