“Why?” asked the archbishop. Blanche knew him, too. She’d never heard him speak, but there he was, young and fat as a capon, with short-cropped hair almost exactly the colour of her own. “What do we want with the slut?”

De Rohan sighed as if he was surrounded by fools. “Your excellency, in an hour or so, when we lead the so-called Queen to the stake…” He paused. “We may experience some difficulties with her, and with the canaille. I would love to have a lever with which to move the so-called Queen.”

Blanche was pushed along. Hands fondled her—she was bruised by a vise-like grip on one of her breasts as a dozen soldiers pushed her to where de Rohan stood. They laughed.

He laughed.

He was standing at the gate to the barriers around the Queen. Two rather sorry-looking guardsmen stood there—not, she would have thought, the men who had been there a few minutes before. Both were slack-jawed and slack-eyed—possibly drunk.

The Queen, on the other hand, looked considerably better.

“Madame,” de Rohan said. “Are you prepared to meet your fate?”

“Is it not rather the fate that you have made me, my lord?” she asked. “Nor is it yet noon—the hour appointed for my Champion.”

“Any time from the first hour after matins until the middle of the day, madame.” His arm suddenly shot out and he took Blanche by her ear—the pain was incredible. She screeched.

“Do you know this pretty slip, Desiderata?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the Queen, sadly.

“Good. If you’d like her to live out the day—and not be the bedfellow of my servants for the next few weeks, until her spirit is a little less brazen—then you will obey me.” He shrugged.

The Queen’s eyes were gentle pools of brown looking at Blanche’s. “This is low even for you, de Rohan,” she said. “And I suspect that no matter what I promise you will inflict your child-like will on poor Blanche, who is guilty of no crime but loyalty to me.” To Blanche she said, “You should have run, child.”

Blanche found that she was crying. She wanted to be strong—as strong as she’d been for a week—but she felt helpless and abandoned and she knew what was to come. She knew it, as every woman feared it, and she couldn’t keep her tears and despair at bay.

“How I hate you,” she managed to say to de Rohan.

He didn’t even turn his head. “I expect—” His warm hand found her jaw and his thumb was suddenly under her chin, probing deeply into the side of her neck until the pain made her rise on her toes and scream. “I expect you’ll hate me more later,” he said, dropping her. “To much the same effect, really.” He looked at Desiderata. “Women are too weak for any purpose but to make babies,” he added.