The Highwayman

by R. A. Salvatore

  All he could do was point at the book, although emphatically.

  “What would you have me do?” Bathelais asked. “Admire the curvature of your lines?”

  “I will instruct you in the language.”

  “Could you not have simply translated the work?”

  “It would not be exact,” Brother Dynard explained. “And it was a condition of the Jhesta Tu that any who would peruse their secrets do so in their language—learning the language is part of the discipline required to truly appreciate the knowledge contained within, you see.”

  “A condition of the Jhesta Tu? They do not willingly share their insights?”

  “They do not proselytize, no,” Brother Dynard replied. “Theirs is a light that must be attained by the willing, not forced upon the reluctant.”

  “Are you not proselytizing right now?”

  The question had Brother Dynard nonplused. He finally managed to string a few words together in a coherent fashion. “I am not Jhesta Tu.”

  If Brother Bathelais was convinced of that, his expression did not show it. “What are you, then?”

  “I am your brother,” Dynard insisted. Though he believed that with all his heart, he could not infuse his voice with any strength under the increasingly hostile stare of Bathelais.

  Brother Bathelais looked back at the cursive and stylized writing on the page, then gently closed the book as his eyes rose to regard Dynard once more. “And you will teach us how to read this language of the Jhest?”

  “I will.”

  “And when we read this book, we will learn that Blessed Abelle was not wholly correct?”

  The form of that question left it unanswerable by poor Dynard.

  Brother Bathelais stood up, the tome wrapped in his arms. He looked hard at Dynard for a moment longer, then gave a curt nod, turned, and left the room.

  Brother Dynard sighed and slumped in his chair, glad of the reprieve. He held no illusions that this initial discussion of the delicate subject had gone well.

  She stood before the rising sun, her breathing perfectly even, her stance completely grounded, not a muscle twitching.

  She focused on the sun, climbing slowly above the eastern horizon. She imagined its rays permeating her, linking with her chi, and she used the vertical climb of that burning orb to focus her inner strength on the vertical line of her ki-chi-kree. In the sun, SenWi found balance. In the sun, she found inner warmth.

  As slowly as the great ball rose, she lifted her arms before her. As so many minutes passed and her arms lifted before her face, she brought her hands together, linked six fingers, and pressed both thumbs together and index fingers together in salute.

  The sun continued its climb and her arms moved as if lifting it. She meant to stand here until noon, until her arms above her head were in complete concert with the heavenly cycle. But she didn’t make it. As her hands began to lift above her forehead, SenWi felt a stretch in her belly, constricting at first and then suddenly so painful that it had her doubling over and clutching her midsection.

  The line of her ki-chi-kree could not hold the straightened posture; her life energy had been wounded, and badly—and not just her own, she feared.

  “The snake venom,” she whispered, her teeth clenched. She understood it all then. When she had healed the poor girl, her own inner-heated hands had taken the venom of the adder into herself. But how had that so wounded her? A Jhesta Tu mystic could do this, with little danger, for the Jhesta Tu mystic could overcome poison with ease.

  And then SenWi understood; and her breath came in short gasps and she wanted nothing more than to scream in outrage.

  A Jhesta Tu mystic was possessed of the inner discipline to defeat poisons. But the unborn child of a Jhesta Tu mystic…

  He knew as soon as Father Jerak entered the room with Brother Bathelais that things had not gone well between the two of them, for the old man’s face was locked in such a scowl as Brother Dynard had never before seen.

  “You have come to question Blessed Abelle?” Jerak asked, and it seemed to Dynard as if he were trying, quite unsuccessfully, to keep the bitter edge out of his voice.

  “No, father, of course not,” Brother Bran answered.

  “And yet, there is this,” Father Jerak said, and he turned, extending his open hand toward the Book of Jhest that Brother Bathelais still held close to his chest.

