The Dame

by R. A. Salvatore

  Dame Gwydre waved it off and seemed hardly to care, but Father Artolivan cleared his throat, bringing the conversation back on topic. “You are accused of a serious crime, Highwayman.”

  “That I robbed that idiot Yeslnik in Delaval City?” Bransen replied. “Of that I admit my guilt. I robbed him as well in Pryd right after I rescued him from certain death at the hands of marauding powries. I have already admitted my past deeds, though in my heart I fear that my biggest error was in saving Yeslnik from the dwarves.” He bowed as he finished, and when he came up, he saw the principles at the table all exchanging somber and concerned looks. Bransen looked back to Cadayle and Callen, and then all three of them shared confused shrugs.

  “Dame Gwydre’s Writ of Passage was offered with knowledge of those thefts,” Bransen said somewhat more defensively than he had intended.

  “Laird Delaval—King Delaval—was murdered in the same tower where you robbed his nephew,” Father Artolivan said.

  “At the same time?”

  “No. Recently,” said Artolivan.

  “While you were in Vanguard,” Dame Gwydre added.

  Bransen held up his hands, not quite understanding. “I am sorry?” he asked as much as stated.

  “King Yeslnik—” Father Artolivan started, but Bransen interrupted with a cry.

  “King?” he blurted.

  “He proclaims himself King of Honce as the rightful heir of Delaval, who similarly demanded the title,” Artolivan explained.

  Bransen snorted with obvious derision.

  “He believes you complicit in the death of his uncle, King Delaval,” Artolivan explained.

  “My arms are not that long,” Bransen quipped, but he saw Gwydre, grim-faced, shaking her head at him. “I did not know the man. Why would I want to kill him? And if I haven’t killed the loathsome Yeslnik, then why would I go out of my way to kill his uncle?”

  “Your contempt for the new King of Honce is noted,” Artolivan said dryly. “As is your proclamation of innocence.”

  “I have been in Vanguard throughout the winter,” Bransen replied, growing more animated with every word. “With him.” He pointed to Dawson. “And with Brother Jond, and Cormack after him. How could I have been involved in a murder in Delaval City?”

  Father Artolivan held up his hands to calm the man. “We are not your judge and jury. We know that you could not have been involved in this tragedy. But King Yeslnik will not be so easily swayed, I fear, given all that I have heard of him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that my Writ of Passage to you may not be enough,” Dame Gwydre answered. “It means that you and Cadayle and Callen should remain here or perhaps even sail back to Vanguard with me when I go.”

  Bransen stared at her hard, angrily, suspiciously.

  “I honor the Writ of Passage,” Father Artolivan was quick to say, “and will not detain you in any manner. You and your family are welcome at Chapel Abelle.”

  Bransen never blinked and never stopped staring at Gwydre.

  “Yeslnik claims that Bransen, the Highwayman, killed Delaval,” Gwydre said.

  “We know otherwise,” said Bransen.

  “We do,” Gwydre agreed. “But he does not. Nor do the lairds who do his bidding. It was Master Reandu of Chapel Pryd who delivered the news, only right before we arrived here.”

  Bransen’s face brightened at the name.

  “You know him?” Gwydre asked.

  “Quite well, I am told,” said Artolivan. “And if it means anything to you, young man, I think that Master Reandu doubted in his heart the claims against you.”

  At that moment the words meant nothing, for suddenly the weight of it all came clear to Bransen. He felt as if the walls were pressing in on him. He could hardly remember to draw breath. He had no response to this surprising news or to the involvement of Reandu, his old . . . what? Friend? Mentor?

  “We will work to clear your reputation,” Dame Gwydre assured him.

  “If Yeslnik is King of Honce, then your work will be in vain. Know that he will always hate the Highwayman,” Bransen finally replied. “As much because of his own failings as a husband and a man as because of the robberies.”

  Behind him, Cadayle gave a little yelp of surprise.

