Now I fear it as inevitability.
For I have come to profoundly fear that there is no lasting goodness, nor can there be. With great hope did my father return from Behr, the Book of Jhest in hand, the song of the Jhesta Tu on his lips, and Sen Wi beside him.
They killed him for his optimism, for his idealism, for his hope that there was a better way.
How many hours, how many days, how many weeks, how many months, did he toil to copy those words? How many times was a page discarded because a single symbol was penned wrong?
The permanence of wisdom etched on fragile parchment so easily lost. And will the concerted effort of a future king collect them all and destroy them? And will all the followers, the Book of Jhest etched into their thoughts, be gathered and slain?
Inevitably so.
And what then is left? What worth art and the just swing of sword What small steps might man move forward When a single man of ill design Of lust and greed may just consign To the ashes the work of those before And halt their march forevermore?
That is my despair, that the accumulation of justice and goodness is an illusion, a temporary stay. One King Yeslnik will erase the gains of Dame Gwydre; one Father De Guilbe will chase away the call of Cormack's justice. A Gwydre or a Cormack might win, but eventually will a Yeslnik claim the throne or will a De Guilbe steal the church. And then the darkness settles, and justice is scattered, and the memory of Sen Wi dies with me, and the memory of Bran Dynard is lost in the ashes of Garibond Womak.
Is it no more than a circular road? Can the work of good men do no more than stretch it to the shape of an ellipse? For so long I dared not believe so, but now I see no other possibility.
In that case, then what is the point?
I do not know. The mud shifts below my feet. In Pryd Town, the Highwayman was a selfish man. In the cold north, under the tempting optimism of Dame Gwydre, the Highwayman found wider purpose.
But on a road in the east, in the death of Jameston Sequin and the betrayal by Affwin Wi, I was reminded all too clearly of the circle that is the fate of man.
The mud shifts again.
I know that I want my mother's sword. For that I will fight. I know that I demand the brooch Father Artolivan entrusted to me. For that I will fight. These are my two immediate certainties, and my third, Cadayle, awaits. Would that I could fix the world!
But another Yeslnik will claim the throne.
And another De Guilbe will steal the church.
And the flames of an Abellican ruby consume the Book of Jhest.
Sometime, somewhere, out there just over the dark horizon. -BRANSEN GARIBOND
NINE
The Moment of Courage
"Just piss yer pants," Engren the soldier grumbled as his tent companion crawled over him on his way to the exit. "It'll keep ye warm."
"It's summer," the third man in the tent argued. "And I don't want him stinking worse than he's already stinking!"
"Shut yer mouths, the both of ye," Cawley Andadin scolded, and he pushed aside the tent flap and crawled outside. "Tired o' being an animal, I am."
"It's what we be," said Engren. "Ye're a soldier, a dog. Thrust yer spear and wear yer enemy's blood and stink like piss and mud all the year long."
"We'll be back to Comey Downs in a month," Cawley replied, referring to their home village, just northeast of Delaval City. He was not a young man, and the ground was unforgiving to his old bones. He pulled himself up to one knee with great effort and then with a grunt heaved himself up to his feet. "Home, and with it all done. With Ethelbert done and Yeslnik the King of Honce and no more fighting. Me wife's not liking the smell of piss much."
"A month, yeah," said Engren in his typically dour tone. "A month, and we'll be getting slaughtered outside Ethelbert's gates. And if the Bear finds us a way to win, our reward will be a march to Chapel Abelle. Dodge the spears of Ethelbert. Dodge the lightning bolts o' the monks. All's the same and not to end. I'm thinking that dying might be th'only escape."
