“So we are surrounded,” Duval muses. “Even if someone were to send help, they would have to fight their way through the French to reach us.”
“Exactly so.” Sybella glances at the duchess as if she is loath for her to hear what she has to say next. “They have also brought the engines of war with them. Catapults, scaling towers. Cannon.”
The duchess looks like she might faint. “They would destroy the city itself.”
Captain Dunois tries to offer her some small comfort. “It is possible—probable even—that they are to be used as a threat only, for it would bring the king little joy to take possession of a ruined city.”
Duval turns to Marshal Rieux. “And what do you have to report?”
“Equally unwelcome news, I am afraid. Four more cities have fallen to the French, and they have retaken Vannes. The entire south of Brittany is now in their hands. Parts of the west as well.”
We are all of us stunned into silence at this sobering turn of events.
“Which means we have lost,” the duchess whispers.
No one contradicts her. Dunois says, “The British captain has sent word that if you leave now, before the French cut off all the routes, he can get you to the coast and take you to the Netherlands. From there he can get you safely to your husband, the Holy Roman emperor.”
“And abandon my people? What sort of craven do they take me for?”
Beast clears his throat, and Duval motions for him to speak. “It might be the only way we can keep you safe, Your Grace.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the conditions in the city have deteriorated greatly. With the coffers empty once more, the mercenaries now loot and raid the city, treating the townspeople’s homes and businesses like their own personal larders. Unfortunately, the foreign troops here in the city greatly outnumber our own Breton troops, and it is all we can do to keep them in check.”
“What of the Arduinnites?” At my question, everyone turns and looks at me.
“They offered their help weeks ago, and we have yet to take them up on it. Would they not be put to good use protecting the citizens of Rennes? It is their calling, you know, protecting the innocent.”
“Yes.” The duchess’s voice comes swift and firm, cutting off any possible argument. “Let us accept what generous aid these women offer us. You will arrange it?” she asks me.
“Of course, Your Grace.”
I grab my cloak and hurry from the palace. The French troops’ circle around the city is drawing tighter, but it has not closed yet. It is easy enough to go into the stables, saddle Fortuna, then slip out the postern gate without being noticed. It is harder to avoid the sentries at the Arduinnites’ encampment. Before I have spotted them, I hear a command to halt. I look up into a tree, where an Arduinnite I do not know is straddling the branch, her arrow aimed directly at me. “I have come to see Floris,” I say. “Please tell her that Annith requests an audience.”
She stares at me a moment, then nods her head. Another woman separates herself from her hiding place in the tree and disappears toward the camp. All I can do now is wait. Although it is hard with the sentry’s eyes on me and her arrow at the ready, I ignore her and turn my attention to the sparse woods around me. The night is cool rather than cold, with the breath of late springtime upon us at last. I let my mind flow once more over the words I must say to Floris and think how best to say them, for Arduinna’s followers have proven themselves a prickly bunch and I do not wish to risk raising old angers or feuds when I wish to bring the duchess some solutions.
That is my answer. The duchess, for it is she whom the Arduinnites have agreed to help. I will tell them of Isabeau’s small offering to them on behalf of her sister. Perhaps that will soften their hearts.
Besides, I must know the truth of what lies between Arduinna and Mortain so that I may better understand the man—the god—who has captured my heart. For it comes to me then that beyond all that is reasonable or sensible or even explicable, I am in love with Balthazaar.
It does not come like a thunderbolt from the sky, nor does it clout me alongside my head like a hammer, but seeps slowly into my consciousness, like a tendril of mist or a trickle of water from an underground stream.
But why? He is stubborn and close-mouthed and half drowning in despair.
And yet . . . something about him fits so comfortably against my own heart.
And though I wish I could have scraped together enough common sense to avoid falling in love with a bedamned god, apparently it does not matter to my heart one whit whether he is a hellequin or the god the hellequin serve—for other than a faint sense of awe and incredulity, my feelings for him have not changed.
There is a whisper of movement, then the sentry who was sent with my request appears before me. “Floris will see you,” she says, doing a poor job of keeping the surprise out of her voice. “You are to follow me.”
She leads me, still on Fortuna, from the trees toward the scattering of campfires and the small dark mounds that I recognize as tents. Someone at the nearest fire lifts a hand in a cheerful wave, and I recognize Tola. She rises to her feet and lopes toward me, still holding the joint of meat she was having for supper. “What brings Mortain’s own out of her mighty palace?” she asks, but there is no sting to her words, only a friendly teasing.
“I find I miss the smell of wood smoke and grew tired of eating off plates.”
She grins back at me, quick and easy. “By all means, join us.”
I look down at the haunch she is gnawing on and realize how very long it has been since I have eaten. “I am actually here to see Floris. I bring word from the duchess.”
The woman leading me stops suddenly, and I must rein in Fortuna so she does not trample her. “You may tie your horse up here,” she says, indicating a slender tree.
I dismount, then secure the reins to one of the branches. Tola takes one last bite of her dinner, then tosses the bone into the nearest campfire. “I’ll take her,” she says to the other woman, who shrugs, as if it makes no difference to her, then steps away.
I smile. “I have missed you.”
She grins, then leads the way to the largest of the tents, set up toward the back. When we reach it, she holds up her hand to stop me, then slips inside. Two seconds later she is back, holding the flap aside and motioning me in.
Inside the tent, Floris sits near the fire, flanked by two older women whom I vaguely recognize from my time with them.