Flesh and Spirit
Page 9
“See that you do, monk.” The officer nodded stiffly and retreated to a knot of men in the very center of the field—a cadre of knights, twelve lances sprouting from them like a stand of needlegrass.
What lord lay there with no horses or banners? Some landless edane, no doubt, who thought himself Iero’s chosen for surviving when mardanes, ducs, and princes lay dead or captive. None of the regular soldiers paid him any notice.
Nestled above the tunnel between the twin gate towers was the room where, as Saint Ophir had commanded, one member of the Gillarine fraternity remained ever alert for those in need of sanctuary—certainly to my own benefit. As I weighed the efforts of finding another haven, someone poked his head from the window and yelled, “Hark, Father Prior!”
The stocky monk craned his neck to see the caller. “Must you shout so loud, Brother Cosmos? Even underling friars must maintain our wits and decorum.” His politeness had shriveled like a currant.
“There are more men on the ridge, Father Prior. Coming this way.” Brother Cosmos damped his volume, but he could not mute the quaver of fear that accompanied his report.
“Riders or foot?” said the prior, squinting into the murky evening beyond the firelit field.
“I’m not certain. They seem to move too quickly for foot. Perhaps one with better eyes should take up the watch. If we could just move these men inside—”
The prior sighed deeply. “The soldiers cannot move without their officers’ orders, so we must await Father Abbot. The newcomers are likely more sad cases like these.”
“But—”
The stocky monk silenced the protest with a warning finger. “Age does not preclude punishment for disobedience, Cosmos. Stay at your post. As the saint taught, good order will carry us through all earthly trials.” He folded his arms and surveyed the field, dispatching the monks here and there as they bustled through the gates.
Perhaps innocent men were not primed to expect trouble when dealing with such ugliness as war. Or perhaps the prior was just a fool. I had soldiered on and off since I was seventeen and knew that unexpected company rarely brought any good. The monks needed to get these men behind the abbey walls.
If I were to avoid any ugly encounters, I needed to be on my way as well. But first I’d get a better sense of where these men had come from, lest I blunder into the war I had abandoned. Almost a fortnight had passed since Wroling Wood. Some other noble boil must have been lanced in recent days to spew commoners’ blood.
A woodcart rattled through the tunnel. I stuffed the pitcher and my alder stick into the bed, gripped the cart rim for a support, and moved into the field. Once we reached the center of the crowd, I extracted stick and pitcher and wandered off on my own, searching for someone who could tell me what I needed to know. I stayed cautious. Little chance any would know me. But if some of these had fought at Wroling, I’d not want it to get about that I’d arrived at Gillarine so much earlier than they.
“Brother, can you help me?” A scrawny man with one arm bound to his chest was trying to roll a bulky comrade onto his side. The pale, slab-sided soldier was retching and choking, half drowned in his own vomit. The heat of his fever could have baked bread.
“Iero’s grace,” I said, narrowly avoiding losing my own supper as the poor wretch heaved again, mostly bile and blood. I set my pitcher on the ground and helped prop the fellow on his side. A cold like deep-buried stone weighed my spirit as I touched him. The gore-soaked wad of rags bound to his belly oozed fresh blood.
“Where have you come from?” I said to the other man, snatching my hands away from his friend. “I’ve heard naught of this battle. Where was it fought?”
The scrawny soldier gaped as if I’d asked him to explain the thoughts of women or the intents of gods. “In the wood.”
“The woods close by here? West beyond the ridge? Or more northerly, near Elanus?”
“A fearful dark wood.” He could be no more than sixteen. “They kept coming at us. Knights. Halberdiers. And the mad ones…screaming like beasts and waving orange rags on their spears.” He shuddered and swallowed a little twisting noise. I’d heard that sound before. Felt it. The terror that sat inside your gut and kept trying to climb out. The fellow didn’t know any more. He’d likely never left his mother’s croft until he was dragged off and told to kill Moriangi.
“Have you a cup or bowl?” I said. “And one for your friend?”
