Mortal Heart (47 page)

I roll my eyes. “After all that I have told you, you should realize just how poor a fit the title of saint is when applied to me.”

Her face grows serious once more, filling with sincerity. “I think you deserve it now more than ever,” she says.

I let her words wash over me, as healing as one of Sister Serafina’s balms. “Thank you,” I whisper, unable to stop the tears that spring to my eyes.

“Oh no. Do not start leaking. Ismae, come over here and hug her so we can all pretend it never happened and get on with our lives.”

Ismae’s gaze meets mine as she moves away from the fire. “Of course I am amazed and admiring of all that you have been through.” When she reaches me she wraps her arms around me and holds me close. “As you say, it is all just a little overwhelming.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. As long as I know they are still my friends, as long as I know that our connection cannot be broken, I shall be fine.

Once they leave to see to their other duties, I go to stand before the fire, feeling once again as if I have been completely upended and remade anew, when in truth, I have barely caught my breath from the first time my life shattered before my eyes.

But this—this is different. This is no shattering, but rather some great knitting together of the broken pieces into a stronger whole.

I feel cleansed, not only of sin—but of artifice. I am stripped down to nothing but my raw self. As uncomfortable as it makes me feel, there is freedom in it as well, for there is no place left for others’ expectations and desires of me to hide. The worst things that I could have ever imagined have happened.

I turn and stare at my saddlebag, tossed carelessly in the corner. Slowly, I cross the room and kneel beside it. I reach in, down to the very bottom of the pack with the crumbs of hardened cheese, and retrieve the small calfskin-bound journal that I took from the abbess’s office: the Dragonette’s accounting of me, my childhood, of all the things she did to me, and all the ways I failed and showed my weakness. I have not read all of it, but I do not have to. I lived it. I remember. But I am not that child anymore. My younger self served me well, as well as any child in her circumstances could have. But I have new strengths and skills that I can rely on.

I feel the weight of the pages in my hand, the heft of the secrets and shame written there, the complexity of the ties that bind me to the convent. Then I turn and hurl the journal into the fireplace. As I watch, the orange and gold flames lick at the pages, making them curl in on themselves and shrink like a dying creature. I close my eyes, feel the heat of the fire against my face, my arms, my heart, and let those same flames burn away the last vestiges of shame and humiliation and mortification. They are simply scars now, like the silvery white marks around my waist, a path to show how far I have traveled in order to get where I am. But they are no longer who I am, if ever they were.

And with that new realization comes another—I have always loved Death. Not as a father, but as a true champion, for that is how he first came to me. He showed me a capacity for love—for acceptance—that was greater than that of any human heart I had encountered.

Even Sister Etienne, as much as she was fond of me, or perhaps even loved me, our time together was always interwoven with her need to see that I was happy. She needed me to be happy like a fish needs water to swim—and so I quickly learned to be happy when I was with her.

Mortain’s was the only love that placed no demands upon me, the only one who loved me for simply being. His love was as unwavering and constant as the sun. It was what gave me the strength to keep going. The faith to keep trying. The hope I needed to persevere. That was him all along—whether I called him Mortain or Balthazaar, my heart knew him, recognized him.

Filled with this new awareness, I leave the room and begin making my way to the battlements. He never saw my love as a flaw or a weakness, but instead accepted it, letting it flow into him like a stream tumbling across parched earth.

I eased his dreadful aloneness as much as he eased mine, and I welcomed that feeling, that I had something to give him in return.

Is that not as good a reason to love someone as any? Is that not, in fact, at the very root of why anyone loves another?

As I reach the landing and shove open the heavy door, I have another flash of understanding. On some level, the Dragonette saw all this. She saw the special connection I shared with our god and that was why she punished and shamed me. Not because she did not believe me, but because my seeing him set me apart from her made me special in my own way rather than by her efforts.

