The Dame sotfk-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Then accept this as an apology of sorts,” said Bransen. “Were you to wind back the days to my arrival in Vanguard and offer me a choice to go after Badden or to leave, a choice and not a bribe conditioned on your writ, I would fight for you. Of my own volition. I would go to Alpinador and again deliver the head of that foul creature.”

  Dame Gwydre’s smile widened, genuine and nearly taking in her ears. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear those words from the rogue known as the Highwayman.”

  “Don’t take it as an invitation to press me back into service of your court,” Bransen quipped, and Gwydre laughed again.

  “The war is over-do keep your blade in its sheath. I ask nothing more of you, but I wish to make you an offer. Father Premujon and the others, including Cormack and Milkeila, will sail to Chapel Abelle as soon as Dawson deems the gulf safe for passage.”

  “Cormack should not do that.”

  “He is safe-his trial is ended and cannot be redone,” Gwydre assured him. “And I intend to go with them, so long as the peace holds up here and I am not urgently needed in my court. I would like you to sail with me-you and your family, I mean. I don’t know that I will be needed at Father Artolivan’s chapel. I expect not, truly, but there are other matters in the southland I wish to discern, not the least of which the disposition of my Writ of Passage for Bransen Garibond, Cadayle, and Callen.

  “Laird Delaval is dead, Bransen,” she added as the man mulled over her offer. “But Laird Ethelbert cannot claim victory, since he and his army are being pushed back to his holding in the most furious fighting of all. I do not know what will transpire across Honce, but the situation is obviously dangerous.”

  “Dangerous and none of my business,” said Bransen.

  “You say that now, as you said it when first you came to Vanguard,” Gwydre reminded.

  “Would you have me save the world?” Bransen answered with obvious sarcasm. “Is there another Badden to slay?”

  “I know not what needs to be done, nor do you. I go to learn and to see if there is any way in which I might use my standing to help the people who suffer because of the prideful fighting between two powerful lairds. Do you not wish to learn the same? Do you not wish to learn if you are truly free to walk the lands of Honce? You owe that much to your wife, I would expect.”

  Bransen sighed as if cornered.

  “And to Cormack, as your friend, if there is anything you can contribute to his argument against Father De Guilbe.”

  “I will go,” Bransen said suddenly, silencing her further comments. “I know not how long I will stay, and I intend to hold you to your promise that I will be delivered to a location of my choosing.”

  “Our agreement holds,” Gwydre assured him.

  Bransen looked at her with a sly smile. “You believe that I will wish to entwine myself in this fight,” he accused.

  With a light laugh Dame Gwydre turned away. Bransen watched her dance off through the continuing snowfall. Was she asking too much of him?

  Or, he wondered, was he demanding too little of himself?

  The world, his world, was on fire. How far could the Highwayman run?

  PART TWO

  THE WIDER WORLD

  The woman has shaken me to my core, has taken my expectations and twisted them into unrecognizable knots.

  I am not unused to such unsettling realizations of the true nature of the powers of Honce. From Father Jerak and the brothers of Chapel Pryd to that horrid Prydae who so disfigured Garibond, my father, I came to understand that many of the qualities that put a man in power in the first place seemed also to disqualify him from properly tending the flock in practice. So much had this axiom become a mantra for me that I was hardly surprised by the idiocy of Prince Yeslnik, who is truly an exaggerated collection of every flaw I had ever seen in those who had attained power. Yeslnik, so much a caricature, did not surprise me in the least and did not shake me (other than to make me shake my head in resignation).

  I had known minor exceptions, of course-Brother Reandu comes to mind, and even Brother Bathelais had moments of great decency. But truly, Yeslnik the liar, the fool, the pretend hero, the hapless lover (judging from his wife’s desperation), and, ultimately, the coward, embodied the extremes of my expectations of a laird. How appropriate, it seemed, that he who would stand above the lairds would be even more the fool than they.

