“The first had crossed my mind,” Cerisia noted. “I doubt very much that you seek a Baron’s seat, for if you did you’d be at Wind’s Jaw right now and none of this would’ve happened. But surely you cannot mean to rest here, confident that your victory against one foe will keep your people safe. You will have to take arms again. I had assumed, knowing you and your reputation, that you would not sit and wait. That you would carry the fight to your enemies while they reeled.”
“I have not yet decided what I will do with my enemies,” Allystaire said, then he waved a hand. “No, that is not true. I have not yet decided how I will do it. If more arise, I will fend them off, kill them as necessary to defend those I am called to defend. If you think I mean to lead a crusade, I would say that you are not wrong, Archioness. Yet I mean, as far as I am able, to make it a crusade of peace.”
“Those words do not go together, Sir Allystaire,” Cerisia said quietly.
“The Goddess did not call me to Her service to do the merely difficult.”
Cerisia studied his face for a moment, and was about to speak when Timmar interrupted, setting a teapot on their table and filling it with water from the kettle he’d taken off the fire. Almost immediately the scent of tea began to filter into the air, though to Allystaire’s nose it smelled dishearteningly weak. Landen and Chaddin had wandered over, standing nearby, shuffling, yawning, adjusting their sleep-rumpled clothing.
Allystaire turned to them, and Landen pointed to the stack of parchment. “We wrote out an agreement as you asked.”
“Suggested,” Allystaire corrected quickly.
“As you suggested. With all your suggestions intact as well as some of our own design,” Landen finished as if she’d never been interrupted. “Last eve you hinted that there was a further suggestion. We cannot put the seal to it if we don’t know what it is.”
“True,” Allystaire said. “Have you overheard my conversation with the Archioness?”
“I try not to eavesdrop,” Landen said.
For his part, Chaddin shrugged. “A few months ago I was a sergeant of foot. Eavesdropping is in my bones.”
That, Allystaire suddenly thought, is more of the man I thought I liked. Hiding a smile, he said, “What did you hear?”
“Something about a crusade for peace, which sounds like a lot of nonsense to me,” Chaddin said bluntly.
“I find myself in agreement with the Archioness as well,” Landen admitted. “It seems unlikely.”
“Well,” Allystaire said, crossing his arms over his chest, and wincing a bit as he pressed his right hand against his left arm, “the two of you are going to help me bring it about. No,” he said, raising a hand as their mouths opened, “I do not mean raising a banner and arming masses of men to tear down another Temple or destroy a Barony. Not Delondeur or any neighbor. I am going to ask you,” he said, pointing a finger at Landen, “to hold a peace council with Baron Innadan.”
“Innadan has been our primary antagonist every season when Oyrwyn was not for the past decade or more!” Landen’s protest was at volume and sharp with surprise. Timmar, effortlessly gliding around those who stood or sat at the table, cleared his throat as he set mugs down and began pouring.
“There’re folk sleepin’ upstairs m’lady, includin’ a lass with child and mournin’ her husband. I’d appreciate if you kept it a bit quieter.” He paused. “If you’d be so kind. M’lady”
Allystaire seized upon Landen’s slight shock at the innkeep’s frank address to press his point. “And how often has Innadan done more than defend his own borders, or what remains of Barony Telmawr, from your father’s incursions? Oyrwyn was his ally, never his enemy. I know the man, have since I was a child. He wants peace. He sued for it, years ago, and most of us laughed at him while we drank his best wine.”
“I have met Hamadrian Innadan as well,” Cerisia put in. Timmar stood solicitously at her shoulder, the remnants of a cone of sugar and a small pair of snips in a bowl. “He is as weary of war as any man could be. Some men thrive on it, even if it slowly strangles the land they claim to fight for. Gerard Oyrwyn was such a man. So was Lionel Delondeur, till his need for victory drove him to the extremes that led us to this moment. Baron Innadan is drained by it. He is a few years younger than your father was,” she said, one hand opening to include both Landen and Chaddin, even as she held her mug out for Timmar to ease crushed sugar into, “and yet he seems a score of years older. Every blow done to his beloved land inches him closer to death. If you would speak to him of peace, I promise you he will listen.”
