Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  “It is one of the ways we can direct the power of our Goddess.” Cerisia spoke, having glided carefully and quietly across the field to them. “I should have felt it. That I did not speaks ill of me as Fortune’s servant. I am sorry for allowing her to endanger your comrade.”

  I think she endangered herself, Allystaire thought. “It is what you did to this idiot’s crossbow just two nights past, aye?”

  “It was,” Cerisia admitted, her voice not only muffled by the mask, but subdued on its own. Her unreadable, jewel-eyed gaze moved from Gideon, to Allystaire, and back. “Who are you and what did you do to her?”

  The boy didn’t answer immediately. He looked at Allystaire. “I began drawing the power she asked for through her, more than her mind or her will could sustain…”

  “Not Joscelyn,” Cerisia snapped. “Her. Fortune. My Goddess. What did you do to Her?”

  Gideon shrugged. “Nothing of any consequence. She is far too vast for me to do Her any permanent hurt unless I took great risk…”

  She lunged towards Gideon, a wordless cry rising in her throat, hands clenching, only to be barred by Allystaire’s outthrust arm. “Take another step towards the boy, Cerisia, with your body or your mind or your Goddess’s power, and I will treat it as the beginning of a war. There is still a chance to avoid any further bloodshed. Leave before the road is darkened and I will give you Joscelyn’s life.”

  “It is not yours to give!”

  “She forfeit it when she interfered in this Trial. I am trying to show mercy, though I am sure I will come to regret it.” His eyes flicked sidelong to Gideon, who was not, as he’d expected, watching the two of them. Instead, the boy’s head was lowered, his eyes closed, face tightened in an expression of deep concentration.

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “Stop trying to imagine what I would not do and focus on the things I can do. I can take her head, and those of all your men. Begone from this place before dark.”

  “You will want to leave,” Gideon said, “if you want to speak with your Goddess again. I have been,” he waved a hand vaguely, fingers spread, “checking. She is gone from this place, from Thornhurst and its environs. Not forever, by any means. But for a while.” The boy thought a moment, eyes turning skywards before settling back on the priestess.

  Cerisia brought her hands together and muttered something Allystaire couldn’t hear, but the words trailed off into a muffled shriek. Quickly, though, she composed herself, her back stiff, and took a deep breath.

  “What are you?”

  Gideon stared at her, unblinking, then turned to Allystaire, who shrugged.

  “He is the Will of the Goddess. The Fifth Pillar.” Allystaire let out a faint, resigned sigh. “Now begone, Cerisia. At sundown, our doors are closed to you and yours, unless you wish to stay and earn your bread.” He nodded at Gideon, and the boy followed him as he left Cerisia silent in his wake and crossed to Idgen Marte, who knelt on the field, having gathered the broken pieces of her sword.

  “Go on,” she murmured, as he approached. “Tell me you were right about all of it.”

  “I was merely going to suggest that you might want to look over the gear we are confiscating from Fortune’s guards, see about a suitable replacement.”

  “There won’t be one,” Idgen Marte said, looking at the smooth-worn hilt she held delicately in her hands.

  “A sword is just a sword,” Allystaire replied. “I have lost count of the weapons I have carried, broken, or lost. My hammer fits my hand well, but I could replace it if need drove.”

  “Their swords are northern garbage. Islandmen blade? Might as well try to cut a man with a rock. A dull, heavy rock,” she spat. “Keersvast work would be mildly better. But this,” she said, holding the remnant to her eyes, “this was Concordat work. Light, flexible, strong—”

  “And you were a Concordat sword-at-hire. Now you are the Shadow of the Mother. Gather up the pieces and take them to Torvul if you must, but we have work to do.”

  She nodded. “Aye. Let me find a rag to gather them in,” she said as she stood and walked off, the hilt with its half-span of broken steel curving from it still dangling from her hand.

  * * *

  “You can have a pair of bows, and such arrows as my men consent to give you,” Allystaire said, addressing Fortune’s gathered servants as he, Ivar, Renard, Torvul, and Idgen Marte inspected the gear they’d confiscated. “As well as any knife with less than half a span of blade. Everything else stays.”