  But now I have come to know Dame Gwydre. I hardly know how to speak to her, to view her; I have to admit that she frightens me. I don’t believe her to be secretly sinister and conniving. Quite the opposite! The idea that there is no underlying deception and selfish intent about the woman is a notion foreign, one that mocks me in my certitude and endless petulance.

  Nay, she doesn’t frighten me, except that she makes me afraid that she will shame me. For if this perception of goodness I believe of Gwydre is indeed the truth of Gwydre, then who am I? No hero, certainly.

  When the snow fell deep this cold winter in Vanguard, the people of Pellinor struggled to retrieve enough wood to keep warm. With the drifts piled high, the forest was not safe for individuals or small groups to venture. So Gwydre, as she has apparently done many times before, held a grand ball in Castle Pellinor, with all invited. All! Every person about the town of Pellinor. And with the great celebration came a feast that lasted for days. And during that time, at Gwydre’s behest, Dawson and her soldiers ventured often into the forest and retrieved piles of wood for the folk of Pellinor to take with them as they at last departed the castle.

  And Gwydre ate with them and danced with them and led them in song. I looked upon her and wished that she were not so atypical a laird, that all the people of Honce, of all the world indeed, could be so blessed to live under the care of such a ruler.

  She shames the callous heart of the Highwayman. She frightens me because she did something to me. Dame Gwydre made me, at long last and against all expectation, hope.

  Hope. She made me hope. She made me believe that the world could change. But hope is not as easy an emotion as is surrender. For that is what I have done, Dame Gwydre has shown me to my great discomfort. When the Stork became the Highwayman, the Stork surrendered.

  I care not for the war in the south, so I declare. I cared not for Gwydre’s war, so I declared. I fought only because of Gwydre’s deception and blackmail. Beyond Cadayle and Callen and my own needs, I declared myself removed, uncaring, not responsible.

  She shames me, and the hope I feel when I look upon her scares me.

  Who would I be had I been raised in Pellinor instead of Pryd? I doubt that the Highwayman would exist, and that is a notion that bothers me profoundly. But how might that persona of the Highwayman have grown in such a climate as Pellinor? Would Father Premujon have treated me as the brothers in Chapel Pryd treated the Stork? Would Gwydre have allowed it?

  No. Not up here. Up here, even the relationship between Castle Pellinor and Chapel Pellinor is a very different one than that I experienced in Pryd Town. Back home, the brothers were terrified of the laird and would not go against him even when they knew he was wrong. But here Premujon and Gwydre are friends, and she supports him in his work most of all when his work is benefiting the people, the common folk. Both Gwydre and Premujon act as if they serve the folk and not as if the people were put here as pawns for their pleasure.

  Perhaps it is the harsh climate of Vanguard and the simple pragmatism the difficult environment demands. Up here, the folk stand as one, or die alone. Would the common folk suffer the selfishness so typical in the southern lairds and nobles? Would they sit idly by, freezing and dying, while their leaders of castle and chapel hoarded the winter supplies?

  I doubt they would… but as I reflect on this matter, I realize that I am applying a pragmatism to my observations of character that is unfair to Dame Gwydre. I so clearly see her heart in the way she dances in a snowstorm or sings to the people of Pellinor.

  She would be a good leader of good heart wherever her holding. And had he grown
among the pines of Pellinor, the Highwayman would not exist.

  And Garibond Womak would still be alive. Alive and friend to Bran Dynard and Sen Wi.

  So it is not Gwydre I fear in the end but the hope she lights in my heart and soul, in the way she forces me to feel responsibility beyond the boundaries of my own needs.

  Had I known the light that is Gwydre before, I wonder what I might have answered when she came to me with no threat or deception and asked me, for no reason other than the good of the folk of Vanguard, to go north and do battle with Ancient Badden.

  She has shaken my beliefs to the core. -BRANSEN GARIBOND

  ELEVEN

  Just As the King Had Planned

  We’re driving them hard,” shouted Erolis, a nobleman from Pryd who had so distinguished himself in the fighting that Bannagran had given him one of the ten chariots in his elite team.

