Saga of Menyoral: The Service

by M. A. Ray

  “Let’s paint,” Brother Jerzy said, in his softest voice, and picked up one of the larger brushes. “This is ultramarine,” he said, dipping it into the dish of blue and wiping off the excess on the side. “I’m going to paint a beautiful blue sky for the Bright Lady, without a cloud in sight to drift in front of Her glory. Watch!” He stroked the brush over the sky, laying down a translucent wash of palest blue. Stas looked at him. “I know, it’s so faint now, but when it dries, in a very little time, we’ll put another layer, and maybe another. Then it will look brighter.”

  He went on that way, talking quietly to Stas, explaining what he was doing. Stas had at least seventeen questions already—and no way to ask them. He drank in everything he saw and heard, and still longed to know more. Jerzy worked on the painting until it was time for Vespers, with a break for dinner, of course, and still, Stas longed for more. He’d watched the althea shrubs, covered in pure white flowers with deep-pink throats, seem to grow off the page; he’d watched the tall spikes of snowy blazing star thrusting up among them, and the cream-and-brown hawk with bright blood on its chest, plummeting toward the flowers in a painful tangle of black crows. Questions, questions—but the greatest question of all was, “May I do it, too?”

  The next morning, he ran to the scriptorium after Sext, but instead of a bare desk, he saw his silverpoint stylus and a small stack of parchment. His heart sank nearly to his toes, and he sat, miserably, in his chair.

  He picked up the stylus and began to draw. He worked on the piece from Sext to Nones, Nones to Vespers, and again the next day, making every last detail as perfect as he knew how. Stas drew his wish: dishes of paint, the stack, the water dish; a tiny picture of the fields; and his own two hands wielding the brush. Then he sat, looking at it and scraping up every last bit of courage in his frame.

  The sky had taken on a pink tint by the time Stas slid out of his little desk chair and picked up the drawing. Vespers would ring any moment, and if he let it sit until Sext the next day, he’d never manage it. He walked the few steps to Brother Jerzy’s desk and tugged on the monk’s rough black habit sleeve. If Brother Jerzy was surprised, he didn’t show it. He acted as if Stas approached him with something every day, although this time was the first. “What is it, Stasya?” he asked mildly.

  Stas held up his picture. Brother Jerzy took it, adjusting his spectacles, and Stas took a breath. “I,” he said. “I—I—I—” He squeezed his eyes shut. They burned, and he didn’t want to let a single tear escape. “W-w-w—”

  Brother Jerzy waited. The gently urgent song of Vespers began to sound, over from the bell tower on the opposite end of the monastery. Stas made to go to the door, but the monk stopped him gently with an upraised palm. When the echoing bells fell silent, Brother Jerzy said, “Vespers can go on without us for a little while.”

  Stas gasped in another breath. “I want,” he said, “to—p-p-p-p-paint.”

  A slow, soft sigh came from Brother Jerzy. His warm hand cupped under Stas’s chin and raised it; Stas opened his eyes. Brother Jerzy smiled.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

  The Oath

  Knightsvalley

  Vandis got back to Knightsvalley early that evening. He’d promised not to fly, but hadn’t promised not to climb, and since Santo had told him Tony climbed like a squirrel, he’d scaled a small cliff and left the electrum medal up at the top. The Practical was meant to challenge, but he didn’t see any reason it couldn’t also be fun—in a nasty sort of way, of course. He checked on Kessa and found her slamming her way through the Squires in the arm-wrestling contest, cheered on by a contingent of kids about her age: mostly boys, but there were a couple of girls in the mix, too. She took first place, guaranteeing herself a small purse and a spot in tomorrow’s final.

  “Vandis!” she cried when it was over and she came down from the stage, bypassing half a dozen youngsters to give him a kiss on the cheek. “You made it. You’re the best.”

  “I’ll get you tomorrow, little Kessa!” called Alf, a Senior out of Ennis. He grinned and made a muscle at her.

  “We’ll see,” Kessa said airily, flipping her braids. She asked Vandis, “Did I miss Dingus?” while Alf, sensing he’d lost her attention, trudged away into the crowd.

