“He will do it or I will throw him off a mountain,” Allystaire said. “I tried dealing their way. No longer.”
Idgen Marte narrowed her eyes. “I think you’d have t’throw Lord Naswyn, too, but I suspect you’d like a chance t’do that by itself.”
“Three,” Allystaire said, extending his third finger and ignoring her gibe, “we have a solution to the greatest problem that has affected two-pronged armies since wars began and man could count to two. Communication.”
“Gideon?”
Allystaire nodded. “He travels with me and the horse. You travel with the foot. He can carry messages between the two of us.”
She shook her head sharply. “No. I’m not leaving your side.”
“Idgen Marte, please,” Allystaire said. “I will have Gideon, the Order, the Thornriders, and a few dozen other knights with me. If Gilrayan is to travel up into his own country to raise an army, I need you watching over his shoulder. There is no one else I can trust to do it.”
“My task,” she said slowly, “laid upon me by the Mother Herself, is to keep you alive.”
“And I am giving you the most dangerous task. Gilrayan is the one most capable of undoing what we have set out to accomplish. You will best keep me safe by watching him. And if all goes according to plan, we will not engage with Symod’s forces until we have met back up.”
“How often does anything go according to plan?”
“Roughly never,” Allystaire admitted with a drawn-out shrug. “Idgen Marte, I cannot trust him alone, and I cannot send Torvul. His cart will never take the mountains from here. And if I understand what Gideon may do correctly, it will be easier for him to speak to one of us than to anyone else.”
She sighed. “If some Harlach knight sticks a knife in you while you’re riding off to war—”
“Harlach knives have nothing on Oyrwyn steel,” Allystaire said, reaching out to rap a knuckle against the mirror of his breastplate. “Especially not after a dwarf has been after it. And Harlach knights were afraid of me before the Goddess found me. I doubt any of them have the stones to try and slip a knife into me now.”
She sighed, shaking her head slightly, but muttered, “Fine. I’ll keep a close watch on the man as we head north. I’ve some business north, anyway.” She fixed her attention back upon Allystaire. “About Lord Naswyn.”
“What of him?” Allystaire paused as he reached for a pen, arm half-extended and still.
“You told me a long time ago you’d let go of all bitterness about her.”
“Dorinne. And,” he said, finally reached for the pen and wrapping his hand around it, “I believe what I said was that I had let go of all bitterness and anger towards my father, and Gerard Oyrwyn. I said nothing of Joeglan Naswyn.”
“Why? Why him so much?”
“Because all it would have taken,” Allystaire said, “was a word and a gesture. A silver link pledged to dower her would have sufficed. Then by all right, law, and custom, the Baron and Lord Coldbourne could not have formally objected. They could have tried to pressure me, it is true. They would have, but they would not have threatened exile, or divestiture, or disinheriting me.”
Idgen Marte was silent a moment. “Why would he not do it?”
“I do not know, and I have never asked. He acknowledged her, raised her, educated her, but never took that final step. It would have been a small one, and it could have been done without expense.”
She nodded. “Knowing you as I do, I’m surprised you didn’t throw everything over for her.”
He sighed. “I was a younger and more foolish man, Idgen Marte. I was devoted utterly to knighthood, and to Gerard Oyrwyn, in that order. I wanted to be the greatest knight Oyrwyn had ever produced, to make the Coldbourne name celebrated in song. I could not have imagined that I would have been worthy of her had I thrown that all aside. Looking back, I wish I had been more bold, more willing to see past the Old Baron’s bluster and bonhomie. Even so,” he said with a shrug, “had I run away then with a wife to think of, would I have come upon the Mother? Would I be the man that I am?” He shook his head, the words running dry.
She was silent a moment, then she struck her first upon her thigh. “Dammit, man. It’s too much like a Freezing song. The paladin gives up his own happiness t’save the world.”
“I was thinking nothing of saving the world when that happened. I was one-and-twenty summers old and besotted twice over, with knighthood and with her. We know which one I ultimately chose.”
