‘Most of the damage is old,’ Allister said, surveying the broken walls and crumbling ceilings. He knelt down and examined a piece of wood, part of a shattered wooden pulpit. ‘Some of this is newer, though, maybe six or seven weeks.’
That troubled me: the destruction might be too recent to be coincidental, but it was too old for us to be able to track whoever was responsible.
‘Looks like a war-axe took out that pulpit,’ Kest observed.
‘Maybe,’ Allister said, ‘but I see blunter work done on the door.’ He lifted a sheered-off wooden railing out of the way so he could peer down the stairs that led underground. ‘It’s all just dirt and rubble down there. The stones look like they’ve been shattered methodically with hammers.’
Kest turned to me. ‘Those stones are the markers for the sanctuary. It’s within them that a new Saint binds themselves until the Fever passes.’
‘How does it work? What . . . mechanism takes away the fever?’
He shrugged. ‘Who can say? I wasn’t the Saint of Swords long enough to learn how any of it worked.’
‘Maybe that’s why you never quite got the hang of it,’ Brasti suggested. ‘Maybe they should hand out little pamphlets for new Saints, you know, a guide to get you past the first few months.’
I ignored him. It had begun to drizzle again. ‘We should go,’ I said. ‘Maybe the next sanctuary will be intact.’
‘You know,’ Brasti pointed, pulling up the collar of his coat, ‘if one of these clerics had had the sense to build his little sanctuary inside a tavern, it’d be the best maintained and most visited religious site in the country.’
As I walked back outside I saw Ethalia standing there in front of her horse, hair tangled from the rain and wind, her pale skin somehow made paler by the grey clouds overhead.
I began walking to her. ‘Are you—?’
‘I will abide,’ she replied. She put a foot in the stirrup and wearily hoisted herself onto the saddle before kicking her horse into a slow walk.
I looked after her. This had become the pattern with us, as if even my concern was somehow painful to her.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘She doesn’t mean it,’ Kest said. When I didn’t reply, he added, ‘There is always the sanctuary of Saint Forza-who-strikes-a-blow on the border near Aramor. That’s where I found my reprieve from the fever. It’s not more than three days away from here.’
‘And if it’s been desecrated, too?’ I asked, and mounted my own horse. What was happening wasn’t happenstance. It wasn’t just the long and steady decline of religious observance in Tristia. Someone had a plan, and I was far too many steps behind them.
*
We trudged on like that, day after day, watching the miles pass, and villages large and small pass by with them. The people who lived nearby claimed to have no knowledge of what was going on, and showed little sign of being concerned, though they were quick to blame us for failing to protect the churches. I got an earful from Allister when I brought it up.
‘The country didn’t stop falling apart the day you took up residence in Castle Aramor,’ he said, giving me his trademark glower. ‘For every Knight who no longer comes to beat on their door demanding taxes a second and third time each season, there’s a bandit leader or band of brigands equally happy to tear things apart. These people are poor and they’re scared, and you sending people to shout The Greatcoats are coming! The Greatcoats are coming! in every tavern and inn really isn’t helping.’
‘That wasn’t the entirety of the message,’ I said.
‘Oh?’ Allister asked. ‘So the Bardatti just forgot to mention what circuit courts each of us is assigned to, or who replaces the gold coins we use for the juries? Ran out of my supplies years ago – no hard candy left, no amberlight, no black fog.’ He ran a hand down the front of his coat. ‘Three of the bone plates shattered a while back. Do any of you know how to replace them? Can’t even figure out what kind of animal has bones this thin and strong.’
‘You know, Allister,’ Brasti said, reaching into the pocket of his coat and pulling out an apple, ‘your nervous griping is taking all the fun out of this trip.’ He took a bite and grinned. ‘Maybe if we found you a proper weapon you wouldn’t feel quite so scared all the time.’
From atop his horse, Allister casually reached back and loosed the iron-shod staff attached to his back. He let it slide down into his palm and spun it around before flicking his wrist. Suddenly the staff was fully extended and Brasti’s apple had gone flying into the ditch.