  “His wife was rather taken by a man who would fight against enemies instead of sniveling inside the coach,” Bransen explained to her and turned back to the table. “If Yeslnik is your king, then, as much as I would have thought it impossible, my estimation of the nobility and leadership of the Honce Holdings has sunk even lower. He is a fool and a fop, a vain and preposterous coward, and—”

  “Enough, Bransen,” said Artolivan. “We will work to clear your name as Dame Gwydre insisted. We are interested in justice.”

  “That is not my experience with laird or brother.”

  “Enough,” Artolivan bade him. “We ask that you remain here for your own sake and the sake of your family until we can clear away all this confusion.”

  “Or we will be sailed to Behr,” Bransen said, staring again directly at Gwydre, then sliding his gaze to take in Dawson McKeege, who was nodding his agreement.

  “Give us time,” Gwydre said. After a stone-faced moment, Bransen nodded.

  “And now you will excuse us,” Father Artolivan said. “For we have other matters to discuss.”

  Before Bransen and the two women turned to go Dame Gwydre interjected, “No, I wish Bransen to sit with me as we discuss the situation.”

  Father Artolivan looked at her with surprise and something less than enthusiasm.

  “He has earned it,” Gwydre insisted. She turned to Bransen and motioned to an empty chair at the end of the table. “He may be quite important as this goes forward. The Highwayman is not unknown in Honce and not unloved by many of the people we seek to serve.”

  After a moment Artolivan sighed. “Would the two of you please excuse us then?” he said, indicated Cadayle and Callen. Cadayle moved up and kissed Bransen on the cheek and squeezed his hand, then took her leave with her mother.

  For all his bravado, Bransen felt quite unsure of himself as he moved to take the seat between Jameston and Gwydre. He sat quietly as the group began discussing Yeslnik’s new edict regarding disposition of prisoners. He wasn’t surprised by the foppish, self-proclaimed king’s lack of simple morality, of course.

  “And you will react how?” Dame Gwydre asked after Artolivan had explained every detail regarding Yeslnik’s demands for the prisoners entrusted to the Order of Abelle and his further demand that the church declare allegiance to him in his struggles with Ethelbert.

  “We must refuse this man who calls himself King of Honce,” Father Artolivan declared. All the monks around him nodded and whispered their agreement.

  Bransen arched his eyebrows in pleasant surprise.

  “And I will support you, of course,” said Dame Gwydre. “Let us hope that King Yeslnik will listen to reason on this matter.”

  “He won’t,” Bransen interrupted, surprised at himself for saying that aloud. Everyone turned to him, so he continued, “He is stubborn and vain beyond description.”

  “In that case we will be faced with more difficult decisions still,” said Father Artolivan. He sighed and seemed very old and tired at that moment. “But we will forge our way through the obstacles as they are presented to us. For now King Yeslnik awaits our further word on his edict regarding the prisoners. He will not be pleased, but we must follow that which is right and just and in concert with the teachings of Blessed Abelle.”

  For some reason the decision and declaration of the father of the Order of Abelle unsettled Bransen even more than the unsurprising news of Yeslnik’s continuing and escalating stupidity. He left the meeting much later on, his thoughts spinning, both for himself and his family and their place in the world and for the larger issues of Honce and this new king who could be nothing more than a catastrophe.

  The couriers went from Chapel Abelle soon after the meeting
had adjourned. While watching them depart, still surprised by the continuing actions of the church, Bransen heard a familiar voice call to him.

  “How do you fare with the new order of the world?” asked Cormack.

  Bransen turned and greeted him as he approached. “I am not surprised by the actions of Yeslnik, to be sure. I have encountered the man a couple of times in the last months. Neither meeting has left me impressed with his wit or his wisdom.”

  “I mean regarding Bransen,” Cormack clarified. Bransen stared at him curiously.

  “You expected to walk Honce a free man,” said Cormack.

  “And so I shall.”

  “By your stubbornness and your sword? Is there not the matter of your wife and her mother to consider?”

  “Dame Gwydre—”

  “Is powerless against Yeslnik at this time. Her Writ of Passage will not be honored for a man believed to be the killer of King Delaval. And, honestly, it would be foolhardy to not rescind the order. If you go and present that document, then she, too, will be complicit in the killing of King Delaval.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. I was beside you, was I not?”

