The Dame sotfk-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  “There’s been no smoke over the grove,” Cadayle said. “In the cold, even a Samhaist would need a fire.”

  “So it might be that he’s not there,” said Callen. “Might be that he’s dead, and you won’t ever see Callen Duwornay crying over the death of a Samhaist!”

  “They’re whispering that the war’s over,” Cadayle dared again.

  “They’ve been whispering that since we got here,” said Callen. “And we’re all wanting it so bad that we’re listening to every word.”

  “I miss him,” Cadayle said, her voice barely a whisper. She brushed back her long, wheat-colored hair, showing more clearly the redness and moisture rimming her large brown eyes, so much like her mother’s. “More and more each day. I know he’ll come home to me, but I fear he’s lying dead on a snowy field. And then I feel as if I’m betraying my love for doubting him! I don’t know-”

  “I do,” Callen interrupted. “I know that what you’re feeling is what I’m feeling. Don’t you doubt that I love that husband of yours-he saved my life as his mother and father saved my life. And yours. Keep your faith in him. Bransen has overcome greater trials than most men, and it will take more than a goblin to kill him.”

  Cadayle managed a smile at that, and a nod, and she turned from her mother to the cabin door, thinking to go out and retrieve more wood for the fire. She pulled her meager shawl about her as she went through the front door into the driving storm, her mother’s scolding voice echoing in her ears. For weeks, Callen had been telling Cadayle that she needed to eat more, to put some fat on her body for the coming winter. But Cadayle hadn’t found her appetite in a long while and had lost quite a bit of weight since Bransen had departed. She went to the wood pile on the side of her porch and bent to retrieve some, but as soon as she reached for the logs a gust of wind flapped the shawl back over her shoulder. She instinctively went to grab at the flap but froze in fear, feeling another hand at the shawl’s edge, pulling it back over her shoulder.

  “A woman, poorly dressed and vulnerable,” came a whisper behind her in tones suggestive and even lewd.

  Cadayle felt her heart pounding, felt her pulse thrumming in her temples. She considered grabbing a log and spinning about to thump the intruder across the head. She considered screaming, or running away.

  Callen shouted for her, though, and the cry “Bransen!” almost sent the overwhelmed Cadayle spinning to the ground.

  But the hand on her shoulder clasped more tightly and spun her about-spun her to face her husband, standing right behind her, grinning like a happy fool.

  The most beautiful fool Cadayle had ever seen. She threw herself upon him, squeezing him to her and kissing him all over his face. She felt the moisture of her tears on her cheeks, felt as if her head would simply explode from excitement and joy.

  Callen ran onto the porch and joined in the hug. Bransen extended an arm to bring her in closer and to loop his cape over her against the freezing wind.

  “How? When?” Cadayle stammered, but Bransen hushed her by putting a finger over her lips, and he ushered both of the women back inside. He went out and retrieved a few logs, then came back in and closed the door tightly.

  As soon as he placed the kindling down on the hearth, Cadayle wrapped him in another crushing hug. “Tell me that you’re home,” she whispered in his ear. “That you’re really home. That your days in the war-”

  “Are over,” Bransen confirmed. Cadayle sobbed with joy and hugged him even tighter. Back in her seat at the side of the hearth, Callen put a hand over her mouth, her cheeks streaked with happy tears.

  “I killed him,” Bransen said simply, pushing Cadayle back to arm’s length, and looking at both women as he explained. “Dame Gwydre knew that to win meant to cut off the head of the serpent. I did that. I killed Ancient Badden, who lead the Samhaists, who sent the hordes against Vanguard. He is dead by my hand, and there is hope throughout Pellinor that the war is dead with him.”

  “Hope, but we do not know,” Cadayle said with some obvious doubt.

  “It is over for me,” Bransen said. “By Gwydre’s own word.” He reached to his belt and pulled forth a rolled parchment. “She told me to kill Badden for the reward of my freedom to go wherever I would go with her Writ of Passage in hand.”

  Cadayle looked at him, confused, then turned to Callen, who now had two hands over her mouth, as if afraid to make a sound and disturb these wonderful developments.

  “We are free, all crimes forgiven,” Bransen said calmly when Cadayle turned back to him. “We can go wherever we want.”

