Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  “How many can fit inside the walls?”

  “All that need to,” Allystaire replied.

  There were new tents thrown up near the one Allystaire had been staying in since they returned to Thornhurst in the midst of fall, and a line of horses picketed together outside the stable to which Allystaire led Ardent and Idgen Marte’s courser. The villagers he dispersed to the tender care of Mol, Timmar, and Renard, all of whom were waiting near the Temple, within close sight inside the nearly complete walls. The girl was already moving among them, touching a hand, speaking, guiding them to shelter and rest. The children, in particular, seemed to flock to her, though there was something more distant than usual about the little priestess.

  Once Allystaire and Idgen Marte had some distance from the others, she asked him, “What’s wrong with Mol? And what did Gideon do?”

  “Mol says that as winter deepens and the days shorten, it is harder for her to hear the song of the Mother. She is not gone, our Gifts do not wane—at least I have not felt it to be so—but what Mol hears and feels is different from what I do. It frightens her, I think.”

  “I’m not thrilled knowin’ She can weaken with the season myself,” Idgen Marte said.

  “I do not think She is weaker. I think that Mol…the girl has lived with the Mother whispering to Her, watching her, teaching her, every day for months now. If that is gone, or harder to hear, it is bound to be troubling.”

  “And what if the Mother’s Gifts weaken in us on this Longest Night you prattle about? What then?”

  “Then I will fight our enemies with my own strength, and you will sew my wounds, and Torvul will poison everyone. It will be quite nostalgic.”

  Despite herself, Idgen Marte laughed. Allystaire clapped her on her newly repaired shoulder, and said, “And now for the guests who arrived the night you set out.”

  “They look like armed men, anyway, if their horses are anything to judge by. Bit run off their feet, but good mounts.”

  Allystaire led her towards the new tents, rapped a knuckle sharply against the pole, and threw back the flap.

  Inside, wrapped in a heavy grey cloak and looking older than when she’d last seen him, but with the unmistakable features Allystaire had pointed out months back in the Dunes, was Chaddin, formerly sergeant Chaddin, briefly reigning Baron of Delondeur, natural son of Lionel Delondeur.

  His blond hair was longer and a bit ragged, and his cheeks bore a new scar, but it was him.

  “What in the Cold are you doing here, you freezing moron?” Idgen Marte’s shout surprised both Allystaire and Chaddin, and the two men sharing the tent with the latter both hopped to their feet.

  The larger of the two, a young man with anger brightly firing in his eyes, got two steps towards her with a hand falling to his sword and a haughty, “You mind your tongue when you speak to your rightful Ba—” before Allystaire’s fist took him in the stomach and blew the breath out of him. Allystaire stepped back and let him crumple to the ground, then he turned on a clearly astonished and suddenly ashen-faced Chaddin.

  “I let you and your men in here under very specific terms,” Allystaire said, as he stood over the wheezing man. “One of them, as I recall, was that if any of them bared steel without my express permission, I reserved the right to expel all of you. I also recall having issued explicit statements about calling anyone the rightful lord or true baron of anything inside these walls, which, as far as I am concerned, are no longer part of any barony. Discipline your men. Or I shall. Understood?”

  Chaddin nodded mutely, swallowing hard. “Aye.”

  To the man on the ground, Allystaire bent down. “And you—next time I will not stop with taking your breath. Let this be a lesson. When I say a thing, I mean it. Understood?”

  Still struggling to find a breath that he couldn’t quite catch, the man nodded. Meanwhile, the other attendant—older and quieter than the first one—came over, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s get some air into you,” he muttered. “Do you good.”

  After the two exited, Chaddin sighed heavily, eyeing Allystaire wearily. “Did you have to hit Rasby? He’s a good man, just excitable.”

  “If he hadn’t punched him, I’d’ve killed him,” Idgen Marte replied flatly. “And I still haven’t got an answer out of you. Why are you here?”

  “Solace. Help. I haven’t come seeking any obeisance or fealty. I just thought you could help us.”