  “And you believe that matters?”

  Bransen gave a helpless laugh. “No,” he admitted.

  “So what will you do?”

  “I don’t know. Dawson McKeege has pledged to sail me wherever I wish to go. Perhaps to Behr.”

  “Jacintha?”

  Bransen furrowed his brow in puzzlement.

  “The principle city of the desert kingdom,” Cormack explained. “Just south of the city of Ethelbert dos Entel around the Belt-and-Buckle mountains, whose rocky spurs jut into the Mirianic as if god himself did not want the men of Honce and of Behr to mingle.”

  “Jacintha, then.”

  “It is a strange place with strange ways,” Cormack warned.

  “A fine choice you offer,” Bransen replied.

  “Father Artolivan will not expel you or your family, nor will he turn you over to Yeslnik’s soldiers if they come.”

  “So you offer me imprisonment in a chapel of a faith I do not hold true or a journey to a strange and dangerous place,” Bransen reasoned. “Shall I thank you for creating great contentment within my tumultuous soul?”

  Cormack couldn’t suppress a laugh at the deserved sarcasm. “Vanguard,” he said a moment later, and again he drew a puzzled look from Bransen.

  “It is a wondrous place,” said Cormack. “Full of freedom and personal responsibility. It is the perfect location for one who wants no part of the politics and intrigue of Honce, or of Behr, I am told.”

  “Will Cormack be there?”

  “And Milkeila. Dame Gwydre speaks of dividing up her vast holding into smaller duchies and has hinted that she will offer one to me.”

  “And you would like the Highwayman as a subject,” Bransen said dryly.

  “Or as a neighboring duke.”

  Bransen laughed all the more, and all the more helplessly. “I thought you just said . . .”

  “I did, and I hold to it,” Cormack replied. “I only mean that if you wished more for yourself and Cadayle, then you will find an ally in Dame Gwydre, do not doubt. She expressed deep gratitude to me when we spoke quietly about a possible appointment, though she counseled me to consider Father Artolivan’s offer to return to the Order of Blessed Abelle.”

  “And will you?”

  Cormack shrugged, and Bransen knew that the man was truly uncertain here, truly torn. “I would be a liar if I said that I was not intrigued. Great healing might be accomplished between the Order of Abelle and Milkeila’s shaman brethren and between Vanguard and the Alpinadoran tribes. Father De Guilbe did great damage on Chapel Isle. Our battle with the many tribes of Mithranidoon Lake—”

  “And De Guilbe’s refusal to join in the common cause against Ancient Badden,” Bransen interrupted, and Cormack nodded solemnly.

  “Perhaps I can do some good,” Cormack finished.

  “As a monk or as a duke?”

  “That is the question, is it not?”

  “Why not as both?”

  It was Cormack’s turn to wear an expression of surprise, which shifted to one of intrigue. He paused for a few moments, then took a deep and steadying breath and looked back to Bransen. “But what for you?”

  Again, the young warrior shrugged. “I wish at some point to travel to Behr—I must. But Honce is my home, and I do not count that lightly. And there is another matter . . .” He stopped just short of telling Cormack of Cadayle’s pregnancy, deciding instead to remark, “Honce is Callen and Cadayle’s home, as well, and they should be free to remain here and wait for my return—particularly Callen, who long ago grew weary of the road.”

  “You would trust Yeslnik to honor the Writ of Passage for them and not imprison them to use against you?”

  “Of course I would not.”

  “And so we are back where we began.”

  “I will go to Pryd Town to test Dame Gwydre’s Writ of Passage,” Bransen decided then and there. “And if it is not to be honored, I will do what I need to clear my name and to demand the commute of any claims made against me. I served honorably under a bargain from a Honce Lair . . . Lady. I expect, when the truth is known that I could not have participated in the murder of King Delaval, that my covenant with Dame Gwydre will be respected.”

  “You will march south and demand all that?”

  “I will journey south more quietly, and learn and adapt,” said Bransen. “I am the Highwayman, have you not heard? And the Highwayman has many friends in Pryd Town.”

