The Dame sotfk-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  “You cheat with the gemstones!” Bannagran growled through chattering teeth.

  “He has a Writ of Passage from Dame Gwydre of Vanguard!” Master Reandu shouted, “Forgiving him his crimes of theft and praising him for the great victory in the north!”

  “What?” Bannagran scrambled to his feet, giving no indication he intended to abandon his battle.

  “I fought for her,” the Highwayman explained. “I killed Ancient Badden of the Samhaists and freed her people from the grip of horrible war.”

  “That means nothing to me.” Bannagran hoisted his axe as if he meant to charge again.

  “In return, Dame Gwydre has pardoned me for my past… difficulties,” the Highwayman said.

  “A Writ of Passage,” Master Reandu said again.

  “Does that include your murder of King Delaval?”

  “My what?”

  “I thought not!” Bannagran said and charged again. He came in furiously, his axe working brilliantly in short strokes and stabs with its pointed iron top. Almost any other warrior in Honce would have been cut repeatedly by that barrage, and all in the room gasped and winced, expecting the Highwayman to fall to the floor in pieces.

  But to the Highwayman, it seemed as if Bannagran was moving in slow motion. Bransen easily worked his sword, tip up, tip down, left and right, to slap against the axe every time and always before the powerful Bannagran could gain momentum behind his swing.

  Silverel rang against iron and tapped against the wooden handle. The Highwayman’s hand moved in a blur before him, perfect aim, perfect angle. The exchange went on for what seemed like an eternity, though it was not more than a score of heartbeats. More gasps echoed in the nave of Chapel Pryd.

  Bannagran came in hard, swinging left to right. The Highwayman chopped a shortened downstroke, sliding his sword again along the blade to hook the axe under the head. He continued his rotation through the backhand, high over their heads, then down to the left and low to the right, where an extra shove of that sword nearly swung Bannagran around.

  The Laird of Pryd fought to hold his balance but didn’t even recognize that the Highwayman had disengaged and turned his sword with such precision and speed that the tip was in at Bannagran’s throat before he had begun to move his axe again.

  All in the room gasped to see the great Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, defeated. But Bannagran wasn’t quite finished yet. With a suddenness that startled everyone except the always cool Highwayman, Bannagran threw himself over backward. At the same time he used his tremendous strength to bring his great axe sweeping up from the side so that as he pursued, the Highwayman had to suddenly retract his blade or have it raked aside by the axe.

  Bannagran hit the ground in a roll, throwing himself over and stumbling fast back to his feet, slashing his axe the rest of the way to his right, then back again to the left.

  Fast and balanced, the Highwayman rushed in as the axe went to Bannagran’s left, stepping quickly past the man’s right. He flipped his sword to his left hand and stabbed behind his back to the right. Bannagran turned and lurched in a desperate dodge as Bransen ran by him. Though the fine sword did whip past, it seemed to all that he had avoided the blow.

  He turned and the Highwayman continued back a couple of steps, then spun to face him directly once more, tossing his sword back to his main hand.

  A curious expression crossed Bannagran’s face, and he slyly slipped one hand behind his hip to feel his torn tunic and shirt under the back of his breastplate. He looked questioningly at the Highwayman.

  Bransen half shrugged, half nodded to confirm Bannagran’s suspicions: He had lost this fight not once but twice, for in both the movement that had removed the sword from under his chin and in his dodge from the Highwayman’s charge, the only thing that had saved him was Bransen’s mercy. Twice in the span of a few heartbeats, the Highwayman had beaten him.

  “Are we to continue this folly all the day?” Bransen asked. “Read the Writ of Passage.”

  “You murdered King Delaval!” Bannagran snarled.

  “His sword is whole!” Master Reandu cried in sudden realization.

  The Highwayman glanced back at him curiously, then looked to his magnificent blade.

  “He repaired it!” Bannagran insisted.

  Bransen snapped his sword down beside him and retreated three fast steps. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “My sword, my mother Sen Wi’s sword, has never been broken.”

  “The sword that slew King Delaval was broken in half,” Reandu explained.

  “In the man’s chest,” another monk added.

