The Martyr and the Prophet (The Lost Testament Book 1)

by C. B. Currie

  ‘And why kill the prior?’ The image of Havenside as a smoking ruin flashed across his mind. Vanis remembered those knotted and bent pines that stood on the ridge as if watching over the priory and wondered if they had been cut down as well.

  ‘In their minds the heathen rot started under his watch. He took responsibility for the books, since they were kept in his library. And they had to make an example. That’s what happens in a purge.’

  ‘We should go,’ Vanis said, purposefully, ‘Flee the city.’

  Haendric leaned back tiredly on his cot. ‘I’m too old to run around the country all winter. Besides, I am needed here. You should go instead. And you must take the book with you.’

  Vanis felt his head spin. In was suddenly too much to take in. running he could do, but without Haendric must the responsibility for the book be his alone?

  ‘Go where? Juniper Keep?’

  ‘To the capital. To Castlereach. That is where they have the greatest collections – if the deacons haven’t destroyed them all – and that is where the third volume must be.

  ‘And what is in that volume?’

  ‘Everything,’ Haendric answered. ‘Everything they don’t want us to know.’

  Vanis took another sip of wine and stared dully at the floor. After running off to forge a new path for himself he was disappointed that his old world of books and priests and the Faith was dragging him back in. He was also fearful for Haendric if even half the old man’s ranting was true. They had killed the prior and probably poor Father Caddock and even pontifical Brother Cellim, none of whom deserved to die. They would not hesitate to kill a poor old priest.

  ‘Now tell me Vanis,’ Haendric said, reclining on his bunk, ‘what have you been doing with yourself since you left?’

  Thirty-three

  People continued to die in Brookleith. Caera’s youngest brother had taken sick and been buried in a solemn, teary funeral at the growing plots of graves lately dug on the edge of the village. One was along the road past the low fields on the way to Jandryl Faldon’s manor. A smaller one was sprouting up near the woods just past old Drunith’s house by the high fields. Now her mother was laid up in bed. Petal’s brother had died, then her youngest sister, then a cousin. The family had left to stay with relatives in Havenside, hoping that town was safer. Their house and smithy stood empty now and the missing clang of Harnith’s steelwork made the village even quieter than the hushed voices and empty lanes.

  The priest had finally succumbed while tending to the sick. Stragglers had returned from the road and spoke of Jandryl’s defeat in battle, saying he had fled to Juniper Keep with the chapel knights. Some of those captured had been wounded and others treated roughly, but all the men of Brookleith that had lived were released after a few days. Berryck was among them and at least he was unhurt, but Caera did not wish to see any more of him. The town was cold, dark and empty. And she was late in her moons.

  It had been almost two weeks since the Northman had taken her and she had told nobody of this. It had been several more since Vanis had left. She ought to have bled by now. It was a cold morning when she climbed the small slope toward the high fields, not far from the edge of the woods and the brook where so much of her life had changed of late, and approached the ramshackle cottage on the edge of the village.

  She rapped gently on the door, a mismatched collection of wooden planks set unevenly into the earthen wall. It was hinged at the bottom with a solid, if rusty iron assembly, and at the top, with a piece of rope looped around the planks and tied to an iron peg in the door frame. A shuffling sounded from the other side, and the door was pushed from inside, sticking briefly on the flat stone that served as a doorstep, before scraping open.

  Drunith looked older than Caera remembered her, though she had never seemed young. Even her parents could only remember a time when the crone’s hair was a little less grey and her left eye a little less milky. She was dressed in a patched, shabby brown robe that called to mind a monk’s habit, with a faded red woolen shawl around her shoulders to ward of the chill. Her face was deeply lined and studded with moles and the one hand that clutched the door was and gnarled and arthritic. Drunith snorted a greeting and turned as Caera followed her inside.

  Her cottage was cluttered. Stools, a table, a small fireplace in one corner, over which a cooking pot hung suspended on a frame. It was warm, but full of competing smells. She had jars of herbs, sacks of leaves and powders, open dishes of roots and dried mushrooms. A mattress sat atop an elevated corner of the wall and the bed was made with wrinkled sheets and blankets; covered with some heavy fur. Caera had often seen and greeted Drunith out picking mushrooms and berries by the woods, but this was the first time she had ever been inside the old woman’s house.

