"You do not speak as one enamored of the Duke of Wester-Honce," Prince Midalis said with a chuckle.
"I heard many recountings of his return to the city with his prisoners," Al'u'met argued. "If these were indeed the same dwarves, and they were being taken out of Palmaris, then Duke Kalas would have done so with fanfare."
"Fair enough," the Prince replied. "Then they did escape from the dungeons of Palmaris."
"Or they were released," Brother Dellman remarked. "An agreement between the Duke and the powrie leader? "
"You have reason to believe this? " Midalis asked sharply.
"Duke Kalas has been a friend to King Danube, the Prince's own brother, for all their lives," Liam O'Blythe said to Dellman, a clear warning to the man to take care with his words.
"A prisoner exchange, perhaps," Dellman remarked. "Whatever the case, I cannot dismiss my suspicions that if these powries sailed out of Palmaris, they did so under the guidance of the Duke or one of his highranking associates."
Midalis mulled that blunt statement over for a moment, then nodded. " I know not if I agree with your assessment, Brother Dellman, but I am glad that you did not speak of such possibilities in the presence of our barbarian friends. Andacanavar, and particularly Bruinhelde, have a much simpler understanding of how to deal with these monsters. One does not parlay with powries or goblins or giants. One kills them and moves on to the next."
"I am not sure that I disagree with that philosophy," Dellman remarked.
"But we do know that the world is a much more complicated place than that," Midalis went on. But though he spoke the words firmly, it seemed obvious to Dellman that he wasn't thrilled at the possibility that one of his brother's closest advisers and friends, the commander of the most elite force in the Honce-the-Bear military, was somehow in league with bloody caps. "If your suspicions have grounds, then I am certain that Duke Kalas had his reasons, and that those reasons were to the benefit of the kingdom," Prince Midalis finished.
To the benefit of the kingdom over the benefit of the Church? Brother Dellman wondered, for he remembered well how much Duke Kalas had gained in popularity after that saving battle on Palmaris' western fields and how well Kalas had then used his popularity against Abbot Braumin in their constant squabbles.
Midalis and his soldiers, Al'u'met and his crew, Agronguerre and the brothers of St. Belfour, and Andacanavar and the Alpinadorans kept a solemn vigil over Bruinhelde for the next few days.
And then, one quiet afternoon, the barbarian leader came out of the tent, limping badly but with the same determined expression that had earned him the position of respect among his clansmen.
Once again, Brother Dellman was reminded of how wisely Abbot Agronguerre had chosen, for Bruinhelde made a point of going to the old monk and warmly clasping his hand. Agronguerre had been spoken of as a potential healer for the wounded Church, and it seemed to Dellman as if they could not have found a better candidate.
The Alpinadorans hosted a great mead hall celebration that night-it never ceased to amaze the Vanguardsmen just how much of the drink these men could carry around with them!
All were in attendance, a night without tension, as Bruinhelde made a point of dismissing any thoughts of blame against Al'u'met or his men. Brother Dellman, like everyone else in attendance, drank heartily, and it seemed to him as if his mug was more quickly filled-by both Brother Haney and Liam O'Blythe-than any of the others. He thought little of it, though, just enjoyed the drink; and by the time Liam and Haney came to him and took him by the arms, explaining that he looked as if he needed a walk in the nighttime air, the young brother was in no condition to argue.
They brought him out and walked him along the beach, down to the shore, and there they remained for a long time, as the moon Sheila made her slow pass overhead and the roars of laughter and cheers from the mead hall gradually diminished.
Leaning on the powrie boat, Dellman started to nod off, but then awakened, harshly, as Liam O'Blythe splashed a mug full of cold seawater in his face.
"What?" the monk sputtered.
"We know that ye came out to tell us o' the College," Brother Haney began, and only then did Dellman begin to understand how in league these two truly were. "And to take us there, so ye say."
"But what else're ye for, Brother Dellman? " Liam O'Blythe insisted.
Dellman, still groggy from the drink, looked at them both incredulously.
"Oh, tell us, ye fool, and be done with it," Brother Haney prompted. "Ye came to spy on Abbot Agronguerre, didn't ye? "
"Spy?"