  “I just got back. Somebody would’ve told me if he came in while I was out,” Vandis said. “It’s getting dark. Tomorrow morning, that’s when a lot of them will start coming back. You were really kicking ass up there,” he added, feeling as if he should say something, so she’d notice that he noticed her. With the Moot chewing up most of his attention and helping Dingus put on the spit-and-polish eating up the rest, he hadn’t had much time for his little girl—at least, not beyond telling her to stay out of trouble. “How about you and me run a few drills tomorrow morning?”

  She smiled. “That sounds great.”

  “I’ll have lots more time for you in a few days,” he said, mock-warning her, but she leaned right past his ticking index finger and kissed him on the cheek again. He grinned.

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Not after that,” she said, jabbing her thumb at the stage and, with the other arm, flexing a muscle that no one would expect on a thirteen-year-old girl. Then again, Vandis had seen her mother.

  “I suppose that’s true,” he said.

  “Kess!” a spotty boy yelled. “We’re going for pie, are you coming?”

  “Just a minute!” she yelled back. “I’ll see you later, Vandis. I’m going with Skerne and them.”

  He patted his purse. “Do you need more money?”

  “Not for the fair, but…” She bit her lip. “There’s this sword, and I’m not sure the purse is going to be enough.”

  “A sword, huh?”

  Kessa lit up. “It’s a hand-and-a-half, and I really, really, really want it.”

  “We’ll see.” He meant yes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your prize money’s enough. We’ll look at it tomorrow morning while we wait for Dingus. Who knows? We might have some time to drill afterward.”

  “All right! Later, Vandis.” She turned and waved at him from near the kids waiting on her. He waved back and went off to the valley mouth, where the Assembly gathered to sit vigil for the candidates to return. As they came in, Vandis would swear them, and old Ull or his Junior Wolfgang would tattoo the Lady’s sign on their dominant hands: the white oak leaf, for the tree that had given the Lady Her staff. He waved to Ull and Wolfgang as he passed their table, where Wolfgang was setting out their tools: dishes, needles, cloths, and candles, while Ull laid out bladders of ink in a careful line.

  Vandis bought a mess of sausages and onions from a mobile vendor pushing a cart with some difficulty over the rocky ground, hit the brew tent, and climbed the stepping slope to a bench near the valley mouth. This way he could keep an eye on everything, and be the first to see the candidates returning.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” he called across the narrow mouth: his secretary, and Secretary of the Assembly, down from Dreamport for Longday. Jimmy Hyde was at least seventy, retired from field duty, but he’d still wanted to be useful. Since he was the third son of a noble family, “useful” had presented a few issues. When Jimmy came into Vandis’s cluttered office claiming that his bones might succumb to rot if he didn’t have something to do, and demanding to be put to work—well, Vandis hadn’t been able to resist. “Are all the examiners back in?”

  “I’m sure they are. Let me see.” Jimmy picked up a sheet of cheap paper from his lap desk and squinted at it in the fading light. “Hmm, Adeon hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Really,” Vandis said distantly. Maybe Adeon had taken him to heart after all. Or maybe something terrible had happened to the tulon, or to—he shook his head. They’d both be fine. “Well, as soon as I’m done eating here, I’ll go get you a torch so you can see.”

  “You’re good to an old man, Vandis,” Jimmy said, beaming a gummy smile. Vandis waved it off and set to stuffing himse
lf. As soon as he’d slurped up the last sweet piece of browned onion, coated with crunchy burnt bits of sausage sticking from the grease, he wiped his mouth and went to fetch the torch—and the moment he’d procured one and started back up the slope, he heard a voice that damn near ruined his day.

  “None yet, eh, Vandis? Usually at least one or two make it back the first day, though I suppose it’s a smaller group this year.”

  Vandis scowled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Marcus Xavier had grown a neat white beard and was wearing what he probably fancied were peasant clothes, a deep blue jerkin and black leather breeches. Too bad the tunic was fine linen, the jerkin was evenly-dyed wool embroidered with silk, and the leather for the breeches couldn’t have come from any animal older than a day. “I’m here to enjoy the Moot,” he said from under the jerkin’s hood, his voice mild as cream. “And to lay eyes on the grandson you tell me I have, but I’ve never so much as seen.”

