Ankarette nodded. “I’d never heard of it either, and I’ve read many histories of Ceredigion.”
“The reason is because what happened next will be remembered longer than even Azinkeep. It will be remembered for all time. You see, while I was in my cage, there was a young peasant girl growing up in the village of Donremy. She was special, Ankarette. I had always hoped that if I worked at it hard enough, the Fountain would speak to me. It did eventually. It did it through a girl—that stubborn, proud waif of a girl!” He pushed away from the wall and fetched a goblet, then took a single swill from it. “Let me tell you her story next, Ankarette Tryneowy. I knew it because I lived it. I was the poorest man in Occitania. I had nothing. Even my sword was borrowed! But when I met the Maid, she looked at me. She knew who I was even before I could announce it.”
His eyes filled with tears. “She gave me my nickname that day. She called me her gentle duke until she died.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Genette of Donremy
The Duke of La Marche was a free man. But everything he had, he owed to others. He had been given transport on a Genevese vessel bound for the Brythonican city of Ploemeur, and from there, he’d walked the uneven dusty roads on hot summer days for leagues and leagues wearing clothes belonging to another man, his feet shod in ill-fitting boots handed to him from one of his guards out of pity, equipped with a half-dull sword from a Ceredigion garrison.
His father-in-law, the Duke of Lionn, was still a prisoner in Kingfountain. He was an heir to the Occitanian dynasty, so no amount of ransom would be acceptable to the butcher kings of the East. Meanwhile, the man’s main fortress at the capital city of Lionn had been under siege for years and was still holding desperately like an anvil against the hammer of the Ceredigion invasion. If Lionn fell, the rest of Occitania would tumble with it. But Alensson’s wife was not in the war-ravaged lands of her father. She had taken refuge in the duchy of Vexins and was living in a small cottage in the village of Izzt.
This was Alensson’s destination. He admired the lush fields of berries growing in the mild climate of Brythonica as he passed through them. The farmers and pickers he met treated him with courtesy once they knew his name, and gave him leave to snack on their berries. Yet none had a horse they were willing to lend the impoverished duke to hasten his return to his wife.
The Occitanian court had been relocated to Shynom, deep within the kingdom. Alensson needed to see the prince, to demand he take action about Lionn and to volunteer to help, so he very nearly stopped in court on his way to Izzt, but he was desperate to see his wife again. He continued onward until he reached the sleepy village. The castle that presided over it was situated in a lush valley amidst green vineyards. Even the castle was green, from the ivy clinging to the walls to the green mold coating the slate shingles. Small square turrets rose above tall walls of varying heights forming a square. The castle was so secluded it had not seen action in over a century.
Some of the groundskeepers hailed him and told him that the castellan was visiting court at Shynom that day. But Alensson’s wife, Jianne, was waiting for him. They directed him to her cottage, which was connected to the outer wall of the castle, next to a porter door and a small hillock that defeated the purpose of the wall because someone could walk up the hill and jump over the wall at that back portion of the castle. Alensson shook his head in wonderment at the poor design.
The cottage was two levels high with a steep sloping roof, a single dormer window, and a few scraggly grapevines growing in the seams by the castle wall, only one of which was still alive and thick with leaves. Alensson paused at the door—even the brown wood was speckled with moss—overcome by emotion. His wife was the daughter of a duke. She should be living in luxury at the castle yonder, not in some moldering cottage that probably had a leaky roof.
When he heard the sound of humming on the other side of the door, he could hold back no longer. He rapped on the wood with his knuckles, shifting and fidgeting as he heard the humming cease and the sound of footsteps rushing to the door.
He anticipated it would be her maid, Alix. But it was his wife who answered the door. When he saw her, his heart surged up into his throat, and all the years of separation, all the years of longing, all the years of misery broke with the sunshine. Jianne was shorter than him, her wavy hair so dark it was nearly black. She was not wearing one of her court gowns, but she looked absolutely radiant in a peasant frock, her sunburned arms and cheeks a testament that she had labored out of doors.
“Alensson!” she breathed, a sleeper awakened from a nightmare. She flung herself into his arms, and he held her, burying his face in the mane of hair at her neck, hugging and squeezing her as the years of anxiety sloughed away like old bark.