Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2)

by Jordan MacLean

  She understood. “Such discipline takes years to develop, to say nothing of resisting the temptation, once you’ve lived with such discipline, to have ready power with no cost at all.” Power, she knew with a surety that sank her heart like a stone, that he could not use to save her father.

  Laniel nodded. “Thus this knowledge is the abbot’s burden only, given to him upon his ascension, along with the blue-white ermine mantle, in the form of a simple key to the chest wherein the notes are contained.” He gestured toward the sturdy chain around his neck that disappeared below the neckline of his cassock. “Bilkar makes of it our daily challenge to hold the power, to know it, to understand it, and never to use it. The further temptation is that we hold this power until such time as it may be needed again. The temptation for each abbot to believe that the need will arise during his or her time is almost irresistible. So it is that we said, the answer to your question is not simple. To our sorrow, we have the precise power to stop this wound, but we are forbidden to use it.”

  She sat in silence and watched him wrap the sheriff’s arm in gauze, horror and a sinking sense of defeat filling her guts. She had been afraid that he might have this power through Xorden’s corruption and use it against them, and now, knowing he did indeed have it in trust from B’radik, she desperately wished he could bring it to bear.

  “What, then, must we do?”

  Laniel looked at her frankly. “Remove his arm.” Renda drew breath to protest, but he stopped her. “Fear us not, we would not do so in this poor light. Praise Bilkar, while the need is urgent, he is not in imminent danger of death, so we advise waiting as long as possible to see if he will rally against it. We are well aware that his sword arm is vital and would not defeat ourselves by removing it in haste.” He lowered his voice. “Tonight, were you to offer prayers to your goddess for what intervention She may offer, we would not take offense as you are of Her guardian house. I have little fear that She would grant you Her healing if it would worsen the wound, but do exercise caution. Then in the morning,” he sighed, “we will do what we must.”

  Renda smiled bravely. Without a priest of B’radik left to focus her prayers, she doubted the goddess would have strength enough to offer much hope just yet. But she would not burden Laniel with that knowledge. “My father and I thank you for your kindness.”

  “We wish our tidings were better.” Laniel rose. “The night is half gone, and we must retire. It is our privilege to offer you our bed for your rest.”

  Renda stood, as well. “Most kind, but I would not dream of putting you out.”

  “We would not be put out, my Lady.” He took two thick blankets from the nearby cabinet and spread them both over Daerwin as he spoke. “It is our place to see to the comfort and warmth of those who visit our abbey. Under better circumstances, we would offer such comfort to the sheriff as he is of higher rank than yourself, but as he is indisposed, our bed and our company are yours.”

  Renda was not sure she understood. “Your company?”

  Laniel nodded. “This is Bilkar’s hospitality to the wanderer. As you are of high rank, it is my place as Abbot to see to your comfort personally. Unless,” he added with a strange quietness, “you would prefer the company of one of our younger priests.”

  Her head reeled, wondering if she understood correctly and searching for the proper etiquette for this situation. Gikka had never mentioned this, though it certainly explained her fondness for the Bilkarians.

  Sharing warmth in the cold made sense; Renda knew this from the battlefield. On extremely cold nights afield, those under her command often shared beds to conserve warmth. She supposed in retrospect that many shared more than just their bedclothes, but if so, they were discreet and did not bring it to her attention. Or she’d simply never noticed.

  Her bed, however, was always empty, regardless of the night’s chill. Appearances were only part of it. She had never allowed herself to be weakened by attraction, not even to Aidan who had likely not had to spend a single night alone in camp because of the strange attraction Syonese women felt for Dhanani men.

  In truth, she had not felt so much as a trace of that weakness until Kerrick’s strange proposal, in spite of Gikka’s constant attempts to direct her attention to the attractive men around her. Kerrick. Now she felt something she’d never felt before, a different kind of loss––regret, she supposed. Missed opportunities.