  Idgen Marte diffidently picked among a pile of swords, shifting them about with a studied frown and one extended hand. She quickly stood and walked off in evident disgust.

  The gathered mercenaries, minus the two that Mol had granted leave to stay, milled around uncertainly. Cerisia sat upon her palfrey as though it were a throne, wearing her furs and silks, but without her mask. Neither the Banner nor the Wheel were in evidence, both broken down and tucked away.

  Joscelyn was slumped over the pommel of a saddle, tied into it. In the turns that had passed, her senses had not returned to her. As she’d been secured into the saddle, Allystaire had used the Goddess’s Gift of healing upon her, but had found nothing to heal. Gerther, his hands bound, was secured to the same pommel Joscelyn slumped over by a long lead.

  “M’lord,” one of the guardsman—the one Allystaire had hit with his own helmet, judging by his swollen, mottled-purple nose—spoke up. “What of Iolantes’s arms?”

  “What of them?”

  “Ought to go to his kin.”

  Allystaire made a show of thinking this over, with pursed lips and a finger tapping heavily against his chin. “Tell them to petition Fortune’s clergy if they are in want of money—he was a loyal temple servant, aye?”

  “What d’ya think they’ll do for ‘em?”

  “Nothing,” Allystaire replied, dropping his hands to his belt. “And when they get that nothing and learn they cannot eat Fortune’s lying promise, nor live in it, nor sleep warm beneath it, tell them to come to Thornhurst and petition the Mother, and they will have what we can spare.”

  He spared a glance then for Cerisia, who refused to acknowledge him or meet his eyes, though on her pale cheeks he thought he spotted a shamed blush.

  “Begone, then. And know that you have seen the Mother’s mercy. Return here with weapons to hand, or plots and deceptions brewing as before, and none of you will leave here alive.”

  Allystaire watched as Cerisia kicked her mount rather too sharply into a trot, leaving the rest of the party hurrying to catch up. Ivar and Renard stood with him till Fortune’s delegation was nothing but a dust cloud.

  “Well,” Allystaire said, “this does a good deal of solving the problem of arming the village, eh?”

  Ivar spat at the ground and said, “Doesn’t do anythin’ for Evert.”

  Allystaire shook his head slightly, and spoke in as kindly a voice he could manage. “Nor would it have done anything if I had killed each and every one of them, Ivar. Evert was my brother of battle, too, and I will mourn his loss, but they paid for it, one man for one man.”

  “And when they come back—and they will—with more men?”

  “Then we will kill them—in defense of our lives, our home. Not for cold vengeance. Surely we can all see the difference.”

  Ivar looked at the ground, spat again. “Lord Coldbourne I served woulda seen ‘em all dead rather ‘an wait only t’fight ‘em again. Woulda called that nonsense.”

  “The Lord Coldbourne you served is dead, Ivar,” Allystaire said. “There is only Allystaire, the Arm of the Mother. Get some rest while you think on it,” he added, and though quiet, there was still a tiny snap of command in the voice.

  Ivar only just avoided clicking her bootheels. “I’ll get the men over t’take charge o’ this lot, get it cleaned up and inspected.” She walked off, boots thudding rather more he
avily into the ground than they needed to, raising clouds of dust as she went.

  Allystaire sighed, and wandered off towards his tent, though he looked sidelong at Idgen Marte and Torvul, who knelt upon the ground, the dwarf examining the broken pieces of her sword, humming quietly to himself.

  Leaving them to it, he walked alone, burdened only by his thoughts and no need to converse, give orders, make demands, or interrogate. My thoughts are plenty burden enough, he told himself. The Longest Night. Two months away, at best. Then he snickered at himself and said aloud, “You are no horologist, old man.” Got to speak to Torvul about the armor. Mol and Gideon about the rain. And the refugees from Bend—ought they to be here by now?

  These thoughts knotted up his shoulders and the muscles of his neck by the time he arrived at his tent and slipped inside.

  A curious scent lingered in the air inside: strong, floral, strange, not at all unpleasant.

