Mortal Heart

by Robin LaFevers

  “Sister Etienne, what say you to these charges?”

  The abbess looks almost naked without her distinctive headdress and habit, like a magnificent hawk who has lost all her feathers. She turns and looks at me, and even now, her head is not bowed in shame or remorse. I hold my breath, wondering if she will try to pull me into it, try to paint my actions with her own motives. She will not know that I have already told the members of the convocation that I too am not of Mortain’s blood, although I did not learn of it until mere weeks ago.

  But instead, she surprises me. “I accept responsibility for all that I am accused of. I would say only this in my defense: The previous abbess betrayed her duty to her young charges long before I did. I did not know of the existence of this convocation, else I might have tried to bring her before it. But I saw no other way to protect the girls. To protect my own daughter.”

  The Brigantian nun turns to Mortain, her manner becoming slightly nervous, as if she is not certain how this should all proceed in front of a true god. Or a former god. “Do you wish to handle this matter personally, as is your right?”

  Mortain shakes his head. “No, I would leave it to the convocation to decide and will respect its decision.” In truth, he is not nearly as angry at the abbess as I am, for he feels that without her, he would never have had me, and for that, he has told me, he will forgive her much.

  “Very well. We shall withdraw to discuss sentencing—”

  Her words are interrupted by a sharp, single rap on the floor. It is the old crone. Everyone turns to stare.

  “I claim her as ours,” she says. “She has proven herself such a devoted mother, let her serve the Great Mother awhile. Ten years.”

  Everyone glances around somewhat uncertainly, as no contact has been made with those who serve Dea Matrona in quite some time. Indeed, I think they all thought that she too had begun to fade from this world.

  “Are there any objections?”

  There are not. And so it is decided.

  As the convocation breaks up, the various abbesses and priests pause long enough to greet one another and exchange a few words. It is not often they are all in the same room, and there is the sense that they have much they would like to discuss. A handful approach Balthazaar, wanting to see this miracle made flesh.

  I stand off to the side, watching. Forgotten for the moment, the abbess makes her way over to me. We stare at each other. She has grown thin these last few days, and her face is drawn. “I am sorry,” she whispers. As I stare into her hollow, gaunt face, it feels like the first true thing she has said to me in years. I nod, acknowledging her words. She looks down at her hands. Her nails are ragged and bitten to the quick. “I would ask one last indulgence, if I could.”

  I do not know that I have it in me to grant her anything, but I keep my voice level. “What is it?”

  “May I hold you? Just once before I go, for I have not been able to do so since you were three years old. If I could have one wish before I die, it would be that.”

  Her request sneaks in under my guard and lands a painful blow, reminding me sharply that for many years, she was nothing but a young mother trying to be with her child. “Yes,” I whisper. Slowly, as if unable to believe in it, she awkwardly wraps her arms around me, then pulls me close. I am not quite able to allow myself to relax into her embrace, but I do not resist, either. Some small, tentative thing passes between us. She gently kisses my brow, then reluctantly pulls away. “Will you ever forgive me?” she asks softly.

  That small, tentative thing pulses inside me. “I will try. That is all I can promise. I will try.”

  She starts to leave, then stops. “May I come see you? When my sentence is served?”

  I stare at her a long moment before I say, “Yes. But do not come back to the convent. Send word instead, and I will meet you.”

  Her eyes widen at my mention of the convent, and I see a hundred questions in them, questions about what I will do next, where I will go, and who I will be with. But our time is up. Dea Matrona’s priestess is at her side, her ancient clawlike hand reaching out and pulling at the abbess’s sleeve. “Come” is all she says. With one last look at me, the abbess leaves.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  THE DAY OF THE BETROTHAL CEREMONY dawns clear and sunny, as if God and His Nine are all as happy about this day as we are. A feeling of joy lies over the city, relief to be celebrating an impending marriage rather than a crushing defeat and untold deaths.

  The cathedral is nearly empty as the duchess and the king of France pledge their vows. Only the privy councilors are in attendance, along with one French advisor and the French regent herself. I study this woman who was behind so much of the hostilities between our countries and wonder what drove her.

  The duchess does her best to ignore the regent. I do not think they will ever be close.

  Ismae, Sybella, and I are also in attendance. The duchess invited Mortain as well, but this made the poor bishop so nervous that Mortain declined.

