The Hero's Lot

by Patrick W. Carr

  Perhaps some of the reader’s diffidence communicated itself to Errol. He didn’t know how to respond. “It will take us a few hours to make it to Merakhi waters. The four times we tried we were met by longships.”

  Luis faced him. “They turned you back?”

  Errol chuckled softly. “No. They tried to chase us down and board us. We used four different ships, and they spotted every one. No other kingdom ships were threatened. Only us.”

  Luis nodded. “Valon has readers aboard those ships. Even without a circle, it would be a simple matter to cast for your presence.”

  Errol watched the water. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. This had never been his strength, ferreting out information. Plain speech suited him better. “Rokha says Martin is under a compulsion.”

  “She’s right,” Luis said.

  Errol fought to hide his surprise. No slippery speech. No half answers. Just open acknowledgment. “Does it have anything to do with me?”

  Luis sighed as if trying to rid himself of a burden. “It seems everything has something to do with you, Errol.”

  He smiled at the reply. Except for the mournful tone, this was closer to the reader’s usual manner of speech. Luis put a hand on his shoulder as if trying to comfort him.

  “I’m sorry, Errol. I would have stopped him if I could have. Martin is passionate. His sense of justice could no longer tolerate your circumstances. He placed a compulsion upon himself.” Luis shrugged. His shoulders twitched during the motion.

  Emptiness opened in the pit of Errol’s stomach, spreading outward with the dawning comprehension of Luis’s words. Why was he sorry?

  “What . . .” He couldn’t seem to push enough air through his voice. “What does he have to do?” He might as well have been an eddy in the wind.

  Sorrow and tears filled Luis’s eyes, but he held Errol in an unwavering glance. “He has to tell you the truth—all of it.”

  Of all his desires, visible or locked away in his heart, knowing the truths Martin had kept hidden ranked as the third most important. Only Adora’s hand and the identity of his parents ranked higher. Yet now he feared the resolution of Martin’s compulsion. Luis had not flinched at compelling Errol to the conclave, had barely blinked at telling him he was expendable, yet now the secondus stood with tears in his eyes.

  Enough. Whatever secrets Martin might bring into the light, Errol didn’t want to know. “Tell him to remove the compulsion. I have enough burdens.”

  Luis’s face tightened. “I’m sorry, Errol. He can’t. In this Martin is now as powerless as you are. The compulsion can only be removed if Martin fulfills its demand.” He shifted to gaze out across the sea. “He acted in haste, before he learned the full truth. Every moment he tarries is painful for him, but he loathes adding to the weight you carry.”

  Luis gave a rueful laugh. “Martin thought to give you what you wanted, not realizing what might happen. There’s a lesson there.” He sighed. “I think he means to defy the compulsion for as long as he can. He’s strong, Errol, so who knows how long that may be?”

  “We’re headed into Merakh,” Errol said. For months, even years, all he’d wanted was the truth, but now the truth had turned out to be as ugly and misshapen as everything else in his life. Why? “It’s supposed to be my death sentence.” Bitterness laced his voice. “Perhaps Martin will be able to keep his secrets after all.”

  He wanted no more of this conversation with Luis. It was obvious the reader would not divulge the secrets Martin carried, and his empathy for the priest rankled in a way difficult to define.

  He couldn’t decide which he wanted more: to let Martin suffer with the pain of his own stupidity and compulsion, or to force the priest to tell him the truth and know that he’d placed another wound in his soul. A part of him savored the fact that someone else suffered as much as he.

  Then, with a suddenness that surprised him, he ached for Adora’s company. The princess loved him. She would know what to do. He thrust himself away from the railing and Luis’s sympathy and went in search of her.

  As he stalked through the ship, some intuition seated deep within his chest told him Adora would be able to see a solution he could not, that the wisdom she’d garnered by her years in the palace would be equal to the task.

  When he found her with Rokha in the small cabin Tek had set aside for the women on board, Adora stood to greet him with a polite nod, but the tension at the corner of her eyes said plainly she had not forgotten his behavior. He rushed across the room to enfold her in his arms and kiss her.

