"Faith?" Yeslnik snickered at him. "I will watch you in your new role. If I am pleased, I will formally appoint you the head of the Order of Abelle…" He paused and considered the sound of that for a few moments. "Your first command from the throne, Father De Guilbe," he prompted. "Find a new name for your church."
De Guilbe looked at him curiously.
"It should have a reference to me in it somewhere," said Yeslnik.
De Guilbe's eyes widened, but he withered under the cold stare of Queen Olym and held silent.
"Yes, to the king," Yeslnik said, obviously thinking out loud. "The divine king." With a wide grin, a wicked grin, he looked at the stunned father. "Surely my ascent is more than accident," he reasoned. "You just said as much."
"I said that the peasants needed to believe in such-"
"You do not agree?"
"I… I, there is a difference between the secular and the spiritual, I believe-"
"The Brothers of Abelle have long claimed a beneficent god, have they not? A shepherd overseeing the flock of man who blesses many with magical healing and other divine gifts if they believe that he is the way to eternity?"
"Yes, but-"
"But? Father, if such a god exists-and you believe he does-then surely his will is involved in settling the outcome of this greatest of conflicts. Honce is unified for the first time-or soon will be. A king will rule Honce for the first time, and that king will be me. If divine providence would play no role in that, then how are we to believe your claims of a god who cares about the plight of his flock?"
Father De Guilbe made no move to answer for, indeed, he had no retort against the outlandish claim.
"I am not merely a secular king, then," said Yeslnik. "I am a divine king. A divine king who deems your order misguided and nullified and who, by his graces, restores that order under the watchful eye of Father De Guilbe." He paused for a heartbeat before adding, "Perhaps."
The unambiguous qualifier stole any forthcoming debate from De Guilbe. Yeslnik made it clear with his tone and posture that De Guilbe was in a trial period here and that the impetuous king would think it no large matter to simply replace him.
"The Church of Divine Yeslnik!" Queen Olym blurted, clapping her hands together.
Yeslnik smiled at her but patted his hands in the air to tamper her sudden enthusiasm. "Father De Guilbe will find the right notes," he assured her and warned De Guilbe at the same time.
"Indeed, my king," De Guilbe replied and bowed again, and he started backing out of the room before he even stood up straight again, for Yeslnik was absently waving him away. As he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him, he heard Olym say to her husband, "Brilliant play!"
The father sighed and stood upright, considering. He could do this, he supposed. What mattered the name, anyway? Still, for all his reassurances he found himself muttering curses at Father Artolivan as he headed for the castle exit. If only Artolivan had gone along with Yeslnik's demands! The Laird of Delaval had won the war, after all! Of that there could be no doubt.
Now to restore the church to any semblance of prominence De Guilbe would have no choice other than to give in to King Yeslnik's every self-glorifying demand.
"So be it," the man said, focusing his anger on the brothers he had left at Chapel Abelle and not on the rather pathetic King Yeslnik. He muttered a few possibilities before nodding as he said, "The Church of the Divine King."
Yes, De Guilbe thought, that one might be ambiguous enough to satisfy both of his needs. Bludgeon them mercilessly," King Yeslnik instructed Laird Panlamaris and Prince Milwellis. "Fell every tree between here and Chapel Abelle to build your catapults and throw stones and livestock and peasants alike at their walls. Bring them pain. And do not let even one of them escape your web."
The Prince of Palmaristown nodded, quite satisfied with the task put before him.
"My ships will secure the river, let yours secure the gulf," the king said to Panlamaris. "Let us destroy any powries that may still be about and, more importantly, do not allow any to sail out of Chapel Abelle's docks."
"And none from Vanguard," Laird Panlamaris replied. "Oh, but we'll be paying Dame Gwydre's ports a visit or ten."
"As you will," Yeslnik said. "Your primary duty is to secure the siege of Chapel Abelle and to send the wretched powries to a cold and watery death. If you find the time to harass the minions of Dame Gwydre in Vanguard, then go with my blessing."