  Once the ceremony is concluded, the royal party turns their attention to signing the marriage contract and the peace treaty between Brittany and France. The three of us are not needed for that.

  Just as she did when we were forced to attend chapel services back at the convent, Sybella begins whispering in church. “Ismae, are you still able to see marques?”

  “I don’t know,” Ismae confesses, then looks around the few gathered in the cathedral. “No one here bears one, and I have not seen anyone marqued since . . . since three days ago, but perhaps it is simply because no one is ready to die just yet. And you? What of your gifts?”

  Sybella nods. “I am still able to sense people’s nearness, as always.”

  I smile. “Well, that is good, then, that your gifts did not disappear along with Mortain’s godhood.” I did not wish to be the reason they no longer had their abilities. “Which means the girls back at the convent will likely still have their gifts and abilities as well.”

  At my mention of the convent, Sybella pounces. “Is the rumor true? Will you be returning to the convent?” She does not sound surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “But why?” Ismae asks. “You could not wait to leave.”

  How do I explain this to them? “I wanted to leave the suffocating restrictions and the painful memories that the convent held. But now, now that everything has changed, I want to go back and remake the convent into what it was originally intended to be—a place with life as well as death, with joy as well as solemn duty.”

  “But won’t you be bored?”

  I laugh. “No, for I am not like either of you. I do not relish killing. I am good at it, but I do not find any purpose in it.”

  “And you think you will find a purpose in returning to the convent?”

  I shrug, embarrassed. “I want to show the others that they have choices, that their lives are theirs to live. I know it is not nearly as glamorous as what you two will be doing, but it is what I feel compelled to do—to put the convent back as it is supposed to be.”

  “What does all this mean for Mortain’s daughters?” Ismae asks. “How will we be able to serve him?”

  “I do not know,” I admit. “Mayhap it will be no different from serving the duchess or any liege lord.”

  “And what of the convent and the duties it performs?”

  “Again, I do not yet know. That is something we will figure out as we go.”

  Sybella smiles in her sly, wicked way. “Balthazaar will be going as well?”

  “Yes, he wishes to meet his daughters. And put right what has gone off course.”

  “And with Mortain at your side, who will say you nay?”

  My lips twitch into a smile. “True enough. Just because he is newly mortal does not mean that death will cease or that people will come to accept it or even that political events will not require intervention. But what about you?” I turn to Sybella. “I heard the duchess say that you are going to the French court with her?” I am still ho
ping I have heard that incorrectly.

  Sybella smiles. “She will need someone to insinuate herself among all those long-faced French nobles that cling to her betrothed’s robes like flies. Someone to report to her who can be trusted and who cannot. And she has agreed to foster my sisters at her court, which will afford them the best protection I can find against our brother.”

  “And what of Beast?”

  “He is going as well, to serve as the captain of the queen’s guard.”

  I am happy for her, and I try to smile, but she will be so far away.

  “Oh, do not pull such a sad face! It will only be for a few years. I reckon I shall return right about the time Sister Beatriz will have to retire from her duties. I think I would make a most excellent womanly-arts teacher, don’t you?”

  I cannot help it, I laugh, as does Ismae. “The Nine save us,” she says.

  “The Eight, now.”

  “No, it is still the Nine. They did not change it when Amourna removed herself, and neither will they for Mort—Balthazaar. Bah! I cannot decide what to call him now.”

  “Just do not call him Father, and I will be happy,” Ismae mutters.

  “And you.” I turn to her. “You will be close, so you must come visit once in a while.” She and Duval will be staying in Rennes—Duval will be overseeing the duchy while his sister takes her place on the French throne.

  “Oh, I shall. I may even let Duval come just so he can storm around the halls, for old times’ sake.” And thus everyone is accounted for, I think.

  No, not everyone. My thoughts go again to the hellequin. Those who died on the field before Rennes that day have found both the redemption and peace that they so desperately sought. But what of the others? Those who did not ride out that day, or those whose bodies were not found? Did they too find their deserved reward? Or do they, even now, still ride on, trapped on some eternal hunt?

  The next morning, Mortain and I set out on our own journey, one that will take us back to the convent. He has healed unnaturally fast.

