Margarite brought Hyderlin to an old inn.
The milk-glass panes set into the windows were laced with hairline cracks, and the boarded floor groaned underfoot with every step. A young girl who had been sitting on the bed tending to a baby leapt up to greet Margarite as they came in.
Margarite peeled off her rain-soaked outer garment, then took the baby from the girl’s arms. She pressed a coin into the girl’s hand and sent her outside.
“This is my daughter. Her name is Beronis.”
Hyderlin, who had been wringing out her wet hair, glanced at the child cradled in Margarite’s arms.
Perhaps sensing the woman who shared her blood — or perhaps for no reason at all — the baby stirred in her swaddling and stretched out her small, wriggling fingers toward Hyderlin. Hyderlin flinched.
“She’s the king’s daughter, which makes her your niece as well. Would you like to hold her?”
“I’m quite all right.”
Hyderlin shook her head. There was no telling what ill effects a freshly revived corpse might have on a newborn.
“Where are your other attendants?”
“There are none. I came out alone.”
Margarite rocked and soothed the baby, who had begun to fuss. The sight of a queen sitting on the narrow, squalid bed of a run-down inn, nursing her child, was a deeply forlorn one.
“Is Sir Sarg not with you either?”
“Why do you keep asking about him?”
Margarite snapped, and the irritation in her voice was plain. But it softened somewhat as she continued.
“…Sir Sarg left my service long ago. It has been quite some time since I last saw his face.”
Hyderlin found that surprising.
She had always assumed Sarg would remain at Margarite’s side for the rest of his life. It seemed that in the four years since Hyderlin’s death, a great many things had happened and an equally great many things had changed.
Nothing in this world endures, it seems. Sadly enough.
Hyderlin gazed out the rattling window. The rain still fell in sheets, violent and relentless, and the sky howled like a half-starved beast.
It was a tumultuous night.
The baby appeared to have nerves of remarkable constitution — she slept soundly through the thunder without so much as a flinch, breathing in steady, gentle sighs.
“Please tell me what I need to know. The circumstances that brought a queen to seek shelter in a hovel like this, rather than her own palace.”
Margarite patted the sleeping baby’s chest for a long while. Then, carefully, she laid her down on the bed and turned to look at Hyderlin.
“This is my third child. And at the same time, my first.”
Something deep and mournful bled through her voice and her eyes.
“In four years, the king killed two of my children. When he tried to kill this one as well… I ran. That’s right, Hyderlin. I am a fugitive.”
The world flared briefly bright, then went dark again.
Boom — crash.
Margarite shrank slightly at the oncoming wave of thunder.
“As long as the king lives, I will never be free. Sooner or later, I’ll be captured. And Beronis will follow her older siblings into the grave.”
Hyderlin could not know the full extent of what Margarite had endured in those four years. But the deep grief and despair that leaked through her eyes, her voice, her smallest gestures — those, Hyderlin felt with complete clarity.
And then she felt something else rise within her — something branded deep into the core of her soul.
Responsibility.
“I am sorry.”
The king had desired the saint. He had lamented that if he could press his lips to her cheek, he would give anything at all — and he had truly meant it.
And so Hyderlin, for the king’s sake, had made the saint into his queen. Countless people had been broken or destroyed in the course of that endeavor.
The saint had been left with no choice but to walk down the aisle with him.
The windows of the royal chapel had blazed with stained glass in five jeweled colors, and the wealth of the royal family had made them even more splendid. Yet even so, the most magnificent thing in the entire chapel had been the king’s bride.
The crown upon her head was studded with diamonds worked into delicate filigree. The veil over her face had been woven by a master craftsman from hand-knotted lace. The flowers arranged around the bride were large and full and sweetly fragrant.
Every woman in attendance had envied the bride her place that day.
The bride at this wedding must be the happiest woman in the world. How fortunate she is…
But the bride was not happy.
“I don’t want to get married.”
The girl with the pearl-pale cheeks, wet with tears behind her bridal veil, had said so, her voice breaking.
“He doesn’t love me.”
Well. In Hyderlin’s estimation, the king had loved Margarite. He had been prepared to do anything for her, and he had truly done anything and everything.
“His Majesty loves you, Your Holiness.”
“No. Whatever that is, it cannot be love. Hyderlin. Let me run away. Call Sir Sarg for me. Please… I’m begging you.”
Margarite had caught the very edge of Hyderlin’s sleeve with her fingertips and wept. Hyderlin had not shaken off that hand, but she had not answered, either.
“You are a cruel person.”
“I am sorry.”
Hyderlin had taken a handkerchief from inside her coat and lifted the bridal veil, then gently wiped the saint’s wet cheeks.