“If she hadn’t caught the flux—”
“She did,” Allystaire said. “And that is that. I should have married her. Of course I should have. I should have let love rule over glory. I did not.”
Idgen Marte sighed, and looked out the lightly parted tent flap. “You should go find Gideon, ask him t’scout the Braechsworn army. And then go meet the Barons t’see if Torvul’s worked us a miracle.”
“Aye,” Allystaire said, standing, carefully folding up the maps that were spread on his table, and setting the pen he still held atop the pile of parchment. “Come with me?”
She shook her head. “I have to pack. If I’m to set off into Oyrwyn, I’ll do it tonight. I can move ahead of Oyrwyn and his lot to rouse the people, then hop back to him.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It will be,” she said, throwing open the flap. She started to leave, but turned back to face him once more. “Allystaire, for whatever it’s worth, you did become what you said you wanted to be.”
He tilted his head curiously.
“You did become the greatest knight Oyrwyn ever produced.”
* * *
“To your chin, lad,” Norbert was saying. “Keep your elbow tight. Try’n think of it as pressing the bow open, not just drawing it back.”
He stood some distance beyond their cluster of tents, giving instruction to Gideon, who was tentatively drawing back the string of Norbert’s shortbow. Allystaire paused to watch.
“Don’t let the string loose, now, just relax and let the bow take its shape again,” Norbert said after Gideon had drawn the string back as far as it was going, nearly to his chin.
Gideon did as Norbert bid, and handed the bow back. Almost sheepishly, the two turned to find Allystaire watching.
“You might favor a crossbow more,” Allystaire said as he approached them.
The boy’s cheeks colored faintly. “I can draw the bow. I’m just unused to it.”
“Gideon,” Allystaire cut him off with a wave of one hand. “I do not suggest that you could not. But the crossbow does not rely on strength the way that does. It relies on seeing the angles and figuring the distance. In other words, I do not mean to hide any weakness. I mean to play to a strength.”
Gideon sniffed and cast his eyes to the ground, as if seeking an argument. Behind him, Norbert unstrung the bow and slipped it into the case slung around his back. Finally, Gideon looked up.
“Crossbows rely on more mechanical parts, require more maintenance, and can be disabled more easily because of that.”
“Maintenance of a weapon is down to the man who carries it. If it is badly made and bound to fail, it is your own task to learn that before your life depends on it.” Allystaire raised a finger towards Gideon. “Why the sudden interest in weapons?”
“We’re marching to war, and you don’t want me to kill using my gifts unless I absolutely must,” Gideon said, “but I want to be able to contribute to any battles.”
Allystaire waved a hand to the boy, beckoning him close, then wrapped his arm over Gideon’s thin shoulders. “Gideon, what you can contribute so far outweighs the presence of another bowman that I have not the words to describe it.”
Allystaire looked over his shoulder and dismissed Norbert with a discreet nod. The lean archer nodded sharply and made for their campfire, likely, Allystaire thought, in search o
f food.
“What is that?”
“The two greatest problems any army on the march faces aside from how to feed itself,” Allystaire said, “are communication and reconnaissance.”
“Well, the latter is obvious, but how about the former?”
“You can speak to me and to Idgen Marte across great distances, yes?”
“Easier if I am with Mol at the Temple, but yes,” Gideon said. “At the least I can send my Will between the two of you, carrying messages. It will not be instantaneous.”
“The fact that it will be even close gives us an enormous advantage.”
“I suppose.”
“You know I do not disapprove of you choosing to learn a weapon. Basic defense is a skill everyone should know. If you want Norbert to teach you the shortbow, or Idgen Marte the sword, or Torvul the crossbow, or all of them, and anything from me, then you know I will give you the time. Yet there are things I will have to ask of you.”
“I know,” Gideon said. Then he sighed. “And then there is the lute, which I may have to put aside for now.”
Allystaire thought a moment and slipped his arm from the boy’s shoulders. “No.”