  She had replayed the conversation with Kerrick in her mind so many times, seeing the practice chamber, feeling beads of hard earned sweat cooling on her brow in the last warm breath of the Gathering, reliving the unbearable awkwardness of the conversation and all the different ways it might have gone if she hadn’t been caught so completely flat footed.

  It was so long ago, it seemed. Another time, another world. A world where, given her position as a daughter of Brannagh, cousin to the Duke…

  I have before me a marriage of alliance, ere I grow too old and unappealing, that I might become some fat old lord’s brood mare while he dallies with the beauties of the realm!

  …She could not be known to have shared her bed with another, not even a priest. A strange peaceful world, a world where scores of hale knights made a clamor about the tables in the great hall and a world where the day’s drama involved a newborn goat rather than a surge of demons or a war between gods or a plague… That was a world of which they’d had but the barest taste, a taste bitter in her own mouth, but it was a world she was sworn to restore even if, as she was, she could never hope to be part of it.

  Laniel watched her with amusement in his eyes. She hadn’t answered him.

  “I thank you, my Lord Abbot, but…”

  “But you are concerned with the appearance of propriety.”

  She looked down. His tone was not mocking, and yet in his words, she heard just how absurd it must sound to him. The Bremondines were, as a rule, far less concerned with the artifice of propriety, the way the Syonese were, and the women moved as freely as the men between lovers. She supposed, given the Bilkarian concept of hospitality, the priests were even less bound by such constraints.

  “A warm smile of a cold morning and a warm hand to hold.” Gikka laughed. “Barring that, a warm bed…”

  Indeed, Gikka’s bed was seldom cold, that much was certain, even before she’d found Dith. But Gikka was not Renda. She had not been raised in the nobility like Renda, trained from earliest childhood to the traditions and responsibilities of being the highest ranked and most sought after noblewoman in all Syon. Gikka was not even a knight, though Renda had never begrudged even her knights, male or female, the companionship they shared, knowing that they might die on the morrow. But for herself…

  She shook off the thought, hating that her mind was running stupidly around the same track like a warhorse on a tether. She had much more important things to consider than her insipid loneliness.

  Laniel watched her battle with herself. “Lady, it is quite simple. Our bed would be warmer for us both were we to share it, us with you. That would be efficient and proper. Our bodies likewise, were we to share them. This would also be efficient and proper, to say nothing of enjoyable. But we see amazement in your eyes. We fear we have shocked your sensibilities with the suggestion. Our apologies. We have so little contact with those outside the abbey that we sometimes forget the frivolities of what outsiders consider morality.”

  Her eyes flashed and an embarrassed flush rose to her cheeks. “It is partially a matter of propriety, my Lord Abbot, but more a matter of pragmatism. A woman of battle cannot take the same risks as a woman of the fields or a woman of the town. One may not strap a baby basket to one’s back along with one’s swords and ride off to battle. Apart from that, I am also a daughter of Brannagh and held to another standard entirely––”

  “––and no doubt more prized as such in the innocence of your body than in your accomplishments afield or your appeal as a woman, to our utter puzzlement.”

  She stared at him for a moment, not sure whether s
he wanted to shout at him that he could not possibly understand or kiss his hand for being perhaps the only person other than Gikka who did.

  He gathered the dirty bandages and put them in a small cloth sack for disposal, which he left near the door for the postulants. “Forgive us. It is not our place to judge your ways, Dame Knight. We simply offer the observation.”

  “Your observation is apt, my Lord Abbot. I’m afraid we have spent far more time at war than at peace, we Syonese, so our ways away from the battlefield are at times awkward and stunted. I tell you in all candor, our ways often make little or no sense even to me, but still, I am subject to the judgments they create.”

  “At least you understand the nature of your bindings. Many do not.” He smiled. “For the duration of your time in our care, our offer to share our bed with you remains, or the bed of one of our younger priests if that would suit you better, whether you would have that shared warmth be chaste or no. We have means of preventing consequence, if that is your fear. We should also be pleased to answer any question that might arise regarding your propriety while within our walls.”