  “Surely not a blade like this,” said Bransen, presenting his sword before him.

  “Exactly so!” Reandu replied pointing to Bannagran. When he looked to the laird, Bransen saw Bannagran draw the top half of a delicately curving blade from a sheath on his hip, a scabbard that Bransen had thought for a long dagger and empty since no hilt had shown there.

  “The blade that killed King Delaval,” Bannagran said, holding it up for Bransen and all the others to clearly view. “So much like your own. Too much like your own!”

  Bransen turned his blade over up before his eyes, noting the unmistakable similarities. “Where did you get that?” he asked, finding it hard suddenly to even draw breath as the implications of that blade-unmistakably a Jhesta Tu blade-began washing over him.

  “From King Delaval’s chest,” Bannagran answered. “And for it, King Yeslnik has declared you guilty of murder.”

  “But it is not my blade,” Bransen protested, turning his own over again to accentuate his point.

  “It is too similar, possessed by one of like mind and training as you,” Bannagran said.

  Bransen had no answer other than to shake his head. Eventually, he managed to say, “I was in Vanguard when Delaval was murdered. Dame Gwydre will confirm my claim. Last time I was in Delaval City was before the winter, and Laird Delaval-”

  “King Delaval!” Bannagran corrected.

  “King Delaval,” said Bransen, not wishing to argue such points. “He was very much alive when I left, and I have never returned. That is not my sword, and I have never seen another sword of this type in my life until just this moment!”

  Bannagran stared at him hard. If he was softening at all to Bransen’s reasoning, he wasn’t showing it.

  “Does the truth not matter?” Bransen asked.

  “Not to King Yeslnik,” said Bannagran.

  “What is this insanity that has gripped all of Honce?” Bransen asked as he spun around, sheathing his sword in a single fluid movement to address all in the chapel. “Is there no limit to the misery these lairds will inflict for the sake of their own gain?”

  “Enough of your speeches!” Bannagran yelled at him. He turned his gaze wider. “All of you be gone!” he demanded. “Now!” Brother, soldier, and peasant alike scrambled to escape the volatile man’s wrath, leaving only Bransen and Jameston, Reandu, and a pair of Bannagran’s guards in the wide nave.

  “You have seen Dame Gwydre’s Writ of Passage,” Bransen said when the commotion died away. “She offered to me and my family a full pardon in exchange for my actions on her behalf against Ancient Badden. Will you honor her decree?”

  Bannagran paused and continued to stare at him. “Your family? Callen Duwornay and her daughter, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “For them, yes,” said Bannagran. “For you, no. Not until you clear your name with King Yeslnik, and I think that unlikely.”

  “And if I do? Am I to be welcomed back in Pryd with Callen and Cadayle beside me?”

  Bannagran looked to Reandu, gave a deep and profound sigh, and then stated, to Reandu’s obvious surprise and to Bransen’s, “Yes.”

  “Bannagran?” Reandu asked.

  “Yes,” the Bear of Honce said again more forcefully and confidently. “I’m sick of it all.”

  “I did not mean for you to kill Prydae,” said Bransen. “But I went to his tower to protect my love
and would do so again!”

  “Silence,” Bannagran warned. “I have given you what you desire and all that I can. Ask no more of me. Understand, Highwayman, that I’ll not tolerate any of your indiscretions should you ever return.”

  “I will return.”

  “King Yeslnik will never agree.”

  “But, my family? You said-”

  “They can return to Pryd Town at their leisure,” Bannagran assured him. “That poor woman, Callen, never deserved the sack, though her sniveling lover surely did. The Samhaists are long gone from Pryd Town, so I care not if the Duwornays walk here openly. But you remain another matter.”

  “I will clear my name,” Bransen said.

  “I am tasked with killing you,” Bannagran admitted.

  Bransen laughed. “Care to try again?”

  “Bransen!” Reandu and Jameston scolded in unison.

  Bannagran held up his hand to silence them and assure them that all was calm here. “Be gone from my town and my holding.”

  “I ask two things of you before I leave.”

