“It baffles me why you don’t hate her as much as her master,” said Erec. “Or has that changed?”
Rachelle sighed. “I can’t hate her when she’s always willing to spar.”
More importantly, when Endless Night returned, Justine would die fighting the forestborn. She might take orders from the Bishop, but nothing would ever make her stop trying to protect people from the Great Forest.
“You could fight me, you know,” said Erec.
She rolled her eyes. “And listen to your epigrams about my every mistake? I think not.”
Justine didn’t care about demonstrating that she was more elegant or clever than Rachelle. She didn’t even really care about demonstrating that she was the better fighter. She understood that sometimes fighting in a white-hot blur was the only way to make the memories stop.
“Well, don’t get too attached to her.” Erec draped a hand easily over her shoulder and drew her out one of the side doors into a paved courtyard. “We need to talk about your charge.”
For a wonderful hour, Rachelle had forgotten that she had a charge. At least she wouldn’t have him after tonight, when she vanished into the city for her last attempt to find Joyeuse.
Right now she needed to pretend to care about him. “What is it?” she asked. “Do you know who sent the assassins?”
“Oh, that isn’t so important. One of the other possible heirs, I’m sure. Probably Vincent Angevin—he’s stupid enough.” Erec sighed. “It’s a pity that I got all the cleverness in the family.”
“You’d hardly like it if he were better at something than you,” said Rachelle. Erec was an illegitimate son of the Angevin family, and he never lost an opportunity to mention how much he outclassed his second cousin Vincent. And all the rest of his family. And the whole world.
“It’s a pity for them, just not for me. Anyway, I doubt Vincent will suffer for this escapade, since you know how much our King likes him.”
“You do realize,” said Rachelle, “that most of these problems would go away if the King would just name an heir?”
The death of King Auguste-Philippe’s one legitimate son had left him without a clear successor. Several generations of peculiar treaties and marriage-contracts meant that among his nearest five nephews and cousins, none was unambiguously next in line. And there was also precedent for legitimizing a bastard as heir—and the King had eight. Needless to say, all the possible heirs were ready to cut one another’s throats. The rumors of the King’s ailing health had only made the conflict worse.
“Yes, but that would entail admitting that he’s not immortal.” Erec’s mouth quirked. “What I have to tell you is far more important. You have already realized, I hope, that your true mission is not to protect Armand Vareilles.”
Rachelle had realized no such thing, but she was long used to pretending that she had kept up with Erec’s labyrinthine thoughts. “You mean our King would lie to us? How shocking.”
“Your mission is to contain him,” said Erec. “Somebody is fomenting a rebellion, and that somebody will probably attempt to recruit Monsieur Vareilles soon, at which point he goes from annoyance to danger. You know the people will riot for him.”
Her chest tightened with frustration. The Devourer was returning soon—before summer’s end, which could conceivably mean today. And yet she had to stand here in the sunlit courtyard, discussing politics with Erec and pretending to care, because nobody believed in the Devourer and she had to avoid getting arrested before she found Joyeuse.
“Why don’t you just throw that somebody in the dungeons,” she asked, “along with everyone else you don’t like?”
“Because that somebody is good enough that we’re still trying to work out who he is.”
“Well,” said Rachelle, “I know one man who would like to see the whole court burn. In this life and the next.”
“And much we’d all love to see him burn instead,” said Erec. “Unfortunately, harming a bishop would also provoke riots. Unless we really did have proof that he was helping fugitive bloodbound. And we don’t. So instead of leading a raid on the Bishop’s residence, you’re going to accompany Monsieur Vareilles to Château de Lune, where he won’t have access to the mob every day, and you’re going to ensure that he remains a court fixture until he is a harmless joke.”
“I refuse to spend the rest of my life at Château de Lune,” said Rachelle.
“Look on the bright side,” said Erec. “Since you’ll have to actually attend court functions, you’ll see such a lot of me.”
5
That afternoon, Armand gave an audience so the people of Rocamadour could grovel at his feet. Rachelle had orders to serve as his escort, whether because the King was taking no chances or because Erec wanted to torment her, she wasn’t sure.
It was just as awful as she had expected.
They held the audience in the wide square in front of the cathedral. There wasn’t a scrap of shade; heat shimmered off the cobblestones. Armand sat on a little folding stool. To his left was an oriflamme banner, so that people wouldn’t forget his presence was a gift from the King. To his right was a painting of the Dayspring, so that people wouldn’t forget he was holy. It was hideous. Most paintings showed the Dayspring resurrected, or at least as a not-too-bloody severed head in the arms of his weeping mother. This showed the gory jumble of limbs into which he’d been hacked by the soldiers of the Imperium.
Flies buzzed as if drawn by the painted blood, but Rachelle had to stand still and tall and menacing as a vast line of people crawled forward to see Armand. They blessed his name; they wanted him to bless them. They brought babies and lame boys and blind old women, and they begged for healing. They brought rosaries and tried to touch them to his wrists, so they would have relics to protect them against the encroaching darkness.
The nobility might pretend that the shrinking daylight hours were no more than an aberration, but the common people knew. Some of them had brought clumsy little yarn weavings for Armand to touch—the fake woodwife charms sold in the marketplace. They wouldn’t do a thing to protect anyone against the power of the Forest, but city folk didn’t know any better. And they were desperate.
That was why they thronged to meet Armand. They hoped his holiness would protect them.
And Armand used that hope against them. He squinted against the sunlight and gave them smiles that looked brave and self-mocking at once. When an old woman begged him to pray for her health, because surely God would hear the prayers of a saint, he shook his head and said, “I’m nothing. Certainly not a saint. But I will pray for you.” The old woman sobbed, and Rachelle knew she had just decided he was the greatest saint since la Madeleine.