  Cadayle grabbed him again, one hand on either side of his face as she locked his gaze with her own. “Do not ever leave me again,” she said with intensity that widened Bransen’s eyes in surprise. “Promise me that you won’t ever leave me again.”

  “I won’t-” Bransen started to say, but, surprisingly, Callen cut him off.

  “Don’t make promises you cannot keep!”

  “The war in Vanguard is no longer my affair,” he said evenly. “I am done here. I am done with war. I am done with running from guards. We’ll find peace now. We’ll live in peace, we three. I am at peace and in love,” he said directly to Cadayle, now reaching up to similarly place his hands on her soft face. “And happy with you beside me. The fighting is done.”

  Cadayle could hardly keep her eyes open, so overjoyed was she with that proclamation. She didn’t resist when Bransen pulled her closer for another, deeper kiss, and at that moment, both of them felt as if everything in all the world was right.

  I have scrubbed it and scrubbed it, and still I cannot remove all the bloodstains,” Yeslnik said with disgust. He held up the broken blade for Bannagran to view. “But enough so that we know this blade.”

  “It looks like the Highwayman’s,” Bannagran admitted, slurring his words just a bit, for the side of his face was still swollen from a well-aimed and well-thrown rock during his daring and heroic charge that had sent Ethelbert fleeing.

  “It is the Highwayman’s!” Yeslnik declared, and he ended with a strange sound that seemed a cross between a growl and a whimper and threw the sword blade to the floor. “I knew that beast would prove nothing but ill to Honce! I implored my uncle to hunt him down and kill him.”

  Bannagran rubbed his face, fearing where this might be going.

  “Oh, would that he had never been allowed to walk out of Pryd Town!” Yeslnik yelled. “With Laird Pryd’s blood on his hands!”

  “It is not as simple as that,” Bannagran dared say.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No,” said the champion of Pryd, the man who, indeed, could have executed the Highwayman quite legally. He chuckled helplessly as he thought back to that terrible time after the fall of his dear friend. The people of Pryd had verged on revolt; if Bannagran had not banished the Highwayman and had executed him instead, the streets of Pryd Town would have run red with blood.

  Yeslnik growled again and shook his head forcefully, as if throwing all this turmoil to the side. “You have redeemed yourself in any case.”

  Bannagran bowed.

  “I am the Laird of Delaval now,” said Yeslnik, “and the King of Honce. All the holdings will accept that as soon as we are rid of the troublesome Ethelbert. He is on the run to the south-in no small part because of the exploits of Bannagran the hero, the Bear of Honce, I am told. You do smell like a bear, I am sure.” He gave a little derisive snort and chuckle.

  “Laird Ethelbert backed us into a corner with his bold attack,” Bannagran explained, ignoring the insult and reminding himself that if Prince Yeslnik had ever actually been close enough to a bear to smell it, he would have then smelled of his own piss. “Truly, I did not expect that he would move so decisively.”

  “But you turned him, broke his line and sent him fleeing.”

  “We had no choice in the matter. Charge and win, or die. We chose to fight.”

  “No, Bannagran chose to fight, and his choice dragged along the men of Pryd and those Delaval
soldiers I left behind,” said Yeslnik. “That is the essence of a leader, and I intend to reward it.”

  “As you will, my king.”

  “I will name you Laird of Pryd,” said Yeslnik. “No more the steward, but the laird, who will pass the ownership and title down to his own children.”

  “I have none.”

  “Then make some, dolt!” Yeslnik retorted. “Or name a nephew as an heir, as did-as wisely did-King Delaval. I will see this done, as soon as we attend to pressing needs.”

  “To finish off Ethelbert,” Bannagran reasoned.

  “I will see to that. I have sent emissaries to Laird Panlamaris and his cowardly son Milwellis to dispatch his forces to the east and then south along the inner coast.”

  Bannagran wisely hid his wince at the adjective Yeslnik had attached to Milwellis. To hear the foppish pretend warrior calling Milwellis a coward strained credulity to be sure!