  As our horses prance and sidestep in the fresh morning air, I send him a glance. “I will not call you Mortain for all the rest of our lives. It will feel too much like being wedded to a god.”

  “Merely a former god. And you will only have to bow to me a little.” His smile is as quick and welcome as a glimpse of sun in the dead of winter.

  “Ah, you may be a former god, but you are only a newly made mortal, and I have had far more experience at being mortal than you.”

  He blinks in surprise. That I have had more experience than him in anything had not occurred to him. I cannot help it. I laugh as the wonder of the moment fills me. Our lives. They will—finally—be ours to live as we choose. Filled with our hopes and dreams and, yes, our heartaches as well. But they will be ours.

  We will love freely. Laughter shall echo down the halls of the convent. And we will fight our enemies—fiercely—when needed, for as surely as winter follows summer, it will be needed.

  But for now, I cannot wait to share with those whom I once called sisters all that I have learned. I will teach them how to think for themselves and not simply reflect back to the world what it wishes from them. They will be strong not only of body, but of mind and heart. And most important, I will teach them how to love, for in the end, that has been the greatest weapon of all. It has proven stronger even than Death.

  Author’s Note

  OVER THE CENTURIES, as the Church struggled to convert an entire population to Christianity, as a matter of policy they adopted pagan deities as saints, painting over the original myths with their own Christianized narrative. They also built churches on pagan holy sites and organized their own festivals and celebrations to coincide with earlier pagan celebrations to make them more palatable for the local populace. It has been said that Brittany in particular fought harder than other kingdoms against the loss of their own deities and form of worship.

  Though the nine old gods of Brittany did not exist in the exact form in which they were portrayed in the His Fair Assassin books, they have been constructed from earlier Celtic gods and goddesses, about whom we know very little. I have added a few embellishments of my own.

  As in the previous two books, many of the characters in Mortal Heart are actual historical figures, and I drew from the broad political events of the time for my story. As the second phase of the War of Breton Succession drew to a head, France did invade Brittany and held most of the duchy’s cities and towns in its possession. The duchess was besieged at Rennes, surrounded by fifteen thousand French troops, trapped inside the city with thousands of mercenary soldiers who were better suited to fighting than waiting out a siege. The mercenaries roaming the city quickly became almost as much of a threat as the French troops, especially when the money to pay them ran out. That in turn created a weak link, which the French exploited by bribing the mercenaries to abandon the duchess. Even her supposed allies offered only minimal support—either holding her towns as surety to pay for the use of their troops or offering to escort her out of Brittany rather than helping her hold on to it. Maximilian, the Holy Roman emperor and her husband by proxy marriage, had his own wars with Hungary and France. France used that to their political advantage, effectively tying his hands and preventing him from being able to offer meaningful support to his wife. The situation was somewhat complicated by Maximilian’s own daughter’s betrothal to King Charles of France, which further bound him to that country and its ruling family.

  As in Dark Triumph, one of the greatest liberties I have taken is compressing the timeline of the events in this book. In reality, these major events occurred over the course of two and a half years, with lots of fallow waiting periods in between. I pulled most of the major events of 1490 and 1491 into 1489, the year in which the story takes place. In reality, the betrothal that occurs at the end of Mortal Heart did not happen until the end of 1491.

  Ultimately, the battle that had been brewing between France and Brittany did not culminate in full-scale war. Instead, Anne was convinced to abandon her proxy marriage to Maximilian and marry King Charles VIII of France. This marriage not only saved her beloved country and people from the horrors of yet another war, but gave her some political power with which to influence France’s future policies toward Brittany. By many historical accounts, she and Charles held great fondness and affection for each other. After they had been together for seven years, Charles VIII died, leaving Anne once more in possession of an independent Brittany. She did go on to marry Louis d’Orleans and become Queen of France a second time, the only woman in history to do so.

  But that is a story for another day . . .

  Visit www.hmhco.com to find all of the books in the His Fair Assassin trilogy.

  About the Author

  ROBIN LAFEVERS, who was was raised on a steady diet of fairy tales, Bulfinch’s Mythology, and nineteenth-century poetry, is the author of two additional series: Theodosia Throckmorton and Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist. It is not surprising that she grew up to be a hopeless romantic. She was lucky enough to find her one true love, and is living happily ever after with him in the foothills of Southern California. Visit her website at www.robinlafevers.com.