“And if he denies you? Do you intend to do battle with the garrison of Ethelbert dos Entel to get to this assassin woman?”
Bransen shook his head—an honest answer—for he knew that it would never come to that. Affwin Wi would not need to be cornered to engage in a duel with him. She would welcome it. It was her way, the way of the warrior, the way of Hou-lei and of Jhesta Tu.
“You have earned my trust in your judgment,” Gwydre said. “I owe you this, at least—and indeed, much more. Be temperate and be wise, my young friend. Honce cannot afford to lose the Highwayman at this time.”
Bannagran snickered at that, but Bransen ignored him and offered a nod and an appreciative smile to Gwydre.
“Return to me as soon as is possible,” Gwydre commanded. “I charge you with that task above all.”
Bransen nodded again and took his leave, fully intending to adhere to that order.
My dance about Honce impresses you?” Gwydre asked as soon as Bransen had left them alone.
Smiling, Bannagran rose from his seat and moved to stand before her. “So much about you impresses me,” he said quietly, and they kissed.
But Bannagran pulled back from that embrace and, grinning wickedly, added, “But I still think that King Yeslnik is going to kill you.”
Gwydre fell back as if slapped, but only for a moment. “Only if Bannagran is a coward,” she retorted, and the mighty laird laughed all the louder.
TWENTY-THREE
Full Circle
Merwal Yahna stayed in the deepening shadows as the courier chattered excitedly to the guards escorting her in from the gate.
“From Behr,” the woman said, her accent showing her to be from central Honce, likely Pryd Town itself. “And Laird Bannagran held one in his dungeon.” She turned, wide-eyed, to the guard on the other side. “But the man escaped and tried to kill Laird Bannagran himself!”
“Laird Ethelbert will hear of this,” that guard assured her. “And he will answer Bannagran’s demand of accountability!”
Merwal Yahna glanced all around. The castle was in sight, just up the road. He drew out his weapon. He leaped from the shadows.
Just a few moments later, he dragged three bodies into the back of a storage shed and covered them with sacks of grain.
Sleep, my tired love,” Affwin Wi whispered into Laird Ethelbert’s ear, at the same time her index finger pressed expertly at the artery along the side of his neck.
The old man opened his eyes and tried to sort through this mystery. He had made love to her that night, the first time he had been able to perform such an act in a long, long while. Affwin Wi had given him a drink of powerful herbs to facilitate the act, and they had worked marvelously.
But now, afterward, Ethelbert lay in his bed, his body numb, his arms and legs not answering the call of his thoughts, unable even to speak, to question, to protest.
“Sleep, my tired old lover,” Affwin Wi said, a wicked grin on her beautiful face.
Ethelbert stared at her, his expression asking the question he was unable to voice.
“Your day is past,” the woman explained. “You have surrendered your ambition. There is nothing more for you.” She pressed her finger in harder, and Ethelbert’s vision blurred.
“I do this for you,” Affwin Wi said.
Ethelbert stared at her for the few heartbeats he had remaining of consciousness.
When he lay still, Affwin Wi knelt, leaned back, and stared at him for a long, long while.
Finally she slipped off the side of the bed and slowly dressed. She was surprised at the heaviness in her heart, pointedly reminding herself that Ethelbert had been a tool for her gain and nothing more.
She had to be done with him now, she stubbornly told herself. He had indeed surrendered his ambition. However the greater war fell out, Laird Ethelbert was determined to be no more than a minor player.
“We should not have pursued the emissaries,” Merwal Yahna said, entering from the shadows at the side of the room. He glanced from Affwin Wi to the naked form of dead Ethelbert upon the bed. “You made love to that wrinkled old beast?” he asked, scrunching up his face as if someone had dangled a hill skunk carcass in front of his nose.
“He was a great man, once,” the woman replied. “He deserved as much before he died.”
“He could have been a great man again had we let him join with Bannagran of Pryd.”
Affwin Wi shook her head. They had been through this already, in the discussion that had led her to Ethelbert’s chamber that night, aphrodisiac and paralyzing poison in hand.
