The wind carried them steadily eastward, a long, patient push at their backs, as if God Himself were nudging them toward whatever fate lay beyond the horizon. It would have been easy, temptingly easy, to let the breeze decide their path. Remy had known men who trusted such signs, men who saw omens in the shape of a cloud or the tilt of a raven’s wings. But Sir Gaston, with his usual dry humor, had said more than once that surrendering to the wind was a good way to wake up frozen in a ditch or drowned in a river. The man meant it in jest, mostly. But there was truth beneath it.

  The knights had gathered on the road outside Esztergom, their horses restless in the thawing mud, their cloaks drawn tight against the last bite of winter. Morgan stamped and tossed his head, impatient. Jehan sat calmly in her mare, beside Remy, hands folded in the reins, waiting.

  Sir Theophilos Rhakotos stepped forward. “It would be best if we ride south,” Theophilos said. “To Buda first. Then onward to the Balkans.”

  Remy watched him, noting the careful way the Greek knight studied the horizon as though he could already see the lands beyond it. Theophilos always spoke as if weighing each word before letting it out. A man who had read too much and fought just enough to keep the knowledge from isolating him completely.

  Sir Raimund von Falkenberg shifted in his saddle. He was broader, heavier, a knight whose armor seemed to cling to him as comfortably as a second skin. His blond beard caught the weak sunlight like pale fire.

  “Our key stop would be Ni?,” Raimund said. “Then Sredets beyond it. From there, we’ll join the Via Militaris. Inns, waystations, military traffic. The safest road across the Balkans, and the oldest. Venetians travel it. Hungarian envoys. Pilgrims from the West. It links cleanly with the Danube route. Everything flows into it.”

  He spoke as if reciting a litany he had learned years ago.

  Remy listened in silence, his gaze drifting between the two knights. Their plan was sound, practical, cautious where it needed to be, ambitious where caution would slow them too much. But there was a shadow lying across the route they proposed, one any fool could see.

  “Most of Serbia,” Remy said, reminding them, “and the Balkans besides, lie under the Turk.”

  Raimund made a small grunt of agreement.

  “Yes. The Beys will tax travelers without shame. Their garrisons will demand bribes. And there are always bandits in the woods, even when the Turks claim control.”

  Even so, it was the only road that remained truly functional. The Ottomans allowed trade because they profited from it. Caravans rolled through the passes, pilgrims trudged through the dust, envoys carrying letters sealed with wax and trembling hope crossed the narrow valleys. Where profit lived, civilization stubbornly clung on.

  The knights knew this. They considered each risk as though it were a familiar opponent. To Remy, watching them measure distance and danger with the same calm they used to lace their boots, something sharp glinted beneath their practiced restraint. They spoke of routes and waystations, but something in their eyes asked for more, something fierce, taut, barely contained. A hunger for purpose that smelled too closely of blood.

  Remy had seen it before, years ago. In the young men of France who bound their oaths too tightly around their throats. In the soldiers of his past life who marched into battle with honorable words on their lips and terror in their guts. Men who believed God desired more corpses.

  These knights were not young. But the hunger survived in them.

  After all, ten knights of different lands, armed as if expecting a siege, riding toward the same distant place without hesitation, there was only one destination that fit. Only one goal that drew such men eastward, year after year, even when kingdoms rose and crumbled around them.

  The Holy Land.

  Or Constantinople, the gate to it. The last hinge of the Christian East.

  They did not follow Remy because they believed he was greater than they were. Sir Theophilos alone spoke more languages than most scholars in a cathedral scriptorium with his Greek, Latin, Arabic, even a little Syriac. If they needed a translator, they would have had him. And as for a physician, they had survived long years without one, whether by skill, stubbornness, or God’s reluctance to claim them.

  No. They followed because their path had been chosen long before Remy entered it. He was not their cause, only a piece that slid into place when fate moved the board. They followed because he walked toward the same distant fire they did.

  Remy glanced at Theophilos. The Greek knight’s face was unreadable. A man worn by pilgrimage, not pride.