  “Father,” said an exasperated Dynard, “as I tried to explain to Brother Bathelais, this book, these truths of Jhest, are no threat to our order or the teachings of Blessed Abelle. If we are to believe in divine inspiration, then are we to claim sole province over it?”

  “And thus you believe that this ancient order—” again he indicated the book “—received this divine inspiration many years before Blessed Abelle?”

  Brother Dynard felt as if he were sinking. He could clearly see on their faces that they had made up their minds. They weren’t questioning him now in hopes of understanding. No, they were allowing him to damn himself and nothing more. “It is not…There is no threat here,” he tried to explain. His frustration turned to hopelessness when a pair of armed soldiers of the laird appeared in the doorway.

  “Where is the woman?” Father Jerak asked.

  When Dynard continued to stare incredulously at the soldiers, Jerak repeated his question in even sharper and more insistent tones. Then Dynard did look at him, and old Jerak’s scowl seemed even more pronounced.

  “Where is she?” he asked again.

  “She left.” Dynard’s thoughts were swirling. He tried to concentrate, reminding himself that he had to cover for SenWi at all costs, that he had to be convincing! “She could not tolerate the prejudice and the unwillingness.”

  “The unwillingness?” came Father Jerak’s sharp reply. “To convert to her heathen ways? Did you expect to come here with some false prophet from the land of beasts and undo the blessings of Abelle’s teachings? Did you believe that your revelations of a few tricks from these…Jhesta Tu creatures would turn us aside from our path to spiritual redemption? Brother Dynard, did you truly believe that one misguided brother—”

  “No!” Dynard shouted, and he sat back and went silent as the soldiers at the door bristled, one even drawing his bronze short sword halfway from its sheath. “No, father, it was never my intent.”

  “Your intent? Wherever did you come to the conclusion that your intent meant anything, Brother Dynard? You were given a specific mission, entrusted with a duty to spread the word of Abelle to people deserving, though ignorant. You were sponsored by and of the Church of Blessed Abelle. You were sent by our arrangements and with our money. You seem to have forgotten all these things, Brother Dynard.”

  Dynard couldn’t give voice to any objections. For he could not argue with Jerak’s reasoning. He thought the man’s perceptions skewed, to be sure, but in looking at all of this from that viewpoint, it struck Dynard for the first time that these brothers of Abelle were afraid of the Book of Jhest.

  Truly afraid.

  “You misunderstand,” he finally found the courage to reply. “The Jhesta Tu—”

  “Are heathens in need of enlightenment,” Father Jerak finished.

  The silence hung in the air like the crouch of a hunting cat.

  “Do you not agree, Brother Dynard?” Jerak said.

  Dynard swallowed hard.

  “Where is your concubine?”

  “She is my wife,” Dynard insisted.

  “Where is your concubine?” Jerak asked again.

  Dynard’s lips went very tight. “She left. This place, this chapel, this town. This land of Honce itself. She could not tolerate.”

  “She would go south and east then, back toward Ethelbert Holding,” Father Jerak reasoned, and he turned toward the soldiers as he spoke. Both men nodded. He turned back to Dynard. “She’ll not get far.”

  Panic coursed through Dynard and he licked his lips and glanced all around. “Leave her alone,” he said. “What reason…She has done nothing
.”

  “Be easy, Brother Dynard,” Father Jerak said. “Your concubine is in no danger as long as she has truly departed this holding. Laird Pryd has promised me this.”

  “What are you saying?” Brother Dynard demanded, and he leaped out of his seat and moved to tower over the stooping Jerak. But Bathelais was there, staring him down. The soldiers came forward suddenly, interposing themselves between the furious Dynard and Jerak.

  “Brother Bran Dynard, it becomes apparent to me that you have lost your way,” Father Jerak said, stepping back to give the soldiers access to him. “Perhaps you are in need of some time alone to consider your true path.”

  On a nod from Jerak, the soldiers reached for Dynard, who roughly shrugged them away.

