Rain came while Remy and his companions were staying in G?d?ll?. The morning light seemed to intertwine with the rain in a thin silver veil, blurring the edges of houses and fields until everything looked half-dreamed. Remy found it fascinating and, at times, utterly frustrating that rain always seemed to find him. No matter what corner of Christendom he wandered through, the heavens appeared eager to soak him specifically.

  Jehan stood beside him beneath the shallow overhang of the inn’s roof. Once she checked that no one lingered in the yard or walked the muddy street, she lowered her hood and pulled her hair free. It had grown longer, thicker, and she carried herself with a firmness that had not been there months ago. The diet he had prescribed for her, more meat, more greens, fewer indulgences, not that she had any, seemed to have shaped her well.

  “It’s not only your hair that has grown taller,” Remy said. “See, Jehan? I told you eating well promotes a growth spurt.”

  “You are right… as always,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like you have all the answers in the world.”

  He did not, not in truth. What he had was the weight of another life’s knowledge burned into his mind, the practiced habits of learning and the cumulative wisdom of wiser men.

  But knowledge was not wisdom, and he would never pretend otherwise.

  “You are wrong,” he said. “Just because I know things does not mean what I say carries wisdom. I know nothing, Jehan. What I know is borrowed, from great men, from books, from learned mistakes. I’m only a student who learned. That is all.”

  Jehan looked at the rain again, the mixture of sunlight and mist turning her eyes soft. “You are always…” Her voice trailed off.

  “How are your reflections?” Remy asked.

  She blinked as if pulled from a deep thought. “Sometimes,” she said, “I wonder… if I had not broken my faith, I would not see all these beauties of the world that I never saw before. You told me once that He made a world so beautiful it would be a shame not to see it. I wonder if this is my curse. To see all good and all evil. And I pray that I will walk it with you.”

  “No,” he said gently. “You should walk your own path.”

  She smiled thinly. “I am walking my path, Sir. It just happens that you are on it.”

  Remy shook his head. “Jehan, resilience and silence do not suit you. You’re the kind of person who questions, who inquires, who retorts when something feels wrong. When the day comes that you leave your reflections behind, I’ll laugh and weep both. Laugh because you finally returned to your own voice, and weep because I suspect your retorts will be sharp enough to wound me. I already feel them coming.”

  Jehan huffed a small laugh. Then her expression shifted. “Sir Gaston suspects me. No… I think he knows.”

  Remy touched his chin, unsurprised. “I’m not shocked. Don’t be fooled by his soft manners and his learning. He’s a man who’s labored tirelessly to keep the noblemen of France from falling upon each other like wolves. If not for him, the countryside would have turned into a wasteland long ago.”

  “And yet I never heard of him before you,” she said.

  “Because he doesn’t boast,” Remy replied. “He wants peace, and peace never advertises itself. If not for his diplomacy, the war we know, the one that took so many lives, would have been far worse. He works in shadows while kings boast in the sunlight. Knights follow him because of what he is. And they follow me because Sir Gaston believes in me.”

  “You trust him.”

  “With my life.”

  The rain thinned to mist and then vanished altogether, as though it had never existed. Ahead of them, sunlight spilled across the village and lit the wet grass until each blade shone like glass. A child ran barefoot into the street, hollering at his mother, who yelled right back without moving from her doorway.

  It was time to leave.

  But Remy did not move yet. The rain had left its mark on the earth, mud in the road, droplets hanging from the inn’s windowsill, a dampness that clung to the air. And Jehan still stood quietly beside him, hair damp, expression thoughtful. There were moments when she seemed younger than she was, and moments when she seemed far older.

  They had been in G?d?ll? longer than he liked. Two days, maybe three. Time had begun to blur again. He could feel it, the slow itch in his bones that meant danger was not far behind. Too many people had seen them. Too many curious looks lingered wherever they walked. Travelers with coins did not remain unnoticed in places where most lived from dawn to dusk with little to spare.

  “We should set out before noon,” Remy said.

  Jehan nodded. “I’ll gather the others.”

  She turned to step back into the inn, but he stopped her with a quiet, “Jehan.”

  She faced him again, hair framing her face in damp strands.

  “When Sir Gaston looks at you,” Remy said, “he doesn’t see a child. He sees someone who carries a weight. He’s too perceptive not to.”

  Jehan swallowed. “Should I be afraid?”

  “No. But be wary. He is loyal to what he believes is right above all else. That includes me. That includes France. And if he sees a threat to either, he will act.”

  Her voice barely rose over the quiet breeze. “Am I a threat, Sir?”

  “To me? Never.” He hesitated. “To yourself… perhaps.”

  She did not ask what he meant. She only nodded once, firmly, then disappeared into the inn.

  Remy stayed where he was. The sky was clearing in patches, with streaks of bright blue splitting the gray. He listened to the soft sounds of the village, the clatter of a pot, the bleating of a goat, the distant barking of a dog. The rain had brought a strange calm over the place, as if the world had exhaled.

