Would he have done it? Could he have killed the old man? He felt sure he could have. His skills came not from a few odd lessons, as Dog supposed, but from three grueling years of the best training in the kingdom, perhaps in the world. And to what end? So that Packer could draw his sword in anger and nearly kill an unarmed man in his very first duel? His swordmaster would be gravely disappointed in him.
Packer looked at the tables and chairs, still pushed aside for the duel. He stood and began dragging them back together, erasing evidence. Cap watched for a moment and then took a deep drink. “You’d have been within your rights to kill him, you know.” He refilled his mug to the brim. “He struck you. He provoked you. He called for the duel, and he drew on you.”
“No,” Packer answered softly. “I shouldn’t have fought him at all.”
Cap rubbed his red face with a pudgy hand. He felt relief that the old Packer had not been completely swallowed up in the swordsman. “Well, I disagree. I think you taught him something he needed to learn. Had it been another man he picked on, one without your skill or your heart, we’d be burying Dog’s bones tomorrow.”
Packer paused, thought about that. He could see some truth in it…that the outcome might actually help Dog live a longer, wiser life. But it didn’t mean Packer had done the right thing. He went back to arranging furniture.
No need to turn the other cheek when you can handle a sword like that. Dog’s words and the scripture they pointed to weighed on his mind. “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” The whole point of that doctrine, as far as Packer could tell, was that only those with the heart to let themselves be wronged could be shed of evil themselves. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” And that’s because only He can wreak vengeance without malice, without impurity of heart. Those who retaliate on this earth, regardless of their motives, somehow join the ranks of the evil.
Packer had had the heart, four years ago, to “resist not evil” when Dog had slapped him around. What good had it brought, though? What had changed for the better since then? It had clearly had no effect on Dog—if anything, it had stirred him up more. Packer knew that the only Man who ever lived without retaliating, not even once, not even in his heart, was the Man who had first uttered those words. But how is it possible to do good when you aren’t that Man? When your efforts to do good are always mixed in with poor motives?
Cap watched Packer move chairs around, reading a troubled heart easily enough. “Well, I say the whole town’s indebted to you for keeping us righteous.”
Packer stopped and looked at Cap. “Righteous? What do you mean?”
Cap shrugged, as though the answer were obvious. “You saved us all from having to stand over his grave and lie about him.”
Packer laughed out loud. “He’s not all that bad.”
Cap raised his mug in tribute. “ ‘And he’s one whale of a fisherman!’ See how little it takes?”
Packer laughed again, then sat down across from Cap feeling genuinely relieved. He drank the toast, studied the innkeeper’s smiling face for a moment, then turned somber. “Cap…I have to ask you to do a favor for me. And for my father. And for Dog and the rest of the fishermen.”
Cap wrinkled his brow. “What kind of favor?”
“A risky one.”
Cap scraped his chair closer to Packer. “Ask away.”
CHAPTER 2
The Mission
The night sky was brilliant, and Packer imagined that it looked just this way, right now, to those out on the open sea far from shore. Packer was lightheaded and exhilarated. Maybe it was the ale, he thought to himself. But there was no reason not to be energized. He hadn’t killed Dog, after all; the old salt probably took worse scratches on an average hike through the woods. Packer had taught him a good lesson, like Cap said, and it was one he’d surely needed to learn. Leave the rest to God.
And now the town was locked up, safe from the scrounging pirates. That was all good. Of course it was. Packer had done it; he’d done well. And best of all, Cap had agreed to help Packer get on board the Trophy Chase. This very night! And that was his true goal. Good had come of it all, and more good would come yet.
No, it wasn’t the ale, he told himself—it was that everything was finally going to change. This was his new mission, his new calling—important enough to cut his training short and say goodbye to his swordmaster. He was taking the great risk for the great reward, the enormous opportunity ahead that would finally prove his worth, to himself and to everyone else. Especially to Panna.
Panna Seline. Even the thought of how he’d let her down couldn’t break his mood. If he could just get aboard that ship, he could bring Scat Wilkins’ new enterprise to Hangman’s Cliffs, to these humble doorsteps. Surely this great new market would change everything. The village would prosper. His father would be vindicated. And he, Packer Throme, would have done it. Even Dog would look back and thank him. And Panna would be proud. He would be worthy of her love.
He walked the deserted streets in the direction of his father’s cottage, where he had stashed his few possessions on the way into town. The place was boarded up and had fallen into disrepair, which Packer hated to see, but without the money or the time to rescue it, there was nothing to be done. He needed his knapsack, that was all, carefully packed with the few items he thought he’d need tonight, and his Bible and, of course, his father’s diary.
Packer walked slowly, drinking in the elation he felt. Just where he should have turned up the winding path that led to the cottage in the woods, he looked instead at the church spire, now off to his left. It rose like a spike, a pylon driven from the earth into the sky by poor humans seeking a foundation in the heavens, yearning for meaning.
He walked toward it, drawn.
His was a hopeless dream if God wasn’t in it. Packer’s footsteps echoed on the dark cobblestones. But surely, God was in it.
