By now, he was so used to Idgen Marte simply appearing at his elbow he chuckled without even starting or flinching at the sudden intrusion of her voice on his thoughts.
“Mol told me to bring them here,” he muttered. “Said we have to start living as though we are no longer enemies.” He sighed, lowered his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “She also told me that snow is on the way. A good deal of it, and that I need to herd them into the Temple tonight.”
Idgen Marte frowned. “What of the two hundred some Oyrwyn men? We can’t get them inside.”
“They have doubled tents, seal skin, furs, and a lifetime of knowing how to survive the cold around a peat fire. They will be fine. These men have wool blankets, old scarves, and three braziers. It is a wonder they had not frozen to death by the time I came to them.”
“Going to speak to Garth of that?”
“If I get the chance. I have no authority over him any longer, but as his teacher, I hate to see standards slip that far,” Allystaire said.
His attention was suddenly drawn by the movement of chairs and of two men standing up. His eyes sought them out, his gut tightening, fists starting to clench anxiously. He relaxed when he saw that they approached him, and who they were.
Henri and Giraud, farmer and stonemason turned militiamen, came to him, hands extended.
Allystaire took first one, then the other’s forearm, and pulled them by turns into a backslapping embrace; they returned his greetings and did the same with Idgen Marte. “You gentlemen look none the worse for wear and I am glad to see it,” he said.
“We’re happy t’see you up again,” Henri admitted, smiling. “Somethin’ we wanted t’speak of, though.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and pointed the tables where the village men sat and drank. “Him,” he said, singling out one of them, a tall and rangy youth with a long red scar creasing his cheek. Allystaire leaned forward, focusing on him.
“Is that Norbert?” he said, disbelieving. He knew it was, but the gangly youth who’d once set out to be a reaver had put meat on his frame. Between growing into his body and the scar that stood out on his cheek, he looked far older than he had when Idgen Marte had caught him skulking around Thornhurst in the summer.
“Aye,” Giraud replied. “He fought like a man possessed at the battle.”
“Lad is a good archer,” Henri admitted. “And I saw him crush one o’them Battle-Wights with a stone he levered up out o’the ground, then pull the mace wired to its arm free and set about him like a reg’lar hero.”
“What is it that you wanted to speak of, then? It sounds like the boy did well.”
“Aye,” Henri said. “And we think he deserves t’have his sentence lifted.”
Allystaire raised an eyebrow. “Lifted?”
Giraud nodded. “We talked with the other militiamen. We all agreed that no amount of fetchin’ water or feedin’ stock could be asked of the lad anymore. He fought as well and as brave as any man save you and…” The mason’s gentle, bearded face fell and his voice trailed away.
“And Renard,” Allystaire muttered, the two men nodding. He watched Norbert for a long moment then, the way he spoke and laughed with the men around him, jibed and was jibed at. It was an easy comradeship, so natural to those who had been through danger together and were happy to have come through it that he could never have missed it. “Send him over to me.”
Giraud and Henri nodded and walked off.
“Well,” Idgen Marte muttered, as they watched the men speak to Norbert and point towards Allystaire, “looks like that was a bit of genius on your part.”
“Not genius,” Allystaire said. “Just hope. And a good guess.”
“I was waiting for you to say ‘Faith,’ in that way of yours, you know, where you lean forward a bit and your draw the word out for profundity.”
He chuckled, but by then Norbert was in front of them.
Allystaire extended his hand. The tall youth looked at it like he wasn’t sure if it was a trick of some kind.
“From what they tell me, Norbert,” Allystaire said, “we are Brothers of Battle now. Do you know what that means?”
Haltingly, Norbert took Allystaire’s forearm in his hand, and they shook.
Idgen Marte cleared her throat, and extended her own hand, repeating the embrace. Still, the lad said nothing, his eyes wide, a bit fearful.
“It means,” Idgen Marte said, “that we kicked the piss out of Battle-Wights together. We’re bound by that now. Obligated.”