Gideon looked up at him. “What?”
“No. You will not put it aside. It is the only thing I know that gives you joy. If you have to choose between learning a weapon and learning music, choose music.”
“That’s not the choice you would make.”
“No,” Allystaire said, “but I do not wish for you to be the kind of man that I am.”
“What kind would you have me be, then?”
“Better,” Allystaire said suddenly, forcefully. “More joyful. More in love with the world. Less angry and with fewer regrets. Duty is not the only thing in this world, no matter how much I act as though it is.”
“Then what is it that gives you joy? What is it in the world that you love?”
Allystaire sighed and ran a hand through his hair, surprised to find it longer than he’d usually left it. Time to go at it with a knife, he thought.
“My sister. You, and Mol, and Torvul and Idgen Marte. Ardent. And the Goddess.” He shrugged. “It does not seem like much of a list. Mayhap when this war is over, you can help me find things to add to it, eh?”
Gideon nodded. “It is a more full list than you think, but…something to fill your hands that isn’t a weapon might not hurt.”
Allystaire smiled, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a trumpet blast from the center of the camp. Three quick notes, rising: an announcement. He cast his gaze in that direction and said, “It is time, then. I hope Torvul has done his work well. Do you wish to come to see what agreement they have made?”
“I do,” Gideon said. “Though I can scarcely credit that they have made one.”
“If anyone can work a miracle in words among those men, it’s that old dwarf,” Allystaire said.
“Should you not put your armor on for this?”
Allystaire looked down at the dark blue tunic he wore, with the sunburst picked out in gold-colored thread on the left breast. “No. I wish to, but no. First, we have no time, but second, if this is to be a moment for peace, I will not go to it attired for war.”
“What about the hammer, then?”
“Attired for war is one thing; prepared for disagreement is another,” Allystaire said. “Besides, I cannot walk straight without the weight on my hip.”
With that, they laughed, then the Will and the Arm of the Mother walked together towards the Barons and their hard-fought peace.
* * *
The Barons stood around the table, saluting each other with goblets of wine. Torvul and Andus Carek were seated on two chairs pulled a short distance away, poring over a long roll of parchment. Even from a distance Allystaire could see the long row of multicolored seals that stood along the bottom of the parchment, beginning in red, then green, blue, grey, black, blue again, and just barely, the tawny red-orange of Telmawr at the very end.
Alone among the Barons, Hamadrian Innadan remained in his chair, folded in upon himself. He hardly seemed to notice the revelry going on around him.
Allystaire could see, even at a distance, the effort every breath was costing him. It was a far cry from the hale and cheerful man of a day past. His skin was grey, and he seemed to struggle to keep his head up, his eye focused on his fellow Barons.
Arontis and Cerisia hovered over him. When Cerisia saw Allystaire her posture straightened. She wore her mask but he thought he could read the pleading in her eyes nonetheless.
He stopped behind Hamadrian’s chair and placed his left hand on the old Baron’s shoulder, reached for Her Gift of Healing.
The paladin found a heavy wall thrust between him and Hamadrian, one that he had felt before during the Battle of Thornhurst, one that he greatly feared to see.
Mother, I know this man’s death is not mine to avert, he silently prayed. Yet if I can but grant him a few more turns, I beg of you to let it be done. He deserves to live to see this triumph. Please. The last word almost sprang audibly from him.
The wall did not part, but it weakened, or retreated somehow. Some little trickle of the Mother’s Mercy, thinner than Allystaire had ever felt, flowed from his hand into the old, dying man.
Hamadrian took a sharp, audible breath. He sat up, slowly turned his head to bring his good eye to face Allystaire.
“Like drops of water to a dying man in the desert,” he muttered. “Have you got a flagon full, by chance?”
Allystaire closed his eyes, grit his teeth, and pushed harder. If the healing warmth that flowed from him grew any stronger, it was by the smallest of margins. He let his hand slip from the other man’s shoulder and opened his eyes, gave his head a small shake.
