Read Chapter 5: A Sister's Blessing

The church of Saint-Jacques swallowed the dawn light through narrow lancet windows, spilling coloured bars across the stone floor where Claude knelt among the faithful. He had chosen the third pew from the back, his eyes ostensibly fixed on the priest at the altar, but his gaze wandered with the practiced habit of a man who counted exits and faces for a living.

The congregation was sparse—old women in black shawls, a few merchants of middling rank, and one soldier with a fresh scar across his cheek who kept his hand near his dagger even at prayer. Claude catalogued them all, then stilled.

Three rows ahead, on the women's side, a figure in grey wool knelt with her head bowed. A lay sister—her veil was plain, unbleached linen, not the black of a professed nun. But the angle of her shoulders, the particular way she held her clasped hands against her breast like a child cradling a bird, struck him with the force of a blow.

Marguerite.

He knew that posture. He had seen it a thousand times in their father's chapel, when she prayed for their mother's soul. She had been a girl then, too young to understand death. Now she moved her lips in silent prayer, and Claude felt the cold stone beneath his knees turn to ice.

She was supposed to be in Noyon. That was what she had told him when she pressed the silver ring into his palm. *I return to my convent at Noyon,* she had said, and Claude had believed her because sisters lied only when they must, and Marguerite had never given him cause to doubt.

The priest raised the host. The congregation bowed. Claude kept his eyes open, watching his sister rise from her knees and receive communion with hands that trembled slightly at the cup. When the Mass ended, she did not leave with the others. She lingered at a side altar dedicated to Saint Catherine, lighting a taper and kneeling in the drifting dust-motes.

Claude waited until the church emptied, then approached. He wore the loose robes of a lay brother on pilgrimage, a rough wooden cross at his throat, and he had practiced the shuffle-step of a man made humble by faith until it felt almost natural.

"Sister," he said softly, "may Saint Catherine hear your prayer."

She turned. In the dim light, her face was thinner than he remembered, the bones of her cheeks sharper beneath the pale skin. Her eyes widened for a heartbeat—no more—before she smoothed her features into a mask of mild greeting.

"Brother," she replied, her voice a warm murmur, "you are kind to ask. I pray for the health of my family, far from here."

Claude knelt beside her, pretending to pray. "I thought you were at Noyon."

Marguerite's fingers tightened on her rosary beads. "Noyon was closed by the plague. Our mother superior sent several sisters to different towns to beg alms for the convent's survival. I was assigned to Compiègne."

Plague. A convenient excuse. Claude had received a letter from his brother-in-law the week before his mission, and the man had complained of nothing more dangerous than a bad harvest in Noyon.

"Alms," Claude repeated, keeping his voice light. "And how do the good citizens of Compiègne respond to a Burgundian nun asking for charity?"

"I am not Burgundian here." Marguerite met his eyes, and for a moment, he saw her—his sister, the child who had taught him to read Latin by tracing letters in the ash of the hearth. "I am simply a servant of God. The town pays well for prayers."

"And which prayers do they pay for?" Claude asked. "The ones for the Duke, or the ones for the Dauphin?"

Marguerite smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. "I pray for whatever my patrons request. God hears all prayers, even contradictory ones."

The church had emptied. A verger—old Antoine, by Étienne's description, with a face like wrinkled leather—moved at the far end, extinguishing candles with a brass snuffer. Claude lowered his voice.

"You should not be here, Marguerite. Compiègne is no place for you. The town is crawling with soldiers, and the walls are manned twice as thick as any other city in Picardy."

"I noticed." She said it lightly, but her gaze sharpened. "Why are *you* here, brother? Last you wrote, you were in Dijon, copying speeches for the Chancellor."

"I am on pilgrimage," Claude said. "Saint Catherine appeared to me in a dream, asked me to carry her relic to a chapel outside the walls."

Marguerite laughed—a genuine sound, musical and warm, that made his chest ache with memory. "You never believed in saints, Claude. You believed in ledgers and ink and the justice of a well-margined page."

"People change."

"Yes." She rose from her knees, brushing dust from her grey habit. "They do. You must be careful, brother. Compiègne is not a place for honest men. The walls have ears, and the streets have tongues."

She moved toward the door, but at the threshold she paused. From beneath her habit, she drew a small silver chain, and at its end hung a cross—the same cross Claude had seen in the crypt that night, catching the torchlight against the tall woman's breast.

His throat closed.

"This will protect you," Marguerite said, pressing the cross into his palm. "It was mother's. You remember how she wore it always, even at her deathbed. I intended to give it to you before we parted at Dijon, but I forgot."

Claude stared at it. The silver was warm from her skin. The detail of the Christ figure was exquisitely fine, the arms of the cross ending in trefoils that echoed the oak leaves of his ring.

"Protect me from what?" he asked.

She looked at him then—truly looked, as if she could see through the lay brother's robes and the pilgrim's shuffle and into the heart of the mission the Chancellor had pressed upon him.

"Whatever comes," Marguerite said softly. "I have heard that the town is infested with Burgundian spies. They say one is already here, hiding among the merchants and the monks, sending letters to Duke Philip."

Claude felt his pulse quicken. "Then I should pray for his soul."

"Yes," Marguerite said, and her eyes flickered with something he could not name—amusement, or warning, or both. "You should."

She stepped out into the morning light, and the door of Saint-Jacques swung shut behind her.

Claude stood alone in the emptying church, the silver cross burning in his palm. His sister was in Compiègne. His sister wore the same cross as the woman he had seen in the crypt. His sister, who was supposed to be in Noyon, gathering alms for a convent that was not closed by plague.

He turned the cross over in his fingers. On the reverse, the silver was scratched—not by use, but deliberately, as if marking a cipher.

Four marks. A number.

Seventeen names were written on the parchment hidden in his boot. Marguerite's cross bore four marks.

Claude looked through the window slit toward the market square. The Spider, Étienne had said, spins her web patiently, and the flies never see her coming until it is too late.

He had thought the Spider was a stranger.

Now he was not so sure.