“How would I even get him a message? I have no access to the birds or the couriers at the Dunes.”
“We will manage that in time,” Allystaire said. “We have some, after all. No one will campaign till the snows begin to melt. I just want to know if you will do it.”
Landen swallowed hard. “Fighting my father’s war is what I was brought up to do.”
“As I was brought up to fight Oyrwyn’s,” Allystaire replied. “It is time we stopped doing what we were taught to do. Time to learn new trades.”
“Why stop at Innadan?” Chaddin looked almost startled to have spoken.
Allystaire furrowed his brow, gestured at him to go on.
“Surely Baron Innadan can influence Oyrwyn,” Chaddin said, a little more tentatively. “Telmawr is little more than his vassal as it is. That’s two. Why stop there? Harlach. Varshyne. Go farther east: Damarind. Machoryn.” The words rolled faster off his tongue as he went.
“I am all for sending envoys to them,” Allystaire said. “Varshyne may take some doing, surrounded as it is by giantkin and Islandmen. But Innadan is the key, both his personality, and his Barony’s geography.”
“The bridge between the western and eastern Baronies,” Cerisia agreed. “And respected by all of his neighbors.”
“Sounds like you want to make him king,” Landen muttered. Allystaire shot her a dark look, and to the young woman’s credit, she winced and shook her head. “Not what I meant.”
“Good,” Allystaire said. “I think perhaps the problems the Baronies have had is not due to the lack of a king. I have no intention of making one.”
“Well, I suppose I shall start drafting, then,” Landen said, frowning a bit as she turned towards the writing implements arrayed on the nearby table. “All this ink and parchment is enough to make me wish my father had given me tutors who were the match of my armsmasters.”
“You have time,” Allystaire said. “You need not start it this moment. If you wish to return to your men and share with them what has gone on, I would not begrudge you the time.” His eyes flicked to Chaddin. “You as well.”
Landen sighed and shook her head. “The sooner we start the sooner we finish.”
“While I appreciate the sentiment,” Allystaire said, “and in the main, agree with it, whatever begins here will not be quick to finish. At best it will take months to secure any kind of agreement to meet with more than just Innadan himself. In truth it will take many years of moving relentlessly forward to secure anything lasting. I want you to understand what you are in for.”
Landen eyed Allystaire a moment before she replied, her tone slightly clipped. “At the least, you might not speak to me as if I am choosing this uncoerced.”
“I have leverage at the moment, Baroness Delondeur,” Allystaire said. “I would be a fool not to apply it.”
“And what responsibility will you bear if it turns to water in my hands and falls entirely out of them? What if Innadan, Harlach, and Oyrwyn decide to settle old grudges and invade Delondeur in a concerted effort?”
“I will bear the same responsibilities I do now,” Allystaire said. “Ending the war. However I must.”
Landen sighed and lowered her eyes. “You had best be right about Baron Innadan. I’ve only ever known him as an enemy. I don’t know how well he will take a message from me. And I
doubt that Oyrwyn will take a message at all.”
“Leave Oyrwyn and its armies to me,” Allystaire said.
“Oh? And Harlach? Telmawr? The eastern Baronies whose heraldry I barely remember?”
Allystaire sighed. “We cannot control what all of them will do, Landen. We can control what we do. If you wish to be remembered as a greater ruler, a better ruler, than your father, then take this first step. I will help, in the ways that I can, to see that it does not tumble your people, or any other, into oblivion.”
“You speak of these things all too freely,” Landen said, shaking her head. “I cannot conceive what grants you your confidence.”
“Not confidence, Baroness,” Allystaire said, finally reaching for the mug of tea that Timmar had poured for him. “Faith.”
“As to your concerns, Landen,” Cerisia said, studying the woman over the rim of her cup, “many may be allayed by choosing the right messenger. Allow me to volunteer.”
