“I love you, Jianne,” he whispered.
Rather than answer him, she pulled away and walked to the window. She put one hand on her lower back, the other on her belly.
His entire soul was scorched with the desperation of the situation. She hadn’t noticed the sword and scabbard belted to his hip. There was power in its magic and he could feel it. There was protection for his quest.
But it still meant parting from her once again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Beauvoir Castle
Finding out where they were keeping Genette—Luxe Tower—had proved ludicrously simple once he arrived in Brugia, disguised as a wandering mercenary in search of a lord. News of her capture and confinement had traveled far and wide. He managed to hold his tongue when people slandered her in his presence. The most common one was the Maid of Donremy was a water sprite come to wreak havoc on mortals with her magic. One man insisted he knew someone who had been at Shynom when she had presented herself to Chatriyon. The tale he’d heard was that a servant had spilled a cup on water on her and she hadn’t gotten wet. He did not dare contradict these tales, even the lurid ones, including a rumor that the Maid was not truly a maid at all but one of the king’s lovers. Some even insinuated that she was his lover.
He had learned the language as part of his childhood education, but one of the guards he had met in his long captivity had given him the chance to practice its nuances better. Getting to Brugia was easy enough after paying a fare from a Genevese merchant.
Alensson was used to being a beggar, and he quickly found work guarding a merchant caravan bound for Luxe Tower. While he traveled, he kept alert for news of Genette. Negotiations for her ransom were underway with the palace of Kingfountain. Despite the Brugians’ efforts to drive up the price they’d get from Deford, Chatriyon still wouldn’t bid for her. As the weeks passed, Alensson picked up more of the local dialects, but being a mercenary gave him a lot of flexibility, and people didn’t expect him to be a learned man.
When the caravan reached the city of Luxe with its load of pickled sardines and cucumbers, the caravan captain offered him permanent work if the count wasn’t interested in hiring him. Alensson thanked him for the offer, but he needed to find a position that would give him better access to the tower. To Genette.
He applied to see the castellan of Beauvoir, but the guards sent him away. The man was too busy, they said, so Alensson found a room at one of the three inns and prepared to hunker down.
The news he had dreaded arrived the next day.
Deford and Philip had finally reached an agreement. The Maid had been sold to Ceredigion for ten thousand marks. A ship with the gold would be arriving shortly with orders to bring the girl to the palace.
That meant he needed to find a way to get her free before the ship arrived.
Beauvoir castle was smaller than a duke’s palace and very rustic. The park had beautiful hedges, sculpted lawns, and several small servants’ cottages situated at odd angles from one another. The main structure of the castle had a steeply pitched roof and several towers, including a narrow bell tower in the center. The walls were gray and blockish, and the circular towers at opposing corners had cone-shaped turrets with brims that resembled peasant hats topped with weathercocks. The grounds were open to the citizens of the village, so it was easy for Alensson to wander the parks without notice during daylight hours. But the moment he tried to approach the grounds, he was immediately accosted by the guards and warned to stay away from the castle itself. He bowed meekly and wandered back.
There was a lush wooded holt, thick with trees and untamed scrub, on the western side of the grounds. Some of the fanciest hedge work bordered it, but there was no fence or stone wall. After watching for a moment to make sure no one was looking, Alensson stepped over the hedge and disappeared into the wood. From that vantage point, he was able to get closer to the castle. He discovered the rear of the castle contained a dry moat filled with clumps of earth and nasty weeds. A steep shelf of rock covered in vines led from the foundation of the castle down into the moat, which would make it very easy to climb up onto the castle grounds. He nodded with satisfaction and hid amidst the trees, watching. After a time, he noticed the guards were patrolling the ground below the tower, coming and going according to a set routine.
He circled farther into the woods and found the remains of a stone bridge with three arches that stood up in the empty moat. The bridge was riddled with vines and it connected to the rear of the castle with an iron porter door. It was a sturdy-looking thing, possibly still in use, so he leaned against one of the shaggy oak trees and watched to see if the door opened or shut frequently. It did not open once while he watched that afternoon.