The Pagan Night

by Tim Akers

  Malcolm laughed, a low, rolling chuckle that seemed to be rooted in the stone of the castle. He clapped his son on the shoulder and smiled.

  “That cannot be taught,” Malcolm said. “You can’t be prepared for what this throne requires of a man—not until you’re on the seat. Not until it’s your word that ends a life, or saves it. Not until it’s your decision that can lead to war—” His voice caught, and Malcolm looked out over the forest, his eyes glassy under Cinder’s harsh light. “Nothing can prepare you for this life.”

  The two stood there awkwardly. Below them the castle’s inhabitants continued on their frantic pace, ignoring the duke and his heir.

  “So what am I to do?” Ian asked.

  Malcolm didn’t answer.

  “Live,” he said after a time. “Live and be a child. The weight of a man will be on you soon enough. Perhaps sooner than you hope. Perhaps sooner than we all hope.”

  “I mean tonight,” Ian said.

  “Ah. Go to bed. Sleep. Morning is not far off.”

  Malcolm gave his son an affectionate cuff across the face, then pushed past him and shuffled down the battlement to the main tower. Ian watched him go, wondering what in the names of both gods might be on his father’s mind, what news the high elector brought, and why Beaunair was insisting they travel south for the Allfire. Especially to that bastard Halverdt’s court.

  He looked out over the forest, staring south to distant Greenhall, and wondered what was waiting for them in the night.

  * * *

  Morning came, and with it the cost of that bottle of wine, harsh in Malcolm’s skull. He woke before it was light and slipped from his bedchamber, shutting the door on his wife’s gentle breathing. Sorcha would never forgive him if he failed to say a proper goodbye, but he would rather not trouble her with his discomfort.

  He dressed in darkness, then snuck down to the doma. There he prayed twice, once to each of the gods in the doma, and once more, before dawn came, hidden in the hallowed shrine from which the castle took its name.

  The dome of the shrine was low and arched, the rough stone barely taller than a man at its highest point. The air was dank and still. A low wall ringed the icon at the center of the shrine, and a runnel in the solid stone of the floor led to the icon, a memory of the time when a natural stream ran through to wash the blood away. As with all holy things of the old days, this shrine had once been open to the sky. Generations past the Blakleys bricked it over as the first sign of their devotion to the new religion. Since then the castle called Houndhallow had been built above the dome, to be the seat of House Blakley’s modest realm.

  In the center stood the shrine itself, an uncut block of dark stone, and perched on that was the head of an enormous hound, forged from blackest iron. The jaws of the hound gaped open, larger than a man’s chest, and the eyes were black pits. Oil lanterns sat in the hollows of the eyes and flickered, while thick, inky smoke smothered the air. The jaws were stained in ancient blood, stains that continued down the rock and onto the floor. The first Blakleys had been vicious men, brutal in their zeal for the dark spirit that the iron hound represented.

  The head was surrounded by a dry moat that had in the past served as both a fountain and a fire pit. The stone wall of that moat served as a kneeler, worn smooth by generations of supplicants, all of them praying to different gods for different reasons.

  And there, his head in his hands, knees bent before the symbol of his family, Malcolm Blakley, duke of Houndhallow, prayed.

  “I expected you to still be in bed,” Sorcha Blakley said from the door. She was dressed in a simple robe, her long brown hair laced in gold and amber, bound in a thick braid that reached to her waist. The hound’s flickering eyes struck sharp shadows across her tired face.

  Malcolm relaxed into his pose of supplication, the sound of his wife’s voice draining tension from his shoulders. Still, he didn’t stand.

  “I have too much on my mind for sleep,” he said.

  “A tired mind makes mistakes,” she murmured.

  He sighed and then, creaking, turned and sat on the kneeler. He laced his fingers together. He looked like a hunter taking a breath in the woods, resting before he moved on. Nothing like one of the greatest heroes of the Reaver War, duke of Houndhallow, faithful son of the Celestial church.

  “I have little enough choice in the matter,” he said. “I can’t make sleep come, no matter what I try.”

  Sorcha sat beside her husband and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “You must try to rest, my love,” she said. “This trip will ask much of you. Your body is not what it once was, able to sleep in the saddle and fight in the morning.”

