Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “Not much point, is there?” She managed a grin, albeit with a lot of teeth. “Can just…change…”

  He swung at her and she blocked, but this time he pressed the advantage, throwing her relentlessly backward. He knew far more about leverage than she did, and step by step, she backpedaled, until she was driven against the back of the wagon.

  Istvhan saw the moment when she realized what was happening, but it was too late. Her back was already against the wagon’s back step. He forced both staves up until their faces were only inches apart. “What if you were inside the wagon?” he said. “Or in a tight space? Could you change then?”

  “No.” Her face was flushed and there was sweat slicking her forehead. The rise and fall of her chest was driving him mad. Was this what she would look like if he bedded her? The same fierce grin of physical exertion, the flushed skin, the gasp of her breath in his ear? Would she moan or would she growl when he thrust into her? It occurred to him that the wagon had stopped moving but he couldn’t think why that was significant, not when Clara was looking at him with her eyes full of fire and frustration and her body was so close that he could feel the heat rolling off her skin.

  Her lips parted and his eyes locked on the movement. “I guess,” she whispered, “I’d have to…improvise.”

  She dropped her shoulder and let one end of her stave fall. Suddenly deprived of resistance, he stumbled forward against her. For one glorious moment, his body was pressed full length against hers, his leg between her thighs, and then she half-turned and dropped the stave completely and slammed her fist into his face.

  “Gnrrfff!” He stumbled backward.

  Through his fingers, he could see that she looked appalled. “I really expected you to block that!”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I noticed. Fine! We’ve both hit each other! Are you happy now?” she yelled, putting her hands on her hips.

  “I kind of am, actually!” he yelled back, rubbing his jaw.

  Doc Mason cleared his throat. The two of them spun around, drawing together instinctively, like children caught misbehaving.

  “Obviously this is none of my business,” said the doctor, looking from one to the other, “but if this is some kind of, ah, sophisticated canoodling, I’d appreciate it if you could do it out of earshot? I’m uncomfortable witnessing other people’s love lives.”

  “No one is canoodling,” said Clara, with great emphasis.

  “Not my business,” said Doc Mason hastily.

  “No, no. We were just…ah…sparring?” Is that a reasonable explanation? Because we were. At least until I started thinking about other things we could be doing instead.

  Doc Mason hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked back on his heels. “Looks like you got the worst of it, lad.”

  “Yes, well…nuns, you know how they are…”

  “Oh aye, I do indeed.”

  Clara threw her hands in the air and stalked back to the wagon, which had stopped a few yards ahead. Tolly asked something in a low voice that Istvhan couldn’t quite make out. Clara’s response, however—the word “Men!” delivered at the top of her lungs—was clearly audible. As was the sound of Tolly’s heartfelt agreement.

  Istvhan ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

  “First question,” said Doc Mason. “You all right? She cracked you a good one.”

  He touched his jaw. It was sore but didn’t feel like it was going to swell too badly. Either she’d pulled the punch at the last minute or she simply hadn’t had a very good angle to begin with. “I’ve had much worse sparring against other warriors, but don’t tell her that.”

  “Still, you all right? This isn’t a regular thing? I don’t need to hide you in the wagon and spirit you away?”

  Istvhan looked at him blankly, then finally put two and two together. “Oh! No. Certainly not.”

  “In that case…word of advice, young man,” said Doc Mason.

  Istvhan gave him a look. “I’m forty. I haven’t been young for quite some time.”

  “Stuff it, youngster, I’d kill to be forty again. Forty is barely out of the cradle when you’re my age.” The doctor poked Istvhan in the chest with one gnarled finger. “And I’ve been married three times, so I know a little something about women.”

  “I was married once,” said Istvhan defensively.

  Doc Mason raised an eyebrow.

  The problem with being a paladin was that you were fundamentally honest. “For about six weeks. It was more of a fling with extra paperwork.”

