Her brothers found work with a miller nearby. They understood the workings of a mill from Broché, from their father. Peire married the miller’s daughter, and the two of them inherited the mill and raised a family there. Eran rode off one morning on his horse, and no one knows what happened to him.

Not uncommon. Not all stories have their endings known. Not all people.

Back in the meadow, where so many had died, no one ever betrayed the deception fashioned to save the life of the Maiden. The helmet was removed from the girl wearing it when she was taken, and the armour. She had light-brown hair and blue eyes. The Anglcyn knew that these were the colours of Jeanette’s hair and eyes. This woman prayed without stopping from the time the enemy attacked them, and continued when she was seized, and then for as long as she could when she was burned to death on the pyre they raised. No one learned her name.

Her name was Lysbet Guerin, from the hamlet of Cassaude near the Livraise.

Brave beyond any words one might ever offer.

Interlude

Of a morning late that spring, the lady of Château Arceval came riding to the home of her neighbour and occasional friend Marina di Seressa.

Marina was not there. She was with the queen in Orane.

The lady of Arceval had known this. She wanted to see the man, the other poet, in residence there now with only Marina’s mother and children, and the servants and guards, with him.

Her own husband was very recently away in the north, at war for Ferrieres, summoned with other noblemen and their forces by the newly named constable. He was old to be doing so but had taken most of their household guards and gone to serve his king, who was—miraculously—returned to them in this time of need.

She had a handful of people riding with her, and she carried her most favoured falcon on her wrist as they went. A woman, a young woman, renowned for her beauty, needed an excuse for a visit such as this one.

She was Alaina d’Arceval, said by some to be a creature of the half-world.

It had long been noted how calm raptors were on her wrist, how swiftly they came to her lifted arm and call, how patiently they took food at her hand. The hunting dogs were the same, and it was rumoured she had tamed a wolf.

Some said her husband liked her to ride with him when he hunted stags in the woods north of them because they were always found when she was with his party. Some also said, if quietly, that he was equally compliant to her needs, himself.

She brought good fortune, the lord of Arceval used to say. She rode exceptionally well. And could handle a bow, like some pagan goddess of the forest.