Her mare had a road in front and the huge structure of the Baronial Seat rising before, so the horse knew well what to do, and Cerisia relaxed. She thought of the talking she’d have to do, the forms to be met, when she’d last seen Hamadrian Innadan. She hadn’t come this far east for three years, on a grand circuit of the western Baronies when she’d been named Archioness. Whether Barony Innadan fell under her purview was, perhaps, a matter of some debate. Given its central location both the eastern and western Baronies tended to claim Innadan as one of their own. Since Fortune’s Archions and Archionesses were reluctant to draw strict lines of influence and responsibility—all the better to allow room for maneuvering and the vagaries of chance—she could certainly claim a degree of power among any of Fortune’s clergy she would encounter.
Frowning behind the mask that was quickly growing cold against her skin, Cerisia searched her memory for the names and faces of those assigned to the chapel in the Vineyards and any local temples. She could come up with but two names: Jastin Meer, the senior priest at the Vineyards chapel, and Anlys, one of his assigned bearers. She bit her lip as she tried to recall the girl’s last name.
“Baronial lordlings and their ridiculous glut of names,” she muttered, unable to come up with it.
She was jolted out of her reverie as she realized that a contingent of riders had left the Vineyards and were making straight for her. She made minor adjustments to her dress, arranged the fur collar of her cloak, readjusted her hand around the banner, and rode to meet them.
Sunlight glinted off their armor, and she could see the red Innadan tabards they wore, and as she drew closer she smiled at the honor being accorded her visit.
The lead rider wore a suit of carefully crafted plate, etched and enameled with green vines bearing plump purple grapes across its arms, and a great helm that matched the huge banners unfurled above the Vineyards, with green vines appearing to wrap around it.
The knight sat tall in the saddle, mastering the dun-colored stallion he rode with his knees and with light flicks of the reins, making the horse appear to bow, lifting one leg and lowering its head.
She pulled her mare to a halt a few yards away, and watched as the knight pulled his vine-covered helm free. She was quite surprised, then, at the youth of the man who’d come riding to meet her, expecting the worn but proud face of his father.
“Welcome to the Vineyards, servant of the Mistress of Wealth,” the man called in a clear and courtly voice, a voice to match his looks. Clean-shaven, with a strong jaw and high cheeks, brown eyes and long brown hair carefully but loosely queued at the back of his neck, it took Cerisia a moment to place a face she remembered as much younger.
“Arontis Innadan,” she called back, watching carefully for a reaction to his name. “To what do I owe the honor of being greeted by you?”
“You have me at a disadvantage, my lady,” Arontis called back. The planes of his cheeks did nothing to reveal any reaction to that. “Yet it is my duty as Castellan of the Vineyards to greet all honored guests. May I ask whom I address?”
“Archioness Cerisia, Lord Castellan Innadan. We met three years prior. You had just been knighted, as I recall,” she added.
“Indeed, Archioness. You are most welcome to our seat. May we escort you in the walls?”
She carefully inclined her head and nudged her mare forward. Arontis gently turned his horse so that they rode side by side, the stallion picking up its hooves carefully one by one and flagging its tail, whether at her mare or by some subtle prompting of his rider, she wasn’t sure.
A half dozen red-tabarded lancers spread out to surround them, allowing several yards between their own mounts and those of Cerisia and Arontis, a space she was grateful for.
“Baron’s Own Heavy Horse?” It was a guess, Cerisia knew, but likely enough to be true. She turned her masked face to the young lord riding along next to her.
The smile he offered was, perhaps, a bit patronizing, but it was pleasant enough to look at that she paid it no mind. The somewhat diffident boy she remembered had grown up a great deal since she had last visited. She found herself wondering just how much even as he answered.
“Here we call them the Thornriders, Archioness, but then, everything must have to do with wine, grapes, or vines in Innadan.”
“I see,” she said. Then, pitching her voice lower. “Arontis, please be honest with me. I know that it is the Castellan’s duty to greet honored guests only if the Baron is unavailable. How is your father?”
