Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  For the briefest moment, Allystaire felt he saw a kind of sense in the Archioness’s words. She was a reasonable woman, and Fortune was no evil, grasping goddess. Certainly it was possible, he found himself thinking.

  Then Mol’s laughter rang out, and reminded him of the times he had heard the Goddess Herself laugh, had seen Her, touched and been touched, been kissed by Her, and something bright and clean and sharp thrummed through him, and he joined the Voice in laughter, as did Idgen Marte and Torvul, and the room filled with it for a moment.

  “You think this is about wealth? You think the Mother can be bought off with bright metal and glittering rocks?” A sneer played over Mol’s face for a moment, then was replaced with a kind of warm, yet poised distance. “You poor woman. You have listened to nothing I have said. The Mother has not come to us to see us gain in riches, but to see us gain in love, in mercy, in charity, and kindness.”

  “Then why do so many of you carry weapons? Why do violence on Her behalf?”

  Mol tsked. “You think to trip us with childish sophistry? There are those who will not accept love, and those who cannot earn mercy, but the truest answer is this—when our arms are raised to give battle, it will be truly in the defense of those who are weak, needful, desperate, suffering. It is not something we do for the Mother; it is something we do for Her people. Love is not a shield unto itself. Can anyone be said to love if they sit passively by and spout congeries of naive platitudes when what they love is threatened?”

  “Then why did your paladin respond violently to my statement? What threat do we pose?”

  “What a silly question. You threatened our very existence. Yet that is not what drove the Arm or the Shadow to their weapons; your acolyte drew his knife first,” Mol pointed out. “And, I would remind you, he is not my paladin. We all serve the Mother and Her people.”

  “And if he bares steel in the presence of the Voice again,” Idgen Marte suddenly put in, her voice as smooth and deadly as a blade as she stared hard at the acolyte Mol had named, “I will have his hand. At least.”

  “Peace, Shadow,” Mol said. “They will remain our guests, though his action could have forfeit that right. I will grant them their surety so long as they remain in peace. That, of course, presupposes they do not wish to simply break camp and leave immediately, given the futility of their mission?”

  “Please give my words thought, all of you,” Cerisia said, her eyes flickering to Allystaire’s end of the table, then back to Mol. “I argued for this course of action, to extend this chance, rather than to simply declare you anathema, to call you heretics. I warn you,” she said, her voice turning urgent and pleading, “that is what will happen if I return to Londray with this answer.”

  “Our faith cannot be brushed aside,” Mol declared, frowning. “Our Goddess is no part of yours.”

  “Very well,” Cerisia sighed, a touch melodramatically. “I do hope you will allow us to stay at least a day or two, in order to recover from our journey—and to speak Fortune’s words to such folk as might see enough sense to listen?”

  Allystaire felt a denial rising in his throat, but Mol cut him off with a simple light laugh. “Speak to them if you will. It is unlikely you will turn folk aside from the Goddess who rescued them from slavery and death.”

  Cerisia nodded and rose slowly. Her eyes lingered briefly on Allystaire, but turned away in hurt from the angry silence they encountered. Without a word, she swept out the door, and the four ordained were left in the semi-darkness, the silence broken only by the creak of the front door and the clatter of departing footsteps.

  Allystaire stood and came to Mol’s side. Placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder, he found her trembling, or shivering as if she were cold. He knelt beside her chair, saw Torvul and Idgen Marte coming towards her in concert.

  “Mol?”

  The girl shook her head and rose on unsteady legs. Allystaire caught her and she fell against him in an exhausted embrace.

  “Sorry,” she murmured against his chest. “’T’were like workin’ all day at haulin’ wood with no beer and bread at the end of it. Goddess but m’tired.” She pushed herself away and stood, keeping one hand against his shoulder.

  “You were brilliant, Mol,” Allystaire said, smiling, feeling a swelling of pride in his chest that he wasn’t sure he had done anything to earn.

