“But did you embrace those views?” asked the Duke de Regnault, and for the first time the provost heard anger in his voice, too. “If you were to be formally interrogated now, what would we learn? Are you, for example, still being paid by that client? For support? What would we discover about communications from the Duke de Barratin now?”

And that last, thought de Vaux, was perhaps the key question.

He said, as gravely as he could, “It is the high cleric’s position that I am not even permitted to inquire.”

“Is that true?” said the queen.

Hutin Peyre, that high cleric, actually took a step backwards. Her voice could make a man do that.

He said, “There are…there are…legal precedents as to jurisdiction and—”

“Is it true?” Queen Bianca asked again, and now her voice put de Vaux in mind of the winter they had endured, and the night Rollin de Montereau died in the street.

No answer from the cleric. Nothing from Cassin. Nothing at all.

—

It was decided that, because the matter involved treason, the advocate Denis Cassin was properly subject to questioning by the provost of Orane regarding the activities of the Duke de Barratin, both in winter and at the present time. A cleric, if one was requested, could be present to observe. The provost was admonished to use only necessary means of interrogation.

“Necessary” carried all the consent de Vaux required. Nonetheless, the next morning, when he arrived at the Châtelet, after he’d had Cassin locked in a cell overnight, it proved quite easy to induce him to talk.

Cassin did not, in fact, know a great deal, and de Vaux believed this because he had surmised it. The man was too soft for someone as shrewd as Barratin to have confided in him. Cassin confirmed what he’d been paid, which was a great deal but hardly noteworthy. His defence of Barratin in the winter had been constructed around necessity and loyalty to Ferrieres, not, as he’d already noted, denial of the murder. De Vaux had been there, he knew this.

He wanted to know if Cassin was privy to anything happening now, and he satisfied himself the man was not. There was a cleric in attendance. He’d have nothing to complain about, other than the very fact of the distinguished academic Denis Cassin being interrogated by the provost. That was a victory of sorts, de Vaux thought.

“Take what you are given, push for more when you need to.” Jean Montel, once constable of Ferrieres, his mentor and friend, had told him long ago, about sieges and battlefields. Applied to more than warfare.

He sent Cassin home with an escort, unharmed, if very deeply shaken. And certainly an enemy now.

He was considering his next actions when they received word of an Anglcyn fleet preparing to sail to the conquest of Ferrieres, with King Hardan, fifth of that name, on board the flagship.