“Is there any way to speed up . . .” He waves his hand, unwilling to ask the gruesome question again.
“What has happened?”
“Answer the question!”
“The only way to do such a thing is to leave the corpse out in the hot sun. That is known to speed such . . . processes up.”
The king strokes his chin, staring into the fire. “But it is winter. We’ve had but a handful of sunny days and none of them warm.”
I wait, hoping he will give me some explanation. Instead he asks another question. “Would someone of your size and skill be able to overpower a much larger man?”
This must have something to do with Sybella. “It depends. In a face-to-face conflict, likely not. But if stealth is used, yes. It is possible to sneak up on a man and render him helpless.” Render him helpless seems a safer choice of words than kill him.
“What if he was on a horse?”
“A horse?” I echo, willing him to tell me more, but again, he does not. “That would present a number of difficulties.” I have no doubt anyone with their full training from the convent could do such a thing, but that was not his question. “Being mounted would give the man great advantage in height, as well as the added protection of his horse’s formidable legs and hooves. So no, I do not know how one could use stealth on someone astride a horse.” Unless one dropped out of a tree or from a roof, but I do not share that with him. He views women so narrowly, sees us as so incapable, that I have only to encourage his belief in that lie.
Unexpectedly, he looks up from the fire, his eyes unnaturally bright. “Would Sybella kill to protect the queen?”
“Yes,” I answer without hesitation. “Or you, if you were threatened.”
He makes a sound of disgust and looks back at the fire.
“Why does that answer displease you?”
With the toe of his boot, he reaches out to nudge a log. “A body has been found. All signs point to Sybella being the killer.”
“And you wished to see if my answers matched hers.”
“Not her answers, but the evidence. As king, I must judge and weigh the evidence.”
“And have you?”
He shoves away from the mantel and lifts a flagon of wine from a small table by the fireplace. “My bishops say that this is a sign from God that, if not the Nine, then certainly those who worship Mortain have gone too far. The knowledge and familiarity with death that she demonstrates belong only in the hands of God. They think that Mortain is encroaching on His power, eroding His position as the one true God.”
Much as the king’s advisors and sister have been doing with him. No wonder he holds natural sympathy for such a position—and what a ruthlessly clever approach to take. I wonder which one of them thought of it.
“But, sire, surely Mortain’s power, and that of those who follow him, is derived from God Himself. Is it not equally unorthodox to question how God chooses to manifest His power in the world?”
He pauses in his pouring of the wine. “I did not know you were a philosopher.”
“No philosopher, Your Majesty. Only someone who has tried to reconcile this very issue since I was old enough to understand it.”
“But of course you would have been taught logic that supported your convent’s position.” He sets the decanter down. “General Cassel says that the entire issue is moot. That she is an assassin, a weapon trained to kill.” His words cause a thrum of pride deep in my own chest. “If not this man, someone else. If not now, then in the future. Best to neutralize her before harm is done.”
“But what if her purpose is to protect someone? Yourself or the queen?”
He swirls the wine in his glass, staring at it. “That is precisely what she claimed. Have you been speaking to her again?”
“It is our convent’s mission and not unusual we would both suggest such a thing.”
He says nothing, but shifts his gaze to the fire. After a moment, I cannot help but ask, “Will you take your advisors’ suggestions?”
He tosses back his wine, taking half of it in one gulp. “You have nothing to fear.”
“I am not worried about myself.”
“Ah, yes,” he says. “You already have me wrapped around your finger. It is your convent sister you are worried about.”
I cannot help it, I laugh, even though it is unwise. “Wrapped around my finger! Every time I am with you, I must fear your wrath, some punishment, or the further erosion of trust between us. If that is wrapping a man around one’s finger, then I am glad that is not ever something I aspired to.”
His face shifts, and his eyes look faintly bruised, as if I have wounded him in some way. He glances at the painting on the wall behind me, his grip on the goblet growing more pronounced. I hold my breath, wondering if he will succumb to the demands of his father, reaching out from the grave. “I have never hurt you.”
“No, you haven’t. As I have told you before, your honor and chivalry are the things I admire most about you.” It is not meant to be flattering, but an appeal to his better nature. The one I know he possesses. The one everybody else is fighting to destroy.
And in that moment, I recognize that he and I are fighting the same war. I was so hungry for the world’s respect that I forced myself onto a path that robbed me of my own. I would spare him from making that same mistake—especially with the lives of so many hanging in the balance.
Chapter 17
I arrive at Sybella’s chamber dressed in the clothes of one of the maids—Saria, who is sleeping off a night of too much drink. Her cap is drawn close around my hair so that it shadows my face, and my eyes are cast down at the heavy bucket I carry rather than on the guards at the door. “May I take my lady her wash water?” I ask.
Tired and bored from a long night of tedious duty, they nod and step forward to open the door without knocking.
Sybella whirls from the path she was pacing in front of the hearth. When she sees it is me, she gives a brusque nod.
Things must be worse than I thought if she does not try to chase me away.
