SWORDS (The Paladin's Thief Book 3)
Page 18
“You invited them here, didn’t you, Jeremiah?” Magnus returns.
“Is that your accusation, Brother Magnus?”
This time it’s the Mitre Procurus doing the talking. “Should we adjourn a formal council?”
Magnus stares at Jeremiah, that deep, soul-searching look that Loring used on me, while answering Father Cartwright’s question. “No. This will not wait. The wound is fresh and the poison is still upon it.”
“Then state your accusations clearly.”
“I, Magnus Palaidus, a Sword of Light, call the Altus Mitre to trial. He shall be deposed by vote or by combat.”
“The charges,” Father Cartwright asks, shocked.
“Consorting with our sworn enemy.”
Tired heads shake. Murmurs run through the crowd. Even the wounded take notice.
“It’s been a bad night, Brother Magnus,” Father Cartwright says. “Perhaps we should wait until tempers cool, and we can talk through the purported evidence carefully.”
“By then it will be too late for justice,” Magnus insists. He releases the mail satchel from his shoulder and unclasps the top, pulling out the sketch and showing it around. “Forty years ago, two ambitious brothers tried to infiltrate the Nightshades.” Magnus smiles grimly, pausing for a moment to acknowledge the irony.
“One of them abandoned the other, but neither of them escaped. Cadet Tom Leblanc of Maudark was betrayed and abandoned to the Nightshades at the Altar of Oaths by Cadet Jeremiah Blackstar of Fortrus. By cowardice or design, it matters not. Brother Tom became a Dreadlord and Brother Jeremiah became a false Paladin. This I charge.”
More shaking of heads, including the Mitre Procurus. “You need three to support such a weighty accusation, Brother Magnus.”
Magnus looks to the crowd for support, but there is no one.
Cobalt clears his throat. “I . . .”
“. . . in good standing,” Father Cartwright says, glaring at Cobalt as if still wishing he’d been executed weeks ago.
Lucinda steps forward. “I witness,” She says firmly, tossing her own sword at Jeremiah’s feet.
I don’t bother. Her vote and mine count for less than Cobalt’s. She’s barely a cadet, and I don’t even claim that honor. But then there’s a high, reedy voice. “I witness,” it says. Father Loring has arrived.
Jeremiah’s stares at him, straight in the eye. “Jealousy is a poor master, Loring.”
Loring nods his head. “Which is why I am seconding the claim and not presenting it.”
“Two votes,” says the Mitre Procurus. “It’s not enough. This complaint passes.”
Unbidden, the image of Cobalt’s own ring comes to mind, cold against his sweating chest that first day in Fortrus.
“Wait!” I say.
The Mitres aren’t impressed by my squeaky voice.
“He wears a ring on his left hand. Examine it. Do you need more testimony than the ring of a Nightshade on his hand?” It’s a white ring, but I know from experience that the underside will be black, and this will be quickly obvious to the others.
“I witness,” says a small voice that I’ve never heard before. It’s Father Valoris, peeking from the tops of the nearest wall. “I also have seen several things to support . . .”
Jeremiah lunges forward, smashing his staff suddenly against a marble patch. The staff breaks, exploding in a sphere of light that throws people backward like a heavy ocean wave.
Only Magnus stands his ground, buffeted by the light but not moved by it. Jeremiah advances quickly, pulling his shield from his back and his sword from its scabbard in one swift motion. “So you wish to put me on trial, boy? Do you know what happens when the High Paladin stands trial?”
The light catches me, too as I jump forward to help Magnus. It throws me back, just as it throws back the Mitres, the injured, and any others within a 50-foot radius. The force of it shakes me like a fleshy bell, and throws me to the ground. Only Magnus, Jeremiah, and the pile of corpses are left inside the trial circle. No witnesses this time, apparently.
Unarmed, Magnus dodges the Altus Mitre’s charge at the last second, diving for his discarded sword and a damaged shield.
“Jeremiah! Cede!” he says. “Give yourself peaceably.”
But Jeremiah has no intention of going peaceably. He has every intention of cutting poor, gullible Magnus to ribbons. Magnus is dancing away from Jeremiah’s relentless pursuit, and doing a damn fine job of staying away from the white walls of the impenetrable light sphere.