  “Oh, gods, woman. I know my limits. My knees won’t let me forget the price they’ve paid in my service.” He stretched out his legs, rubbing life into them. “It’s my heart that seems to have found its limit.”

  “Nonsense. I know of no deeper heart,” Sorcha whispered.

  Malcolm sat quietly, staring at the sooty wall, rubbing his hands together. Eventually, he turned to his wife.

  “I do not like the taste of this task,” he said simply.

  “No?” she said. “You go to Greenhall, to celebrate the Allfire. What is distasteful about that?”

  “You know as well as I. Greenhall has never been friendly ground. It’s no kinder during the Allfire.” Malcolm sighed and rubbed his face. “To Tenerrans, at least.”

  “Surely you won’t be alone. Many Tenerran knights make the journey to Greenhall. I believe a MaeHart won the lists last year.”

  “The Tenerrans who go are only spoiling for a fight. More blood is drawn in the streets than on the melee ground. Three years ago a brawl broke out during the evensong. The frair’s nose got broken.”

  “And Gabriel Halverdt got a new frair out of it. So everyone is happy,” Sorcha persisted.

  Malcolm laughed and shook his head. “Always the bright side with you,” he said. Sorcha shrugged but didn’t answer. After a few breaths, Malcolm’s countenance fell. “He knows what he’s doing. Halverdt breeds that kind of conflict. The Circle of Lords will only protect him as long as they believe the north is on the verge of rebellion. He baits us. He baits me.”

  “He does no such thing. You have to get that out of your head, that he does the things he does just to provoke you.” She took her hand away from his knee. “Gabriel Halverdt is not so unlike you, Malcolm. He is a lord of his land, plagued by problems that an average man could never hope to understand, and an average wife can only help him bear. His problems are not your problems, granted, but don’t try to make his solutions your worry.”

  “I sometimes think you practice these speeches,” Malcolm said quietly, “so smoothly do you employ them.”

  Sorcha smiled weakly. “The duke of Greenhall is often on your mind, husband. The things I say to you, I have said before. Sometimes I wonder if you’re really listening.”

  “I listen,” he said. “I hear. I consider, and sometimes you’re right. Sometimes, however, the trouble is deeper than your advice can provide for.”

  “I don’t know what else to say, love.”

  “Exactly. And so I can’t sleep. Because there’s nothing else to be said.”

  The two of them sat there quietly for a while as the oily smoke from the hound drifted around them. Finally, Malcolm stirred.

  “If I do not return from Greenhall…” he started. Sorcha swatted his hand.

  “Don’t talk like that. Don’t even think those thoughts. You go under the banner of the church, to bring peace to a troublesome lord. The high elector needs you—he will see you safely there and safely back.” She rubbed his temple lightly, brushing a smudge of soot away. “You needn’t give your wife further worry.”

  “If I don’t return,” Malcolm bulled on, “it will fall to you to defend the hallow. Nessie isn’t old enough, and Master Tavvish won’t know what to do.”

  “And Ian? You won’t trust the lordship to him?”

 
Malcolm paused nervously. “He’s coming with me,” he said.

  “With you?” she said, suppressing a gasp. “Why ever would he need—”

  “Because he’s a boy no longer, yet still too much a child. Because he needs to see that sometimes a war can end with the stroke of a pen, rather than the glorious charge and the letting of blood.” Malcolm turned slightly away from her, gritting his jaw. “Because he dreams too much of honor, and not enough of the lives that his honor would cost.”

  Sorcha sighed but didn’t argue any further. There was no point in it. She stood and gathered her robe around her shoulders, shivering.

  “I never liked this room,” she said, “and that thing. I can’t believe the church lets you keep it.”

  “Tradition,” he said. “The church doesn’t mind a little tradition. It was the price we demanded for our allegiance to the first celestriarch. The trappings of the old way, and the faith of the new.”

  “It seems to me more like heresy,” Sorcha answered. “Then again, I’m not a priest.”

  “Thank the gods for that,” he said, then reached over and pulled her into his lap. Sorcha had the decency to shriek, but she rolled herself into Malcolm’s arms, resting her head on his shoulder. “Thanks again,” he said.

