He looked up at the hard, cold, brilliant stars. They had not the least interest at all, he’d always felt, in the doings of men down here, whatever some faiths might wish to believe. The stars? They were too dazzling, he thought, to ever care. Too glittering and remote.

“It is murder for certain?” he managed.

“His head is almost severed, I am told. And one leg. And a hand cut off. Half a dozen wounds in the chest and back. Someone desired him extremely dead.”

“Dear Jad defend us all,” Thierry Villar said.

“Ah. Well. Have to do it ourselves this time, I think,” the other man said. “If we can. If we even can, with this, and what might now follow.”

—

The Duke de Montereau’s hacked-apart body had been covered by someone, for decency.

It lay in the Street of the Linenmakers, a good neighbourhood, up from the river on the other side, across the Old Bridge, where all the shops were closed, of course, their lights doused. The linenmakers had long since left the street, the name remained.

The duke, the king’s brother, had, it appeared, been attacked in the night—by some eight or ten men. They had emerged in a rush from the stable gate of a house as he rode back towards the bridge with a small escort. So they were told.

Two of his guards also lay dead, their own swords beside them. One had a gaping axe wound in his skull, it had carved his face almost in half.

These two weren’t covered, Thierry thought, when he was able to frame thoughts again. Just guardsmen, after all.

Rollin de Montereau, however, was—or had been, alive—the most important man in Ferrieres. Governing it, pretty much, while King Roch was entangled in a furious darkness of the mind. Montereau had also been named, formally, guardian to Girald, the prince and heir.

He had also been, if you believed the rumours, the queen’s lover.

And her own elegant house lay just ahead, at the top of this street, for the days and nights when she wished to be away from the intrigues of the palace. For whatever varied reasons. One would be able to see it, Thierry thought, when sunrise came. He looked up that way in the dark, and in fact he did see it. There were lights in windows.

The provost noticed him doing that. “She’s in residence tonight, yes.”

Thierry said nothing. Didn’t even nod his head. This was dangerous beyond words.

What am I doing here? he thought. Well, he was perhaps saving himself from a death on Gallows Hill. That was an answer.

A good one, really.

A serjeant dismounted at the provost’s nod. He pulled the heavy, bloodstained cloth back from the duke’s body. By torchlight Thierry looked at the ruin of a beautiful man.