"What're ye about, Brother Dellman?" Haney went on. "Ye tell us or we'll put ye in the water."
Dellman straightened and blinked the grogginess out of his bloodshot eyes. "Indeed," he said indignantly, eyeing the young Haney directly.
"Not to be hurtin' ye, just to cool ye off a bit," the other monk replied.
"Ye came to see what he was about," Liam O'Blythe reasoned. "That's me thinkin', and me Prince's, too. So what're ye about, mysterious Brother Dellman? Why'd yer abbot send ye halfway around the kingdom? "
Dellman merely shrugged, and his lack of denial spoke volumes.
"And what will ye tell yer abbot?" Brother Haney demanded, coming forward, but he hesitated, for now Brother Dellman was grinning.
"I will tell Abbot Braumin that Abbot Agronguerre is as fine a man as his reputation makes him out to be," Dellman explained. "I will tell Abbot Braumin that his nomination of Abbot Agronguerre for the position of father abbot would be a great service to the Abellican Church." There, he had said it, and he almost wondered if the dumstruck Brother Haney would simply fall over in the sand.
"Vanguard's loss'll be yer Church's gain, then," an equally stunned Liam O'Blythe remarked.
"Does he know? " Brother Haney asked.
"No, and you are not to tell him!" Dellman instructed. "I believe that Abbot Agronguerre should be informed of the entirety of the plan to nominate him by one more worthy and knowledgeable than either you or me. Abbot Braumin, or oldJe'howith of St. Honce, perhaps."
"Suren he's got his suspicions, as we had ours," Liam reasoned. Dellman nodded. "And he will know the truth of it, soon enough," he said. "Now promise me that you will say nothing to him."
Both men nodded, Haney wearing a silly grin, and that led to a toast, and to another, and when they ran out of mead, Liam O'Blythe ran back to the tent to fetch more, that their private celebration could continue long into the night.
Chapter 19
Practical Indifference
Master Bou-raiy had offered to send several younger brothers with De'Unnero on his journey, but he had flatly refused, both because he didn't need any of Bou-raiy's lackeys reporting back on his every move, and because he desired speed.
And Master De'Unnero knew how to travel fast. He fell into the weretiger, became a great cat under the glow of Sheila, and covered the miles more quickly than he might have even if he had been riding a fine horse. All those traveling hours were a trial for the monk, though, as every scent of every type of prey, of conies and deer, of cattle and sheep-and mostly of humans-drifted his way. He knew that to give in, to feast even upon the flesh of a squirrel, would defeat him, would allow the great feline spirit that had found its way into his corporeal form to take over his sensibilities: he would hunt down and devour a squirrel, and before he awakened again would find himself covered in human blood. He knew it, and so he fought it. And De'Unnero, so strong of will, again conquered the spirit of the weretiger.
He used the form of the great cat for transportation only, and in that guise covered as much as seventy miles in a single night. His first destination, on order of the masters of St.-Mere-Abelle, was to be St. Gwendolyn by the Sea, an important abbey, the fifth largest of the Abellican Order and the one housing the only women in the Order, the Sisters of St. Gwendolyn, named for a relatively minor martyr of the third century. De'Unnero's plan was to remain at St. Gwendolyn for as short a time as possible, then to catch a sai
ling boat out of the abbey's docks along the Mantis Arm coast, sailing south for Entel and St. Bondabruce, the residence of powerful Abbot Olin. De'Unnero was confident that he could get more cooperation and alliance from the man than from anyone at St.-MereAbelle, and so he was anxious to get there before Olin sailed for the College of Abbots. He thought he could make it if he could find seaborne transport at St. Gwendolyn. After a week of hard travel, when he at last came in sight of St. Gwendolyn by the Sea, a white-walled abbey of soaring minarets, Master De'Unnero abandoned his plan, and knew from the scene about the abbey that all future plans would also be altered.
Inevitably.
For there, spread about St. Gwendolyn's grounds, De'Unnero saw the truth of Honce-the-Bear's future, saw the sickly masses huddled under torn tents in dirty robes, all the area about them full of waste and refuse and dead bodies.