The pair were running out of options. No doubt other guards at the gate had heard bits of the woman courier’s claims.
“I do not wish to return to Behr,” Affwin Wi stated.
“Then where? To Bannagran after our minion tried to kill him? To King Yeslnik? Does he know that your sword took the heart of his uncle?”
“Perhaps Kirren Howen will prove more ambitious than Ethelbert,” Affwin Wi said. “Perhaps he will seek greater glories, and, if not him, then Myrick or Tyne.”
“And when they find the bodies? And when they hear the tale of Ishat and Wahloon?”
“Your good cheer serves me well this night when a man I cared for lies dead before me,” the woman sarcastically replied.
Merwal Yahna didn’t reply, just stood staring, as did Affwin Wi. Had they truly wound themselves into a corner from which there was no gain to be found? Was the only road left to them a journey back to Behr?
Gradually, Merwal Yahna found himself looking to Affwin Wi for an answer, as he always did for guidance. When a wry smile at last spread upon her face, the man’s expression grew anxious.
“The courier,” Affwin Wi said. “Deliver her body to this room.”
Merwal Yahna’s smile was immediate, as the plan came clear to him, for it all made perfect sense. The treachery of Bannagran, sending an assassin in the guise of a courier, would serve them well with Kirren Howen, particularly if they wanted the man to go forth to seek greater glories.
It would take a caravan longer to travel from Pryd Town to Ethelbert dos Entel than to St. Mere Abelle, but only because of a winding road through difficult terrain. For Bransen, freed of such impediments through use of the malachite magic, the journey was much easier. Long before dawn, he saw the distant lights of Laird Ethelbert’s large seaport, smelled the Mirianic, and heard the crash of waves.
As he lay down to sleep, nestled in the mossy roots of a large tree, he reminded himself of how blessed he was to enjoy such freedom. He, the poor Stork who could barely escape the confines of Chapel Pryd’s small courtyard, could now run the breadth of Honce in a matter of days! He, the awkward and unbalanced youth who could be knocked over by the slightest push of a bully, could now challenge the likes of Affwin Wi.
He put his hand into his pouch and felt the various gemstones, connecting with their magic just long enough to identify them, as he tried to sort through the tactics he would need to balance the fight against the woman. Even if Merwal Yahna did not join in—and Bransen believed that he would—Affwin Wi had the advantage here, in no small part because she was in possession of Bransen’s own sword. And the brooch. How much had she learned of the gemstone powers? What level of mastery had she attained?
The magical aspect of their upcoming battle was his advantage, he told himself as he drifted off to much-needed sleep.
He awoke early but did not immediately go into the city. As he considered his course, he understood that he didn’t want to fight Affwin Wi in there. Too many of her allies could be about him, unseen and waiting for the moment to strike. And even if he won, in Ethelbert’s city with so dramatic a victory at hand, he might then have to battle with and escape from half the garrison! Even worse, if he defeated Affwin Wi before so many witnesses—perhaps before Ethelbert himself—then how would he subsequently speak with the laird regarding Dame Gwydre? That, he reminded and scolded himself, was no small part of this mission to the southeast.
> Soon after midday, he picked his careful way closer to the city walls, moving steadily east, north of the city, until he came to the rocky shoreline, with the docks in sight south of his position. Laird Ethelbert had relaxed his defensive posture, Bransen recognized all along the way. The immediate threat of Bannagran and Yeslnik had been removed, and so the people of Ethelbert dos Entel had returned to the more mundane and necessary duties of life: working the fields outside the city walls and fishing the waters of the Mirianic. Bransen had spotted few armed soldiers along the wall.
He removed his backpack and produced clothing typical of the region: loose-fitting, well-worn, and weathered. His darker skin tones would serve him well here, for many of Laird Ethelbert’s subjects could trace a branch of their ancestry to the southern land of Behr.
Using the malachite to cross inlets of water and to navigate sharp outcroppings of stone, he easily managed to stay far from the occasional fisherman along the shore. Bransen slipped around the corner of the wall, rushed a few steps across the water, and then scrambled up the dock posts to join a throng of fishmongers and customers. Without incident, he arrived at the wing of Ethelbert’s castle housing Affwin Wi and the remnants of her dwindling band.