  “Well, two of mine lasted until death did us part. And the other one was a fine woman who couldn’t handle life on the road. We parted friends. So you’ll take my advice and you’ll like it, youngster.”

  Istvhan bowed his head and waited for whatever folksy wisdom was about to land on him.

  Doc Mason cleared his throat. “Don’t assume she knows what you’re thinking.”

  Istvhan waited politely.

  “That’s it, youngster. That’s the whole advice.”

  “Really?”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I think I was expecting more charming country metaphors. About how I was twisting myself around like an eel on a griddle or something similar.”

  “Nah, I save that stuff for the shows.” Another poke in the chest. It didn’t do much because Istvhan was wearing his chain hauberk, but presumably it was the thought that counted. “Unless I miss my guess, you think she knows exactly how you feel and isn’t interested. But she doesn’t. So quit talking yourself out of your feelings, go find her, say, “I’m hopelessly in love with you, thought you should know,” and then let her decide how she feels about it.”

  “But I’m not hopelessly in love with her,” said Istvhan.

  “You sure about that?”

  Istvhan blinked at the doctor. “I’m not really the sort who falls in love,” he admitted. “Never got in the habit of it. I enjoy women’s company, and I enjoy the…ah…”

  “Canoodling?”

  “…I really wish we weren’t calling it that, but yes. And then when it’s over, we both move on.”

  “And you never wanted more?”

  Istvhan spread his hands. “I have my brothers-in-arms. I don’t need more.”

  Doc Mason shook his head. “Well, then tell her you want to canoodle.”

  Istvhan stifled a sigh. It was difficult to explain to someone who came up to your collarbone that when you were very large, it was much safer to be subtle. Good-natured lust became something frightening if she felt like you were looming over her.

  The thought came, unbidden, that he had to work very hard to loom over Clara, and that if she wasn’t interested in his advances, she could make her displeasure known with three-inch fangs.

  “I do appreciate your advice, sir,” said Istvhan. Politely.

  “No, you don’t,” said Doc Mason. “The young never do. Now help me back onto the wagon. My sciatica is killing me.”

  Twenty-Six

  Clara spent the rest of the trip to the next village talking to Tolly about trade routes. Istvhan tried to eavesdrop but rapidly decided that it was too specialized for him to make sense of half of it. Tolly, however, ate it up, and the pair were soon lost in conversation about weight-to-profit ratios and currency conversions.

  Finally, they reached the field where they would perform the next show. Doc Mason went off to stir up interest from the locals and Tolly set to work on the wagon. Clara ambled over to a tree and sat down.

  Istvhan weighed how mad she was likely to be against the fact that the staves had been stowed in the wagon. Was she still mad? He couldn’t tell. She hid everything too well and it was part of what frustrated him. Not that I think she’d be nursing a grudge, so much as I’m not sure she’d let herself be angry if she deserved to be…

  Right. Paladin. Stoic warrior, charging boldly into danger, so on and so forth. He walked up to the tree, trying to look harmless and good-natured and also sexy, which was a compli
cated thing to convey. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hips. “May I join you?”

  She raised one eyebrow and then said, “Yeah, go ahead.”

  He sat down beside her, back against the tree trunk, in the band of shade offered by the branches. “Don’t worry. Doc Mason thinks we’re both mad as the mist and snow, but he doesn’t hold it against us.”

  “He’s probably right. I don’t know whether to apologize for hitting you or hit you again.”

  “I think we’re even.”

  They were even. That was what was killing him. She was as big as he was and as strong as he was and he couldn’t intimidate her. His black tide was no match for her beast.

  Saint’s teeth, but she was magnificent.

  And he still wanted her. It didn’t matter that she could turn into a bear, except that turning into a bear seemed pretty damn cool, particularly in somebody you trusted to watch your back.

  Don’t assume she knows what you’re thinking.

  Could she really not know that I want her? Is it possible?

  He tilted his head to look at her and smiled. “Domina?”

  “Captain?”