  Bannagran could only nod as others chimed in above the din of pounding hooves and rolling wheels. They had started to the north on the hunt for the Highwayman, as Yeslnik had demanded. That alone had bothered Bannagran more than a bit, given the Highwayman’s reputation among the commoners. Indeed, Bannagran had let Bransen go after the death of Prydae for just that reason, a potential revolt among the people of Pryd Holding.

  Word had caught up to them after their departure, though, that King Yeslnik was soon to be engaging the forces of Laird Ethelbert far to the east of Pryd, along the western banks of Felidan Bay, the long inlet that separated Honce proper from the large peninsula of the easternmost regions known as the Mantis Arm. Yeslnik had recalled Bannagran with all speed.

  And so the good general had followed his orders, wheeling his group of ten back to the south and then east, rumbling to the limit of the horses’ strength along the cobblestone roads. They were getting close, Bannagran knew, and that was a good thing, for more than a few of the twenty horses drawing the war chariots would need to be replaced.

  “Smoke in the northeast,” Erolis called as they neared an intersection in the road.

  “Stay east,” Bannagran replied. He knew this land-he and Prydae had battled powries throughout this region, driving them to the sea, years before.

  “Some town is burning,” one of the others said.

  “Good enough for them,” another added.

  Within a half hour, they came upon the stragglers of Yeslnik’s rearguard and, they learned, southern flank.

  “Ah, but never have me eyes looked upon a more blessed sight!” cried one man-a man from Pryd, Bannagran knew.

  Bannagran pulled his chariot up beside the beleaguered footman. “You are Farmer Grees?”

  “Ah, Laird Bannagran,” the man replied with a low bow.

  Bannagran scowled at him from the chariot for using that title, one not yet officially proclaimed. “Where is King Yeslnik?”

  Grees halfheartedly waved generally north.

  “The town and smoke?”

  “Nay,” Grees answered. “That’d be Milwellis, we’re hearing. The king’s due north of us-might even be back to the west a bit.”

  Bannagran didn’t have to probe further to get the hidden meaning there, that Yeslnik, as usual, was safely to the rear of the fighting.

  “Can ye go to him?” the man asked suddenly. Bannagran looked at him with surprise.

  “Might I be speaking without getting yer spear in me chest?” Grees asked, his voice low.

  “What are you about?”

  “About to die, I’m guessing,” Grees answered.

  Bannagran scowled; behind Grees several other footmen shifted nervously.

  “Go and tell King Yeslnik, I beg ye,” Grees pressed.

  “Tell him what?”

  “He’s got us spearheading straight east,” Grees explained. “And the front groups’re making great gains. The enemy’re falling back before them.” He sighed and lowered his voice as he added, “None to the south of us. None of us, I mean, guarding our flank. But there’s a road there.”

  Bannagran looked to the east, then the south, trying to get a feel for the situation. Farmer Grees was a veteran of many battles, as were most of the men of Pryd. His tone spoke volumes more than his actual words.

  “Mighty spearmen are the folk o’ the Mantis Arm,” Grees added. “Who spend their days harpooning the fishes.”

  “They’ve crossed the bay?”

  “Aye, Prince Milwellis hit them hard in the north and cut them off from the mainland-he’s built a fortress at the north tip o’ Felidan to keep the men o’ the peninsula on the peninsula. But aye, they’ve got boats a’plenty.”

  “You’re being flanked to the south,” Bannagran reasoned. “While the Felidan Bay villagers retreat, their allies from across the bay are sliding in beside and behind you.”

  Grees didn’t have to answer.

  “How many? How far west have they pushed? And how far east are the front runners of your surge?”

  “I can’t be knowing, but they’re there. They’re falling too fast afore us, letting us push east and stretch thin. These folk are no strangers to the way of battle-they’ve been fighting powries all their lives.”

  “Why are you men back here?” Erolis interjected, accusation heavy in his tone. “If your line advances with all speed, then why are you so far behind?”

  Farmer Grees pointed down at his foot, which was heavily bandaged, but showing blood through the wrap. “All of us here been taking hits and can’t keep up.”

