I stop at an inn, where the innkeeper’s wife fusses over me like a mother hen. It is all I can do not to point out to her that I am an assassin trained, but the fire she sits me in front of is warm, the cup of wine she thrusts in my hand is spiced, and her ministrations are soothing. I am normally the one doing the fussing, so this is a novelty for me.
The next morning I sleep far later than I intend and do not wake until the sun is high in the pale wintry sky. Cursing myself for the lost time, I slip into the extra gown I brought, the one that does not mark me as Death’s handmaiden. Thus dressed, it will be easy enough for me to blend in with the other townsfolk, and my passing through will be less easily remembered should anyone from the convent ask after me.
Once I leave the town of Quimper behind me, I alternate between galloping and walking Fortuna, wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and the convent without exhausting my horse.
It is bitterly cold this morning, but the dampness has left the air, and the mist rolled back out to sea. There are few birds that have braved this wintry chill and their music is sparse and forlorn. The wind is sharp and biting and causes the nearby trees to rustle and shake.
The doubts I so easily ignored back at the convent begin to swarm in earnest. My plan to hold up the abbess’s half-truths and lies before her and use them to convince her to change her mind suddenly feels lacking. I now wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to wait and confront her when she returned to the convent. At least at the convent, those who truly cared that she followed our rules could add their voices to mine. Or would they? I have begun to wonder if any of them even care, else surely someone would have pushed harder against her when she sent Matelaine out.
But the abbess has already been gone several weeks, with no word of when she plans to return, and in truth, I could not bear to stay on that island any longer for fear I would go mad.
As dusk begins to fall, it becomes increasingly clear that I will not make the next town by dark. I do not know if there are any inns outside the city. There could be a convent or a monastery in which I could find lodging for the night, but I do not know that there is. My hands on Fortuna’s reins tighten in frustration, and I am suddenly beset by all that I do not know.
The only things I have seen on the road are small cottages and farms, but their occupants will no doubt question a maid traveling on her own and will likely already be sleeping six to a bed, with naught but a shriveled turnip from the last harvest to put in their soup pot.
Besides, I cannot help but notice that the farther I am from the coast, the fewer homes have the silver coins or willow twigs marking them as followers of the Nine.
Instead, I decide to camp. Up ahead, just off the side of the road, is a copse of trees that is sheltered from the worst of the cold wind. The sky above is clear, with no storm clouds threatening. Sister Thomine took us out many a night to teach us precisely such skills, so it is something that I know how to do rather than something I must simply guess at.
I pick a spot carefully, one sheltered from the road and the weather and where the ground is covered with more fallen leaves than rocks and twigs. There is even a small patch of tender grass shoots peeking up through the leaf mold—sweet grazing for Fortuna.
Once I have dried her off to be sure she will not catch a chill, I slip a rope halter on her, then tie it to a tree within easy reach of the new grass. I lay down my bedroll, then try to decide whether I should risk a small fire. While I am not afraid of drawing anyone’s attention—I am utterly capable of defending myself—neither do I wish to act foolishly. I decide on caution and pull two strips of dried meat and a chunk of stale bread from my saddlebag. As I withdraw my hand, it bumps up against the smooth black box I found in the abbess’s office.
I place my food in my lap, wipe my hands, then take out the box. As I run my fingers along the dark polished wood, I wonder once more what it might contain. At one point, I wondered if it might hold the missing ledger page, or perhaps other secrets concerning my birth. But upon reflection, I realize that makes no sense. In any case, that cannot be all it contains. I shake it gently, puzzling out the slight shift of its contents. I could break it open now, as I am well away from the convent and no one can hear me, but for some reason, I hesitate. If nothing else, a box such as this deserves to be opened with respect and ceremony, not by being smashed with a rock on the side of the road.
As I shove it back into the saddlebag, I consider taking out the small calfskin-bound journal and reading more of the Dragonette’s entries, but once again, I hesitate. I am not sure I wish to taint the start of my journey with her presence, and so leave it safely tucked in the bottom of the pack.
The thundering of hooves wakes me. Scores of them, I think, my heart thudding nearly as loudly as the approaching riders. I open my eyes and sit up, trying to orient myself.
The riders are drawing closer, close enough for me to hear the blowing and heaving of their horses. Trying not to lose my bearings, I reach behind me for the tree. When my fingers connect with the trunk, I stand up, trying to discern just how many riders there are. A hound brays off to one side of me, followed by a second bray, this one closer to the riders. The unearthly sound raises every hair on my head. Fortuna whinnies, then stomps her foot. Before I can move to quiet her, the sound of the hooves changes, no longer a dull thudding on a dirt road, but muffled, accompanied by snapping twigs and the rustle of trampled leaves. They have left the road.
I glance over to where Fortuna is secured. There is a jingle of harness as she tosses her head, snorting and blowing in fear. Merde. She will give me away, but I dare not go to her and try to quiet her. My only hope of not being trampled in the dark is to cling to this tree like a vine. I pray to Mortain to make Fortuna and me invisible. To let the other horses make so much noise that they will not notice the small ones Fortuna makes.
Keeping my hand on the tree, I slip around to the back of it so I will not be in plain sight if they discover the clearing.
