Read Chapter 18: The Convent of Saint-Antoine

The convent rose from the autumn mist like a grey prayer frozen in stone, its walls slick with dew, its bell tower silent. Roland reined in beside Aelis at the forest's edge, studying the place with the eye of a man who had stormed better fortifications than this.

"It looks peaceful enough," Aelis said.

"That's what the Hospitallers said about Acre."

She shot him a look but said nothing. They had ridden hard for two days, skirting villages and main roads, sleeping in ditches and abandoned shepherds' huts. The copy of the ledger lay wrapped in oilcloth at the bottom of the original box, strapped to Roland's saddle. The true ledger—the one that could unravel kingdoms—was sewn into the lining of his cloak, pressed against his chest like a second heartbeat.

Isabelle de Clermont. The name had burned in his mind since Guy's dying breath. And before that, since Émile's, scrawled in shaking ink on a scrap of parchment pressed into his hand at Acre.

"Stay behind me," he said, nudging his horse forward.

They approached the gate openly. A nun in grey robes appeared at the wicket, her face a mask of stone.

"Travelers seeking shelter," Aelis called, her voice warm and practiced. "We've come far and mean no harm. We only ask for bread and a place to rest our heads."

The nun's eyes flicked between them, lingering on Roland's scarred face and the sword at his hip. "We do not take soldiers here."

"I'm not a soldier anymore," Roland said. "Just a man escorting a lady to her kin in Limoges."

The lie tasted like ash, but it served. The nun hesitated, then unlatched the gate. "The abbess will decide. Wait in the courtyard."

They entered a cloistered yard lined with lavender gone to seed. A fountain bubbled in the center, its basin cracked and mended with lead. Roland dismounted and helped Aelis down, their hands lingering a moment longer than necessary. He felt the weight of the pouch at his belt—Émile's pouch, still unopened, still secret.

The abbess came to them in the refectory, a woman of sixty with eyes like winter ice and hands folded beneath her scapular like a blade hidden in cloth.

"You seek shelter," she said. It was not a question.

"We do," Aelis said. "And information. We were told a woman named Isabelle de Clermont took vows here."

The abbess did not blink. "I have served this convent for thirty years. No woman by that name has ever crossed this threshold."

"She would be in her forties now," Roland pressed. "Dark hair, tall. A noblewoman of the Clermont family."

"I know the Clermonts," the abbess said, her tone sharpening. "A proud and sinful line. They are all dead or damned. There is no Isabelle here."

"Perhaps you knew her under another name," Aelis said softly. "We have a message from an old friend. A Templar who served with her brother."

The abbess's face flickered—there was something there, a crack in the ice, gone before Roland could name it. "There are no Templars here. The Order is dissolved. You should leave at first light."

She turned and walked away, her sandals whispering against the stone.

Roland watched her go, a cold certainty settling in his gut. "She's lying."

"How do you know?"

"A liar who has nothing to hide doesn't flinch at the mention of her family. She knows Isabelle. She's afraid of her."

Aelis studied him. "Or she's afraid of the English king's reach. Guy said the Clermonts fell because of what they knew."

"Then we find her before the abbess decides we're more trouble than we're worth."

They waited until the convent fell into the deep silence of compline. Candles guttered in the chapel, and the nuns filed to their cells. Roland moved through the shadows like a man who had learned to be forgotten, Aelis a breath behind him. They searched the dormitory, the scriptorium, the storerooms—nothing. But beneath the sacristy, Roland found a stairwell hidden behind a tapestry of the Virgin, the stones worn smooth by use.

He descended, Aelis gripping the back of his cloak. The air grew cold and damp, thick with the smell of iron and old straw. A single torch burned at the end of a corridor, and beyond it, a door bound in iron straps.

A sound came from within—a whisper, a chain dragging across stone.

Roland put his shoulder to the door. It gave with a groan of rusted hinges.

The woman inside was chained to the wall by a single manacle around her ankle. Her grey hair hung lank, her face gaunt, but her eyes—her eyes burned with a fire that had not been extinguished.

"You're real," she whispered. "God help you, you're real."

"Isabelle de Clermont?"

"I was, once." She tugged at the chain, her voice cracking. "Now I am a prisoner in my own family's convent. The abbess took my name, my voice, my freedom—all to keep me silent."

"Silent about what?" Aelis asked, stepping closer.

Isabelle's gaze shifted to her, then back to Roland. "About the debt. The one my family owed to the Count of Poitou. A debt that was paid in blood and lies, but the count wants it paid again—and again—until the Clermont name is dust."

Roland knelt before her, drawing his dagger. "We're not here for the count. We're here because of a Templar named Émile. He died in my arms at Acre. He told me to find you."

Isabelle went very still. "Émile. God's mercy. He survived the purge, then?"

"Survived it, ran from it, and died serving in a mercenary company." Roland sawed at the chain, the metal groaning. "He gave me a ring and your name. He said you held the key."

The chain snapped. Isabelle fell forward, and Roland caught her. She was light as a bird, her bones sharp beneath his hands.

"The box," she gasped. "You have it?"

Roland exchanged a look with Aelis. "We have something better. But first, we need to get out of here."

They half-carried her up the stairs, Isabelle's breath ragged in her throat. But when they emerged into the cloister, torchlight flooded the yard.

The abbess stood at the head of a dozen nuns—but these were no gentle sisters. They held swords, crossbows, and the hard faces of women who had been trained to use them.

"You have made a grave error," the abbess said, her ice-voice cutting through the night. "That woman is a heretic and a traitor. She was given to God's mercy, not to thieves and murderers."

"She was given to your chains," Roland said, drawing his sword. "And you're the one who'll answer for it."

The abbess raised her hand. "Take them."

The first crossbow bolt flew past Roland's ear, punching into the stone behind him. He shoved Isabelle toward Aelis and lunged forward, his blade meeting a nun's sword in a shower of sparks.

The fight was ugly and close, fought in torchlight and shadow. Roland was a butcher of men, and these were not men—they were women who had abandoned the world but not its violence. He parried, cut, drove one back with a kick to her chest. Aelis was no fighter, but she had Isabelle's arm and a stolen torch, swinging it in wide arcs to keep the archers from finding their aim.

"Isabelle!" Aelis screamed.

The woman had broken free, stumbling toward a recessed alcove in the cloister wall. There, beneath a weathered statue of Saint Anthony, she pried at a loose stone. Her fingers found purchase, and the stone came away, revealing a hollow space.

She pulled out a silver cross, tarnished and warped with age, and clutched it to her chest.

"This is mine," she breathed. "They took everything else, but they never found this."

Roland cut down a nun's sword arm and shoved her back into two of her sisters, buying them a heartbeat of space. "We need to move!"

Isabelle turned, and in the torchlight, her gaunt face shone with a terrible certainty. "Do you know what this cross unlocks, Roland de Vienne?"

He didn't ask how she knew his name. "Tell me when we're not dying."

"It unlocks the vault of the Temple. The treasure your friend Émile died to protect. The one your king believes was burned with Jacques de Molay." She held the cross up, and for a moment, the silver gleamed like the heart of a fire. "And it will only open for a Clermont."

The abbess screamed orders, and the nuns surged forward.

Roland grabbed Aelis with one hand and Isabelle with the other, pulled them toward the stable, and prayed his horse remembered the way to Limoges.