“That is not all I have come before you to say.” He strode to the edge of Renard’s single grave, pausing to take in a lungful of searingly cold air. “Everyone who fell in the defense of Thornhurst will be remembered. As long as the Temple stands, so will their memory. All of them deserve better than the words I could give them. But among that company there was one man I will speak of now.
“Renard.” He stopped, swallowed hard. “Renard was my right hand. Since we came back from Bend to rebuild this village, he was ever-present. He guarded us, guided us, trained us for the fight that the Baron brought to our door. He was one of nature’s own sergeants and as brave and true a friend and soldier as any man has ever had in this or any world. And before the battle concluded, Renard…he shamed me,” Allystaire said. “I told him he should leave, flee, take Leah and their unborn babe and as many other folk as could or would flee, and go. And he told me then that such battles as we faced could not be fought only by those of us with Goddess-given gifts. He told me that ordinary folk, like him, needed to be willing to stand up to the Lionel Delondeurs of the world, those who have everything and want more, and tell them no. He said that such a battle needed more than heroes.”
Allystaire looked up from the grave and the stone above it to face the crowd again. “His only mistake was in not counting himself among the heroes. For he was, people of Thornhurst. And now, forever, we will remember him that way.”
He stepped to the head of the grave and tore away the cloth bound around the headstone.
“For those who cannot see,” Allystaire said, “I will read it to you.”
“Sir Renard, of Thornhurst. Beloved of Leah of Thornhurst. Forever the First of the Order of the Arm.”
Allystaire reached carefully to the straps of his left bracer along his forearm, and tugged free a folded piece of dark blue cloth. He held it up, let the breeze catch it and let it unfurl from his fingers. It was the lance-pennant the folk of Thornhurst had given him when he’d ridden away in the early fall, a golden sunburst on dark blue.
“Too many of you know knights as the men in steel who take your children or your husbands away to die. Too many of us know knighthood as the line between rich and poor, between those who can do as they wish, and those who must do as they are told. I mean to change that.
“I have a different idea of knighthood, and the man who lies here embodied it. An idea of knights who will place themselves between the hearthfire of beloved home and the darkness that would snuff it out. Who will bear any burden, no matter how great, for those they love. Today, in front of you all, in front of my fellow servants of the Mother, in front of the Goddess Herself, I declare the founding of an order of knighthood based upon the ideas that Renard died for. He may not have worn a title in his life, but he proved himself a better man than any knight I have ever known. The Order of the Arm will strive to match him.”
Allystaire knelt at the graveside then, and lowered the pennant onto the shrouded form within.
“I am sorry I could not save you, Renard,” he whispered. “Leah and your daughter will want for nothing. No harm will befall them so long as I live. Goodbye and good rest in the mercy of the Mother.”
Allystaire picked up a handful of the earth Gideon had cleared of snow, finding it surprisingly soft and warm to the touch, having expected it to be frozen. He scattered it over the shroud-wrapped corpse, then pushed himself slowly to his feet.
Then he moved to the side of the larger grave and bowed his head a moment. Too many, he thought. I don’t even have all the names.
He looked back up the crowd. “We will erect a stone in memory of everyone else here. I promise you that. I do not mean to honor Renard at the cost of those who fought with him, or those he died to defend. We will honor all of them, forever. Renard would have had it no other way.”
Then, once more, Allystaire knelt at a graveside and took a handful of earth and tossed it among the bodies and stood. He wanted, badly, for that to be the last time he ever stood at a graveside, ever spoke words over the bodies of folk he led or protected. He knew it wouldn’t be.
Allystaire shut his eyes tightly as a spasm of despair surged up his throat. He only just managed to blink away the wetness that gathered at the corner of his eyes.
“If anyone else wishes to come forward to speak of those we lost,” he called out, “now is the time.”
Allystaire searched the faces. He saw Leah take a hesitant step forward, then stop and turn away, lowering her head and wrapping her arms around her belly. The crowd moved to surround her, and he heard, in the reigning silence, her choked sobs. He took half a step forward, but saw Idgen Marte taking long, determined strides and reaching Leah’s side long before he could have. The dark-skinned swordswoman stood taller than almost everyone in the crowd, and could see her bend her head to Leah’s ear.