  “Aye,” Torvul added. “You were the Goddess’s voice indeed tonight. Masterful.”

  “M’gonna be masterfully and brilliantly ‘sleep,” Mol muttered, her eyes drifting closed and her shoulders starting to slump. Allystaire was close enough, and knew the signs well enough to catch her and lift her small form gently, already asleep, as he stood.

  “I know well what it feels like to have the Mother’s Gifts overtax your body and mind,” Allystaire whispered to Idgen Marte and Torvul. “She will need sleep.” He jerked his head towards the staircase and started to carry Mol there. “We all will.”

  Torvul and Idgen Marte nodded, and the dwarf gestured to the meal’s detritus that lay spread across the table. “Let’s deal with this. Then I’m for bed. Well for a drink and a pipe, but bed at the end of all that.”

  Idgen Marte began to respond with her usual disdain for chores, but Allystaire couldn’t make out her words, as he was already halfway up the stairs, looking at the unconscious girl in his arms. He was not sure why he spoke aloud, but his heart and his throat were swollen with the need to express what he felt, so he whispered, “I could not be prouder of you, Mol. I could not love you more if you were my own daughter.” She could not have heard him, he thought—but then, as he carried her into her room, in the darkness he thought he saw her lips form a smile.

  * * *

  Allystaire brought a cloth-covered bowl back to his tent, the wood hot in his hands after Torvul had done something he wouldn’t explain to warm the heaping pieces of savory pie it held. Navigating by moon and starlight now, he pushed open the flap and stopped immediately inside the pitch dark.

  “Gideon?”

  There was a scratching sort of hiss, then a tiny dot of flame came to life, found a lantern at about knee height, and the interior of the tent suddenly flooded with surprising brightness.

  “What was that?” Allystaire blinked at the sudden light and crossed to where Gideon sat on his cot. He handed over the bowl and took the lantern in exchange. He found a hook along the ridgepole and set it in place.

  “A firestick. Torvul’s been making them and spreading them around. Says it is more efficient than flint and steel.” The book he’d been reading was closed on the cot, and Gideon eagerly pulled away the cloth and began tucking into the pie.

  “A damn sight more, I would say,” Allystaire said. “As you eat, if you can find a moment to pause for breath, I believe I put two questions to you that still need answers. The first—how do we protect the outlying farms?”

  “We don’t have to protect the farms. We have to protect the people on them,” Gideon said.

  Allystaire smiled. “Good answer, though it evades the spirit of the question. How do we do it?”

  “We can’t. Not properly.” The boy hastily swallowed another mouthful. “We haven’t got the men to post out there. We can’t ask the folk there to move here, to trade their livelihood and land for safety.”

  “Stop telling me what we cannot do. Tell me what we can do.”

  “Fine. We can train some of the folk who live there, give them bows and spears.”

  “We will. Ivar could teach a blind, three-legged dog the rudiments of the spear. Still, they are hardly soldiers. And it is our duty to protect them, not to let them serve as pickets.”

  Gideon chewed thoughtfully. “We could build signal fires for them to light at the sign of danger.”

  Allystaire shook his head. “Too much fuel, too much maintenance, too hard to predict; they would have to leave someone at each fire every minute
of the day, ready to light it.”

  The boy suddenly sat up straighter, his food briefly forgotten. “I have it. The early warning bit, at least. Torvul can make small bottles full of something that will ignite on contact with the air. I’m sure he can. They throw the bottle upon the ground, it breaks, it releases a colored gout of flame or smoke into the air.”

  Allystaire straightened his back and crossed his arms. “That idea has merit. Provided Torvul can, and if I suggest that he cannot I am sure he will do it just to spite me. Yes. That will do.” He looked to Gideon, said, “So those are your two best answers? Bows and bottles of flame?”

  “Well,” the boy said, jabbing at his food with his spoon, “Torvul likely could make bottles of real flame they could hurl at attackers.”