“You’ve got to fight him, Maggotus!” Cobalt spits blood again, clawing futilely against the trial barrier. His hands fly back, burned each time he touches it.
The Mitres are putting their hands against the wall, fingers bouncing, probing, some of them chanting, as if trying to bring the impromptu trial to a halt.
And there is a witness in the circle after all, someone rising from the pile of corpses. Hawkwood.
Like some final magic trick, he stands and wipes blood from his face, not—in fact—dead at all. He’s grinning like he’s played a terrible joke, dressed in black like all the other Nightshades, his white robes nowhere to be seen. He circles opposite Jeremiah, cutting off Magnus’s nearest escape, as if they hope to push him into the white wall. Jeremiah slows just a second, the ferocious look on his face the closest I’ve seen to a smile.
I throw myself hopelessly against the barrier, and it throws me to the ground again, tingling and shaking my poor head as I ram into something hard.
Lucinda.
She’s kneeling, oblivious to the impact even though I’m practically in her lap. Praying, eyes closed, tears streaming down her face and falling on mine. “Please, sir. I love him.”
“Lucinda, you’re glowing.”
Lucinda’s eyes flare open, full of fire. She still doesn’t see me. She leaps to her feet, charging straight through the white wall. I wince as my head hits the cobbles, and wait for her to be thrown down next to me, but the veil of white fire flutters like a cloud as she passes through it, reforming hard and solid behind her. She piles into Hawkwood, bulldogging him from the side with her spiked shoulder. His eyes go wide and he does a pirouette, reaching down with a gauntleted hand to throw her off. Lucinda flies loose, hitting the ground hard, her chin rebounding on the turf as she slides across the checkerboard, skidding on her belly. She’s no match for Hawkwood.
This entrance is enough to jog Magnus from his trance. The words of pleading are gone from his lips. In a flurry of sword strokes he’s inside Father Jeremiah’s guard, though his sword has been thrown aside. He slams his forehead down on the older man’s nose, which opens in a spray of blood, and they both stumble backward a step. I think he’s to do it again while the old man is dazed, but instead he grapples the Altus Mitre and spins, catching Jeremiah’s head and arm. The enormous man flies over Magnus’s hips, heels in the air, clanging against the ground and groaning from the impact.
Nearby, Lucinda tries to get up, but she’s moving sluggishly, weighed down by her armor. She’s only to her knees before Hawkwood is on her, blade raking down as if to split her from shoulder to chest.
Magnus reaches, but he’s too late to save Lucinda.
Hawkwood’s sword descends.
Pitifully, Lucinda raises a naked arm to rebuff it.
There’s no spray of blood. No severed limb, just a flash of light and white sparks on her arm as the blade drives her back to the ground, limp and unconscious. Hawkwood’s sword lodges in Lucinda’s shoulder guard as her head bounces on the ground again.
My daughter screams, a long and mournful sound that is undercut by a hoarse, bestial roar from Magnus. Hawkwood is still trying to pull the blade loose when Magnus hits him. There’s a cracking sound, and then Hawkwood is lying next to Lucinda, neck broken.
The Altus Mitre lifts himself from the ground approaching Magnus warily. His ring is flecking white paint where it has smashed into the stone, and it is black underneath. “I always knew you’d be the one to repla
ce me,” he says. “Knew it would mean the continuation of this endless war.”
Magnus retrieves Lucinda’s sword. “You knew what Cobalt was doing all along! You thought I would betray him, and then you’d have two more allies.”
Jeremiah nods. “But you’re a better man than me, Brother Magnus.”
He surges forwards attacking Magnus with ferocity. His blows rain down furiously, forms that I haven’t seen before, his shield battering and slashing almost as much as his sword.
Magnus defends with lighting-fast parries, wielding Lucinda’s bastard sword with one hand and balancing himself with a piece of shattered pavestone in the other.
The Mitres are struggling frantically to come to Magnus’s aid, but it won’t be soon enough. The Mitre Tactus is only halfway through the barrier, inching into it with the same silvery shield-glow that Lucinda had, but thinner. He’s cursing and yelling for the other Mitres to push him harder from behind, yelling for Magnus to stall.
