“If that is so, then why has He consigned us to lurk in the shadows and cloak ourselves in His darkness?”
She does not answer right away. I sneak a look over my shoulder and see that she is frowning at the window, as if she seeks the answer to this question there. “I believe those are not His wishes, but the convent’s.”
Those words are like a shower of winter hail down my back. I sit up and turn to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean”—she chooses her words as if picking her way across a stream—“that I believe the convent misunderstands both Mortain and His wishes for us. Whether through ignorance or intent, I do not know.”
The magnitude of this makes my heart clutch in my chest. “Explain,” I say, shoving my hair out of my eyes so I may use every sense I possess to try to understand this huge revelation she has just shared.
“First, He does not insist we act with vengeance or judgment in our hearts. To Him, bringing Death is an act of great mercy and grace, for without it all people would be forced to struggle on in frail and broken bodies, riddled with pain, weakened. That is why He has given us the misericorde.”
“The what?”
Ismae looks at me, puzzled. “You do not have one?”
“I have never even heard of such a thing.”
Ismae reaches into the folds of her skirt and withdraws an ancient-looking knife, its handle of bone with chased silver. “It is an instrument of mercy,” she says softly. “Just one nick causes the soul to leave the body, quick and sure and painless. But I do not understand why the abbess did not give you one.”
“It could be she knew no one in d’Albret’s household was deserving of mercy.” Of a certainty, she knew I would not be interested in dispensing it.
She puts that aside for now. “But Sybella, what I learned is that He does not love us because of the acts we perform in His name—He loves us because we are His. What we choose to do or not do, how we choose to serve Him or not serve Him, will never alter that love.”
“He told you this?”
“Not in words such as you and I speak, but I felt it. I felt this grace and love of His surround and engulf me like a river, and it stripped the ignorance from my eyes.”
“Much like the Tears of Mortain allow us to see His will better.”
“Precisely like that. Only a hundredfold more.”
I reach out and grab her arm. “So have we been wrong all this time? Committing murder by striking when we see His marque?”
“Not wrong, exactly,” she says slowly. “But I would say instead it is not required of us. Those who are to meet Death bear a marque, whether they are to die by our hands or by some other means.”
“How do you know this?” Have I been killing men all this time, thinking I was doing His will when I was actually following some dark impulse of my own?
“After we were attacked at Nantes, I returned to the field to search for survivors among the fallen.”
“There were none,” I say tightly. “D’Albret does not leave survivors.”
“No, but each of the dying soldiers bore some form of the marque. And the men I saw marqued when I was a child—none was killed by another’s hand. I believe the marque appears when a man’s death is in sight, and that includes a death at our hands. The mistake I think the convent has made is about the nature of those marques. They are merely reflections of what will happen, not commands to act.”
“Does the abbess know this?”
“I do not know,” Ismae says slowly. “I cannot tell. Although she was most angry when I suggested such an idea to her. Now sleep. Morning will come soon enough.” She comes over to the bed, leans down, and presses a kiss on my brow. “Everything I have told you about Mortain is true. Do not doubt it.” And then she is gone, and I am left with my entire world turned upside down.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
EVEN WITH THE DRAFT ISMAE prepared, my sleep is fitful and restless. I am too consumed with reciting all that she has just told me, my mind scrambling to recast the world—and my role in it.
I am not certain I believe her, for Ismae was always wont to see Mortain and the convent in the best possible light. Even so, it has given my mind much to gnaw on.
When I wake, my head is so thick and woolly that it takes a moment for me to realize that someone is knocking. I fight my way out of the tangle of covers, get to my feet, and stumble to the door. I open it an inch and peek out. A liveried page awaits. To his credit, his eyes drift to my disheveled appearance only once before returning to my face and staying there. “The duchess cordially invites you to join her at your earliest convenience in her solar, demoiselle.”
“Very well. Tell her I will be there shortly.”
The lad gives a sprightly bow. Before he can scamper off, I ask him to send a maidservant to attend me.
The summons has chased the last cobwebs of sleep from my mind as I worry what the duchess wishes of me. Will she ban me from her court, now that she knows of my heritage? Or will she try to draw more of my secrets from me?
And if so, what will I tell her? For she, more than anyone, has a full right to know both the doings of her most traitorous subject and the nature of this man some would have her marry.
Whatever she wishes, it will most likely be just she and her ladies in waiting in the solar, so I will not have to face Beast just yet. While Ismae was most forgiving, my family has not harmed her or those she loved in any way. Beast’s betrayal at my hand goes much deeper than a secret not shared between childhood friends.
By the time the maid arrives, I have already washed with the water remaining in the ewer, the coldness of it helping to restore my wits. I slip into the second of the gowns Ismae has lent me, a stark, simple black silk with severe lines. I settle my heavy garnet and gold crucifix on the thick chain around my waist and consider myself ready. At least, as ready as I’ll ever be.
The maid herself leads me to the duchess’s solar, which is two floors up from my own chamber. She murmurs my name to the sentry on duty, who nods and opens the door, announcing me.
“Come in!” the duchess’s young voice calls out. Cautiously, I step into the room, blinking at all the golden sunlight spilling in through the mullioned windows.
The duchess is sitting near a couch, surrounded by three ladies in waiting. As they eye me furtively, I cannot help but wonder if news of my parentage has traveled to their delicate ears. Or is the council treating it as a secret to be guarded?