I filled two crude wooden bowls from my ale pitcher. The youth took a grateful sip, and I left him trying to give the bulk of his own portion to his friend. He ought to have drunk both portions himself. The wounded man wouldn’t live past midnight. I’d known it when I touched him, known it with the certainty that always gave me the shudders—a hint of my mother’s bent, I’d always thought, that showed up at random through the years, never biddable, never revealing matters I could do anything about. Control of death and life were beyond any pureblood bent.
On the near side of the field, a blood-slathered Brother Robierre sawed away at a whimpering soldier’s thighbone. Young Gerard sat on the man’s good leg to help keep the poor sod still, his gawking taking in every gruesome detail. Jullian, pale as a mist-dimmed moon, held the glowing cautery iron in a fire they’d built a few steps away. I gave the wretched proceeding a wide berth.
“Iero’s grace.” I approached a hollow-cheeked veteran who sat off by himself at the edge of the field, tending his feet. “Tell me, good sir, how close by the abbey was this terrible engagement? And in which direction?”
“Not so close as to threaten holy folk like you. We fought Bayard the Smith himself at Wroling Wood. The whore priestess of the Harrowers rode beside him.”
“Wroling! But I thought—” I caught myself before blundering into any confession. “I’d heard rumor of a fight there, but days ago. You must have given Prince Bayard a noble struggle.”
He spat and continued blotting his peeling toes with a scrap of dry cloth, pulling off bits of straw he’d used to stuff his boots. “Pssht. Three days’ killing and what’s left of Ardran honor is scattered to the winds. Unless Kemen Sky Lord brings forth this Pretender, the Prince of Brutes will be king in a fortnight, for all the good it’ll do ’im. When the orange-heads finish burning Ardra, they’ll burn Morian, too.”
He was probably right. But I needed to understand his geography. “Here, if you’ve a cup, I can ease your thirst. For certain, you’ve had a long adventure to get here from Wroling. Perhaps you went the long way round and ran into another fight along the way?”
Looking up at last, he wrestled a tin cup from his belt. “Nay, good brother. We’d all be dead if we’d had to face aught since Wroling. If there’d been horses to commandeer, we could have nipped off to these fine walls in three days or less, despite our wounded. But even His Grace and his lordlings lost their mounts there at the end.”
“Prince Perryn unhorsed!” Who’d ever believe the cowardly princeling would get close enough to combat to lose his horse? “He’s captive, now, I suppose. Or dead.”
“Aye, one or the other. At least that’s kept the Smith off our backsides. With noble prey ripe for plucking, he needn’t bother chasing dregs like us. A few unchartered knights is all they’d have to show for taking this lot.”
“But your lord lies just over—” Unreasonably disturbed, I held the pitcher poised above his cup. “Prince Perryn…you didn’t see him taken, then?”
“Nah. But he’s likely squealing in Bayard’s dungeons by now. Pompous prickwit.” The soldier licked his lips and jerked his cup toward the pitcher.
When I’d heard of Prince Perryn’s foiled plot to burn Navronne’s fleet—our only defense against Hansker raiders—because his brother Bayard commanded the ships, I was done with the Ardran prince for good. Who of any mind could wish for either the Smith, the Pompous Prickwit, or Osriel the Bastard to wear good Eodward’s crown? I feared the tales of a fourth brother, a Pretender, were naught but wishing dreams, wrought to hold off a kingdom’s despair.
Over the soldier’s head the forested folds of hill and vale were enveloped in gathering gloom. With Perryn taken, Bayard would never chase down sixty wounded men, a few knights, and a minor lord. But if the Duc of Ardra had slipped Bayard’s grasp, and some pureblood scout had detected royal blood on this rabble’s trail…Brother Cosmos had seen riders on the ridge.
I shoved the ale pitcher into the startled soldier’s hands. “Riders are coming from the west. Drink up, put on your boots, and set a watch. Remember, you’ve no sanctuary as long as you’re outside the abbey gates. If by some chance a certain unhorsed lord were hiding here among you, and if by some chance the Smith were to get wind of it from one of his pureblood lapdogs…”
The soldier stared at me for a moment, and then over his shoulder into the darkness flowing down from the forested ridge and pooling in the valley on every side. “Yo, Tobit, Gerrol!” he called, snatching up his boots.