  “Cerisia,” he said quietly, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light and searching the space.

  On his writing table he saw a folded sheet of parchment with his name written in a looping and graceful hand.

  He lifted it with two fingers, or started to, but something held it down. As it pulled free of the desk, two objects of like size and weight slid free and gleamed against the wooden slats of the table.

  The topaz eyes from Cerisia’s mask. He scooped them into his hand, felt them cool and smooth and heavy against the calloused skin of his palm, and held the letter up—closer to his eyes than he would’ve liked—to read.

  Allystaire,

  I did mean to avoid bloodshed, and it pains me to know that not only did I fail, but that the deaths are my own fault. Had I watched my own acolytes more closely, or kept a better eye on Iolantes, some kind of accord could have been struck between us. I know you would not accept my Temple’s proposal, but surely any arrangement, any acknowledgment, would be better than what you will now face.

  I still find you an exhilarating man, an enticing man. Yet you are also a frightening man, at turns as warm as the noonday sun, as protective and sheltering as a castle wall, as chilling as the north wind at the turn of the year.

  The certainty I leave here with is that you will always do precisely what you say you will, and that makes you as terrifying as anyone now living.

  I will tell my Church what I have seen, and what I believe, from the above: that you are what the stories say you are, what you claim to be—a Paladin.

  I leave you these gems as a way of chastening myself, and a sign that I am not, I hope, as awful as you may think. I am Fortune’s Priestess, and that is not a life I would willingly set aside for anything. Yet even I can be sympathetic to the life of the folk of Thornhurst, and those like them all over your baronies. Do as you think best with them.

  I leave you also with a word of warning. Whatever it is you plan, whatever change it is you think you can effect in this world, I do not doubt your ability to bring it about. I question your ability to control those who will follow in your wake. Think on this.

  Cerisia

  Allystaire set the letter down and picked up the gemstones. They were cleverly faceted, cut so that one surface was wider than the other, and had been carefully removed from the settings. “Nowhere to spend them now,” he murmured, and went rummaging among his baggage till he found the small, soft sack he was looking for. He took a few moments to work open the knot its strings were tied into, and carefully slid the pair of topazes inside, drawing it tight. Some impulse made him open it back up, however, and pull from it a single piece: the portrait of a woman worked in carnelian. The features were soft and indistinct, as they must be, but the profile was as familiar to Allystaire as his own.

  “When you sent me the Ravens, Audreyn, did you know what you were sending them to? Will I have to ask them to fight a war, alone, against Braech and Fortune and Delondeur, all together?” He sighed, held the gem up to the light, then slid it back into the bag and tucked it away among his things. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and opened the flap of his tent to the afternoon light. “Refugees. Weather. Armor. Palisade,” he murmured, as he stepped out.

  Chapter 26

  The Grip of Despair

  “You’ll have no rest till you satisfy yourself about the refugees from Bend. I know,” Torvul said, as the five Ordained sat around a table in the Inn sharing a quick morning meal. “Ivar and Renard’ll handle the men, and the digging. I’ve got more than enough work to do.”

  “About my armor,” Allystaire began.

  “Another few days,” Torvul said. “Take some of the captured stuff if you simply must strap some inferior iron on.”

  “Everything is wrong without it,” Allystaire said. “I hardly know how to swing my hammer.”

  “You’ll remember how to swing that hammer for years after you’ve died,” Torvul replied, pausing then for a long pull from a mug full of small beer.

  Idgen Marte finished chewing a piece of ham and shrugged. “I could use the ride. I’ll join you.”

  Allystaire looked up at her as she stood, searching for words, but she cut him off.

  “I’ve my bow still, and knives. Don’t even say it.”

  Allystaire pushed away his own mug and the scant crumbs of his thoroughly eaten breakfast. “Gideon? Care for a ride?”

  “I’m not much of a rider,” the boy offered hesitantly.

  “Time to learn, then,” Allystaire said, thinking on his words to the Goddess. There is so much no one has ever taught him. “Come on. My palfrey is still here. It is an easy ride.”

