They were generous.

  Remy had not expected the Archbishop’s hospitality to extend beyond formality, yet the quarters they were given were far from austere. Two adjoining rooms in the clerical wing, furnished with carved chests, wool rugs, and small hearths that glowed faintly with coals. Servants brought bread, cheese, and wine; enough to honor a guest of station, but never so much that tongues might wag.

  It was the kind of courtesy designed to be seen without being noticed which was befitting of the Archbishop’s subtlety.

  For Remy, the gesture was welcome. He had long learned that comfort, when freely given, was rarely innocent. But here, it was simply prudent. To shelter a knight and his “squire” too lavishly might draw attention. And in a city like Esztergom, where every noble and priest had his own watchers, such attention was dangerous.

  That danger showed itself soon enough.

  It began with whispers in the courtyard, muttered Hungarian that grew bold once backs were turned. A few clerks and men-at-arms had taken offense at his presence, or perhaps only at his accent. To them, he was a foreigner strutting under papal favor, another Frenchman came to lecture Hungarians about God and order.

  He ignored it at first. But mockery has a rhythm of its own, and some men do not know when to stop.

  One afternoon, while crossing the cloister toward the practice yard, a man in rough mail stepped forward, spat near his boots, and muttered something that made the others laugh. Jehan’s hand went to her sword. Remy stopped her with a glance.

  Then he turned to the man, smiled faintly, and replied in Hungarian, not the stilted tongue of a traveler they expected, but the harsh, provincial cadence of a man who had listened and learned. Remy's words came sharp and unrestrained, like venom wrapped in courtesy.

  The laughter stopped.

  The soldier blinked, unsure whether to be impressed or enraged, then swung suddenly. Remy caught the blow with a twist of his wrist, drove his boot into the man’s knee, and brought him down with a grunt. Before the guards could react, he placed his fingers lightly against the man’s throat, not pressing, only reminding.

  “Think twice before you provoke a man who understands you,” Remy said quietly, his tone even, almost polite.

  The soldier froze. Remy mimed a slap but only touched the man’s shoulder instead, then pulled him upright with one hand. The onlookers stared, not at the strength of the gesture, but at its control.

  “I am here to rest before I continue my pilgrimage,” Remy said, still in fluent Hungarian. “Let us say this insult never happened. We part as friends. Refuse my hand, and I will wait for you under the shade of a tree in full gear.”

  The man hesitated, then clasped his hand.

  It ended there, at least on the surface.

  Remy knew their type. Men loyal to Sigismund, men loyal to their purses, men too eager to test a stranger’s measure. One provoked, another negotiated, a third begged favor. All of it a pattern, the city’s quiet way of weighing outsiders.

  That night, he sat at the small desk by his window and wrote a letter to one of them. Elegant script, refined Latin phrasing, the kind that would pass through clerical eyes without suspicion. The tone was civil, even humble. Yet the meaning was clear enough to any man with sense:

  He sealed it with wax and sent it with a servant before dawn. That, too, ended the matter.

  For a time.

  But a few days later came the duel.

  A young man, brash, polished, and far too sure of himself, had decided that the Archbishop’s guest was overrated. He claimed to have studied under a Venetian master of arms, and boasted of having disarmed two knights in Vienna. His peers egged him on until he issued a challenge in the courtyard before witnesses.

  Remy accepted with mild amusement.

  A nobleman of the Archbishop’s household stood as arbiter, ensuring the matter remained “honorable.”

  They met in the yard at midday, the winter light cold and clear. The challenger wore an Italian bascinet and a mismatched suit of plate, polished to a mirror shine. Remy arrived in his steel and blue cloak.

  They saluted, stepped back, and began.

  The young man struck first, a high guard, textbook perfect but slow in recovery. Remy watched, shifted his weight, then answered with a diagonal cut from the right. The swords met once, rang like struck glass, and in the next heartbeat the challenger’s guard broke. The point of Remy’s blade hovered at his neck.

  The fight lasted less than ten seconds.

  For a moment, no one moved. Then Remy lowered his weapon, stepping back with a courteous nod.

  The noble witness declared the bout concluded. The Venetian pupil, red-faced, muttered an oath and stormed off. Word of it spread quickly enough and with it, the end of any further challenges.

  Remy’s skill was not only in strength but in understanding rhythm, the heartbeat of combat, the pattern of motion. His weapons bore the same quality as the wielder. He had forged much of his own gear in Toledo, under the guidance of the Spanish masters whose steelwork was second only to their secrecy. The sword that now hung at his hip was his design, slender, balanced, and tempered to withstand both war and centuries.

  After that, no one sought to test him again.

  His days in Esztergom settled into a strange routine. He trained Jehan in the mornings with swordwork, stances, and endurance. She was not a natural with a blade. Her strikes lacked weight, her grip wavered under pressure. But her eye for aim was unerring.