  “No. No! Five years,” Vandis said. “Five years and I’ve barely had the one, you can’t take him yet, he’s fragile, he’s not ready, you—”

  “Legally, you know, you haven’t a leg to stand on.”

  “We agreed.” Vandis stuck his free hand in his armpit so Marcus couldn’t see how it shook and raised his chin to stare the old Duke in the eye. “In court that holds plenty of water.”

  “If you can prove we had an agreement, which you can’t; whereas the documents you left with me amply demonstrate that he’s my grandson. I’ve every right to take him home whenever I please, since by the laws of Dreamport he’s still a child and will be for a year yet. Don’t tell me I can’t when I most certainly can.”

  Vandis went cold all over, ice-cold at the thought of Dingus gone to Dreamport when he was breakable as bone china. How fast he could shatter at the King’s Court. What losing him would mean to Vandis. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said, his voice coming out strangled and thin.

  Marcus laughed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t. I only want to see him for myself. Is that so strange?”

  Shaking his head, Vandis grunted, “No. I guess it’s not.” The legalities will be sticky for you once he’s taken the Oath. If he’d been calmer, Vandis would’ve realized that first thing. If Marcus had really wanted Dingus in Dreamport, he would’ve come a long time ago.

  “Besides, you know, I do read your letters—not that I get enough of them. It isn’t just that he’s my heir. I want to get a look at the noble son who’s wrapped my radical friend around his littlest finger.” Marcus grinned out of his new beard, swiveling his pinky. “Let me tell you, Vandis, the irony is delightful.”

  “It’s only because he doesn’t think he is a noble son. Spoiled little fuckers are ten for a bit, and they’re worth a lot less, sucking on the public’s tit the way they do. Dingus is a twenty-carat diamond.”

  “All the more reason for me to expect an introduction.”

  “Hell no,” Vandis said, swelling. “Not going to happen.”

  Marcus laughed again. “It isn’t every day one meets a twenty-carat diamond. Unwad your smallclothes! You can call me ‘Mark Oz,’ if that makes you feel easier.”

  “Not really. Marcus, someone’s going to recognize you. You’ll blow the whole business.” At least right now they were among the rocks and moss on the slope, so nobody was likely to be hanging around listening; it was too dark by now for anyone to recognize Marcus from a distance, even with the torch Vandis held.

  “I mean to meet him whether you introduce us or not.” Only a much bigger idiot than Vandis would’ve missed the steel in his eye just then.

  “All right,” Vandis said. “All right. As long as you’re here, I’m going to need your help.”

  “Is this about Dingus, or another donation?”

  “The berserkergang.”

  “Ah. I see.” Marcus stroked his beard.

  “Hang on a minute. I have to give this to Jimmy.” Vandis hurried up the incline. Marcus loped behind, frowning slightly. He stood a little distance away, looking at the ground, while Vandis stuck the torch into the stand on Jimmy’s left side.

  “Ah, thanks, Vandis,” Jimmy said.

  “If Adeon comes in, send him my way, would you? I’ve got to take a meeting.”

  Jimmy sketched a salute, glancing past at the tall figure of Marcus. “Count on it.”

  Vandis thanked him and walked measuredly to Marcus again. They started down the slope together, and this time, Marcus matched his stride.

  “Is it a problem?”

  “Well, no,” Vandis said. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll thank you to be more specific.”

  While they picked their way down, Vandis briefly explained what had happened that spring in Dixon Forest.

  When they reached the valley floor, Marcus said, “It sounds as if it hasn’t been a problem yet,” keeping his voice just a shade below normal volume. The activity at this level was enough to keep anyone from hearing.

  “With his bare hands, Marcus.”

  “I did say, ‘yet’. For most of us, the berserkergang comes very quickly to the surface. The smallest slight can trigger a rage, but as quickly as it comes, it departs again. Make no mistake, it is violent, and it is dangerous, but—what you’ve described to me—” He shook his head. “The harder it comes, the worse it is. I doubt he’d recognize anyone in that state.”

  “It scared the hell out of him. He hasn’t been the same since.”