  Mol looked up at them as they all stood, then back at the table, saying nothing. At the glimpse of her dark, unreadable eyes, Allystaire felt a slight chill run down his back. He dismissed it, though, and led Idgen Marte and Gideon to the nearby stables.

  Ardent seemed to know he was coming, sticking his huge, thickly-maned grey head out of his stall. The destrier stamped and shook his head impatiently as Allystaire neared him. Idgen Marte’s brown courser was a bit more subdued. Ardent quieted down as Allystaire retrieved his tack, entered the stall, and began to saddle him.

  The work was familiar to his hands, and his mind drifted, if only for a moment, till he noticed Gideon struggling to lift the palfrey’s saddle. He secured Ardent and went to the boy’s side. After watching him try to lift by tugging on the pommel, Allystaire reached out and laid a hand lightly on Gideon’s wrist.

  “Get your arms under it. It is easier to carry a weight, any weight, when it is atop your arms instead of under them, especially when you have not got much to grab hold of.”

  The boy nodded and slid his arms under the saddle. He still grunted with the effort, but he lifted it and brought it towards the palfrey. Allystaire gave him a hand settling it on the back and with the various straps and buckles, then lifted him by the belt to help him into the saddle.

  “Can I not just ride double with one of you?” Gideon asked as he settled on, trying to fit his feet into stirrups that were just slightly out of his reach.

  “No,” Allystaire replied curtly. “Ardent will bear no one else, and Idgen Marte may have need of her mount’s speed.”

  Without complaint, the boy nodded. With one hand on Ardent’s bridle and another leading the palfrey, Allystaire walked both horses outside, keeping the lead to Gideon’s mount in his hand as he pulled himself into the saddle.

  As soon as he settled on and adjusted his seat, Ardent tensed, the muscles bunching underneath him; the destrier wanted to run. Allystaire held him in check, thinking of Gideon, and with his horse protesting beneath him, he set a mild pace as they headed west.

  A few dozen yards out of the village and Allystaire was suddenly struck by memory of a season ago, leading three animals and trying to keep Mol atop the palfrey, tracking a crew of reavers he knew nothing of, wrestling with his natural impulses to leave it all well enough alo
ne. The girl’s stubborn insistence. All the times he could have left her, could have abandoned her quest for justice. What did it have to do with me? With me as I was then, anyway? Allystaire Coldbourne made more orphans than whoever I am now will save, he thought.

  Not the point, he answered himself silently, as Idgen Marte rode ahead and the palfrey flowed into an ambling gait that let it keep pace with the much larger destrier. The point is that now someone stands with the orphans, instead of making more.

  Suddenly he remembered the heat, the way it baked him, the way it seemed to torture the landscape as he rode out of Oyrwyn and down into Delondeur. Seeking what, anyway? Sword-at-hire work? Getting up a warband? Finding the Ravens? And if the sun is of the Mother, why was it…

  “The weight of sin,” he suddenly spoke aloud, causing Idgen Marte and Gideon both to turn towards him. “Mine,” he added, quietly.

  “Are you talking t’yourself,” Idgen Marte called, over her shoulder.

  “No,” Allystaire shook his head. “No. I was merely remembering the first time I rode this way, with Mol. Were those weeks of summer particularly hot?”

  “Not to me,” Idgen Marte said, “but remember that I was born a good thousand leagues to the south or so. We’ve got it a bit warmer down there.”

  “In my memory, they are the hottest days I have ever lived and I have spent summers campaigning in Innadan dust. I think…I think the heat was the work of the Goddess.”

  “What do you mean?” That was Gideon, peering at him with narrowed eyes.

  “I think She was testing me, even then. There were so many times I could have turned back. So many times the thought came to me, unbidden, that I could abandon the girl’s kith and kin, if not the girl herself. Take her to a temple, find relatives, even a kindly nearby family, convince her that all was lost.”

  “You’d’ve had no luck with that,” Idgen Marte said. “Remember, I was taking your links and drinking on your credit just to watch Mol in a room. She set to talking and next I knew I was skulking around a warehouse full of slaves and watching your back.”