  When they practiced archery, she never missed by more than a finger’s breadth. Her breath stilled before each release, her gaze unwavering. It was a precision born of skill and natural talent.

  When the Archbishop’s men brought out the cannons for inspection that were cast in bronze and mounted on heavy wooden frames. Remy was asked to demonstrate their use. He obliged, giving the men instruction in angles, powder measures, and wind. When Jehan asked to try, a few laughed softly, until she took the matchcord herself and fired.

  The shot struck the target dead-center, splintering the wooden shield to fragments.

  Even the gunner whistled low.

  Remy gave her a rare smile. “You’ll make a better artillery man than swordsman,” he said.

  She nodded but said nothing.

  In the days that followed, she continued to train under his quiet guidance. But even as she learned, she grew more withdrawn. Her disguise as a young man, her garb, and deliberate silence kept her safe from prying eyes, yet isolated her from nearly everyone else.

  The Archbishop’s household was filled with men who respected strength, not secrecy. To them, she was a strange, pale youth who avoided drink and talk alike. Too pious, where a man should be bold.

  Remy saw the fear beneath her restraint. Not fear of discovery alone, but of what might follow it, ridicule, scandal, perhaps worse.

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  He did not press her.

  One evening, as they walked the ramparts at dusk, Jehan finally spoke.

  “They look at me strangely,” she said.

  “They look at everyone strangely,” Remy replied. “Especially those who stand beside me.”

  She gave a short, nervous laugh. “I don’t think they like me.”

  “They don’t need to,” he said simply. “They only need to respect you.”

  Jehan looked away, her gaze following the dark line of the Danube. “And if they never do?”

  Remy adjusted his cloak against the wind. “Then you’ll outlive their judgment. Most men’s opinions die long before they do.”

  She was silent after that.

  By the week’s end, they had both earned a place, uneasy, but accepted. The Archbishop’s guards no longer tested Remy, and his counsel on matters of arms was quietly sought. Jehan’s precision with artillery had made her a curiosity, and sometimes, even a point of quiet pride among the gunners.

  Still, Remy knew that favor was fickle. Every courtesy was a thread in a web of politics, and every web had a spider.

  The Archbishop requested to meet with him while he was reading , to memorize entire passages of the books. He had been granted gifts by God when he had come to this time. Remy had a memory that held every word, every sound, every texture of the page, and reflexes that bordered on supernatural. There were times when he wondered if those gifts were simply remnants of his displacement,, of being born again as a son of the House of Valois. He had never asked for such favor, nor did he understand the full breadth of it, but he had long decided that the best way to honor providence was to use it well.

  And so he read.

  He usually read until his eyes burned and his mind blurred, until thought and ink became the same thing. The discipline of study and practice had become a habit. Jehan, with that innocent yet fierce sincerity of hers, had once called him a warrior-priest. He had laughed at the thought, but many would assume, seeing how he acted.

  Yet he was still a man of flesh. There were nights when solitude pressed too tightly, when the silence of the room swelled like a tide, and his thoughts wandered to soft laughter and softer hands. He had never taken a wife, nor a mistress worth recalling. Invitations to feasts and gatherings had been frequent before he started wandering. Some were solemn, others decadent, but none had stirred his interest.

  He still remembered the night his cousin Charles had dragged him into one of those perfumed palaces near the Rue Saint-Denis. The air had been thick with wine, musk, and false laughter. Faces powdered, smiles painted, the illusion of joy worn like silk. He remembered thinking, in weary amusement, how dense the of Parisian women were after he had done the deed, a remark that had sent Charles into howls of laughter and himself into permanent disinterest. From that night onward, he decided that solitude, though cold, was preferable to company that would land him in possible perpetual sickness.

  His armor had long since become his second skin. He rarely removed it, save for washing and oiling. The habit began as an exercise to make the unbearable natural. Over time, his body had learned the burden so well that he moved within it as if it were cloth. The weight no longer hindered him; it grounded him. Sometimes he forgot he even wore it, until the faint clatter of steel reminded him.

  In the beginning, it had been torture. Heat suffocating under the plates, sweat slicking every motion, breath scarce. But he endured, as he always did, until the pain became familiarity, and familiarity strength. The armorers in Toledo had called him mad for training in full plate beneath the Spanish sun. He had only smiled, for they did not understand that endurance was forged not in comfort, but in fire.

  When he entered the Archbishop’s study that evening, the man was surrounded by the scent of wax and parchment. The room was warm, dim, and full of quiet authority. Archbishop Pálóczi Gy?rgy looked up from his desk, his scholar’s frame and sharp eyes catching the candlelight. He was no warrior, but there was steel in his restraint, the kind born from years of words sharper than any sword.

  Seeing the knight still clad in armor, Gy?rgy sighed softly. “It is always curious to me,” he said, “how you are always in gear.”