Norbert’s eyes went wide. “Truly? I heard the men, the blackguards I rode with, speak of such a thing, o’ bein’ brothers o’battle. They told me I would be once I was blooded with them, but never explained…”
“Tell me, Norbert,” Idgen Marte went on, holding up a palm towards Allystaire, “what do you think of battle now that you’ve seen it?”
“I didn’t like it much,” the boy replied. “I was scared half the time and confused the rest. But it felt like somethin’ I needed t’do. So I did it.”
“Is it something you want to do again,” Allystaire asked.
Norbert swallowed and looked to Allystaire, setting his shoulders. “If I have to.”
Allystaire nodded. “Good.” He lifted a hand to point to the scar. “You want me to see if I can heal that?”
The boy lifted a hand to the livid red line, smiling a little. “No. Ah…” He colored a little. “The lasses like it.”
“That they do,” Idgen Marte said. “Just mind that you don’t take any blows closer to your eyes, eh? Because they probably like them, too.”
The boy flushed more, stammering, till the swordswoman slapped him on the shoulder and turned him around. “Go on. Back to your mates.”
Flustered but clearly bursting with pride, Norbert shuffled off back to the table and sat between Giraud and Henri.
Allystaire turned to face Idgen Marte, lifting an eyebrow and saying nothing.
She shrugged. “Does no one any harm to hear a bit o’praise now and then,” she said.
“Fine. Do you think we should erase his sentence?”
“I think if we don’t the folk’ll do it for us,” she replied. “So it’s probably just a formality.”
Allystiare nodded. “Aye.”
Their attention was quickly drawn to the sound of a mug slamming against a table. The quiet rumble of talk dropped away and heads turned.
Chaddin was rising from his table, a fist clenched, shoving aside the restraining hand of one of the knights that sat near him. The object of his ire was easy to surmise, as he glared daggers across the room at his half-sister, who returned Chaddin’s look with pride, but not hostility.
Shoving his chair away, Chaddin broke away from his men and headed for the door. Slowly the four who’d been sitting with him got up and followed him.
“I had better see to that,” Allystaire muttered. He pushed himself away from the wall, pulling gloves from his belt and pulling his cloak more tightly around his neck.
The cold of the evening still hit him like a blow. His eyes stung and his breath burned in his throat.
Worse, snow was beginning to fall in light and powdery flakes that dusted the ground, a picturesque warning of what was likely to come.
He spotted the shapes of Chaddin and his men moving back towards their camp, and called out. “Chaddin! I would speak with you if you have a moment.”
The men stopped, turned as one, with Chaddin in their center. The former sergeant hastened towards Allystaire angrily, his pale face reddened by the cold. “About what,” he called out, the heat and force of his voice lessened by the wind that started to whip up.
“About Landen. About the future of the Barony,” Allystaire said.
“If you had stayed and supported my uprising, the future of the Barony would be assured,” Chaddin yelled. “If you had agreed to my terms we co
uld be making plans for how to hold it. Instead you sit in council with a woman who tried to destroy this village and your temple. You break bread with those who came here to kill you.”
“If I had supported your uprising, the Temples of Braech and Fortune would have moved against us in strength,” Allystaire said. “Imagine the Choiron calling on the berserkers, whipping the Islandmen into a frenzy at the chance to revenge themselves on the Barony that broke them. Imagine the havoc Fortune’s whispers, not to mention Fortune’s gold, would have wrought among the rich. Nothing would be assured. The Barony would be burning.”
Chaddin was taken aback by Allystaire’s response, but rallied quickly. “So? For supporting you, what do I get in return? Landen and her men apparently get the finest treatment, seats by the fire—”
“Landen and her men had volunteered to dig a grave for those lost in the battle,” Allystaire said. “I promised them beer and a hot meal in return. Have you wanted for anything this village could provide you since you arrived?”
Once again, Chaddin faltered, while his men murmured among themselves, stamped their feet, rubbed their arms. To his credit, Chaddin eventually shook his head no, as did the rest of them.