I walk to the far end of the catwalk, my head so full of this jumble of thoughts that I do not even see Mortain standing against the battlement until I nearly plow into him. He puts his hand out to steady me.

“My lord! I am sorry. I did not see you. Normally, you are lurking in the corners or skulking in the shadows, not standing in plain sight.”

His mouth quirks, ever so slightly. “I never skulk, and lurk only sometimes.”

I shoot him a disbelieving glance, then join him at the parapet, looking out over the eastern part of the city, past the wall to the fields below. “The French army will be here tomorrow,” I tell him. “The day after, at the latest.”

He pulls his gaze from the darkened streets and fields and turns it upon me. “I know. I can feel it, all those souls loosening from their bodies in preparation for their imminent deaths, like so much wheat making ready to loosen from the sheath. She has lost already, you know. Your duchess.”

Although he says nothing I do not already know, it is hard to hear it from the lips of a god. “I know. She knows. We
all
know.” I look up and study his profile, which is as still and calm as the stone beneath my hand. “Can you see what will come to pass? Do you know what will happen?”

He gives a single shake of his head. “No, for I am not all-seeing. Only Death is my realm, and I know well enough when it is near.”

“Do you know who among us will live and who will die?” I cannot help but think of Duval and Beast, of stalwart Captain Dunois, trying to turn a fractious, undisciplined group of mercenaries into a cadre of men who can withstand a siege. I think of the duchess and wonder if they will let her live. And what of us? Those who serve the old gods, the convent? Will we be punished for our role in helping her?

“Not yet. It is too soon. And even once the marque is upon someone, it is not a guarantee of death. There are too many variables, many of which I do not control. It is only when one of my daughters serves within my grace that I am able to exert some small portion of control on things.”

Suddenly, he turns to me, his eyes burning. “You could come with me,” he says. “Come to the Underworld and be my queen.” Even as I gape in shock at this invitation, he shakes his head and turns away to look back out over the countryside. “No.” His voice is heavy with despair. “It would only force you to share my prison with me, and I will not subject you to that.”

I can see in his eyes, even though they are averted from me, and feel from the timbre of his voice just how sorely his entrapment chafes at him. Just how thoroughly it has corroded not only his view of the world, but his view of himself.

And that has been my gift to him. Not just now, or in the last few months, but since I was young, I have always seen him as a man and honored the gifts he brings to the world. I have loved him for those things long before I understood the nature of who he was.

I reach out and take his hand in mine. “I would gladly share your prison, but I am not worthy of such an honor. I am bastard-born, and mortal through and through, as I have surely proven to you over and over again throughout the time we have known each other.”

He throws back his head and laughs, surprising me. “And I am Death. Unwelcome, the thief in the night, destroyer of lives.” And that is when I see that he is in danger as well, in danger of believing all that is said of him, of forgetting his own true essence. He turns to face me, pulling me close. “Don’t you see? Your mortal heart shines like a candle flame and I, like one of those hapless black moths you used to leave as an offering, am helpless before its lure.”

I step fully into his arms, and place my head against his chest, his words wrapping themselves around me. To him, my brokenness, my muddied birth, my scars—none of that defines me, it is all encompassed within the entirety of who I am, just as Death encompasses sorrow and joy, justice and mercy, and the beginnings of new life. We are all of us, gods and mortals, made up of many pieces, some of them broken, some of them scarred, but none of them the sum and total of who we are.

I feel his heart beating against my ear, marvel that a god even has such a human thing as a heart. “It does not matter,” I say. “For there is something else I must do.”

“What is that?”

I take a deep breath, for I know he will not like what is coming. “Our country is beset from all sides and there is a chance that I have the power to help. So I must.”

He pulls back and stares down at me, brow furrowed. “How?”

“I will use the arrow—your arrow—on the French king and see if it will compel him to turn his affections toward our duchess rather than his armies.”

He gestures to the thousands of tents stretched out before the city walls. “You will have to ride through thousands of French to do it—surely that is madness. Impossible!”