  The Mamluks still held Jerusalem. The Sultan’s banners flew over its gates. Janus of Cyprus, the titular King of Jerusalem, languished in chains, humiliated by the Sultan, as the tales whispered. A king who held a crown only in name.

  Syria, the province that contained the Holy City, was quiet for now. Or as quiet as any land could be under a state that trembled beneath plagues and empty coffers. The Mamluk treasury had been bleeding for years, Remy knew. Sultan Barsbay had strangled trade routes until they bent to his will, monopolizing commerce with Europe like a desperate man seizing the last loaf of bread in a famine.

  Yet Jerusalem itself, for all its weight in the hearts of men, was no longer the battlefield it had once been. Garrisoned, administered, kept tight and orderly. A holy city trapped in the machinery of a weary empire.

  But it still called to men.

  Remy felt the pull too. Not because he imagined holiness waiting like a blessing under its stones, but because there were questions he carried that only silence could answer. And Jerusalem, though full of prayers and old blood, held the right kind of silence.

  He looked again at the knights. Raimund adjusting his gauntlet. Theophilos checking the saddle straps. Sir Bernat d’Urgel who stood a short distance away, watching the road with a restless focus that made Remy wonder whether he was imagining battle already.

  A strange company for a healer. And yet, here he was.

  Gaston rode forward, his horse kicking up muddy water. The old knight had been quiet through all the talk, letting the others lay out their arguments like merchants displaying wares. His expression was mild, unreadable, with a faint conviction in the corner of his eye that rarely failed him.

  “The wind will not guide us,” he said. “Nor the road alone. We follow what we have chosen.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Remy let out a slow breath.

  “What you have chosen,” he corrected quietly.

  Gaston tilted his head. “We, lad. You walk the same path.”

  Maybe he was right. Or maybe Remy had been swept up in something large to turn away from now.

  The sun sat low in the pale sky, the light bright but cold. Snow lingered only in the shadows, and the air smelled faintly of thawing bark and winter’s retreat. A good day to begin something. Or to be damned by it.

  “We ride south,” Raimund repeated, as if sealing it.

  Theophilos nodded once. “Ni? first.”

  Jehan turned toward Remy, waiting. Her eyes carried no fear, only steadiness. She had left behind a life still unknown to Remy and yet she did not waver. He wondered sometimes if he was doing right by her. But she chose her place with a kind of stubborn silence grace.

  Remy rested on Morgan, settling into the saddle with a faint groan of stiff muscles. The horse snorted, eager to move.

  The knights formed their line without words. Ten riders, armed and ready, carrying the kind of quiet resolve that often preceded either salvation or ruin.

  Remy felt the weight of their collective purpose settle around him, too heavy to ignore, too familiar to dismiss.

  “Very well,” he said softly.

  He touched the reins, and Morgan stepped forward.

  Ten armed knights caused scenes wherever they went. Remy had expected as much. Attention was inevitable, even so, he had originally planned to take a river boat along the Danube to avoid the sort of spectacle that heavy cavalry brought with them. Quiet travel, fewer eyes, fewer questions, and less trouble. But after so much thought, weighing the dangers, weighing the weight of responsibility, he had decided that it was best, if only marginally, that he had people with him.

  He accepted the cost of visibility for the sake of preparedness.

  They stopped at Leányvár just before midday, a small settlement marked by low stone walls and a watchtower half-swallowed by ivy. A party of guards approached as soon as the Company appeared on the main road. Their movements were stiff, too formal, the kind of nervousness that came when men recognized trouble before trouble declared itself. Ten mounted knights, each armored, each bearing weapons, accompanied by a woman in a blue cloak who rode with the posture of a veteran were not common travelers.

  Sir Gaston hailed the guards first, giving them a courteous but commanding greeting, then stepped back deliberately, allowing Remy to speak. He always did that. Gaston understood better than most that Remy’s presence eased conversations. And so, when Remy rode forward on Morgan, the guards relaxed almost immediately. Not because of him as a man, he suspected, but because of the stories they had likely heard.

