Unmistakably, the question was addressed to me. I longed for my life in Naimes, where the only new people I’d had to meet had been corpses. I spat to clear my mouth and looked up into a pair of curious brown eyes.
Eyes that I recognized. They belonged to the young soldier who had slapped Priestbane’s flank and told me to run. Now he had his helmet tucked beneath his arm, revealing a handsome, brown-skinned face and a tousled head of black hair.
My stomach plummeted. I braced myself for recognition to dawn, but his expression didn’t change. He didn’t know who I was. He must not have seen my face beneath the hood.
“The captain sent me,” he went on, speaking a little more slowly, as though I might have difficulty following. I gathered that the way I was looking up at him didn’t inspire confidence. “Captain Enguerrand, that is, the captain of the city guard. We’re supposed to bring everyone who’s sick or injured to the convent so Mother Dolours can have a look at them.” He glanced around, then knelt beside me in a confiding pose, his bent arm resting casually on his knee. “The captain said to mention there’s a sanctuary law at the convent, which means that for as long as you stay there, you’re under the abbess’s protection. He thought it might make you feel better.”
I knew about the sanctuary law; it applied to every convent in Loraille. Famously, it had once been used to shelter the scholar-turned-heretic Josephine of Bissalart from burning at the stake. I stared at the soldier, trying to figure out what a normal person would say. In the end I bent over and vomited again, which seemed like a better alternative to speaking.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, and leaned over me to look. “At least nothing’s coming up. You must not have eaten in ages.”
“Stop looking,” I ground out.
He grinned unrepentantly. “Well, you’re definitely sick,” he said, sounding very cheerful about it. He jammed his helmet onto his head and stood at attention. In an authoritative voice, he declared, seemingly for the benefit of passersby, “Madam, I have no choice but to escort you to the convent.”
Going with him didn’t necessarily seem like a good idea. Some of the sisters would be carrying relics. I wished I could consult the revenant, but at the moment it was queasily sloshing around in my head like a stunned fish in a bucket, occasionally rolling belly-upward. I didn’t think it was going to have anything useful to say for a while.
Captain Enguerrand had saved me twice now. Both times, he had been aided by Trouble. Maybe it was foolish to believe that the Lady had sent Trouble to help me, but that was all I had to go on. If this was what Captain Enguerrand thought I should do, then I would do it.
I tottered to my feet, shaking my head in refusal of the soldier’s offered arm. Then I ended up grabbing it anyway when I made the mistake of looking up. The riot of motion and color in the square hadn’t grown any less overwhelming since I had last seen it. I thought I might be sick again.
He gave me a knowing look. “Your first time in a city, isn’t it? I’ve seen that expression before. Where are you from?”
“Montprestre,” I muttered, releasing his arm. I would stand out less if I claimed I was from Roischal, but my story would quickly unravel if anyone began asking questions. Meanwhile, I could probably get away with lying even if I was unlucky enough to meet another person from Montprestre. Mostly, the province was known for having a lot of goats.
“That explains it,” he said sympathetically. “Well, you’ll get used to Bonsaint eventually. In the meantime, keeping your eyes on the ground might help. My name is Charles, by the way.”
“Anne,” I returned, doggedly trailing after him as he set off across the square. If he said anything else, I didn’t hear it. I hadn’t been prepared for how painful it would be to use my old name again. The sound of it echoed cruelly in my head, conjuring up memories of ropes around my wrists, the musty stink of the shed. I should have chosen something else. Francine, or even Marguerite.
To my relief, Charles didn’t seem to notice that I was behaving oddly. The helmet had already gone back beneath his arm. Several times, I caught him glancing at his reflection as we passed a stall and artfully rearranging his tousled hair. This resulted in no difference that I could perceive, but nevertheless a girl carrying a basket of flowers blushed and smiled at him as he passed.
He led us onto a narrow, winding avenue where stalls crowded the cobblestone lane. Steam hissed from a nearby booth, followed by the rhythmic clanging of a hammer. Heat billowed across the street as a man drew a red-hot lump of metal from a forge.
“Consecrated steel amulets!” the vendor shouted. “Protect yourself from the unseen! Effective against wights and ghasts of every order!”
I frowned, giving his stall a closer look. Dozens of pendants hung glinting from the awning. Melted down from Clerisy horseshoes, I guessed, and almost wished the revenant were fit to comment, just so I could hear its scornful reaction. Pieces of consecrated steel that small would barely deter a shade.
Another vendor’s voice drew my attention. “The crossbow bolt that struck Artemisia of Naimes, miraculously recovered from the battlefield! Just a single copper pawn to touch it and receive her blessing! Guaranteed to heal wounds, guard against blight, restore imbalanced humors!”
For a moment I barely believed what I had heard. But then a different voice declared, “Splinters of wood from the holy arrow, stained with Saint Artemisia’s own blood! The genuine article! Buy a piece for only five pawns!” He glared across the street at his competitor.
I stared in disbelief at the long lines crowding each of these stalls. Then anger boiled up in my chest, stopping me dead in the middle of the street. Charles walked a few paces ahead before he noticed I had lagged behind, and hurried back.
“What’s wrong?” He took in the direction of my gaze and scoffed. “Unbelievable, isn’t it? I hear they’re dipping so many splinters of wood in pigs’ blood that the butchers are starting to run dry. That’s just the way things are, I suppose. Do you know they’re already calling it the Battle of Bonsaint? Like something from the War of Martyrs. Oh,” he added suddenly, standing on his toes to see farther down the street. “Come on, we need to get out of the way.”
There was some sort of procession coming down the narrow lane. That was all I managed to grasp before Charles drew me aside into an empty stone doorway. The rest of the foot traffic did the same, squeezing between stalls or into alleys. Charles briefly glanced upward as he shuffled to make room, and I nearly joined him before I caught myself. Shades clotted the top of the archway like old cobwebs, their grasping hands and contorted faces swirling in and out of view. Shades that Anne of Montprestre shouldn’t be able to see.
“I saw it happen, you know,” Charles said. I felt a jolt of alarm, but when I glanced at him sidelong, he wasn’t looking at me. He was gazing in the direction of the stalls, his expression far away. “I was there on the battlefield, fighting. I saw her—Artemisia of Naimes. I even touched her horse.”
“What did she look like?” I asked warily.
“Beautiful,” he said, his eyes shining. “Like the Lady Herself, surrounded by silver fire. The fairest maiden I’ve ever seen.”