The Geneviève the world knew died amidst the still-warm ashes of Bord de l'Eau. What survived was a hunted animal, driven by a primordial instinct: to disappear.
She found sheep shears in the rubble of the neighbor's stable. The blade was chipped and soot-stained, but it cut. Without a mirror, using only her reflection in a trough filled with murky water and blood, Geneviève grabbed her ash-blonde braids. There was no ceremony, no melancholic tears for lost femininity. There was only the dry, rhythmic sound of metal—snick, snack—as strands of hair fell into the mud like dead animals. She shaved herself almost to the scalp, leaving it patchy and scabby, like that of the many boys who survive the "Red Pox" or trench lice.
But the hair was the easy part. The real pain came with the linen. Geneviève tore long strips of fabric from the shirt of a corpse she didn't have the courage to look in the face. She hid behind the smoking remains of the forge and began to bind her chest. She pulled tight. She pulled until her ribs creaked, until every breath became a shallow, painful struggle. She had to flatten every curve, deny biology, transform softness into a hard, shapeless slab. Then, she looted the dead. She stole the rough wool breeches of Michel, the miller's son, which were too loose and smelled of mold. She stole a boiled leather jerkin, stiff and cracked, which covered the shape of her torso. Finally, she rubbed her face with a mixture of axle grease, dirt, and ash, creating a permanent mask of filth that hid the delicacy of her features and the smoothness of her skin.
When she left the village, she had no name.
"Gilles" she found carved on a crooked wooden cross along the road, the grave of a nobody. She liked the irony: Gilles le Breton was the founder of the kingdom, the greatest of heroes; she was a ghost stealing a king's name and a dead man's breeches.
Her flight was interrupted on the third day, on the old smugglers' road toward Gisoreux. Geneviève, starving and desperate, attempted to steal an apple from the back of a covered wagon, painted with the gaudy, faded colors of the Free City of Marienburg. A hand, ringed and fast as a viper, grabbed her wrist.
"You have light fingers, little girl, but your step is too heavy," croaked an amused voice. Geneviève froze. The driver was a portly man, wearing a wide-brimmed hat adorned with exotic feathers and gold teeth: Hendrik Van Voort, a merchant (and part-time conman) from Marienburg who traded cheap wines and fake relics between the Empire and Bretonnia. Geneviève tried to wriggle free, growling in a low voice, but the man laughed. "Oh, don't try it. I've sold rugs to Kislevites and mirrors to Elves. I recognize a running woman when I see one. The posture, the eyes... you are an open book to someone from the City of Merchants."
Hendrik did not hand her over to the guards. In Marienburg, profit comes before the law, and he needed help pushing the wagon out of the mud where it had bogged down. They made a pact: Geneviève's strong arms in exchange for silence and a ride north.
During the long nights by the fire, Hendrik became her unusual mentor. He found the idea of swindling rigid Bretonnian society by passing a peasant girl off as a man amusing. "Silence is suspicious," Hendrik told her, spitting tobacco into the fire. "A mute attracts attention. People wonder why he doesn't speak. If you want to be a man, you must sound like one. But your voice is too high, too clean, like a silver bell. We have to break it."
He taught her techniques used by street actors and Marienburg charlatans. "Don't speak from the throat," he scolded, tapping the girl's sternum with a stick. "Speak from the stomach. Push the air against the soft palate. Scrape." He forced her to drink cheap brandy mixed with vinegar to irritate her vocal cords, and to scream into a wool pillow until her throat bled. He taught her to tilt her chin down to compress the larynx, to break up her sentences, to eat the final vowels like tired soldiers do.
After weeks of self-inflicted torture, Geneviève spoke. "The horse is ready," she said. It wasn't her voice. It was a flat, rasping sound, devoid of melody. It was the voice of an adolescent whose hormones had declared war on his throat, or of a man who had screamed too much in battle. It was an ugly, unpleasant, and absolutely masculine voice. Hendrik smiled, showing his gold tooth. "Welcome to the world of men, Gilles."
When Hendrik and Geneviève's paths parted, she was ready. She encountered Sir Balduin de Couronne shortly after. The old Questing Knight was drunk, his horse had thrown a shoe, and he was cursing at the rainy sky. Geneviève stepped out of the brush. Instead of gesturing like a mute, she approached with the cautious swagger Hendrik had taught her. "Hold the beast steady, milord," said Geneviève. Her voice came out hoarse, deep, veined with gravel and smoke. "Or you'll lame him before evening."
Balduin blinked, too clouded by wine to notice the fine details, hearing only the gruff, practical tone of a young villain. "You have a sharp tongue for a vagabond, boy," muttered the knight. "Do you know how to use that hammer or are you just hot air?"
"I can shoe a horse better than you can hold your wine," replied "Gilles", clenching her jaw to keep the timbre low.
Balduin laughed, a fat, desperate laugh. "Gilles, eh? I like you. You're hired. I have no money, but if you know how to scrub off rust and cook a rat, you'll live."
Geneviève had learned the most important lesson: the nobility of Bretonnia sees only what it wants to see. If you walk like a man, smell like a man, and speak with the rasping voice of one who has swallowed the dust of the road, no one will ever look for the girl beneath the armor. She had killed her voice so she could finally be heard.