Mortal Heart

by Robin LaFevers

  “But of course we will help.” Floris looks out toward the twinkling campfires of the French. “They will have the city fully surrounded in another day or two.”

  “I know. There has been a steady flood of refugees ever since their banners were first spotted.”

  “They’d best hurry, for once the French are in position, no one will be able to get in or out of the city.”

  In the silence that follows, I wish to ask her if she will tell me her story of Arduinna and Mortain, to see if it is the same as the one Father Effram and Mortain have told me. But as closely as they hold their secrets, I dare not ask. Especially not in front of so many.

  The following day, Duval, Dunois, and Beast spend their time poring over maps, trying to mark the French encampments. The duchess excuses herself and retires to her solar. Or tries to. She is exhausted but too ill at ease to be able to rest. In the end, she takes herself and her ladies off to the cathedral to pray beside Isabeau’s tomb.

  I have little enough to do except worry about Ismae and miss Sybella, who awoke late while we were in the council meeting and has now taken herself to the convent of Brigantia to spend time with her sisters. Isabeau’s passing has made them all the more precious to her.

  As I pace in front of the fireplace, my eyes fall on the black box, now splintered and broken, and I remember the arrow. I hurry over and dig through the wreckage. The moment my fingers touch the slim, dark wood, a deep knowing runs through my fingers. I pull the arrow out and carry it over to study it in the light from the window.

  I think of the story both Father Effram and Mortain told me, how Death’s capturing Amourna was naught but a mistake, a wretched, human mistake, and how it was Arduinna whom he had loved all those centuries.

  I think of the Arduinnites, who have refused to share their story with anyone and let us all assume it was because they did not wish to contradict either Dea Matrona or Amourna and prove either of them wrong. But of a certainty, pride goes hand in hand with ferocity. What if they simply could not bear for the world to know that Arduinna had been rejected for her younger, fairer sister? Floris as much as admitted that Mortain had played her goddess false.

  The fragment of the arrow I hold is older than anything I have ever seen except for the standing stones and cromlechs that litter the countryside like discarded playthings of the gods. The wood is so hard as to almost be stone, and the arrowhead is of some metal—bronze, I think—gone black with age.

  The implications send me reeling, for they are almost too incredible to believe. And yet . . .

  And yet, why else would an ancient arrow be kept in the heart of the convent, concealed in a box with no means of opening it, as if Mortain himself were hoarding some small keepsake of his lost love?

  What if I am holding the last of Arduinna’s arrows in the palm of my hand, a true relic of the gods?

  My mind gallops over everything I have ever heard said of Arduinna and her arrows. That they fly straight and sure, that they never miss, and that they bring the pain of true love to those that they strike.

  My pulse starts to race. What if we could take this relic, the ancient weapon, and find a way to use it to the duchess’s advantage?

  As I turn the arrow over and over in my hand, an idea of how to not only avert war but turn this defeat into a triumph for our duchess begins to form. A triumph of not just politics, but the heart.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “WELL?” I ASK IMPATIENTLY. “Do you think it could work?”

  Father Effram studies the arrow, his hands tucked into his sleeves as if he is afraid to touch it. “It is possible . . .” He looks up at me, his eyes alight with excitement. “Probable, even, for as you say, why else would the convent of Mortain have held on to such a thing for so long?” He reaches out, his fingers hovering just above the arrow. “How very old it must be,” he muses.

  “But what if I am wrong?” I clasp my hands together and begin to pace. “I do not wish to kill the king of France.”

  “Don’t you?” He cocks his head, truly curious.

  “No.”

  He nods. “Well, then, I suppose there is one way to be certain. You will need to ask your abbess—”

  “She does not know.”

  “Well, someone should have the answers you seek. I admit, it is a most appealing idea.”

  “I know the duchess does not wish all those deaths on her conscience,” I tell him. “And I know she is worried sick for all the countrymen who must die if we go to war. It is the only way I can think of to avert bloodshed.”

  “Perhaps it is even worth the king’s life,” he suggests.

  “No,” I say sharply. “It is not. Besides, the French regent would only seek retaliation, which would be swift and far more brutal than a simple war.”

  “If a war can ever be called simple,” he murmurs. We stare at the arrow a moment longer.

  “How do I ensure that if the king is struck with it, he will fall in love with the duchess rather than the one who has shot the arrow?”

  His answer is swift and sure. “By putting the duchess’s blood on it.”

  I look up at him in surprise, and he gives a sheepish shrug. “It is the only option that makes sense.”

  I gently pick up the arrow, lay it on the length of velvet, and roll the fabric back up, my movements slow and reluctant. “I suppose it is time for me to have a talk with someone who knows.”

  Because of my duties for the duchess, I am unable to slip away to the battlements for three days. The entire city is preparing for both a war and a siege, and the duchess’s presence and authority are in much demand, as she is forced to make hard decision after hard decision. How many of the hundreds of people fleeing the threat of war can she allow into the city before our resources and supplies are stretched so thin that we assure only our own deaths by starvation or our quick surrender? Which of the many foreign troops that are garrisoned in the city can be trusted not to abandon their posts? Or worse, switch sides, given that they have been paid only a small portion of their fees and have little hope of receiving anything more than sad little coins made of leather, essentially worthless? It is one long endless heartbreak for her, and I do not envy her the task.

