Read Chapter 28: The Bishop's Revenge

The excommunication notice was nailed to the door of a village church three days after the ultimatum reached Issoire.

Roland read it in the gray dawn light, Isabelle at his shoulder, her breath fogging the cold air. The parchment bore the bishop's seal—a crozier crossed with a sword, as if the holy man fancied himself a warrior of Christ rather than a merchant of indulgences.

*By the authority invested in us by the Holy See, we declare Roland de Vienne anathema, cut off from the body of the faithful, denied the sacraments, and delivered unto the secular arm should he be apprehended...*

The words blurred. Roland had been cut off from more than the Church in his life—from his command, from his honor, from the brother who died in his arms at the siege. But this was different. This was a sentence that followed a man to the grave and beyond.

"It's signed with more than the bishop's hand," Isabelle said quietly. She traced a line of smaller script at the bottom. "*Mandated by the office of Jacques de Molay, Royal Envoy.*"

Of course. The bishop had folded. Seven days had been enough to make him beg for protection from the King's man. De Molay now had the Church's full machinery behind him—every pulpit, every confession, every village priest was now a pair of eyes hunting them.

Roland tore the notice from the door. The nails scratched wood. He crumpled it in his fist.

"Does it name you?" he asked.

Isabelle's jaw tightened. "It offers three hundred livres for my head. Alive, so I might be tried for heresy." She paused. "Yours is worth nothing. Dead or alive."

Roland almost laughed. "The bishop fears me too much to price me. He wants me vanished."

"Or he wants you brought to him so he might watch you burn."

They moved on before the village woke. The road west curved through the Limousin hills, past farms and vineyards that thickened into the forests of the Marche. They had traded their pilgrims' robes for the rough wool of traveling laborers, their faces smeared with walnut stain, their hair cropped short beneath wide-brimmed hats. Roland's sword stayed wrapped in cloth. Isabelle's bow lay disassembled in a merchant's pack.

The hedge knight found them at a crossroads on the fourth morning.

He came clattering up on a raw-boned roan, his armor a patchwork of dented plates and rusted mail, a faded surcoat bearing a device Roland didn't recognize—a badger, perhaps, or a bear. The man's face was weathered, his eyes too quick beneath his helm.

"Hail, travelers," he called, reining in. "The road west is safe enough. I've just come from it." He offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Though I'd not linger. There's talk of a man and woman the Church seeks. Heretics, they say. Dangerous folk."

Roland kept his shoulders loose, his voice flat. "We're simple folk. Artisans seeking work."

"Artisans." The hedge knight scratched his chin. "Strange trade for folk with calluses like yours. And that pack—" He nodded at Isabelle's. "Heavy for a craftsman's wife."

Isabelle shifted her weight. Roland felt the tension sing through her.

"You've good eyes," Roland said. "A pity they see trouble where there's none."

The hedge knight laughed. "No trouble, friend. I was merely curious." He gathered his reins. "The road to Burgundy is long. If you'd like an escort, I could be persuaded. For a price."

Roland considered. The man was a hire-sword, a sellsword of the hedge, with no allegiance but to coin. Dangerous only if someone paid him more.

"We've no coin for escorts," Roland said.

"A pity." The hedge knight's hand drifted to his pommel. "Though I hear the Church pays better."

The world narrowed. Roland's hand was under his cloak, fingers finding the hilt of his dagger. Isabelle had gone still beside him, her breath shallow.

"I hear they do," Roland said slowly, "if you know where to find them."

The hedge knight's smile widened. "I've a nose for such things." He edged his horse closer. "Perhaps you might know something of that, heretic."

Roland moved first.

He'd anticipated this since the excommunication notice. A lone knight who'd ridden up asking questions, his eyes too hungry, his hand never far from his steel. The moment the man named him, Roland brought up the concealed crossbow from beneath his cloak—short-range, one bolt, but enough.

The bolt took the hedge knight in the shoulder. Not fatal. Enough to spill him from the saddle with a scream, his horse shying and galloping down the road.

By the time the man clawed for his sword, Isabelle's arming sword was at his throat.

"You'll bleed out," Roland said, standing over him. "Unless you answer true."

The knight's face was gray with pain. "She paid me. The bishop's woman—an envoy's messenger. She said to watch the roads. Said you'd try for Burgundy."

"And you were to follow us, or take us?"

"Follow. Send word ahead." He coughed blood. "There's men waiting at the border. A cordon. You won't cross without notice."

Roland crouched. "Then we'll cross without notice." He planted his knife beside the knight's head, close enough to cut hair. "You'll ride south and tell your masters we continued west. If you follow us, if you send word to anyone, I'll find you. I've killed bishops' men before."

The hedge knight nodded, eyes wide.

Roland stripped him of his purse, his sword, his horse's remaining gear, and left him on the road with his wound bound and a curse on his lips.

"That was smooth," Isabelle said as they walked double-time into the woods, the hedge knight's horse now carrying their packs. "You knew he was bait."

"I knew the bishop would not simply excommunicate me." Roland snapped off a branch and tossed it aside. "He wants us dead, but he wants us caught more. Broken and burned and made an example."

"And the cordon at the border?"

Roland smiled grimly. "Let them watch the roads. We'll take the river."

They crossed into Burgundy by night, wading through the shallows of the Saône where it widened into marshland, the water ice-cold and black, their breath steaming in clouds. No patrol found them. No horn sounded. The border was a different world—the Count of Burgundy's writ ran thin here, contested by the Church and the King alike, a patchwork of loyalties where a man might vanish if he knew the right paths.

By dawn they stood on a low ridge, looking west over the river plain. The sun broke through clouds, casting long shadows across the fields.

"The Count's influence wanes here," Roland said, breathing hard, his clothes still damp. "We're into disputed territory. No law between here and the English marches."

Isabelle pulled the walnut stain from her hair with a rough cloth, letting the auburn show through. "Which makes us safer or more dangerous."

"Both." Roland looked at her. In the dawn light, with the stain gone, she looked less like a pilgrim, more like the woman he'd met in Narbonne—sharp-eyed, fierce, burdened. "The bishop's reach ends at the border. But de Molay's doesn't. He'll have men everywhere."

"So we keep moving."

"We keep moving." He fished in his pack and drew out a stiff parchment—a page from the ledger, one of the pages he carried. He didn't need to look at it; he'd memorized every name, every sum, every detail of the bishop's hidden wealth. "The Count of Burgundy has his own debts to the Church. If we're caught here, he'll hand us over without blinking."

Isabelle was quiet a moment. Then she said, "Hugues spoke of an English merchant in Dijon. One who trades openly with the King's court."

Roland looked at her. "A contact?"

"A merchant who might know which roads are English-safe." She met his eyes. "It's the closest we have to a way to Calais."

Roland considered. The ledger pages weighed heavy in his satchel—half the truth that could topple lords, and now he carried it through lands where every man might sell them for bread.

"Then we find this merchant," he said, "and we hope he's worth more than the bounty on your head."

He turned west, and they walked into the rising sun.

Behind them, somewhere beyond the marsh, a horse galloped south bearing word of two fugitives on the road to Burgundy. Ahead, the spire of Dijon's cathedral cut the sky. And between them and the English coast lay a web of watchful eyes, hungry swords, and the long shadow of a man who would not rest until the ledger—and everyone who had touched it—was ash.