And there, Bransen stood frozen by his doubts. Could he beat this woman, this assassin of Behr? And how could he be taking such a risk as this, with Dame Gwydre, her entire cause, depending upon him to perform those tasks as only the Highwayman could? Who else could deliver Gwydre to Pryd Town so secretly and swiftly week after week?
All of those disturbing notions swirled in Bransen’s head and heart until even more profound risks bubbled up in his thoughts. What of Cadayle? What of their child? How could he be so selfish as to take this risk, at this delicate time?
“It is necessary,” he whispered quietly. “This must be settled, for the sake of Gwydre’s kingdom, for Ethelbert’s place.” He went silent, but his thoughts continued, And for me.
That was the crux of it. Bransen knew that he could not serve Gwydre, serve the cause, to his fullest ability while this sword—his sword—hung over him, casting dark shadows on all that he had to believe was true.
Like a raindrop on a windowpane, Bransen felt as if he was rushing, rushing downward to an inevitable and inevitably futile end. He could believe in Dame Gwydre’s Honce, even in Bannagran’s Honce if it came to that. He could take joy in the potential future of his life with Cadayle and their child and with Callen and Dawson, no doubt nearby.
But those were merely pieces in the larger scene of the life of Bransen Garibond, the purpose of his existence, the demands of his heritage. He could not be true to himself, to the identity of the Highwayman, and to the promise of his mother and father—both fathers!—if he did not settle this. He took a deep breath and steeled his resolve, but before he could take a step, a voice from on high assailed him.
“You!” Affwin Wi shouted. Bransen looked up just in time to see the woman lift his sword and leap from the balcony a score of feet above him.
On pure reflex, Bransen flipped sidelong into a cartwheel, then a second, coming around just as Affwin Wi landed in a graceful roll. All around them people turned to watch, and up above Bransen heard the cry of Merwal Yahna.
This is not the place! his thoughts screamed at him, but when Affwin Wi came on he met her charge ferociously. He leaped into the air, leg snapping out once and again. He barely dodged the stab of her sword, as she barely ducked away from the double-kick as she tumbled past him.
He landed and spun, lifting a circle kick as he went to keep her at bay, for the nimble woman was back to her feet almost immediately, reversing her momentum to strike at him again.
Bransen turned and dove back to a garden beside the porch of Affwin Wi’s castle wing. He rolled across the dirt between two small trees and came to his feet with the larger trunk, the width of a forearm, separating him from the pursuing Affwin Wi.
She slashed his sword across powerfully, felling that tree.
As Bransen had expected.
As the sword sliced cleanly through, he launched a spinning kick against the severed trunk, knocking it aside. As he came around to face Affwin Wi, who was all too eager to charge into him, he thrust forward his hands, left and right, and launched two fistfuls of dirt into her face.
Bransen retreated into the alley. He leaped up against the side of the castle wall, touching with his right foot, then springing away at an angle to climb higher on the perpendicular city wall, where his left foot found a quick brace to spring him back to the right. Back to the left, right again against the castle wall, and then left yet again, put him to the top of the castle wall.
He had meant to go right over, but a sentry to the left caught his eye, the man just drawing his sword. A leap landed Bransen right before him, too close for the man’s reactive swing to gain any momentum. Bransen’s left hand caught the man by the wrist, while Bransen punched straight out with his right, his open palm thumping hard right into the center of the poor sentry’s chest. The man staggered backward, all strength gone as he tried to draw breath, and Bransen deftly stole his sword.
He heard Affwin Wi in fast pursuit and did not doubt that she would scale as easily as he, though the malachite had enhanced his strides, and so he didn’t dally any longer. With a nod of apology to the stunned sentry, he leaped from Ethelbert dos Entel to the foothills and then bounded along with great, floating strides. Shouts went up behind him, arrows flew. But he was too swift, his leaps too erratic, and soon he crossed down to the western plains before the city.
Affwin Wi pursued.
