Read Chapter 13: The Turn of the Key

The climb up the stairwell felt longer than it ever had, each tread a small judgment. Claude’s hand rested on the hilt of his knife, not for defense—he had no enemies he could name—but for the comfort of cold metal against his palm. The mill’s revelations churned in his skull: Pierre Laurent’s journal, the traitor’s scent in the Burgundian camp, the name of Chancellor Rolin scratched out twice and left half-legible. Not what he seems.

He pushed open his door.

The courier stood in the middle of the room, dust on his boots, a waxed tube in his gloved hand. Claude knew the livery: dark blue, the Duke’s own crest stitched at the shoulder. The man’s face was bland, his eyes already moving past Claude to the pallet, to the corner where the Armagnac letter lay hidden beneath the straw. Claude’s gut tightened.

“Clerk D’Argent.” The courier’s voice was flat. “Chancellor Rolin summons you to Dijon. Immediate departure. The horse is saddled below.”

Claude closed the door behind him, slow. The room smelled of tallow and old straw. The prior had been in here—of course he had—and the pallet had been disturbed, but the courier’s gaze lingered there as if he already knew what lay hidden beneath.

“I have unfinished business in Compiègne,” Claude said. His voice came out steadier than he felt. “The Truce Mass is in three days. The Duke’s safety is my charge.”

“The Chancellor’s orders are not a suggestion.” The courier stepped closer, holding out the tube. “You will ride tonight. Whatever play you’re running here ends now.”

Claude looked at the tube. He could almost feel the weight of Rolin’s suspicion coiled inside it. A summons to Dijon meant one of two things: a promotion, or a cell. Given the last report Claude had sent—a deception wrapped in a lie, hiding his sister’s role while inventing a double agent who did not exist—he knew which one waited for him.

“I’m not going.”

The courier’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “That’s not a choice you get to make.”

“It is if I’m the only one who knows the name of the man who means to poison the Duke.”

A silence stretched. The courier’s hand drifted toward his own blade, and Claude’s fingers tightened on his knife. They stood that way for a breath—two breaths—then Claude heard it.

Boots. Many boots. Heavy, fast, coming up the stairwell, stone grinding under iron-shod soles.

The courier’s face shifted, no longer bland. “Damn it, D’Argent. What did you do?”

The door burst inward before Claude could answer. Three militiamen filled the frame, pikes angled low, their sergeant stepping through with a warrant unrolled in his fist. Behind them, more shapes crowded the corridor, torches flickering against the walls, throwing long shadows across the room.

“Claude D’Argent,” the sergeant read, his voice a hard, practiced bark. “By order of the town provost, you are arrested on charges of espionage against the crown of Burgundy, for conspiring with agents of the Dauphin and for the theft of sealed correspondence belonging to the Duke’s chancellery.”

Claude’s mouth went dry. “That’s a fabrication. I have the Chancellor’s commission—I serve the Duke directly.”

“Your commission means nothing now.” The sergeant rolled the warrant and tucked it into his belt. “We have a witness. Sworn testimony, given under oath, identifying you as the man who passed letters to known Armagnac agents at the riverside warehouse.”

“A witness?” Claude’s mind raced through faces—the two agents who had cornered him, the masked figure who had cut them down. “Who?”

The sergeant gestured, and the crowd at the door parted. A figure stepped forward, hood drawn up but not enough to hide the shape of the jaw, the line of the shoulders. She lowered the hood.

Marguerite.

Her face was pale, but her eyes were dry. She looked at Claude with a stillness that made his chest ache, a calm that belonged to a stranger wearing his sister’s skin.

“I saw him,” she said, clear and unshaken. “At the warehouse, handing over documents to French agents. I saw his face. I know him.”

Claude stared. The room tilted, then settled. His sister—the Spider, the master of Compiègne’s enemy network, who had asked him only hours ago to switch sides—stood before the town militia, swearing to his betrayal.

“Margaret—” he started, but the sergeant cut him off with a shout, and the militiamen surged forward. Hands grabbed his arms, pulled them behind his back, bound his wrists with coarse rope. The courier stepped aside, silent, his summons forgotten on the floor.

Claude did not fight. He kept his eyes on Marguerite as they dragged him past her, and she met his gaze without flinching. Her lips moved, almost too faint to catch.

*Trust me.*

Then the pike butt slammed into his back, and the world went dark.