Mortal Heart (15 page)

When we ride out that night, Balthazaar takes the van and the rest fall in behind him. The only exceptions are Miserere and two other hellequin who have been assigned to ride at my side. One is the lanky youth—Begard, he is called—and the other his companion of earlier, a former stonemason they call Malestroit. They are my protection, Balthazaar claims, but I cannot help but wonder if their true purpose is to prevent my escape.

Although he need not worry about that. Not yet. I am watched much too closely. Not only out of suspicion, but because I am something new. A diversion. Mayhap even a reminder of what they have lost. I see that in Malestroit’s sorrowful eyes every time he looks at me.

However, not all hellequin feel that way. Some cast bitter glances in my direction, as if it pains them to have me in their midst. Still others wear expressions of awe and try to draw near, as if my presence offers them some hope or plucks some chord of fond memory.

It is all most disconcerting, frankly.

As Fortuna canters through the forest surrounded by the hunt, trees tower on either side of us, obscuring the moon. We ride so fast I dare not look up at the stars for fear I will fall off my horse and be trampled. Not to mention that the roads chosen by the hellequin are rough and little used, often barely more than wagon ruts.

When the path opens up again, I find that the cluster of hellequin around me has grown. Miserere keeps to my left and Malestroit to my right, but others press in close.

“You have drawn a crowd, milady.” Begard’s voice is cheerful, as if I should be proud of such an accomplishment.

“So it appears,” I murmur, suddenly very glad for Balthazaar’s caution.

“There is no need to fear. Most are not as terrifying as they seem. You’ve met Miserere.” The boy glances to the giant who rides silently beside us and lowers his voice in an exaggerated manner. “He is not nearly so frightening as he looks.”

Unable to help myself, I too glance at Miserere, who stares straight ahead and pretends we do not exist. “I fear I may need more than your word on that for me to believe it,” I say.

Miserere’s grim mouth twitches. I would like to believe it is in amusement, but it is most likely in annoyance. Or anger.

Begard ignores him and continues with his prattle. “Malestroit here used to be a stonemason. He’s teaching me to whittle.”

“Gives him something to do with his hands besides steal things from others,” the stonemason explains. “A bad enough habit among the living, but especially stupid when surrounded by men such as these.”

Begard looks sheepish. “I am—used to be—a thief,” he says by way of explanation. While I am not surprised that he is a thief, I am surprised that such a small crime would earn him a place with the hellequin. To turn the subject from him—and his discomfort—I ask ­Begard who the second giant is.

“You must mean Sauvage.” The boy gives a mock shudder. “He does frighten me. A little.” He lowers his voice in earnest now. “He was a follower of Saint Camulos. He was called the Butcher of Quimper and became so overcome by battle lust that he destroyed entire villages. He has ridden with the hunt for at least two hundred years. Or so it is rumored. Mostly he keeps to himself.”

“Or the hounds,” Malestroit adds. “He does have a fondness for the hounds.”

“Surely that speaks well of him,” I say. “What of the man with the fancy armor and sharp features? Over there.” I tilt my head in his general direction, unwilling to point and draw attention to myself.

Begard’s young face is like a map, his expressions informing me just as thoroughly as his words how he feels about the men with whom he serves. “That is Maligne,” he says sullenly. “I don’t like him. He is cruel.”

“Only because you tried to steal his knife,” Malestroit points out. “He is not inclined to forgive that.”

Begard ignores this and whispers to me instead. “He swore an oath to the duke of Brittany during the first war of succession, then broke it. He is one of the forsworn.”

“Ah.” I had always known it was a terrible thing to break an oath, and I cannot help but wonder if I have broken some similar oath—albeit unknowingly—in leaving the convent.

Beside me, Miserere shifts on his horse and leans forward to scowl at Begard. “If you’re going to tattle on everyone else’s sins, boy, be sure to tell your own.”

Begard squirms in his saddle, then looks down to study the reins he holds in his hands. “I was a thief,” he says.

“So you said. This seems hard penance for such a crime,” I point out gently.

