Yates’s suspicion that this was no ordinary boy had been confirmed as he witnessed the child grow with a unique force and magnanimity, despite being one of many abandoned children there. And so Yates had convinced Justus to raise him as a son, in part because of the boy’s suspected lineage. Justus had been sworn to secrecy, but even then, Yates had not trusted him enough to reveal his full beliefs about the role the boy might someday play in the world.
Yates had always tried to guide Andor towards the light, and the callings of love and humility. Andor had come closer than Tryst, even though he had grown accustomed to decadence and success in the Davosman noble house. Yates often wondered whether Davosman’s care for Andor had fueled Tryst’s ambition and envy. Tryst had many of the same talents as Andor but lacked such strong noble support.
Of course, Yates had begun to see the same negative changes in Andor as he now saw in Tryst, once they each rose to prince. The corrupting force of power was inescapable without some greater intervening force. Very few things had greater force than the prince’s crown.
That was why Yates was, in a strange way, thankful for the Gloaming. When Andor came to Yates a few weeks ago, he looked like he had climbed out of a grave. He was skinny, pale as the tenant of a tomb, with a maniacal glint in his eyes. His face had lost its fullness, and with it the last of his youthfulness. Andor was haunted by what he had done to stay alive. It changed him to the core, and hung like a shadow over him.
Yates had to admit he had been frightened at first. He had given Andor a change of clothes and a warm meal in a small alcove of the Cathedral. Time had brought some life back to Andor, and Yates had detected a new and deep yearning in the man. He was broken, but the pieces of greatness were still there. It was like someone had shattered a huge stained glass window that depicted a prince, but the shards of glass could be reassembled into something even better. Yates found no richer joy than identifying the most excellent vessels for the light. Unfortunately, those were the same vessels that tended to carry the deepest taint of pride.
Watching him now, Yates could see Andor’s progress. It was obvious he was winning the devotion of these pikemen. Yates had marveled that Andor was knighted within a day of joining Tryst’s army, and had been shocked when Tryst did not recognize him. The shadow hid the glory that Andor had worn as a prince. But now the shadow was fading. Perhaps the seeds of healing were planted properly, Yates thought, and now it was time to water them again.
It would have been too suspicious to call Andor out from the training. Conveniently, a small pile of pikes rested between Yates and the soldiers. Out of two hundred men, Yates figured no one would pay much attention to an old man with a pike sliding into the back line. Well, Andor would notice, particularly since Yates had no business holding a pike.
The old priest tried to walk like a soldier toward the lines of practicing men, but he stumbled after picking up the pike. The weight of it surprised Yates. He was used to carrying books, not wooden poles taller than he was. He grabbed the pike with both hands and hauled it twenty feet to the line of men. A few of the soldiers eyed him quizzically, and he simply offered a smile in return. Better not to speak, he thought, because no explanation would make much sense, and none of the soldiers were likely to try to stop an old priest.
Stepping into the line, Yates did his best to mimic the men around him. He would take two steps back, holding the pike at his waist. On Pikeli’s command, he would join the men in lunging forward in one huge step. Yates found a rich sort of rhythm to the practice. It was too much for him to keep up, but the effort felt good. He had worked up a sweat by the time Andor found him.
“Soldier,” Andor mocked the priest, “you are holding that pike like it is a wet fish. Grip it tighter.”
A few men nearby laughed at Andor’s taunt. He leaned closer to Yates and gave another command, keeping his voice loud enough for the men to hear.
“You have to turn the grip of your right hand thirty degrees to the left.”
Yates smiled as he followed the instruction. The men did another lunge.
“That is better, yes, your lead hand should be closer to the top of the pole. You do not want to lose that grip when a horse charges you down.”
Another lunge.
“Come now, you have to really plant that front foot. Enough distracting, old man, over here!”
Before Yates could say a word, Andor had taken him by the shoulder and pulled him away from the line—far enough away to avoid being overheard. He turned his back to his men, with a lecturing posture, and grinned at Yates.
“If this is your idea of disguise, you need some lessons. For a priest, though, you are not half bad with a pike.”
“And you are not a half bad instructor,” Yates said. “You seem to have earned the respect of these men in little time.” Andor nodded. “But remember,” Yates continued, “you cannot let it drive you to think you are better than they are. Certainly, you are born with great gifts. Those gifts are responsibilities. You have a duty to use your talents well. If you do, you will be blessed. If you do not, your fate will be worse than the Gloaming.”
A dark look passed over Andor’s face at the mention of the Gloaming. Yates worried that he had he said one line too many.
“I do not want to talk about that place,” Andor said. “Just let me be.”
“If I let you be,” Yates replied, “you would know that I did not care about you and your recovery.”
The former prince’s face softened. “I know you care. You are not even supposed to come near me and arouse suspicions. Yet here you are.”
“Tryst has ordered me to leave for Valemidas tonight.” Yates paused, searching for the right words. “He has become more flippant and angry on this march. I think he senses the men have no love for him. He has their allegiance only by fear. He claims that is enough, but deep down it hurts him.”