  ‘Young Caera,’ the old woman chuckled. ‘Business quiet at the inn?’ She turned to the jars and vials on the table that she’d been sorting.

  ‘Folk are falling sick.’

  ‘No need to tell me, they’ve all been here asking for my tonics and salves. And you, something for your mother perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t think she will live.’ Caera answered flatly. ‘She’s feverish and in bed all day.’

  ‘Then for yourself perhaps?’

  Caera shook her head. ‘I’m not sick.’

  Drunith stopped and looked up with raised brows. ‘Plump and rosy. Who got you with it then? Was it one of the Selevians or that handsome young minstrel?’

  Caera was speechless a moment. She hadn’t really known why she came but she had been lured by the talk of what Drunith did for girls in her state. She had no idea how Drunith knew about Vanis, and wondered who else might have noticed. She wondered if the old woman knew about the Northman.

  ‘You were always a big lass, but your cheeks are a little too bright these days,’ Drunith chided. ‘They all come to me with the same look – ashamed and afraid, yet plump and rosy.’

  Caera still had no response, and realized she was not ready to talk about her own need yet so she simply blurted out the first thing she thought of. ‘Did Petal ever come to you?’

  ‘The Harnith girl?’ Never, but Heaven’s bells if the talk she spreads about herself is even half true, she ought to have by now.’ The old crone stooped over the pot, took the long spoon that was propped against the rim and began to stir. The broth inside bubbled and spat. The firelight glowed on her haggard face.

  ‘It’s not as easy as you think. You don’t just drink some concoction, wretch it up and wake up the next day with a smile on your face and no cur in your tummy.’

  Caera listened intently, with no response save to wait and hear just how far from easy it would be.

  ‘There’s pain, and blood and probably a fever. If the Scourge hasn’t got you yet you’ll be an easier victim afterwards.’

  ‘Will it kill me?

  ‘Not if I do it, but they’re not all as good at it as I am. Girls have died before. No, you won’t die, but you might wish you did. The real pain comes after, when you’ve had time to think it over.’

  ‘I have thought it over,’ Caera lied.

  ‘They all say that,’ Drunith cackled, ‘Plump and rosy and resolute! But you’ll have the rest of your life to do the real thinking. There’s also a chance you’ll never have one again, cur or not.’ Then Drunith sighed and let go of the spoon, straightened up and looked at her. ‘But I suppose you think you have no choice.’

  ‘I can’t…my family. What if my father casts me out?

  ‘He’s not such a cruel man is he? At least I never thought so.’

  ‘And what of the village, what will people say about me? That I’m a wanton strumpet like Petal?’

  ‘They might. But the question is do you want a child?’

  Caera burst into tears. She didn’t know what she wanted. The sickness was robbing her of her family, she was pregnant to a stranger and she didn’t know which one, and the country was mad with sickness and talk of war. She needed someone to hold her, maybe Vanis in is strong arms,
but the crone simply sat on the corner of the bed and watched her sternly until she composed herself.

  ‘No,’ Caera finally answered, straightening her frock indignantly. ‘I can’t bear a child. I’m not married.’

  ‘So you want me to take it out of you.’

  ‘I do,’ she said and she was still unsure.

  ‘And you understand I don’t have a potion for this. I’ll have to see to it with my bare hands, and some tools, and it will hurt. It will be very painful, child. Do you understand this?’

  ‘Yes,’ Caera answered doubtfully.

  ‘You’re not ready. Come back in a couple of weeks if you still haven’t bled. In the meantime take one of those clay vials on the shelf by the door. It may be of help to your mother. Give her my wishes if she can still hear them.’

  Still sniffling Caera took the small earthen jar of tonic and hurried out of the hovel. She was relieved that she didn’t have to make a real decision just yet, but couldn’t the old hag have been a little bit more sympathetic? She hurried to the edge of the woods, found a quiet cluster of bushes to hide in and sat down to cry alone with her own dark thoughts a while.

