Idgen Marte’s mind raced back to her conversation with Audreyn, a lifetime ago.
You’d never see it unless you knew to look for it, as it sort of hangs off one side of the tower, hidden by the battlements. He kept it planted with her favorite flowers. Mountain veitch and loosestrife, as I recall. He never rode that trail, to or from Wind’s Jaw, without stopping, climbing the tower stairs, and slipping down to the graveside. Not once.
Tears threatened her eyes when she realized where she stood, and the desecration Gilrayan Oyrwyn spoke so casually of.
Idgen Marte wouldn’t die for a grave; she shared that much with Audreyn.
But for this one, for what it had meant to a man who had been her friend, she might kill.
There was no thought. She sprang. The pommel of her sword cracked into the side of Gilrayan Oyrwyn’s skull and sent him sprawling onto the stones of the tower roof. She stomped her boot into his throat, heard him start to gargle, and had the tip of the blade pointed at Naswyn’s throat before he had half-drawn his own sword.
“You heard him, Lord Naswyn. You heard his words, and you would still defend him?”
Naswyn’s sword lowered back into his sheath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, witch,” he hissed. “I know you have assaulted my Lord Baron, and for that, you’ll—”
“Your own daughter’s grave, man! Here, at this tower! That’s what he means to dig up.”
Naswyn faltered. “She’s buried at the Horned Towers. Not in our mausoleum, but on the grounds.”
Idgen Marte planted the heel of her boot squarely between the choking Baron Oyrwyn’s legs. He began retching. She grabbed Naswyn by the front of his cuirass and dragged him to the edge of the tower.
“There,” she hissed, pointing with her sword, not caring if anyone in the camp happened to be looking up at that moment.
There was a ladder, barely visible. An under-hanging battlement, hardly worthy of the name. A blanket of purple flowers. A simple stone with nothing engraved on it.
“Allystaire interred her here. Are you so simple that you did not know?”
Idgen Marte was close enough, despite the failing light, to see Naswyn’s face change from the passive mask to a rictus of rage. He tore from her grasp and seized the gasping, retching Gilrayan Oyrwyn in his long arms before Idgen Marte could think to stop him.
“You rapacious child. You fatuous, lying, grasping…” Joeglan hauled Gilrayan to his feet.
Idgen Marte knew she could intervene. Perhaps she should. But she didn’t.
“I’m your rightful lord, Naswyn,” Gilrayan wheezed, but Naswyn was beyond caring. He gave the Baron Oyrwyn a hard shove, pushing his long arms to their fullest length.
Gilrayan Oyrwyn hit the far side of the tower. He bowed precipitously over the crenellations, flailing his arms weakly, overbalanced, and fell without a sound.
“Well,” Toruvl said, as he emerged onto the top of the tower, “good thing you’ve got me here to write a letter explaining why the Baron Oyrwyn decided to end his life.”
“Better,” Idgen Marte said, “that we have Lord Naswyn here to witness it.”
* * *
On the night Gilrayan Oyrwyn unexpectedly ended his life by hurling himself from a watchtower on the southern approach to Wind’s Jaw, he left behind several important orders and correspondences.
The first and most shocking was the note detailing his secret plots to invade Innadan, a staunch Oyrwyn ally, under the guise of Harlach uniforms and banners.
Since most of his closest lords knew the plan to be true, they did not question it.
Other orders dispersed all the troops and knights and lords back to their own fiefs for the entire summer, only to be gathered again in the event of invasion.
Lord Joeglan Naswyn, loyal to a fault and with as much imagination as a stone, saw to it that the orders were obeyed by everyone involved. His own seal and witness upon the documents left no question in any mind.
The most important political consequence was his Declaration of Abdication in favor of Garth of Highgate, who, as the new Baron Oyrwyn, was to distribute his fief of Coldbourne as he saw fit, and to pass Highgate to his nearest blood relative.
Most curious was an order little noticed save by a generation of Oyrwyn men who had been trained by, or grown up with, Allystaire Coldbourne. It made the law of the land not to tamper in any way with one particular watchtower that guarded a southern trail down out of the mountains, and that any irregularities in that tower were to be maintained exactly as they were found. It was to stand as long as Barony Oyrwyn did.
* * *
With the Barons gathered for the funeral of Arontis Innadan, conducted jointly by Mourmitnourthrukacshtorvul, Wit of the Mother, and Cerisia, Archioness of Fortune, at the Vineyards in early summer, gossip had largely been on two subjects.