‘Feel free to let me know when you want a bout, Goodbow. Kest says you’re even worse with a sword now than you were the last time I knocked you off your feet.’
A good deal of nonsense followed. Brasti, Kest and I had spent so much time together over the past few years that I’d forgotten how competitive Greatcoats could be when they got around each other. At least the vigorous debate over weapons and tactics improved Allister’s mood. Normally I’d have been happy to join in (especially since the rapier is, obviously, the finest weapon ever devised) but my thoughts were occupied with visions of heavy iron masks, of desecrated churches, and of the shallow cuts on Birgid’s skin. How in the world were a handful of Greatcoats supposed to protect however many dozens of Saints and hundreds of churches when we didn’t even know what we were facing?
No wonder the fucking clerics brought out the Inquisitors.
‘We should stop for the night,’ Kest said, startling me out of my reverie. ‘The sun’s getting low and the chances of one of the horses taking a stumble will only increase once it’s dark.’
‘Been down this road before,’ Allister said, ‘back when I used to ride the King’s Seventh Circuit. There used to be a tavern, quite a large one, couple of rooms to rent, about five miles ahead.’
‘Perhaps we should make camp instead,’ Kest said, doing his best not to look right at Brasti. ‘Less risk of running into trouble that way.’
Brasti groaned. ‘Of course you’d rather sleep out in the cold, Kest. It’s perfect for men like you and Falcio. You two are only happy when you’ve got some cause for misery.’ He stood up on his stirrups and looked down the road ahead. ‘But I hear the call of music, a soft bed, women and, most importantly, beer.’
‘You can hear the beer?’ Kest asked incredulously.
Brasti ignored him and pointed ahead. ‘Those are my Gods, Falcio. That’s my sanctuary. Refusing me the chance to pray at my righteous altar is nothing short of religious persecution.’
I was about to tell him to shut up, that the last thing we needed was the risk of conflict with the local bully-boys, but Ethalia gave a weak smile. ‘I don’t think even I could stand to witness Brasti’s equivalent of the Saint’s Fever.’
That smile, the flicker of ease, however temporary, in her eyes, was enough for me.
Brasti grinned. ‘Ethalia, you’re my new favourite Saint.’ He kicked his horse into a trot and set forth down the road.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘let’s go and visit Brasti’s Gods and see what they have to tell us.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Tavern
The Bone Maiden’s Tavern proved to have all the things Allister had promised and Brasti required. There were beds for rent, and food aplenty. The price was cheap enough and the rooms small enough that we could afford to each have our own, a rare luxury on the road. I didn’t really notice the noise coming up from the common room downstairs as I lay back on my bed, still clothed, enjoying the relative peace and quiet for as long as it would last.
That didn’t turn out to be very long.
Banging on my door was swiftly followed by Brasti’s head as he pushed it open and peered in. ‘There you are! What in the name of Saint Zaghev’s balls are you doing hiding in here?’
‘Trying for peace and quiet. Unsuccessfully, apparently.’
He hauled Kest in behind him and the two of them stood awkwardly in the narrow gap between the door and my bed. ‘Well, this is just pathetic,’ Brasti
said.
‘Why are the two of you here when you’re supposed to be guarding Ethalia?’ I demanded, pushing myself up.
Kest put a warning hand on Brasti’s shoulder. ‘I told you this was a bad idea.’
Brasti was having none of it. ‘Oh, don’t worry about Ethalia. Allister’s keeping a very close eye on her. In point of fact, that’s why we’re here. Kest and I are on a vital mission of friendship and loyalty.’
‘And here I thought you were on a mission to get drunk and bed the local schoolteacher.’
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I can do more than one thing at a time. I’m ambidextrous.’
Kest began to speak. ‘That’s not what—’
I sighed. ‘All right. Get on with it.’
‘I just thought you should be aware, oh First Cantor, that our esteemed colleague Allister is, even as we speak, downstairs and setting lustful eyes upon your woman.’