“Ah, well.” Hamadrian sat up straighter. “You allowed me to live to see this.” His voice rattled in his chest. “I thought I never would.” The Baron Innadan reached out for his heavy goblet and tried to strike it against the table to summon attention; he couldn’t manage much more than a feeble tap.
Allystaire reached out, seized a pitcher, and slammed it so hard on the table that wine slopped out and onto his hand. Goblets, pitchers, plates, writing implements, and ink pots all clattered enough down the length of polished oak that everyone turned their eyes to them.
“Haven’t you the decency to at least be lying in pain and waiting to die of rot?” Baron Harlach’s joke was that of a man half-drunk, lifting his mug and beaming almost stupidly as he spoke. “We like the dwarf better anyway!”
Smiling lightly, Allystaire pulled his left sleeve past the elbow, and held up his newly-scarred but otherwise healed arm, turning and moving it in the light. “One of the Mother’s Gifts, Unseldt Harlach,” he said. The quiet that had followed his pounding on the table was replaced with a taut, palpable hush.
“Is anyone going to tell me the terms of what you have wrought?” Allystaire slipped the sleeve of his shirt back down to his wrist as he lowered his arm.
Torvul stood up, holding the heavy roll of parchment up. “The details would take too long to explain. Suffice it to say that seven Barons have agreed to put their toys away, and t’stop arguin’ over borders for two years at a minimum.”
“What are the consequences for breaking that peace?”
“The others agree to attack the one who does,” Torvul called.
Allystaire nodded, then seized an empty cup and filled it. He lifted it high and said, “To peace. And to Hamadrian Innadan, who wished for this longer and harder than any other. May history record this as his peace.”
Torvul was quick to seize a drink, a pitcher, and lift it as well. “May it last until the stones of my home are dust.”
Those gathered around the table lifted their drinks in unison. Many were already somewhat bleary-eyed. Allystaire studied Torvul’s face, but there was as much gi
ven away in the heavy brows, deep-set eyes, and blue-stubbled jaw as there would have been in a pile of rocks.
“To Innadan’s Peace,” Gilrayan Oyrwyn called out.
“Hamadrian!” Other voices joined in, Byronn Telmawr’s foremost among them. When every present hand had been lifted and his health drunk, the Baron Innadan pushed himself slowly to his feet. Leaning against the table, he drew a hard breath.
“Signing a document is well and good,” he rasped as everyone leaned forward, straining to hear. “Claiming we’ll lay down our arms and tend our own fields is a first step, long overdue. But if our peace is to last we’ll have to earn it, and an enemy is at our borders.”
He paused to cough. Arontis came to his side and took his arm. The Baron openly leaned against his son, making no pretense now of holding himself erect. But when he lifted his head, his good eye was as clear and bright as the spring sky.
“The enemy threatens you first,” he said, pointing to Landen, “and you.” His wavering finger swerved towards Gilrayan. “It would have a great deal of conquering to do to threaten me. Nonetheless, I will commit my own men, my knights, and household guard—my only living son—to the fight to defend your people. Our people. I would ride out myself if the life remained in me. We can all see that it does not,” he wheezed. “I urge all of you to do as I have done, and to commend what troops you can into his hands.” His hand lifted to point once more, a thin finger extended towards Allystaire.
“Put aside your hatreds and rivalries. Ask yourselves what he has to gain. Paladin or no, he’ll be one man in the midst of hundreds, who’re loyal first t’you. Then ask yourselves what you have t’lose if you try to fight a Braechsworn army on your own, one by one.”
“What of my conditions?” Allystaire’s voice rang out louder than Hamadrian’s, and he saw more than one face around the table recoil when he spoke. “Need I remind you? Expel the priests of Braech from your keeps unless they repudiate Symod. One-fifth of the wealth of their the temples that refuse is to be seized and distributed to the poorest.”
Allystaire could feel Torvul’s eyes boring holes into him. Stop it. STOP it. You’re askin’ too much and endangering it all!
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