My head snaps up. “I . . . I’m not certain. My mind was not focused on the time.”
She purses her lips, studying me. “Why was Lady Sybella in your chambers yesterday morning?”
I blink at the unwelcome change of subject. I have no idea why the king hasn’t shared my association with the convent with the regent, but the longer I can hold that off, the better. I can use womanly charm to soften the king’s ire, but have nothing with which to soften the regent’s.
“She had heard you had a new attendant and wished to introduce herself.”
“How friendly of her.” The regent’s voice is more acidic than verjuice. “You are to avoid her. She is too loyal to the queen and will sniff out the king’s interest in you like a hound will a fox. Besides, her fortune at court is about to change. Best you are far away so that you are not caught in the undertow.”
A fresh wave of anger surges over me, but all I say is, “Of course, Madame. I am not here to make friends, but to serve both you and the king to the best of my ability.”
As she disappears down the corridor, I resume my walking. The regent’s warnings ring in my ears, and the king’s handprint throbs upon my chin, both of them doing nothing to calm my growing outrage. The king may expect me to feel grateful for his protection, but he will quickly find that while I may be a fool, I am no coward. I will not let others take the blame for what I have done.
Chapter 8
Maraud
Something was missing. Maraud couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but its absence was palpable. It wasn’t until he laid out his bedroll that it hit him. Lucinda.
And how many different kinds of fool did that make him?
“So, have you decided where we’re going?”
Maraud nodded. “Flanders.”
The others exchanged a glance. “General Cassel?”
He nodded again. Everyone fell silent. “What about d’Albret?” Andry asked. “You had wanted us to check on him—before you asked us to ride ahead and meet up with you. Don’t you still want to know what he’s up to?”
“I do. After I bring Cassel to justice.”
The silence that followed was filled only by the faint crackling of the small fire and the occasional stomp of a horse’s hoof. “Are you sure?” Jaspar’s voice was filled with something Maraud didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Saints, yes.”
“But you said Lucinda needed to save someone. We all agreed to help her.”
“What part of she poisoned me do you not understand?”
“But that’s your thing, Maraud. You’re the savingest mercenary I’ve ever met. Are you going to let a little poison come between you and—”
Maraud met his eyes across the campfire. “No. She made her wishes perfectly clear.”
With a sigh, Jaspar relented.
But not Valine. “You said yourself that she was trying to save you from possible repercussions with the queen and unfair punishment.”
Her words cause something hot and hard to lodge in Maraud’s stomach. “She didn’t trust me enough to let me help.”
“Did you give her reason to?” Valine’s voice is pitched low, low enough that it reaches only him. “She seemed genuinely surprised to see us when we showed up at Camulos’s Cup. You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Don’t you have first watch?”
“No, Andry does. You told her only half your story, and yet you’re mad because she didn’t trust you? I’d say she was smart not to. And you would too if your judgment wasn’t so clouded.”
“The poison is well out of my system.”
“I wasn’t talking about the poison. We call you Your Lordship for a reason, you know. You can be high-handed and arrogant, so convinced in the rightness of your decisions that you don’t feel the need to include others in the process. I don’t pretend to know all of what went on between you two, but what I saw of her I liked. And I know you. So I ask again, given the position she was in, and your own pigheadedness, did you give her enough reason to trust you?”
Maraud scoffed, but she was already heading for her bedroll and missed it.
Lucinda was pricklier than a thorn bush and possessed the foul temper of a maddened goose. An image she was all too eager to embrace, ensuring the entire world saw her that way.
But thorns were merely a means of self-protection.
“Bollocks,” he muttered. Thoughts—and questions—about Lucinda had haunted him every night since they parted ways. Why did she come riding to his aid at Camulos’s Cup, then refuse his help? It ate at him that he would likely be dead if she hadn’t come back. And she refused to allow him to repay the favor. Why? What was she so afraid of that she was willing to poison him to avoid?
Valine’s question was just one of the many that hounded him the entire way to Flanders.
Chapter 9
Genevieve
“Wake up!” Sybella’s voice yanks me from my sleep. Certain I had locked my door, I reach for the knife under my pillow, then decide she would not wake me up if she intended to kill me. Probably.
“Why, ’tis as if the sunshine itself has appeared in my room,” I mutter.
“You have precisely five minutes to get dressed, else I will take you to the queen in your undergarments.”
I sit up and shove the hair out of my face. “The who?”
“The queen. You wished to speak with her. She has granted your request.”
My heart hammers in my chest as I stand and reach for my gown. “I am surprised she agreed to see me.”
“Our queen has never been one to shy away from facing problems head-on.”
Under Sybella’s cool, dispassionate gaze, I finish dressing, and quickly arrange my hair. She gives me one last second to splash water on my face before saying, “Let’s go.”
She eases the door open, peeks outside, then motions for me to follow. It is early yet, and the hallways are empty.
“Is our meeting a secret?”
She sends me a scathing look over her shoulder. “No. I want to sneak up on the herald before I have him announce our arrival.”