Idgen Marte nodded as she listened to words that Renard’s widow appeared to choke out through her sobs, leaned close to murmur replies. Finally, after wrapped her long arms around the girl, Idgen Marte stood away and came to stand by Renard’s grave, clearing her throat.
“Leah wanted everyone to know how gentle Renard was behind closed doors. To us, he was the sergeant, the drillmaster, barking orders and offering none-too-gentle correction. She never heard his voice that way. She said he knew he was no kind of farmer any longer, but he wanted to try his hand at a bit of gardening come spring. That he would want everyone to know how happy he was the months he lived here, that he felt he was finally living a worthwhile life. And that he had the Goddess and Her Servants to thank for it.”
Then she knelt and took a handful of earth, tossing it into the open grave. Most of what she muttered, Allystaire could not hear, but he knew he caught the words “Brother of Battle.”
Leah had gone quiet as the folk listened to Idgen Marte pass her message on, had stopped sobbing. Village women to either side of her had their arms around her back, supporting her.
Idgen Marte stepped away to a general susurration in the crowd. She came to stand next to Allystaire, and he heard and felt her take a deep breath, the kind with a hitch or a shudder in it.
Henri stepped to the grave. The farmer turned militiaman looked almost absurd in his uniform of ill-fitting mail taken from a soldier of Fortune’s Temple, pauldrons buckled to his shoulders that didn’t match the mail, and a single battered bracer on his right forearm. The Sunburst was tied around his right arm, while the bracer had two thick lines of blue paint splashed across it, marking him as a Chosen Man, Allystaire supposed.
Henri considered his words, chewing at the inside of his cheek. “Dunno any other way t’say it. If it weren’t for Renard tryin’ his damndest to make what soldiers he could out of us, I think a lot more folk’d be dead. Could be all of us’d be dead. I know I would be. I’d rather be a farmer than a soldier. Cold, Renard’d say I’m only half a soldier at best. But if I hafta use what he taught me t’defend this place again, I will. And if anyone comes here meanin’ ‘arm to Leah, or to the daughter Renard din’t live t’see, he’ll ‘ave to reckon with e’ry one o’us.”
As Henri bent to the ground to take his handful of earth, Allystaire found his thoughts wandering to the moment he’d first met the man they were burying, guarding an absurd gate in a miniature joke of a castle in Bend. There had been a professionalism in the old soldier that was hard to miss, and Allystaire found himself wondering why Renard had left the Baron to follow him in the first place. You traded paid work for a shorter life, my friend, Allystaire thought. And I am sorry.
He traded the bright metal too many men value for the things they venerate it above: love, family, and purpose. He chose freely, My Knight. Mourn him, but do not diminish his choice.
Allystaire felt the voice in his mind. It was much fainter than usual. She felt distant, strained. Even so, he shivered for reasons other than the cold winter air.
Idgen Marte turned to eye him th
en, the barest hint of her typical smirk twisting her lips, but no mirth in her eyes. “He followed you, Allystaire,” she muttered, “because he saw something worth following. Same things I saw. Cold, same things the Goddess saw, I expect. He wasn’t the first and he’ll not be the last.”
“Does not make it easier to bury him.”
“It shouldn’t,” Idgen Marte agreed.
They fell silent as more of the militiamen and villagers came forward to speak about Renard, his rough wit, his crafty lessons, his love for his wife. Allystaire stood stock still, his back straight, but let his mind drift. If he hadn’t, he felt surely he would’ve gone a bit mad with the grief. I mourn him and yet I knew him so little compared to these men, he thought, as silence finally fell as the last villager stepped away.
He was drawing breath to speak up when Mol stepped forward, and the crowd hushed itself entirely.
