Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “I want you to know, Domina,” said Istvhan, “that the only reason I am not ogling you like a schoolboy is because I am so tired that I can barely think. The spirit is willing but the flesh has been badly treated.”

  “Oh, good,” sighed Clara. “You keep seeing me naked and I had yet to return the favor, and now I’m afraid that if I turn my head too fast to look, it’ll fall off.”

  “Honestly, given the breeze coming up through the grate, I’m grateful. I am not exactly at my best.”

  “And I am?”

  “Your breasts don’t shrink in the cold.”

  “My breasts haven’t shrunk since I hit puberty.” She dumped an ewer of tepid water over her head. The healer’s assistants were trying to heat more, but someone was giving birth in the next room and mere scrubbing took a distant second place. Occasionally, a scream would echo through the walls, reminding Istvhan that everything could be much worse. “Seriously, I dropped so much weight during my illness, and not an ounce off my chest.” She lifted the offending articles of anatomy in her hands and Istvhan felt his cock attempt to stir, take note of the temperature, and go back into hiding.

  “My sisters would sympathize enormously,” he said. “Two of them are built to the same scale you are, and their complaints are frequent and passionate. I have learned to agree politely.”

  “Wise man.”

  It took a ridiculous amount of the harsh pine tar soap to get the smell out of Istvhan’s hair, and even more to get it out of his boots. In the end he wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded or if the smell of pine tar just masked it, but he’d take smelling like freshly sealed boards over smelling like rotten flesh and burnt hair any day.

  Clara, meanwhile, vanished from the shower and returned wearing a fresh robe and a fresh cloak and carrying an armload of clothing. “Your aketon is drying, but they don’t think the surcoat can be saved,” she said.

  Istvhan sighed. “It served me well. What have we got?”

  She handed him a robe akin to hers. He shrugged into it, feeling naked without his chainmail. Well, if someone stabs me here in the Temple, we have problems already. “All right, let’s see how they’re doing.”

  “The watcher has already left,” reported Faizen, when they made their way back to his office. “They’ll ride a relay there. It shouldn’t seem too unusual, since couriers take messages that way all the time. The last stop, that’s the one that will have the most chance of being remarked upon.”

  “I don’t think the smooth men are interrogating people,” said Istvhan. “Most of them can’t actually talk. I just don’t know how long before they realize the guards are gone. We could be extremely lucky or extremely unlucky, there’s no way to tell.”

  “All is in the hands of the gods,” said Faizen. “The mind healer is on his way, and we’ll see how our luck falls.”

  Istvhan woke.

  Clara was in his arms, moving rhythmically against him, and for a moment he thought that all his erotic dreams had come true.

  Admittedly, in his dreams he hadn’t been wearing pants or chainmail, but that sort of thing could be dealt with. And the rhythmic motion had been rather more of a hard slide and rather less of an irregular bumping, accompanied by loud clattering. And his head hadn’t hurt quite so much. And—

  Clara let out a loud snore against his shoulder. Istvhan opened his eyes. His dreams always involved her being enthusiastically awake. This would not do at all.

  He focused his eyes and made out the faces of Faizen, the mind healer, and her apprentice, all sitting on the bench opposite him. Right. We’re in a coach of some kind. And I am clearly exhausted and so is she.

  Clara let out another snore, woke herself up with it, and jerked upright. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “I dozed off myself,” he admitted. The mind healer wore a small smile. She was a plump, silver-haired woman with a kind face. Her apprentice was a raw-boned young man, nearly as tall as Istvhan but far skinnier. With his shock of thin, pale hair, he strongly resembled a nervous stalk of wheat.

  The carriage wasn’t bad. It was probably a mail coach that had been repurposed for other things, and it was fast rather than smooth, but no worse than many coaches Istvhan had ridden in. It was, however, built for smaller people. He and Clara were both sitting with their legs drawn up and turned partly sideways, to try and give the three on the opposite bench space.