His jaw and sharp cheekbones set with fetching determination as he considered her question. “You will see, Archioness.”
“That sounds grim. I fervently hope that he is still among the quick.”
“As do I, Archioness. This winter was hard on him.”
“Please,” she murmured, briefly reaching out to touch his armored wrist. “Call me Cerisia.”
* * *
Masked in smooth and featureless silver, Jastin Meer, Fortune’s Chaplain at the Vineyards, was waiting for Cerisia with a delegation of priests just inside the courtyard. At his right hand, bearing the banner, was the girl she remembered, still a slip of a thing, but lovely in the pristine white dress, silver threads, white wool cloak; at his left, a boy barely old enough to apprentice, dressed in rags and covered in a dirt that seemed all too real to her, carried the wheel.
Arontis had swiftly dismounted and extended his hands towards her, one knee bent, to help her from the saddle. She grinned, glad of the mask’s concealment, sure that if he could see her face he’d find it patronizing. Still, she reasoned, a gesture of chivalry that was unnecessary was no less welcome. She slid one foot down into his couched hands, and then dropped carefully to the ground.
Had the Innadan heir not been armored as thoroughly as he was, Cerisia might have allowed herself to fall against him slightly. It’s not blades alone armor was made to repel, she thought, still grinning. She smoothed her dress and held her own banner straight in her hand, with Arontis holding out a mailed elbow. Behind her, the Thornriders had taken her horse towards the long stone-walled stables built into the very side of the inner wall, and dispersed to whatever tasks occupied fighting men when at home.
In fact, there were rather more fighting men in evidence than she had expected. In a distant part of the courtyard another troop of red-tabarded lancers were mounted, moving out through the gatehouse, down the three-turned path through the outer curtain and to maneuvers in the fields and the road beyond.
Finally, Jastin found his courage and came forward, attendants in his wake. “Archioness, to what do we mere chaplains owe the honor of your visit?” He had tried for booming authority, found something just short of hoarse yelling.
Cerisia took in his clothing with distaste. From a distance, he passed, but up close his vestments were spotted and stained, the hem of his robes trailed on the ground, and the silver fittings of his belt were tarnished. Unforgivably, his mask had lost the patina of polish and was starting to dim and darken as well.
“It is Baron Hamadrian Innadan I have come to visit, Chaplain Meer,” Cerisia intoned calmly, the authority in her voice always easy to find. “I will have time to meet with you later.”
“Even so,” the man insisted, his voice just this side of a whine, “had we received notice of your visit we could have arranged proper quarters.”
“Leave that to me, Chaplain Meer,” Arontis said, his voice as smooth as the skin stretched taut over his cheekbones. “It is, after all, my castle to look after. Come, Archioness,” he said, turning his head to indicate that the chaplain and his party were dismissed, from his notice at least, “let me bring you to my father.”
Instead of being led to the great hall as she was expected, Cerisia found herself climbing a stairway ahead of Arontis. She struggled to recall what she remembered of the layout of the inner keep, and felt likely she was being taken towards the Innadan fam
ily apartments.
She had little time to marvel at the marble floors, the vine-carved columns. In truth, the vines covering everything all began to blur together, and while the tapestries hung along the walls at regular intervals were dutifully impressive, Cerisia had always found that tapestries made her think of the drudgery required to produce them.
Finally, Arontis led her up another stair, two turns down corridors that all looked the same, and to a door flanked by two knights in full armor, naked greatswords resting point-down upon the stone floor. They wore tabards of their own sigils, halved with the Vined Great Helm of Innadan.
Arontis rapped hard upon the door, and a strong, yet tired voice responded. “Enter.”
He swung the door open. The heat inside was practically suffocating, and Cerisia swept in before Arontis, who swung the door closed behind them. The room was both a sitting room and a study, with richly cushioned and heavily carved chairs scattered before a sizable fireplace. A writing case with a canted red leather surface and silver fittings sat on a high table near a window, its glass stained with the Innadan crest. Nearby shelves held scrolls, bound books both large in small with leather, wood, or even worked metal covers, and fine pens and pots of ink lay scattered about.