The first, that was on every lip, was the might have been: of King Arontis Innadan. Even Unseldt Harlach and Ruprecht Machoryn, two men it was hard to please together, were both heard to say that if they had to see a crown on any head, they would have chosen his. Arontis the Uncrowned, people began to call him. The name spread.
The second was the shocking suicide and abdication of Gilrayan Oyrwyn and what it meant for Baronial peace.
The Barons returned to their home keeps in high spirits, under beautiful skies and clear weather. But not without reminders from the Shadow, the Wit, and the Will, to the terms they had agreed about the Temples and Chapels of Braech.
In the coming seasons, the Barons were told, the servants of the Mother would be visiting to see that the terms were adhered to.
* * *
It was late summer, with the sun high in the air and hot, and the fields full of high corn, when Idgen Marte, Torvul, and Gideon finally returned to Thornhurst with Rede, Andus Carek, and the last three knights of the Order of the Arm.
Or so they had thought. Mol, of course, had turned out the town to greet them, and foremost among them was Norbert, standing with Lenoir, grinning widely at his three remaining comrades. Soon they were all soldierly embraces and gentle ribbing.
But that soon abated when the train of saddled but riderless horses came into view.
Gideon rode his old palfrey, Allystaire’s old palfrey, rather than Ardent that morning. With the crowd watching silently, the destrier led the line of five other riderless horses, each of them with a dead knight’s weapons secured to the saddle, straight towards Mol.
The other horses merely followed the huge grey, but there was something different in the way Allystaire’s warhorse walked straight to the girl and lowered his great head till his nose was placed in her cupped hands and his head was pressed to her shoulder.
Mol stroked his cheeks with her fingers and made gentle sounds of reassurance, murmured words no one else heard.
Then the Will, and the Wit, and the Shadow came forward. Mol took Gideon by the hand, and the four of them walked towards the Temple, Ardent following slowly after.
The crowd had been ready to greet them with songs, and wine and cheering, but something about the scene had turned the ready good will to somber reflection.
The doors of the Temple of Thornhurst swung open. Mol entered first, then Idgen Marte, then Torvul. Gideon stopped, ran back down the steps and gathered the hammer he’d recovered from the bottom of Londray Bay. It sat heavily in his hands. He spun it to look at one of the rounded heads at the golden sunburst that glinted in the center, and at the tiny image of a hammer in relief inside.
He hefted it, as if preparing to swing, then shook his head. Gideon took it with both hands and carried it into the Temple to lay it against the altar. The door shut behind him.
The people of Thornhurst remembered that day, the day of the funeral of Sir Allystaire Stillbright, the Arm of the Mother, founder of the Order of the Arm, the Paladin and Prophet of Her Church, as an
exceptionally bright and warm summer day, but for one mysterious turn. Despite the brightness of the day, with no clouds in sight, it rained for one turn of the glass. Steady long drops falling straight down upon the village from a cloudless, sun-filled sky.
People came to say that the sun itself was weeping for the death of the paladin.
The end of The Paladin Trilogy
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to so many of you for working alongside me for the seven years this story has taken to finish. To Andrew for believing in it. To Melanie, Gwen, Kyle, and Karen for working hard to shape it with (and sometimes against, to the book’s betterment) me. To Rion for sharing an open call for fantasy manuscripts so many years ago. To Yeager, Andy, Caren, Sarah, Jacob, Jason, Stephanie, and Josh for nonstop beta reading and advice and listening to me complain. To everyone who’s ever sat down at a table and picked up dice with me, who has seen glimpses of Allystaire or Idgen Marte or Torvul or Norbert in the characters I made with them, because that’s where they were all born. And thanks to every reader who’s taken the time to email me, to talk to me at a con or an event, who has read the book and given it to friends and family and fellow gamers, who tweeted about it or reviewed or mentioned it. I hope you’ll all come back, and bring a friend, when I tell more stories in this world.
About the author
Bianca Tredennick
Daniel M. Ford was born and raised near Baltimore, Maryland. He holds an M.A. in Irish Literature from Boston College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, concentrating in Poetry, from George Mason University. As a poet, his work has appeared most recently in Soundings Review, as well as Phoebe, Floorboard Review, The Cossack, and Vending Machine Press. He teaches English at a college prep high school in the northeastern corner of Maryland.
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