Mortal Heart

Chapter Sixteen



WHEN I WAKE, THE FIRST thing I notice is the growling of the hounds. I sit up quickly and turn toward the sound. The hellequin with the spiked vambraces is fighting—no, playing with?—the hellhounds. Either that or they are trying to kill him.



An older man with sorrowful eyes sits by one of the small fires next to the lanky youth I saw last night. The older man appears to be teaching the younger one how to do something with a knife. Many of the hellequin sit around such fires, oiling their harnesses or sharpening their weapons.



“It gives them something to do with their hands.” I nearly jump at the deep voice behind me. When I turn, I find Balthazaar still leaning against the wall, watching me with a heavy-lidded gaze. “They do not use their weapons any longer. They are simply pieces of their past they carry with them.”



“Do they not need sleep?” I ask.



“No.”



Which means that, despite what he said, he does not either, yet still he chose to sit by me through the night. I pray that I did not drool or snore. To cover up my embarrassment, I speak, although rather more tartly than I intend to. “I am sorry if I delayed your departure.”



“You did not. We won’t leave until night has fallen, so we were stuck here whether you slept or not.”



Unsure what to say to that, and acutely aware of his eyes on me, I pull my saddlebag closer. I reach inside, rummage for something to stick in my empty belly before it begins rumbling. My hand closes around one of the round, hard cheeses, and I pull it from the pack. I break it in two, then begin pulling the wax from one half. Like a ripple moving across a pond, the quiet hum and murmur around me ceases. When I look up, I see that nearly all the hellequin are watching me.



“Cheese,” the lanky youth says, somewhat wistfully.



He is so very young that it is hard to imagine what he could have done to earn time with the hellequin. Discomfited, I glance at Balthazaar. “Do they not eat either?”



He shakes his head. “Hellequin do not require food, but we can eat it if we like. For many, it is either a painful or pleasant reminder of our mortal years.”



Suddenly my throat closes up and my hunger evaporates. Not knowing what else to do, I take the second half of the cheese and hold it out to the boy. “Would you like some?”



He looks at me with equal parts disbelief and longing, then cuts a questioning glance to Balthazaar. Whatever he sees there reassures him. He leaps to his feet, crosses the distance between us, then reaches out hesitantly to take the cheese. I only wish I had enough to give all of them, for the face of every man here holds some measure of hunger, although what exactly they hunger for, I will likely never know. “Thank you,” the boy says. He stares down at the cheese as if it were a sparkling jewel as he hurries back to his place by the fire. However, instead of shoving the cheese in his mouth as I expected, he breaks off a small piece and hands it to the older man who had been showing him how to carve wood. Other hellequin begin crowding near, and he breaks off more and more pieces, handing them out until all he has left is one bite of cheese. He pops it in his mouth, savoring it as he chews.



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.”