Allystaire sat up straighter, setting his mug down with enough force to slop some over the side. “What?”
“I wish for peace as much as you,” Cerisia said. “Carrying and delivering messages are how I can serve to achieve it. We who serve Fortune are often seen as impartial in these matters. And letting me deliver the message for you, as opposed to a party of your knights riding under a flag of truce, reduces the chance of rumor moving ahead of it and muddying the waters. And last, but not least,” she added, pausing for a sip of her rapidly cooling tea, then smiling over the edge of the mug, “I can be very persuasive.”
I don’t doubt it, Allystaire thought guiltily, as he watched her lips, artfully reddened even so early in the day, curve above her drink. He quickly looked to Landen and Chaddin. “I would listen to her, Landen. She speaks a good deal of sense.” He threw down his tea in one great gulp, and stood. “Now if you will all excuse me, I have a squirehood to relive.”
Chaddin snorted, Landen winced, Cerisia merely smiled a bit more broadly. “And what is that to entail, Sir Stillbright? More shattering ice with your fists? Running barefoot in the snow?”
“Running barefoot and armored in the snow,” Allystaire jibed back, grinning.
“They didn’t actually make you do any of that, did they?” Landen asked.
“Not barefoot,” Allystaire said with a shrug.
“Cold, but you knightly lot are a great bunch of fools,” Chaddin said, then shrugged as eyes turned to him. “It’s not as if I’m the only common-born man who ever thought as much.”
“If more men like you said as much, Chaddin, then things might change.” Allystaire nodded to them, sketched the tiniest bow to Cerisia, and asked, “Archioness, is our business done?”
“For now,” she said, pushing the words slowly, with exaggeration, past her very red lips, her pale green eyes lightly narrowed.
Allystaire nodded and was glad of the cold that hit him when he stepped out the door.
CHAPTER 12
Interlude
In a room that was less frigid than the air in Thornhurst, but only just, the Choiron Symod stood at a window and stared, hard, at the frozen water beneath it.
He heard footsteps behind him, did not turn towards them. With a jut of his sharply bearded chin, he gestured to the frozen waters of Londray Bay.
“The very sight of it ought to offend us, yes? That anything, even the winter itself, should contend with the will of the Sea Dragon.”
The Marynth Evolyn Lamaliere remained silent a moment before finally, delicately saying, “The Father of Waves is surely greater than any season, Choiron.”
“Is He?” Symod’s jaw quivered slightly as he bit through the words.
Evolyn saw the ripple of tension along the Choiron’s jaw, clasped her hands, pressed her lips into a line, and said nothing. Inwardly, she hoped that the frigid air in the chamber would keep her cheeks from paling. She did not want to show him fear.
“Even now,” he went on, giving no sign that he’d expected her to respond, “winter locks His life’s blood in its embrace. Ships do not move. Trade is halted. No accords are made. War and strife settles into silence, all because the world grows cold.”
“The Baronies are not the world, Choiron,” Evolyn suggested, careful to keep her voice cautious, but level. Servility would not do. “In Keersvast and the Concordat, the Sea Dragon’s will—”
Symod turned to face her. There were signs, though slight, of disarray in his appearance. His beard grown longer, slightly less precisely kept. A suggestion of darkness under the feverishly bright eyes. A wrinkle in his richly appointed robe.
“The Baronies are all the world that matters, Marynth. If Braech’s will can be defied here, it can be defied everywhere.”
“Winters pass, Choiron,” Evolyn said calmly.
“It is not the defiance of winter that troubles me,” Symod said, his voice a knife’s edge lined in ice.
“I know,” Evolyn replied.
“THEN WHY IS THE PALADIN NOT BOUND AND BROKEN BEFORE ME? WHY DOES AN UPSTART TEMPLE STILL STAND?”
If Symod’s voice had been the edge of a blade just a moment before, now it was a hammer, assaulting her will and her body both. Panic bloomed along her spine; Evolyn only just fought off the urge to flee. The sound of it in the chamber was painful. Her legs faltered and for a moment she feared she was going to sink to one knee.