  “Wouldn’t it scare you?”

  “It did,” Vandis said. “He’s been reserved as long as I’ve known him, but now I think he’s locked down on it. He’s tighter than a sail full of wind.” He decided not to mention the other night, when he’d bitched Dingus out, and simply added, “He’s intimidating sometimes.”

  They made it to a half-empty table—the ones nearest the brew tent were choked with people—and sat on the empty end. Marcus packed his pipe with tobacco.

  “You ever meet Mike Kochansky? Big Mike?” Vandis went on.

  “I’ve not had the pleasure. I hear things.”

  “He’s a big, fat, motherless fuck, and he got stared down by a sixteen-year-old kid. Thought he’d shit himself, and this was last fall.”

  “Tell me how he is when it takes him. I don’t mean when he’s holding it back.”

  Vandis described it: how Dingus went still, how his teeth had chattered and skin flushed. How he’d laughed and how he’d moved, like something out of a fever dream.

  “Mm-hmm,” Marcus hummed. “It takes us that way sometimes. It certainly hasn’t happened in living memory, but sometimes … one of us gets more. Like Acacius, two centuries ago.” He paused. “Like Xavier. The Lady didn’t just lay Her hand upon them. She squeezed. But then, I suppose it’s fitting that one menyoral should be given to another.”

  “Don’t get carried away,” Vandis snapped. “Nobody’s menyoral here.” It was an old word, a magic word, hard to translate.

  “I find that extraordinarily rich from the mouth of a flying man. Your gift would have been amazing even in the days when anyone with the knack could toss a spell.”

  “I’m not—”

  “She speaks to you. She lifts you. And she chose you for my grandson—not the other way ’round, which I find highly significant. If the two of you are not divinely touched, I honestly couldn’t tell you what that is.”

  Why did I tell you that? Vandis thought. I’m a fucking idiot, that’s why.

  “What Dingus did this spring was not humanly possible, and from all that you say, Akeere has given him that.” Marcus could give a perch-eye as good as Vandis’s own, and he gave it now. “He is menyoral. This willful ignorance does not become you.”

  “Menyoral is a legend,” Vandis bit out. “You know what legends do? Legends die!”

  Marcus pulled out his pipe and scrubbed at his face. “Men die.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “This is not a story, Vandis! This is life!”

  “
Can you tell the difference?”

  “Plainly, you cannot. If you want to protect Dingus, bring him to me. To us. He needs the support of his family and the bulwark of his name.”

  “No.” It was probably nothing but the truth. That didn’t mean Vandis could stomach the thought.

  Marcus shut his eyes and inhaled, then exhaled, a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, not quite into Vandis’s face. “Are you trying to tell me,” he said in an iron voice, “that you can possibly equal what I, what we, can give him?”

  “I can surpass it,” Vandis heard himself say. “I have made him my family, and he has the bulwark of my office. I’m his Master. I’m the closest thing to a father he’s ever known, and I will die before I abandon him with people he doesn’t know!”

  “He has a father. My son is his—”

  “Fuck Angus!” Vandis bit out, not raising his voice, but practically coming off the bench with the force of it. “Fuck him! He’s never even taken the trouble to meet his son! Angus isn’t a father—he’s a giant throbbing dick on legs!”

  Marcus’s forearm, resting on the tabletop, lifted until it stood on the elbow. His hand curled into a fist, and he stared at it for what seemed to be hours. He turned a set face on Vandis. “You do realize,” he said slowly, “that if you were anyone, anything but who and what you are, I’d make it my life’s mission to grind you into powder? If I put my mind to it, you would lose everything. I know what you value most, and you’d lose it all.” His forearm flexed as the fist tightened. “And when you sat in the ruins of your life, I’d come and take what I want.”

  Not my family, Vandis thought. You won’t touch my family or you’ll regret it. Aloud, he said, “Don’t threaten me. It’s fucking unseemly.”

  “Vandis … I like you. Gods know why at the moment. I trust your judgment.” Marcus loosened his hand, let his forearm fall back to the table. “I don’t doubt that you have Dingus’s best interests at heart. There’s certainly no doubt in my mind that you love him. If I thought anything else …”