The Devotion of Delflenor

by R. Cooper

  She should have loved the warm waters. Her thoughts were on an icy pond instead.

  Ona came to stand next to Tay, a bundle of clothing under mer good arm, the replacements to what Tay had carried off earlier with his nose wrinkled.

  “Sorry it took so long,” Ona said promptly, before setting the bundle on the floor. “I had to borrow some clothes. I wasn’t sure where Delf keeps their things.”

  “In little hidey-holes all over, instead of a room.” Ange gave Delf a pointed look.

  “Perhaps it didn’t feel right to claim a room,” Tay remarked, while nudging the bundle and considering it critically. “Although it would have made assignations easier.”

  “Assignations?” Ona echoed, eyebrows raised.

  Delf pulled her hair from her eyes. “There is nothing wrong sharing a bed with friends on occasion or with not choosing a room. You sound like… someone else.”

  Ona’s expression went gentle, though Ange was practically smirking. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with it.” Delf was possibly being pitied by a squire. She chose not to comment. Ona only grew thoughtful. “They weren’t right for you, or you would have done something else. It’s only that, today made me think… well, there were always whispers.”

  Delf stared at Ona and only Ona before clearing her throat. “Whispers? About just me, I hope.”

  Whatever was in Delf’s stare made Ona glance to the two knights watching this. “Well,” ame began slowly, “some of the instructors seemed to think it was funny, you volunteering for this mission. And then I realized that must be why…”

  “Delf, you’re not washing yourself,” Tay interrupted Ona there, kinder than Ange. “Do you need someone to do it for you?” He did not ask flirtatiously.

  Nonetheless, Delf stiffened, even though two of the people standing over her had done far more intimate things to her than scrub her down with soap.

  “Ah,” Ange said with too much understanding.

  “What?” Tay turned to Ange in confusion.

  “I’ll just… fetch something for you to eat,” Ona muttered and vanished within the space of a heartbeat. Delf had no interest in food, but it was too late to call mer back.

  Ange crossed her arms. “Our Delf is worried about what our Prit will think.”

  “Oh, that,” Tay replied dismissively. “She will think what she always thinks, when she wakes from this spell. Which she will, once Delf worries over it until she reaches an answer.”

  “You’re putting a great deal of faith in me,” Delf argued, and busied herself with wiping the water from her face so she would not think of Prityal saying much the same.

  “Are we?” Ange wondered. “If you had ridden with urgency but with some care for yourself, you still could not have reached the road where I found you as fast as you did. You risked yourself, you even risked Kee, to get her here when you did. What wouldn’t you do for her?”

  “Everything—except die.” Tay planted his feet, but then held his hand before his face as if examining his fingernails. Ange looked at him with surprise and then at Delf with disapproval as she understood.

  “You fuck.” Ange’s glare was intense. “Do you think your loss wouldn’t also devastate us?”

  “Being down two knights would obviously be a blow…”

  “Yes, we cannot afford to be out two knights of skill.” Ange shook her head impatiently. “But your loss, Delf’s loss, would devastate us, too.”

  Tay abandoned the study of his nails. “We need knights, good ones, and you are that. And patient instructors, which you are. But we also need Delf. If it helps, Prit would agree.” Delf regarded him blankly. Tay turned to Ange. “Spirits save me from her willfulness.”

  Ona returned, having ventured not very far, to the kitchens, and returned with a large clay cup. Ame offered it to Delf, while staring pointedly elsewhere. Delf did not want it, but accepted it and took a drink of hot broth just to appease everyone.

  “Drink,” Ange ordered, “then scrub up or dry off and let us discuss what needs to be done to save Prityal.”

  “And I’ll comb your hair to spare your arm,” Tay offered.

  “No.” Delf stopped him immediately, but then gentled her tone and explained although they were all going to tease her for it. “Only Prityal can arrange my hair. I promised.”

  She did not expect Ange to sigh in relief before she grinned wickedly. “A promise like that? You must tell me about this quest and what happened on it.”