He grows even more miserable. “I . . . I lured a merchant and his wife to an isolated road so I could rob them. The merchant, he fought back, and I ended up killing him.”

Perhaps to distract attention from the younger boy, or perhaps as part of his own personal vow of penance, the stonemason speaks quietly into Begard’s melancholy silence. “As for me, I accidentally beat my only son to death in a fit of drunkenness.” His face is haggard with the memory, and clearly his own guilt and regret are worse than the punishment of riding with the hunt.

Unable to look at his sorrow-ravaged face any longer, I glance over to Miserere and wonder what sins he has committed. To my surprise, I find him looking at me. “I was an executioner,” he says, his gaze never wavering from my own. “With nearly a hundred deaths on my hands.”

“That seems hardly fair, as they were deaths sanctioned by the law.”

“They are still deaths,” he says, looking away.

“Begone! All of you!”

I jerk my head around at the sound of Balthazaar’s voice. He has left the lead and moved to my right, where Malestroit had been. “You are not nursemaids. You have duties to attend to.”

I wonder if Miserere minds very much being called a nursemaid and sneak a glance at him. By the pained look on his face, I can see that he does.

The others fall back, but Balthazaar says nothing as we ride side by side. His gaze searches the trees, as if he suspects there are souls lurking just beyond his reach. “I suppose I should ask what you know of the hellequin,” he finally says.

“Far more than I knew an hour ago,” I murmur.

“The boy talks too much.”

“On the contrary, I found it most helpful.”

“You are not avoiding my question, are you?” The weight of his gaze presses heavily on me, like a pile of stones.

“I know they are the souls of the damned who have pledged themselves to serve Mortain in order to earn their redemption.”

“You know more than most, it seems.”

“It is also said that when they ride out at night, they bring the chill and despair of the Underworld with them.”

“And do you feel the chill and despair of the Underworld, demoiselle?”

I glance around at the hellequin whose stories I have just heard. “Of a sort,” I say quietly.

“What?” he scoffs. “No words of demon spawn, of ambassadors of Satan himself? No stories of our cavorting across the countryside leaving sin and destruction in our wake?”

I know he intends his sharp manner to drive a wedge between us, to push me away. But there is pain hiding behind his bitterness. It is hidden, deeply hidden, perhaps even from him, but it is there. I know because Sybella tried to keep us away in precisely the same manner when she first came to the convent. The comparison gives me pause. Is that why he feels familiar to me? “No, for I do not follow the new church, but keep to the old ways instead.”

“What manner of maid is raised so steeped in the old faith that she is unafraid to ride with the hellequin’s hunt?”

“Who says I am unafraid?” I counter.

“I saw you with my men. You shared your food with them, but more than that, you saw their humanity and offered them compassion. There was no fear.”

My gaze drifts to the hellequin around us. “Some of them frighten me,” I murmur. “Miserere, Sauvage, that hooded fellow.”

“So how did you come to be raised in such a way that you can so easily overcome your own fears?”

I open my mouth to answer his question, then pause, all of my senses sharpening, just as they do when I step into the training yard with Sister Thomine. When he came upon me that first night, he said he knew the manner of my upbringing and owed a debt to those who raised me. But now he is acting as if he does
not
know the nature of my upbringing.

Or else he is trying to catch me in a lie.

While it had seemed possible that the hunt could actually be pursuing me, I did not give too much credence to the thought. But now, now I must consider that possibility once more. “I am from an old family, one of the oldest in Brittany,” I tell him. “A remote branch that keeps to the westernmost regions, where many still honor the old ways. My family is one of those, that is all.”

“But it is not.” His words cause my heart to stutter with concern. “You easily accept what some believe exists only in myth and legend. You are not only respectful of Mortain, but worshipful. Dedicated in a way that few are. Especially as the new church encroaches ever more on the old faith.”

He is right—even those who respect the old ways are not so enamored of Mortain. I must answer him but also steer him away from any hint that I am one of Mortain’s own handmaidens. “My mother’s sister was an initiate at the convent of Saint Mortain and she has written to us often over the years, her words glorifying the work that they do there. Because of that, the members of my family more than most, have a deep connection to Him.” I glance up at him to see if this will satisfy his curiosity.