  Recognition passed across the guards’ faces. Or rather, Remy realized, recognition of a description.

  “The Knight in the Blue Cloak,” one said in Hungarian, eyes flicking between Remy and Jehan, who wore a similar blue cloak, though hers hung slightly shorter. “You are welcome here, Sir!”

  Remy only inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  They were ushered into the settlement with surprising warmth, offered water for the horses and a place to rest in one of the unused barns. Remy had begun to dismount when a man, accompanied by his wife, hurried toward him with a desperate urgency that needed no translation. They asked for his help. Their son was ill.

  Remy did not hesitate. He never did when the matter concerned illness.

  Jehan followed behind him, her steps light but attentive, as the couple led them to their home. The air inside was heavy with the scent of sweat and stale cloth. A small boy lay on a straw-stuffed mattress, cheeks flushed, breath shallow with the heat of fever. He could not have been older than ten.

  Remy knelt beside the child. He observed the rise and fall of the boy’s chest, the sluggish pulse beneath his jaw, the heat radiating from his skin. He checked the tongue, the gums, and the clarity of the eyes. A common fever, severe but treatable. He reached into his satchel and withdrew a small pill, the bitter sort that children disliked but that worked swiftly when paired with clean water and rest.

  He instructed the parents, speaking carefully in Hungarian and they listened with frantic intensity. When they reached for coins, pressing insistently, Remy considered declining outright. But then he asked instead for herbs, specific ones. Leaves, roots, bark. Common in the region. Useful for the road. They hurried off at once.

  He remained by the boy for nearly an hour, listening to the breath quiet, steadier now. The home filled again with the parents’ footsteps, arms heavy with bundles of herbs, some useful, others clearly gathered in panic. He accepted them all without comment.

  When he and Jehan finally stepped out into the daylight, she wrinkled her nose slightly.

  “You smell like herbs,” she said.

  “I am aware,” Remy answered.

  Her tone softened. “It suits you.”

  He did not reply to that.

  Once he was certain the boy would recover, Remy gave the parents a final instruction, drink boiled water, wash their hands, keep the child clean, and prevent the spread of plague. And he reminded them that if the boy’s breathing remained clear, they might keep the remaining pills for future illness.

  He mounted Morgan again, Jehan riding beside him, and they made their way back to the barn where the Company had gathered. The knights sat in a loose circle, discussing the route with low, measured voices. When Remy and Jehan approached, the conversation shifted.

  They had questions. Many of them. Not about Remy, no, they had already spoken enough with him. Their curiosity was directed at Jehan.

  They asked where she was from. They asked if she trained under Remy. They teased her about being somewhat lacking in muscle compared to the rest of them. Jehan remained composed, her face as unreadable as ever, though Remy noticed the faint rigidity in her shoulders.

  She did not want to reveal her gender. She had made that clear since the first time they had traveled together. And so, Remy handled the inquisitions with care, offering explanations that skirted the truth without crossing into outright falsehood. He spoke of her youthful appearance in medical terms, describing slightness of build without implying weakness. He spoke of her dedication to discipline and of the work she put into her conditioning. He called her “he,” as she preferred for safety, but his phrasing ensured he did not feel as though he had lied to God.

  The knights seemed to accept it, or at least chose not to press the matter further.

  Later, when the group had scattered to tend to their gear, Jehan leaned closer and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For helping me. For the words.” Her eyes dropped briefly. “Speaking so many lies at once… it feels wrong. I know I must, but each lie stings. If God wills that my deception is discovered, then so be it.”

  Remy studied her for a moment, the way she stood, shoulders squared despite the tremor beneath her voice.

  “If it comes to that,” he said quietly, “I will keep the deception as long as I am able. But if the truth is revealed, then let it be revealed.”

  Jehan nodded. There was acceptance in her posture.

  Remy returned to the Company then, listening to their talk of routes and roads. Choices weighed upon his mind. He had wanted to slip quietly along the Danube, alone or nearly so. Now he rode with ten armored knights.

  Either way, the path to the Holy Land had begun. And whether by providence or miscalculation, he would walk it with them.