  It was always a bit awkward to know what to say in coaches. You were all so close together and you never knew if you were making too much eye contact with the people on the other side, or whether you should have a conversation or not. Istvhan had used this fact to his advantage a time or two—if you could get someone talking, they were likely to keep talking to fill the space, and it was sometimes remarkably easy to get them to confess something. On the other hand, if you didn’t want to talk, it was hard to avoid it. You could usually stare out of the windows, but the windows in this case were shuttered to keep the cold out, so he could only catch tiny glimpses of the countryside.

  “How far away is this place?” asked the apprentice.

  “I only know how far away it is in on foot,” said Istvhan.

  Clara cocked her head. “How long was I asleep?”

  “The better part of an hour.”

  “Then, if we’ve kept this speed, we should be changing horses soon. Then not much farther at all.”

  “Good to know,” said the apprentice. He smiled sheepishly. “Although given what you’ve said about these clay people, I’m not sure I’m in a hurry to get there.”

  They went back to trying not to stare at each other. The wheels hit a bump and jostled Clara against Istvhan. He wondered how she felt about that. You have permission, she said last night. Oh god. Why did there have to be a river and a pack of murderous golem heads between them and a convenient bed?

  “I keep trying to think of something more to tell you,” Clara said to the healer. “Something I’ve forgotten that you’ll hear and say, ‘Oh, I know exactly what’s going on!’ and it’ll all be easy after that.”

  The healer chuckled. “Would that it was that easy. But for every easily recognized disorder of the mind, there’s a hundred that vary wildly from person to person. You’ve done well, but I’ll simply have to meet him.”

  Unfortunately, it was not so easy. When they pulled up to the ceramic works at last, the door hung open and the chimney was no longer smoking.

  “You’re too late,” said a voice over their head. Istvhan looked up, startled. A man came down the tree that overhung the road, slithering down the trunk as easily as if it were a ladder. He had dark skin and long black hair pulled back in a tight queue. His feet were bare and looked as hard as horn. “They came and got him about an hour ago.”

  Istvhan swore. Faizen sighed. “Did you see which way they went?”

  “To the river, and got on a boat. I followed them that far. Then I figured I’d come back here and warn you.” He grimaced. “When you said those things looked weird, I thought it might be an exaggeration, but…Lords of the Deep, that was not something I wanted to see.”

  “Was the man injured?” asked the healer.

  “Not that I could see. He was crying and asking if someone was mad, but none of them ever said a word. That bit was bad enough, but…”

  “What happened?” asked Istvhan.

  “The damnedest thing I’ve seen, and I served on three ships and saw things out there that nobody’s ever seen on land. I was up this tree, thinking it’d be a good place to watch, not really expecting much, when a whole group of them showed up. They were wearing hoods and hats and things, and I couldn’t really make out the faces at first. They didn’t talk, just stood there for a minute, then went poking around in the bushes. Finally, one of them comes back holding something…swear I thought it was some kind of big goblet at first, with a weird stem on it. They all stood around, almost where you’re standing, and started dipping their hands into the thing and pulling out some kind of clear jelly. And it sta
nk. I could smell it from up in the tree and I was afraid I was gonna be sick and they’d spot me. Hard to stay hidden when you’re puking your guts up. You may think I’m exaggerating, but it was worse than cutting into a whale.”

  “Oh, we know,” said Clara. “Not the whale, but the rest of it.”

  “Yeah, figured you might. Anyway, the goblet or whatever was hollow, and they were taking this jelly out. Then they’d eat it off their fingers. That’s when I realize that they’ve all got the same face, and none of them have hair under the hats.” He swallowed. “Then the one holding the thing turns a bit, so one of the others can reach it, and I realize the goblet’s got a face on it, and it’s just the same as theirs, only with a big chunk knocked off the back.”

  “One of the heads,” said Istvhan grimly. “You have to smash them or they’ll just find another body to put it on. The stem’s a spike they drive down into the neck.”