Cawley wasn't listening any longer. He was miserable enough without letting Engren's constant complaining weigh him down even further. He had spent a good few weeks in Comey Downs with his wife and five children. While going out on the road had been emotionally troubling, Cawley had mitigated his despair with a reminder that this was likely the last march. They were going for Ethelbert, King Yeslnik had told them, and would be under the guidance of the great Bannagran the Bear. All the way to Ethelbert dos Entel to end the war, with Cawley's group and ten thousand Delaval soldiers backing the legendary five thousand veterans of Pryd. Given the reputation of Bannagran, whose name was whispered reverently by ally and enemy alike, Cawley believed that they would do just that, that this time, the thorn of Laird Ethelbert would be eliminated.
And they had the monks with them, almost all of them, led by Master Reandu himself. Rumors also spoke of another ally, a small man many believed to be the Highwayman.
This time the assault was for real, Cawley told himself, and not like that inexplicable retreat they had executed all the way back to Delaval. This time they would end it.
He moved away from the dying campfires into the brush to relieve himself. He caught a movement out of the side of his eye a moment later and thought it must be another of the soldiers coming out for similar reasons.
The man was fastening his pants when the hood went over his head, his legs kicked out from under him. A fine cord went around his throat, stopping his breath, and preventing him from crying out. He tried to reach up and loosen the cord, but fingers knifed into one armpit, then the other, and for some reason that Cawley did not understand his arms seemed to simply die, all strength gone.
He was down on his face in moments. He tried to kick and thrash, but someone fell atop him, and a soft, woman's voice began whispering in his ear, "Sleep, sleep."
He felt the cord loosen some time later, felt the ground under him as he was dragged along. He stood on the edge of unconsciousness for a long time, too weak to call out but not quite escaping the sensations all around. His captors sat him up against a tree and tugged his arms hard behind him, his wrists bound around the other side of the tree trunk.
The hood came off, and Cawley saw her in the moonlight right before his face. The second he realized she was a Beast of Behr, with her almond-shaped dark eyes and black hair, he knew he was doomed.
Many whispers had spoken of Laird Ethelbert's vicious assassins.
She smiled at him, disarmingly, then slapped him hard across the face. He started to respond but went silent, feeling a clawlike implement, like the head of a garden rake, come up tight against his groin.
"If you yell out, I will make your death hurt," the woman promised in her odd accent.
Cawley stared at her, his eyes wide, licking blood from his split lip.
"Do you understand?"
Cawley nodded, eyes wide.
"Where is your army marching?"
Cawley licked his lip again, and she slapped him even harder.
"Where is your army marching?"
"East!" he gasped.
She slapped him again, and the world began to spin before Cawley. He could hardly believe this tiny creature could move so quickly and hit so hard! To make matters worse, she also pressed in with the claws against his scrotum.
"To Ethelbert dos Entel?" she asked.
Cawley groaned and nodded.
"You march to kill Laird Ethelbert?"
"No," the man gasped. "I'm just a soldier. I do what they tell me."
Behind the woman, a man spoke in a language Cawley did not understand.
"How many soldiers?" the woman asked.
Cawley stammered, "Lots."
The woman hit him again, and again.
"Five thousand o' Pryd," he blurted, and she backed off momentarily. "The rest're from King Yeslnik."
This time she punched him square on the nose, shattering it and jolting his head back against the tree. It took Cawley a few moments for his eyes to s
top spinning, and he tasted the blood running from his broken nose.
"Yeslnik is not the king. Ethelbert is the king," she corrected.
"I'm not for caring who's the damned king," Cawley said, finding strength and courage in the certainty then that he would soon be dead no matter what he said.
The woman stepped back and stood up straight. She glanced over her shoulder at the man Cawley could not see and said something again in the language he could not understand. Then she turned back, and her smile-her awful smile-told him.
His eyes widened; he started to cry out.
The woman turned sidelong as she dropped low into a crouch that seemed almost as if she were sitting on the ground. Out snapped her leg, perfectly aimed, her foot slamming into Cawley's throat with jarring force. He rebounded off the tree again, and a strange tingling, a sensation of utter numbness, began to flow out to his limbs. He considered that curious sensation for some time before realizing that he could no longer draw breath.