“There is little I can add to what has been spoken in memory of Sir Renard.” As always, Mol seemed to make no effort at projecting her voice, no deep lungfuls of air before she spoke. And yet her voice filled the air around them inescapably. “He wanted to give all of us the life of peace he’d never had. He loved his wife in a kind of daze, as if he couldn’t believe that such love was even possible, as if every moment that he was in a world that also contained Leah was a wondrous thing he could not quite believe was real. Love like this was new to him, and yet, I think if he lived another score of years he would have loved just the same. And that,” she said, pausing for emphasis, “is the quality we should most seek to emulate. Love the world, people of the Mother. Love each other. Renard did.”
She bent, scooped, and threw a tiny handful of dirt, then said, “Renard also loved his beer, and he would be cross to see us mourning and tearful all the light turns of the day. Through the week, the month, the winter, I will come to the gravesides here three turns after dawn and again three turns after noon, and I will listen to any who wish to speak of their dead. Any who wish to come and listen with me are welcome.
“Go,” Mol finished. “Remember Renard and the others in your own ways, with song or tears or laughter or stories as you will.”
* * *
Late that evening, with the public mourning gone and the wine mostly gone with it, Allystaire sat at the head of a table dragged near the hearth, with Landen and Chaddin to either side and Cerisia across from him at the other end. She wore her mask, its glint giving the room an air of formality.
A pile of parchment sat at Allystaire’s elbow, and while it seemed as though the taproom was otherwise empty, he knew that Idgen Marte lurked invisibly in the shadows of a corner. Lamps had been hung from braces on the beams above the table they sat at, putting the four of them into a pool of light bright enough to read and to make out each other’s expressions. Beyond the Inn’s oilcloth and fur-covered windows, the winter wind drove snow up against the stone walls.
Both would-be rulers of Barony Delondeur were eyeing each other over winecups. Allystaire felt badly the desire to fill his own. You need to be clearheaded, he told himself, not without some resentment.
“I think that is enough of trying to measure one another with our eyes,” he said. “And if you had any doubts, that is my way of announcing that these talks are now beginning.”
“Talks?” Landen looked to him, raising one dark blonde eyebrow gracefully. “I wasn’t aware these were talks.”
“When I say ‘talks,’” Allystaire cut her off, “you should interpret it as listening. I will give the both of you a chance to have your say, but Cold-dammit, I am not going to brook any nonsense, interruptions, or attacks of pride. Is that clear?”
“Then why is she here?” Landen nodded towards the Archioness.
“Because Allystaire asked me to be,” Cerisia said, voice muffled by the mask.
“Which I did because she has shown considerable courage and foresight, and because she could be wise counsel to either or both of you, if you will allow her to be.”
“Once again, I recall you saying you weren’t going to dirty your hands with politics,” Chaddin said, through an expression that was half-smirk, half-grimace.
“I do not wish to play politics, but the stage is set, the players are upon it, and the moment is not giving me much of a choice. With the two of you and Garth in the same camp, if I do not take steps things will only get worse.”
“If these matters concern The Lord of Highgate, should he not be here?” Landen put in. “He will want a say if his name is being bandied about, I am sure.”
“The Lord of Highgate has been accustomed to doing what I say since his eighth summer. The habit will not have left him quite yet.”
“Doing as you say is what this is all about, isn’t it, Allystaire?” Chaddin set his cup down and looked ready to stand, planting his hands flat on the edge of the table.
Allystaire took a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyes closing. “All I mean to do, Chaddin, is make suggestions. Whether you follow them is up to you. It is my sincere hope that you do. If you do not, well, you have that right. You will also have to deal with the consequences.”
“What consequences would those be?” Landen asked, leaning forward.
“Me allowing The Lord of Highgate to do as he damn well pleases with the pair of you,” Allystiare replied. “And with an easy path into the interior of your Barony.”
Silence reigned for a moment. Landen sat back, her face grim in the lamplight. Chaddin, in turn, looked at Allystaire in disbelief.
“This is how you would repay my aid to you? Threats of imprisonment, of allowing a foreign warlord to do as he likes with me?” His hands once more on the table, Chaddin was half out of his seat.