"We should destroy the wench now and be done with her and with those idiot monks," Panlamaris replied.
"One snake at a time," Yeslnik replied. "One snake at a time, and that snake now is Ethelbert. My army swells with the soldiers of the western holdings. I will gather Laird Bannagran in my wake and ride straight to Ethelbert's gates. His city will be mine before midsummer's day."
Yeslnik smiled, noting Prince Milwellis's uncomfortable shuffle. "Bannagran will know no more glory than the man who rains punishment upon the treasonous monks in Chapel Abelle," he promised. "Palmaristown will be the second city of Honce, behind Delaval, and it occurs to me that the great Laird Panlamaris's son should not wait for his father's death to find his own holding."
"Here now, my king!" Panlamaris protested.
"Ethelbert," Yeslnik explained. "When I have chased the scum laird into the Mirianic, his city will need a new laird. Perhaps your son will be that man, and what a glorious control that would afford the both of you of the long coast of Honce!"
Milwellis looked to his father with clear intrigue and excitement, but he found no such reciprocal expression. No, from Panlamaris there was only the unrelenting anger toward Gwydre and Artolivan, the curs who had loosed powries upon his beloved Palmaristown.
King Yeslnik remarked that he was tired and took his leave, but when he and Queen Olym reached their private room they were anything but weary!
"My king!" she tittered and swooned. "O, Divine King! Take me!"
She didn't have to ask twice.
Later, as the two lay in bed, Yeslnik asked, "Do you think I handled them accordingly?"
"You warned the monk, who was too independent, and you brought hope back to Panlamaris and his son," Olym replied. "Your wisdom knows no bounds and grows by the day. You will have everything you desire. Bannagran, more worthy than Milwellis by far, will lead your charge against Ethelbert. And with so fat a carrot dangled before their lustful eyes, know that Panlamaris and his son will not let Dame Gwydre and the monks escape their prison at Chapel Abelle. Your enemies have herded themselves into irrelevance, and Father De Guilbe, distasteful creature that he is, will frighten the other chapels to accede to your desires.
"Accordingly, my love?" she said mockingly. "Nay, masterfully. The world is yours, is ours, by autumn's turn."
SIX
Dealing at Heaven's Door
He approached at night, for he wasn't certain if new residents had come to the house. He expected that some had, given what he had seen in the last miles of his trek. Only one year before, the hill upon which this house stood had been the outskirts of Pryd Town and afforded a view beyond the borders of civilization. But how the place had grown! Hundreds of new cottages had been constructed; an entire forest had been cleared away! And all for security reasons, Bransen realized. None had made a greater name for himself in the miserable war than Laird Bannagran of Pryd, whose garrison had chased Ethelbert's army from the field and rescued many towns from the crush of enemies.
When he had come through Pryd Town briefly with Jameston, Bransen had approached from the north and departed to the east, and in those places, though there were more cottages, the region seemed much the same. But here across the way, in the southwestern reaches of the holding, the explosion of residents was truly dramatic.
Bransen noted no candles burning in the house as he climbed the hill. So many memories followed him to the doorstep. The broken door and darkness beyond showed him to his surprise that the place had remained deserted, though whether out of respect for the for
mer residents, fear of some curse because of their apparent fate, or simply because Pryd Town's traditional populace had been decimated in the many months of fighting, where so many of her men and women had marched off to battle, he could not tell.
This had been the home of Callen Duwornay and her daughter, Cadayle. Here Bransen, disguised as the Highwayman, had first courted Cadayle. Here on this very spot before the door marked where the Highwayman had killed his first enemy, a thug who had come here to do great harm to Cadayle and her mother.
Mixed emotions filled the young man as he stood staring at the spot where he had killed that young man. His actions had been justified-necessary even-for the sake of the women, and he felt no remorse for the thug. But in the larger reality of the world that had fallen like a boulder upon him, the sense of futility and ultimate despair colored his every thought. He couldn't escape the sense that the road he had begun that night at this door, the role he had taken on as a defender of some greater sense of justice, seemed the fool's errand.