“What did you do to earn banishment?” Andor asked. “Does he suspect anything about me?”
“No, but I upset him,” Yates said. “I made him confront a weakness.”
“What weakness?” Andor asked.
Yates mulled the answer. “Come, let us walk,” he said, leading Andor away from the training men and toward the mountains looming to the west.
“I have observed the way Tryst is running this army.” Andor spoke with an odd balance of animus and praise. “He is proficient, focused, even if he disregards much tradition and cares only for himself. The authority should be mine, but as I knew when I raised him to my Knight’s Council, Tryst is gifted as a commander. The weakness must be that he has no right to my throne?”
“Pride.” Yates let the word linger. “It is pride, Andor. That is often the greatest flaw of a leader. It is a flaw in most men, but it festers the worst in a man with power. It eats away at a man until he is nothing but a desire to beat other men and earn their praise. Then he has no morality, no force of his own; he becomes dependent on the opinions of the very men he claims to have bested.”
“But men do not become leaders without pride.” Andor challenged. “It fuels their ambition.” The subject was a familiar one between the priest and the prince.
“Greatness is possible without pride. The light can be a purer source of ambition.”
“If that were true, the world would have seen some of your godly leaders. Instead, the world has witnessed only leaders who trust in their own capacities. Men can control themselves, so they can also control their destiny.”
“But where does that capacity come from?” Yates asked. “It is a blessing, a responsibility, instilled from your very birth. If a man gives up his will and devotes himself to living for the light, all of that man’s capacity and more will be harnessed for the good.”
Andor was quiet for a while as they walked on. “How can this be?” He eventually asked. “I have never seen such a man.”
Yates stopped and held Andor’s gaze. The sun was shining on the former prince’s face. The paleness had begun to retreat, replaced b
y his prior glowing hue. The priest had little time before he had to return home. He opted for directness.
“My prayer, Andor, is that you will be such a man—that you will be a prince who finds motivation in the light, and not from other men. You have always had that potential, yet you held your power through confidence in yourself. Tryst is worse, but even he has some potential. Every man does, because the light is offered to all.”
“You lost hope in the Gloaming,” Yates continued. “It broke something about you. You have the same gifts and abilities now, but I think you understand your need to be full of light from outside yourself. If I am right, then you may be the greatest prince we have ever had, because your greatness will be beyond any man alone. Valemidas will need that greatness in the months to come, because threats loom that are darker than what most people fear. This battle is a skirmish compared to what is to come. Only you, Andor, can save our people.”
“You paint life with a beautiful brush,” Andor responded. “I want to believe you, but I have seen the pit of humanity, in the Gloaming, in Tryst, and—” He paused and gazed at the ground. “And in myself. I doubt man can be what you claim. Sometimes I just want to retreat. I want to find a place where men are unconcerned with the greatness that you believe in. Your vision of greatness is too much, too exhausting, and I have been broken. You said so yourself.”
“Andor, you are healing,” Yates said. “And you are right to appreciate the beauty of such a retreat. I imagine there is a hidden place where men devote themselves to perfecting all that is within their horizon. For some men, that means mastering the art of herding sheep. It can be a joyous existence, but it depends on stability in the surrounding world and on the great men who enable others to live in peace.”
“You cannot run from your gifts.” Yates clasped Andor’s shoulder. “You cannot flee your desires. They combine to form your calling. Although only you know where the light is guiding you, I must say you have always taken to leadership. The men around you love you, and not because you want them to. Look at these pikemen. They love you because of the man you are, because you were born with the talent of inspiring others. Escapism in the face of such a calling would be a travesty.”
Andor nodded but was quiet. His face looked tired.
“I need to return to my men now,” he said, breaking the silence. “We should part here, but I appreciate your counsel, as always. You were never one for easy messages.”
“Just think on these things, Andor, as you continue on this journey. Let the light guide you. We will have an opportunity to speak again. I look forward to it.”
Andor reached out and clasped the priest’s hand. “Farewell, Father Yates.”
“Farewell, my prince.” With that the priest turned and walked away. He held fast to his hope for Andor. God forbid that such a man go to waste.
Chapter 15
THE MUCK AND THE MIRE
“The murkier the muck,
the purer the lotus.”
Wren was up to his neck in it. The Lycurgus had been on a brutal march in recent days. Now he faced a wall of looming mountains.
The sun was rising behind him. As it touched the tips of the sharp, snow-capped peaks above, Wren felt a sense of awe at the beauty. He loved these mountains and had not seen them in a long time. Yet, just like every swell of goodness during the past weeks, it was soon dampened. As the sun continued to rise, its rays touched a smaller, gross mountain before him on the Prince’s Road.
A month ago, Wren would not have believed that this much waste had ever been gathered in one heaping pile. But so it had, for many straight days. He supposed it was a necessary consequence of thousands of soldiers and camp followers, along with several hundred horses, marching together. What he still could not come to grips with was how this necessary consequence had become his problem.