  Delf vowed not to do that, ever, and took another sip of broth. It tasted of nothing and made her stomach turn, but it was easier to look at than the light in her friends’ eyes. “I also promised I would save her.” She imagined their smiles faded with the reminder of Delf’s failure. “It was arrogant and foolish, but I could not say no, not to her.”

  “What of it was foolish?”

  The quiet, sincere question brought Delf’s head up.

  Ona looked between the three of them. “You have as much a chance as any other knight. Perhaps more, since you witnessed it all, and you know her.”

  “More of a chance, I’d say,” Tay remarked, and glanced up to Ange. Ange still had her arms crossed, which made her forbidding, but she nodded in agreement. As one, the two of them looked to Delf, who was bent awkwardly, naked and clutching a cup. Ona, frowning slightly, was watching Tay as he elaborated. “You do it differently than Jareth, but you also think things through quietly in your corner.”

  Ange coughed. “At least until she has enough wine to pretend she doesn’t.”

  “Or has it spanked out of her,” Tay added.

  Both of them thought they were funny.

  Ona stared at Delf with open curiosity. “If Prityal made you promise, then she asked you to do it.” Ona was young, and so could stay sunny despite the still-healing, painful wound across mer shoulder. “So she thought you could.”

  Suddenly, Delf’s three judges were now considering Delf in an entirely different way.

  “Or she knew you could,” Ange amended, speaking slowly. Delf shook her head but Ange would not be stopped. “Did this Rosset truly think Prityal would find our chevetein?”

  Delf’s stomach roiled again. She had to drag the words from her throat. “He thought it was her, at first, the way everyone does. But something changed his mind.”

  “Do you think she will?” Ona seemed to find it all fascinating. Delf supposed it was, if one pretended it was all something from a story.

  “If anyone could, it would be Prityal.” Delf’s agreement was reluctant. “She has always had the eye of the Three. She made herself a hero for Them, for Ainle. If They did not want her to lead as chevetein, then They must want her to lead here, perhaps to aid the great chevetein that Rosset thinks we are to have. He says we are in times of legend again. This is not a good beginning.”

  “It is if she lives, and she does what he says she would do.” Ona’s sunshine would have appealed to Prityal. Delf was not prepared for it.

  “It’s shit.” Delf gestured with the mug, splashing some broth into the tub. “She’s given nearly all of herself already. Then she turns to help me, and a knight who should have protected her uses magic on her, because he was thwarted or angry or… this is Their plan? Is this how we are to learn that we should not have forgotten the ways of magic-users? Bullshit.”

  “Ah. She’s thinking again,” Tay observed.

  “I’ve never seen Delf angry before,” Ona whispered.

  Ange tutted. “It’s never for herself. That’s why.”

  Delf held the cup out until someone took it from her. “I am done with this bath,” she announced shortly before pushing herself to her feet. She crossed her arms over her chest while dripping water, and then was unsurprised when it was Ona who got her a towel. “If the three of you are done, I will dress. I have been seen to. Cared for. It’s enough for now.”

  Ange was abruptly serious again. “Tell us again what Prit said when she handed you this quest.”

  Delf hadn�
�t said it before, but dried herself without correcting her. She stepped out of the tub with the help of Tay’s arm, and wobbled as she accepted the collection of clothes. Breeches, but no hose. A belt and an undershirt, and a knight’s long-sleeved tunic. A cloak of blue dyed wool. A pair of well-worn boots. She sat on the floor to put those on and lace them, ignoring the pulling ache in her arm.

  “Prityal said many things,” Delf said at last. “She was under the spell by then.”

  “Tell us anyway,” Tay said reasonably.

  There was no reason to believe Prityal knew how to end the magic. She would have said if she had. But Delf did not want to take any chances.

  “That she had faith in me,” Delf revealed quietly, her eyes on her borrowed boots. “That I’m like a priest, but I got wrong answers because I wasn’t asking the right questions. That… I should put myself forward in more things.” She cleared her throat. “All of it was likely the magic.”