He saw that, welcomed it as he continued to the north in full stride, past the gawking farmers, past the shouts of the city guards, and beyond the reach of the occasional spear or arrow. All pursuers fell far behind save Affwin Wi, and even she could not keep up with his exaggerated leaps, except that he wanted her to. Bransen went around to the north of the city, to the higher and more familiar ground, and eventually came to a bluff from which he and Jameston Sequin had once looked down at Ethelbert dos Entel.
This was the spot, this was the time of Bransen’s choosing.
He reached into his pouch and produced his gemstones, sorting them, feeling them, teasing their magical energies. He noted Affwin Wi’s determined approach and a second figure, similarly dressed, running hard to catch her.
The doubts began to rise, but Bransen dismissed them.
He was no raindrop wearily dying on a pane of glass; he was the Highwayman, the son of Sen Wi and Bran Dynard, the child of Garibond Womak, the student of Jhesta Tu and of the gemstones of Blessed Abelle.
“You were a fool to come,” Affwin Wi said as she cautiously approached.
“You tried to murder Cormack and Milkeila, even Laird Bannagran himself,” Bransen retorted. “For so long now I have been wondering about that. What gain, after all, Laird Ethelbert might find in killing two emissaries from Dame Gwydre.”
Affwin Wi grinned at him.
“Because it was not Laird Ethelbert,” said Bransen. “Not with Cormack and Milkeila, and not with Jameston Sequin. It was you, the murderess of Behr. For a long time that made no sense to me.” He tilted his head to regard her curiously. “Why?”
The woman just kept grinning.
“Because you feared the end of the war?” Bransen reasoned. “Because if the alliance had been forged, then both Bannagran and Gwydre would have stood taller than the laird who protected you? Is that why you tried to kill them?”
“And now I will kill you,” Affwin Wi promised, and she charged forward, the Jhesta Tu sword leading the way with mighty slashes, weaving and cutting with practiced unpredictability.
The Highwayman cartwheeled to his right, coming up in a defensive posture, his sword back in tight near his shoulder, held vertically, his left hand out in front.
Affwin Wi dove into a roll as he disappeared to the side, came up to her feet, positioned perfectly to execute a swift turn, and closed immediately, cutting at Bransen’s lead
ing hand.
He dropped his hand easily under the swing and thrust his sword forward, but with a softened grip so that it caught Affwin Wi’s swinging blade as a man might catch a thrown egg. As soon as the blades lay parallel before him, Bransen worked his wrist over, trying to hook his mother’s sword and throw it from the woman’s grasp.
But Affwin Wi rolled her wrist as well, opposite his, thus engaging the blades more swiftly than Bransen had anticipated, and so her own twist and slide nearly wrenched the sword from his hand!
That he held on was a credit to his strong grip, but Affwin Wi continued her riposte as if expecting that move all along, cutting short the follow-through of the sword throw and stabbing forward, twisting her delicately curving blade deftly to slip it past the cross hilt of Bransen’s sword.
The Highwayman felt the sting and saw the blood, but again, his reaction was not far behind the move, and he avoided any major gashing. He reangled his blade and batted it across, rapping Affwin Wi’s sword harmlessly.
On she came, cutting and thrusting in a wild and furious routine. The Highwayman fell into his crouch and worked his own blade with equal fervor, metal ringing against metal repeatedly, so quickly that it seemed like the chime of one long bell.
For a short while against the continuing barrage, Bransen tried to recognize the pattern to her movements, tried to sort it among the many routines he had learned in his perusal of the Book of Jhest. Turning his full attention away from the fight was his mistake, he realized when he missed one block and got nicked again on his forearm, then missed a second deflection as Affwin Wi thrust at him.
Bransen ducked desperately, angling to the side, but Affwin Wi’s fine blade—his own mother’s magnificent sword—sliced the outside of his left shoulder. He stumbled aside and she pursued, and again the swords collided with an impossibly frantic pace.
No longer was Bransen seeking recognition in his opponent’s movements. No longer was he thinking of the Book of Jhest. No longer was he thinking at all! Now it was instinct and reaction, a back-and-forth stab and block and slice and parry that had the both of them moving about in hops and starts, forward, sidelong, and back.
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