Once I hear the door closed firmly behind me, I carry the bucket to the hearth and set it down.
“Were you able to get an audience with the queen?” Sybella all but pounces. In truth, she looks as if her bones are trying to gnaw their way out of her skin.
“Yes, and she was glad for the information, if distressed to learn of it.”
She studies my appearance. “Are you finally to suffer consequences for your role in deceiving the king and the regent and be relegated to the position of scullery maid?”
“The king is decidedly not happy with me and lets me know in small ways. And, surely having to put up with his inept sexual threats counts as some punishment. I would not wish that on anyone.”
Her mouth quirks in one corner ever so slightly, but it feels like a victory. A moment later, she takes two steps toward me. “Has he forced himself on you? Harmed you in any way?”
It takes me a moment to recognize her concern for me. “Other than berating me for my heartless treachery, no. He is wroth with me, but still willing to listen. Still wanting . . . to recapture what he thought we had.” Oddly, I find myself blushing at this, embarrassed at this strange infatuation the king has acquired for me. I lift the bucket and carry it to the washstand. “He is still coming to grips with all that he has just learned. Torn between what he wants and hopes for and what his bishops and General Cassel are whispering in his ear.”
“You would do well to steer well clear of General Cassel,” Sybella says, an unaccustomed weight to her words.
I set the bucket down. “Why? What do you know of him?”
Sybella blinks in surprise. “What do you know of him?”
I curse myself and the curiosity that led me into this trap. I’ve no wish to tell Sybella of Maraud, but by the look she gives me, if I choose not to, I will be giving up all chance of earning her trust. “I learned of him when I was at Cognac. There was a prisoner in the dungeon. We came
to be acquainted, and he spoke often of General Cassel’s brutality and lack of honor on the battlefield.”
Sybella raises her eyebrows in mild surprise. “A prisoner told you all this?”
I lift the bucket and fill the ewer with fresh water. “As I said, he was in a dungeon—an oubliette—and left to die. He had no one else to talk to, and it seemed important to learn what I could.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.” How much to tell her? I do not know how the queen feels about the Crunard family and will not risk exposing Maraud. At least not until I better understand the political implications. “I learned he was hidden away in the dungeon by order of the regent.”
“Why?”
I stare down at the washstand and try to hold off the nearly suffocating sense of loss thinking of Maraud always brings. “Something both he and I would like to know.”
“Where is he now?”
“I may have taken pity on him and freed him when I left.”
Sybella folds her arms and studies me as if I have just sprouted two small goat horns atop my head. “I can’t decide if that was honorable or stupid. Did you know why he was in prison? What if you released a murderous outlaw?”
“I told you, he was a soldier and, from his story, wrongfully imprisoned.” I remove a linen cloth from my belt and wipe at a drop of water that spilled. “It was becoming clear that the regent was no ally, and surely our enemies’ enemy is our friend.” I do not tell her that I was also irked at Count Angoulême and this seemed a way to muddy his life as much as he’d muddied mine.
“That is true sometimes, but you have no idea what his crimes were or who he will harm.”
“He will not harm anyone, except Cassel if they meet. Now, if you’ve finished interrogating me, I’ve come to offer my help. Father Effram told me what has happened.”
Her eyes burn with ire, as if she cannot believe Father Effram’s audacity, but bleakness lurks there as well.
“Let me help.”
“Very well.” She forces the words between her lips as if they were thorns.
“Surely it does not have to hurt so very much to accept it.”
She reaches out and grabs my arm, nearly causing my elbow to knock over the bucket. “I do not have time to coat my words in sugar and honey so they are easier for you to swallow. Two young girls’ lives hang in the balance. Will you help me or not?”
I do not pull away, but stare into her eyes, which are dark with fear, but not for herself. “Do you know where your sisters are?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
She lifts one slender shoulder. “I may be willing to trust you with my life, but not with theirs. Not yet, anyway.”
Fair enough. “It doesn’t matter. What needs to be done?”
“There is someone I must kill.”
At her words, a faint thrill runs through me. The convent’s work. “Who?”
“The lawyer Simon de Fremin. But it cannot look as if I have done so, for they know I am an assassin. And I do not have the king’s protection.”
“So you want me to kill him for you?” I try not to let my excitement show in my voice.
The look she gives me is one she might give a besotted fool. “To be clear, I will do the killing. I would not ask that of you. But I need help with access, supplies. A plan.”
I nod, waiting for her to continue.
“Fremin was sent by my brother to abduct my sisters. He has been given orders to take possession of them by fair means or foul. He is desperate. Furthermore, since the king knows you are an assassin too, we should avoid implicating you in the death as well. His fondness will only protect you so much.”
“Fondness is not the word you are looking for,” I mutter. “Fondness was booted out the palace door once I told him of the convent and my involvement with it.”
“Then why is he still summoning you?”
“Punishment. Humiliation. Loneliness. He wishes for us to go back to the way we were before I told him. So, tell me of this brother of yours who would kill a lawyer for acceding to an order from the king.”