He saw the man then, dressed in black like the woman, walking past him. He didn't understand, didn't feel anything, but he noticed that his arms fell freely at his sides and that the ties had been cut as he began to tilt to the side. Cawley felt nothing as he fell over. He kept trying to draw breath, but none would come.
The man moved above him-he sensed that he was about to be finished off-but the woman intervened, speaking to him harshly but more to Cawley in his own tongue.
"Let him die slowly," the woman said. "Let him know that he's dying."
Cawley heard the words and watched the man and woman walk away, but that offered little encouragement to the suffocating, paralyzed man. He thought of his wife and their kids. He dreamed of working the fields with his sons, of going home that night to hot pumpkin pie, or apple pie-yes, apple, he decided, for none in Comey Downs could make an apple pie better than Maisey Andadin…
The starlight faded to black. Bransen sensed something… He couldn't be sure of what, exactly, but he had come out of his meditation certain that something unusual was afoot in the dark and quiet night. He unwound himself from his cross-legged position and came to his feet in perfect silence. Bransen narrowed his gaze and scanned the dark forest beyond the campfires.
He thought of the gem-encrusted star brooch then and the cat's-eye agate that allowed him to see in the dark. How he wished he possessed such a gemstone now!
Bransen closed his eyes and recalled the stone and the sensations of its magical emanations. He could nearly levitate without malachite, so when he opened his eyes he tried to mimic the cat's-eye magic and found to his surprise that the dark was not nearly as absolute. Off he went at a swift pace. He started to discard his uncomfortable monk robes as soon as he moved out of sight of the tents, but he changed his mind; if he were caught here by Bannagran's men it would not do well for them to recognize him as the Highwayman.
Even in the bulky woolen garment the Highwayman moved with grace and silence, gliding through the shadows with ease, hearing every sound about him, smelling the scents of various animals. He wasn't sure what had stirred him from his contemplation, and his direction seemed random to him on a conscious level, but he continued on, trusting in his instinct.
He found a soldier lying in the dirt, very still.
Bransen soon discerned that a single blow to the throat had felled the man, though he had been beaten somewhat before that mortal strike. Blood had started to cake on his face from the broken nose. A glance at the tree, at the hair and blood stuck on its bark at less than waist height, informed Bransen even more of what had just occurred here.
The fallen man was not breathing. Bransen grabbed the man's windpipe and gently massaged it, glad for the soul stone Reandu had offered. He used that magic now, sending waves of warm breath into the soldier, repairing his crushed throat and calling his spirit back to his broken form.
A long while slipped past, but Bransen did not stop his work. He sensed the slightest bit of breath in the man's throat, so he reached for the gemstone magic even more furiously.
It wasn't until the man began to cough that Bransen realized his own emotional disconnect throughout this process. He had seen a man in trouble, and his instincts had taken over. He had put himself in a vulnerable position, falling into the swirl of hematite out here in the forest and with enemies so obviously near.
He knew with certainty that only one person would have done this, and that gave him great pause. Why was this man still alive? Affwin Wi didn't make such mistakes, and so Bransen knew then that it was likely not a mistake.
Was she baiting him, trying to lure him into the open?
He looked at the poor soldier, sent his thoughts through the hematite one last time to give the man a bit more relief. And as he did, the Highwayman laughed at himself and his stubbornness to ignore the world around him.
For such was the truth of who he was, no matter how hard the Highwayman tried to deny it. He could lie to himself and insist that he hadn't fallen over the wounded man to save him for the sake of the man's life, but to save him so that he, Bransen, could possibly gain some important information.
That not-so-subtle distinction was not lost on the young warrior, and when the soldier at last opened his eyes to look upon the man in monk's robes who had brought him back to life, he found that stranger scowling severely.
The soldier recoiled and curled defensively, coughing still.
"Who are you, and who do you serve?" Bransen demanded.