  “What happened to your rebellion?”

  “I don’t quite know,” he said with an inadequate shrug. “I was used to leading men, just not quite so many of them. Things turned quickly. Boatfuls of men loyal to the Baron—or at least to the Baron’s weight—poured into the harbor, led by Landen Delondeur come back from Keersvast. There was another sorcerer with them, or so they say. All I know is I was woken in the night by my best knights telling me we had to flee the castle and that Lionel Delondeur had been broken free of his confinement.”

  “I told you once and I will tell you again,” Allystaire said, “you should have hanged him from the highest tower the instant you had his seat.”

  “It isn’t done,” Chaddin replied, pressing his lips into a flat line. “You don’t depose and execute a reigning baron without appropriate proceedings, especially with the inheritance an open question given Delondeur’s practices. Braech’s church had agreed to oversee the matter.”

  “If you had wanted to stay in the baronial seat, it is exactly what you should have done,” Allystaire said. “Now that the Shadow has returned, we can convene and decide whether we will grant you refuge. You can stay at least through the morning. Now we have work to do.”

  “If you’d only listen to my offer, I could make your hopes for this place a reality,” Chaddin said, surging to his feet, slight desperation in his voice.

  Allystaire, though, was already on his way out of the tent and into the oncoming dusk.

  Idgen Marte followed after him, but not without a dark look back at Chaddin.

  Outside, she found Allystaire massaging his knuckles. She jabbed him in the ribs with a finger to get his attention. “You probably didn’t need to hit the boy.”

  “You have not listened to his lot prattle on about rightful this and rebellion that. It was high time one of them got his wind knocked out.”

  “How many men did he bring?”

  “Just over a score.”

  She sighed heavily. “We could use them.”

  “At what price?”

  “What’s the offer he spoke about?”

  “I will answer in council—which we had better get to.” He pointed towards the Temple, which Torvul had just exited. As they started walking, the wind brought to their ears the low and rolling wave of his voice, lifted up. Everything seemed to stand still around it; the wind quieted, the sounds of a village at dusk gave way to silence, the sinking sun fought for a few more moments of hard-won light.

  They could make out no words, for as usual when he sang in his native tongue, it blurred together into one unbroken line of resonant sound. Allystaire felt it settling over him like a soft rain falling over a field, was reminded of Torvul’s voice pulling him from the brink of a dark end some months ago.

  They saw folk on their way from the day’s labor, or back out the gate to their farms, pause to listen, could feel it sinking into each one of them, to the stones and the mud and the slumbering grass of the place around them.

  Just as quickly as they were caught in this reverie, the song ceased, and the dwarf took a deep breath, and seated himself on the top step of the Temple. He was taking deep breaths and clutching a small silver flask.

  “Voice gets harder t’find, the older I get,” the dwarf said as they trotted up the steps towards him. “Twenty years ago, or thirty, I could’ve drawn that on a full quarter turn.”

  “You know dwarf, you could make good weight sin
ging bass for a troupe of musical players,” Idgen Marte said. “You’d be the envy of the circuit.”

  He looked up sharply at her and drew himself back to his feet. “It’ll startle you to hear this, I’m sure, but among my people, singin’ for links is simply not done. I’d never take gold for a song. Not any amount,” he added, with conviction.

  “What were you singing?” Allystaire asked, breaking the silence that ensued for a few moments after the dwarf’s pronouncement.

  “A declaration, an invitation—I was calling this my home and inviting my friends and my family to share it. Telling them that while they rest here, nothing that I have the means to stop will ever harm them. Inviting them to share the safety of its walls, the warmth of its hearth, and the bounty of its table.”

  “When was the last time you sang that?”

  Torvul squinted up at Allystaire. “When did you get so clever as to ask that kind of question?”

  “It is a simple question with a simple answer.”

  The dwarf grunted noncommittally and turned into the Temple. “Come along then. We’ve a lot to discuss.”

  They found Mol and Gideon waiting for them in front of the altar, and a few others sitting on benches nearby—Keegan, Ivar, and Renard foremost among them.