  “I doubt that any will stand against them, but neither shall Ethelbert find his escape in that direction. We will push him right back to his city on the sea this time, and there will be no escape. The lairds of the Mantis Arm will join with me now. Their ships will blockade Ethelbert. There will be no escape, and I will push the imbecile right into the Mirianic!”

  “The men of Pryd will march with you, my lai…” Bannagran paused, somewhat confused at how to properly address Yeslnik now.

  “King,” Yeslnik insisted. “The coronation is a mere formality. Honce is mine.”

  “My king,” Bannagran finished.

  “And Pryd is yours, Laird Bannagran,” he said. Bannagran bowed. “The men of Pryd will march with me indeed. But not all of them. Not Bannagran, the new Laird of Pryd.”

  The Bear of Honce looked at him curiously.

  King Yeslnik bent and retrieved the broken sword, then handed it to Bannagran. “Find him,” he ordered. “Find the Highwayman, Bannagran of Pryd. Find him and kill him. You can serve your king no better way than to serve me the Highwayman’s head on a banquet tray. Do that, and Pryd Holding is yours and your family’s forevermore, with borders we will expand.”

  Bannagran eyed the sword more closely, remembering when he had done battle against the man who wielded this very blade.

  “Find him and kill him,” King Yeslnik said again.

  The Bear of Honce, champion of Pryd, nodded.

  NINE

  Stubbornly Entrenched

  There is talk that he will be put in line as heir to the lairdship of Vanguard!” Father De Guilbe shouted and waved his arms frantically.

  Father Premujon sighed and shook his head. “Cormack is not even of Vanguard. Dame Gwydre would do no such thing as that.”

  “I heard it!” De Guilbe protested. “Do you deny that he has been named a hero of the holding?”

  “All who participated in the battle with Ancient Badden have so been named,” remarked Brother Jond, sitting on a bench at the side of the hall. “Except the powries, of course. Dame Gwydre made up some other title for them, one that carries no consequence.”

  “And you agree with the bestowment?” asked De Guilbe.

  “For the powries?”

  “For Cormack!” De Guilbe shouted.

  Poor Brother Jond appeared uncertain. “Speak freely,” Father Premujon coaxed him.

  “Why, yes, I do,” Jond blurted, with such enthusiasm that those who knew him, Premujon included and perhaps most of all, then realized that his tentativeness had been designed to elicit exactly this explicit permission from his Father Premujon. “Of course I do.”

  “He betrayed your brethren!” said De Guilbe, and he even took a step toward Jond before Brother Giavno caught him by the arm.

  “Dame Gwydre is not of our order and does not answer to us,” Jond explained. “Her titles are secular alone. Despite your hatred for the man, you cannot deny that he bravely battled Ancient Badden. Had it not been for him, it is unlikely that Badden would have been overcome-and his fall is to the benefit of us all.”

  “And if Cormack becomes Laird of Vanguard?” De Guilbe asked. “What then for Chapel Pellinor and the Order of Blessed Abelle in his Vanguard?”

  Father Premujon just shook his head at the ridiculousness of the premise.

  “I bid you, Father, for your own sake, to search this hatred you hold for this man, Cormack,” Brother Jond dared to say, drawing more than a few gasps from around the room. “I have known him but a short time, true, but his character seemed to me in alignment with the precepts of the order.”

  “Brother!” more than one voice shouted, loudest of all, that of Father Premujon.

  But somehow, Brother Jond seemed above them all at that moment, as if he held some insight they could not share, as if the badges of honor he wore-the one from Gwydre’s recognition and, more importantly, the garish scar across his face-allowed him to speak truth to power with impunity.

  “He betrayed the Blessed Abelle to the barbarians!” De Guilbe roared.

  “Did he?” Brother Jond’s question, asked so innocently, took the steam from the large man. “Or was it Father De Guilbe, frustrated after years of wandering the terrible environ of Alpinador, who clung to stubbornness beyond all reason and morality?”

  “I will not be spoken to in such a manner by a brother!” Father De Guilbe shouted at Father Premujon.

  “Enough, Brother Jond!” Premujon said sharply.

  The blind monk settled back on the bench, seeming quite pleased with himself.

  “I will not have this,” De Guilbe continued. “You will punish this brother severely. And I will have Cormack punished, as well.”