Bransen walked away. He couldn't smooth the dissonance of his thoughts and feelings. He had done right in coming here to defend Cadayle and Callen on that long-ago night. Of course he had! But to what end? To what point?
He thought of Dame Gwydre as he walked across the rolling fields of Pryd Holding. The fighting had not come here, other than one small battle, and so the town itself appeared much as it had when Bransen had called it home only a year before.
Only a year, but it seemed like a lifetime to the young man. He could hardly believe the journey, physically and emotionally. He had walked from Pryd Town to great Delaval City and up the river to Palmaristown. From there, he had gone to Chapel Abelle and across the Gulf of Corona to Vanguard. Pressed in service to the Lady of Vanguard, he had traveled to the wild and frigid land of Alpinador.
And all the way back again, across the gulf to Chapel Abelle, south to Pryd Town and to the far eastern reaches of Honce to Ethelbert dos Entel. Despite the widening boundaries of its cottages and tents, how small Pryd Town looked to him now! Bransen had spent the entirety of his life here until that fateful night when, in rescuing Cadayle, he had also brought about the death of Laird Prydae. His road had begun with banishment, and in so short a time he had traversed the length and breadth of Honce and more. Was there a man alive more traveled than he?
That thought led him back to Jameston Sequin and reminded him of the man's tragic fate… and all for the crime of escorting Bransen to the east.
He paused on a hilltop, Castle Pryd and Chapel Pryd visible in the north, Cadayle's house behind him in the southwest, and the edges of a small lake visible across the way. There lay his first home, with Garibond Womak, before the ailing and aging man had put him in service to the brothers at Chapel Pryd.
So many memories flooded Bransen as he sat on that hill. He tried to put them in context with the new reality that he now understood. There had been very few pleasant times in the years of his youth, but those precious few struck him now. He thought of the many hours sitting by the lake with Garibond while the man fished for their dinner. He remembered as if it had occurred only the day before the first time he had opened the Book of Jhest, the tome copied by his father and protected from the outraged monks by Garibond.
He thought of Brother Reandu and his days at the chapel in a cellar hole. To keep his sanity then, Bransen had re-created the Book of Jhest, scratching the walls with a stone. His youth had been filled with long hours of grueling work, for even the simplest task had been brutally difficult to the boy known as the Stork, the boy whose muscles would not answer the demands of his mind. His youth had been filled with the torment of the other boys, often brutal and violent.
But in that youth, he had known the friendship and the courage of one young girl.
In the flailing hopelessness of Bransen Garibond, the image of Cadayle's hand, reaching down to help him to his feet, came to him again, reaching into the darkness of his heart and soul, the ache of his helplessness. Reaching for him and demanding that he take it.
He looked back to the southeast and envisioned the doorway at Cadayle's old house and thought again of that fateful fight when he, the fledgling Highwayman, had killed his first man. Bransen was not proud of that act, was not happy that it had been forced upon him, but he had done a good thing that day. He had acted for justice and for the defense of those who could not defend themselves.
"The call of the Highwayman," Bransen whispered into the predawn air, but he couldn't help but wince at the end of his only partly true proclamation.
Had it really been a selfless pursuit of wider justice? Bransen laughed softly, admitting to himself the truth of the Highwayman. Finding his power with his studies of Jhesta Tu and through the transformation offered by the soul stone-becoming the Highwayman-had been more a matter of personal satisfaction than any altruistic endeavor. He knew that and wasn't about to revise history for the sake of his pride. He had battled the tyranny of Laird Prydae because doing so afforded him a sense of control he had never experienced in his crippled youth. He was fueled and made powerful by the simmering rage that had flooded through him for all those years of torment, against the insults and the constant beatings of the bullies, against the softer but no less painful pity and disgust of the monks and many other condescending adults. How many times had Bransen heard the whispers that he would have been better off if they had just smothered him as a baby, when his infirmity had first been revealed? How many times had he heard the whispers that Laird Prydae or Father Jerak would do him a favor by putting him to swift death?
