Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “I’d watch us too,” said Galen. “We’re armed and warlike and in their territory.”

  “Yeeeees…” said Clara. She eyed the top of a ridge, where someone had stopped to observe them. A hunter, by the bow and quiver of arrows on his back. “I know. It’s all quite plausible. I just don’t like it.”

  She half-expected Istvhan to be dismissive of her concerns, but he said, from the other side, “I don’t like it either. And I don’t have any more to go on.”

  But day followed day, and nothing continued to happen. They would camp for a day or two in the territory of each thane and buy overpriced food and ask questions. Istvhan’s question received the same answer for one or two markets—rumors of a headless body in the south—and then fell away and no one had heard anything.

  Clara’s answers were always the same. The barred wagons full of nuns had passed through nearly a month before. They had paid their tolls. The Arral had an arrangement enough like slavery that they admitted to seeing the wagons, and enough different that women’s eyes slid away from hers when she asked. Clara suspected that they knew that the other nuns would be no one’s forever younger sister.

  Pushing her anger down was a matter of habit. She did not weep again. She recited catechisms inside her head and smiled and smiled and made jokes in her clumsy Arral, and the beast inside her snarled and she told it, No. Not yet.

  Fire was in the walls and the convent was burning.

  Clara moved too slowly through the building, every step dragging. Priceless tapestries caught fire and she watched the threads burning, one by one, lines of black and orange crawling over the images. She could not reach them in time.

  The altarcloth, she thought. I must save the altarcloth.

  She was in the chapel. The air still felt like glue. The roof burned, the walls burned. Was the roaring in her ears fire or the voice of the beast? She could not tell.

  I must save the altarcloth.

  “Domina, you are dreaming.”

  She reached for the fabric with her hands, despite the flames. She had to save it. She had to save…something.

  “Hush, Domina. I’m here. You are dreaming.”

  Her hands were on fire. She held the burning cloth and the flames swept down her arms. Soon it would be in her hair and then everything would burn…

  “Domina Clara, wake up.”

  Clara woke.

  She did not have a moment of disorientation, as one might expect. She jerked immediately into awareness. Istvhan sat cross-legged beside her, not touching, his hands resting on his knees.

  “I am here,” she said. “Yes?”

  “You are here.” He was a dim figure in the tent, lit only by the orange glow of the banked fire, but she recognized his voice and the scent of clove and ginger. “You were having a dream.”

  “Yes.” She sat up. “Yes, of course.” She took a deep breath. I am fine. Nothing happened. I am awake. It was not real.

  It still felt real. She reached for calm. I will not scream. I will not weep. I will not huddle in the corner of this man’s tent and shake. The peace of St. Ursa is on me. I am calm.

  “Can you be touched, when you dream?”

  She frowned at him, puzzled by the question. “I don’t turn to mist, if that’s what you mean.”

  He shook his head. “Some people can’t. They lash out, or it makes the dream worse. Should you find Galen having a nightmare, speak to him but do not touch him. He will attack you, and the fact that he will be ashamed when he wakes up will not heal your wounds.”

  “Ah,” said Clara, grateful for the distraction. “That’s why he sleeps alone. Not because of rank.”

  “Rank makes a convenient excuse.” He drew his knees up and draped his arms over them, wrists dangling.

  Clara shook her head to clear it. The dream still clung to her like the scent of smoke, as if it would cover her again if she laid back down. Unlike Galen, she would not lash out dangerously in her sleep or at least, no more than the next woman might. That was one of the gifts St. Ursa taught her chosen. The old novicekeeper taught us all well. It would all have been far too much to explain, and she still could not trust Istvhan enough to put all her sisters’ lives in his hands.

  “Are there still coals in the brazier? Maybe I’ll make some tea.”

  He moved out of the way, pausing only to hand her the tin of leaves. She hunched over the brazier, staring at the tiny, tame fire that was so small and controlled and so unlike the one that had devoured the altarcloth and the convent.

