Read Chapter 2: The Road to Compiègne

The convoy left Arras at dawn, forty wagons heavy with wool, salt, and wine, the wheels groaning against the frozen ruts of the road. Claude rode near the middle, his mare limping slightly from a stone she had picked up the night before, his saddlebags stuffed with sample parchments that felt like a confession each time they shifted against his thigh.

He had spent the night rehearsing his name—Thibault Moreau, parchment merchant of Tours—until it sat on his tongue with the weight of a borrowed coat. His real name was sewn into the lining of his boot with thread taken from his sister's convent, a detail that seemed foolish now, in the gray light of morning.

The merchant beside him was a barrel-chested man named Gérard who smelled of cured leather and spoke in a voice worn smooth from shouting across marketplace crowds. He said little at first, watching Claude with the squint of a man who had learned to judge horseflesh and men by the same measure. The road unspooled through forests of bare oak and fields gone brittle with frost, and the hooves rang against the packed earth like the strike of a hammer on an empty church floor.

"The Wallaces ahead," Gérard said finally, jerking his chin toward the north. "Burgundian country now. You'll need your papers."

Claude's hand moved instinctively to his breast pocket, where the safe-conduct rested against his ribs. It was a fine forgery, Rolin's man had assured him—the seal pressed with authentic wax, the signature traced by a monk who had practiced on genuine charters for three years. But the document named him as Claude D'Argent of Dijon, and if any guard knew the name of the Chancellor's newest clerk, the road would end in a ditch.

They passed the first checkpoint at midday. A stone tower squatted beside the road, its base stained green with moss, and four men in Burgundian colors lounged by a fire that smoked more than it burned. The leader was a scarred sergeant with a motley hat and a sword that hung crooked at his hip. He waved the wagons through one by one, barely glancing at the merchants' raised hands.

Claude's turn came. The sergeant looked at him for a long moment, then held out his palm. "Papers."

Claude produced the letter, deliberately creasing it as he unfolded so the wax cracked in an edge—a merchant's carelessness, he hoped. The sergeant took it, squinting at the text with the exaggerated concentration of a man who could not read but would not admit it. His thumb traced the seal, then stopped.

"This seal's fresh," he said.

Claude's blood went cold. Invisible, he curled his fingers around the pommel of his riding knife. "The charter was renewed in Arras," he said, keeping his voice bored. "The Count's scribes re-seal all merchant letters each year for the autumn markets. You'll find half the convoy carries them."

The sergeant stared at him. Behind Claude, he heard one of the other merchants shift in his saddle, and imagined the man's hand drifting toward his own weapon. For a moment, the world narrowed to the smoke-smell of the fire, the creak of leather, the weight of every lie he had ever told pressing against his sternum.

Then the sergeant's mouth twitched. "Autumn markets," he repeated. "In winter."

Claude smiled, a thin expression that did not reach his eyes. "The roads are safer now. The English have gone to ground." He reached into his purse and produced a silver coin, letting it flash once in the gray light before sliding it across his palm. "For the fire. The men look cold."

The sergeant's eyes flicked down to the coin, then up to Claude's face. For a heartbeat, Claude was certain the man would refuse, would call for the others, would find the genuine letter beneath his saddlecloth and the name that did not belong to this road. Then the sergeant took the coin and tucked it into his boot with a grunt.

"Pass on, Merchant Moreau," he said. "And tell your Count's scribes their wax is too soft."

Claude nodded and clucked his mare forward. He did not allow himself to breathe until the tower and its fire had receded behind him, and by then Gérard had drawn up beside him, his face unreadable.

"You handled that well enough," Gérard said. "But the guards on this road are the gentle ones. The town guards at Compiègne have seen war close enough to smell it on a man. Forget a bribe there, and you'll see your teeth from the bottom of a well."

They rode in silence through the afternoon. The sky was the color of old pewter, heavy with snow that had not yet decided to fall, and Claude found his thoughts returning to Marguerite—the way she had placed the ring on his palm and pressed his fingers around it, the way her eyes had held his for a beat too long before she whispered, *Wear it always, for you are going where prayers are thin.* He had thought she meant the road. Now, as the miles slipped away beneath the mare's hooves, he wondered if she had meant something else.

The cart ahead lurched, its axle groaning, and the column slowed. They were passing through a village whose name Claude did not catch—a scattering of stone cottages, a church with a low bell tower, women at the well who stopped their chatter to watch the caravan pass. In the churchyard, a crowd of peasants stood in silence, heads bowed. A nun moved among them, her habit gray with road dust.

Claude's heart seized. But the figure straightened, and he saw—not Marguerite. A stranger, old, with lines cut deep around her mouth. Their gazes met for an instant, and he remembered where he was going, and what awaited him at the end of it.

Compiègne rose from the plain as evening fell. The walls were taller than he had imagined—forty feet of stone, patched with timber, ringed by a ditch so broad that the water in it gleamed like a wound. Ragged banners hung from the towers, and smoke rose in thin columns from a city that had refused the Burgundian siege twice already this year. It was a fortress of defiance, a city that had given its heart to a girl from Domrémy with a sword and a voice that charmed kings. And he, Claude D'Argent, was meant to walk through its gates and plant a poisoned seed in that heart.

Gérard reined in beside him, following his gaze. The merchant's face had softened into something almost kind.

"You know they check every stranger for two days before they set foot past the gate?" he said. "Search your carts, your clothes, your prayers. Ask you to give your name at the altar of Saint Corneille and swear in front of the relics that you mean no harm to the city." He paused. "They deny entry to Burgundians on principle. And they have seen enough spies to smell a forged letter through a mile of parchment."

"How do you know all this?" Claude asked, uneasy at the man's knowledge.

Gérard smiled, and there was something cold behind it. "Because I've carried silk to Compiègne three times since the siege began," he said. "And the last guard who searched me is buried outside those walls, with my coin in his purse and my knife in his ribs." He clapped Claude on the shoulder, the blow almost friendly. "My advice, young merchant, is to find yourself a different city before the gates close."

The convoy broke apart at a crossroads, wagons turning toward the town, others continuing north along the river. Claude watched Gérard ride off without looking back. The words hung in the air like a warning, like the ring on his finger where Marguerite's silver glinted against his glove. He was expected inside those walls, his papers in order, his story rehearsed. But the panic was rising him now like floodwater through a cracked dam.

He was a clerk, not a soldier. He had never held a blade in anger, never killed.

With a slow breath, he sank his heels into the mare's flanks. The horse moved toward the gate—stone walls towering, winter light fading, and beyond, unknowable—as his fingers found the ring once more.

Marguerite had given it to him with prayer-sharp eyes. *Wear it always,* she had said, *for you are going where prayers are thin.*

Somewhere in the city ahead, the leader of the spy network Rolin feared was watching the gates. And Claude D'Argent had suddenly realized, too late, that the road behind him—and what he had left there—was no less dangerous than the one before.