I sped away as fast as I could hobble. No bed or board was worth involvement in the princes’ bloody argument. I’d had my fill of killing. My leg was not up to running, but I needed no stick to propel me across the field toward the river and the cart road south.
Did these monks understand what was going to happen here? Bayard, Duc of Morian, called the Smith for his crude and thuggish manner, would surely slaughter these men to take his rival and might violate the abbey itself. Sanctuary was only effective if the pursuers respected the concepts of mercy and salvation. And in such regards, I had no confidence in either Bayard the Smith or Sila Diaglou.
The stench of charred meat hung over the crowd of wounded surrounding the infirmarian and his assistant. Jullian and Gerard were wiping bloody implements with bloody rags and replacing them in Robierre’s wooden chest.
I ought to warn the brothers. Robierre and Anselm would likely not come away from the field. And truly, as I thought of it, I owed them no debt, as their service had naught to do with saving me, but with their own gifts and obligations. But the boys…I’d given my word to protect young Jullian, and I didn’t break my word.
I pushed through the listless press and crouched down behind the boys. “Father Prior bade me send the two of you into the church,” I said quietly.
Gerard gaped at me blankly, as if too horror-sated to make sense of common speech. Jullian, though, snapped his head around. “Valen! What are you doing out here? Your leg—”
“I’m carrying Father Prior’s commands. Everyone must help in such a desperate time, even such as me. Come now, leave your task for those more knowledgeable, and get you to the church. You’re needed for…” My mind juggled to come up with anything that sounded reasonable.
“But we were told to help Brother Infirmarian.”
The glassy puddles beside my feet shivered. Horses.
“Well, all that’s changed. You’re wanted in church…for the singing…as so many of the brothers are occupied and your voices and hearts are pure…and we will need Iero’s grace very much with what’s to come this night.”
In an instant, Jullian’s puzzled expression blossomed into the most profound awe. His voice dropped to a whisper. “The dark times…the long night…come so soon?” He glanced quickly at Gerard, who seemed to comprehend as little as I did of his meaning, and then back at me. Jullian jumped up, dragged the other boy to his feet, and gave him a shove. “Gerard, run for the church! Go! Begin the psalm for the end times!”
Gerard scooted away. Jullian crouched down again, whispering excitedly. “I wasn’t sure you knew. This afternoon, Brother Gildas reprimanded me for my loose tongue…I mean, I had heard them say that your book could be the key and surely the god had sent you here, and so I assumed you knew of the lighthouse. But for this night to come so soon…”
My teeth thrummed with the approaching hoofbeats. Cries of dismay broke out from several sides. “Jullian, I’ve no idea what you’re saying, but you must go into the church with Gerard and say whatever prayers you can think of. Don’t come out until Father Abbot himself tells you it’s safe. Do you understand?”
Face glowing with more than the ruddy torchlight, eyes pooled with determined innocence, the boy ducked his head and raised his hand. “I understand,” he said, and then added softly, so only I could hear, “Teneamus.”
Chapter 7
I stared after Jullian as he sprinted for the abbey gates. But only for a moment. Matters were deteriorating too rapidly. The first outriders thundered across the fields toward the abbey, swords raised, cloaks and pennons flying. The little cadre of bristling lances moved slowly from the center of the field toward the gatehouse—away from the coming assault, which did naught but affirm what I suspected about the lord they protected.
“Father Prior!” Abbot Luviar himself ran out of the gatehouse tunnel as I picked my way across the uneven ground along the wall away from the gates. “In the name of the Creator, Nemesio, why are they not within?”
“Their officers refused. Their lord insists on you—”
“Run, Nemesio! Get him inside now. By my command as your superior in Iero’s service, under pain of your immortal soul, get the lord’s party through the gate. Do you understand me? Brother Broun, Fescol…ring the bells!”
The prior dashed into the murmuring crowd. As the alarm rippled in from the perimeter, Abbot Luviar strode straight out through the stirring soldiers as well. “Rise up!” he cried, moving from one to another, the golden sunburst on his breast glinting in the torchlight. “You must stand one more time. Rise up and take arms. Support your comrades to stand as well. Navronne needs your strength. Your children and your children’s children need your courage. If good is to be made of your suffering, then these riders must not find you asleep.” He tugged on weary arms and laid his hand on bent heads. “You are the men of Ardra, Eodward’s men of light! Mighty Iero will lift your arms, if you but stand. This fight is bigger than you know. The stakes grander than all of us.”