I stiffened. ‘He’s taken her down to the common room? Has he lost his mind? What if—’
‘She’s unharmed,’ Kest said. ‘It was her idea. She said the music was helping to soothe the fever.’
‘Did it do that for you when you had it?’
‘No, but then, Ethalia and I aren’t exactly alike.’
Thank the Gods for that, at least.
‘The point is,’ Brasti said, jabbing a finger at me, ‘that it shouldn’t be Allister down there with her. It should be you.’
‘She doesn’t want me,’ I replied, too quickly to maintain anything that sounded even remotely like personal dignity. I tried to recover with, ‘Her Sainthood makes my presence painful to her.’
Brasti leaned back against the wall and put the heel of one boot on the edge of my bed. ‘Well, it just so happens I have a suggestion that might soothe the spiritual troubles between you. How about, instead of pining here in your little room, you go down there and be a fucking man for a change?’
‘All right,’ Kest said, grabbing Brasti by the arm, ‘that’s enough for—’
‘No,’ Brasti said, shaking him off, ‘it’s not. You want to know what the real problem is with you, Falcio?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I’d pretty much already decided that this conversation was going to end with me punching Brasti in the mouth so any additional fuel he wanted to add to the fire was fine with me. ‘Go ahead and tell me what’s wrong with me.’
‘You buy into all this shit about Gods and Saints and magic and curses.’
Even Kest was surprised by that. ‘You don’t believe in Saints and magic? After all the things we’ve seen?’
Brasti waved a hand in the air. ‘Of course some of it’s real. I mean, it’s a giant pain in the arse, so it has to be real. But that doesn’t mean you have to take everything as if it’s a commandment from the fucking universe to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness.’
He took his foot off the bed, which I knew was because he was about to say something he knew I didn’t want to hear and he needed to keep all his limbs free to deal with my reaction. ‘The thing that’s keeping you and Ethalia apart isn’t her Sainthood, Falcio. You can pretend all you want that everything was perfect with you both before, but there’s a reason you didn’t ask her to marry you when you had the chance.’
‘You stupid son of a bitch, I was trying to recover from the damned—’
‘No, Falcio, don’t use the Lament as your excuse for everything. The problem started long before that.’
I started working through the distance between my fist and his face and the sequence of movements required to bridge that gap. ‘Is that so?’
‘I’m fairly certain that you should stop talking now,’ Kest said.
Brasti ignored the counsel. ‘It’s Aline.’
‘You think that because I’m trying to help the King’s daughter I can’t—’
‘Not that Aline. Aline-your-wife, you idiot. You know, the woman whose memory weighs so heavily on you that before Ethalia you hadn’t gone near anything female for years? The woman – and I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud – whose name you invoke every time you have to fight for your life?’
I leaned back against the head of the bed, suddenly too weary even for the temporary pleasure of giving Brasti a split lip. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Of course I don’t. So explain it to me.’ He waited barely a second before going on, ‘You can’t, though, because it’s all horseshit.’ He sat down on the corner of the bed, apparently now confident that I wasn’t going to beat him senseless. ‘Think about it, Falcio. You’re a young, beautiful woman. Smart, caring, sensuous—’
‘Focus,’ Kest said.
‘Right. Anyway, so you find this man you think you’re destined to be with and – well, despite obvious physical defects, apparently some women do find you attractive, go figure. And here you are, spending every day of your life with the memory of your dead wife hanging over your head: Aline, the perfect woman. Aline, the noblest sacrifice. Aline, the purest—’
He must have noticed my fist clenching because he stopped for just a moment. Then he said, ‘But it’s not just you, Falcio. Ethalia buys into all of it too. So she finds you, a man she barely knows but has sworn she loves and who claims he loves her, and then Birgid, the woman who mentored her, the woman she idealised and adored, dies, and suddenly there’s this damned Sainthood hanging over her. How do you suppose she feels?’