“So he’s a swordsman now,” said an angel’s voice from above him. Packer was jolted to the moment, and looked up. Panna stood at the upper porch railing of the parsonage.
He felt a lump like a piece of coal in his throat. “Panna.”
“You were going to be a priest the last time we spoke. And now you are—what? One of those pirates, come to buy a little ale? Maybe kill a fisherman or two?” Panna Seline asked it softly, but the words pierced deep. She was more beautiful than ever, here in the moonlight, with her long dark hair pouring in soft swirls down her shoulders, dark eyes piercing him in familiar, painful, pleasant ways.
“No. No, of course not.” The news had traveled like lightning. Why had he come up this street? He had been determined to avoid this encounter. He wasn’t ready. But now in the starlight her cinched bodice outlined the form of a woman, more woman than the one he remembered leaving behind. He wanted to run, just turn and run away.
“You didn’t kill Mr. Blestoe. But sooner or later, swordsmen either kill or die. Isn’t that right?” Her voice was sweet and powerful and right on point. He was no match for this sword.
“Usually both.” Packer’s face flushed. His soul felt bare and raw. “How are you, Panna?”
“How am I? Oh, it’s to be polite conversation, then? I see. I’m quite well, thank you, sir.” She paused, and he could not speak. She spoke for him. “ ‘And what have you been doing since we last spoke, Panna?’ ‘Well let’s see, it’s been so many years…I’ve done a lot of wash, and I’ve helped father with a lot of sermons. The wash and the sermons both smell of fish, but after so many years I barely notice.’ ”
Packer finally detected playfulness, and he felt relief. But the point of her sword was perfectly placed; he was struck through the heart. As he always was with her. “So,” she concluded, “my life has been as grand as I could hope. And how have you been, Mr. Throme?”
Packer laughed. She made the sun shine in darkened places within him. He felt himself falling in love all over again. “You
haven’t changed,” he whispered.
“Disappointed?”
“Oh, no. Never.”
“Maybe I should have changed. Maybe you’d have come to visit a different girl. Or maybe…” her fingers played across the wooden railing in front of her, “maybe you have been visiting a different girl.”
“No, Panna!” he blurted out, feeling panicked. Somehow it never occurred to him she’d think such a thing. “No, there’s no one else.”
“Else? Hmm. Well, if that’s true, then what you mean to say is, there’s no one at all. Because if you say there’s no one else, that assumes there’s me. And clearly, there’s not me, since you couldn’t possibly have known if I was even alive or dead. But I am alive, as you now see.”
“I do see that. And I’m glad.” He kicked himself. He was telling her he was glad to see she wasn’t dead. Could he have said anything more stupid? No, not with a week to plan it.
But she responded with a smile. His voice was so very Packer. It was gentle, and earnest beyond reason, and hearing it again shook dust she didn’t know existed from memories she had thought were fresh. Here was the boy she loved so much.
“Panna,” he said, ready to pour his heart out to her, here and now, standing below her, looking up at her where she deserved to be, from where he deserved to be. “You deserve so much more.” She leaned toward him.
“Says who?” bellowed a gruff voice behind her, breaking the moment. The voice was quickly followed by its owner out onto the tiny porch. “Who’s passing judgment on my household now?” The village priest emerged, a big bear in a gray robe, looking fierce. But Packer could easily read the playfulness in this man.
“Hello, Pastor, I didn’t mean—”
“Well, well…Packer Throme, the prodigal returned,” the priest interrupted, not interested in Packer’s apologies. “We have no fatted calf, if that’s what you were hoping. But we do have coffee freshly brewed, and plenty of cake.” He patted his stomach, raised an eyebrow. “Too much cake. Come in this house and relieve me of some of it…this one here won’t help me a bit!”
“I really—” Packer began, but the priest cut him off again with a wave of his hand.
“I know all about the pirates on their way. The whole town is buzzing like flies at a picnic. But the blaggards aren’t here yet, and I say it’s God’s will that you obey your priest just one last time before we’re all overrun and our village burned to the ground and our bones hung out to bleach on some creaking yardarm.” He grinned. “But I’ll have the last laugh—there’s not a yardarm made that’ll hold me!” Packer laughed, but the priest’s grin disappeared. “Or am I no longer your priest?”
“Oh, you are, sir,” Packer said quickly. “Definitely you are. And I’d be honored.”
“So. When do you apply for readmission to seminary?”
Packer stopped mid-bite, the fork between his lips. This pastor had sponsored his admission; Will Seline knew more than anyone outside the seminary, and likely more than many within it, about what had happened. He knew how impossible it would be for him to go back.
Will’s face was inscrutable, though. He sat across the table from Packer, patiently waiting, his bushy, graying beard jutting out, his hands resting on his proud girth.
And it was indeed proud. The less his parishioners could afford to put in the offering plate, the more they tried to pile on his dinner plate, bringing him food or inviting him and Panna to dine. Will Seline’s view was that if supper was all they could give, then it would be uncharitable not to partake. And so their pastor’s belly gave the village a common sense of accomplishment.
Packer chewed the cake, and sweet though it had been a moment ago, it now seemed dry and tasteless.
“Excuse me,” Panna said, rising from her spot beside her father.