  It was several days later that the villagers seized Drunith. As the graves multiplied, and folk mourned the loss of their parents and children, a group of men and women blamed the old healer’s herbs and potions for whatever witchery had befallen Brookleith. She was taken from her hut on the edge of town one morning and dragged to the green in front of the chapel. The priest had already been resting in the cold winter ground some weeks by then. Jandryl Faldon was missing and there was nobody to oversee the old woman’s trial in the proper manner, so it fell upon some of the town elders who were obliged to hear such complaints and administer justice.

  Caera’s mother had died and the girl stood sullenly with her father and surviving brother among the small crowd gathered to watch the proceedings. The meeting was helmed by Deryld, the self-styled headman in these troubled times. Caera’s father called the man gullible and unfit to lead and she thought he could have done the job himself. But unlike most Deryld was lettered, he owned more land and was a few years older. He had also fought under Jandryl as a youth which placed him closer to the nobility than other locals.

  It was cold, the sky was low and slate grey and it was beginning to drizzle slightly, but they could not use the chapel nave for it was already filled with the sick. Drunith was made to kneel and her hands were bound behind her. Caera thought that had been unnecessary but her father said it was because the fools thought she might cast spells. The poor woman looked tiny, frail and disheveled among this jury of tall, strong men. Deryld raised his hands to calm the crowd, then announced the trial.

  ‘Good folk of Brookleith,’ he announced pretentiously, ‘we have gathered here to see trial upon this woman, whose witchery has brought Heaven’s wrath upon us.’

  Many people murmured in agreement but Caera’s father snorted in derision. ‘Is he a priest now?’ Caera was fearful for the old woman, not least because she thought she might still need her services.

  ‘Drunith of Beckstead,’ Deryld continued, and that was the first time Caera had ever heard the woman was from another town. ‘You stand accused of spellmaking, cursing your fellow townspeople and consorting with the Host of the Underworld.

  Stand accused. Caera thought that was rich, for the old woman looked pitiful kneeling there with her grey head bowed.

  ‘The punishment for witchery is severe,’ Deryld warned. ‘In Bastion and Castlereach heretics are being hanged. At the very least you shall be banished if found guilty.’

  Caera’s father had been pacing and fuming about the taproom when he’d heard of Drunith’s capture. The reason that Jandryl had taken men away to fight had been to stop this nonsense about heretics and trials. It was not, he’d told her, what the parish of Brookleith stood for. The old woman had brought apples to their family and others for making cider. He always paid her in grain, eggs and other commodities. They’d always had an agreement. How was a poor old woman like Drunith to survive on her own in the winter if she were forced to abandon the village that supported her?

  ‘How do you plead woman?’

  Drunith muttered something incomprehensible.

  ‘Speak up, crone!’ Deryld snapped.

  ‘Oh stop it, man!’ Hollered Caera’s father and he pushed his way through the crowd. She had never seen him so angry. He was a big man - all the people in her family were well built. Tall and broad-shouldered with sharp eyes and thinning blond hair, he swept a hand over the crowd, ignoring Deryld’s stuttering protestations.

  ‘Who here has not gone to Drunith for cures and salves?’ he demanded. “If she is guilty of spellmaking and witchery then surely we all are.’

  The crowd was silent though some muttered under their breath.

  ‘We have had sicknesses before, and this may be the worst, but have we ever turned on one another so?’

  Caera felt a surge of pride at her father’s courage. He was well-liked too, but like most senior townsfolk, he usually deferred to the portly Deryld.

  ‘Burgwyn, we did not ask your opinion.’ Deryld counseled, loud enough for all to hear. This was clearly turning into a battle for the ears of the assembled crowd.

  ‘Deryld, you have lost siblings. My own dear wife past only some days ago and lies now with two of my children. Bit what under Heaven’s gleaming eye has this woman ever done to harm us?’