  Allystaire turned a quick, worried eye on Gideon. The boy, usually so oddly, intently focused, was distracted, his gaze continually drawn towards the clerestories Mol had been so insistent upon building. Allystaire cleared his throat discreetly, and the boy’s wide eyes flitted back to the gathering council. And, Allystaire noted, stayed there.

  “We all know what we need to discuss,” Allystaire said, his voice filling up the space and drawing all eyes to him. “We have an upstart baron in our midst, and he wishes to negotiate with us. With him, he brought over a score of fighting men, their weapons and supplies. We all know that our enemies are closing in on us. Keegan tells me that Delondeur scouts are sniffing not far away. Meanwhile, Gideon says that a party of men—two hundred or more—have made from Londray and appear to be headed here, skirting the mountains. Given the banners he has described, I think that Baron Lionel Delondeur travels with them.”

  “I have news as well,” Idgen Marte said. “It’s known among the folk who travel the roads—minstrels, players, and such—that Thornhurst is to be avoided. Even the promise of ready links couldn’t change their minds. It may not seem like much, but trust me, it’s bad. And there’s worse,” she added, turning and surveying their faces. “A proclamation of Anathemata has been issued by Braech and Fortune’s temples, and endorsed by the Baron. All who worship the Mother are outlaws—and the hunting has begun. If it’s so in Ashmill Bridge, likely enough it’s so in Birchvale and Ennithstide and Londray, and soon enough it’ll be so in Oyrwyn and Innadan and Telmawr. There were Baronial soldiers among the greenhats in Ashmill, and they were ready to hang folk who met in the Mother’s name.”

  “The priestess was right, then,” Torvul said. “Anathemata. Hobnail boots and truncheons and hangings. Burning at the stake.”

  “We knew it was coming,” Allystaire replied. “What we did not know was that we would have Chaddin in our midst.”

  “I say we use him to work a deal,” Ivar put in sourly. “Give the Baron what he wants, see if it’ll buy us a winter’s rest.”

  Allystaire turned towards the warband captain, eyes hard as frost. “Truly, Ivar? You would throw away a life, a score of lives, for a few more months of your own?”

  Ivar returned Allystaire’s gaze and the room was still for a moment. “I s’spose I might do it t’buy the lives of all the folk who live here since it’s them I’m protectin’,” she finally, slowly said.

  “No one who comes seeking the Mother’s refuge will be turned over to a man like Lionel Delondeur,” Mol put in, her voice distant, her eyes focused on the middle distance. “That is final.”

  “And we’re takin’ our strategy from a child,” Ivar muttered.

  “No,” Allystaire said, “I am taking direction from a priestess and prophet, and you are taking orders from me. If there is something you find troubling about the latter part of that arrangement, I believe the contract can be altered as soon as you are prepared to return your advance pay. On the former, I do not require your opinion.”

  Ivar went sullen, folding her hands into her lap.

  “If we’re done measurin’ our manhoods,” Torvul said, clearing his throat loudly, “then it’s time to make a decision—we haven’t offered the bastard baronling his asylum yet. What has he offered?”

  Allystaire let out a long-held breath, his shoulders slumping a moment before he pulled them back upright. “He believes we can weather an attack—I suppose he must believe it. And that if the Baron is bloodied, support will evaporate. Says he has only second-rate troops and swords-at-hire who will vanish in the snows. Chaddin wants asylum now, and,” here, he frowned before carefully going on, “aid. In the future, and when he becomes Baron, he will grant Thornhurst independence from Baronial rule, formally recognize the Mother’s Temple in Londray, and establish a chapel at the Dunes.”

  “What aid is he asking for?” Idgen Marte leaned forward, her eyes narrow and lips pressed thinly together. Her tone suggested she knew the answer.

  Allystaire he forced himself to meet Idgen Marte’s piercing brown eyes. “Me leading the army that establishes him in the Seat.”

  “You can’t,” Mol said, her voice smaller and quieter than he remembered it being for a long time. “The Mother forbade that kind of glory for you.”