“No, no,” the priest responded, waving her back to her place. “This should concern you as well, since you were at one time betrothed to this sword-brandishing vagabond.”
“Father…” she began, but left it at that. It was a warning.
“I’m not…called back to seminary,” Packer said slowly.
“No?” A big eyebrow floated up, then back down. “And to what, then, are you now called?”
Packer wasn’t sure how to answer. “Well. Commerce, I suppose.” He said it a bit more glumly than he intended.
The priest feigned admiration. “So God has called you to riches?”
Packer spoke softly. “Pastor, I’ve seen a lot of commerce, but not many riches. I’m not sure the one very often leads to the other.”
The priest considered this and smiled. “Well said.” Then he leaned across the table toward Packer, his face and voice suddenly intense. “Packer, my boy—what happened? You leave here with a vision for the priesthood. You return a swordsman, picking fights with old men in pubs. I’ve spoken to the dean of your seminary. The young man they dismissed did not sound to me like the young man who left here with a full and eager heart.”
Packer took the pause as an opportunity to look down into his coffee cup. He was not willing to talk to Pastor Seline about these things, and certainly not with Panna listening. He glanced at her, and saw some combination of anger and concern he couldn’t sort out.
“And you couldn’t even come to see me,” Will continued. “Or this young woman here, as true a friend as you’ll ever have, who loves you in spite of yourself.” The priest’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You couldn’t come see us until you’d had your ale at the local spigot and proven your manhood with steel.”
“Father! It’s not your place!” Panna’s anger was searing. Will Seline winced at the sudden attack from his flank.
“Not my place? I could dispute that.” But the priest relented. He could argue with her, but she was his daughter. He couldn’t win. And she certainly had the greater claim on Packer. He softened. “No one can force a young man to do…” He trailed off. “I pray you change your mind, and reapply.”
Packer’s shoulders slumped. He was asking the impossible. Why would Will pretend there was any hope of his returning to seminary after what he’d done?
Panna now spoke. “It’s your path, Packer. No one else’s.” She shot an accusing look at her father. Packer glanced at her, but when she looked at him he saw only pain and forgiveness, and the beauty of the two together.
The priest looked hard at him. “When you were turned out of the seminary, you turned to the Academy…and you were schooled by the Swordmaster of Nearing Vast. This is the rumor,” the priest said. “And after your encounter with Dog Blestoe, I must assume the rumor is true?”
Packer nodded.
“What brand of commerce comes of such a trade? I haven’t seen swordsmanship for sale in the local market.”
Packer looked at him closely, softened, then looked at Panna. “I’m going to sea.”
Panna misunderstood, was about to ask him what he expected to see, when the meaning hit her. Packer saw her stricken look and closed his eyes, buffeted by the storm within. He saw suddenly, standing before him, Senslar Zendoda, the small man with the crimson beret, the perfectly groomed white beard, the sparking eyes. Packer remembered perfectly their conversation at the end of a series of mind-numbing drills. He’d been tired—but not just tired, frustrated. Even angry. The swordmaster lowered his own sword, stood casually, and asked Packer, “What will you do with your life?”
The question caught Packer off guard. “My life?”
“I have taught you swordsmanship. You may be the most gifted pupil I have ever had. But your heart, Packer. Where is it leading you?”
The young man looked at the wooden floor, his eyes drawn to the spot where his sword tip rested on the grain. “I don’t know.”
“But you are driven to it, regardless,” Senslar said. Packer looked up at him, into those dark, fiery eyes. He took a deep breath. This was the sort of discussion he usually ran from, but somehow Senslar’s tone, his voice, his spirit did not allow escape. “Swordplay to you is like a wel
l to a man crossing a desert.”
Suddenly, Packer realized this wise little man might help. “Do you know why?”
Senslar smiled, always a glittering thing in Packer’s memory, but this smile carried more light yet. “No. No, I do not. But I do know of a sea turtle that lives in waters of the Warm Climes, and grows to be three hundred pounds. It is a sea creature, but it is born from an egg that hatches on dry land, far from the shore. At first, it knows only its shell. After a great struggle, it frees itself of that prison, and then it knows only air and sand. But it hears the ocean. It smells the salt in the air. It feels it. And it is pulled in the direction it must go. It does not know why, or what it will find there. It is drawn by an inescapable desire for something it cannot describe and has never known, but that it must, must find. Or it will die.”
Packer knew what it was to crawl across that dry sand toward a welcoming sea. He understood this to the foundation of his soul.
“Only one thing can put such drive in a man’s heart as the drive I see in you. God has made you for a single end, and even though you do not know what that end is, you know what direction you must go to find it.”
“To the sea?”
Senslar laughed and shook his head. “You are not a turtle, Packer. You are a man created in the image of God. The sea will be too small for you.”
“What do you mean?”
The swordmaster grew serious. “The deep longings of your heart may take you out to sea, but the sea itself will not fulfill them. Only the calling that God has put within you can do that.”
“And what is that calling?” Packer asked, desperately hoping this man was wise enough to answer, to stop the bleeding caused by his severed call to the priesthood.
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 3