  He stepped out from the overhang and let the sunlight touch the back of his neck. The yard was mud and puddles, but the puddles held the sky, and the sky felt larger here. Hungary had that effect -- wide plains, rolling hills, land that stretched until a man felt small.

  It humbled him in a way he did not entirely dislike.

  He checked the straps of his pack, the buckles of his belt, the placement of the knife he kept hidden at the small of his back. A habit, not paranoia. In his experience, habits kept men alive.

  Jehan’s words lingered with him. Her wondering. Her doubt. Her faith broken and yet reshaped. She saw the world differently somehow, and he had nudged her onto that path, intentionally or not. He wondered, at times, whether he had the right.

  He had told her the truth that he only borrowed knowledge. But in borrowing it, he changed the people who trusted him. Jehan most of all.

  He kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering across the yard.

  Will the butterfly flap its wings because I got too nosy?

  A few minutes later, she returned with her cloak on and her pack slung over one shoulder. Gaston followed behind her, speaking quietly to two of the squires. When he caught Remy’s eye, he gave a small nod of acknowledgement, respect, and a shared understanding that their time here had run out.

  Jehan came to Remy’s side. “The horses are ready.”

  “Good.” He glanced at her cloak. “Tie it tighter. The wind picks up fast here.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  She obeyed without question. Her face was calm now, her earlier vulnerability tucked away. But something in her eyes remained unsettled, a reflection she had not finished wrestling with.

  A truth maybe one day, she would bare to him. But not at the moment.

  Remy mounted his horse Morgan and waited for the others. Jehan’s mare was smaller than the rest, but she handled it well. And she had grown used to the rhythm of travel, to the long days and the uncertainty of the road.

  As they left the village, Remy glanced back only once. The inn’s roof still glistened with leftover rain, but smoke curled from its chimney, and the child who had run barefoot now sat on the steps eating something from a wooden bowl. Life moved on easily in such places. No one remembered travelers unless they brought trouble or looked like a band of heroes on a quest.

  They rode in silence for a time. The ground was soft beneath their horses’ hooves. The air smelled of wet earth and pine. Jehan eventually spoke.

  “Do you think it will rain again today?”

  “With my luck?” Remy said. “Of course.”

  She laughed under her breath.

  They continued down the road.

  Crossing into Jászság, Remy felt the shift in the air long before the land changed its shape. The Jassic country stretched out beneath a sky that seemed always a shade too wide, a curious meeting of plains and horizon. The people here, he had heard, once spoke an Iranian tongue, though most travelers he’d met along the road said such language had long been swallowed and re-forged by Magyar mouths. Cultures layered upon one another, folded like rings in a tree trunk so old that no one alive truly remembered where one ended and another began.

  They rode first through the county of Valkó. A handful of timbered homesteads dotted the land, smoke curling from their roofs like thin, hesitant gestures. Then Jászberény sprawled before them, a market town that smelled of every enterprise at once, from grain, livestock, wool, tanned hides, wine casks, sweat, smoke, and the pungent bite of too many humans crammed into too few corners.

  Some of his followers slowed without order, hunger and curiosity tugging them toward the Jassic market fairs. Jászberény was known for them, merchants from Buda to beyond the Tisza traveled here to trade horses, salt, and the kind of sturdy wool that outlasted seasons. Remy watched two of the squires drift toward a string of stalls selling honeyed bread, and a guard paused to handle a leather bracer as though it belonged in his dreams. Discipline wavered, not out of rebellion but human frailty.

  Sir Gaston noticed. His jaw ticked once.

  He was lenient in many things, lenient in the way a weathered father could be with sons who wished to become men, but wasted time was not something he forgave. Especially not now. Rain had eaten into their days already, and Remy knew well that Sir Gaston held no fondness for delays that gained them nothing.

  “We move,” Sir Gaston said. His voice did not rise. It didn’t need to. His men snapped back into order, chastened, and the small indulgence died quickly.

  Remy could not entirely blame them. He himself had wanted to pause before the wooden palisade fort, to study the Romanesque church foundations where layers of stone hinted at older stories. But time was a commodity they were short on with a weather such as this, and the world had a way of punishing wanderers who lingered without good reason.

  Once they left the town, the landscape opened in earnest. The Great Plain spread before them like a vast, sandy sheet. Horse-friendly and deceptively simple. To untrained eyes it looked empty. To Remy, it held quiet danger, no cover, no shade, no mercy for those caught unprepared. But their pace was steady, and the weather finally favored them.

  They passed through a village called Nagyk?r?s. Its people met them with guarded stares. They were poor, bitter, and had little to sell. Remy felt the familiar tension of being observed by those who wanted neither trouble nor guests. But they needed no provisions, and they didn’t linger.

  Then at last, after hours of riding that blurred together, Kecskemét rose like a living knot of noise and trade.