I open my mouth to shoot back a retort but am cut off when she stops walking and shoves me against the wall. Seconds later, a cluster of servants bearing buckets hurries by. Sybella swears, then glances around once more before resuming. “This way.”
Stepping softly, I follow her, hugging the wall like she does so that we are not immediately visible to any passersby. All too soon, we arrive at the double doors of the queen’s apartments. “Stay hidden, then follow once I give the signal,” Sybella whispers. As the sentries open the door to let her in, she twitches her fingers at me, and I slip in close on her heels. I barely have time to take in the sumptuousness of the queen’s solar—the sunlight spilling in from the large oriel windows, the ornately carved wooden legs of the chairs, the gold and red wall hangings—before Sybella urges me along. “Hurry. The regent-appointed attendants will be here any moment.”
I step smartly to keep up with Sybella. When she knocks once on the door, a short, dark-haired woman opens it. She gives me a curious look before slipping out. Sybella takes my arm and pulls me into the queen’s bedchamber.
As soon as we are inside, Sybella dips a curtsy. “Genevieve is here, Your Majesty.”
I sink into a curtsy as well. Sybella quietly removes herself, closing the door behind her.
The queen says nothing for a long time. When she finally speaks, her voice is low with cold fury. “How dare you? You—the convent—serve me. My interests.”
Still in a curtsy, I say, “With all due respect, Your Majesty, we serve the interest of Mortain and those of Brittany.”
There is a sharp intake of breath. “Are you saying I do not serve the interests of either of those?”
“Most assuredly not, Your Majesty. I am only saying that throughout the history of the country, they have not always been one and the same, which is why the convent made certain we understood the distinction.”
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br /> “You may stand,” she says with a sniff. “It is too hard to hear you when you talk to the floor.”
I straighten, but keep my eyes downcast, catching only the faintest glimpse of her pale face and dark hair. She is small, I realize. Smaller than I had expected.
“How did bedding my lord husband serve Mortain, pray tell? Or Brittany, if that was your intent.”
Slowly, I raise my gaze to hers, which is filled with deep intelligence, keen wit, and grievous displeasure. “Please know that while my reasoning will sound faulty in the retelling, it seemed solid at the time.”
This causes her finely arched eyebrows to rise—whether in displeasure or surprise at my frankness, I do not know. “However,” I go on to explain, “serving the interests of both Mortain and Brittany was precisely what I was trying to do. There had been rumors that you had been abducted, or perhaps forced into this union. That it was so sudden only served to make those rumors seem likely. I was making plans to come to court to offer my services to you when I was told that the convent was being disbanded. That news seemed to point to the rumors of your coercion being true, and it appeared the worst was coming to pass—you had been taken by the French crown, and they intended to crush the very things that Brittany holds most sacred. How could I not act?”
She inhales deeply and looks away to the fire for a moment. “And how was sleeping with my lord husband to help with any of that?”
“Such is the nature of men, Your Majesty. They will promise you anything once they take a fancy to you. I thought to collect on an old promise.”
Her slim white fingers grip the arms of her chair. “That is not how things work in my world. Indeed, it is I who have always been promised to men as reward for their political support. Or who must make promises and concessions to them once they have shown interest in me. Or my lands.”
Rutting hell. But of course she has been a pawn in men’s games of politics and power. With the sort of men she was expected to marry, she could never, under any circumstances, think to exercise her own choice in any of these matters. “Forgive me. Our circumstances are very different, and my words were poorly chosen.”
“It was not the only poorly chosen part of this entire enterprise.”
“Knowing what I know now, I cannot help but agree with you.”
She blinks, as if not expecting my quick agreement.
“I am doing everything in my power to correct my error, Your Majesty.” I wince, as error seems such a mild word for all that I have thrown into disarray. “I have downplayed the role of the convent in Brittany’s politics and told the king I did not know if you had knowledge of its existence. And while I will always serve as his loyal subject, I will no longer warm his bed. At least, not willingly.” I pause. “Unless you’d like me to?” It is an unwelcome thought, and not an offer made lightly, but if it would serve her in some way, it seems the least I could do.
She stares at me, agog, her cheeks bright pink. “Whyever would I want you to do such a thing?”
I shrug. “There are many reasons. If you are not fond of the marriage bed, you can know that his needs are being met by someone who is loyal to you. Or if you would like to enjoy the marriage bed more, I can teach him better ways to please you.”
The queen’s hands fly to her face, which is a vivid shade of scarlet. “Demoiselle, stop!”
My stomach grows queasy. Am I destined to always misstep with her? “I did not mean to distress you! I thought only to offer my services to make amends any way I can.”
“Well, you may rest assured you have offered me something no one else ever has before,” she says wryly. “Nor will I require that particular service as a path to atonement.”
Her words give me hope that there will be some path to atonement.
“Tell me of this letter you received.”
I tell her of the letter, of how the handwriting looked right, and that the official convent seal was affixed upon it. When I have finished, she stares off into the distance, tapping her finger on her chin. “What could Count Angoulême have to gain from this?”