‘Unmoored,’ Kest said, before I could answer.
‘Exactly. So of course everything feels fated or cursed or whatever. Of course it feels like some sign the two of you can’t be together. Imagine the relief for both of you to finally have an excuse why you’ll never have to get to know each other properly, never have to deal with each other’s annoying faults. Never have to figure out that love is hard.’
I wanted to disagree, to tell him to shove off or, better yet, just ignore him, bury my head under the pillow until his annoying whining voice shut up, but somehow I couldn’t. I looked at Kest, who’d always been my measure of what was true in the world.
‘This is . . . out of my area,’ he said.
Terrific.
‘Listen,’ Brasti said, putting a hand on my shoulder, ‘go down to the common room. Walk in like a man, mind you, not some shade of the long dead. Go up to Ethalia, take her hand and lead her out onto the dance floor.’
I suddenly found myself laughing out loud. ‘Dancing? You want me to dance with Ethalia?’
‘Why not? If you’re both so fucking cursed then I’m sure lightning will strike you down. But maybe you’ll find that it’s not some momentous curse, nor a mystical cure. Maybe it’ll just be dancing. Maybe you’re just a man and she’s just a woman and every once in a while it’s okay to just be human together.’
I stared at him for a long while. I have witnessed some terrifying things in my life, horrible things that made me question the very foundations of my own sanity, but none of them were quite as discomforting as Brasti Goodbow sounding as if he might be making sense.
Dancing, I thought. Well, there’s a tactic that never occurred to me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Dance
The common room was packed with townsfolk – men and women of all ages, and even a few children chasing each other around, though long past any decent bedtime. The music was loud and fast and infectious. Three musicians sat on stools on a small stage at the far end of the room, the sound from their guitars and flutes amplified by the wooden walls around them. Below the stage a well-worn dance floor extended out about ten feet, terminating in a wide semi-circle barely large enough to contain the dozens of dancers happily spinning and bouncing each other around.
It took me a while to work my way through the crowds until I could finally make out Allister and Ethalia sitting at a small table not far from the door. She had changed from her plain travelling clothes to a simple country dress of white and blue layers. The last time she’d worn it was the night we’d arrived at the Ducal Palace in Baern, when w
e’d walked though the Duchess’ garden maze together. She’d plaited her long dark hair into a single loose braid that hung over her left shoulder, just like the other women in the tavern.
Despite her attempts to fit in with the crowd, to me she might as well have been glowing like the sun, and if the other patrons didn’t share my awe of her, Allister certainly did. He leaned in and said something to her and she returned a small smile of acknowledgement. The sight gave me a mean twinge of jealousy for a moment. I tried to shake it without success.
At least Brasti would approve.
I was about to head towards them when one of the musicians caught my eye. He was a tall, thin man with black hair that hung just above his shoulders. He had a large silver hoop in one ear which I suspected meant something to troubadours but nothing to me. He nodded towards the other side of the room and when I followed the line of his gaze, I saw another musician, a blonde-haired woman stringing a guitar, at the side of the stage.
I hadn’t had much experience with the Bardatti other than Nehra, but she’d assured me they were spreading the word and on the lookout for Greatcoats. Perhaps this woman had information for me.
‘I’m Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats,’ I said, once I was close enough to her that I could speak my name without too many others overhearing.
‘A fellow tried to use that line on me yesterday,’ she said, still stringing her guitar.
‘I—’
‘Besides, if you’re going to try and pick up a woman using another man’s name, you might as well get it right. Everyone knows that Falsio dal Vond is the First Cantor of the Greatcoats.’
‘Oh for the damnation of Saint—’
She turned and grinned. ‘Got you.’
‘Got me?’ This is why I prefer to spend my time dealing with people who want to kill me.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Nehra made me promise to use that on you when I saw you.’ She stuck out a hand. ‘I’m Rhyleis.’
I shook hands with her and felt the odd sensation of the calluses on her palms rubbing against mine. It made sense, I supposed, though our respective instruments were very different.
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