Standing straight, if not tall, wrapped in a long fur mantle, Baron Hamadrian Innadan looked worse than Cerisia had imagined. Even three years ago, he’d been on the verge of being an old man, but there had been a fierce intelligence in his eyes and a hard resignation about his compact person.
Now he seemed smaller than he ever had. Instead of a circlet or a helm, a simple cap of maintenance rested on a pate gone entirely bald. A week’s growth of lifelessly grey whiskers covered his cheeks and chin and a neck that, though he was thin, hung in a long fold like a turkey’s wattle. One blue eye had gone milky, but Cerisia was happy to see that the other shone as fiercely bright as ever.
Though he looked frail, the Baron stepped forward to greet her with arms outstretched.
“Cerisia,” he said, embracing her, though his thin arms couldn’t manage much of a squeeze. “Indulge an old man and have that mask off. I would look upon the real beauty of a woman, not the sterile lies of your Goddess.”
She felt herself smiling at the compliment, and soon she had tugged the mask free, though she found him pointing at it, his hand trembling slightly as he raised it.
“What happened to your eyes, eh?”
She cleared her throat, allowed a delicate blush to creep up her neck. “I pried them loose and gave them away.”
“To a man? What lucky bastard must I duel, then?” His voice quavered, and she pretended not to notice.
“To a cause, as much as to a man. And that cause is why I’m here, my Lord Baron.”
“A cause?” He snorted. “Sounds expensive. And call me familiar, damn it all.”
“A cause near and dear to you, Hamadrian,” Cerisia said, smiling. “Peace.” She reached inside her cloak to a long pocket sewn into it, and drew forth a handful of rolled parchments sealed in blue wax.
“Give them to my lad there,” he said, pointing to Arontis with a hand that trembled slightly less than it had.
The Castellan and heir reached out to take them, immediately turning them to inspect the seal. “I know not this mark, father,” he said, with an armored shrug, lifting his eyes in puzzlement to Cerisia.
“If tales of a paladin have reached over the mountains, Hamadrian, I am here to confirm them. The mark is his.”
Hamadrian’s eyes narrowed, and Cerisia had a sense of being studied carefully for something other than her curves or the twist of her lips. “Fetch us wine, Arontis. This may take some time. And by your own Fortune, woman, have a seat. I’m Freezing well going to.”
The Baron’s son pulled his gauntlets free and set them down on a side table, moved to a heavy sideboard at the far wall of the room, and busied himself with a thin jug set in a silver cooling bucket and a tray full of goblets. Hamadrian shuffled to one of the chairs facing the fire, and lowered himself into it with exaggerated care. Thin lips pressed tight against his mouth, the only apparent expression of the pain he must’ve felt.
“I do well standing or sitting,” Hamadrian muttered. “It’s moving between them that’s the trouble. And sitting tends to put me to sleep,” he added, but then aimed a smile at Cerisia. “Not, of course, that such would be a problem in view of you, Cerisia.”
His eyes slid away from her, though, to the fire, and then he turned his neck to watch his son approach, bearing two goblets—clear glass resting in a wrought-iron nest of leaves and curling vines—full of a deep purple wine.
Cerisia took one goblet, waited for the Baron to take his. He turned his head to study with his good eye, said, “I love my vines as much as the next man,” he grumbled, “more, probably, but Cold do I wish we’d learn to decorate with something other than vines and roots, grapes and leaves and thorns. Carve a bird on something.”
She lifted her glass, sipped, found it pleasant but unremarkable. The Baron lifted the wine to his nose, didn’t bother to smell, had a sip, smacked his lips. “This is rubbish, for now,” he muttered. “Give it some time, it may be the greatest my lands have ever produced. I doubt I’ll live to see it, so I taste some every day, have my wine steward haul it up from the butt. I hope, every day, that I’ll taste some hint of that greatness. And it always disappoints.” He carefully set his goblet down on the table in front of them, focused both the bright blue and the milky white eye on Cerisia. “Tell me of this paladin.”