  “You hit like a nun.”

  “No, I hit like a lay sister. If I hit like a nun, you’d have been laid out on the road.”

  Istvhan laughed. “Fair enough. How’s your hand?”

  She grimaced. “You’ve got a skull like a bull elk,” she said. “Only without the magnificent rack.”

  It was one of his great weaknesses. He had never been able to resist a straight line. “I think you’ve got that covered.”

  A long, long pause, during which Istvhan thought, oh hell, much too soon, and then she snorted, which wasn’t quite a laugh but was close enough. “Thanks.”

  He reached over and took her hand in his, turning it to look at her knuckles. They were red and swollen, as one might expect. He ran his thumb down the side of her hand, under the little finger. “Does it hurt when I do this?”

  “No.”

  “That’s where it usually breaks on a punch.” He stroked down the back of her hand next to it. “Sometimes here. Anything?”

  “No.” Her eyes were riveted on the motion of his hand.

  “Good.” He lifted her hand to his lips. She raised her eyes to his face, clearly startled, but did not pull away.

  He kissed each one of her injured knuckles, and then lowered her hand. “Domina,” he said, and rose and went away to the other side of the wagon, wondering if that counted as subtle or if he’d just made a fool of himself again.

  The show was a repeat of the first, though fortunately without the drunk. This time, Istvhan was born one of sickly triplets and his two fictional brothers were even larger and lived back on the farm. Doc Mason sold another two cases of tonic and they retired to a campsite back on the main road.

  “A question for you, Doc,” said Istvhan.

  “Hmm?” Doc Mason looked up from the fire. He had settled in with a mug of tonic and Tolly kept pushing food on him, with minimal success.

  “While we were traveling before we encountered the bandits, we heard some alarming tales. Stories of severed heads, or bodies appearing with heads that didn’t belong to them.”

  “Gah.” Tolly’s eyes went very wide and she nearly dropped her spoon. Her grandfather, however, showed no sign of shock. His eyes narrowed and he gave Istvhan a long, thoughtful look.

  “You have heard of it, then,” said Istvhan quietly.

  Doc Mason glanced around, as if someone might be listening beyond the circle of firelight. “I have,” he said, just as quietly. “And you are a very good liar, my young friend, but you have not just ‘heard stories’ about this, have you?”

  Istvhan made a noncommittal sound, but Doc Mason’s eyes were resting on Clara. Her expression was carefully blank, but that, in and of itself, was a confession. She may have been a merchant, but she must have been one of the scrupulously honest ones. I knew she was hiding something practically since we met.

  Mind you, it wasn’t the sort of thing that one could easily have guessed.

  Finally Doc Mason turned back to him. “Very well, keep your cards close to your chest if you wish, my young friends. Yes, I’ve heard. It was some years ago now.”

  Istvhan raised his eyebrows. “That long ago?”

  “Seven or eight years, yes.” He poked at the fire. “Started north of Morstone. Only one or two at first. Then more. For a whole season or two, no one in the small villages would go anywhere alone if they could help it. Then it stopped, or seemed to.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Tolly demanded.

  “Oh, you already knew,” said Doc Mason. “The Beast of the Leeward, remember?”

  Tolly looked startled. “That? That was this? But I didn’t hear anything about severed heads!”

  Doc Mason snorted. “Oh, they were in there. And also that the Beast was a giant wolf, a monstrous bear, a man who was half-bat, a werewolf, a feral child raised by dogs, a man who could fly, a wonderworker who drank blood but could not touch virgins, a demon possessing any and all of the above, and probably a few dozen other stories I’m forgetting. Oh, and a cult. Did I mention the cult?”

  Clara had gone tense when he had begun talking about werewolves and monstrous bears, but she thawed now. Tolly said, “No, you didn’t mention the cult.”

  “Definitely a cult. Nobody knew what it was a cult of, mind you, except murdering people.”

  “But the heads?” asked Istvhan.