“I think it can be done. At the very least, I have to try.” As I draw back to look at him, the sorrow and desolation I see is almost more than I can bear. I raise my hand and place it against his cheek. “Would that you could join me in my world, rather than me in yours.”

He grows utterly still, except for his eyes, which shine with intensity. “But I have no place there, not once my unwelcome duties have been seen to.”

I slip my arms up around his neck. “You have a place with me, in my heart, at my side.”

He laughs, a sour, distressing sound. “You would upend the very nature of Death so that we could be together?”

“I would, for I will no longer sit and wait patiently for my happiness to grow like some budding fruit on the limbs of a tree, but will mold it and shape it with my own hands.”

I find Father Effram in the chapel. He has just lit fresh candles and is placing them under the nine niches. “Father.”

He turns around, pleased to see me. “Annith. What brings you here so late at night?”

“I have a question I would ask you.”

“Another one?”

I wince at his words, until I see that he is teasing. Even so, I can only imagine what a trial I am making of myself.

“Oh, do not look so! I was only jesting. In truth, it is refreshing having someone to discuss these esoteric theological issues with.”

Feeling somewhat mollified, I approach the nave. “This will be my most far-fetched question yet,” I assure him.

He sets down the last candle and rubs his hands in anticipation, but I do not know how to frame the question. “If a god grows tired of his duties or is no longer believed in or worshiped, what paths does he have open to him?”

Father Effram holds very, very still. “Do you know such a god as this?” he finally asks.

Unwilling to lie to him, I shrug. “It is a question I have been thinking much upon lately, that is all.”

His face furrows in thought, his long bony fingers reaching up to pluck at his chin. He comes to some silent decision, then takes a seat on the prayer bench and motions for me to join him. “If a god should grow weary of his burden—and some do—there is a way to set aside their godhood, if they so choose.”

“Truly?”

“Dear child, when Christ died on the cross, He was not only creating a way for man to become immortal and live forever in God’s kingdom, but also showing those few immortals left in the world how they could become mortal if they chose. Thus they would be able to access the kingdom of heaven if they wished. God is the maker of all things, and He would never abandon any of His creatures.”

“So they—and those of us who worship them—are not outside His grace?”

Father Effram gives a firm shake of his head. “No. They were always part of His plans for this mortal world.”

“Do the gods themselves know this?”

He nods. “Yes.” There is an ocean of sympathy and compassion in his face. “Child.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his. “Your love cannot change a man—or a god. All it can do is open a door, create a new path for him to choose. One that has not been open to him before. That is what the power of your love can offer him—all of that, and no more.”

I look away. “I have no desire to change him, only to see him happy.”

“I am certain your love does make him happy. Whether it will give him the courage to step through that door remains to be seen.”

T
WO DAYS LATER
, the planning begins in earnest. The duchess insists on being a part of it, claiming if I can make the sacrifice, the least she can do is stay informed. Ismae and Sybella are there as well, but more as moral support, I suspect, than in any official capacity. The abbess too has somehow managed to worm her way into the proceedings, and it is all I can do not to ask the duchess to order her from the room.

Beast has invited both the Arduinnites and the charbonnerie to attend, arguing that they have skills and knowledge that may prove useful to us. The Arduinnites have only been helping with maintaining order in the city for a matter of days, and already he is impressed with them.

It is odd, seeing them in the same room as the duchess’s formal councilors, yet it feels right that all of the country’s forces, both the old and the new, should come together to find a way to turn the tides of war from our land. In spite of the Arduinnites’ unusual dress and unrefined manner, their presence and bearing is as regal as the duchess’s, and I am proud to be one of Arduinna’s line.

We have just sat down—the bishop as far away from the Arduinnites as he can manage, as if he is afraid they will taint his own faith just by their proximity—when the door opens. Duval whirls around to face the interloper. “I told you we were not to be disturbed.”