  “You returned.”

  Balthazaar’s voice unfurls from the darkness in the corner, and I whirl around to face him. “I did not mean to stay away so long,” I say. “The duchess is beset by problems and we are busier than I would have imagined. She also misses Isabeau and hates being alone, and so she keeps me nearly constantly at her side.”

  “And you, Annith? Have you been eager to see me? Or are you still discomfited by my presence?” He says the words lightly, but something in his voice draws my gaze up to meet his. That is when I see him—Balthazaar is there in the bleakness and sorrow that lurks in Death’s eyes, and I realize that whatever skin or body he wears, his heart spoke the truth to me, and my own heart responded. Even more telling, when I was most in pain, most in need of comfort, it was him I went to. Not Ismae, not Sybella, but him.

  “I am growing accustomed to it all.” I will him to see that I am telling the truth. Something in my face must convince him, because the pain in his expression eases somewhat. He glances down at the parcel I carry.

  “What is that?”

  “It is something I must ask you about. I . . . I found it at the convent, before I left, and took it not understanding what it was.” I place the parcel on the flat surface of the crenellation and carefully unroll the velvet to reveal the arrow. I feel him stiffen beside me.

  He stares at the arrow a long time, saying nothing. After a while, he reaches out and—almost tenderly—runs his finger along its surface. “It is mine, yes.”

  “And is it also Arduinna’s?”

  He looks at me. “Yes. It is the arrow she used to pierce my heart.”

  “So that part of the tale is true, then?”

  “That she pierced my heart? Yes. But it is also true that it was pierced with love for her, not h
er sister. Nor do the tales mention that my ­hellequin—my damned hellequin—went out and captured the wrong sister, believing they were doing me a great service, for they thought her lovelier than Arduinna, and more biddable besides. They did not realize it was her ferocity and defiance that drew me to her. I knew she was one of the few who might be strong enough to survive in my kingdom.”

  “Those that follow Salonius always claimed it was a mistake.” Balthazaar snorts. “They should know, as I believe he had a hand in it.” He shakes his head as if still unable to believe it. “How could I reject Amourna and tell her it was not she I desired, but her sister? She was soft and lovely and she was much taken with the idea of being queen of the Underworld.”

  “But you loved Arduinna.”

  “Yes. And she thought I had played her false.”

  “What happened to Amourna? For she seems to have faded from the world even more than the other gods.”

  “As I said, she was soft and somewhat flighty. At first, she loved being queen, but soon it no longer entertained her—it wasn’t the pageant and festivity she had been longing for, and the pain of loving the damned became too much for her. Slowly, over the centuries, she simply faded away, as the first flush of easy love often does.”

  “And you were left alone, with neither sister.”

  He looks at me, and I feel the force of his gaze like a blow as he takes a step closer. “Until you opened your heart to me.” I fear I will drown in that gaze, but I cannot look away. Giving me time to pull back or turn my head or do any number of things to let him know he is no longer wanted, he slowly lowers his lips to mine.

  They are cool. Cooler than I remember. But the shape of them is the same, and the taste of him. But even more importantly—the need and longing his lips awaken in me has not changed. Slowly, we draw apart. “If you loved Arduinna, then why have you slept with so many women throughout the centuries?” I did not intend to ask such an artless question, but now it hangs in the air between us.

  It is hard to tell in the dark, but I think his lips twitch with a hint of amusement. However, that is quickly chased away by the bleakness that is all too familiar. “It was the only way left for me to partake of life. All the other ways that I, that Death, had been a part of life were absorbed by the new church or forgotten and no longer celebrated.”

  “Oh.” I do not know what to say to that, but it goes a long way toward relieving me of any jealousy that I had been harboring.

  “Come.” He holds out his hand, and for a moment I panic, thinking he is going to ask me to lie with him again. I can’t. Not now. Or at least, not yet, for it is all still too new and strange and . . . overwhelming. “Sit with me,” he says, then lowers himself gracefully onto the ground.

  I hesitate only a moment before allowing myself to be coaxed into joining him. We sit, stiffly, side by side. “You are one of her line, you know.”

  “Whose?”

  “Arduinna’s.”

  I pull away from his shoulder and stare at him. “What do you mean?”

  “You even bear her mark.” He slowly reaches out and places his finger just below my ear, then runs it along the sensitive skin at my throat to the back of my neck, making me shiver. “Here,” he says. “A small red starburst, Arduinna’s bite, they call it, although I do not know why, for she has never bitten anyone as far as I know.”

  “How can that be? They told me that Arduinnites were made, not born.” I reach up to feel it, but my fingers discern nothing. This does, however, awaken the memory of Tola asking about a mark I had there. She knew.