  “Young man,” said the healer, with some asperity, “you cannot just drive a large piece of clay into the neck. It’s full of bones and cartilage. It’s not empty space.” The apprentice put his hands to his own neck, as if testing its solidity.

  “I know that and you know that,” said Istvhan. “But I’ve also seen the corpses they leave behind, so what we know doesn’t seem to apply here.”

  The healer scowled. “Magic,” she muttered, in much the same tone that she might say “syphilis.”

  “Their heads are hollow,” said Istvhan. “Sometimes we find some clear goo on the bodies, or on the severed heads. It seems to be what smells. But I had no idea they ate it. I had no idea they ate anything.”

  “Yeah.” Their informant looked slightly green. “I don’t know if that was its brains or what. Anyway, once they’d all eaten the stuff, they just stood there for a bit, not saying anything, and then one tossed the broken head into the bushes and they all went into the pottery. And a few minutes later, they came out with a human. I guess that’s the guy you were after. He didn’t want to go, I’ll tell you that much, but after seeing what they were, I didn’t much feel like trying to stop them.”

  “You did the right thing,” said Clara.

  “You’re kind to say so, ma’am, but it’s hard to see a man get dragged off and not help.”

  “Eating the jelly,” muttered Istvhan. “What was that for?”

  “There’s burial rites where the deceased’s family ceremoniously eats their brains,” offered Faizen.

  “And it’s not a good idea,” said the healer tartly. “Might as well eat raw pork while you’re at it.”

  “I didn’t think they were the sort of thing that cared about burying the dead,” admitted Istvhan. “They aren’t really alive in the first place. They’re just popped out of a mold. And if you kill one, the others don’t get angry or sad or anything, so far as anyone can tell. Obviously they can think, but they’re…I don’t know.”

  “It may not be burial,” said the healer. “Whatever this substance is, they could be deriving some other benefit from it.”

  Their spy scratched the back of his neck and said “Truth is, it seemed like they knew what to do after they ate it. Before, they were all just kinda wandering around ’til the one found the head, and then they went all together, like.”

  “Like they learned something from eating it?” said Faizen doubtfully. “Is that possible?”

  The lanky apprentice opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, almost apologetically, “Could be…uh…no, forget it.”

  “No, no, tell us,” said Clara. “We’re grasping at straws here, one more straw is fine.”

  “This is probably silly.” He wrung his hands.

  “Young man,” said Clara, sounding very much like a nun, “if you do not spit it out, I shall be cross.”

  He gave her a panicky look, eyes rolling white around the edges. “Uh, uh—my Da kept cows. And when the ladies—when they—uh—when it’s getting close to breeding, you know, the bull—he’s always tasting—when they urinate, you know—”

  “I did not know that, and I wish I still didn’t,” said Istvhan, to no one in particular.

  “But Da says it’s how they tell that the lady’s ready. That there’s something in the urine. He learns it from the taste.” His ears were turning scarlet. “Anyway, I thought maybe the jelly here, maybe there was a taste to it and it told them something. But that’s probably a bad idea.”

  “No, that’s quite an interesting thought,” said the healer. She tapped her upper lip. “There are things to be learned from many excretions. You can taste milk and know if the cow ate garlic. And healers can taste a patient’s urine and know if they have a particular wasting sickness by the sweetness. Perhaps they were deriving some information from tasting their fallen associate’s…ah…”

  “Head goo?” offered Istvhan.

  “Not the term I would have chosen, but yes.”

  Istvhan wished again that Doctor Piper from Archon’s Glory was here. The doctor knew more about dead bodies than anyone he’d ever met, and was the expert on the smooth men’s physiology. He’d love this. Just the kind of experimental question to really get him interested. Although it might end with him eating head goo, and no one wants that.

  “Maybe it told them how he died,” offered Clara. “Then they knew they had to take Stachys away with them, instead of just posting more guards.”

