The Breton court — indeed, all the kingdoms of europe — would do well not to underestimate this duchess. “There is something else that brings me, Your Grace.” I look down at Nemours’s still form. “Did you know that he cared deeply for you? Not just your duchy or your power, but you. He was filled with a desire to rescue you from an unpleasant fate.”
The duchess blinks, then looks down at the man who would have been her husband. “I had begun to hope so.” Her pale cheeks blush. “It seemed as if he cared. I sensed within him an enormous capacity for kindness and felt I would be able to grow to love him. That is a great blessing for someone such as myself, who feared love would have no place in a marriage between two kingdoms.”
I say nothing. Since the age of four, she has been dangled before half the kingdoms and duchies of europe, like bait at the end of a stick. The best she had hoped for was a marriage of mutual respect and no cruelty. But to have the potential for love snatched away by a false hand . . .
She looks up at me and says again, “So, why are you here?” Her firmness of manner will not tolerate any falsehood or evasion.
“I had thought to release his soul from the misery of his death.” I am careful to keep my voice pitched low so that any lurking outside the chapel will not hear it. “Souls must linger near their bodies for three days after their deaths before moving on. But Lord Nemours’s soul is so tormented by what he sees as his failure to protect you that I thought to hasten him to his forgiveness.”
The duchess’s eyes widen. “You can do that?”
I think so. “Yes.”
She nods. “Do it then. And may his soul rest in peace.”
“As you command.” I am pleased with this authority she has given me. Neither Duval nor the abbess can find fault with me for acting under her order.
"What are you waiting for?” the duchess whispers.
I meet her clear brown gaze. “Solitude, Your Grace. The rites of Mortain are most private.”
Arguments and orders flit across her face, her desire to watch and know these mysteries at odds with her desire to honor the sanctity of death. “Very well,” she says at last. “I will leave you.” She reaches across the body and clasps my wrist. “Thank you,” she whispers. with one last look at her betrothed, she turns and quits the chapel. “Madame Dinan?” she calls as she reaches the doorway.
Her governess appears so quickly that I am thankful we kept our voices low. The two women make their way down the hall, their voices echoing faintly behind them.
Once again I grip the bone dagger. Using my other hand, I pull aside Nemours’s shirt collar and the fur trim of his doublet. It is best if this scar remains hidden.
Casting up a brief, heartfelt prayer to Mortain to guide my hand, I lift the dagger and run the edge lightly across Nemours’s neck.
I feel, rather than hear, a gasp. Not of pain or shock, but of release.
“Go in peace and with our prayers,” I whisper. There is a rustling sensation, as if a score of doves are flying past my cheek, their pale wings filling the air with a joyous sense of flight. Protect her, his soul begs me as it departs.
I will, I promise. Then there is naught but silence and I am left alone to stare at a thin cut along his dead white flesh that does not bleed. I carefully put his collar back in place.
Chapter Thirty-one
Upon leaving the chapel, I am pulled toward Nemours’s chambers, almost as if tugged by an unseen hand. I have no idea why, but an insistent itching at the back of my neck bids me hurry. Mayhap my god is on the move at last.
Just outside Nemours’s apartments, the itching at my back grows stronger. without bothering to knock, I reach out and open the door.
One of Nemours’s men-at-arms is behind a desk, rifling through a saddlebag. He is dressed in riding leathers and a breastplate, and his helmet is tucked under his arm. A small black marque sits in the middle of his forehead. Smiling, I close the door behind me.
He does not start guiltily, as he should, but frowns in annoyance. "Who are you?”
I slip my hand through the slit of my overskirt, and my fingers close around the hard wood of the crossbow tiller. “Vengeance,” I say softly.
His eyes widen slightly at my words, then he grows alarmed as I draw the crossbow from its hiding place. within the space of a single heartbeat, I c**k the bow, fit the quarrel to the string, and level it at his head, aiming directly for the marque. For a moment I am torn, balancing the duchess’s and Duval’s need for information against my desire to prove myself to my god and my convent. I decide it cannot hurt to ask. "Who paid you to push your lord to his death?”
The man’s face pales. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? I think you do. I think you are the man who betrayed the Duke of Nemours. If you tell me what I need to know, I will kill you as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you do not, it will be slow and lingering. Your choice. either way, you will die.” My blood is singing in my veins, so happy am I to be doing my god’s work.
Keeping his eyes on mine, the man comes out from behind the desk. "Who says I killed my lord Nemours? Do I get no chance to defend myself? Be tried and judged?”
“You have been,” I say. “By Saint Mortain Himself. And found guilty. Now, I will ask you one last time: On whose orders did you push?”
I see in his eyes the moment he decides to rush me. Grunting in annoyance, I release the bolt. It flies straight and true and strikes him in the forehead, precisely where Mortain has marqued him. As he falls, his eyes shift from my face to the door behind me. Swearing, I drop the crossbow and go for the knife at my ankle.
The action saves my life.
There is a breath of air at my back followed by a searing pain, then I am turning toward my assailant, thrusting upward with my knife before I have even laid eyes on him.
My aim is good, and the knife plunges into his gut. His brown eyes widen in surprise, then in pain, as I shove the blade upward, hastening his death. In spite of my threat to the other man, I do not deal in long and lingering deaths.
Before I can do more, however, the soul of the first man flees his dead body. It rushes at me, swirling with cold hostility. I force myself to concentrate on the myriad images it sends flickering through my mind, desperate to find some small tidbit of information that will tell us to who is behind this disaster. while I am distracted by this task, the second man’s soul also rushes at me. I gasp as if I have been plunged into a frozen river and stagger back against the wall, shivering so hard I can barely stand. As the second soul floods me, I am filled with anger and pain and regret. An aching sense of loss. A sense of fear so thick it coats the back of my tongue with its bitter taste.