Desperation ... it's gotta be desperation.
And only now did Nicolas realize that Seignior Laval was a relative of the Breton Laval family. Oh, how he once fell in love with Julia Laval, but she was 21 and didn't pay any attention to the teenager Nicolas, and he himself didn't dare tell her about his feelings for her! And then she married some Neapolitan nobleman and left for Italy. How he cried then, from bitter feelings and depression! His mother, a kind and quiet woman, kept asking why he was so sad, but he did not dare open up to her.
The road to Paris was long, Rohan Laval was a sickly youth. They had to make stops so he could rest. And Nicolas also got a skinny nag that could barely drag him despite the fact that he didn't weigh much. Well, what could be done? This branch of the French Lavals became really poor. Old Laval often indulged in discussions about unfairly taken away titles, apparently dating back to the time of the expulsion of the English, but Nicolas did not delve into his whining. If the lands of Anjou entered the royal domain, the king would "run" to give them back :-)
The first snow fell on December 14th.
The roads were terrible, the melted snow worsened their condition. Sometimes he saw carriages from Duchess Anne's retinue stragglers from the main, but Nicolas did not recognize anyone. And he didn't want anyone to recognize him, he was "good" in peasant clothes, nothing to say, in the company of two weird Frenchmen and riding on an old nag!
The roadside taverns were filled with soldiers and officers returning to Paris. Having drunk as skunks, drank away or gave it away to local whores everything they had stolen in Brittany.
***
One day they had to stay in one tavern for three days, Rohan had to rest and old Laval got drunk as hell.
Frosts began on January 1st. That is why Nicolas loved December and did not like January, December is soft, gentle and snowy, January is evil.
It felt like old Laval had completely forgotten where they were going and why they were going at all. Once he sobered up, he wanted to hunt in the former ancestral forests of Anjou. Nicolas loved this idea, what could be better than a glorious winter hunt?
Said and done, the preparations did not take long. Seignior Laval, Rohan Laval (in anticipation of the hunt, he immediately recovered and forgot about his ailments), and Nicolas is still on the same old nag, but in the excellent uniform of a French sergeant, which he won at dice the day before. Rohan was in the great mood, waving to the young serving girls from the tavern, and they laughed back to him.
"Fascinating!" Nicolas exclaimed. But damn! This sparse forest quickly ended and the fields of the nearby village began.
"There! There!" Seignior Laval waved, "there's a real good forest beyond that village!" They galloped across the field in fallow to the village. And then rushed through the dirty, narrow crooked streets, across the small square in front of the church, scaring away the barking dogs.
They quickly crossed the frozen field and entered another forest.
They stopped, "Actually there should be beaters and buglers who tell where the beast is," Seignior Laval grumbled.
They dismounted and began to slowly move forward, looking around.
"There!" Rohan pointed down into the ravine.
"The fawn is too small! We need a fatter animal!" Laval growled, the thrill of the hunt taking hold of him.
***
Hell is place on the Earth! When they descended into a lowland, they saw something on a tree.
"I think this is a woman's leg," Rohan cried out.
Not far away, covered with snow and rotting autumn leaves, they discovered a mutilated female body.
"I recognize her, this is the treasury secretary of Duchess Anne!" Nicolas said in a voice hoarse with horror. "Leg, why is the leg on the tree?"
Rohan turned pale, and only Seignior Laval retained his composure. "The local bailli must be informed," he said in some strange, melancholy voice.
They slowly and in shock climbed the hill where they had left the horses, took the horses by the reins and went back.
***
Paul DeAnda was local bailli. He listened to Seignior Laval for a while, looking more suspiciously at Nicolas in the uniform of a French sergeant.
"You're too young to be a sergeant, young man," he said, approaching him. "So you're saying that you identified the body?"
"Yes, sire baillif."
DeAnda sighed, "bitter times have come, the army is returning home, many atrocities are being committed on the roads and surrounding farms. Sometimes it's unclear whether it's the French or the Bretons who are doing it. We don't have resources to properly investigate all this; if there are no suspects, we simply bury corpses in village cemeteries."
"It's hard to hear all this, sire baillif," Laval said.
***
That's how it all ended, since as DeAnda said he had no free people, Laval, Rohan and Nicolas went into the forest, collected the remains (and the leg from the tree, had to climb up to get to it) and slowly dragged them over and put them on a cart.
Then they waited for some local decision about the cemetery site.
Then while the local peasants (two drunkards for the removal of tax debts) were digging the frozen January earth. They looked so dissatisfied (their taxes would be written off in three years anyway) and threatening that Nicolas was seriously afraid that they would slaughter them right there in the cemetery.
Then they sent for the local priest, and he actually finished the funeral service in about two minutes, so they buried her by torchlight well after midnight.