  She found herself blushing and was not certain whether it was because of the frankness of the conversation or the fact that in some corner of her mind, she was imagining how it would be to be someone else, free to accept Laniel’s offer. She wondered how many times Gikka had shared Laniel’s bed.

  “You must bear in mind, of course, that we of Bilkar do not see anything improper in sharing warmth in the night.” His eyes twinkled above his smile, and her blush deepened.

  She bowed, smiling in spite of herself. “Most generous, Laniel, I thank you. Rest assured, your offer is not unappealing. But my place is to remain here tonight and to offer my prayers for my father.”

  “As it suits you, Lady. Our last thought is not to make you uncomfortable in any way. To do so would violate the hospitality of Bilkar the Furred. We will have the postulants make you up a cot here with extra furs for warmth. The abbey takes a bitter chill by night. In the meantime, do see to your prayers, Lady, and we will hope for a better choice of treatment to present itself by sunrise.”

  * * *

  Hours she’d spent at her father’s bedside, hours kneeling in prayer, begging B’radik for any help She could give, but nothing had changed. His arm still felt hot through the bandages, and he moaned in agony while he slept. As she feared, her prayers felt as if they left her heart, left her lips, and vanished into nothingness. It was the same sensation she’d felt in prayer after Pegrine’s death, and she found herself focused more on feeling the prayer fail than on her reverence to B’radik. Did the prayer fail because she expected it to fail, or was B’radik simply not able to receive it or act upon it?

  You followers of the other gods become so spoiled by Their wasteful displays of power, and so peevish when that power is no longer at your beck and call. Are They your gods or your servants?

  Laniel’s words still stung in her ears, a shameful indictment of the way her people treated the gods, yet here she was, expecting divine intervention again and from a goddess whose strength was surely still depleted. She could not deny the truth of what he’d said.

  He was right. No one seemed able to feather an arrow or to feed a horse without the proper ritual, and of course, with every rite came an expectation of favor from the gods. Worse yet, the rites were not completed in humility, as a request of the gods. They were demands, expectations set forth and met year upon year. Yes, Laniel was right. They had come to treat their gods like servants. She, her father, the knights, the farmers…they were all guilty. Even Nara had said she called upon B’radik to show her where the children hid.

  I call upon B’radik, and I see only darkness, and to my terror, I know not whether the darkness is my answer or whether my goddess abandons me!

  The thought that a god might simply refuse was so awful, so alien. The idea that B’radik might willfully abandon Nara, much less the House of Brannagh, one of her protector houses, had seemed unthinkable at the time, and of course, that had not been the case. But so wrapped up had they been in their selfishness that no one had even considered the possibility that the goddess Herself might be in danger until She was almost beyond reach. Had Pegrine not been killed as she was…

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, hands clasped over her father, tears spilling down her face onto his bedclothes. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  An hour later, a young monk, more than a novice but not more than a year past her final vows, slipped silently through the door.

  “My Lady,” she whispered, not wanting to disturb the knight’s prayers and not wanting to wake her if she slept. Renda’s head rested lightly on her father’s chest, her hand upon his wounded arm. The knight made no answer.

  The monk watched her for a time from the darkness of the surgery. She knew who Renda of Brannagh was, of course, but this legendary woman who had led the armies against the demon Kadak just two years before seemed so strangely fragile and childlike in her repose that she could not help but stare.

  “Come, let me help you to your cot ere I check his dressings…” The monk, for all that she was slight of build, shouldered Renda’s weight readily, lifted her and eased her to her cot. Lady Renda stirred just enough to let herself be led to the cot, but she did not speak, did not so much as open her eyes.

  She seemed to fall right to sleep, but the monk could not take the chance. Just to be certain, she took from the crate the same vial that Laniel had used to deepen Daerwin’s sleep and waved it under Renda’s nose. She was relieved to see the knight relax still further, her mouth falling slightly open. This was good. She could not afford to have any witnesses to what she was about to do.