"Cawley o' Comey Downs, for King Yeslnik and marching with Laird Bannagran!" the man rasped through his raw throat.
"Rest easy, man, the danger is passed," Bransen assured him. Gradually, Cawley unfolded and looked at him directly.
"Two o' them, at least," Cawley gasped. "A woman, Beast o' Behr. She caught me and kicked me."
"What was she wearing?"
"Black-like the Highwayman… like you-" Cawley bit off the word and averted his eyes, and Bransen realized that the monk disguise was probably the worst-kept secret in the ranks.
Within moments, Cawley was stumbling back into the encampment, holding his sore throat and happy to be alive. Bransen was long gone behind him, into the forest, his monk robes soon looped over a branch.
He was hunting now. He was the Highwayman, a mask over his eyes. He knew now why he had come out of his meditative trance and understood the sensation that had alerted him.
It was indeed Affwin Wi. It was his mother's sword and the brooch Artolivan had given him. His blood and breathing ran hot with adrenaline as he moved through the forest, trying desperately to pick up the woman's trail. Always correct," Merwal Yahna said to Affwin Wi as they noted the Highwayman slipping through the trees below the hillock they had climbed to garner just such a view. "He saved the soldier no doubt."
"And the soldier sent him on his hunt for us."
Merwal Yahna pulled out his exotic weapon. "Shall we go and be done with the impudent man?"
Affwin Wi was shaking her head. "He will be of use to us in dissuading Ethelbert from any rash decisions."
"He is dangerous-" Merwal Yahna bit that thought off short when Affwin Wi scowled at him.
"You wish to fight him again," the man accused. "One against one."
"I will kill him when I must," Affwin Wi assured him easily.
"Such misplaced honor is Jhesta Tu, not Hou-lei," Merwal Yahna reminded.
"Honor?" Affwin Wi said doubtfully, and she added, "Sport." Bransen was still moving, his footsteps coming more slowly, when the eastern sky brightened and the first ray of the sun peeked over the horizon. He ran up a tall tree then, scanning the countryside.
But she was gone. He knew it in his heart.
Bransen lay back against a branch, considering his missed opportunity. Rage bubbled inside him, for he wanted nothing more than to face this Hou-lei woman and retrieve his sword and brooch. And to kill her, he admitted to himself, for what she had done to Jameston Sequin.
But his anger was tempered by thoughts of Cadayle an
d their unborn child. Could he beat Affwin Wi? Alone, even, although he knew that it was unlikely he would ever get the chance to fight her without Merwal Yahna at her side?
He had vowed revenge, vowed to get his items back, but sitting there in the tree as dawn brightened the eastern sky, Bransen questioned his determination and his confidence. For all the value he placed in that sword, was it worth the price of his life-and not just his life, but the well-being of Cadayle and his child?
Somewhere in the distance to the northwest a horn blew, and several others responded. The army was awake and soon to be moving. Bransen looked back the way he had come, estimating the miles between his current position and his monk disguise. He shook his head and started away, not to retrieve the robe, but to intercept Bannagran's march.
As the Highwayman. Cormack and Milkeila entered Laird Ethelbert's chambers cautiously, still not quite sure of what to make of the elderly but energetic laird. The summons had been brought by one of Father Destros's monks, which gave the couple some comfort, but the young monk's demeanor, his level of urgency, had also brought trepidation.
They entered the room to find Ethelbert sitting with his three generals, Father Destros, and another monk to one side and Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna standing before the throne. At the sight of the dangerous mercenaries, Cormack and Milkeila, holding hands, both squeezed more tightly.
Ethelbert turned a stern glare over Destros, promptly dismissing the monk who had accompanied the couple.
Cormack felt Affwin Wi's stare boring into him as he walked up beside her to stand before the laird and his court.
"Your plans fall like the rain and run to the sewers, it would seem," Laird Ethelbert greeted.
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