I was astonished. One by one, men who but moments before were ghosts of warriors, drained of blood and spirit, grasped pikes or spears and rose to their feet, drawing their fellows up to stand beside them and face outward. None of them seemed to notice the knights retreating toward the abbey.
I wanted to call after Luviar, “The one you protect is not worthy of more lives; he betrays his men for pride and greed!”
But the abbot was out of my reach. Like a tight eddy in the current of the shaping battle, he spun and touched and cajoled. “Rise up and the archangels will join you with their swords and shields. This cause you serve must not die this day. Show Navronne the strength of your resolve!”
Indeed, the abbot’s voice carried across the sea of bloodied faces like an archangel’s clarion, almost enough to draw me back into the conflict I had abandoned. Not for the cowardly prince I believed lay hidden behind the screen of his lancers, not for golden Ardra or industrious Morian or mysterious, mountainous Evanore. Yet, perhaps, for good King Eodward who had lived with the angels and dreamed of Navronne, the Heart of the World…
Even as I considered grabbing a weapon from one of the men too weak to use it, I shook off the fey notion. I was not ready to die for anyone or anything. To enter a fight at less than full strength was an invitation to the Ferryman.
I climbed the gentle apron slope of the wall and angled away from the gatehouse, resigned to a long and miserable journey. The abbey walls would lead me back to the river. Somewhere the monks would have built a bridge to open the cross-river pastures for grazing. The thick damp of the night resolved into cold spatters on my face. Unvowed, I had no cowl to shield me from the rain
.
“Valen!” The call startled me, and I glanced over my shoulder. A pale face lined by dark brows appeared out of the night behind me. “You should get yourself inside the walls immediately, Valen.”
Iero’s bones, where had the monk come from? “Ah, Brother Gildas,” I said, “perhaps you don’t recognize the perils of this night.”
My gait was slow and clumsy on the uneven ground. Gildas quickly caught up with me, grabbed my arm, and drew me to a halt. “This world is naught but perilous. Nothing is simple. Nothing is innocent. And sometimes, those who think themselves the most worldly are the most innocent of all.”
I snorted at the concept of this monk telling me anything of the world. “Sometimes a man must look to his body’s safety as well as his soul’s. Bayard of Morian is hunting his brother, and any man who gets in his way is a fool. Soon to be a dead fool. Though Abbot Luviar seems to disagree, I doubt Iero would have us throw our lives away for nothing.”
Purposeless death was not the only risk in staying. Bayard would surely have pureblood attendants. Any interrogation of Gillarine’s inhabitants could be my downfall. Time only increased the Registry’s determination to recover a recondeur.
I limped past Brother Gildas. He darted in front of me and gently, but insistently, blocked my way. “The god has given your safety into our hands, Valen. Please believe we take that very seriously. You must not leave.”
I wanted very much to believe him. The drizzle had yielded to a downpour. My thigh ached. I was already shivering and had no provisions. All that awaited me in the dark and the wet were pestilence, Moriangi swords, and a hungry winter. “But these riders—”
“—will not find the one they seek. I swear to you they’ll have no cause to broach our walls. The dangers of this night are outside Gillarine, not in. Come. Hurry. And have faith.”
His grip was much stronger than I expected. And perhaps his faith, too. For it was more than the weather and my poor prospects that crumbled my resolve so quickly. Since I’d first taken up soldiering, I had hated the last moments before battle, when it seemed as if the boundaries between earth and body, between past, present, and future, between knowing and experiencing dissolved. But something about this place…every moment I stood on this field multiplied those sensations beyond bearing. As a wind blustering my hair and robe, I felt the sweeping onslaught of the Moriangi. As the sea crashing upon my knees, I felt the surging Ardrans step up to meet them. A horse neighed wildly in the distance and a cheer went up among the Ardrans. My soul ached, and I longed for wine…for mead…for hard spirits or poppy…for the doulon…anything so I would not feel all this.