“Forgive me, Choiron,” she said, scrambling for words to defend herself as her mind reeled.
Symod raised his hand as if to strike her, and anger suddenly rose in place of her fear. Her legs stiffened and her hand shot out to catch his as the blow descended. He had a wiry strength, but Evolyn was a determined woman, and she turned his wrist aside, her fingers curled white-knuckle tight around the ropy tendons of Symod’s arm. She saw the fury it sparked in his eyes, matched it with defiance in her own.
“That is more of Braech’s priestess as I know her,” Symod said, a measure of his control returning to his voice, smoothing and evening its edges, as he moved his hand to his side. “That is the woman to whom I entrusted Braechsworn warriors, considerable weight, and the alliance of two sorcerers in order to kill the paladin. I find myself unable to understand why that Marynth Evolyn did not do as she was ordered.”
Evolyn swallowed hard, calling up memories of eyes that glowed a sickly, disturbing yellow, of the twisted words that emerged from the throat of the man who owned them. The husk of a man.
“I did prod the Baron Delondeur into action, as was the first part of your command,” the Marynth replied, forcing her own iron into her voice. “And his daughter. And such men as they could gather.”
“Such men as they could gather? The Baron Delondeur is the most powerful of those rotten warlords who call themselves Barons. He has thousands of men at his command. A fraction of them should have been sufficient to be certain that this Goddess remains in the realm of rumor and superstition.”
“Conditions changed, Choiron,” Evolyn said steadily, insistently cutting through the monologue that had been gaining wind. “Delondeur had almost no blooded troops ready to hand, and he was not clear with me why that was the case. To make up their lack, he engaged with sorcerers. They were making abominations. Murdering men and twisting their remains into indiscriminate weapons of war.”
Symod’s hard sea-grey eyes narrowed, glittered. “And?”
Evolyn allowed herself a steadying breath. “And it did not seem fit that Braechsworn should share a battlefield with such creatures. Or find such a fate upon their deaths.”
Symod considered her words. Evolyn knew that calculations were being made at rapid speed behind those sea-colored eyes.
“Battle-Wights,” he said finally. “I have heard of them. A terror on the battlefield, or so they say.”
“The reports brought back to me by Ulcas would suggest as much,” Evolyn said. “Yet they were not, apparent
ly, an impediment to the paladin.”
“No?”
“Accounts have suggested that he tore them apart with his hands,” Evolyn said evenly.
“Accounts.” His eyes flared. “You did not go to the field yourself?”
“No,” Evolyn replied fiercely. “I would not expose good and faithful men to the depredations of sorcerers. And I felt confident that they would destroy Thornhurst and the Temple.”
“Braech was not there to seize the glory! This is why we failed!”
Before she could think of what to say, Symod plowed on.
“And these sorcerers, did they survive the battle?”
“No,” Evolyn said. “My sources were clear on that, if not on the manner of their demise, but it seems likely they were defeated by the same force that destroyed the artifact in Keersvast.”
“Do you know how to contact any further sorcerers?”
Evolyn felt fear radiate outward from her spine again. “Choiron, I do not believe their ways are Braech’s.”
He waved a hand dismissively, turned back towards the window. “Then we will learn new ways.”
“Why do we not simply confront him straightforwardly? Strength and courage—these are the pillars of our faith.”
“There is subtlety to our Lord as well, or He would not be Master of Trade and Accords,” Symod countered.
“Ought we not to at least try before we go seeking the alliances of such wretched creatures as sorcerers?”
Symod folded his hands behind his back. “The application of bold force will be a part of our plan. Yet not to simply strike at the paladin directly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Symod said, and she could hear the smile in his words, “that instead of confronting him, we need to force him to confront us.”
“He has already tried to do so once, and we could do nothing to stop him,” Evolyn said, remembering the fear she’d felt when the paladin had broken into her study, the certainty that he would kill her. The feeling that she deserved his judgment, the astonishment when he had simply left.
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