But Magnus slips. It isn’t a big thing, but it exposes his left side. Jeremiah lunges, his sword slicing across Magnus’s chest. It isn’t a feint. It’s both a sacrifice and a deception. The cut Magnus takes isn’t lethal but the pave-stone in his hand is, smashing into the older man’s head. The Altus Mitre stumbles, his face sags, and he falls to his knees.
“So you can be taught, Magnus,” Jeremiah says, his voice thick.
“You called me blind.”
“You’ve learned well, son.”
“You were my Father,” Magnus says, half-sobbing, clutching the bloody pavestone.
“And I loved you, Magnus.” Father Jeremiah spits out blood. “I trained you. I thought if you were pure enough your light would cleanse our blackest sins. “
“What a load of dung. You sent me there to die.”
“I did that, too.”
Brother Jeremiah motions for Magnus to come close, but Magnus stands his ground.
“You should thank me for teaching you.”
“Should I thank the winter for being harsh?”
Jeremiah says nothing, seeming to sag further, shaking on his knees. His solid form seems to age as I watch the life leaking out of him, taking muscle and bone with it.
“You sold Tom out. You were supposed to rescue him from those vows. He was fighting them, resisting them.”
“Vows like that can’t be broken.”
“You know because you took them yourself.”
“Every effort we made played into their hands. Every rescue. Every last stand. The light will fail. This way, fewer suffer along the way.” Jeremiah grimaces. “Tom was twice as smart and twice as foolish as any other two men. He could have been the high Paladin.” He swings his blade again, slicing in toward Magnus’s knee.
Magnus is faster. The look on his face is the closest thing I’ve seen to anger in his normally gentle face, and he drives Lucinda’s bright sword straight through Jeremiah’s chest plate and into the man’s heart. How? I don’t know.
“I think he made the right choice,” Magnus says.
Jeremiah’s eyes go wide with pain and he takes one last, gasping breath.
And then the High Paladin falls.
The noise of the crowd surges now as the light-shield fades. The Mitre Tactus is the first to reach Lucinda, ripping off his gauntlet to feel for a pulse. Val and I are second and third. There’s blood all over her face and chin from where Hawkwood threw her on her face, and crusted blood from our previous adventure. Her left arm is red and blistered where it should have been severed, and her breathing is ragged and choked with blood. But there’s hope in the young Mitre’s eyes as he whistles for help.
“Can’t you flashy her?” I ask.
The handsome Mitre spares me a glance. “Where did you see that?”
“Magnus,” I say simply.
The War Mitre turns back to Lucinda. “That isn’t a common gift. And it leaves two people defenseless. Sister Hugues can do it, but I can’t.”
Instead, they rush Lucinda to a room with heat, bandages, and women to tend to her wounds. No surprises there.
Magnus and Cobalt get their treatment out in the open. There’s a crowd around Magnus, stripping him down, offering antidotes, checking for wounds. Logan and a few of the cadets gather around Cobalt. He submits to their care, letting them pull off his armor and underclothes, check him for wounds, and wash him with alcohol right in front of everyone.
I hold Val, stroke her hair, and tell her everything is going to be okay.
ELEVEN
No one touches the once-Altus Mitre, except to retrieve Lucinda’s sword for cleaning and his blood-crusted oath ring. All day long crews from the city, teams of brothers from different settlements, and clerks scamper around his body, putting the prayer yard back into its usual order, scrubbing blood, dragging Nightshades to the furnace after searching them thoroughly. But Jeremiah lies in the courtyard until the setting of the sun, the last rays of sun washing his body as if in fire.
As the sun sets they place his body on a bier, carry it into the Assembly Hall. Once again the pews are set, and a crowd of brothers has gathered. Lucinda, frail today, glides into the seat beside me. The brothers all bow with deference to her proud shoulders. How a pickpocket slipped though Pan’s barrier when the world’s holiest men could only get halfway through doesn’t make sense to me, but then, life hasn’t made much sense since I swiped Tom’s ring from Lantern Street.