“Before I do,” she said, folding her hands in her lap with the goblet clutched between them, “allow me to ask what you have heard so far.”
“Not much. Some tales drifted over in the fall of someone claiming to be a holy knight stirring up trouble for Lionel, and good for him, I say. Lot of typical nonsense from those stories though, ripping a tree out of the ground to fell a giant, sending gangs of bandits scurrying with his voice alone. There was something new in them. What was it, Arontis?”
“Something about commanding a spirit of air and shadow. Did not sound very holy.”
“Ah,” Cerisia muttered. “Then the stories are both more correct than I had expected and more wrong. Please,” she said, “let his own words speak for him before I do, Hamadrian. Read his first letter.”
“Bring it to me, boy,” the Baron said, holding out a hand. Arontis swiftly retrieved the bundle of scrolls and brought them forward.
“Which is it?” He held them out to Cerisia, who reached in and plucked free the smallest, most tightly rolled parchment, held it towards the Baron.
He held it close to his good eye to examine the seal. “What is it? A flower?”
“A sunburst,” she said.
The Baron picked at the blue wax seal and pried it loose, but gnarled fingers found difficulty in unrolling it. With a grumble, he held it towards Cerisia, who unrolled it and began to read.
My Lord Baron Hamadrian Innadan, Master of the Vineyards,
Before I begin, I must beg your forgiveness. Years ago, you asked of me, and the other Barons and lords, what I am now asking of you. And instead of listening in good faith and trying even to speak of peace, I happily drank your wine and broke lances in front of your walls and thought what a wonderful lark it all was as a break from the real business of war.
To have been so callous in the face of the one man with the courage to ask us all to stop and think about the cost of our madness is but one of many regrets, many sins I will spend the rest of my life paying for.
What I ask is the very same thing you wished for when we were younger men: a congress of peace. I propose to arrange a meeting with you, Unseldt Harlach, Byron Telmawr, Gilrayan Oyrwn, and the newly elevated Landen Delondeur. If you would consent to pass the message further, I would welcome the presences of Damarind, Machoryn, or any others you might reach.
If possible
I propose that this congress convene in Standing Guard Pass.
You, Hamadrian, are the first and most important part. If you will agree to meet, I know that Telmawr will follow your lead. Landen Delondeur will come at my request, and I am confident that Oyrwyn can be lured out of sheer curiosity.
I am certain that by now you have had word of my Exile and Divestiture. I count these as but a very small loss. The stakes of the war we have fought for so long were never, in truth, very high for us; lines on a map, titles before our names, the restoration of a line of kings we extinguished while purporting to fight for them. As I have come to live among simpler folk, folk I once would have called lesser, I now understand how much greater the stakes have always been for them. It has become my appointed task to end the war we have so long inflicted upon the people we believed were ours to lead, but if I am to do it peacefully, Baron Innadan, I beg for your name and your influence to make it possible.
Yours, with Respect, Regret, and Hope,
Allystaire Stillbright, formerly Coldbourne, Arm of the Mother
When Cerisia finished and sat back, the Baron drew a sharp breath.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that Coldbourne, that bloodthirsty son of a bitch, is this paladin? And that you believe it?”
“He would tell you, Hamadrian, that he is no longer Allystaire Coldbourne. And in truth, he would be right. If nothing else, he cannot speak aught but the truth any longer, and so if he says a thing, it must be true. And I do not simply believe it, Baron. I know it. I have seen miracles performed by his own hands. I have felt the pull of his Goddess’s power on my own mind. I have seen him destroy the ensorcelled dead with his own hands, ripping them apart like so much wine-soaked bread. Baron Lionel Delondeur, a trio of sorcerers, and I do not know how many other men have fallen to him and those who follow him, my Lord Baron. The world will rush behind him to change, and if we rush with it, we can see that it changes for the better.”
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