Tryst. It all went back to him, and Wren’s feelings had only intensified with each day of dealing with his army’s vile residue. The miserable prince had relegated him to this post, and the true prince had ordered him to do the job well. He had always believed that, if a job had to be done, there was no substitute for striving for perfection. This task strained that belief. Still, he had sworn to Andor that he would do whatever was necessary to overthrow Tryst.
Wren had resigned himself to lead like a true knight. He managed his team of waste managers to prompt, efficient, and sanitary disposition of the Lycurgus’s debris. At least, that was his euphemistic spin for the thirty men under his charge. His men, like Wren, were outcasts from other parts of the Lycurgus. Some had picked fights with their own leading knights; a handful were complete slackers, fat and slow; and about half were just weak, whiny fellows with no aptitude for battle. No one left the Lycurgus except by desertion or death, so these men were demoted to this service until they died.
The stench could hardly be stomached, but it forced an odd bond upon his men. Only two had deserted the group since Wren took over. He kept their mood light with crude quips that sold the virtues of the job. Because their work was done by the late morning, he gave the men afternoons off. He also gave them freedom to do whatever they wanted with their nights, which made them a popular center of dicing and other cavorting for infantrymen.
It helped that Wren had been carrying rich spices for trade before he joined the army, so he had fine-smelling scarves fashioned for the men. They were bright yellow, distinguishable. Work is work, Wren would say, and we have the noble task of keeping this fine countryside clean. They had even earned a name for themselves around the Lycurgus—the Yellow Rags.
This morning’s work was not too different from the mornings before, except that it was rushed, since it was the last morning before the Lycurgus hiked into the mountains. Wren had his men working the same strict and precise routine. He sent them out before dawn to collect the prior night’s waste. They shoveled it onto carts, each dragged by two mules. The pre-dawn collectors would return to the rear of the camp, where the pile building would commence.
Now the heap stood before him, easily twice his height. It rested on a platform of logs that the men were lighting. It would burn through once, and then the men would bury it all in a large hole dug to the side of the road. Wren had insisted that they find an evergreen tree to replant on the spot at each camp. When the Lycurgus marched on, it would leave as little trace as possible, except a few new trees along the road. Wren had grown proud of his work, but tried not to let it show.
When the flames began to engulf the pile this morning, Wren walked to the tent he shared with four other lowly knights who held equally unsavory positions. They were responsible for the cooking, the maids, the mules, and the supplies. Every position required grueling amounts of work in exchange for little to no recognition. The four men were older, quiet, and resolved to their positions. They mostly ignored Wren, and he returned the favor. It was tough to do in their cramped space, so Wren often found himself roaming through camp.
As tight as the quarters had been, Wren knew it was not going to improve in the mountains. The Lycurgus would be leaving the tents behind and marching even harder. This morning Wren saw a different kind of strain among the infantrymen. They were tired from recent days of pushing hard, with meager food and no stops in towns. The weather should have lifted their spirits, but rumors about the Icarians and their strength in the mountains weighed on them.
The mountains built on the fear that emanated from those rumors, Wren thought. Most of these men had come from Valemidas and the villages near it. They had seen hills, but nothing like the Targhees. These were old mountains, sheer masses of rock rising suddenly out of the soft green foothills. Trees had no place in the Targhees, except in rare valley floors. Snow always clung to the peaks. The mountains were frigid and sliced by brisk winds; a rare summer day meant it would be merely cold instead of freezing.
About twenty miles away to the west, the mountains abruptly dropped into the sea. Storms always hammered that coast, and the Targhees absorbed the punishment. The
y protected everything to the east, huge filters that allowed only nourishing rains to pass.
Somewhere amidst the dense ranges stood the city of Icarius. Wren had been in these mountains before and had heard about this city, but he had never seen it. He had to admit, any people that survived in the Targhees must be strong. Its men would be well-acquainted with harsh realities, which would probably suit them well for battle.
The Lycurgus, by contrast, was full of novices from the mild lowlands. These men were not warriors. Maybe one in two actually knew how to use their weapons. Even a few dozen of the knights were entirely new to war, like Jacodin Talnor and Jonas Davosman, raised by Tryst for some political reason.
Wren decided to seek fresher air with a walk. He stayed far south of Tryst’s tent and after a short while came upon a few knights in morning exercises. Four of them had set up a melee, and some infantrymen had gathered around to watch. Wren knew that, being this far from the prince, the knights would be far from the Lycurgus’s best, but it would be entertaining enough to join the spectators. He squeezed between a couple infantrymen to lean against a lone oak overhanging the impromptu practice field.
The knights began to dash in at each other, clumsily waving their wooden swords. A particularly plump one tripped over his own feet before he even reached the others. Of the three remaining, one sought valor with a grandiose swing of his sword at the helmed-head of the smallest knight. The little man barely had to duck to avoid the blow, and the assailant was sent spinning by the force of his own swing. The third knight had enough sense to swipe at the out-of-control knight, and a glancing blow landed him on the ground with a thud.
Light in the Gloaming (The Gloaming Book One) Page 16