  The Bear of Honce put his hands on his hips and stared at Bransen hard, thinking to question the young man’s nerve in making requests. However, remembering their fight and noting that the young warrior did not flinch or back down, Bannagran merely waited.

  “First, I would speak with Master Reandu.”

  “You have until the noontime hour.”

  “And, second, allow me that broken sword.”

  “It is not mine to give.”

  “Let me study it at least,” said Bransen, desperation creeping into his voice. Bannagran, Reandu, and particularly Jameston looked at him with surprise.

  “Please,” said Bransen. “I believe that to be a Jhesta Tu blade.”

  “Like your own.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Bannagran tossed the blade to the floor at Bransen’s feet. With trembling hands the young man picked it up and turned it over and over, pointing it away from his eyes so that he could study the break.

  Wrapped metal. Just like his own sword. Only the Jhesta Tu were known to create such blades. Bransen could hardly draw breath. He closed his eyes and considered the possibilities here, if the Jhesta Tu mystics had truly come to Honce. That long road, that long-avoided road, now loomed before him, within his grasp, as never before.

  “Then Laird Ethelbert has hired Jhesta Tu mercenaries from Behr,” Bannagran remarked.

  Bransen blinked out of his contemplations. “No,” he said as he tried to sort through Bannagran’s claim. “No.”

  “It is such a blade,” said Bannagran.

  “Jhesta Tu are not mercenaries. They cannot-”

  “That blade slew King Delaval. The wielder of that blade, part of a small band by all reports-and dressed as you are, by all accounts-scaled the castle walls and defeated King Delaval and his elite warriors in short order.”

  Bransen couldn’t doubt the claim, but he did not understand the concept of Jhesta Tu mercenaries. If they were fighting for Laird Ethelbert, which seemed likely, then it was for philosophy and preference and not for coin. The notion shook the young man profoundly. “May I keep this?” he asked.

  Bannagran held out his big hand. Bransen reluctantly set the sword blade in it.

  Bransen turned to Master Reandu. “In private?” The monk nodded and started for a side room.

  “Noontime,” Bannagran reiterated as Bransen walked past. “Then be far from Pryd, and return not other than on pain of death unless King Yeslnik has declared your innocence and freedom.”

  Bransen didn’t bother to respond.

  Master Reandu’s visage and posture changed noticeably when he and Bransen were away from Bannagran and alone in a side room of Chapel Pryd. His face brightened and his step lightened, and his smile seemed truly genuine.

  “My heart warms at seeing you walking so tall and straight,” he said.

  “You saw it before I left, when you took me to kill Laird Prydae,” Bransen replied curtly. Reandu stiffened and took a step back at the grim reminder of that fateful day.

  “But that was because of the soul stone.”

  “As is this,” said Bransen. He brushed his long hair aside and indicated the brooch set in his forehead.

  Despite his reservations at the initial sharp retort, Reandu moved closer, eyeing the marvelous piece of jewelry. “Yes, but even so,” he said, reaching up to touch the brooch. “You seem more comfortable and stable.”

  “I am.”

  “All the gems… are they magical? Where did you get such a marvelous piece?”

  “They are, and this was put upon my forehead by Father Artolivan of Chapel Abelle,” Bransen answered.

  Reandu fell back another step and looked at him incredulously. “Father Artolivan gave that to you?”

  “I just said as much.”

  “It is… unexpected.”

  “That he would offer it, or that I would take it?” Bransen asked.

  “Both!”

  Bransen chuckled. “I served Dame Gwydre in exchange for her Writ of Passage. I dealt a great blow to the Samhaists when I took Ancient Badden’s head from his shoulders. Father Artolivan knows that I am no enemy to him or his church. Does Brother Reandu?”

  “Of course!”

  Bransen eyed him doubtfully, then smiled as he produced a second parchment, the writ from Father Artolivan. He handed it to Reandu, who read it with eyes so wide that they seemed as if they might roll from their sockets.

  “I understand your actions here, Bransen. Perhaps better than anyone. I saw the punishments you endured at the hands of the people of Pryd, at the demands of Laird Prydae, at-”

  “The punishments my innocent father endured?” Bransen interrupted. “At the hands of the Samhaists and Laird Prydae?”

