“There is no need to fear. Most are not as terrifying as they seem. You’ve met Miserere.” The boy glances to the giant who rides silently beside us and lowers his voice in an exaggerated manner. “He is not nearly so frightening as he looks.”
Unable to help myself, I too glance at Miserere, who stares straight ahead and pretends we do not exist. “I fear I may need more than your word on that for me to believe it,” I say.
Miserere’s grim mouth twitches. I would like to believe it is in amusement, but it is most likely in annoyance. Or anger.
Begard ignores him and continues with his prattle. “Malestroit here used to be a stonemason. He’s teaching me to whittle.”
“Gives him something to do with his hands besides steal things from others,” the stonemason explains. “A bad enough habit among the living, but especially stupid when surrounded by men such as these.”
Begard looks sheepish. “I am—used to be—a thief,” he says by way of explanation. While I am not surprised that he is a thief, I am surprised that such a small crime would earn him a place with the hellequin. To turn the subject from him—and his discomfort—I ask Begard who the second giant is.
“You must mean Sauvage.” The boy gives a mock shudder. “He does frighten me. A little.” He lowers his voice in earnest now. “He was a follower of Saint Camulos. He was called the Butcher of Quimper and became so overcome by battle lust that he destroyed entire villages. He has ridden with the hunt for at least two hundred years. Or so it is rumored. Mostly he keeps to himself.”
“Or the hounds,” Malestroit adds. “He does have a fondness for the hounds.”
“Surely that speaks well of him,” I say. “What of the man with the fancy armor and sharp features? Over there.” I tilt my head in his general direction, unwilling to point and draw attention to myself.
Begard’s young face is like a map, his expressions informing me just as thoroughly as his words how he feels about the men with whom he serves. “That is Maligne,” he says sullenly. “I don’t like him. He is cruel.”
“Only because you tried to steal his knife,” Malestroit points out. “He is not inclined to forgive that.”
Begard ignores this and whispers to me instead. “He swore an oath to the duke of Brittany during the first war of succession, then broke it. He is one of the forsworn.”
“Ah.” I had always known it was a terrible thing to break an oath, and I cannot help but wonder if I have broken some similar oath—albeit unknowingly—in leaving the convent.
Beside me, Miserere shifts on his horse and leans forward to scowl at Begard. “If you’re going to tattle on everyone else’s sins, boy, be sure to tell your own.”
Begard squirms in his saddle, then looks down to study the reins he holds in his hands. “I was a thief,” he says.
“So you said. This seems hard penance for such a crime,” I point out gently.
He grows even more miserable. “I . . . I lured a merchant and his wife to an isolated road so I could rob them. The merchant, he fought back, and I ended up killing him.”
Perhaps to distract attention from the younger boy, or perhaps as part of his own personal vow of penance, the stonemason speaks quietly into Begard’s melancholy silence. “As for me, I accidentally beat my only son to death in a fit of drunkenness.” His face is haggard with the memory, and clearly his own guilt and regret are worse than the punishment of riding with the hunt.
Unable to look at his sorrow-ravaged face any longer, I glance over to Miserere and wonder what sins he has committed. To my surprise, I find him looking at me. “I was an executioner,” he says, his gaze never wavering from my own. “With nearly a hundred deaths on my hands.”
“That seems hardly fair, as they were deaths sanctioned by the law.”
“They are still deaths,” he says, looking away.
“Begone! All of you!”
I jerk my head around at the sound of Balthazaar’s voice. He has left the lead and moved to my right, where Malestroit had been. “You are not nursemaids. You have duties to attend to.”
I wonder if Miserere minds very much being called a nursemaid and sneak a glance at him. By the pained look on his face, I can see that he does.
The others fall back, but Balthazaar says nothing as we ride side by side. His gaze searches the trees, as if he suspects there are souls lurking just beyond his reach. “I suppose I should ask what you know of the hellequin,” he finally says.
“Far more than I knew an hour ago,” I murmur.
“The boy talks too much.”
“On the contrary, I found it most helpful.”
“You are not avoiding my question, are you?” The weight of his gaze presses heavily on me, like a pile of stones.
“I know they are the souls of the damned who have pledged themselves to serve Mortain in order to earn their redemption.”
“You know more than most, it seems.”
“It is also said that when they ride out at night, they bring the chill and despair of the Underworld with them.”
“And do you feel the chill and despair of the Underworld, demoiselle?”
I glance around at the hellequin whose stories I have just heard. “Of a sort,” I say quietly.
“What?” he scoffs. “No words of demon spawn, of ambassadors of Satan himself? No stories of our cavorting across the countryside leaving sin and destruction in our wake?”
I know he intends his sharp manner to drive a wedge between us, to push me away. But there is pain hiding behind his bitterness. It is hidden, deeply hidden, perhaps even from him, but it is there. I know because Sybella tried to keep us away in precisely the same manner when she first came to the convent. The comparison gives me pause. Is that why he feels familiar to me? “No, for I do not follow the new church, but keep to the old ways instead.”
“What manner of maid is raised so steeped in the old faith that she is unafraid to ride with the hellequin’s hunt?”
“Who says I am unafraid?” I counter.
“I saw you with my men. You shared your food with them, but more than that, you saw their humanity and offered them compassion. There was no fear.”
My gaze drifts to the hellequin around us. “Some of them frighten me,” I murmur. “Miserere, Sauvage, that hooded fellow.”
“So how did you come to be raised in such a way that you can so easily overcome your own fears?”