  It was the first time he’d ever kissed a woman. True, women had kissed him, but until this moment he’d never initiated that sign of affection. He half expected Adora to push him away, but after a muffled exclamation of surprise, the princess melted into his embrace and her hands rose to lock in his hair. The kiss lasted longer than he’d intended. When their lips parted, the ship seemed to be rocking with the waves more than usual—and from across the room, Rokha grinned at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Adora broke from his embrace and took a step back, the picture of cool serenity once more, with the exception of a flush in her cheeks. “You make apologies where none are needed, Errol. No man alive carries a burden such as yours.”

  “Actually, someone does.” He couldn’t stop a sardonic chuckle from escaping his lips.

  “What do you mean?”

  Errol recited his conversation with Luis, watched as Adora’s eyes grew wider until the whites showed around the emerald green of her irises.

  “Unheard of,” she said. “I never suspected a priest could lay a compulsion on himself.”

  “What should I do?”

  She wheeled away from him to pace the confines of her cabin. “My heart tells me you should go to Martin and demand he tell you the truth, but I mistrust myself in this.” She pivoted on one foot and came toward him again, head bent in concentration. Rokha was uncharacteristically silent as she feigned interest in something outside the porthole she stood near.

  Adora stopped to look at him, her eyes locked with his. “I think you have three choices available to you, Errol.”

  He sighed. What he really wanted at that moment was for Adora to tell him what to do, but she would not. No one would, not even Rale. Though the watch captain commanded the mission, Errol’s circumstances placed him beyond Rale’s authority. “What are they?”

  She held up a finger. “First, you can have Martin tell you what he knows at a time of your choosing.”

  “Isn’t that up to him?” Errol asked.

  Adora shook her head even as she gave him a fond smile. “You know, one of the reasons I love you is that such things as I’m about to suggest never occur to you. If you want to force the information from Martin, simply stay in his presence until the pain of his compulsion forces him to speak.”

  His eyes widened at the cold calculation of that suggestion and what it said of the intrigues that had surrounded Adora during her upbringing. He kept any trace of accusation from his face and voice. “I don’t think I’d like that. It seems cruel, but I thank you for making me aware of the option. I hope I don’t have to use it.”

  She nodded. The set of her shoulders relaxed. “Second, you can wait until he chooses or the compulsion forces him to tell you. I would advise against this. It puts you at the mercy of circumstance.” She touched the scar in his side. “You don’t seem to have much luck with circumstance.”

  His hand probed the flesh around the wound. Scar tissue covered the area, and he seemed to have suffered no permanent physical damage from Sahra and Rader’s attack, but memories of screaming convulsions plagued his dreams. He couldn’t jest about it yet. “No. I don’t. What’s the last option?”

  Adora’s shoulders, beautiful with new strength from her sword work, rose and descended. “Avoid him. Don’t give him a chance to confess. Confine him to the ship once we reach Merakh and order him back to the kingdom.”

  For a moment, he l
atched on to that idea, until the somber look in Adora’s eyes opened his own. “But that would be worse than forcing him to tell me, wouldn’t it? Sooner or later the compulsion would take him, and if I’m not there . . .” Errol left the statement unfinished. He didn’t know how to finish it.

  To her credit, she didn’t try to talk him into the obvious option, the one he hated and feared. She simply waited. He turned an idea over in his mind. Could he persuade Martin to satisfy the compulsion without telling Errol directly?

  He stepped closer to Adora, taking her hands in his. They fluttered, birdlike, before gripping his own. “I would request something of you, Your Highness.”

  Her eyes narrowed at the use of her title, but her mouth pulled a little to one side in a smile. “Speak, Earl Stone. Fear not to reveal your mind to us, as all the world knows you bear the utmost regard of the crown.”

  Her voice dipped as she finished, and he felt his mouth go dry. “Would you approach Martin on my behalf? Have him tell you these truths that pain him so much. Then advise me on how to proceed.”

  She stared at him. “You would trust me with this? Not knowing what he might reveal?”

  He held up his scarred palm. “Better you than any other.”

