The two days in Quenelles before the march were an agony of silk and perfume. Duke Tancred's castle was not a fortress; it was a palace. Tapestries worth more than entire herds covered the stone walls; checkerboard marble floors reflected the light of a thousand beeswax candles (not stinking tallow like in the homes of the poor).
Geneviève, in her role as "Sir Gilles," was lodged in a guest room as large as the house she was born in. There was a four-poster bed with goose feathers, a silver basin for washing, and servants ready to grant every wish. She sent everyone away. She slept on the floor, wrapped in her worn cloak, with the sword Vesper's Light within reach. The bed was too soft; she feared it would swallow her.
The first evening there was a banquet to welcome the allied nobles: the Marquis of Bastonne (a fat man with a scar over his eye) and the Count of Aquitaine (young, handsome, and blatantly terrified by the idea of war).
Geneviève stood behind Duke Tancred's chair, like a statuesque bodyguard. She did not sit. She did not eat. Through the slit of her visor, she watched. She saw platters of roasted peacocks with decorative feathers still attached. She saw rivers of red wine. She saw pies filled with live birds that flew away when cut. And she thought of Parron. She thought of her mother boiling bark and roots during the winter. She thought of the children in her village dying of a simple fever because there was no money for a surgeon. Here, in a single evening, they ate the income of a hundred families for a year.
Is this why I fight? she asked herself bitterly. To protect the fat of these men while my people starve?
Then Tancred's hand distractedly brushed the hilt of his sword, and Geneviève remembered. She wasn't fighting for the fat Marquis. She was fighting because if the undead won, there would be neither rich nor poor anymore. Only meat.
The second night, suffocated by the stale air of the palace, Geneviève went out into the ducal gardens. They were a maze of geometric hedges and white roses glowing in the moonlight. She thought she was alone, but she heard the sound of a lute. Sitting on a stone bench was a girl. It was Lady Isabella, Duke Tancred's youngest daughter. She was perhaps eighteen, with honey-colored hair loose on her shoulders, wearing a simple gown, not the restrictive clothes of the court.
Geneviève made to withdraw, her iron boots crunching on the gravel.
"Do not leave, Sir Gilles," said the girl, without stopping playing a melancholy tune. "Your armor makes too much noise to be stealthy."
Geneviève stopped. "I ask forgiveness, Lady. I did not mean to disturb."
"You never disturb. You stand there, like a black mountain, and make everything else... small." Isabella put down the lute. She stood up and approached the metal giant. She wasn't afraid. In her eyes was an ancient sadness, similar to her father's. "My cousin Tristan says you are a hero. My father says you are a necessary weapon. The court ladies say you are a faceless brute."
"And you, Lady?" asked Geneviève, lowering her hoarse voice so as not to frighten her.
"I think you are very lonely," replied Isabella. "And I think you carry a weight that is not made only of iron."
Geneviève was struck. Female intuition, often underestimated by knights, was a sharp blade. "We all carry weights, milady. Some wear armor, others wear corsets and expectations."
Isabella smiled, a bitter smile. "It is true. You go to Mousillon. You risk death, yes, but you are free to strike. I will stay here, embroidering banners for men who may not return, waiting to be married off to some fat Count for a political alliance. Sometimes... sometimes I envy your sword."
For a moment, Geneviève felt the mad desire to take off her helm. To show her that a woman could wield iron too. To tell her: You don't have to envy me, you can be like me. But she couldn't. It would be the end of everything. Instead, she knelt. A gesture of perfect chivalry. "Your battle is here, Lady Isabella. Maintaining hope is harder than brandishing a sword. If I return... I will tell you what the world is like outside the garden."
Isabella touched Geneviève's cold helm with a warm hand. "Return, Sir Gilles. I need to know there is something different out there."
The morning of departure, the Map Room was a battlefield of egos. The Marquis of Bastonne slammed his fist on the table. "Frontal charge! We have the strongest heavy cavalry in the world! We will crush them under our hooves!"
"It is suicide!" countered Tancred. "Mousillon is a swamp. Horses will sink to their bellies. We will become sitting ducks for their skeletal archers."
"And so what do you propose, Tancred?" snarled the Count of Aquitaine. "Crawling in the mud like foot soldiers?"
Geneviève, who had remained silent in the shadows, took a step forward. The sound of her heavy steps silenced the room. She approached the map. With a black-gloved finger, she traced a sinuous line. "Do not charge where they want you to," said the gravel voice. "Here. The Toad's Path."
The Marquis laughed. "That is a smuggler's path! An army can't pass there."
"Exactly," said Geneviève. "An army can't pass. A vanguard can."
She looked up at the nobles. "You want the glory of the charge, milords? You will have it. But first someone must open the door and let the poison out. Someone must destroy the dams keeping the fields flooded, allowing the ground to drain. Only then can your cavalry charge."
Geneviève planted a dagger on the map, straight on the city of Mousillon. "Give me three hundred men. Knights of the Quest who don't fear getting dirty, and foot sergeants. I will go ahead. I will destroy the necromantic sluice gates. I will draw their attention. And when they are looking at me... you strike the flanks with solid ground under your hooves."
The Marquis of Bastonne looked at her with hate, but also with reluctant respect. No one wanted to go die in the mud first. "And who assures us you will succeed, mercenary?"
Geneviève touched the hilt of Vesper's Light. "Because I do not fight to go home and count gold, Marquis. I fight because I have nowhere else to go."
Tancred stood up. "The proposal is accepted. Sir Gilles will command the vanguard. May Sigmar and the Lady have mercy on our souls."
An hour later, the trumpets sounded. Geneviève, at the head of the column, looked back toward the walls of Quenelles. She saw a solitary figure on a high tower, a white handkerchief waving. Lady Isabella. Geneviève did not wave back. She gripped Duraz's reins and looked forward, toward the grey fog covering the southern horizon.
She had seen luxury and rejected it. She had seen beauty and left it behind. Now she returned to the mud. But this time, the mud would tremble at her passing.
"For Bretonnia!" shouted Tristan behind her, full of youthful enthusiasm.
"For the end," whispered Geneviève inside her helm.
The army marched. And the shadow of Mousillon stretched out to welcome them.