“I am sorry. You make me ashamed of what we are, of what little we can offer you, and I lashed out at you when what I really wanted was to punish my own dark thoughts.”
Then, softer than a melting snowflake, something brushes against my cheek—his finger, I realize. It is a shockingly gentle gesture and dissolves what little anger I still harbored. I could not stay angry at him any more than I could stay angry with Sybella when she lashed out at us when the pain inside her became too great to bear. I do not know what personal demons Balthazaar struggles with, but I know pain when I see it.
When next I wake, two things occur to me with sudden clarity. Indeed, the ideas are so simple that I am sheepish I did not think of them before. Surely it was the shock of finding myself among the hellequin that so addled my wits.
But no longer.
I could take Balthazaar as a lover. If I am no longer a virgin, that will put an end to this seeress nonsense the abbess keeps insisting on.
Besides, I cannot help but feel as if riding with the hellequin is doing more to serve Mortain than sitting with Sister Vereda in some stone chamber. I could have a role here with these men. I am able to lighten their mood, to ease their despair just a tiny bit. What if I could be a glimmer of light on their long, dark quest for redemption?
Perhaps that is even why Mortain led me into their path.
The next night, when Balthazaar lies down next to me, I turn my entire body so that I am facing him. He grows so still, it is as if he has become part of the stone floor upon which we lie. I say nothing, hoping he will instinctively know what I want, but he makes no move, does not even, I think, breathe. Merde.
“Balthazaar?”
There is a faint sigh—a movement or exhalation, I cannot tell. Slowly, as if approaching some wild, untamed creature, I reach out and lay my hand upon his chest. His muscles bunch up beneath my fingers, and, almost as if against his will, his head turns toward mine. When our gazes meet through the darkness, it is as intimate as a touch and my heart begins to beat more deeply.
“What are you doing?” His voice is strained and hardly sounds like his own.
“I thought we could . . .” I stop and swallow. Now that the moment is upon me, I fear my nerve will fail. I close my eyes and remember the look on his face when we were sparring, remember the way his hands lingered on my body. “I know you desire me. I . . . I can see it when you look at me.” For all of Sister Beatriz’s lessons, I am doing this wrong, and a slow, hot flush of embarrassment washes over me.
He grabs my hand in his, and the feel of his na**d fingers against mine sends a shock all the way down to my belly. We have rarely touched, and then only when he was wearing gloves. He brings my hand to his mouth and presses his lips upon it. A brief, fleeting gesture that is all too soon over. Then he tucks my hand under my chin. “This is not what you want. Not truly.” His voice is gruff and filled with an aching loneliness, a loneliness that I know I can ease.
“But it is.” I reach for him again, only this time I let my fingers drift up to his hair and touch the soft, dark strands of it. “I want to be with you,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes for a long moment and leans into my touch. My heart lifts, thinking this means he will agree. But then he pulls himself away and puts an arm’s length of distance between us. “That is not allowed.” His voice is rough, as if the words are being dragged along shards of glass. “And even if it were, you are too young, too good, to pledge yourself to the road I must travel. To pledge yourself to me.” Then, before I can argue further, he rises to his feet and strides away, leaving me cold and alone in the dark.
When I wake, Balthazaar is not at my side, and my heart plummets as I remember last night. Sitting up, I cast a casual glance around the cave, trying to locate him.
He sits toward the back, almost out of view, staring at something he holds in his lap. I glance away so he will not feel the weight of my gaze, but I am able to keep sight of him from the corner of my eye. As I stand, he hurriedly shoves whatever he is looking at back into his saddlebag and rises to his feet.
I avoid looking at him, or even acknowledging him, while we make ready to ride. Indeed, I manage to avoid him the entire night, my efforts greatly aided by his equal desire to avoid me. When the hunt returns to the cromlech, he still sleeps near me, but does not lie down until long after I am asleep, and he rises before I wake. He spends hours staring at whatever he keeps in his saddlebag, as if trying to coax an answer from it. After two days of this, my curiosity becomes piqued.
Perhaps he is holding some token of the sins he committed when he was human, something he is using to keep his resolve strong. Perhaps giving in to mortal temptation such as I offered him will only prolong his punishment or even remove his chance for redemption altogether.
Perhaps whatever he keeps in that saddlebag will answer all these questions that plague me.
Chapter Nineteen
AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, the next night is a busy one, with lost and wandering souls so thick upon the ground that the hellequin are able to scoop them up like fishermen with a net. “Something is wrong,” Balthazaar says when the men have captured their fourth soul. “There should not be so many in one place.”
“Unless they have all been killed at once,” Sauvage says. “Then it would make sense.” He shrugs his massive shoulders. “Maybe there has been a battle. Or a fire.”
A battle. “Where are we?” I ask.
Balthazaar barely spares me a glance. “About six leagues north of Vannes.”
“Which means we are close to the port cities, a sure target if and when the French decide to make a move on Brittany.”
He looks at me blankly.
“The impending war?” I remind him with impatience. “It is possible the French have decided to engage us, and some battle we have not yet heard of has taken place.” Not that we would ever hear of it, seeing that we pass almost no one at night and those we do pass are not inclined to stop and share gossip.
“She is right,” Sauvage says. I am so surprised I almost ask him to repeat himself, but silence my tongue before the words can escape.
Balthazaar nods in agreement as another shout goes up. The hellequin have found yet more souls. “Come,” Balthazaar says. “Let us see if we can ask one of them why there are so many.” He puts his heels to his horse and we all ride forward.
When we are close enough to the others, Balthazaar and Sauvage rein in their horses and dismount. The souls must have been those of soldiers, for they do not cower or shrink in fear from the approaching hellequin.