  “Anything’s possible, I suppose.” Istvhan sighed. “I’m sorry, everyone. I seem to have dragged you all here far too late. We have been very unlucky.”

  “Let’s see if there’s any clues in the house,” suggested Faizen. “All may not be completely lost.”

  Unfortunately, the room did not bear out his optimism. It looked mostly the same as when they had left. The bench that Istvhan and Clara had sat on had been overturned. Istvhan could not remember if they had done that, or if it was a sign of further struggle.

  “I don’t think he fought them,” said Clara, echoing his own thoughts. “The place mostly looked like this already.”

  “Someone who he felt safe with, then?” asked the apprentice.

  “Or someone who frightened him more than leaving.” The healer shook her head. “From what you’ve said, it sounds like this creation of his has some significant hold over him. Fear. Love. Both, perhaps.”

  “Love? For the creature that cut off his hands?” The apprentice’s voice actually cracked on the last word and Istvhan felt himself age several subjective decades.

  “People,” said the healer, giving the young man a look that told Istvhan that he wasn’t the only one feeling suddenly old, “are rarely straightforward. And they will accept terrible injury from people they love, and tell themselves that the depths of the pain proves the depth of their love. Eventually, you’ll stop being surprised.”

  The apprentice hung his head. “Sorry, mistress.”

  “I can’t possibly diagnose someone I’ve never met,” said the healer. “It’s bad form and I might as well throw a rock and hope I hit the correct malady.” She folded her hands inside the sleeves of her robe, a gesture that Istvhan was so used to seeing from Clara that it was briefly surreal to see from a stranger. “That being said, if you weren’t absolutely certain that he was in serious danger or posed a serious danger—or both—I would have strongly opposed removing him from his home. He clearly felt safe here, or at least safer than he did leaving it. Wherever they took him, he’s probably frightened out of his wits.”

  “I knew we should have killed him,” muttered Clara under her breath.

  Istvhan was thinking something of the sort and kicking himself for it. Damnation. He unleashed a scourge that I know has killed dozens of people, possibly hundreds. And I got cold feet at the last minute and talked myself out of it. Because I no longer believe in my own rightness. Because I’m starting to question all those people I killed under the god’s influence.

  I should have listened to Clara. If you can’t trust a nun to be your moral compass…

  They filed glumly b
ack to the wagon. Their tree-hopping spy climbed inside and Istvhan and Clara followed. The apprentice closed the door to the pottery and banked the fire. “If he comes home,” the young man said, “it should still be waiting for him.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Ethan’s galley, with its wall of beds and its warm hearth, had never looked more inviting. Maude croaked at them from somewhere behind the woodpile.

  They both sat down. Weariness and guilt hung over Istvhan like a cloud of fog. He began mechanically stripping off his hauberk, hoping he could get it off before he fell down.

  Clara reached out and touched his arm. “Istvhan.”

  He looked at her.

  “Stop beating yourself up. You were trying to do the right thing. Paladins don’t murder people in cold blood.”

  “Maybe they ought to, when the alternative is a horde of smooth men roaming the earth.”

  “In which case they’d no longer be paladins. I don’t know what they’d be.”

  “Bishops, probably,” muttered Istvhan, thinking of Beartongue. But the Bishop of Archon’s Glory was not god-touched, she was simply a ruthlessly capable administrator. The Rat called lawyers and priests, not paladins. Beartongue believed in fairness and decency and justice, but Istvhan suspected that she was not above helping those things along with a well-placed knife or spot of blackmail as required.

  “Either way,” said Clara. “It’s in the hands of the gods now.”

  “I used to be a hand of the gods,” said Istvhan.

  “Fine…fine…” She ran her fingertips over his bicep and he stiffened, both figuratively and, if she kept going much longer, probably literally as well. Oh gods, not now, I’m so tired, I wouldn’t manage more than a bump, a squirt, and a post-coital tickle…

  “Domina, if you’re trying to distract me, I am very willing to be distracted. But at this moment…”