“Fine. Don’t answer me. You don’t need to, anyway.” She backed up a step toward the granary, then seemed to realize she couldn’t escape in that direction. She flattened herself against the opposite wall and edged past me instead, which would have been comical if I weren’t so tired of her being scared of me. I watched her start to leave, then waver, taking in the way I was slumped against the stone, remembering I couldn’t get back to the infirmary on my own.
Her mouth twisted unhappily. She gripped the pocket tied to her belt as though for reassurance. I guessed that it had her amulet inside—it was too small to be the place she was hiding Saint Eugenia’s reliquary.
I noticed in the shade-light that there were a few minor burns on her fingers. They looked new. Which was odd; I didn’t think she had time to help in the kitchens.
She saw me looking. “I’ll send a healer to come get you,” she blurted out, and fled.
As soon as she left, the revenant roused itself. “We aren’t killing Marguerite,” I said. “She isn’t going to tell anyone.”
“Are you certain about that, nun?”
There was a silkiness to its tone that made the hair stand up on my arms. I realized I had no idea what it would do if it thought we were at imminent risk of being discovered. Anything, I suspected, to avoid going back to its reliquary, even if that meant breaking our agreement.
The group of children ran past, laughing and screaming. None of them noticed me lurking in the shadows. I remembered the way the revenant’s ghost-fire had poured across the convent’s grounds, eager to devour even the grass and the worms in the soil. If my control slipped, if it unleashed itself here, nothing would survive.
The tension strained to a breaking point, and then it eased. A sister had entered the courtyard, glancing around with a slight frown of impatience. By the looks of it, Marguerite had told her that I’d gotten lost on my way to the privy. Our secret was safe. I felt the revenant relax as it reached the same conclusion.
As I stepped into the light, using the wall for support, the stick the children were playing with went flying across the courtyard and clattered to the ground at my feet. Instantly I found myself enveloped in a waist-high squabble. “No, it’s my turn!” they shouted. “It’s mine!” Standing in the middle, I might as well have turned invisible.
Finally a girl snatched up the stick, brandishing it at her competitors. “Now I get to be Artemisia of Naimes!” she declared boldly, and ran.
I stared dumbfounded as the children raced away, fighting over their makeshift sword. Their running back and forth was a reenactment of the Battle of Bonsaint: one of them playing me, others the soldiers, the rest the army of the Dead.
The revenant was observing me, assessing my reaction. “Is that so difficult for you to believe?” it asked at last.
I didn’t know how to answer as I watched the children go.
FOURTEEN
The next day, I felt well enough to make a trip to the privy on my own, though I ended up regretting it. The privy took the form of a small stone garderobe that jutted from the convent’s exterior wall over the Sevre. Inside it smelled of damp and echoed with the river’s muted roaring. A wooden bench with a hole in it emptied into the water below. The revenant’s weakness overtook me the moment I entered, and by the time I staggered out, pale and sweating, everyone waiting in line for their turn looked like they were having second thoughts.
The revenant was in a foul mood, which turned fouler as we entered the infirmary. “Oh, just what we need,” it snapped.
Charles was standing over my pallet, glancing around. The healed flux patients had been discharged earlier that morning and their bedding removed, leaving my abandoned place on the floor one of only about a dozen left in the hall, and it seemed that his bafflement was starting to give way to alarm. I watched as he knelt and gingerly lifted one of my pallet’s corners as though I might be hiding underneath it. When he saw me, he sprang upright, looking embarrassed.
“Anne!” he exclaimed, relieved.
“Charles.” I wasn’t used to people looking glad to see me, and I had no idea what to say. I settled on, “Thank you for bringing me to the sisters.” I knew he had to be the soldier who’d found me in the barnyard; none of the others knew my name.
“I should have done it earlier. Your hands…” I felt an unpleasant squirm in my stomach before he went on, “Why didn’t you tell me about the blight?”
“It wasn’t important.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Looking concerned, Charles stepped toward me. Instinctively, I stepped back. I was grateful that the sisters had laundered my clothes and returned them to me, so I wasn’t standing in front of him wearing only my chemise.
He opened his mouth, but he never got the chance to speak. Outside, someone screamed.
I recognized the scream. Not long ago, I had been the cause of it on a nearly daily basis. “Marguerite.”
Charles gripped his sword’s hilt and hurried outside at my heels. Marguerite had been avoiding me since yesterday; I hadn’t seen her since we had eavesdropped on the curists last evening. We found her in the courtyard in front of the infirmary. A crate lay broken at her feet, its load of glass jars and the straw they had been packed in spilled across the cobbles. She was clutching one arm to her chest in pain. Jean’s massive silhouette loomed over her, backlit by the low winter sun. A crowd had already gathered around them, muttering restlessly.
“He tried to hurt her!” someone called.
“No,” she protested weakly. “He just surprised me, that’s all—he was trying to help—”
Her objections were lost in the rising din of angry voices. “I saw it—he grabbed her! He nearly broke her arm!”
It wasn’t difficult to piece together what had happened. Marguerite had been struggling to carry the heavy crate, and Jean, likely waiting outside for Charles, had noticed and tried to lift it from her arms. But that wasn’t the picture everyone else saw. Ugly, swathed in bandages, a full head taller than a normal man, Jean looked like a monster threatening pretty, blue-eyed Marguerite. He didn’t show any sign of being aware of what was going on, except for the way he had backed up, his huge fists balled and a muscle clenching rhythmically in his jaw.
“That strength of his, it isn’t natural,” the woman in front of me whispered. Another was saying, “Not right in the head, I heard… possessed…”
I didn’t think the situation could get much worse. Then Charles shouldered his way forward, and Jean’s eyes fell on the sword. He let out a bellow like a wounded animal and flung out an arm, knocking someone over. They went down with a cry of pain.
Charles swore and began unbelting his sword, but the damage had been done. “Calm down,” he urged. “He isn’t going to hurt you,” but no one was listening. I could see that he was trying to help, but it was only making Jean more upset. At least one friend had already died because of him, and the agitated mob too closely resembled another battle.
“Stop,” I grated out. No one heard me, either. I shoved my way through the crowd until I reached the space in the middle and planted myself in front of Jean. “Stop!”