  She dragged her fingers through her wet hair to comb it, sending droplets over her knees and shoulders. She shivered at the chill as she stood up to wring her hair over the tub. “She was confused or mistaken. I might hold a key I do not know of, but I am an ordinary person, and this begins a time of legend.” Delf twisted her hair at her nape, shuddering as more water streaked down her back. “Knights of legend were also ordinary people, yes, but I am…” She trailed off, tired and cold all over again. “I only know that I don’t know enough. It is ludicrous that I should be the one to do this. There are better knights, better priests. I am not anything except…”

  Delflenor the Most Stubborn

  An epithet earned at last, if not in glory. People had heard it, and it would be repeated throughout the barracks, and would likely stick.

  “Have I seemed so to everyone?” Delf raised her head. “She said… she said that it’s the quality that might save us but that it also hurt her.” Delf took a deep breath. “For her to call me stubborn…. When she will go without sleep rather than slightly bother her friends, and silently grow jealous over a begley because she could not believe I would want only her.”

  Ange’s eyes lit up. “What in the name of Aji happened on this mission?”

  Delf forgot her momentary ire and disbelief and looked up to Ange. “I was permitted near a legend. Knowing she is human only made her more dear to me.”

  “The Ladylord of Devotion.” Tay spoke nearly as softly as Prityal. “Perhaps that is the answer.”

  “So you won’t let this happen?” Ona made it a question, but nodded as though the outcome was already decided. Then ame smiled.

  Delf returned her attention to Ange, her lips parted with arguments that wouldn’t come.

  Ange snorted. “I’ve been fucking telling you that.”

  Delf closed and opened her mouth. “Apparently, I’m stubborn,” she said at last, faintly.

  “You know, there are better knights.” Tay stated facts dispassionately and was correct. Ranalaut, for one, was near unstoppable. “But that doesn’t mean they are the right ones for this. No one is asking you to fight a tyrant or a wild beast. Though you could. I know your skills.”

  “That would be simpler.” Delf wanted to snarl at him but managed calm. “At least what I needed to do would be known. This, her future, our future, is uncertain, and it relies on me to save us? There is nothing more absurd. I was too difficult a child for anyone but the remarkable Brennus to handle, and not near as worthy as a priest ought to be. I held back when I should have stepped forward, as she herself has told me. Yet she trusts me to do the impossible. Me.” Delf’s throat was tight. More water dripped down her neck. She waited before them, a bedraggled, soggy figure, unable to stand for long without trembling.

  All of them regarded her as if seeing something else entirely.

  Delf could not maintain their stares and faced only Ange. “How is it you are even here? You should have been traveling when my message reached the Seat.”

  Ange waved this off as unimportant. “There were heavy rains, and a river came over its banks, blocking the road after only two days of travel. So we turned back to wait.”

  “Early for heavy rains,” Delf commented with surprise. But Ange was not one to question as Delf was. She shrugged.

  “Well?” Ona cut in, younger and impatient. Prityal would have been much the same, at any age. She would not understand anyone dragging their feet as long as they had a direction.

  There were two directions that Delf saw. Sit vigil. Or quest.

  Prityal would choose the latter without hesitation.

  Delf looked from Ange’s great height to Tay’s uneven shoulders and then to Ona’s braids looped around mer’s ears. Ange’s grin was bloodthirsty. Tay was more guarded, unsmiling, though his eyes were warm. Ona was shaking with excitement or nerves.

  Delf, in contrast, felt very still despite the weight on her chest. “I have already vowed to save her.”

  Ange gathered her close in a crushing hug that stole Delf’s air. “You will succeed.”

  “But,” Tay continued.

  “But,” Ange went on pointedly, letting Delf go, “just in case, Rosset must be investigated, and we must prepare for journey to take him. I will say goodbye to Prityal before I leave, whether she wakes or not.” Her smile was too sweet to be a smirk. “Do you need me to pass on a message?”