They are louder now, the sound of the hooves accompanied by the constant baying of the hounds. I am assailed with a feeling of hot breath and red eyes bearing down on me. It takes all of my training and every last scrap of my courage to keep from bolting like a rabbit flushed from its lair.
I take a deep breath and imagine that I am as solid and strong as the tree I cling to. Before I can draw a second breath, there is a whisper movement off to one side. I whip my head around, but a large, firm hand clamps down across my mouth, then a heavy body presses along the length of me, so close that I can feel the rough bite of chain mail against my back. “Shhh.” A deep voice slithers across my ear with no more weight or substance than a shadow. “You don’t want to risk drawing their attention.”
Even as my heart lurches against my ribs in shock, I begin to assess his hold, where it will be easiest to break. Before I can make my move, one of the great hounds bays again. The howl sounds as if it comes all the way from the bowels of the earth, wrapping dark ribbons of terror around my heart and causing all the hairs along my arms to stand up. It is so close that I am certain I will feel the dog’s sharp teeth on my flesh any moment. The man presses his hand—hard—against my mouth in a signal to stay quiet. And while I do not intend to suffer his presence a moment longer than I must, I judge him a safer bet than the oncoming riders. Once they have passed, I can easily deal with a single man.
Clasped together like two lovers, we wait, our hearts beating nearly as one as the riders break into the clearing. They stream past, dodging and weaving among the trees, tall, dark shapes on even darker horses, the thudding of their hooves causing the ground to shake, the heat of their lathered bodies like a warm summer wind.
Their passing seems to last forever as rider after rider gallops by, the sound of the dirt churned up by their horses’ hooves pattering like rain.
And then, suddenly, they are past us, growing farther and farther away in the distance.
The tightness in my body lessens somewhat, but the stranger does not loosen his hold. He stays pressed tightly against me until we can no longer hear the riders. Indeed, it is so quiet you would not know they had been here at all.
When I finally feel the muscles of his hand across my mouth begin to relax, I ram both elbows behind me where I judge his stomach to be, ignoring the pain as they connect with the chain mail he wears. He grunts in surprise, and I whip my arms up behind my head, grab his arms, and, using my own body as a fulcrum, lever him up and over my shoulder. I feel him leave the ground, feel him become airborne as he flies over my shoulder, then hear a thud as he hits the forest floor.
Chapter Fourteen
TO HIS CREDIT, BUT FOR a faint oomph as the air is forced from his lungs, he gives no cry of surprise or any other sound that might give us away. For one, two, three long heartbeats, I stare down at him.
The darkness does not allow me to see him clearly, so I am left mostly with impressions, and they are not overly comforting. A strong arched nose, a square jaw, and dark eyes beneath dark brows studying me just as intently as I study him.
After a long moment of silence, there comes a creak of leather and a faint jingle of well-oiled chain mail as he rises to his feet. “A simple ‘Thank you for the rescue’ would have sufficed.”
I step back to give him room to rise but also to put additional distance between us. “Except I had no need of rescuing.” I keep my voice pitched low like his, so as not to risk its carrying on the wind. “Indeed, your attempt to help nearly gave me away.”
“It was not I who nearly gave you away, but that hair of yours. It fair shines like a beacon in the moonlight.”
Annoyed, I reach up, grasp the hood of my cloak, and yank it over my head. “There. The threat has passed. You may be on your way.”
“You are wrong if you think the threat has passed. The hunt will roam the area until dawn and could easily double back this way. You will not be safe until the sun is up.”
“What have I to fear? They are not hunting me.”
“Aren’t they, demoiselle?” He takes a step closer and I force myself not to take a step back. “Can you be so very certain of that?”
I do not try to hide my growing annoyance. “Who are they? What manner of men hunt in such a way at night? Have French soldiers landed on our coast?”
“They are not French soldiers.”
I do not know him well enough to tell if that is a smile in his voice, but for some reason I think that it is, which rankles me. It was not so very foolish a suggestion. Before I can come up with something to say to put him in his place, he asks, “Where are you traveling that you must be out on the road so late at night?”
I can think of no reason not to tell him. “Guérande. I have family there. And what of yourself?”
“I am traveling east, along the same road to Guérande. You are cold,” he says. There is a crunch of leaves as he takes another step toward me.
I cross my arms so that the daggers at my wrists are within easy reach. “Yes, well, it is winter and the nights are cold.”
“You cannot risk building a fire. The light and heat will call the hunt back this way.”
“You will be pleased to learn I have no intention of doing anything so foolish.”
“How, then, do you plan to keep warm through the night?”
Gods’ wounds! Could he be any less subtle? Sister Beatriz warned us often of men of his ilk. “Shall I guess at what you will suggest? You think we should close this distance between us so we may share our body heat, no?”
“We would not be the first to do so,” he says.
While I have spent many an hour wondering what it would feel like to lay pressed close against a man, all that curiosity has fled under the weight of my current predicament. I reach openly for my knives, letting my sleeves ride up so that the handles of my daggers show. “I think I will take my chances with the cold, for I am no lightskirt to warm your bedroll. If you attempt such a thing, you will find only the kiss of sharp steel to greet you.”