  “And no doubt someone would hurl one at a lad or a lass sneaking back home after a late night’s…” he stumbled over the next word, settling on, “mischief.”

  “Then bows and signal bottles are all I have,” Gideon said. “That and quick reaction. It does not…I don’t know that it makes them much safer.”

  “It is a balancing act. We cannot make their world perfectly safe. Nor should we try, for it would reduce them to children. We will do what we can. Now my second question, and then off to bed with you. With both of us, in point of fact,” Allystaire said, even as he helpfully reminded himself silently, You’ve a conversation to have with Keegan before too long.

  “You asked whether someone could wear as much wealth as the priestess did and not be guilty of some ill-defined crime somewhere in the acquisition of it,” Gideon said. “The answer is no, but only on the rhetorical technicality that you never specified anything. When you cast that wide a net, you’re bound to catch something.”

  Allystaire furrowed his brow and lowered his head into his hands. “I may be too tired to follow this, lad, but I will try.” He took a deep breath, ambled a few steps, sank heavily into a chair that creaked as it took his weight. “Do you not see how wearing that much gold in a miserable and war-torn country is a kind of sin in itself? How much suffering could she ease if she stopped and gave some of it away?”

  “This assumes the people she would give it to would have the opportunity to trade it for what they lack, an assumption that is likely to be untrue. They can’t eat the gold itself.” The boy quickly ate another spoonful before continuing. “And how do you know she doesn’t? I saw the clergy of Fortune once or twice in Londray, when my…when Bhimanzir allowed me out of the castle. They were quite liberal about tossing links to beggars.”

  “Were they tossing gold, silver, or copper?”

  He thought a moment. “Probably copper.”

  “They could do more, Gideon. So much more. So could Braech, so could the nobility.”

  “Not doing more is as much a judgment of the frameworks that exist as of the individuals,” Gideon said, prodding at the bowl with his spoon. “If they think they are doing good, or doing right, because it is how they’ve been taught.”

  “Some things are right or wrong no matter what a man or woman has been taught,” Allystaire growled.

  “Yes, but wearing the regalia of her priesthood, which was probably either handed down to her or made specifically for that purpose, is not a sin in itself,” Gideon said almost plaintively. “I think you are too quick to anger. She could be our ally.”

  “She told us plainly that she came here as an envoy to seek to fold the Mother’s church into hers, to claim that the Mother is merely some newly risen aspect of Fortune.”

  Gideon’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth. “That’s absurd,” he said, letting the utensil fall down and clatter against the bowl.

  “Aye,” Allystaire agreed. “Yet apparently it is politics. I knew her visit meant us nothing good. When she returns and tells them we have refused, it is likely the three great temples will turn against us in unison, declare us a heresy.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “A host of things, none of them good.” As if bandits, the Baron, sorcerers, and refugees from Bend incoming weren’t enough, Allystaire reminded himself. “I think this is enough talk for the night. I need to find what sleep I can, as do you. Good night, Gideon. Rest well.”

  The boy stood. He hesitated a moment before saying, “Rest well,” and then he slipped out the back of the tent.

  Allystaire tugged off his boots and his new linen shirt, setting the latter carefully on the table, and then slipped the hammer from his belt and rested it, haft pointing up, by the side of his cot, which he fell heavily into. Details of the day began to fill his mind. What does a nightjar sound like? How long till Bend’s refugees get here—are they coming here? We should be scouting. Mistrust Cerisia’s guards. As soon as he thought of the Archioness, though, his mind filled, nearly instantly, with the way her figure tugged at her dress, how her hair looked unbound and spilling down her back, and the way her eyes had smoldered when he had raised his voice.

  Embarrassed, flushed in the dark, he pushed the thought away and quickly found sleep.

  Chapter 22

  Temple Politics

  Prodded by the damnable call of some bird or other, Allystaire woke up quickly. The hammer came easy to his hand as he stood, blinking against the light. Left the lamp lit, you old fool, he thought, then lifted it off the hook and walked to the edge of the tent, hammer dangling from one hand, lamp in the other.