  “He is in Dame Gwydre’s charge,” Father Premujon reminded.

  “Then demand of the Dame,” said De Guilbe. “Cormack parades around in a powrie cap, arm-in-arm with a shaman of Alpinador. He mocks us openly and with impunity. You cannot allow this to stand. His mere presence will erode support for us here in Vanguard and will diminish respect for Blessed Abelle.”

  “It was Father De Guilbe who demanded of Cormack that he always wear the cap,” Brother Jond remarked.

  Father Premujon motioned to a pair of younger brothers to take the blind troublemaker out of the chapel.

  “And she is a most lovely woman, this Milkeila of Yan Ossum,” Brother Jond said as the brothers helped him to his feet and began escorting him from the room. “Calm in temperament, generous in heart, and fierce in battle. I need not see with my eyes to know that she is most beautiful.”

  “Brother, go in peace,” Father Premujon bade him, begged him.

  “Our order would be enhanced greatly if we could coax her to us,” Jond managed to get in before the younger monks pulled him out of the chamber.

  “No more so than if we purchased a mule,” Father De Guilbe muttered. “This Milkeila is rather like a domesticated animal, don’t you think? And with the appearance of one.”

  No one but De Guilbe himself chuckled at his joke.

  “I would ask you again to exact punishment upon Cormack,” De Guilbe stated flatly.

  “He is not Brother Cormack any longer,” Father Premujon reminded. “He is not of our order.”

  “He was of our order when he betrayed the emissaries of Abelle,” De Guilbe replied. “He was meant to die for his treason. Only through unfortunate circumstance does he still draw breath.”

  “But he did not die, and so he was banished from your island,” said Premujon. “Appropriately so!” the father of Chapel Pellinor added with enthusiasm to erase De Guilbe’s growing scowl.

  “It is different now,” De Guilbe said.

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Take him from Gwydre to be judged by his peers. Take him in chains as a heretic.”

  Father Premujon looked around the room for support. He knew he was in a corner here: Father De Guilbe was no small player in the Order of Blessed Abelle and had been hand-picked by Father Artolivan, a personal friend, to lead the missionary team to Alpinador. The man’s obstinacy, so clearly on display, offere
d little room for compromise.

  And the man’s power would demand of Father Premujon that he make a stand one way or the other.

  He has suffered his entire life,” said Master Reandu. Into his thirties now, Reandu’s face showed the strain of the last couple of years. Father Jerak of Chapel Pryd had declined to a point of incoherent babbling, and Reandu had to take up the reins in these most trying times with all of the responsibilities but none of the imprimatur of the office. No small part of that burden came from the fact that Reandu’s actions had led to the death of Master Bathelais, who would have succeeded Father Jerak. No action had been taken against Reandu for that confused and tumultuous fight-even Bannagran, who had been battling the man Reandu had saved, had forgiven him.

  “And he suffers to this day, I am sure. Every step comes with the grimace of the pained Stork,” Reandu finished.

  “The Stork who killed Prydae,” Bannagran reminded.

  Reandu smiled knowingly, sadly. The Stork hadn’t directly killed Prydae, after all, but had simply ducked Bannagran’s thrown axe, which had then struck down the laird. Bannagran’s anger as he spoke Bransen’s nickname was rooted in deep guilt, Reandu knew, much as his own guilt over Master Bathelais gnawed at him, and that was never a good thing.

  “Bransen has moments of… surprise, I agree,” said the monk. “But you know his life story as well as any. The loss of his mother and father, of Garibond Womak…”

  He stopped there, seeing Bannagran’s eyes narrow dangerously. The fate of Womak was not a good subject to bring up around Pryd Holding. For the sake of Prydae’s manhood, through some ridiculous Samhaist assertion of virility restored, the man had suffered castration. And for protecting the belongings of his friend, Stork’s father, Garibond had been burned at the stake.

  “He carried chamber pots-it was all he could manage,” Reandu said, referring to Bransen’s stay at Chapel Pryd as a servant. “He lived in a hole.”

  “I do not envy him his miserable existence,” Bannagran interrupted. He reached to his belt and pulled forth the broken blade of a fine sword. “Do you recognize this?”