“I am doing what I must do for the people I am responsible for,” Allystaire shot back. “You are alive because I gave you shelter here. Yes, Chaddin, you aided us, but it was a matter of mutual survival. This does not obligate me to hand you the Baronial Seat. Now sit down.”
Reluctantly, Chaddin sank back into his seat, but kept his eyes downcast and his face bitterly twisted.
Allystaire watched him for a moment, then turned his eyes back to Landen. He felt again the warm and inviting call of the winecup at his elbow. “Both of you might as well know what my goal here is. The end of the Succession Strife, or whatever it is we are calling this ridiculous war.”
Landen and Chaddin both drew in deep breaths. Without giving them time to interrupt, Allystaire plowed ahead, still eyeing the legitimate Delondeur. “I would prefer to see someone in the Seat who will not have to fight a further war to gain it or to keep it. Surely, Chaddin, you can see what will happen if I had taken your offer to raise and lead an army to put you in the Dunes. Even if it were successful, your own liegemen would test you at best and prey upon you at worst. Oyrwyn will see an opportunity. Old Innadan might even rouse himself. Telmawr would goad him to it. If there are any remnants of Barony Tarynth left, Cold, they will have at it as well. This is not to mention what the Islandmen and Gravek who infest the wreck of Vyndamere would do if they smelled weakness. The presence of Lionel Delondeur is about all that kept them away in the first place. Do you concede that some or all of that would happen?” He turned to Chaddin.
Chaddin’s face fell as Allystaire spoke. Finally, hiding reddened cheeks behind a quickly emptied cup, he nodded.
“Good. That will make this easier.” His eyes on the table, the edges of his hands resting on the rough planks, palms towards each other, he plowed ahead.
“Landen, had I encountered you in the battle for Thornhurst, I would have killed you. I will not guess if it is luck or providence or some part of the Goddess’s plan that you survived. By all custom, law, and right of this Barony, its Seat belongs to you. Agree to my suggestions, and I will not impede you ascending it. Nor will I aid you. Much.”
Landen let out a small sigh. She eyed Chaddin, and Allystaire took a moment to s
tudy the former’s face. It was in so many ways her father’s, with a reddish glow of health about the cheekbones and jaw that a week’s short rations and bad sleep hadn’t much diminished. There was, Allystaire noted, no sign of gloating in her eyes.
“As for my suggestions,” Allystaire went on, “first, you should legitimize Chaddin, and position him as your heir for the time being. I would hope that you might see fit to dispense with Delondeur’s antiquated rules of passing on the Seat by right of deed and derring-do, but that is of little matter here today,” he added, tapping the table with a pointed finger. “For a moment, put yourself in his position those months ago and realize that he showed remarkable poise, leadership, and initiative in doing what he did. And remember that I advised him to hang your father from the highest tower available, and that he refused because he wanted to see things done legally, for his crimes to be exposed and aired to the world.”
To Chaddin, he said, “This might be a moment for you to reflect on Landen’s position. Like as not, you would have done as she did if the situations were reversed, knowing little save that her father was deposed and imprisoned, and sailing at great peril and speed to his rescue.
“It may seem daft that I will ask you to work together now. What I am counting on is that courage is more important to both of you than finally killing one another.”
Landen looked to him as if asking permission to speak. Allystaire nodded, and she addressed her remarks to Chaddin.
“Chaddin, think on what Allystaire said about being tested by liege lords and pressed on the borders. Delondeur will need all its strength. I would not keep you idle, either—”
Allystaire lifted a hand. “I was not finished making suggestions. In fact, there is a position I would like to see Chaddin appointed to. He impressed me when he insisted on using the mechanism of the law, slow and clumsy though it may be, to bring your father to justice. Make him a magistrate, a justiciar, a minister of the law. Call it what you will. But I suggest this be a new post for this part of the world; make his writ or warrant or what have you directly applicable to knights and nobility. Allow the poorest and weakest folk to plead their cases with him, and see to it that his fair judgment carries the Baron’s own word, no matter who it is brought against.”
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