“Y-yes, my lady. I come from a village along the West Way. We call it Helmbusch, for the ridge, you know. The rock juts up just above where the chapel sits. There are ten houses and three milk cows and we have our own pair of plowing oxen …” He trailed off, licked his lips, and swallowed.
“Can you lead us to it?”
“To Helmbusch, my lady? Oh, yes, certainly, but I had no intention of returning. Things aren’t so good there, now, with the weather and the livestock wandering off and the refugees bothering us along the road. I came from there to seek employment—”
“To the guivre!”
“To the guivre?” He had long since undergone the change from a boy’s voice to a man’s, but his voice shot up an octave nevertheless.
“The creature’s lair. If you’ve seen its trail, you can guide my soldiers to its lair.”
“But I don’t know about that,” he said desperately. “I came to serve as a soldier.”
“So you will. You’ll guide us to the guivre.” She examined him as he shifted his knees on the floor and pulled nervously at his sleeve. He kept his head bowed, but his torso, leaning away from her, spoke as clearly as words. “When I command,” she added, “my soldiers serve.”
He did not answer.
“There is a young woman who came with him,” said Captain Lukas. “His betrothed. I put her in the kitchens.”
Sabella’s smile was slight but chilling as she examined young Atto. She did not suffer fools or cowards. She appeared to be the kind of woman who didn’t like anybody very much. “Could she not serve us better in the brothels? We have enough servants in the palace.”
Atto flung back his head, shifting forward onto one knee, with the other leg tucked up under as though he meant to push up to his feet. “She is my betrothed! She’s pregnant! She can’t—” Too late he recalled to whom he was speaking, and he broke off.
She nodded, satisfied that she had gotten the reaction she wanted. “If you serve me well, I will see she retains a protected position in the kitchens.”
The threat had jarred Atto. He twisted, angry enough to be bold, and pointed at Alain. “He knows better. He saw the guivre. So he claimed.”
“Did you?” asked Conrad with a jovial interest that barely masked his sudden intense attention. He set his elbows on his knees. “Saw it, and lived to tell the tale?”