  “And many enemies?”

  “That is what I intend to learn.”

  S

  he knew.

  That truth permeated Bransen’s thoughts as he navigated the corridors and courtyards of the sprawling complex of Chapel Abelle. He had tried to hide his decision from Cadayle for the time being—out of cowardice, he admitted to himself—but she had seen through him, and his tenuous and halting answers, stuttered even though he had the soul stone firmly tied against his forehead, had led Cadayle to more incisive and determined questioning.

  By the time Bransen had managed an appropriate dodge to the larger question of his intentions, Cadayle had already confirmed her suspicions.

  She knew, Bransen believed, that he was planning to leave her once again despite his promises to her in Vanguard.

  The look on her face as he had walked out of their room that morning, a combination of resoluteness and sadness, had nearly made him change his mind, had nearly turned him toward a different course—perhaps back to Vanguard with Cormack.

  But now, as he walked the ways of the great chapel complex, as he heard the familiar dialect of the many men hard at work, Bransen understood that he must go at once to Pryd Town, to confront Reandu with the hard evidence, the letters of proof from many reliable affiants. He had to believe that somewhere, somehow, even in the holdings of Yeslnik, the truth would ultimately win out and he would be exonerated and that Gwydre’s Writ of Passage for him and for his family would be honored.

  If there was any justice in the world, this course would be the correct one to walk.

  But Cadayle knew.

  His inner tumult slowed his steps as he neared Father Artolivan’s chambers, and he slowed further as he came to hear loud arguing from behind the solid oaken door. Growing up as the Stork, where so many people had thought him an idiot and had spoken about him and about important matters right before him, it didn’t even occur to Bransen that he shouldn’t eavesdrop.

  Right before the door, the words became clear, as did the voices of fathers Artolivan, Premujon, and De Guilbe.

  “You would have me kill them,” Artolivan shouted, “these men who were given to Chapel Abelle and put under our care on condition that for them the war had ended?”

  “We must choose between Yeslnik, who will win, and Ethelbert, who hides in the south,” De Guilbe argued. “The greater movement of the kingdom is beyond our con
trol. Delaval won and gave his winnings to Yeslnik, and thus Yeslnik is the King of Honce.”

  “That simply?” asked Premujon.

  “Yes! Unless you know of some great army stirring to oppose him.”

  “His victory over Laird Ethelbert seems assured, by last reports,” Father Artolivan unhappily agreed, speaking lower so that Bransen had to move right up and put his ear to the door to understand.

  “Then we are to recognize Yeslnik as King of Honce,” said De Guilbe. “What other choice is before us?”

  “Recognition with precondition,” said Artolivan. “Perhaps. We can force King Yeslnik’s hand on this and other matters, promise our fealty, but only to a goodly king.”

  De Guilbe snickered loudly. “You think yourself the king,” he accused.

  “Father De Guilbe!” Premujon scolded.

  “If Yeslnik is the King of Honce, then the decisions are his to make,” De Guilbe continued, undaunted. “We cannot say that we agree here and disagree, and therefore will not abide, there. Is he the King of Honce or is he not? And if he is, then we are bound to honor—”

  “I will not murder unarmed prisoners!” Father Artolivan cried.

  “Then you should not have involved our order in this secular business of war!” Father De Guilbe scolded.

  “Father!” Premujon shouted again.

  “It is true!” De Guilbe shouted right back at him. “We heal the wounded for both sides. That is a good thing, and all the chapels agreed. But then you agreed to turn our most holy and important monastery into a prison?”

  “A prison that sent men to the aid of Vanguard!” Premujon reminded.

  “That matters not at all! Father Artolivan took it upon himself to involve the order in matters where it did not belong. You cannot make such a stand and then decide at a later date that you don’t like the outcome.”

  “We retained our neutrality,” Father Artolivan argued, and De Guilbe snorted as if the notion was absurd.

  “Until one side or the other gained the advantage,” De Guilbe said. “For surely, had Ethelbert won the field, his demands upon you would be equally harsh and distasteful.”