  He pushed the flap back with the head of the hammer and peered into the darkness, stymied by how he’d ruined his own night vision. He let out a sigh, and finally, softly, called out into the night.

  “Keegan?”

  A tall, lean shape suddenly materialized off the ground and, as it moved into the small pool of light, resolved itself into the former Oyrwyn scout. Allystaire stepped aside and Keegan walked into the tent.

  He still wore his tattered scout’s leathers, but they’d been sewn and patched with care. His red-tinged brown beard was trimmed and his hair bound in a loose queue that lay upon his neck, and he carried an unstrung bowstave almost as tall as himself.

  “Where did you find that?” Allystaire said, pointing with his chin at the bow while he set the lantern back upon its hook.

  “I found a supply o’well-seasoned wood just ready for the carving, carefully wrapped and hidden, buried under a tree. Was there a bowyer in this village?” Keegan studied the furniture in the tent, and Allystaire gestured to a chair as he sat back down on his cot, groaning inwardly at the temptations of sleep that it offered.

  “Not that I know. Could have just been a farmer who knew his way around wood.”

  “Or a poacher making sure he’d not go short. I need some string and wax, but otherwise they’re just about ready,” Keegan said as he slowly eased himself onto the chair by Allystaire’s paper-strewn table.

  “Good,” Allystaire said, then added, “Provided you mean to use it to defend yourself or to eat.”

  “I’ve nothin’ else in mind m’lord, I swear it,” Keegan said wearily.

  “I believe you, but mistrust is in my nature. I apologize.” There was a moment of heavy silence before he went on. “You could come live in the village, you know, you and the other men.”

  Even in the dim light of the lamp, which was, by now, surely low on oil, Allystaire could see Keegan’s pained frown, and waited till the expression resolved into a heavy sigh.

  “We’ve talked about it, m’lord, but…the world of men is…crowded now. Loud. We’re only just learning to become men again ourselves.” He stopped for a moment, toyed idly with his bowstave, looked down to his feet. “I think I’m doin’ the best of us at that, at rememberin’. And I’m none too good at it.”

  Allystaire didn’t linger in the silence this time. “What can we do about that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Silence reigned heavy for a moment again, and Allystaire finally said, “You might want t
o start thinking about it a little more like a man instead of a child waiting to be told what to do.”

  “You’ve no right—”

  “I have every right. Were it not for us, you would still be a mad beast, bound to the whim of a dying god. Maybe it is time to start thinking of what you can do in earnest thanks.”

  The silence was even heavier this time. Allystaire heard the wood in Keegan’s hands creak as he wrapped his fists tightly around it, and he slowly began easing his hand towards his hammer.

  “We’re grateful. And ya deserve our thanks. I’m man enough still to admit that,” Keegan said. “Some o’the others I’m not so sure of. One barely speaks; he grunts and howls.”

  Allystaire put his hand back into his lap and leaned forward. “Idgen Marte can help with that. She’s a gift for easing the mind. It might be worth asking her.”

  Keegan nodded, breathed out heavily. “I will do, m’lord.”

  “You can stop calling me that, you know. I am no lord anymore.”

  “How in the Cold did that happen? I didn’t think you lot could simply walk away like a common soldier,” Keegan said, a bit of joviality inflecting his voice for the first time.

  “I walked away ahead of writs of exile. Maybe just a step in front the headsman.”

  “The Old Baron would’ve never…well, if you don’t mind me sayin’, among the soldiers we all sort of thought the old man might name you his heir after Ghislain was killed.”

  Allystaire snorted. “I was in his favor, but not so that he would throw over his own issue for me.” He sighed. “Took that death hard, though. But Gerard Oyrwyn was ever practical. I know he thought he could get a new wife with child before he would have to truly hand things over to Gilrayan.”

  “And t’were him what banished you?”