Anger, not altruism, had driven the Highwayman in those early days.
Bransen closed his eyes and pictured Cadayle's small hand reaching down to him, toward the Stork who lay in the mud after being decked by more ruffians. There, alone on the hill, he mentally took her outstretched hand and let it lift him once more from the darkness that had welled up inside of him since the disaster in Ethelbert, the murder of Jameston Sequin, the betrayal of Affwin Wi, the loss of his sword and gemstone brooch, and the horrors he had just witnessed in the ravaged southland.
He stood tall on the hill, tall and straight though he had no hematite, no soul stone, to support him. He felt his line of life energy, his ki-chi-kree, running solid and strong from his forehead to his groin. He was no more the Stork and would never again be the Stork. The world around him had gone mad, perhaps, and the terrible events and turmoil were beyond his control, but up there before the dawn, Bransen Garibond reminded himself that for most of his life this simple act of standing straight-of having a measure of discipline over his own body-was all that he wished in the world.
The notion brought a smile to his face, but only briefly. He was whole; it was not enough.
Because he was lost and he knew it. He had found a measure of senselessness to life's journey that mocked the very concept of purpose. He had walked the wider world and found it to be too wide, too uncontrollable, too much a cycle of inevitable misery and grief.
He started off the hillock heading for the lake, thinking to look in on the old stone house that had been his home for all of his youth. A small stumble, perhaps an honest trip, confused him and terrified him. He shook his head and started once more but veered almost immediately, turning toward the north, walking straight for Chapel Pryd. He needed to go there, needed to hear the counsel of Master Reandu. Bransen the agnostic sought some comfort.
Like all the communities of Honce proper in the summer season, the town of Pryd awakened before the dawn. Many people were out and about in the growing light as Bransen approached the large chapel, going about their chores before the hotter hours descended. Many sets of eyes fell upon him as he slowly and calmly walked the main road of Pryd Town, and he heard the whispers of "the Highwayman" following him. It was a more muted response than the one that had greeted him when he had come through here a month earlier beside Jameston Sequin. Bransen was glad of that. He didn't want any cheering; he couldn't bear the hopeful express
ions that would inevitably come his way, as if he could do something to better the miserable reality of a peasant's existence.
Bransen didn't need that responsibility at this dark moment. He didn't want any responsibility for anything or anyone, even for himself.
He walked up the path through Chapel Pryd's gate. The front doors were open, a pair of brown-robed monks on the porch sweeping away the leaves. They stopped in unison and leaned on their brooms, watching Bransen's approach. One stepped toward the door and shouted inside for someone to get Master Reandu.
"You could just take me to his chambers," Bransen said as he neared.
"Better to meet him out here… at first, at least," the brother replied.
Bransen considered that for a moment, then glanced over at Castle Pryd and shook his head. "In case Bannagran comes running, you mean," he said, and the monk did not disagree.
"Well, it is a fine day anyway," Bransen said. "So better to speak out under the sun."
And so he wasn't surprised to see Bannagran rushing through the gates of the courtyard before Reandu even made his appearance. The man was not alone, flanked by a dozen warriors armored in bronze and with swords in hand.
Bannagran looked Bransen over dismissively. "I have received no word from King Yeslnik that you are pardoned," the Laird of Pryd warned.
Bransen didn't answer, seemed as if he did not care.
"I warned you about returning here."
"I had nothing to do with the death of King Delaval," Bransen said calmly. "I was in Alpinador and Vanguard and nowhere near to Delaval City."
"So you have claimed before."
"I know who killed him."
Bannagran stood up very straight and took in a deep breath, his massive and muscled chest straining the straps of his fabulously decorated bronze breastplate. He didn't blink as he held his penetrating stare over Bransen, who, caring about nothing in the world, was not intimidated in the least.
"Bransen," Master Reandu said suddenly from the chapel stoop behind them. Bransen turned about to see him. "What news brings you to Pryd? Evidence of your innocence?"
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