AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The menhir is one of the oldest sites in Brittany where standing stones mark the passages of the old nine gods. This one in particular is sacred to Arduinna. Small offerings are propped against the two vertical stones, small bundles of the last of the harvest’s wheat, now dried and brown. A small egg, cracked and sucked dry by some wild creature, a green ribbon faded to almost yellow from its days out in the sun. There is no shortage of maids, young or old, beseeching Saint Arduinna for protection.
We dismount to go forward on foot, then hang back at the edge of the trees, waiting. Just as I am counting heartbeats to be certain we are still alone, a rustling reaches my ears.
“Hold! Do not move. Any of you.” A voice comes from the trees off to the left.
I glance at Beast and reach for one of my rondelles.
“And, Arduinnite!” the voice calls again. “Do not even think of reaching for your bow. We have four arrows trained on you even as I speak.”
Aeva cuts an annoyed look Beast’s way. “I thought your scouts said it was clear.”
He shrugs, embarrassed. “And I thought you could hear someone coming from twenty paces.”
“Hush!” I tell them both. “That voice is—”
“Beast! Is that you?”
“Ismae!” Joy mingles with disbelief. “I’m turning around now, and if you shoot me, I will strangle you.”
“Sybella?”
And then all thoughts of caution and formality are cast aside as she comes running out from behind the hillock of hay, her crossbow forgotten. I meet her halfway, throwing my arms around her, my throat tightening at the sight and feel of my oldest friend. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
“We’ve been so worried,” she says.
“It is you!” Duval drops his own weapon and rushes forward, he and Beast coming together with the force of boulders crashing. “What are you doing here?” Duval asks.
“Us? We were expecting Marshal Rieux’s garrison commander, or maybe the marshal himself—and we find you. That is a most favorable trade.”
Duval shakes his head. “I should have known it was you, you cunning bastard.”
“You did know it was him,” Ismae points out. “It was your first guess.”
Beast’s pleased grin nearly splits his face in two. Duval claps a hand on his back. “Let’s go someplace less exposed so we may talk. I have a feeling this meeting does not bode well for our predicament.”
Before we mount up, some introductions are in order. I pull Ismae over to where Genevieve waits with Aeva. “Ismae, I want you to meet your new sister, Genevieve.”
Ismae rolls her eyes. “I wish she wouldn’t do that,” she tells Gen. “As if finding sisters lurking all over the country isn’t awkward enough.”
Her honesty surprises a smile from Gen. “I am finding it not such a terrible thing to discover unexpected sisters.”
* * *
By the time we reach Rieux’s holding, I have filled Ismae in on most of the events of the last months. As we are ushered into the keep, keeping my voice low, I ask, “Have you heard anything from Annith?”
“There have been no crows since you left Rennes. Although they would not know where to find me, as we had to leave shortly after you did.”
Marshal Rieux comes out to greet us just then, thanking Beast for his timely intervention. “We’re glad to be able to help, and had hoped to speak with you to find out what exactly Rohan is planning and whether you could tell me how to find Duval. To have accomplished both in one fell swoop feels lucky indeed,” Beast says.
“Why are you both here?” I ask Duval and Ismae.
There is a moment of awkward silence before Rieux answers. “They came to accuse me of being involved in Rohan’s plans,” he says dryly. “At knifepoint.”
Ismae rolls her eyes. “I did not pull my knife on him. I merely set it on the table.”
“A fine distinction, indeed,” Rieux says, clearly not over the affront.
“We were quickly disabused of our suspicions,” Duval says, trying to smooth things over, “but Rohan’s army arrived before we could take our leave. How many troops will the king be sending to combat Rohan’s forces?”
Beast and I exchange glances. “None,” Beast says quietly, then explains why.
When he has heard, Duval leaves the table where we are all gathered and heads for the window, to gain control of himself, I think. “It’s even worse than I thought,” he finally says.
“That’s why we’re here.” Beast’s voice is filled with such certainty, such assurance—as if he will make it happen through sheer will alone.
Marshal Rieux looks up from the map. “You are but a handful of men.” It is not said unkindly, simply a recitation of the truth.
Beast grins. “We are a handful of men with six kegs of powder and your garrison. Those are better numbers than we had yesterday.”