  “For?”

  “Making an honest hero of me. I could have become an insufferable bore after the war. Too full of myself. Of my glory.”

  “Who’s to say you haven’t?” she asked with a smile. He squeezed her, and they stayed there for a while, silent in the presence of the old god, listening to the torches sputter and watching their shadows dance across the walls.

  It wasn’t long before a servant came to fetch the lord and prepare him for his journey. Malcolm slid his wife to the bench beside him and, without looking back, left her there.

  He was off to end a war before it started.

  6

  “THIS TOURNAMENT IS a waste of time,” Ian grumbled. He rode beside his father at the head of their column with the banner of House Blakley shifting lazily over their heads and a dozen good knights and their attendants following. Sir Doone and Sir Dugan rode to either side, hands loose on the reins, their backs as straight as pikes. To them, Greenhall was enemy territory.

  “You have no interest in glory?” Malcolm asked.

  “I can find glory enough without riding all the way to Greenhall. There are tournaments in Dunneswerry, the Fen…” Ian leaned closer. “There’s no reason for us to get Suhdrin dust on our boots. I don’t know if you noticed, Father, but they were making preparations for the Allfire at Houndhallow as we were leaving. We could have stayed home, maybe ridden the tilt against Master Tavvish.”

  “Tavvish would not have ridden an honest tilt against you, boy,” Malcolm said dismissively. “A lord’s knights would never embarrass the heir on his own field. It doesn’t matter, though. You will not be riding the lists. That hand of yours is excuse enough. There will be no dishonor in sitting out the tourney.”

  Ian flexed the injured hand. “It has nearly healed. I am certainly well enough to ride against Suhdrin knights.”

  “Do not underestimate the southern blade, son,” Malcolm said. “Nor my will. There will be no tournament for you.”

  “Then why am I here?” Ian asked.

  “To watch a war end before it starts, in ink, rather than in blood.”

  Behind them, Sir Dugan gave a short laugh. He nudged his way forward to ride beside Malcolm. Houndhallow’s master of guard was cut from the old cloth, with hair in thin braids and ink around his eyes. He sat slouched in his saddle, more huntsman than knight. Ian always thought his father kept Sir Dugan around to remind him of the house’s heritage, of the tribe they used to be and the history they shared. The rest of the court treated Dugan like a feral child, curious and dangerous in equal parts.

  “Be glad, young Ian. At Greenhall you’ll find more than a challenge,” Dugan said. “Be happy if one of Halverdt’s tame monsters doesn’t try to run you through in your sleep.”

  “That’s not helpful, Sir Dugan,” Malcolm muttered. “Try to keep that sort of talk to a whisper while we’re the duke’s guests, and please don’t run anyone through yourself.”

  “If my honor…” Dugan began.

  “Honor? You’re starting to sound like a true knight,” Ian said with a smile. “Will you be in the joust, finally?”

  Sir Dugan grumped and sank deeper into his saddle.

  “No matter,” Malcolm interjected. “The point, Ian, is that we are here to improve relations with Greenhall. The Reaver War brought Tenerrans and Suhdrin closer together, and the high elector has asked us to remind Halverdt of that heritage. Let’s not ruin all that with misplaced honor or an impatient blade.”

  “And keep your prick buttoned,” Sir Doone added from over Ian’s shoulder. For a woman and a knight, Sir Doone had many opinions about the buttoning and unbuttoning of pricks. A ripple of laughter went through the column behind her.

  “Well, yes,” Malcolm agreed, and his voice caught. “Yes, that as well.”

  Ian had no answer for that, nothing beside a blush and muttered assurances. They rode in awkward silence for a few miles, passing by the icons that kept the godsroad safe from the gheists, the graven images of Lord Cinder and Lady Strife watching them with stony eyes. When they passed the high henge that marked the border between Tener and Suhdra, Blakley and Halverdt, Sir Dugan leaned over and spat eloquently.

  “Keep it to yourself, sir,” Malcolm rumbled.

  “We should have brought the dogs,” Dugan answered.

  Malcolm gestured to the banner over their heads.