That first image of the tarnished fields about St. Gwendolyn burned into the heart and soul of Master Marcalo De'Unnero, assaulted him as the worst, the very worst, sight he had ever witnessed, a prophecy of abject doom and despair, the proof positive that God had altogether abandoned his land and his Order.
No, the master thought. No, God had not deserted his Church, but his Church had surely deserted the ways of God. This foolishness with Avelyn, the murderer, the thief; this insistence-even by those who did not believe in Avelyn or Jojonah, or in the humanistic, sympathetic, and pathetically weak message that was being attributed to them-that the former, and perhaps the latter, as well, would be canonized! This ascension by Braumin and his cohorts to positions of almost dictatorial powers in the Ordervoices they earned only because they happened to be on the right side when the secular forces of the kingdom destroyed the figurehead of their opposition! This general belief that the Abellican Church had to become a great nursemaid to the populace!
Yes, that was it, De'Unnero understood. The new Church leaders wanted to become as nursemaids, and so God was now showing them the folly of their beliefs, the weakness of their softened hearts. De'Unnero knew the old songs and children's rhymes. Like every brother indoctrinated into the Abellican Order, he had learned of the efforts of previous generations to try to heal those afflicted with the rosy plague, knew that only one in twenty could be healed, and that monks seeking such miracles would contract the disease and die, on the average of about one in seven attempts.
"Would Avelyn Desbris be among those running out with soul stone in hand?" De'Unnero asked himself, and he knew the answer wellknew that Avelyn, if he were alive and at St. Gwendolyn, would be out in that field even then, working tirelessly to try to save someone, anyone. Avelyn would be too ill to continue his efforts within a week or two, and he would be dead soon after. "Yes, Avelyn, and when you had died in such a manner, when they had thrown your body on the pyre so that your rotting flesh could not pass the disease to others, would they then call you a saint or a fool?"
In that moment, up on that bluff overlooking the field of wretches, Marcalo De'Unnero saw things very clearly, saw the foolishness that had invaded his beloved Order, the selfishness of Pride and Arrogance, among the most deadly of sins, that had come into the seemingly generous hearts of those brothers calling for humanistic reform.
That was not the Church that Markwart had envisioned or had striven toward as father abbot. And though, in truth, Marcalo De'Unnero had been no enthusiastic supporter of many of Dalebert Markwart's visions, thinking them limited in scope, he recognized that the man had at least attempted to keep the Church on its rightful and righteous course, a path toward leadership, not friendship, toward instruction and not hand-holding.
They were the brothers of Saint Abelle, the mouthpieces of God, those whose concerns had to be the souls and not the bodies, whose compassion had to focus on the afterlife, not the present life. People suffered and people died every day, and in every conceivable horrible way. But that was not important, in De'Unnero's vision. Preparation for inevitable death was a process of cleansing the soul while the body rotted away; and this new vision of the Church, these hints that the errors of Avelyn would be ignored, that the man might be made a saint, this notion that the sacred gemstones were not exclusively the province of the Abellican brothers, that they were meant to alleviate the suffering-the physical and not the spiritual suffering! — all of it, screamed at Marcalo De'Unnero that his beloved Church had not only turned down the wrong fork in the road but also had turned completely around and was walking the path toward the demon dactyl and not toward God.
Marcalo De'Unnero knew at that moment of epiphany what he had to do, or at least, what he had to fight for. But how might he begin to bring it about?
He looked more carefully at the scene spread before him, at the scores, no hundreds, of huddled wretches, and at the long bed of various flowersa tussie-mussie bed, it was called-that had been planted in front of the gates of St. Gwendolyn. The scholar brothers and the secular healers of the day, and of generations past, had come to the conclusion that the plague was spread mostly by the rotting smell of its victims; and the scents that could most effectively block that deadly odor were certain combinations of the various aromatic flowers.
De'Unnero glanced behind him, to the road that led to the main square of Gwendolyn village, which he saw nestled in a dell north of the abbey. He could picture the scene along Gwendolyn village's avenues, people walking with nosegays, smaller versions of the same floral combinations. People walking about with that telltale look of despair, of utter terror.