  Remy smiled faintly. “God helps those who help themselves.”

  The Archbishop’s lips curved in a restrained laugh. “So He does,” he said, gesturing toward a chair.

  He wasted little time with pleasantries. His tone was deliberate, precise, like a blade drawn only when necessary.

  “There are two men coming to Esztergom,” he began. “I thought it best you were informed.”

  He leaned back, folding his hands. “The first is Ladislaus Csetneki: Archdeacon of Esztergom, Chancellor to Queen Barbara of Cilli.”

  Remy knew the name well.

  “Csetneki,” continued the Archbishop, “is bound to King Sigismund of Luxembourg. His loyalty lies with the Crown and the hierarchy of the Church. You might imagine him as a man of cold faith... practical, pious, and distrustful of all things ideal. He is not a dreamer. He calculates. Such men thrive in courts.”

  The tone in which Gy?rgy spoke of him was one of reluctant respect the kind reserved for men one must tolerate but never trust. “He will come under pretense of advising me,” he said, “but in truth, he will be measuring those who pass through my house.”

  “Then I shall make sure he measures the wrong things,” Remy replied.

  The Archbishop’s mouth twitched in the faintest of smiles. “You may find that he measures with both eyes open. Be cautious, my lord.”

  Then Gy?rgy drew another parchment from the desk. “The other man is one of your countrymen, a theologian from Cambrai. Giles Carlier.”

  Remy’s brow lifted slightly.

  “Carlier,” said the Archbishop, “comes as envoy from the Council of Basel. A learned man, trained in Paris. He follows conciliarism — that dangerous belief that a general council holds greater authority than the Pope in matters of doctrine.”

  The word passed Gy?rgy’s lips with careful disdain. “He believes the Church should govern itself collectively, not autocratically. He is no heretic, not like the Hussites, but he is dangerous in thought. Such men never see the abyss until they are falling into it.”

  He spoke slowly, the rhythm of his voice like a sermon sharpened into warning. “Carlier preaches purification — an end to simony, to pluralism, to indulgence. He demands education for priests and bishops alike. Noble intentions, yes. But noble intentions can pave strange roads.”

  Remy remained silent, his expression unreadable.

  “He was educated in Paris,” the Archbishop continued, “rooted in scholastic logic, but tainted by the humanists. He believes that truth is found not in decree, but in argument and consensus. That, my lord, makes him dangerous not because he is wrong, but because he invites others to think.”

  He studied the Remy closely, gauging reaction.

  Remy finally spoke. “And you think he will cause trouble here?”

  “I think,” said the Archbishop, “that he will test the boundaries of courtesy.”

  Remy leaned back. “Then he shall find me courteous to a point.”

  Gy?rgy’s smile flickered and vanished. “The reason I tell you this,” he said, “is because I require a favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “Yes.”

  “When these men arrive, they will dine with me. A modest gathering of clerics, scholars, perhaps a noble or two. I would have you attend as my guest or find them in their spare time. Speak with them. Observe. Measure what they seek.”

  He paused, as though weighing whether to trust further. “Csetneki will bring words from Queen Barbara, though he will claim them the King’s. Carlier will bring words from Basel, though he will claim them the Lord’s. Between them, one serves the Crown, the other the Council — both serve themselves. I need a third voice. One unbound by court or by clergy.”

  “And that voice is mine,” said Remy.

  “Yes,” the Archbishop replied. “Yours.”

  Remy regarded him quietly. The Archbishop was no fool, and he was not a man to flatter. If he sought Remy’s help, it was out of calculation, not need.

  Gy?rgy leaned forward, tone softening. “Do this for me, and you will be rewarded properly. Enough coin to form a company under your own banner. Enough to travel to the Holy Land without want.”

  Remy’s eyes narrowed slightly. He did not answer at once. Coin had never been his concern, but he knew better than to refuse a gift freely offered. To refuse was to breed suspicion and to accept was to earn trust.

  “Frankly,” he said at last, “I do not need it. But I will do it. Earning coin is always better than regretting not earning it.”

  “Then it is agreed,” said the Archbishop.

  He dismissed the knight with a blessing, and Remy bowed before leaving, the sound of Gy?rgy’s voice fading behind him like a chant swallowed by stone.

  The corridor outside was cold and still, the torches hissing softly as he passed.

  Jehan found him later in the courtyard, tending to the horses.

  “What did the Archbishop want?” she asked.

  “An errand,” he said.

  “Another one?”

  “Yes. One that might earn us a few more coins and a few more enemies.”

  She gave a small, exasperated sigh. “And you accepted?”

  “Of course,” he said lightly. “We all must eat.”

  Jehan muttered something in French under her breath, too low to catch.

  The sun was dying over the Danube then, turning the towers of Esztergom to molten gold.