  “We brought the hound,” Malcolm said. “Let’s do it justice.”

  * * *

  Greenhall lay before them, in all of summer’s glory. A young castle, it had been built in the Suhdrin style after the last crusade. It was both a promise and a threat. A promise that this was as far north as the Suhdrin lords would try to reach, now that the holy site of Cinderfell was under the protection of the Celestial church, and a threat that any attempt to reclaim this march would be met with all the violence the south could muster.

  The shining stones of the castle walls were hung with banners of green and gold, the colors of House Halverdt fluttering over the fields of the tournament grounds. Beneath the keeps but still embraced by the curtain wall, the city breathed and rippled like an old oak, raising its arms to summer’s light.

  “That’s a hell of a sight,” Ian whispered. The column behind him was tired, the end of it stretching out of sight, but the sight of the city put some fire in their blood. The same breeze that moved the hundreds of Halverdt banners reached across the plain to lift the hound. Pride swelled through Ian’s heart. He looked behind him. The whole rumbling caravan, from the men-at-arms to the several dozen knights, twisted back up the road as far as Ian cared to look. They had brought an army to Greenhall, even if half their number were cooks and servants.

  “No prettier time in the old march,” Dugan said. His family had once come from the hunting grounds around Greenhall, before the Suhdrin legions had pushed them north, and his tribe had joined with Blakley. He often spoke as though he had been born there himself, even though the loss was generations past. “If you must be in such a place, now is the season for it.”

  Malcolm snorted and spurred his horse to a trot.

  The word passed down the caravan that the city was in sight, and a collective murmur washed through them as wagons stopped and windows opened to catch that first glimpse of Greenhall’s famous doma. The Celestial faith had already spread throughout Tener, but that dome had been the first built by a Suhdrin lord on land taken from the pagans, and Halverdt had built it to impress, its snowy white bulk rising above the jagged skyline of the city, its towers hung in pennants of summer. Several men slid from their mounts to say a prayer.

  “It’s not that bad,” Malcolm allowed, “once you get used to the politics and the smell.”

  “Both of which are closely re
lated,” Dugan muttered.

  Ian ignored them. His visits to the seat of Halverdt’s power had been rare. Though a steady peace had ruled the border for longer than any of them had been alive, it wasn’t until the Reaver War that relations improved between Tener and Suhdra. Certain relations, at least. Generations of crusade and atrocity left deep wounds and bitter memories. Because of that, most of Ian’s memories of the city were gilded in the fog of youth. To him, it was a place of stuffy rooms and stern conversations, full of quiet gardens and avenues lined with rank after rank of nervous guards.

  His father had brought him south for some negotiations, something to do with farming rights along the border, and the visit had stuck in Ian’s mind. The Suhdrin builders made their castles as beautiful as they were functional, something that was rare in the north. Ian felt that the bleak walls of Houndhallow seemed dull in comparison, an opinion he tried to hide. Yet on the wide approach to the city, on these fields that had seen so many battles, it was difficult for Ian to hide his awe.

  “Enough gawping, the pair of you,” the duke called over his shoulder. “We’ve a pavilion to establish and lists to enter, and we should present ourselves to our host. Let him know we’re not here to reave.”

  “You’re not here to reave,” Dugan grumbled. Malcolm ignored him.

  “Why do we have to stay in a pavilion, Father?” Ian said when he had caught up with the elder Blakley. “Surely the duke will provide us with rooms in the castle?”

  Malcolm didn’t answer for a minute. He went a little faster, until there was some space between them and the rest of the train. When he spoke, he looked straight ahead.

  “Sir Dugan is not all wrong in his warning,” Malcolm said. “I would feel safer in my own tent than surrounded by Halverdt stone.”

  “And the duke won’t take offense?”

  “He may. He well may.”

  The first sounds of the city reached them. It was a great tumult of horses and livestock and wagons and the unending sound of voices in the streets, arguing and yelling. Above that, weaving in and out of the clatter and chaos of the city, came the sky hymn. It rolled out from the cloud-white dome that dominated the skyline at the top of the terraced streets, its arches and smooth white towers looming over the lesser mass of the citadel.