There is no processional for Father Jeremiah, no fancy words. Even Magnus can’t bring himself to say much when the Mitres ask him to take a temporary place on the council and speak words.
Magnus gestures to the body, wearing the robes of a Mitre, as he climbs to the stand next to a pale Father Hugues. “He broke the staff. He nearly broke our Order. But he still made a shield from light. What does it mean?”
No one has an answer, least of all me. I haven’t exactly been attending theology lessons with Lucinda. I turn to whisper to Lucinda as a song is sung, and kind words are spoken for the other fallen. “How did you get through the barrier?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. The texts say that all of the Mitres went into the battle at Almada clothed in light. They say that swords and arrows turned aside or broke on bare skin.”
“The texts? Since when could you read?”
“Since you taught me,” she says.
“I didn’t teach you to read ancient religious texts.”
She shrugs, wincing as pain shoots up from her bandaged forearm. “I’m a fast learner. And Magnus helped.” Her spirits seem very low for one who has just miraculously survived a killing stroke. She watches Magnus through the entire proceedings, eyes never leaving him for a moment.
I’m lingering alone in the garden, watching the butterflies and wondering if there isn’t a safer place for my sobbing daughter and frightened son, when the Mitre Loris joins me. He doesn’t say anything at first, but sits next to me quietly. Together we admire the mother cherry tree towering oddly above the apple and orange. Father Loring seems to know what I’m thinking, and for once the cynicism is gone. “Believer or not, Mr. Steeps, I will miss you when you’re gone. The other Mitres will miss you.”
“Who’s to say I’m going?”
He shrugs his spindly shoulders. “I have glimpses. I could be wrong. But that’s not why I interrupted your contemplation and prayer.”
I snort, and see a hint of a grin before his face goes somber again. He holds out a glass case, a ring case. “Do you know anything about this?” He asks. “It’s one of yours. Perhaps your Dreadlord friend told you something?” The ring is pitted and gouged so full of holes in places that it looks like a tiny black piece of cheese, or slag from a smithy’s scrap pile. There’s a small diagonal fracture running through the pitted metal. I can only see it because rust has started to form along its edges.
I shake my head. “I thought they couldn’t be destroyed.”
“I’m not sure they can,” he says softly, but this one seems to be weakening.
“Here.” I pull out the three rings we retrieved from the Nightshade’s house: the one pillaged from Stone-Bear, the one painted white, and the slender black band that I took from the newborn Dreadlord. Two of the rings are cool and dry to the touch, but as I hand them to Father Loring, I notice that Stone-Bear’s ring feels rough to the touch. It’s covered in green and red dust and has a diagonal crack in its side.
“What in the world, Mr. Steeps?” His eyebrows lift, as if begging me to tell him, the Mitre Loris, what is going on.
“I have no idea!” I say. “I just grabbed them from the ‘Shade house as it was burning down. It looked normal when I picked it up.”
After Deepwinter’s Battle, things don’t really normalize. In one way, it was one crafty blow to catch all those assassins and sycophants in one fell swoop, but some wonder if the cuts went deep enough. Even the Mitres look askance at each other.
Magnus is the exception. There are some who disagree with his defense of Cobalt, but they don’t dispute his integrity. Within the month he’s pulled into the managing of more and more of the Abbey’s business, until he can hardly find time to eat. Lucinda explains that he’s become the Mitre Medius, a stopgap until a more qualified Mitre can be found.
To a lesser degree, the Mitres all trust Cobalt, Lucinda, and—hell, even me—on Magnus’s recommendation, but nobody’s asking me or Cobalt for advice, and the only one seeking out Lucinda on a regular basis is the Mitre Tactus, and I don’t think he’s going to her for advice. At meals, he pays very, very close attention to her.
Eventually though, some semblance of routine settles through the chaos, and Lucinda and I are put on duty for the Mitre Tresorus, who has taken a liking to me even more so than Father Cartwright, the Mitre Procurus. Father Valoris puts us in charge of delivering funds to the outlying farms, fisheries, and charities as needed to keep them functioning. Imagine that. Putting an aquisitioner and a pickpocket in charge of cash shipments.