Her face grows stark and drawn. “If you cross a d’Albret, you pay with your life.”
I take in her delicate features, her beauty. Even with her apparent lethalness I cannot believe she is related. “Is your brother named Pierre, by any chance?”
She grows unnaturally still. “Do you know him?”
I grimace. “Unfortunately, I have had occasion to meet him.” I remember his horses nearly running down the children in the road, the test he put Maraud through before we left the city of Angoulême, and the small army he sent after us. “The good news is that I believe every word that you say. You do not need to convince me. You said your sisters were safely gone. What power does the lawyer still have over them?”
Her hands ball in her skirts. “He has deduced that I had them removed from the palace. Since only he and I are interested in them, it was inevitable that he would figure it out. This recently discovered body hands him one more weapon in making his case to the king.”
I hold my tongue, afraid that if I speak, she will stop sharing her secrets.
“If I am absolved of this murder, I am certain Fremin will tell the king the man was sent by my brother and that I killed him. It will be too much proof for the king to ignore. He will have to act.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Why?” She tilts her head. “Why would you risk the king’s favor to help?”
“Because if not for me, they—you—would not be in danger now. Besides, it is Mortain’s work, after all.”
She is silent a long moment. “No.” She returns to the window. “It is not.”
Disbelief scuttles along my spine. “You wish to kill outside Mortain’s grace?”
A smile that feels more like despair flashes briefly, then it is gone. “Mortain’s marques do not align so conveniently with our own wishes.”
And of course, that is true.
She looks away, staring at something outside. “Actually, that is not the whole truth. The nature of Mortain’s marques has changed some—”
A sharp rap on the door interrupts her words. We barely have time to stop our tongues from moving before the regent herself strides in, head held at an imperious angle, face white with anger.
I am much quicker to curtsy than Sybella, desperately wishing to hide my face. “Madame Regent,” Sybella drawls. Her voice holds a note of challenge I do not understand—until I realize that she is doing it for me. To keep the regent’s attention on herself. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
The regent lifts her hand to shoo me out of the room. Even though my head is down and she normally acts as if servants are invisible, as I scuttle to the door, her haughty gaze flicks over me. Her hand freezes in midair. “Genevieve?”
Sybella momentarily forgotten, she takes three steps closer to where I hover by the door. “What are you doing here?” Her voice is a low thrum of anger. “You were told—warned—to stay away from this woman.”
I bob another curtsy and keep my eyes downcast. “Madame, she is not a leper. There is no—”
“You know nothing.”
I open my mouth even as my brain scrambles for some clever excuse. Behind the regent, Sybella gives a sharp shake of her head, and my mouth snaps shut.
“Go,” the regent says. “Wait for me in your chambers.”
“Very well, Madame.” Her gaze sweeps from my head down to my feet, taking in my maid’s garb. Desperate to remove myself before her clever brain can catch up, I quit the room.
* * *
In the hallway, I force my movements to a casualness I do not feel, as if I am naught but a servant on her rounds. I saunter past the two guards at Sybella’s door and into the room next to hers. Once inside, I hurry to the adjoining wall.
“How do you know each other?” the regent asks.
“I introduced myself shortly after she arrived at court, nearly a week ago. She h
ad not seen me in a few days and came to see if I was ill or in need of anything.”
“How kind of her.” Even through the thick stone, the regent’s voice is as tart as an unripe quince. “Although that does not quite explain why she is in servant’s garb.”
Rutting hell. She has begun to piece the puzzle together. Sybella diverts her. “You wished to see me?”
“Not really, but I bring you a message. The king has declared that the cause of death for the body that was found was accidental. You have been absolved of all charges.”
For a moment, elation fills me. The king followed the evidence. It quickly fades when I realize that Sybella will have no choice but to kill Fremin now.
But she will not have to do it alone.
* * *
Moments later, when my door bursts open without so much as a knock, I am sitting by the fire, stitching my embroidery. The regent wastes no time with preamble. “What were you doing in Lady Sybella’s room?”
“I hadn’t seen her since the first day she introduced herself and worried she was unwell. The queen has been ill, after all.”
“You went to check on her even after I forbade you to?”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Forbade, Madame? I had thought it was a warning not to socialize with her, not a command to ignore simple Christian courtesy.”
She takes a step closer. “You were dressed as a maidservant.”
I stare at her, wide-eyed. “I have only two gowns, including the one you secured for me. I did not want to risk ruining either of those if she was ill.”
“Only two gowns? I wonder if that is true.” She strides abruptly from me to my travel bag and begins rifling through the contents. I try to tamp down my racing pulse and force myself to watch her calmly. Not finding anything of interest there, she goes to the bed to toss back the covers, then throws aside the pillows. When that yields up nothing, she casts her gimlet gaze on the rest of the room.
“May I ask what you are looking for, Madame? I assure you I have not stolen anything.”
“Only my trust.”
I carefully set the embroidery hoop down in my lap to give her my full attention. “That was never my intent, my lady.”
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