Marienburg was not a city; it was a monster made of brick, canals, and greed, sprawled at the mouth of the Reik. Here, the honor of Bretonnia was a tavern joke and the rigidity of the Empire a bureaucratic annoyance. The only god truly worshipped was Gold, with Manann, Lord of the Seas, as his capricious tax collector.
Geneviève rode Duraz along the Suiddock, the harbor district notorious for its dives, brothels, and labyrinthine warehouses. The armored destrier, with his siege-engine bulk, parted the crowd like the prow of an icebreaker. No one dared cut off a knight who looked made of black iron and bad intentions.
The first necessity was not rest, but identity. To travel freely in these lands without being stopped every three steps by the private militias of the Merchant Guilds, "Sir Gilles" needed a coat of arms. A knight without a painted shield is a mercenary; a knight with a shield is a noble, however fallen.
She found a heraldry shop wedged between a fishmonger and a pawnshop. The artisan, a thin man with ink-stained fingers, looked at her skeptically as Geneviève placed her black shield on the counter. "Do you want a lion? A griffin? Or perhaps a buxom mermaid? They are very fashionable among captains," asked the bored man.
Geneviève shook her head. With a piece of chalk, she traced on the wood of the counter the design she had meditated on during long nights of watch. She wanted something that screamed ancient and severe nobility, but that hid her true story in plain sight: the smith's daughter and the friend of dwarves.
"Black background," she croaked with her hoarse voice. "Like the night. Like coal." She drew an inverted V in the center. "A silver chevron. Like a mountain." (The Chevron, symbol of protection and roof, but here representing the peaks of Karak-Azgaraz). "And below..." Geneviève hesitated. She couldn't draw an anvil, too obvious. She drew three long, square nails, fanned out. "Three iron nails. Grey."
The heraldist arched an eyebrow. "Sable, a chevron Argent accompanied by three nails of Iron. Severe. Very severe. It looks like the crest of a flagellant order or a house of tomb guardians. But it has an air... ancient."
"Do it," ordered Geneviève, throwing a gold coin onto the table.
While the man worked, Geneviève sat in a corner and pulled out her dwarf cloak. It had been torn by the Minotaur's claws in the Drakwald. She didn't look for a tailor. She took her travel sewing kit—a thick sailmaker's needle and grey wool thread. With slow, precise movements, she didn't try to hide the tear. She stitched it using a visible, sturdy, honest cross-stitch. A noble would have thrown the cloak away. Sir Gilles wore his scars, on skin and clothes, like medals. When she finished, the seam looked like an unknown rune running down her back.
Two hours later, with the newly painted shield drying in the salty wind, Geneviève set off again. It was then that she heard it. Amidst the clamor of seagulls and the shouts of dockworkers, a familiar voice reached her ear. An oily, theatrical voice, selling smoke as if it were gold.
"Gentlemen, I assure you! This is not simple colored water! It is the Elixir of Vitality from Lustria! One sip and your hair will grow back, two sips and you will satisfy your wives like breeding bulls!"
Geneviève stopped Duraz. She turned toward a side alley. There, surrounded not by enthusiastic customers but by three thugs armed with iron-shod clubs, was him. Hendrik Van Voort. He had aged. His feathered hat was limp, his velvet doublet was worn at the elbows, and his belly had grown. But the eyes were still those of the viper who had taught her to lie.
"The breeding bull here owes money to the Fish Syndicate," growled one of the thugs, a brute with anchor tattoos on his arms. "And the Syndicate doesn't accept colored water."
"It's a misunderstanding, gentlemen!" whined Hendrik, backing against the damp wall. "The spice shipment is late! Give me two days!"
The brute raised his club. "We'll give you two broken legs."
Geneviève did not charge. in that narrow street, Duraz would have trampled everything. She dismounted with a fluid motion, leaving the reins on the horse's neck. The destrier, trained by dwarves not to move, remained a stone sentinel at the mouth of the alley.
Geneviève advanced. Her shod boots rang on the cobblestones: CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. A rhythmic, heavy, inevitable sound. The three thugs turned. They saw an imposing figure in full black armor, with a shield fresh with paint showing symbols of iron and mountain, and a two-handed sword on her back whose hilt looked worn from constant use.
"Beat it, tin can," spat the leader of the thugs. "Private business."
Geneviève stopped three paces from them. Hendrik looked at her, squinting. He didn't recognize her. He saw only a dangerous noble.
Geneviève tilted her head. Then she spoke. She didn't use her natural voice. She used The Technique. She pushed air from her lower belly, constricted her throat, lowered her chin. "The fat man comes with me," she said. The voice came out like the sound of a chain dragged on gravel. It was deep, broken, horrible.
Hendrik's eyes went wide. That cadence. That way of eating the final vowels. It was his trick. But amplified by a metal ribcage.
The brute laughed. "Oh yeah? And who says so?" He launched himself at Geneviève, aiming for her head with the iron-shod club. Geneviève did not draw her sword. Her weapon was an extension of her body, but her body was a weapon in itself. She had reached absolute spatial awareness.
She didn't block the blow. She took a lateral step, minimal, almost imperceptible. The club cleaved the air a millimeter from her helm. While the brute was off-balance forward, Geneviève grabbed the club with her gloved left hand. She squeezed. The gauntlets forged in Karak-Azgaraz, combined with her enhanced strength, bent the iron of the club as if it were tin. The brute looked at his deformed weapon, then looked at the black visor. Geneviève struck. A short, dry punch to the solar plexus. The breath left the man with a whistle. He fell to his knees, vomiting.
The other two thugs hesitated. Geneviève placed her hand on the hilt of her sword. She didn't draw it. She just clicked the sword in the scabbard by an inch. Click. The sound was enough. The promise of violence was scarier than violence itself.
"Go," croaked Geneviève.
The two dragged their groaning leader away and disappeared into the labyrinth of the harbor.
Hendrik remained glued to the wall, pale as a sheet. Geneviève turned toward him. "Thank you, noble knight, thank you!" stammered the merchant, bowing clumsily. "I... I don't have much, but if you want some elixir..."
Geneviève raised her visor. Her grey eyes met the watery ones of the old conman. Her face had changed: there were thin scars, the skin was harder, her hair was short and blonde. But the gaze was the same as the starving girl who had stolen an apple from his wagon years before.
"Keep your dirty water, Hendrik," she said, maintaining the hoarse voice, the one he had built for her. "You still owe me half of that apple."
Hendrik gasped. He took a step forward, incredulous. "Girl? Geneviève?" he whispered, looking around to ensure no one heard. "By all the devils of the Empire... what have you become?"
Geneviève slammed the visor down with a metallic snap. She looked at her new shield, with the iron nails and the silver mountain. "I became what you taught me to pretend to be," she replied, her voice booming grimly inside the helm. "A weapon."
She mounted Duraz, who neighed impatiently. "Come, old thief. I'm buying you dinner. And you will tell me what is really happening in this cursed city. I need ears, and yours were always the biggest."
As they rode together, the black knight and the ruined merchant, Geneviève felt a strange sense of closure. She had her crest. She had found her "voice" again. And for the first time, the lie no longer felt like a disguise, but like armor that fit perfectly. Sir Gilles had arrived in Marienburg, and he intended to stay.