He kept his human form now, but De'Unnero ran full out down that road and into Gwendolyn. He purchased a nosegay from a market, flourishing despite-or actually, because of-the pall that lay over the town. Then he ran back to the bluff overlooking the field. For the first time since he had left St.-Mere-Abelle, De'Unnero wished that he had taken some gemstones, something to help get him by that desperate crowd, or to clear the way before him. Lacking that, the master fell into the tiger yet again, grimacing with the pain as his lower half transformed into the shape of the great cat, with muscled, powerful legs that could propel him away from any danger in an instant.
He checked the folds of his robes to ensure that the transformed limbs could not be seen, then went with all speed down onto the field, trying to circumvent the rabble. They came at him, the pitiful things, shuffling and wailing; but De'Unnero outran most, and when some circled to block his path to the monastery, the monk leaped on tiger legs, clearing them easily, landing lightly and running on, toward the tussie-mussie bed.
"Hold fast!" came the cry from the wall, and De'Unnero paused long enough to see several crossbowmen leveling their weapons his way. " None to cross the posies!"
"I am Master De'Unnero of St.-Mere-Abelle, you fool!" the monk roared back, and he charged on, right through the flower bed.
He heard the archers cry out again, to a couple of peasants chasing him, and then, to his satisfaction, he heard the click of their crossbows and the agonized cries behind him. At last, he thought, brothers with the courage to do the right thing.
The main gate of St. Gwendolyn swung wide and the portcullis beyond it cranked up, up, and De'Unnero skittered through, his smile wide, prepared to congratulate the brothers of St. Gwendolyn for their vigilance and willingness to do that which was right.
But he paused, stunned, for the scene inside the abbey courtyard nearly mimicked that without! Several brothers and sisters were stretched out on the ground under makeshift tents, moaning, while others peeked out at De'Unnero from various doors and windows or looked down upon him from the parapets. The portcullis behind the master slammed down.
"Where is Abbess Delenia?" De'Unnero barked at the nearest apparently healthy brother, a crossbowman on the parapet beside the gate tower.
The young monk shook his head, his expression grim. "We are without our abbess, all of our masters, and all but one sovereign sister," he explained. "Fie the rosy plague!"
De'Unnero winced at the grim news, for St. Gwendolyn had not been thin of high-ranking m
onks, as were some of the other abbeys. At the last College of Abbots, Delenia had brought no fewer than five masters and three sovereign sisters with her, and she had told De'Unnero personally that she had three more sisters nearing promotion to that rank, the equivalent of master. "We unafflicted number fewer than fifty," the monk continued. "The plague caught us before we understood its nature."
"And how many have gone out to try and cure those diseased upon your field?" De'Unnero demanded. Though he was wounded by the nearcomplete downfall of St. Gwendolyn by the Sea, he transferred that pain into anger and neither sympathy nor sadness.
The monk shrugged and started to look away.
"How many, brother?" De'Unnero demanded, and a twitch of his legs lifted him up the twelve feet to the parapet, to stand before the stunned man. "That is how it entered your abbey, is it not?"
"Abbess Delenia…" the man stammered, and De'Unnero knew that his presumption had hit the mark perfectly. Never had Abbess Delenia failed in matters of sympathy, a weakness that De'Unnero considered general in her gender. She could debate and argue with the best minds in the Abellican Order, and she had been a friend to Abbot Olin; but De'Unnero had always considered Delenia sympathetic to Avelyn and even more so to Jojonah, for she had shown no stomach for watching the heretical master burn at the stake in the village of St.-Mere-Abelle.
"Convene all the healthy brothers and sisters in the abbess's audience chambers," the master instructed the scared young monk. "We have much to discuss."
Merry Cowsenfed walked past her stunned, sobbing companions to the body lying in the tussie-mussie bed, a man who had come to the field outside of St. Gwendolyn only three days before. He had lost his wife and two of his three children to the plague; and now his third, a young daughter, had begun to show the telltale rosy spots. Thus the desperate man had ridden hard, and then when his horse had faltered, had run hard, carrying the child nearly a hundred miles to get to St. Gwendolyn.
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