  “And when you heard of the southern flank, you hesitated more,” Bannagran remarked, and Grees and many others shifted uncomfortably.

  “Good fortune that you did,” Bannagran said even as Erolis started to launch another accusation. “And good fortune that you are rested.” He turned to his charioteers. “We go south, and these men will run behind us. We’ll cut the enemy off along the road.” Turning back to Farmer Grees, he instructed, “Your men come in behind us and turn fast to the east. Our enemies will be in rout and retreating, so run among them and kill them.”

  “What of them that’s already crossed the road?”

  “The chariots will hold the road,” Bannagran declared, loud enough for all to hear. He snapped the reins and his team leaped off, rambling across an open field to the road running south beyond.

  “For the Bear of Honce!” he heard more than one man cry enthusiastically behind him. He hated that nickname, hated being compared to some animal, but he couldn’t deny its power to rally men, and he surely needed that energy and hope at this time.

  Flames hungrily ate the thatched roofs, billowing thick black smoke into the air. Men, women, and children screamed and rushed about in stark terror as horsemen weaved through the village, launching torches onto the roofs, launching spears at the pursued, or just running down the smaller ones and trampling them under hoof.

  Prince Milwellis of Palmaristown kept his horse running and couldn’t stop laughing at the frenzy before him. This village, of no name worth remembering, had sent some men to the north to… to what, Milwellis still wondered. To parlay? To defend? In either case, they had utterly failed, since Milwellis, eager to be the first to Yansinchester, the target city of King Yeslnik’s diversion to the coast, just sent his large force swarming over them and into their village.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Milwellis noted a man darting behind the corner of a building. He kicked his mount into a short gallop, spinning around the corner, spear ready, to find the man huddled with his back against the stone, his hands open and defensively against his chest and belly.

  “Oh please, good sir, please don’t kill me!” he cried. “I’m with no one, not Ethelbert. Just a fisherman, I am.”

  “Be at ease, good man,” Milwellis said and lowered his spear across his lap.

  The man straightened, his arms going down by his sides. “We’re just simple folk,” he started to say.

  “Then no real loss,” Milwellis interjected. He thrust his spear into the man’s gut. The fisherman shrieked and doubled over as Milwellis tore his
barbed weapon back out, taking along the man’s entrails.

  “I would carve the crest of Palmaristown in your forehead for your treachery against King Yeslnik, fool!” the merciless prince shouted as the man crumbled to his knees. “But I haven’t the time!”

  The fisherman fell flat on the ground, and Milwellis whirled his horse about, stomping over him as he went back to the fun at the village center.

  A large group moving east-to-west,” Erolis confirmed from his perch up in a tree. “Slipping in behind Yeslnik’s line as they spearhead east.”

  “Heartbeats?” Bannagran asked from his chariot below.

  “Hundreds, five hundred, perhaps.”

  Bannagran nodded and motioned his man down from the tree (and since the wind carried great bite this day, Erolis was more than happy to follow that order.

  “You follow as swiftly as you can,” Bannagran commanded Grees and the fifty other footmen he had rounded up. “We will turn them and send them running, and the quicker you are among them, the more confusion they will find. So, for your own lives, warriors, run!”

  As soon as Erolis stepped up into his chariot, Bannagran set his own off along the road, the other nine quickly sweeping up in his wake. Bannagran kept the pace measured for a short while, trying to gauge his timing for maximum effect at the enemy crossing point.

  As usual, his instincts proved perfect, and when he set his team into a full charge along the last span to the enemy crossing, more than three dozen warriors from various villages of the Mantis Arm were within striking distance of the road.

  Bannagran’s armored team and chariot roared down at the Ethelbert soldiers. The warrior led with a series of spear throws, plucking them from the stand before him, launching them with precision and great power, all the while aiming his team at the largest concentration. A couple threw spears back his way, but they were more concerned with trying to get out of Bannagran’s path, and their missiles proved ineffective.

  Men rushed about wildly, and some broke. Some who thought they had dodged the brunt of the charging horse team found their legs literally cut from under them by the great jagged blades protruding from Bannagran’s wheels.