  The pressure against her throat was not easing. She did not know how long her calm would hold.

  Talk. Let some of it out. Talk to this man, who you barely know, who keeps secrets from you while you keep your own secrets. Let a little out, or the secret you are keeping will break free of its own accord.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, and his voice was so gentle that she nearly broke. He did not sound like a stranger. He sounded like a brother, like a priest. Like a friend.

  “I dreamed about the convent burning,” she said out loud.

  He made a small noise that invited her to continue.

  “So much fire,” she said. She tested the temperature of the water with a fingertip. It was still cool. “You wouldn’t think that a place with so much stone could burn. But there was plaster and wooden uprights and carpets and tapestries and…” She made a whooshing gesture with both hands. “All of it. It went up so much more quickly than I’d thought it could. The thatched roof part, yes, all right, I understood that. But I think the thatch took longer to catch than the rest. We’d all prepared for that, you see.” She tested the water again. Barely warm.

  “I’m sorry,” said Istvhan, still in that gentle, careful voice.

  She had started now and couldn’t stop herself. All she could do was try to keep control of what she was saying. “The stable didn’t burn at all. All that hay and straw, a stray spark should have sent the whole place up. But it didn’t even get touched. The wind was in the wrong direction.” She sat back on her heels. “I don’t think the raiders expected the whole convent to burn like that. I expect they were trying to set a fire on one side and drive us out, then grab us as we came out. It sort of worked, but…well.” She snorted. “They got fewer of us than they’d like, and we were half-dead of smoke when they did.”

  And three of the sisters went to the beast, and if they hadn’t, St. Ursa only knows what would have happened. Sister Mallory had broken open one of the barred doors, which was the only reason that some of them, Clara included, had survived.

  A bubble formed at the bottom of the cup.

  “The funny thing,” she said, watching the bubble, “the funny thing was that I was so dazed from the smoke and trying to keep calm that I didn’t know what was happening. I thought people were trying to help. They kept rolling us over—to put out the flames, you know—and then leading us away, and then a man kept telling us to get in the wagon, that it would be okay, we were getting away from the fire.” She snorted. “The Sister Cellarer kept saying that there was something wrong, that we were in danger, and I didn’t listen. I thought she was just shaken up because of the fire. And then the sun came up and we were in a cage on wheels and she’d been right after all.”

  Two more bubbles had joined the first. She took the cups off the heat and tossed in leaves to steep. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to ramble.”

  “You’ve handled this all remarkably,” Istvhan said. “I believe you’re allowed to ramble a bit. No one will blame you if you are not always a pillar of calm.”

  “Well,” said Clara. They teach us to be calm, to always be controlled, to keep the beast quiet. Talk too long and dwell on your ill-treatment and you will work yourself into a state, and then the beast will come… No, she could not say that. But there were other truths. “I suppose that I could run around sobbing and waving my arms, but it doesn’t seem like it would do a great deal of good.”

  “It might do you some good,” said Ist
vhan. “Instead of bottling it all up.”

  No, my good captain, you do not know what you are asking. Clara handed him his cup of tea. “I travel. I have always been away from the convent for weeks or months at a time. So I keep trying to think as if I am traveling, as if it is all still there, and I will simply go back when this is done.”

  The grave look in his eyes deepened.

  “I know, I know.” She waved her hands. “It’s not the best thing. But it keeps me functioning. I don’t do any good if I can’t function.”

  Istvhan stirred. “You are not a failure, you know,” he said, “simply because you can’t endure something unendurable.”

  His words had the air of something well-worn, a thought he had turned over in his head and repeated until he believed it was true. She wondered what Istvhan had endured, to make such words necessary.

  Or Galen. Should you find Galen having a nightmare, speak to him but do not touch him. St. Ursa have mercy, what happened to them?