  ‘She killed her husband!’ a woman’s voice hissed loudly from the crowd and Caera was shocked anew. She had never known Drunith to have been married.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous Hilda,’ Burgwyn chided. ‘You never knew her husband.’ And Caera wondered if her father ever had.

  ‘The problem,’ Deryld cut in, raising his own arms and stepping forward so that all would pay attention, ‘is that heretics and sorcerers defy the Faith and the Kingdom.’

  ‘Your piety is touching, Deryld,’ Caera’s father smirked, ‘But when Jandryl Faldon rode out to challenge the King I did not hear you complain, and when you got cock in Bastion you were the first to line up at Drunith’s cabin.’

  Not a few of the locals laughed at that, and humor was in short supply of late. The burly Deryld turned red and clenched his fists but recognized that this was a contest of wits. Caera knew that despite Deryld’s soldiering youth, as the more learned man he would have to outwit her father in front of the entire community if it was an argument he wanted to win.

  They were both spared.

  ‘Soldiers!’ called a voice and folk turned to see Berryck running toward them. Poor simple Berryck. The sweet smith’s son who had loved Caera as long as they had known one another and who had no hope of winning her heart. Now he looked fearful and was gasping for breath. He looked like what he was – a young man who had recently escaped death and now was facing it again.

  ‘Lord Dorand’s sellswords.’ They just sacked Lord Jandryl’s Manse and are on their way here!’

  The village of Brookleith did not have to wait long. Within a few minutes a column of soldiers had ridden into the town. There were a half dozen riders, two dozen footmen and a baggage train of women, children and mules. The men were all armed, menacing and leery. They eyed the villagers, with hungry eyes, especially toward the women. They looked cruel, hard and hungry.

  Deryld and Caera’s father stood silent, waiting for the stronger party to announce its intentions. A leader rode forward and stopped his horse in the middle of the trial. He was dressed in boiled leather armor, steel shoulder plates and shin guards. He dismounted and removed a cheek-plated helmet and held it at his side. He was a tall man, lean and with a thin black beard. He might have been handsome in his youth but years of weather and battle had left him scarred and leathery. He stood before the crowd that had gathered for Drunith’s trial and addressed the people of Brookleith.

  ‘My name is Barthol Malgan. I speak for lord Dorand and the king. The people of Brookleith have betrayed their liege and their sovere
ign.’

  People stirred, Caera felt afraid. The gazes of several of the warriors fixed on her and she felt suddenly almost naked. She knew what happened to young women in war.

  ‘We are marching to face the king’s enemies and we will need your help. After your treachery against your ruler, you will be granted leniency for the assistance you give.’

  Armed men started moving among the crowd, separating folk by pushing them apart.

  Deryld protested. ‘You can’t just ride in here and…’

  Barthol stomped over to him, struck the older man hard in the midriff and stood over him as he crumpled. He kicked him in the face and watched him fall, whimpering.

  ‘We need silver, copper and gold if you have it!’ He announced to nobody in particular. You will all go to your homes and return with sufficient tribute immediately. The king must have his due.’

  Some started to leave the square, but found their way blocked by armed men.

  ‘We need cooks, smiths, and servants,’ he continued. He spied Caera’s father looking balefully at him and met his gaze. Burgwyn’s head dropped and he looked meekly at the ground. His courage against Deryld had been understandable; against these men, it would surely get him killed.

  One of the men chose Caera and pushed her forward with the rest. She did not resist or make any noise. He father looked on hopelessly. She was corralled with a few young women and not many others.

  ‘We need a smith,’ Barthol continued, ‘and a healer.’

  Caera had only a moment to react and she knew she needed to at least secure some surety. She stepped forward, despite the menacing glares of the armed sellswords and pointed to Drunith, who was still bound and kneeling in the muddy square.

  ‘This one,’ she said. ‘This woman can tend to a soldier’s wounds. She knows her herbs and remedies.’

  Barthol walked up to her and she looked up and noticed for the first time the drizzle was lifting and blue sky was poking through the slate winter clouds. He looked her up and down with predatory eyes. Then he looked at Drunith, who was still gazing at the ground.