  Delf blinked several times. She gazed at them all, then swallowed. “Tell her I am here.” They would not understand. Delf didn’t know if even Prityal would understand. “Tell her… she doesn’t need to push. I am here.” Prityal had been dreaming or under the influence of magic. She had told Delf to go where Delf had already thought she was going—to the Seat. But Prityal had insisted, with as much strength as she’d had.

  Delf frowned before focusing on the moment, and the knights, and one almost-knight, waiting for her.

  Prityal hadn’t meant the barracks.

  Delf looked at Ange. “Tell her I will go to the Seat.”

  She didn’t bother to find an explanation despite their confusion. She left, her intentions a muddle, but her path, for once, clear.

  Nineteen

  the stone in the stream

  THE WALK TO the stone in the stream was familiar to a point. As a child, Delf had usually kept going on the path from the village to the top of the hill, and the chevetein’s house.

  Back then, she had often lingered in the village. Today, she walked as quickly as her body would allow, although with no food and barely any rest, she had to stop more than once.

  With the sun hidden behind clouds, she could only guess how long until sunset. The clouds were growing thicker and darker, threatening rain that could no longer be avoided. The air was chill, the wind sharp. The market vendors had stayed in their stalls. Everyone else in the village had stopped in doorways or the pubs, waiting, Delf was certain, for news of Prityal.

  Delf pulled the hood of her cloak over her wet hair and walked faster.

  Ask better questions, Prityal had said, as if the Three were simply waiting to indulge Delf’s curiosity.

  But They had already. Delf had made jokes about it, but They had warned her, first with the cut on her arm, and then about Prityal’s wound. The stag, if that had been a message as well, Delf was less clear on. But this probably was not the time to ask about that.

  She needed an answer. A good answer. Which meant she had to ask right and pay attention. She might manage it, but it was too much to ask for her to be respectful as well. Not on this day.

  She was not at the shrine yet when the first question tripped off her tongue. “You needed Ange to be here?” she asked the sky and the clouds and the sun. “Does disaster loom? There are other knights you could recall here, if trouble approaches.” But Delf might not have trusted other knights with Prityal, a fact she was forced to admit to herself as she hobbled to the shrine.

  The wind continued to stir the grass and the occasional tree that stood along the side of the road toward the hill. The road was quiet once the vil
lage was behind her. Intentionally so, Delf had always thought, and looked up, as everyone did, to the hill that rose from seemingly nowhere.

  It was not nearly high enough to claim the title of mountain. It was not even a large hill. Flattened at the top, perhaps centuries ago, for the home and grounds of the chevetein, with circles of earth descending around the rest of it that had long grown over with grass. The circles marked the winding road that led to the top, and were probably also ancient defenses. At the base was a small building. The Shrine, built over part of the spring. There was a tunnel, not always known to villagers, from a place near the shrine that went up through the hill to the top. The path through the tunnel was shorter, if steep.

  Brennus had walked this quiet road with a mind full of questions, if Rosset was to be believed.

  That name was a breath on a sparking fire. Delf tamped the anger down although the spirits would feel it.

  “How did you answer Brennus?” They would not respond to that, but Brennus, at least, was safe to wonder about as Delf walked. “The Layabout.” She’d never seen that, but she had been a child. She would have described Brennus as even-tempered, or kind. They liked to work in the garden, but had not done it every day, so it might be true that they were no hard worker. But there was no rest from being chevetein, so it was more likely that the nature of their work had changed. Brennus had been inclined to think. A good quality for a leader.

  Prityal, who was patient so long as she did not deal with fools who threatened the people she cared about, and who was kind but nonetheless deadly, might have been a good chevetein. Might still be, but she did not want to be, and had not been accepted.

  Delf hadn’t met any other cheveteins except the false one, and didn’t know if they were all like Brennus. But she thought Brennus would have been fond of Prityal, if Brennus had had to deal with the Knights of the Seat under her tenure. She could see Brennus making Prityal smile.

  The idea was calming, although the roiling in Delf’s stomach continued as she left the road to take the dirt path to the shrine.