  “It’s not just that,” she said. He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know who is dead,” she said simply. “Some of us weren’t there. Some of us must have gotten away. Sister Sara had been called out to deliver a baby. I won’t mourn for anyone who might yet be alive. And I do not know about my sisters who were still in the cage when the raiders dumped me.”

  “Did they think you were dead?”

  “Close to it. I had taken a fever. Too much smoke in my lungs. They saw no point in wasting food and water on bad weight, so they rolled me off the wagon and into a ditch.”

  After I begged them. After I said that I was afraid I would kill everyone in my delirium. After…well. Istvhan did not need to know all the gory details.

  She took a sip of tea. It was still good, even if it still tasted of tin.

  Istvhan reached out, very carefully, and gripped her shoulder. “Will you mourn when you know, then?”

  She almost laughed into her tea at the kindness, and the concern behind it. It was laughter because otherwise it might be tears, and she did not dare open up that door any farther. The pressure in her chest had eased a little, enough for calm to find her. “Yes. Once I know for certain who is living and who is dead, once I have exhausted my ability to find my sisters and bring them back. I promise that I will wail and sob and tear my hair.”

  “Saint’s balls,” muttered Istvhan. “Just give me some time to get to a safe distance. I do not know that my heart can take it.”

  She did laugh that time, and felt as if they had stepped back from the brink of something together. “I’ll do my best.”

  Seven

  Another day passed. Nothing terrible continued to happen. Clara watched a pair of shepherds on a hillside, who had every reason to be there. And of course they would watch us pass. We are the most interesting thing for miles. There is nothing strange going on.

  There was nothing strange going on with the hunter on the next ridge, nor with the farmer an hour later. It was all very plausible and it set Clara’s teeth on edge.

  Something was not quite right. The beast felt it and grumbled in the back of her head. She knew too well that the beast was often wrong, was prickly and reactive and no more trustworthy than human senses, and yet…and yet…

  She spent the day in a gruff mood. Istvhan seemed to feel it too. Even Galen, who always had a quip or a joke or an outrageous bit of flirtation, seemed subdued.

  When they made camp, Brindle’s muttered gnolespeech sounded just as irritated as she felt.

  “You don’t like mules?” asked Clara, watching him unharness the team.

  Brindle grumbled, hunching his shoulders. “A gnole prefers an ox. An ox trusts a gnole to do a gnole’s job, gets on with doing an ox’s job. A mule doesn’t.” He held out a hand and clucked his tongue to the mule. The mule considered this, then allowed the gnole to lift her hoof and examine it.

  “She looks like she trusts you,” said Clara.

  Brindle shook his head. “A mule trusts a mule. Always watching a gnole, always deciding if a gnole is right or wrong. And if a mule decides a gnole is wrong…” He slapped the mule’s flank, half-affectionate, half-annoyed. “Hard to explain things to a mule. Not good with diagrams.” Clara snickered.

  For all his grumbling, Brindle was efficient and careful with the mules and the mules seemed happy enough in his care. “Are horses better or worse?” she asked.

  “Oh, horses,” said the gnole. “A horse is just smart enough to make trouble for a horse. A gnole doesn’t have time to work with every horse until a horse decides a gnole is trustworthy. A gnole has places to be.”

  Clara snickered again, she couldn’t help it.

  “And that is why we’re walking,” said Istvhan. Clara turned and found him standing just behind her. It was a perfectly polite distance, and yet they were both big enough that the space between them seemed small.

  “Too much trouble?” asked Clara.

  Istvhan nodded. “We don’t need great speed. Or didn’t. I’m sorry that we can’t move more quickly now, to follow your sisters.”

  Clara sighed, her good humor dropping away. “It’s been a month,” she said. “Whatever speed might have gotten me, it’s long gone. Now I am simply hoping to find where they have gone, and begin the task of getting them back.”