  Tears splashed against the wood of the cabin floor as she curtsied to him.

  36

  Broken

  SHE DID NOT COME BACK to him for the rest of the day. Or the next. The princess dropped from sight as surely as if she’d been swept overboard. One time Errol saw her, but she scurried away, her face stricken, before he could approach.

  Thus engaged, the ship passed through the Merakhi blockade almost without his notice. Karele stood on the deck as Tek guided the ship between a pair of sleek longboats.

  As the ships to their stern vanished over the horizon, Errol questioned the small man.

  “It’s not me but the power of Aurae,” Karele explained. “The power of the lot is written in the fabric of our world. Think of it like water running its course along a stream. The spirit of Deas, Aurae, has the ability to alter that course.”

  The idea didn’t make sense to him. Either something worked or it didn’t. “But how?”

  Karele smiled. “Do you have any blanks with you?” At his nod, the little man continued. “Why don’t you go get them and I’ll show you?”

  Errol went to the quarters he shared with the rest of the men on board and pulled a pair of pine blanks, some rubbing cloth, and his carving knife from his pack. He hurried back to Karele, grateful for the opportunity to do something that would take his mind off Adora’s protracted absence.

  “Cast for something easy,” Karele said.

  Errol nodded. A yes or no question would be simplest. It would require little concentration to form the answers into the two blanks. “Is Martin a priest?” he said out loud in order to help him frame the question. Fifteen minutes later the lots lay carved and sanded in his palm, but only he could see the words reflected there.

  Karele gave him an encouraging nod. “Now cast as many times as you need to reassure yourself they work as intended.”

  Errol dropped them into the large pocket of his cloak and drew one at random, then repeated the process. Twelve draws later, he gestured toward Karele. “Ten out of twelve says he’s a priest.”

  Karele leaned forward with a smug expression. “How many times picking the opposite lot would it take to convince you that Aurae’s power supersedes that of the lot?”

  He shrugged. “Ten?”

  Karele laughed. “Then let’s make it twenty.”

  Errol snorted through his nose. “Impossible. Not with wood. I couldn’t cast the surest question and pull a draw twenty times in a row.”

  “You’re not Aurae.” Karele pointed north, to the empty horizon. “If you do not believe me, then believe our passage. No one is following us.”

  Errol jumbled the lots together and thrust his hand in. “No.” He put the lot back in, and for the next nineteen times—while Karele relaxed beside him on the weathered planks of the deck—he drew the same lot. His feel for the cast ceased to exist, as if he no longer held the power to read. “You can do this anytime you choose?” he asked.

  Karele nodded. “So long as Aurae guides me.”

  This troubled Errol. A small knot of distrust formed in his stomach. “What if Aurae decides not to guide you or suddenly chooses not to shield us from Valon’s readers?”

  Karele shrugged as if the question held no import. “Then we would be killed or captured.”

  “That’s small comfort. Why should I trust it?”

  This received a shake of the head. “Don’t you know Aurae is the spirit of Deas, Errol?”

  Errol shrugged. “No, not really. Some of what I know of Deas comes from the tales Conger has told me, or Martin’s liturgy, but mostly it comes from Antil.” Errol watched Karele’s face stiffen into a mask at the mention of Callowford’s priest.

  “Antil doesn’t speak for Deas, Errol.”

  He shrugged. “He says he does, just like you do. What’s the difference?”

  Karele pointed south to the still-out-of-sight shoreline of Merakh that awaited two days hence. “With the help of Aurae, I can get you to Merakh.”

  Errol permitted himself a grudging nod. “Granted, but the way you hedge your speech and refuse to make guarantees reminds me too much of the churchmen I’ve known.”

  “Do you mean Martin?” Karele asked.

  “Among others. When you speak, I hear unspoken secrets running through your words.” Errol gestured at the ship, the sky, the water. “Churchmen and their secrets are the reason I’m in this mess. I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I’ve been driven with a goad every step of the way—first to Erinon, now to Merakh.”

  As he spoke, he realized he wanted Martin’s confession, after all. What could a few words do to him that Antil’s whipping rod had not? “After I start getting the truth out of people, the whole truth, you might find me more willing to listen to your version of Deas.”