  “Mmm.” Doc gave him another thoughtful look. “Yes. I spoke to a few people who had actually been there, and who weren’t prone to histrionics. They all said that there were headless bodies found.”

  “Did any of them get a look at the perpetrators?”

  “Not reliably. One said he saw a man fleeing the scene. Said he looked ordinary enough, and wondered if he was responsible or just someone who didn’t want to be caught near a dead body for reasons of his own.”

  “Wait,” said Tolly. “Wait, the husband of the first victim said he saw something, didn’t he? Said it was some kind of beast on four legs, but it crawled sideways?”

  Doc Mason rolled his eyes. “That’s how the story traveled, anyhow. I wouldn’t put much stock in it. But tell me, friend Istvhan, what do you know about the Beast of the Leeward that we do not?”

  Istvhan took a deep breath. “It’s not precisely a secret,” he said. “But you travel to many villages and you know what people are like about strangers, so please use discretion in who you tell. I don’t want a mob on my conscience.”

  “I’d prefer not to have one either,” said Doc Mason.

  Istvhan recounted the story of the smooth men and their depredations in Archenhold, though he heavily downplayed the Temple of the White Rat and implied that the entirely fictional order of St. Galen had been responsible. “And so we came north looking for them,” he said. “Following the trail of bodies. But we got separated from our main group and hope to reunite in Morstone.”

  “Interesting,” said Doc Mason, after the paladin had stopped speaking and a little silence had fallen over the party. “Terrible. But interesting.”

  “You say these things have come back here?” said Tolly. “Now?”

  “I don’t know that they ever left,” Istvhan admitted. “Perhaps they just got better about hiding the bodies. We don’t know how many there are. They seem to make more of themselves, given the chance.” He held his hands out to the fire. “Be wary of strangers with very smooth faces, I suppose.”

  “I can see why your bishop was cagey about informing people,” said Doc Mason. “Perhaps she doesn’t give people enough credit, but if the story spread and the details were lost…” He shook his head. “No, I can see it going badly as well. How often do these things change bodies?”

  Istvhan shook his head. “We don’t know for certain. However long it takes for one’s body to decay. The doctor who examined them said that they seem to secrete some kind of gunk that seals the wound a b
it, so they last longer than you would expect from a dead body, but they’re still finite. Eventually, they’re ready to fall apart, and they need to find a new host. I doubt they can go more than a few weeks.”

  Doc Mason nodded. “I’ll keep an ear to the ground,” he said. “Did you say the Temple of the White Rat knows?” And at Istvhan’s nod, he snorted. “Of course they do. They have their scaly tails in everyone’s pies, don’t they?”

  “Generally for the good of humanity,” said Istvhan mildly.

  “Ah, well. True enough, and that’s more than you can say for the vast majority of people who claim to be doing things for people’s own good. They meddle, but at least they clean up afterwards.” He leaned back, looking from Istvhan to Clara and back again. “I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t been wondering what brought you along this road in the first place. Now I know.” He shook his head. “And I can’t say that I’m happier knowing it, either. Forewarned may be forearmed, but I doubt I’ll sleep any sounder at night, knowing these things are out there.” He looked over at Tolly and his face softened. “But at least I know there’s a paladin and a nun trying to stop them, and that’s got to count for something.”

  “From your lips to the gods’ ears,” said Istvhan. “And by Their grace, we’ll put a stop to this yet.”

  Clara lay beside Istvhan for what might be the last time and wondered what to say, or if she should say anything at all.

  She was still reeling from that moment when he had kissed her hand earlier. Yesterday, she would have said that kissing someone’s hand generally made you look like a blithering idiot. Then he’d taken her hand and lifted it to his lips and it had been less of a kiss and more like a caress. She’d stopped breathing. She’d stopped thinking. Her entire consciousness had narrowed down to the strip of skin across her knuckles and the warmth of his mouth against it. She’d had actual sex that was less arousing.