  The lines around Istvhan’s mouth deepened. “Domina…”

  “It’s all right,” said Clara. “I know some of them must be dead by now. Perhaps all of them. You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t think they would mostly be dead. To raid so far afield for captives, the raiders must have thought they were valuable. That is the part that puzzles me the most. Did you have skilled illuminators among you? Healers? Something?”

  Clara knew perfectly well why the nuns of St. Ursa would be considered valuable to certain parties, but that was a discussion she was not about to have. “Some of each, of course. And archivists, though in very specific fields. It has been my suspicion for a long time that we were attacked on the orders of a very specific client, perhaps who had already arranged to buy my sisters and me.”

  Istvhan nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a moment. “But that does bode well for their continued life.”

  Not quite as well as you think, thought Clara, but I must continue to have faith… She gave him as good a smile as she could muster, and went to go help Brindle with the mules.

  Istvhan would have staked his life that she still wasn’t telling him everything, but he could hardly judge. He, too, had thoughts he would not speak aloud, about why someone might raid a convent and take the nuns away alive.

  “I don’t want to say it to the Sister,” he said to Galen, leaning against a tree and gazing up at the stars. Strictly speaking, they were not both required for watch, but he needed to talk out what he was thinking. “I don’t even particularly like thinking it.”

  He watched the pale oval of Galen’s face turn toward him. “Something to do with religion?” said the other man thoughtfully. “Someone who feels the nuns of that order are apostates or heretics or whatever they are? You’d expect them to be killed then, but perhaps they wanted to make an example of them.”

  Istvhan exhaled slowly through his nose. “Possibly. That’s…still a better scenario than what I was thinking.”

  “Oh?”

  “Somebody somewhere is paying for live nuns. Not just women. Nuns. If they wanted to kidnap women, there’s a great many options in easier reach, but someone crossed Arral territory with slave wagons specifically to get their hands on these nuns. Which means that someone has plans or…desires…that can only be satisfied by women of the cloth.”

  Galen gave a low whistle. “That’s dark, brother.”

  “You see why I am not speaking of this to Domina Clara.”

  A late cricket chirped in the fields. The silence between them filled up with all the nightmares that might befall the sisters of St. Ursa, two decent men trying to think like mo
nsters and finding it far, far too easy to imagine.

  “You think it’s one man?” asked Galen finally.

  “No way of knowing. It could be a procurer of some sort, catering to a cartel with extremely specialized tastes. Or I could be inventing monstrous scenarios, and someone just wants a group of scribes and healers.” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps we have seen too many terrible things.”

  “It was easier, before.”

  “Everything was easier, before.”

  “Yes. But we never had to worry about making a mistake. We could just…come in at the end. Everything was clearcut.”

  Istvhan grunted. He suspected that even before, in the service of the Saint of Steel, things had not been quite so clearcut as that. It was simply that a god made those decisions, not His followers. But that had been another life, another time, and neither he nor Galen lived in that world any longer. Now they muddled through like other mortals and did their best and tried to keep their feet in a rising tide.

  “She is very calm about this,” said Galen. “Almost too calm.”

  Istvhan grunted. Galen wasn’t wrong exactly, and yet Istvhan remembered waking up from the terrible collapse after the Saint had died. Those first few weeks, they had all been shaky and vague and lost. Well, our souls had been torn in half, that’ll happen. And then one of the Rat priests, their whiskered god bless them for it, had left a deck of cards, and Istvhan and Stephen and Shane had sat and played cards and Istvhan had made jokes. Terrible, stupid jokes, most of them. And then the other paladins had crept in and even though they didn’t play, they sat back and they listened to the conversation and it had helped.

  There had still been a giant raw wound across all their hearts. Nothing would heal that but time. There was no counting the number of times when someone sat at the card table with tears streaming down their cheeks, or got up and walked away for an hour because everything was too much. But they always came back, because if you were making stupid jokes and paying attention to the cards, for a few seconds at a time there would be a little clear space where you weren’t thinking about how broken you were.