  The town surprised him. He had expected a modest settlement. Instead he found a place growing fat and loud on commerce of livestock markets of horse, cattle, sheep. A web of wells and water places for shepherds and caravans haggling over salt and wine as though these commodities were worth blood. He saw a church in the distance, which they called St. Nicholas, its walls standing solid against the shifting plains.

  He bought wine from a merchant at the edge of the market. It was not bad. It warmed the throat and carried a faint sweetness he could not place. For once, rain did not follow him, and he savored the reprieve.

  By the next morning they were already on the move again, entering the Tisza River region, Hungary’s second great river. The land grew greener, richer. The air held moisture. Villages clung to the banks in clusters. Fül?pszállás, Pálmonostora, and others whose names Remy did not catch before they passed behind him.

  Then Csongrád appeared, an important ferry town built on the Tisza’s bend. Earth ramparts carved lines into the land, and a small fortress guarded the crossing like a dog too loyal to abandon its post. Fishermen’s huts huddled along the riverbanks, nets hanging like ripened fruit. Riverside markets exchanged carp, eel, and catfish alongside pottery and coarse cloth.

  They settled the horses near the ferry’s edge. The air smelled of river water and mud. Remy was brushing Morgan’s neck when Jehan stiffened.

  A heron had landed on her shoulder.

  The bird’s wings stretched, long as a man’s arm, before folding neatly. Its thin, sharp beak hovered beside Jehan’s cheek. She froze, unsure whether to breathe.

  “Will it harm?” she asked.

  Sir Gaston came to stand beside Remy, arms folded as he regarded the bird the way he regarded unruly soldiers. “Your squire is a friend of animals, it seems.”

  “Maybe,” Remy said. He knew a great many things. Herons, however, were not among them.

  Sir Eamon ó Braonáin, the Irishman with a talent for unwise suggestions, cleared his throat. “Should we poke it with a stick?”

  “No,” Sir Theophilos Rhakotos said, stepping closer. “I have not seen a heron up this close.”

  “They say herons represent patience,” Sir W?adys?aw Grzyma?a added quietly, “and stillness, and self-reliance. Grace. And inner wisdom.”

  Jehan swallowed. “Would you kindly just poke it?”

  Sir Aldred smiled, amused at her discomfort. “Do not worry, squire. Our winged friend will not harm you, I think.”

  The heron remained perched upon her shoulder for several long seconds, long enough for Remy to watch Jehan’s shoulders rise and fall as she tried to hold herself steady. Long enough for the squires to whisper. Long enough for a fisherman to stop gutting fish and stare as though he’d seen a miracle.

  Then, abruptly, the bird’s head snapped toward the river. It spotted a fish in a man’s basket, darted forward, snatched it cleanly between its beak, and took off in a graceful burst of white and gray.

  Jehan exhaled with the relief of someone returning from battle.

  Sir Eamon muttered, “See? Should’ve poked it.”

  Remy ignored him.

  They chose to rest in Csongrád for the day. Their shoulders sagged with the simple gratitude of not being forced to mount again. The horses needed the pause and so did the men. After hours of rain, cold, and hurried travel, even a quiet riverside offered comfort.

  Remy walked the length of the ferry docks, hands clasped behind his back. The river rolled broad and slow, mirroring the soft gray sky. Flat-bottomed boats creaked against wooden posts. Somewhere nearby, a woman sang while scrubbing clothes on a board. The sound echoed, strangely gentle.

  He found Jehan by the water’s edge. She watched the surface ripple, arms wrapped around her middle as though unsure what to do with them.

  “Does the shoulder hurt?” Remy asked.

  “No. Just my dignity.”

  He snorted softly. “You handled it better than Sir Eamon would have.”

  “That is not difficult, Sir.”

  He let the silence sit. Her hair brushed her cloak, still carrying a faint smell of wet feathers where the heron had stood.

  “Do you think it meant something?” she asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “The heron. Landing on me.”

  “Birds land where they please,” Remy said. “Not everything is a sign.”

  She nodded, though she didn’t entirely believe him. Her faith had shifted, reshaped, but she still sought meaning in the small strangenesses of the world.

  Sir Gaston approached, boots crunching against the river mud. “We leave at first light,” he said. “The ferryman knows us now. He’ll have space.”

  Remy inclined his head.

  Sir Gaston looked at Jehan with a mixture of concern and scrutiny. “You were calm,” he said. “Most would panic.”

  “I was not calm,” Jehan muttered.

  “You were,” Gaston replied simply, then turned away.

  Jehan watched him leave. “He sees too much.”

  “He sees exactly what he must,” Remy said.

  The day passed in slowness. Squires scrubbed armor. The Irishman argued with a merchant over the price of smoked fish. Theophilos lectured W?adys?aw about Egyptian heron lore until the Polish knight feigned sleep. Horses drank deeply from the river troughs, their bodies steaming in the afternoon chill.

  Remy leaned on Morgan as it slept on the grass.

  He looked everywhere.

  The plains lay quiet behind them, and the river hummed before them.