  He settles back against the wall. “Just because she marks you does not mean she has given you special skills or talents. But those who are conceived under the cloud of jealousy or through deceitful means are hers, for hers is the domain of those who feel love’s sharp bite and the pain of rejection. Whether or not they choose to act upon it is up to them.”

  My mind goes immediately to the story the abbess—my mother—told me of her desperate attempt to win Crunard’s heart, although it had already been given to another.

  “If you decided to wield that arrow, it would strike with love as permanent as if it flew from Arduinna’s own bow.” He reaches up and places his cool fingers against my cheek, turning my face toward him. “If you doubt me or my constancy, you have only to pierce me with it and you can be certain I will be yours for eternity.”

  “But what of Arduinna? She pierced you once and you have not remained faithful to her.”

  He drops his hand and turns away, but not before I see the old pain in his eyes. “That was because our ties became severed by the twin blades of pride and anger. Each of us had a hand in that. Even her gift can be eroded by those things. Eroded, but not destroyed.” His voice grows soft. “I do still love her, in a way. It is rarely a lack of love that forces two hearts apart, but other obstacles.”

  It is all too easy to conjure up all the obstacles that face us, and it is tempting, oh, so tempting, to tie his love to me for all eternity so that I am the final one he will ever love. But it is too close to what the abbess tried to do to me: to bind me so tightly to her that I could not love or live on my own, could not make my own choices. “No,” I say firmly. “I do not want a love if I must bind it to me in such a manner, for does not the very binding of it make it less like love?”

  He smiles at me, one of his rare, dazzling smiles, as if I have pleased him beyond measure. He lifts my hand and brings it up to his lips, which graze against it tenderly.

  “Besides,” I say, “there is something else I must do with it.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  AT THIS LATE HOUR, I find the duchess in her chambers. Duval is sitting with her, which causes me a moment of guilt—she must have sent for him because I was gone for so long. I sink into a deep curtsy. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace. I did not intend my errand to be such a lengthy one.”

  She smiles, but it is a pale, watery thing that hurts to look at. “It is no matter. Come in, come in.”

  Duval rises to his feet and excuses himself. Once he has left, I turn to the duchess. “I have something I would speak with you about.”

  The duchess’s interest is piqued. “Pray continue.”

  And so I lay out my plan before her, explaining the old power contained in the arrow and how it could be wielded for the country’s advantage. The duchess’s eyes grow brighter and brighter as I explain my plan, for she has struggled mightily to find some way out of this mess.

  When I am finished, hope teeters in her face, then slowly seeps away. “It is a fine idea,” she says at last. “Except that I am already married.”

  A situation that is all too easy to forget, with as little help as her lord husband has provided her.

  “Only by proxy,” I point out. “And it is not consummated. You agreed to the marriage in the belief that it would help you hold on to Brittany, but instead, it has had precisely the opposite effect, driving France to move more openly against us. It has proved a poor bargain.”

  The duchess rises to her feet, her hands clasped tightly together. “That is true, and I am sorry for it. But we are still bound before the eyes of God and the Church. We had a ceremony,” she says. “Presided over by the bishop and feted with a celebration. How can we just put that aside now? Besides”—her voice grows stronger and more laced with pride—“how can I consider marrying the man who has caused my kingdom so much woe?”

  “Your Grace, we know that it was his sister the French regent who was behind much of what has transpired, as she held the kingdom for him.” It is so easy to forget that he is just a few years older than the duchess. “We do not know how much he was consulted in her plans and strategies.”

  She presses her fingertips against her eyes. “This is all making my head spin.”

  I am immediately contrite. “I am sorry, Your Grace. I did not wish to push so hard.”

  “No, you are right to push for solutions.” The duchess gives me a grim smile. “Even though I am
not certain I can do what you suggest, I thank you for at least bringing me a new option to consider. Odd, is it not, that those who have been the most helpful to me are my bastard brother and the ones who serve the old saints the Church would just as soon deny.

  “Every one of my allies has failed to assist in any meaningful way. Especially my lord husband.” Her words are bitter and laced with pain. “Unless God or His saints send me a miracle . . .”

  “Could not this ancient magic at the heart of the old gods be a sort of miracle?” I ask softly.

  “It could, but I fear breaking my vows. Besides, how can I marry King Charles? His family has been behind every grief that has befallen mine in the past fifteen years.”

  “His family, Your Grace. Not him.” I think of the abbess and all that she has done in my name. “We cannot be held responsible for what our families do, especially when we have no way to control them.”

  She nods, conceding the point, reluctantly. “But it will be delivering Brittany right into the hands of the French—something my father fought all his life to avoid, something I have sworn to prevent at all costs.”

  “And yet,” I remind her, “you said yourself the costs might be too high. War is ugly and lives will be lost. Not only that, but in wedding the king of France, you would be setting Brittany’s true heir upon the French throne—you would bear that country’s future kings. Not an altogether bad way to maintain control of your duchy. Besides, I am not sure you are required to sacrifice your life—your chance at happiness—for your father’s goals.”

  “No! It is my wish as well. It has been ever since I can remember.”