  From the pouch hanging from the chain belt about her waist, she drew two tiny bottles as well as several long thin pine needles. She gently cut away the wrappings of Daerwin’s dressing and pressed apart the flesh of the wound so she could see all the way to the bone where the strange energy burned away the flesh.

  A slow rumbling began in the very foundation of the abbey, like the first warning growl of a wolf, and the temperature in the surgery began to drop. The monk did not look up, did not seem to notice, so engrossed was she in watching the powers battling within the wound. Were the Sheriff of Brannagh any other man, he would have died by now.

  She licked each of the pine needles and set them in a line from one end to the other within the wound. Then, before they could wither and ignite, she poured swirls of the two liquids upon the needles, quietly chanting the strange words she had learned, feeling for the first time a delicious rush of power that surged through her, into the wound, into the bindings of the pine needles where they drank up the deer’s blood and the maple sap. First red, then yellow, then red again––

  ––and felt a sword point at her back.

  “Stop at once, or I will run you through, and damn the consequences.”

  “Be at peace!” The monk set down the bottles carefully and turned. “I mean no harm, Lady!”

  “Stop! Do not move! Do not so much as draw breath to speak without my leave!” Renda spared a quick look at her father. “What have you done to him? Mind you answer properly. A single word of Dhanani, and I will cut you down where you stand. By B’radik, I will.”

  “I mean you no harm,” the monk repeated with a sigh. “I want only to help.”

  “So much so that you tried to deepen my sleep so I could not stop you?”

  “I did.” She looked away. “I knew you would not understand.”

  Renda’s eyes narrowed. “What, that you are corrupted and drunk with Dhanani power?”

  “What? I…do not…”

  “How many here are corrupted like you?” The sword point bit in, and the monk winced. “Does Bilkar lie bound by your hand?”

  The young woman’s confusion twisted her features. “What? No! No power could bind Bilkar the Furred!”

  “You do not convince me, monk. Do not think I cannot recognize the words you spoke. They are
Old Dhanani, and this, this ill power you wield, it is the same power that harms my father!”

  “I know nothing of Dhanani. I know only…what I know, which is naught but by rote. This you must believe. Indeed this power I wield is like that which harmed him. But don’t you see? It is the only cure!” The monk nodded toward the sheriff. “Look upon his wound. See how it mends itself.”

  Renda edged closer to her father, keeping her sword trained on the young monk, and looked at the wound.

  “An it does not,” the monk murmured, “kill me where I stand. You will only hasten the inevitable.”

  She could guess what Renda saw looking into the wound. By now the pine needles she had dropped into the wound would be gone, but so too would be the sliver of the cardinal’s power that had lodged in the bone. The muscle, nerve and sinew were rebuilding themselves, obscuring the bone, knitting together as if the wound were being unmade exactly as it had been made.

  “He will be hale and ready to ride by morning. You cannot help but see.” She smiled enigmatically. “Now everyone will see.”

  “Gaed?”

  Renda looked up to see Laniel standing in the doorway. “Child, what brings you to the surgery?” He waved a hand and dismissed the rest of the monks who, wakened by the rumbling, had come down into the corridors, some with weapons in hand. When they were gone, he looked at the sheriff’s arm and saw that it was nearly healed. He looked between Renda and Gaed, his face twisted into a masque of disbelief. “Oh, Gaed, what have you done?”

  The monk fell prostrate before him. “No evil, my Lord Abbot, only good. I have met my challenge today, on the Feast of Bilkar!” she cried with a forced cheerfulness. “I cured the sheriff’s wounds with the same means that created it.” She had no doubt rehearsed these words for hours.

  “That is not possible!”

  Renda saw the horror in Laniel’s eyes as he looked between her and Gaed. He took an abortive step toward the sheriff, but the monk clutched at his leg.