“I have spent hours pondering that very question and have yet to arrive at an answer.”
“Well, if one occurs to you, please inform me at once.”
That tiny bud of hope inside me unfurls a bit more. “But of course, Your Majesty.” It is hard to tell, but I think she holds less animosity toward me than when I first arrived. Saints, please let it be so!
I want, more than anything, to prove my loyalty to her. To prove that it is still she and the convent I serve. “Your Majesty, there is something else you should know.”
She stares at me quizzically. “Yes?”
“The regent was glad that I had come back to court and thought to use me in a scheme of her own.”
The queen frowns. “What sort of scheme?”
It is all I can do not to squirm, not for my own sake but because it is still so hard to believe it of the regent. “She wished to install me in her brother’s bed. Only instead of asking clemency for the convent, she wished me to report everything I learned directly to her.”
The queen looks as if she will be sick. “She was the one who placed you in my husband’s bed?”
“No! As much as I would like to blame her for that, it was my own mistake entirely. But she was most invested in using the king’s interest in me for her own ends. I refused. My loyalty was only ever to the convent and Brittany. It was never for sale.”
She is quiet a long moment as she studies me, and I would give a sack of gold coins to know what she is truly thinking. “Thank you for telling me, Genevieve,” she says at last.
Her words bring a flood of relief rushing through my limbs. “The regent is as cunning and devious as a fox, and twice as dangerous. Her ruthlessness in securing the interests of the crown knows no bounds.”
“Oh, believe me, I am aware.” She falls quiet again, and so I wait. I do not know for what—a sentence, required penance, banishment? Or mayhap some task to perform to make it up to her. Instead, she simply dismisses me. Whether that will be the end of it or I must wait for whatever ax she plans to hang over my head, I do not know.
Chapter 10
Sybella
It requires an enormous effort to keep from putting my ear to the door to listen to Genevieve and the queen’s meeting. Instead, I try to look as if I am not waiting, but here for a purpose. I pick up someone’s discarded embroidery hoop and begin stitching, my hands grateful for the small task.
Will the queen punish Genevieve? Banish her? Is that the best thing to be done with the girl? Hard to know if she can be trusted—not simply her loyalty, but her judgment. For all of Father Effram’s assurances that she meant well, it is difficult to imagine giving her a second chance.
Yet how many second chances have I been given?
The outer door opens, and I brace myself for the barbs from the regent’s ladies who attend the queen. My tension eases somewhat when I recognize Elsibet. At least until the look of concern on her face registers.
“My lady, they are looking for you.”
“They?”
“The steward. The king has requested your presence in his chamber at once.”
Merde. What new accusation can Fremin have dreamed up? “Thank you, Elsibet.” I frown at the queen’s door. “Would you please see that Genevieve is escorted back to her rooms when the queen is done with her? As discreetly as possible, if you please.”
* * *
There are two additional faces among the king’s retinue this morning. The Bishop of Albi and the Bishop of Narbonne appear to be part of his council now. This cannot bode well.
Just as he was two days ago, the king’s personal confessor is perched on his left shoulder. To his right stand General Cassel and the captain of the king’s personal guard, Captain Stuart. Beyond them, as if an afterthought—or a puppet master gently pulling the strings—is the regent. Foreboding unfurls inside me, sharpening my senses. Stall them, I remind myself. I must
only stall them long enough that Beast can get the girls to the convent. After that, none of this will matter.
The steward escorts me to the middle of the room, then excuses himself. The king says nothing, but pins his gaze on me. “Monsieur Fremin tells me he has not found his men.”
The lawyer is looking faintly smug again. “I have not.”
The Bishop of Albi leans over and whispers something in the Bishop of Narbonne’s ear.
“And you, demoiselle? I presume you have not managed to locate them either?”
“No, sire, but I did learn that a large group rode out three days ago. Perhaps the stable master would be able to confirm if it was Sir Fremin’s men or not.” Of course, those riding out were Beast and the girls, but they made sure to do that well away from the hearing of the stable master—or anyone.
The king’s eyes narrow with speculation. “I will make inquiries. And what of your sisters? Have you located them, by chance?”
I do not have to fake the tension that holds my shoulders in a viselike grip. “No, Your Majesty.” I make my voice tremble along the edges, just enough for him to think I am filled with distress and not considering all of them with the cold calculation of the assassin he accuses me of being. “But mayhap we should ask the stable master if they were with the group riding out.”
“Your Majesty,” Fremin interjects. “I must protest. My men would never take their leave without my permission.”
The Bishop of Albi gives a smug nod of approval, although why he thinks he would know anything about Fremin’s men and how they would behave is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is simply his faith in the orderliness of the world.
I incline my head politely. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, we have only his word that he has not granted his men permission to leave.” I glance at the lawyer, hoping he will consider the out I am about to offer him. “Besides, they are not truly his men, but my brother’s. Who knows what orders Pierre may have given them separate from the orders he gave his lawyer?”
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