His gaze grows heavy with intensity, as if he is trying to call forth all my secrets. “And you have never questioned your faith? Never doubted or turned your back on Him?”

It is not his question that gives me pause but the dark undercurrent in his words, which suggests something that I cannot fully discern. Anguish? Anger? “No,” I say simply. “I have not.” It is not a lie that I tell him, for it is only my faith in the abbess that has wavered.

We ride on, and the silence between us grows thick and weighted. Afraid he will ask more questions, I decide to ask some of my own. “Explain to me the nature of the hellequin and their duties so I may better understand them?”

He huffs out a breath of irritation. “I am no tutor.”

“I have heard it said that because of the hellequin’s own dark histories, they are easily corrupted by others’ will, especially those that call them back to the darkness of their own past.” I keep my voice low and fill it with all the sympathy I truly feel. “That once they stray, they are twice damned and thrust well beyond any chance of redemption or any afterlife at all.”

“That is at the heart of it.” He rolls his shoulders, as if he would shrug off the weight of this burden. It is a surprisingly human gesture. “We are broken and damned, the midden heap of Mortain’s grace and mercy. We are tasked with collecting the souls of the wicked so they may be brought to their final judgment and wreak no more havoc upon the living.” He pauses a moment before adding, “And we also collect the lost—those who cannot find their own way to the Underworld or simply refuse to leave the world of the living.”

“So not only a hunt,” I murmur. “But also a rescue mission.”

His lips twist in scorn. “Do not decorate it with flowers and hang a ribbon on it, demoiselle. We are not noble or gallant men. We have sworn ourselves to this service, but the honor that binds us to it is a tenuous thing at best.”

“Says the evil hellequin who saved me from his own men.” I watch him closely to see if he has any reaction to being reminded of the deal he made with me.

He stares at me for a long moment, but there is no flash of remorse or recognition or, indeed, anything at all.

“How are you chosen?” I ask, unwilling to endure the silence any longer.

“We volunteer. It is one last chance to atone for the darkest of our sins.” He looks up and squints through the trees as if he has spotted something fascinating up there. “We must move among the temptations of our mortal flesh each and every day. And each and every day, we must say yes to our continued penance, even as new temptations greet us with each setting sun. We must choose, not once, but again and again, in each hour that passes, to walk this path.” He turns to look at me and I am struck by the brief glimpse of hunger I see in his gaze. “And there are many temptations.”

Me, I realize dizzily. He considers me a temptation. And yet, he offered to hide me among his own men.

Or did he? What if, in truth, he suspects who I am and wishes to keep me close until he can find out for certain?

A short while later, the hounds begin to bay, and a ripple of excitement runs through the hellequin, as palpable as the night breeze on my face. Dark, feral grins break out as they kick their horses to a gallop. Their mounts seem to draw on some otherworldly reserves, and they surge forward, giant hooves pounding the earth beneath their feet until it sounds like a hailstorm.

Fortuna follows. Indeed, it is as if the wildness and ferocity of the other horses is some scent or eldritch sickness that she herself has caught. As I lift my face to the dark night, I wonder if I too might catch it.

The hounds bay again, this time sending a cascade of goose flesh down my arms. In front of me, the hunt splits into two, like water before a rock, spreading out, then encircling something. No—someone, I realize, as one of the riders shifts his position. Actually, several someones.

We have stopped in a small clearing surrounded by gnarled trees bent by the wind, their weighty branches drooping to the ground like long green beards. Now that the riders have stopped moving, my eyes are drawn to the three men inside the circle. Or rather, not men but something more otherworldly than that, for they do not seem solid or truly mortal—their edges are blurred somewhat and all the color leached from them, like a gown left to dry in the sun too long.

These cornered men show no defiance, only fear. Now that the men are surrounded and have no means of escape, the hellequin draw in close. But, much to my surprise, the hellequin are almost gentle with them, not so much pursuing them as herding them, urging them forward with their horses.

We continue on, but much more slowly, so that the men on foot may keep up.