  “She is my wife,” Dynard stubbornly insisted, and he started to take a bold step forward. But before he could shift his weight, the pommel of a sword slammed him hard on the back of the neck. One moment, he was moving for Father Jerak, the next, he was staring at Father Jerak’s sandals. And he felt as if the stone floor beneath him was somehow less than solid, as if it was rising up, its cool darkness swallowing him.

  He knew not how much time had passed when he at last awoke, cramped, in the dark. The dirt was muddy beneath him, the ceiling too low for him to even straighten up as he sat there. He heard the chatter of rats and felt some many-legged creature scramble across his foot.

  But all he could think of was SenWi.

  What had he done to her by bringing her to this place?

  What had he done to their child?

  11

  The Power of the Written Word

  Father Jerak sat quietly in his private chamber, staring at the troublesome book. It pained him to see his former student so seduced. He had been overjoyed when he had first heard that Brother Dynard had returned to Pryd Holding from his mission in the wild southland, for many monks were not returning. The world was a dangerous place, after all, and Behr was considered one of the wildest regions. In his last visit to the mother chapel in the north on the rocky coast of the Gulf of Corona, Jerak had learned that of those brothers who had gone to spread word of Blessed Abelle outside Honce—to Vanguard or Alpinador across the gulf to the north or to Behr in the south, less than one in three had returned. Even if every traveling brother not already confirmed dead came back to his respective chapel, that number would not exceed one half of those who had gone forth.

  Thus, Jerak had been pleased to learn that Bran Dynard, ever a favorite of his, had come home alive and well.

  No, not well, Jerak reconsidered, and he looked again at the book on the small table. To Jerak’s thinking, it would take a monumental effort to ever get the wayward brother well again.

  There came a soft knock on his door, and Brother Bathelais entered.

  “He is contrite?” Father Jerak asked hopefully.

  “He has not spoken since we put him in the dungeon,” said Bathelais. “He hardly registers our presence when we go to him with food and drink. The only reaction I have seen from him at all was one of surprise and perhaps satisfaction when I asked him yet again the course of the missing Behr woman.”

  “He was pleased that she has eluded us these three days,” Father Jerak said. “And likely now we will never find her.”

  “Perhaps that is for the best.”

  Father Jerak didn’t disagree, though he doubted that Laird Pryd or Prince Prydae would agree. Those two had urged him forcefully on this decision regarding the disposition of Brother Dynard. Never would Jerak have imprisoned Dynard—certainly not in the wretched and muddy substructure of Chapel Pryd! As angry as he had been, and remained, over Dynard’s transgression concerning these southern mystics, Father Jerak had hoped to gently persuade the man back to the fold. He had even for one moment considered having Brother Dynard teach a younger brother, Bathelais likely, to read the flowing script in that cursed book, that he might then expose to Dynard the fallacies of the text.

  But Father Jerak understood well that he and his brethren were secure and welcomed only under the sufferance of Laird Pryd. Though Jerak had seen a threat in Dynard’s failings, Laird Pryd had seen more. Or perhaps this anger at Dynard was more the working of the laird’s proud son, Jerak mused. There were rumors that the heroic prince hadn’t taken well to the tales of the Behrenese woman’s battle prowess.

  Either way, it didn’t matter—not now. The die was cast, and appropriately so, Father Jerak believed, though perhaps it had been thrown a bit harshly.

  “I fear that if we await contrition before releasing Brother Dynard from his cell, then he will die in there,” Brother Bathelais said, drawing the older monk from his contemplations. “Though perhaps that would be the best course for all.”

  Father Jerak answered that with a scowl.

  “Better even for Brother Dynard,” Brother Bathelais quickly added. “His path is a road to eternal damnation. Perhaps he has not yet transgressed too far for divine salvation.”

  “Unrepentant sinners are not welcomed by Blessed Abelle, who sits at the feet of God,” Father Jerak tersely reminded.

  Father Jerak paused, then, and studied Bathelais, but the man did not respond.

