“It was only the guidance of the Great White Boar herself that brought us here,” the oldest one says.
“I dreamed of her,” I tell them.
Aeva’s head whips around. “You lie.”
“I do not lie. I dreamed of a great boar, and that she was . . .” I cannot bring myself to say she kissed me with her great white snout, nor am I certain that is even what happened. “And she was protecting me.”
The three women exchange glances and the youngest looks pointedly at Aeva. “That does match Floris’s vision.”
My interest sharpens. “Is Floris your seeress?”
“No,” the oldest one says. “I am Floris, one of Arduinna’s priestesses. I too saw the Great White Boar last night, and she led me to you.”
Aeva studies me most skeptically, as if she is still trying to sort out how I came to be in their midst. “Did you make an offering to Arduinna?” she asks.
“No. The idea never occurred to me, as I have not been raised to be familiar with her ways.”
“No matter.” The youngest one reaches out and squeezes my arm. “It is a most auspicious omen. What is your name? I am called Tola.”
She is so friendly and her blue eyes dance so cheerfully that I cannot help but smile back. “I am Annith.”
“Well, Annith,” Floris says, “we are pleased to hear that you are unharmed, and even more pleased to hear that the Great White Boar has taken you under her protection, for indeed, it will be perilous going from here. You will have to postpone your trip to Guérande, I’m afraid.”
“What?” All the goodwill I had been feeling toward these women in the past few seconds evaporates. “You cannot stop me from traveling on my business.”
“Well, that is a matter of dispute,” she says, sounding faintly amused. “But it is not we who have caused the delay. The French troops have landed at Vannes and taken the city. These shores are crawling with them like fleas on a hound. In truth, that is who we thought to rescue you from—French soldiers.”
Chapter Twenty-One
IT IS EASY ENOUGH to fall in with them. At least for now. They will offer me protection from the invading French, and although they dislike the daughters of Mortain, they despise the hellequin even more. That hatred of the hellequin makes them the perfect ones to offer me protection.
Surely the sudden appearance of Arduinna’s followers on the road in my time of need is no accident. Indeed, it feels as if Mortain is placing small steppingstones at my feet, one at a time, so that I may have a chance to wrest my own fate out of the abbess’s greedy hands.
Even so, I must resist the urge to keep looking over my shoulder. The hellequin do not hunt in the daylight, I remind myself at least a dozen times. The others make note of my unease but say nothing, and I hope that it gives the stamp of truth to my story.
We have not been on the road but two hours before we come upon a cart. Two hedge priests sit in the front, and it is draped in black. Our group moves to the side to give them room to pass. As they do, I cannot help but look into the back of it, wondering who has made their final journey into death. Perhaps it is the first of the French soldiers’ victims.
But at the sight of the bright red hair spread out against the black sheeting, my stomach curls into a tight ball of dread. “Stop!” The word springs out of my mouth before I even realize I have spoken. Surprised by the command of my voice, the hedge priests reluctantly halt, then scowl at me while the Arduinnites shoot me curious glances. I dismount from Fortuna and toss the reins at Tola, who catches them easily.
As I draw near the bone cart, time seems to slow as if it is trapped in a thick slog of mud. Please not Matelaine. Please, please, please. The prayer hammers through my body with every heartbeat.
At last, I reach the side of the cart and look down. The girl’s face is covered by a shroud. Slowly, I reach for the edge of the black linen.
“Don’t touch her!” one of the hedge priests says in outrage, but I do not even pause. I grip the fine linen and pull it away from her face.
Matelaine’s face.
At the sight of her, I feel as if a shard of glass has wedged itself into my heart. She is still and whiter than bone, her face stark against the black shroud and red hair. Her hands have been laid upon her chest, and in the right one she clutches an ivory chess piece. “Where are you taking her?” My voice sounds dull and hollow, even to my own ears.
“Back to the convent of Saint Mortain. Do you know her?” the second hedge priest asks more gently.
I nod, my eyes never leaving her face. “She is my sister.” As I stare down at her, the pain from that shard of glass spreads out, filling my lungs, my chest, my arms with such a sense of wrongness that it is all I can do not to throw back my head and howl with rage and fury. She should never have been sent out.
And the abbess knew it. The abbess has betrayed the very tenets of the convent. The nuns are meant to foster and care for His daughters as they would their own, sending them out only when they are truly ready.
It is also, I realize with a sour sickness in my belly, my fault as well, for whatever the reason the abbess has held me back, it is at the root of her decision to send Matelaine. If I had been stronger, faster, more determined, argued my case better, I could have prevented this. I turn on the priest. “What happened?”
The kinder one answers. “We do not know. We were only given the body to transport back to the island.”
I feel a hand on my shoulder and spin around in surprise. It is the oldest of the Arduinnites—Floris. “Is she your sister?” Her brown eyes are full of compassion.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“What do you wish to do?”
Her question reminds me that I have choices. Part of me wishes to crawl into the cart and hold Matelaine close for the entire journey back to the convent. To whisper all the words of friendship in her ear that I was too busy to utter in real life. To present her body to the nuns who are still there and scream at them, See what you have done? By your silence, your compliance? The unspoken words in my throat are as hot and painful as red coals from a fire.
My own plans and ambitions crumble like winter’s first frost under a heavy boot. A choking anger continues to build inside me, and rage spreads so quickly through my body that it is a wonder I do not erupt into flames.
Slowly, I turn to face Floris. “I wish to travel on and avenge her death by confronting those who have done this to her.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and I see a measure of approval in them. “Are you also a daughter of Mortain?”