The Maid's War (Kingfountain 0.5)

He jerked his hand away. “How can you ask that of me! I know what it is like to languish in prison. You are still several months away from giving birth. Let me try, at least!”

“But if you are captured, Alensson!” she said desperately. “I . . . waited . . . I waited so long for you! How can you ask me to endure it again? Think of our child growing up without a father.”

He was trembling beneath a surge of violent and conflicting feelings. “But the child will be stillborn,” Alensson whispered hoarsely. “She knows! Genette always knows! The Fountain whispered it to her. The child will be stillborn. She told me the word of power, but I am not Fountain-blessed!” He pushed away from the table and paced, shaking his head. The look on his wife’s face . . . If he’d sent a letter, he wouldn’t have seen it, but it was an unworthy thought. She deserved to hear the news directly from him, and it would have been unbearable to take such a risk without first seeing her.

She looked down at the table, where her tears had gathered in a splotchy pool. “What will you do?” she said with a whimper of emotion.

“I’m going to Brugia,” he said. “I know the language. I can pass as a merchant, a mercenary, whatever. I’ve heard she’s being held at the Count of Luxe’s castle in Beauvoir. I will go there in disguise to see if I can get work at the castle.”

“But if someone finds out who you are . . .” she moaned.

He shook his head. “How would they guess? I’ve ordered my captain, Jeremy, to continue launching raids against Deford. Everyone thinks I am there. The king forbade me to try to rescue her.” He clenched his teeth. “But I will not obey him. His heart has become blacker than flint over these past months. He has forgotten who put the crown on his head.” He shook his head no. “But I haven’t. And I will do anything to save you and our babe, Jianne. I am determined to do this. If I can free her, then I will bring her here secretly. We will both be here when the babe comes.”

Jianne looked miserable. He was breaking her heart with this news, but he could not allow fate to take its course, not when he knew he had the wits and courage to enter his enemy’s lands and take back what was theirs. The Maid of Donremy belonged to Occitania.

“Hold me,” Jianne murmured, rising from the bench. He wrapped his arms around her, and she pressed her face against his chest and sobbed. They stood silently for a long moment, feeling the weight of the situation crushing against them. He tried to reassure her, to give her courage. But she was terrified by the great risk he was taking.

“What if they’ve taken her to Kingfountain?” she asked him, looking up into his eyes.

He frowned. “Then that is where I will go to find her,” he whispered, knowing it wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.

Her eyelids closed and she nodded in resignation. She would not thwart his goal, although he could see she did not support it. Even the risk of losing their child wasn’t enough for her to willingly risk losing him.

“I love you, Jianne,” he whispered.

Rather than answer him, she pulled away and walked to the window. She put one hand on her lower back, the other on her belly.

His entire soul was scorched with the desperation of the situation. She hadn’t noticed the sword and scabbard belted to his hip. There was power in its magic and he could feel it. There was protection for his quest.

But it still meant parting from her once again.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Beauvoir Castle





Finding out where they were keeping Genette—Luxe Tower—had proved ludicrously simple once he arrived in Brugia, disguised as a wandering mercenary in search of a lord. News of her capture and confinement had traveled far and wide. He managed to hold his tongue when people slandered her in his presence. The most common one was the Maid of Donremy was a water sprite come to wreak havoc on mortals with her magic. One man insisted he knew someone who had been at Shynom when she had presented herself to Chatriyon. The tale he’d heard was that a servant had spilled a cup on water on her and she hadn’t gotten wet. He did not dare contradict these tales, even the lurid ones, including a rumor that the Maid was not truly a maid at all but one of the king’s lovers. Some even insinuated that she was his lover.

He had learned the language as part of his childhood education, but one of the guards he had met in his long captivity had given him the chance to practice its nuances better. Getting to Brugia was easy enough after paying a fare from a Genevese merchant.

Alensson was used to being a beggar, and he quickly found work guarding a merchant caravan bound for Luxe Tower. While he traveled, he kept alert for news of Genette. Negotiations for her ransom were underway with the palace of Kingfountain. Despite the Brugians’ efforts to drive up the price they’d get from Deford, Chatriyon still wouldn’t bid for her. As the weeks passed, Alensson picked up more of the local dialects, but being a mercenary gave him a lot of flexibility, and people didn’t expect him to be a learned man.

When the caravan reached the city of Luxe with its load of pickled sardines and cucumbers, the caravan captain offered him permanent work if the count wasn’t interested in hiring him. Alensson thanked him for the offer, but he needed to find a position that would give him better access to the tower. To Genette.

He applied to see the castellan of Beauvoir, but the guards sent him away. The man was too busy, they said, so Alensson found a room at one of the three inns and prepared to hunker down.

The news he had dreaded arrived the next day.

Deford and Philip had finally reached an agreement. The Maid had been sold to Ceredigion for ten thousand marks. A ship with the gold would be arriving shortly with orders to bring the girl to the palace.

That meant he needed to find a way to get her free before the ship arrived.