  “Keep him incarcerated another week,” the old monk ordered. “By then we should know the more about the missing woman.”

  “And if she has not been found?”

  “I have no desire to see Brother Dynard dead in our filthy dungeon. If the woman is not found and our wayward brother has not repented, we will accommodate him more comfortably in a room within the chapel proper.”

  “A cleaner cell?”

  “But a cell nonetheless,” said Father Jerak. “I am willing to spend as much time and energy as we can afford to bring Brother Bran Dynard back into the ways of the order, but he will not proselytize this bastardized version of the message of Blessed Abelle. That is not a point of debate.”

  “Laird Pryd will agree to this?”

  Father Jerak shrugged, unsure, and especially if the missing woman was not found. “Laird Pryd will see no threat in Brother Dynard as long as we keep our reins on him tight. And I assure you, Brother Bathelais, that Brother Dynard will know no freedom until he sincerely repents.” That last statement chilled Father Jerak’s bones even as he spoke the words. He hadn’t thought of this matter in those drastic terms before—not to their obvious conclusion. That conclusion loomed before him now, powerfully so. Brother Dynard was more than merely a wayward brother in need of repentance or, absent that, of excommunication from the order.

  Brother Dynard, by bringing the Book of Jhest, by his insistence on blurring the lines between the Church of Blessed Abelle and this mystical southern cult, was a threat to the Church—one the fledgling religion could ill afford, particularly with the continuing pressure of the Samhaists.

  Threats to the Church could not be tolerated.

  A week later, SenWi had not been found, to the increasing frustration and anger of Prince Prydae. But, true to his word, Father Jerak had ordered a haggard and ill Brother Dynard brought from the dungeon and placed in a secure room in the chapel. Dynard had lost a great deal of weight, and his body was covered in sores from the standing water and mud. His muscles had already begun to atrophy, and it took two brothers to help him up the stairs and into his new prison: a windowless room on the chapel’s second floor.

  That night, Father Jerak went to him, the Book of Jhest in hand and Brother Bathelais in tow. He dropped the book on a table near the bed where the ragged-looking Brother Dynard was half sitting—and it seemed as if only the wall was holding the battered heretic up.

  “Have you something to say to me?” Father Jerak asked.

  Brother Dynard looked up at him, then at the book. “You wish me to translate the tome for you?”

  Father Jerak’s expression grew very tight and he scowled at Brother Bathelais. “He is to have no visitors. His chamber pot will be replaced every morning and he will be served meals in accordance with the other brothers.” He spun back to fa
ce Dynard. “But you will not leave this room. Understand that edict, foolish brother, if a brother you remain. Upon pain of death, you are not to leave this room.”

  Brother Dynard’s expression didn’t change, the fallen monk didn’t flinch as he sat there staring at Father Jerak, though whether that was through stubbornness or a simple lack of strength the old monk couldn’t tell. Father Jerak snatched up the book, motioned to Bathelais to follow, and stormed out of the room.

  “You did not even ask him about the woman,” Brother Bathelais remarked when they were out in the hallway and Bathelais had locked Dynard’s door.

  “You heard his response.”

  “A misconception regarding your request? He may have thought that his release had been incumbent upon our lessening our opposition to this supposed knowledge he has brought back.”

  “The mere fact that he still harbors any uncertainty concerning that tome, or that he still holds, as his tone evinced, any desire to share the words confined within its pages, is all the proof I need that our wayward brother has not come to the truth. Let him fester through this season and the next. When winter’s first winds blow against the walls of Chapel Pryd, we will return to him.”

  Brother Bathelais did wince at the harsh sentence, but only momentarily, and he said nothing, deterred by the power of Father Jerak’s scowl.

  She was having a good day, relatively speaking. SenWi had found some measure of energy and strength that morning, and after nearly three weeks of seclusion inside Garibond’s house, she had dared to go out into the sunshine. She stayed close to the cottage by the lake, though, well aware that the authorities of Pryd Holding were seeking her.