“In recompense, I will grant you one wish at some future time. Whatever it may be.”
That was how it had been.
Hyderlin had carried a sense of debt for forcing a girl who did not wish to be married into a marriage she had not chosen.
And now the queen — the one who had resurrected a dead woman and summoned her to honor a forgotten promise — spoke in a dry and hollow voice.
“If you wish to atone to me, then kill the king.”
“……”
“Surely you don’t still harbor any loyalty toward him — not after all of this.”
“How could I possibly.”
Hyderlin gave a bitter smile as she answered. But Margarite still looked unconvinced.
The devotion of Hyderlin Biche — the Captain of the Royal Guard — was the stuff of legend.
It was precisely that excessive loyalty that had given rise to all manner of unsavory rumors about her relationship with the king. The majority of those rumors had not been far from the truth, which meant Margarite had every reason not to let her suspicions rest so easily.
“I have one more question.”
“What is it?”
“How did you bring me back to life?”
“Ah. That.”
Margarite smiled faintly.
“When I was living in the convent, I once happened upon a forbidden book. It was a record of the miracles performed throughout history by the saints of old. Among them was an account of a saint who used her miracle to resurrect the dead. Saint Valburga.”
“Wasn’t Valburga a witch? She supposedly kept corpse-devouring monsters as servants.”
“It seems she was a saint before she became a witch.”
Hyderlin muttered.
“That is rather remarkable.”
“I was young then, and terribly curious. I looked further into the miracle that Valburga was said to have performed. As it turned out, any saint is capable of the miracle of resurrection. And as you well know — I am a saint.”
Hyderlin pondered this.
“Then what exactly am I, at present? Undead? A vampire? A ghoul?”
“None of the three. To put it plainly, you are a dead person who has been pulled from beyond the veil of death and given a temporary form of life.”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t quite clarify things for me.”
“There is a precedent in the case of Saint Marcelina, who returned from death by the will of God—”
Margarite proceeded to explain, with genuine thoroughness, the theological doctrine surrounding death and resurrection. Hyderlin knew nothing of theology, but she listened dutifully.
“Well? Do you understand now?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“……”
Hyderlin moved on to her next question.
“But if all saints are capable of the miracle of resurrection, why is it not more widely known? It seems an extraordinarily useful power.”
“It has side effects. And the conditions required are not easy to meet.”
“What sort of side effects?”
“A person brought back by the miracle requires no sleep. No food. They neither fall ill nor age. And after twelve weeks, they return to bare bone.”
“That is a relief.”
Hyderlin murmured. The thought that she could one day lie again beneath the earth and fulfill the duty of the dead — which was to say, permanent sleep — settled something in her with a quiet comfort.
“And the conditions?”
“First: the remains of the deceased must still exist. Second: the miracle must be performed on the anniversary of the deceased’s death. Third: the name of the deceased must be known. And fourth: twelve years from my own lifespan.”
“Pardon? Twelve years?”
Hyderlin was taken aback.
“Are you in your right mind? You would sacrifice twelve years of a living person’s life for three months of a dead one?”
Margarite brought a finger to her lips.
“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake Beronis.”
The child had not flinched at thunder. This was simply Margarite’s way of reminding her to be careful. Hyderlin made an effort to calm the heart that was clamoring away in her chest despite everything.
“Your Majesty. This was a foolish choice. I am not worth it.”
“If you kill the king for me, then my twelve years will have been put to more than worthy use.”
Margarite said it without wavering. The fatigue that had haunted her eyes and her face stirred with renewed vitality.
“Come to think of it, you still haven’t properly answered me. Will you kill the king or not?”
“Haven’t I already answered?”
“You have not. Tell me plainly. Swear on God’s name that you will kill him.”
Margarite was desperate, and desperation made her relentless. She clearly intended to keep pressing until she had an unambiguous answer.
Hyderlin exhaled slowly.
She had already made the promise, in life — that she would grant Margarite whatever she wished, without reservation. And beyond that, Margarite had given twelve years of her life away for Hyderlin’s sake.
It seemed right, then, to use this brief, borrowed existence in Margarite’s service.
Hyderlin knelt on one knee before the queen who sat with the baby in her arms. The wooden floor gave a creak beneath her. The dead knight made the sign of the cross and then pressed her hand over her heart.
Absurdly, it was still beating.
“I, Hyderlin Parmasah Saint Lotsa-Biche, will fulfill Your Majesty’s wish. Yes — I will kill Chesa for you.”
“Swear it on God’s name?”
“On God’s name, I swear it.”
No sooner had the words left Hyderlin’s lips than Margarite bloomed into a smile — wide and full as a white magnolia in flower.
“Thank you.”
And for the first time, she looked like someone truly alive.
