Mortal Heart

by Robin LaFevers

  There are a hundred small details to be seen to in order make certain that Isabeau is laid to rest with all the honor and respect due her as a princess of Brittany. She was beloved not only by Anne and her family but by the people as well.

  The duchess is so pale as she works with her ladies to prepare Isabeau’s body that I fear she will fall ill too. The young princess is dressed in her favorite gown of crimson velvet, and Anne herself braids the pearls into her long brown hair. On the day of Isabeau’s funeral, the cortege carries her to the great cathedral in Rennes, where she is buried beneath the choir.

  I have not talked to Balthazaar. It is too hard to think of him as Death since the night He—no, he—carried Isabeau away. It is nearly impossible to reconcile my roguish, moody hellequin with Death. I climb the stairs, moving slowly. I am still uncertain of what to say, how to be with him. I cannot treat him as if he were still simply Balthazaar. And yet, the idea of treating him as formally as I would Mortain feels equally wrong, for we have been much more to each other than that.

  The thought has me blushing. To have lain with a god and not even known! Truly, I am three kinds of fool. But looking back, I feel as if my heart has always known. How else to explain that sense of recognition, of connection, that I felt at our first meeting? Is that even possible? For our hearts to know things that our minds do not?

  Would he ever have told me if I had not asked him to escort Isabeau? That is one of the questions that has been tumbling around in my mind for the past three days. Was he trying to trick me? And why does he carry my arrow with him?

  My fear is that I somehow called him to me, much as Arduinna binds hearts with her arrows, and that feels like another sort of trickery all its own. One that I never intended.

  And how will we ever be together again? It was bad enough to have fallen in love with a hellequin, but to fall in love with Death? Surely there can be no happy ending to that story.

  When I reach the battlements, I take a deep breath, then step outside, grasping my skirts firmly so that I will not feel the trembling in my hands. As I make my way to the shadowed corner, all the clever things I have thought of to say, all the burning questions I have wrestled with coalesce into one: Why me?

  Unable to help myself, I slow my steps before I reach the corner. As I take another deep breath to fortify myself, Balthazaar’s low deep voice rumbles out into the night. “I wondered if you would ever return.” While his voice is teasing, I can hear the thread of true worry that underlies it. Then he steps out of the shadows, onto the catwalk.

  “My lord.” Without conscious thought, I start to drop to my knees.

  “Stop.” The feel of his hand grasping my arm startles me into silence.

  I long to look up, to see his face, to try to discern if he is angry or amused or any of a hundred possibilities. But I am too embarrassed and feel far too foolish.

  “Do not treat me differently now. Please.” The annoyance and frustration in his voice sound so much like Balthazaar that it is almost possible to forget all that has transpired.

  I sigh. “I do not know whether to rail at you in anger or beg your forgiveness.”

  He lets go of my arm. “Most likely there will be both before we are done, but know this: You have nothing to ask forgiveness for. It is I who tricked you, although I did not intend it to be a trick.”

  I do look up at him then. “What was your intent?”

  His dark, depthless eyes study me a moment, as if he himself is perplexed by the question. Then he goes to lean against the parapet and stares out into the night. He runs his hand through his hair, and in that moment, he is so much a man rather than a god that the tight iron band around my lungs loosens somewhat.

  “Once, I was so much a part of both life and death that time had no meaning for me. My existence was as much about beginnings as it was endings. People recognized that death was part of the journey, not some grim punishment meted out for one’s sins. But over time, and with the help of the new church, my existence narrowed so that all I was and would ever be was Death. Oblivion, at best, and at worst, eternal hellfire and damnation. Everything that gave purpose and meaning to my existence was stripped from me.”

  I grow very still.

  “I had been reduced from a god who brought death with one hand and used it to create life with the other to a demonic specter of the night used to frighten people into complying with the new church’s beliefs. I found myself the ruler of only half a kingdom, and it was the terrifying, feared half.”

  “Except for the convent,” I whisper.

  He nods. “The convent remembered me as I was, as well as small pockets of people here and there. Enough to sustain me, albeit in a reduced existence. To ease my loneliness, I sought a wife—”

  “Amourna.”

  “No. Not Amourna. Arduinna.”

  I suck in a breath. “So it was a mistake.”

  “Yes. A horrible, tragic mistake that ended so disastrously, I resolved to simply be with those mortal women who invited me into their beds. But those moments were always fleeting and did little to ease the loneliness that grew inside me. If not for my daughters, who maintained a faint thread of connection with me through their worship, I think I would have gone mad.

  “Then, into this grim existence, a new heart opened up to me, as unexpected and surprising as a rose blooming in the dead of winter. This heart was not praying for deliverance or offering herself to me rather than her loutish husband. This heart simply belonged to a small, pure soul, one who brought a glimmer of joy to me once more.

  “One day, this soul cried out in terror, and she was so open to me that I heard her. I, who had not been invited into anyone’s life in centuries, had a purpose. And so I went to her, and being with her eased that great loneliness in my soul in a way that lying with all those other women had not. So even as I comforted her, she comforted me. Even as she was nourished by our connection, I was fed as well. For a short span of time—months? Years? I do not know—I was not lonely.