  “It would not be about glory, Mol,” Allystaire said quietly, earnestly. “It would be about the Mother’s people, about securing their future.”

  “It’s hardly a well-shored up tunnel,” Torvul said. “There’s the rather sizable problem of the Baron. And his armies. And the Dunes.”

  “We’ve already proven that no castle wall can keep us out, you and I,” Idgen Marte replied.

  “So what are we to be, then? Assassins in the night?” Gideon finally spoke up.

  “Isn’t it better for one man to die clean than hundreds or thousands to die over him?” Idgen Marte fixed Gideon with a sharp look, which the boy met with calm poise.

  “If you mean in a protracted battle or siege—if I had the energy, and I suspect I still do, I could simply pull the walls of the Dunes down,” the boy replied softly. “Or put men on the other side of it. Or pluck him from his tower.”

  “Remember what you promised me, Gideon,” Allystaire said.

  “Then remember who you are,” the boy replied, a little heat creeping into his voice. “Does the Mother truly take sides in these kinds of struggles? In politics?”

  “I feel pretty certain suggestin’ that Her Ladyship ain’t on the Baron’s side,” Torvul mused. He turned to Allystaire. “You’re certain you can win?”

  “I am not certain we can hold Thornhurst just yet, but I think our chances might be a lot Cold-damned better with Chaddin and his men inside our walls. As for after—if the Baron is beaten once, at one of his own villages? Men will abandon him, and many will be easily persuaded to rise against him. Especially if we sing loud and long of the truth of his crimes. For all the wrong we have done to the common people of the baronies, we never put them in literal chains or subjected them to thralldom.”

  Mol looked as if she wanted to speak, but instead she slumped into her chair, shaking her head.

  “That his crimes deserve punishment does not mean we fight a war to lift up his replacement,” Gideon said, his voice rising angrily. “If we fight a battle to defend ourselves, so be it—we have that right. But we are not swords-at-hire! Look straight at it, Allystaire—that’s what you’ve taught me to do. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still wrong. It is not what She has called us to do.”

  Allystaire sighed, lowered his eyes to the floor, then lifted them up again. “The boy
—the Will of the Mother—is right. We cannot do this. Dip our hands into those streams of politics and war even once, and we are forever tainted by them.” He sagged. “Sometimes I feel as though the Goddess has set us at war against the world itself—against the slight and meaningless circumstances that lift one man over another, that give one family generations of wealth and power while others toil endlessly for their bread. I do not know how to unravel what we have made of this world, or how to make those circumstances any more just.” He shook his head, straightened his back and shoulders.

  “Like as not, who is rich and who poor will never be subject to what is just. Yet there is a difference between destroying a man for the evil he has done, and will continue to do, and destroying him because his children squabble over which of them should inherit his mantle. I will defend them, if they will stay. I will not fight their war for them.”

  Mol bounded to Allystaire’s side, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face against him. He clutched her shoulder.

  “And if they take exception to that decision?” That was Renard, sitting up straighter. “They’ve got enough men to give us trouble.”

  “They haven’t got enough men to give me trouble,” Gideon said very quietly. “Nor the rest of us. And besides, it will be in their best interest to stay. Surely Chaddin is cunning enough to see that.”

  “So we’ll be putting about three score men up against two hundred, if it breaks in our favor?” Ivar’s face was sourly twisted once more.

  “No, Ivar,” Allystaire replied with a confident smile. “Against two hundred, we will put three score with the Arm of the Mother at their head, Her shadow beside him, and Her Will and Wit and Voice behind.”

  Chapter 33

  Battle is Joined

  “That is our decision, and it is final,” Allystaire said, with the air of a man repeating himself, thick arms crossed over his broad chest. Torvul stood at his elbow, leaning a bit on his long bronze-shod walking stick-cudgel.

  “But the man is in a weak position,” Chaddin insisted, pacing the far corner of his tent. “He must destroy you before the next campaigning season and his support is waning.”