  If Karele took affront at his words, he showed no sign of it. His face softened before he spoke. “I hope you still feel that way once you get your secrets.” He moved away, his stride adapting to the pitch and roll of the ship as if adjusting to the gait of a horse.

  Errol, left alone with the consequences of their conversation, faced forward and closed his eyes to concentrate and enjoy the easing pressure in his mind where the compulsion lay. It hadn’t vanished completely. It wouldn’t leave unless and until Valon lay dead. He permitted himself a bitter snort. For all their talk of peace, the church had turned him into a glorified assassin.

  Hours later, a touch on his arm, light and tentative, broke his reverie. Adora stood behind him, her eyes pinched with worry, and something else. For a moment, he quailed and questioned his resolve, but he threw his shoulders back and gulped deep breaths of salty air. Martin, the whole church, owed him. He would never be able to extract a price for pain, but he could force them to tell him the truth. Gulls cried in the distance, harbingers of their destination, heralds of his appointment with death. By the three, they owed him.

  Adora bit her lip, and her eyes darted as if she sought escape from his presence. “Let him keep his secrets, Errol. You don’t have to do this.”

  His peripheral vision shifted back and forth in time to the shake of his head. “There is nothing words can do to me that has not already been done and more by Warrel and Antil. They are only words.”

  She turned from him. “You mean to pursue this?”

  Her uncharacteristic fear almost persuaded him, but the desire to collect a portion of the debt the church owed him proved too strong. “I do. Where is Martin? I want to get this done before we land in Merakh. He is a man of many secrets; his confession may take a while.”

  Adora shook her head. “Not so long as you would think. There is, in fact, very little that he hasn’t told you.” She faced him, knotted her hands in the loose folds of his shirt. “I have prepared for this. Ma
rtin, Luis, Cruk, Karele, and Rale wait below in the captain’s quarters.”

  Like an ill-weighted staff, this announcement threw him off balance. “I understand the need for Martin’s presence, but why the rest? I don’t want them there. If that priest wants them to know, I can’t stop him, but he can do it when I’m not around.”

  She refused to look at him. Her gaze locked on his shirt, stayed there. “I did not ask your permission in this, though I knew you would see it this way, but you said you trusted me, so I prepared as well I could a means for you to hear Martin.”

  A means? What was she talking about? Adora lifted her head then, and the naked fear behind her eyes persuaded him in spite of his ignorance. “As you will. Are they ready?” When she nodded, he took her by the hand and led her to the stairs that led below toward the captain’s quarters.

  She moved in front of him at the door, raised a trembling fist to knock. The first rap barely sounded, the second more so. Cruk answered, looked to Adora, who nodded, and then to Errol. The look on the watchman’s craggy face conveyed approval mixed with resignation.

  “Can’t say I blame you, boy.” His voice held none of its usual accusation.

  Errol moved past him into Tek’s snug quarters. Luis and Karele sat on a bed built into the wall. Martin and Rale occupied a bench at a table in the middle of the room. All rose as he entered. Martin’s face distorted, moved from peace to pain.

  “Is it bad?” Errol asked. Perhaps the priest’s experience fighting the compulsion could help him if they could not kill Valon. Maybe there was a way to live with it.

  Martin ignored the question. “Don’t compound my foolishness, Errol. Let this be. I will live or die with the consequences.” A spasm twisted his face.

  Pity wrenched through Errol. No compulsion had ever wracked him like this. What had driven Martin to this extremity? “And leave you like this? Would you do that to me? Speak, Pater.”

  Again he was ignored. Martin reached for Rale. “Before I fulfill my vow, Rale has a request to make of you.”

  Errol’s mentor stepped forward.

  “You came to me an orphan, son.” He chuckled. His smile almost reached his eyes. “Actually, you came to me a drowned rat, more dead than alive.” Rale’s voice cracked. “But there’s more steel in you, boy, than the entire watch has in their armory. Any man would be proud to call you his son. If you’re willing, I’d like to be that man.”