  “And then, it stopped. As if a door had been slammed in my face. And once again, I knew despair.”

  “I was that soul,” I whisper.

  He turns to face me, his eyes bleak with his painful memories. “Yes. You filled a hole that I had all but forgotten about.”

  “But I was only five years old.”

  He shrugs. “In the world of spirit, where I most often reside, a soul—and the light it shines—is utterly removed from such things as age. I did not know you were a child until I came upon you in the cellar, and then it was too late. I was caught. You prayed and chatted with me constantly, and I did not have the strength to let go of the gift that you offered. It was like bread to a starving man.

  “Then later, when that barrier came up between us, it was as if the sun had fallen from the sky, and my existence became even more miserable than before because you had reminded me of all that I missed.”

  “And yet,” I say, remembering those long hard years, “you never abandoned me. Even when you thought I had turned my back on you, you did not turn your back on me.”

  He turns away, as if embarrassed. “But then you sent me your arrow, and I could not understand why you would do such a thing. It felt like a taunt, and it enraged me, filling me with equal parts hope and fury, and I could not tell what you truly wished from me.

  “I had not decided what I would do about it, but I carried the arrow with me. I carry it still,” he says.

  “I know. I saw it. That’s why I ran away from the hunt. I thought the hellequin had been sent to punish me for having left the convent without your permission.”

  He looks taken aback—almost affronted—that I would think such a thing.

  “I am sorry. It was a threat the nuns used with us when we were young, and I believed them.”

  “You never needed my permission. You were always free to come and go as you pleased.”

  “But that is not what they teach us,” I murmur.

  He frowns, distract
ed by my words, but continues his tale. “And then one night, while I was leading the hunt, there you were. Standing with your back to a tree, making ready to take on the entire hunt if need be. Looking at you opened old wounds.” He clenches his hands into fists. “I hated that I could be made to want again.” He lifts his face to the stars, as if he is too embarrassed to look at me. “I wished to understand the nature of you, the why of you. And so I decided to take you with me.”

  “If I recall, I came willingly.”

  He tilts his head. “Somewhat. Although I would have insisted either way. I had lost you for long years and was not about to do so again, not until I was ready to set you aside.”

  My stomach drops all the way to my toes at his words. “And are you?” I whisper. “Ready to set me aside?”

  His eyes burn into me. “No.” After a long moment in which I must look away under the intensity of that gaze, he whispers, “So, what happened? Why did you shut the door and stop letting me in like that?”

  “I told someone I had seen you. And I was punished for it, told I was lying, making things up. And so it became my secret, something that I shared with no one. But I was eventually caught out—and punished.” Brutally, but I do not tell him that, nor do I tell him the nature of the punishment, for it shames me still. “Shortly after that, the abbess who made my life so harsh died, and fear was no longer my constant companion. I did not feel as if I constantly walked the razor’s edge between life and death, and so my need for you lessened.” But also, the cost of opening myself to him had proved too great. “With the new abbess, I had been given a new chance, and I did not wish to risk making the same mistake.”

  He reaches out and takes my hand in his own, gripping it firmly, as if he could pull me out of the dark confines of my memory. “And thus at a young age you became acquainted with the limits of Death and His power.” He closes his eyes, but not before I glimpse the anger and regret that fills them.

  When he opens them again, he looks to the sky. “Dawn is coming.”

  I am not ready to leave. There is still so much we must talk about. “When will I see you again?”

  He holds very still, as if hope is some fragile thing he must coax forth bit by bit. “Would you like to?”

  “I would. I am not done with trying to understand what is be­tween us.”

  He smiles then, and bows, then disappears into the shadows.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “THE NEWS IS NOT GOOD.” Captain Dunois’s face is gray—with exhaustion or worry, I cannot tell. Perhaps both.

  Duval glances at the duchess. “You do not need to be here, you know. We can handle this for you, at least for a little while longer.”

  “No.” She gives a firm shake of her head. “I will not abandon my responsibility and let the hard decisions be made by others.”

  Duval motions to Sybella. “Tell us.”

  “There are fifteen thousand troops outside Rennes.” A gasp goes up around the room; no one expected that many. “It looks as if the bulk of them will be camped south of the city, with maybe a third of their forces in the north.”

  “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.

  “Annith,” she says softly, her face calm and serious.

  Even though it is not their way, I curtsy before her, wanting to demonstrate the respect I have for her. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice and at such a late hour.

  “The duchess has sent me to accept your offer of help. Inside the city, we are much beset by the very mercenaries she needs to defend us against the French. They grow bored and restless with the waiting. Even worse, with the French troops encircling the city, the mercenaries are demanding their pay, but her coffers are empty. They have taken to terrorizing the citizens of Rennes as their pastime, and I told her that protecting the innocent was the nature of your service to the goddess. Will you help?”