Juliette shook her. “It’s not too late. We’re not going to let them best us. I’m not going to let them kill you.”
“Filth. I won’t ever be clean again, will I?”
“Shh.” Juliette gave Catherine a quick hug, picked up the sword again, and rose. “Can you stand up?”
Catherine looked at her dumbly.
Juliette took her wrist and yanked her to her feet. “Do you want them to catch me? Do you want them to do the same thing to me they did to you?”
Catherine slowly shook her head.
“Then come with me and do as I say.” Juliette didn’t wait for an answer but pulled Catherine stumbling from the tomb. “We have to hurry or they’ll—” She stopped, her gaze fixed on the abbey.“Bon Dieu, they’ve set fire to it.”
The abbey wasn’t fully ablaze yet. Only intermittent flames showed in the windows of the chapel. Well, what had she expected? This final desecration was no less terrible than what had gone before. It might even be for the best. Perhaps Dupree would think she had been butchered like the rest or burned up in the fire and wouldn’t search the surrounding countryside. She turned away, pulling Catherine through the gates of the cemetery. “We’ll skirt the road and try to make our way to the forest. Then after they’ve left we’ll walk toward Paris.”
“They’re singing.”
“It’s easier to hide in the city than it is in the open countryside, and it will—” Juliette broke off. Dear God, theyweresinging. The stirring strains of the song lent a macabre beauty to the destruction below. She knew if she lived to be an old woman she would never forget standing on this hillside and listening to those murderers singing their song of liberty and revolution.
“Filth,” Catherine murmured, rubbing frantically at the front of her gown.
“Shh. We’re too close.” Juliette pulled her forward through the vegetable garden, angling past the abbey wall south toward the forest. “Just be quiet a little longer and we’ll—”
“Wait. You’re going the wrong way.”
At the deep masculine voice Juliette whirled to face a man standing in the shadows of the convent wall. Only one man, she realized with relief. Juliette’s grasp tightened on Catherine’s wrist as she lifted the sword. “Take a step toward us and I’ll slice your heart out.”
“I have no intention of attacking you.” He paused. “You’re the Citizeness Justice that Dupree had sitting at the tribunal. You carry Dupree’s sword?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. You’re not going to stop us. I. won’t let—”
“I’m not trying to stop you.” His voice was heavy with weariness. “I’m only trying to tell you that you’re going the wrong way. Dupree’s set a watch. They will capture you if you are within a stone’s throw of this road.”
She gazed at him suspiciously. “I don’t believe you. Why should you tell me the truth if you were in the courtyard with those…” She searched for a word, but there was none vile enough. “Why are you here? Did you grow bored with slaughtering innocent women?”
“I didn’t kill anyone. I don’t—” He stopped. “I came into the courtyard just before Dupree took you from the tribunal. I was sent here to witness—I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
Juliette stared at him in disbelief.
“I tell you I didn’t know,” he said fiercely. “I have no love for either you aristos or the church, but I don’t murder the helpless.”
“Murder.” Catherine’s words came haltingly. “They…killed them?”
“Yes.” Juliette shot her a worried glance, but the news seemed to have little impact on Catherine’s shocked state.
“All of them?”
“I think so.” Juliette’s gaze shifted to the man in the shadows. “He should know better than I.”
“I didn’t stay to count the dead.”
“You didn’t stay to help the living either.”
“I couldn’t help them. Could you have helped them?”