“I am taking an easy hand with Landen because I want no more enemies than I already have,” Allystaire said. “If what we have begun here is to survive, I cannot afford them. Surely you can understand that.”
“You mean her to keep the Baronial seat,” Chaddin said, flatly. “Don’t deny it. You do not want to dirty your hands, so you’ll do the easier thing.”
“Chaddin,” Allystaire said, “if you think I seek the easy way to do a thing, you have not been paying attention. What I mean to do is have peace. I want you and Landen to come to an agreement, and I have some ideas about what it could say. The Barony cannot have the two of you at odds.”
“And what if we disagree?”
“Then I will let the Lord of Highgate do as he sees fit with the putative Baronial Heir and the Pretender,” Allystaire replied coldly.
Chaddin’s eyes went wide with anger. “You wouldn’t.” The men behind him bristled, hands curling into fists.
Allystaire ignored the men and focused on Chaddin.
“Do not test me,” Allystaire said. “An agreement would benefit the both of you. Most importantly it would benefit the people of this Barony,” he shouted. Impulsively, Allystaire took a half-step forward, looming over Chaddin.
To his credit, Chaddin didn’t move, and he kept his eyes steady. The men behind him took an involuntary half-step back.
Allystaire was able to keep a smile off of his face at their reaction. Barely.
“It is the people, Chaddin, I am here to help. They deserve peace. They are owed peace. I will see that they get it, and preferably you and Landen will help me do it. But one way or another, I cannot allow you to be enemies any longer.”
By now the snow had begun to swirl in a rising wind, and all of the men standing in the midst of it were feeling the cold. Allystaire looked from the Inn, to the dark, moonless sky above, and said, “Learning not to be enemies begins tonight. With snow coming, you are going to want to pack into the Temple with the villagers. Landen’s men will be there as well. Use the time to speak to her, at least a little. Please.”
Chaddin’s face started to turn sour, but he looked back to his men, then turned to Allystaire and nodded. “We’ve no wish to freeze to death. We’ll be there.”
“Unarmed.” Allystaire’s tone brooked no dissent. Chaddin nodded in agreement and turned to lead his men away, their breath steaming above them in the night air.
* * *
With the benches stacked up against the walls and most of the stone floor covered in furs, blankets, cloaks, and jackets, the Temple was able to accommodate the bulk of the village folk, all of Landen and Chaddin’s knights and soldiers, and a good sampling of village dogs.
Barely.
It was also just this side of too warm, though no fires burned in it. Just after folk had started to arrive, Gideon knelt to the floor and set a hand upon it. Instantly it had started to radiate a warmth that rose up and filled the space. Add to that the press of bodies, and it was warm enough that occasionally, a sleeping form sat up and tossed away one of its piled covers.
Not everyone slept, though. A few petitioners knelt by the altar, praying, their shadowed forms unrecognizable at any distance. Some sat at the edges, talking quietly.
Allystaire sat against a wall just inside the doors, watching the altar. The five-pillared oval seemed to glow indistinctly in the otherwise dark Temple, giving off enough light to see that petitioners knelt at a couple of places, offering prayers. A dark shape disengaged from the sleeping mass of people and crept up to the altar, kneeling in front of the pillar that was just to the left of the center.
Pillar of the Arm, Allystaire thought. My pillar. Then aloud, he murmured, “Not that anyone is praying to me. Or should.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised when Idgen Marte answered him. “No. Someday though, maybe.”
“How long have you been sitting there?” He looked to his left as he realized she was seated with her back to the wall, the same as him.
She shrugged. “Long enough. Too warm in here, though. Going to stumble my way back to the Inn and sleep in a bed if I can. Wanted to give it all a look, see if it stayed peaceful in here.”
“It will,” Allystaire said confidently. “Everyone is too tired to fight.” He peered some more at the figure kneeling at the pillar of the Arm.
“Want to know who that is?” Idgen Marte leaned forward.