  “And at the hands of Chapel Pryd,” Master Reandu admitted without further prompting. “What am I to say, my old friend? I did not approve of the treatment of Garibond, nor do I think the treatment offered to your mother and father fair or wise, though I was not involved in those decisions. I was not a voice of power within Chapel Pryd…”

  Reandu’s voice trailed off when Bransen put up a hand. It occurred to Bransen then just how much of the upper hand he had gained in the last few months. Here was Reandu, Master Reandu, the acting leader of Chapel Pryd, stuttering and stammering excuses to him. Bransen did well to hide his amusement for Reandu’s sake. He reminded himself of Reandu’s commitment to him, such as it was, in the dark days.

  “I am glad that you were not punished for your actions at Castle Pryd,” Bransen said, referring to Reandu’s intervention against Master Bathelais when Bathelais had sought to stop Bransen with a blast of lightning.

  “Master Bathelais did not recover from his fall,” Reandu said, his voice low, his guilt all too clear. “I am not proud of how I attained my current position, but I am grateful to Father Artolivan and the masters at Chapel Abelle for their understanding and faith in me.”

  “I have not forgotten the sins of your chapel,” Bransen said. “But neither have I forgotten the day you helped me with the chamber pots or when you washed the filth from me. I am not your enemy, Master Reandu.”

  That proclamation brought a profound sigh of relief from the brother. “It does my heart good to see you standing so straight and tall,” he said once again after a few heartbeats of slow and steady breathing. “I do not lament the passing of the Stork.”

  “Even if in his stead comes the Highwayman, whom King Yeslnik hates above all?”

  “King Yeslnik is wrong,” said Reandu.

  The startling words had Bransen lifting his eyebrows.

  “And more the fool for the edict he issued to Father Artolivan,” Reandu said, trying to keep his voice low. “He would have our order act as executioners and go back on our promises. Does he believe that the holdings of Honce will rally to his flag when he would so callously murder the many men whose only crime was to serve the lairds they had known all their lives?”
>
  “I watched your conversation with Bannagran earlier this morning,” Bransen admitted, and Reandu looked at him curiously. “Regarding the disposition of the prisoners, who are now brothers, it would seem. I was in a high window overlooking the nave.”

  Though they were not in the high-roofed nave, Reandu reflexively glanced up before shaking his head and reminding himself to doubt nothing about this surprising young man.

  “I would not have allowed the prisoners to be killed,” Reandu said after he sorted through the startling information.

  “You handed Bannagran the knife.”

  “Because he would never have killed them,” said Reandu. “Bannagran is no murderer.”

  “Garibond,” Bransen said.

  Reandu shook his head. “His fire has dimmed with the wisdom of age. He has served the people of Pryd well as steward and now as laird. They have come to trust him and love him, and they follow him into battle.”

  Bransen shrugged as if he hardly cared. “I hope you are right, for the sake of the people of Pryd.”

  After a long and uncomfortable pause, with Master Reandu clearly caught between his hopes for Bransen and his growing loyalty to Bannagran, the monk asked, “Will you return to Pryd Town when you have cleared your name?”

  Bransen replied with a grin that revealed… nothing. For only when he had heard that question had he realized that it hardly mattered. The entire reason for his journey to Pryd, to secure a home for his growing family, hardly mattered to him at that time.

  The Jhesta Tu had come to Honce.

  While Bransen was meeting with Master Reandu, Jameston Sequin walked out of Chapel Pryd and over to the next impressive structure. He was stopped at the gates of Castle Pryd by grim-faced guards, crossing halberds before him and looking very much like they would enjoy eviscerating him.

  Jameston just laughed at them. “Go and tell your laird that a friend of Dame Gwydre of Vanguard would like a word with him,” he instructed.

  Neither guard budged.

  “Would you deny the Dame of Vanguard access to your Laird Bannagran?” Jameston asked. “Without even asking Laird Bannagran? I’ve known more than a few presumptuous guards. They’re all dead now, of course, but I admire their spirit.”