Duval’s mouth quirks up at the corner, and he looks back to the map, as if seeing it with new eyes. “And what, pray tell, do you propose we do with such an overwhelming force?”
“From my time in Brittany three weeks ago, I know Rohan has troops here, here, here, here, and here.” He points to Ancenis, Rochefort-en-Terre, Malestroit, Vannes, and Quimper.
Marshal Rieux’s face turns gray. “He holds the south,” he says.
“But not with a tight fist,” Beast says. “His men are drawn thin. And each of those holdings and cities has a garrison that can fight, if they can get out. How many troops do you have here at Châteaugiron?”
“Four hundred.”
“And here?”
“Eight hundred.”
In all, Rieux has two thousand troops spread out among his holdings.
“Your holdings are our best crack in their defenses,” Beast says. “You have men garrisoned there who are loyal to you. They need only a way out and your blessing. I can provide the former,” Beast says solemnly.
“And I will gladly provide the latter.” Rieux’s color has returned somewhat. “But you can’t mean for our success to rest on the few hundred men we can scrape up from my holdings.”
Beast pushes away from the maps. “It will give Rohan several more fronts on which he must fight, spreading their numbers even thinner.”
“Plus,” Duval adds, “it will be a major thorn in his side, poking at him to know who is behind it.”
“Not only that.” Aeva speaks for the first time. “But the Arduinnites will join us.”
“You can count on the charbonnerie as well.” Lazare turns to spit, thinks better of it, then simply clears his throat. “We’re not happy about France thinking we’re their country now, but we’ll be damned if this knob thinks he can come in here and undo everything we fought for.”
“What can his endgame possibly be?” I wonder.
Duval looks at me. “He has always believed he had a greater right to the duchy than my sister. I think he has decided now is the time to press that claim.”
“You mean, he’ll fight for his own interests, but not his liege’s when she needed him?”
“Precisely.”
As he continues to look at the map, Marshal Rieux shakes his head, not in disagreement, but uncertainty. “The odds are not in our favor.”
“By our estimations, Rohan can have no more than six thousand men,” Beast reminds him.
The news we have brought of his sister, and her precarious position, has only hardened Duval’s resolve. “Brittany has a long history of overcoming superior numbers with smaller forces,” he reminds the marshal. “Besides, they’re the only odds we’ve got.”
Chapter 77
Genevieve
The siege broken, Ismae and Duval leave for Rennes the next morning with half of Marshal Rieux’s forces, using the south postern gate to avoid Rohan’s decamping troops. Duval believes that the city garrison is loyal to the queen and needs only a spark of encouragement and a few extra hands to retake the city from Rohan’s control. The rest of us move south. We give wide berth to Châteaubriant
—a holding of Françoise de Dinan, the queen’s former governess and a traitor besides. That she was once Count d’Albret’s lover also ensures she will never be an ally of ours.
At Marshal Rieux’s holding in Ancenis, our maneuver proves successful once more. Relieving the siege there goes off swiftly and smoothly as planned. Rieux’s garrison is greatly heartened by their liege and, I think, Beast. Next, we travel to Nantes, but it is a Rohan stronghold, so we skirt it and strike out for Rochefort-en-Terre, another of the marshal’s holdings, this one with a garrison of over seven hundred troops.
By the time we arrive, we are a much larger party. And while it is good to have the presence of solid troops at our backs, they are incapable of moving as silently. Fortunately, we time it so we arrive two days before Rieux’s main force, giving us a chance to do our deeds well before Rohan’s troops are aware of our presence.
As before, cloaked by the darkness of night, the four of us slip into camp to foul the powder. Just as before, we are able to evade the sleeping men—eight of them this time—to reach the wagon. I listen for any change in their breathing patterns, but hear only the faint rustle of the night—the call of an owl, followed by the faint scream of some small prey. I pry off the corks of the two barrels Lazare has set before me, empty the wineskins of water into them, and shove the corks back in. I grow faster each time—we all do—and am ready to go while Lazare is still pissing into the last keg.
When he finally jumps down off the wagon, I grab his arm. “You cannot mean to do that every time.” My voice is pitched so low that it makes less noise than the soft night air blowing in from the river. “It takes too long. And it is dim-witted besides.”