Allystaire turned towards her again. “You can make it out in this dark, this distance?”
She snorted. “If he held up a letter by the light the altar gives, I could probably read it. And it’s that Delondeur man-at-arms whose hand you healed.”
“Harrys,” Allystaire muttered. “Interesting.”
They went quiet, listening to the backdrop of the all the sleepers, the quiet whuffling of the dogs that slept among them, the faint murmur of talk and prayer.
“Torvul showed me the stone. Order of the Arm?”
“Knighthood,” Allystaire said, “as an idea, has merit. It is time to prove that.”
“Where will you find the knights?”
“Give me the right people and I will make them knights.”
“Harrys one of them? Landen, Chaddin?”
“He might be,” Allystaire admitted. “But the latter two, I doubt very much.”
“Village folk? What if Norbert decides he wants to be a knight?”
“Let us hope it will not come to that.”
“I’d say you’re mad, but I’ve seen you solemnly promise to do things twice as mad as this, and you’re still here. But what about armor, horses, arms?”
“Some of it we can provide, having captured a deal of it during the battle,” Allystaire said. “But the knights I mean to make might mount a charger and carry a lance or wear an armsman’s jack and carry a spear. It will not matter to me.”
“Might matter to the world,” Idgen Marte pointed out. “Hard to take a man seriously who calls himself a knight if he’s wearing leather n’not steel.”
“When you met me, I wore no steel,” Allystaire said. “Was it hard to take me seriously?”
“Cold, Ally, I think a court fool would be forced to take you seriously,” Idgen Marte answered. “Norbert might need to work a little harder.”
He laughed lightly, mindful of those who slept nearby. “I think we all need to begin thinking about how this can move on beyond us. After us,” he said.
“It’s been less than a year and you’re planning for the years after our death.”
He shrugged. “I think forward, Idgen Marte. I always have. Made me a good warlord.”
“Well,” she said, “you’re right. There ought, m
aybe, to be an Order of the Shadow as well.”
“Thought on it, have you?”
“Thought? Cold, who says I haven’t already been recruiting?”
Allystaire was silent a moment as he thought. Suddenly he recalled where his Goddess-given senses had told him Idgen Marte had been earlier that day. “Audreyn?”
“An interesting woman, your sister. Devoted to you, you know. Shares a lot of your traits, some of your ideals,” Idgen Marte answered.
“Do not put her in danger, Idgen Marte.”
“Does she have less of a right to make that choice than you or me? Than Renard did?”
Allystaire didn’t answer.
“She told me some more about you, you know. It’s like pieces of a lost song falling into place,” Idgen Marte said. “How you brought her up, what the wars demanded of you. About Dorinne.”
“I told you that time had healed that—”
“No, Allystaire, you didn’t, because if you had, that would’ve been a lie. And we both know you can’t speak a lie. What you said, and I note now you were watching your words carefully, was that there had been a lot of time for it to heal. Not that it had.”
He was silent a moment, then said, “I was a fool, then. A fool for listening to my father and to Gerard Oyrwyn. We should have done as we wished. They would have done nothing; my father had no other sons and the Old Baron had been grooming me for command since I was eight summers old. He would not have cast me aside.”
“What was it you said to Garth this morning? The more of the world you love, the harder it is to tear it to pieces?”
“Aye. And I let them hammer love out of me. Hammered it out of myself.”
“You tried,” Idgen Marte said, “but you couldn’t quite do it. That’s why the grave and the flowers. Mountain vetch and loosestrife, was it?”
“And heather.”
“There’s a song in this.”
“Then make one.”
Idgen Marte shook her head fiercely. “No. I…no. Not that.”
“The more you love the world and what is in it, Idgen Marte, the easier it will be to defend.”
Allystaire stood up, moving slowly to ease the aches he felt as he did, leaning heavily against the wall with one hand. He reached the other towards Idgen Marte. She took it and he pulled her easily to her feet.
Crusade Page 9
