Crusade

by Daniel M Ford

  “Good. I will return.”

  Gideon pulled his Will back to his physical self as fast as he could manage. He was slightly alarmed to see that the column was moving, his palfrey plodding along as part of it; he had missed the setting off. Since no one troubled him, he could only assume that they believed him to be sleeping in the saddle.

  He gave the palfrey a nudge with his heels and rode hard to catch up to the van, where he knew Allystaire would be.

  CHAPTER 44

  The Flower and the Spear

  For the last day’s ride to Thornhurst, Allystaire had Torvul give the horses the first of his mixture, a few drops sprinkled into the morning water.

  A ride that should’ve gotten them there at sunset—perhaps even just after—had them pulling up outside the walls with the sun still hanging in a slowly purpling sky. Ardent’s lungs pumped like a vast bellows beneath him, but the destrier had energy and spirit to spare, he knew. Beside him, Gideon sat on his spare palfrey.

  Allystaire hadn’t known he’d been expecting Mol to be standing outside the gates—alone but for the herding dog at her side, and the unmistakably huge form of Johonn standing a few paces behind—until he saw her. But then, in that moment, seeing the somber little priestess and the bright and stubborn girl he’d rescued in one, standing in the middle of the track in her sky blue robe and bare feet, he found he could not have imagined coming back home any other way.

  He slid off of Ardent’s back, but the horse barely came to a stop, plodding after him to greet the Voice of the Mother. The destrier outpaced him and stretched his long neck to place his soft nose against Mol’s upraised hand. The priestess laughed and said something Allystaire did not catch, to which the destrier tossed his head and swiveled his ears. Gideon, having ridden beside him, was slower to dismount, unused to so many days in the saddle, and he nearly stumbled when his feet were under him again.

  Two impulses warred within Allystaire. The first was to bend down and sweep Mol into his arms in an embrace, though in truth, it hadn’t been long since he’d last seen her. The second, which was the one he followed, was to walk forward and sink to one knee.

  Though his weight upon the ground send clouds of dust puffing into the air, none of it settled onto his armor. The column behind him was stained by mud and sweat and rust, the fruits of so hard a ride in the saddle, in armor. But at their head, he still flashed in the sun.

  Mol extended a hand and settled it onto his uncovered head. “Welcome home, Arm of the Mother.” She spoke the words normally to his ears, yet he could also feel the force of her voice moving past him and echoing down the line of men who coiled on the track behind him, spilling onto the grass, disappearing behind a hill and then again, outlined against its crest. He felt Gideon kneel beside him, and almost shot out a hand to steady the boy as he teetered.

  Allystaire and Mol both looked sidelong down at him, but the boy lifted his head straight and blinked his bloodshot eyes open. For a moment Allystaire thought he felt or heard the whisper of something spoken between the Voice and the Will, mind to mind, but it quickly passed when the priestess lifted her head. She pushed back her hood and surveyed the column, and her voice rolled over them all.

  “And welcome to Thornhurst, Baron Innadan, Baron Telmawr, Baron Machoryn, Baroness Damarind, and all the brave souls who come with you. Welcome back, Baroness Delondeur. I have had food readied on the village green, arranged for space to be made within and without the walls for your horses, laid out fodder, grain, and water. We haven’t the room within our walls for all your men and mounts; the bulk of you will have to take your meal outside, but if you ride through in groups of two score or so, we should manage to get you fed quickly enough.”

  Behind him, Allystaire heard the clatter of metal and the creak of tack as the van—mostly the Barons and their handpicked knights—dismounted and came forward.

  He stood and turned to face them. As he’d expected, most of their eyes were drawn to Mol, their faces in varying stages of disbelief or awe.

  Allystaire patted her on the shoulder and she leaned against his hand for a moment, but only a moment, then he walked to greet Johonn, extending an arm. The huge footman grasped it and pumped, and for a moment Allystaire regretted it. Then a broad smile split his roughly handsome face and the two shared a moment’s laughter.

  “Are we away t’war soon then?” Johonn’s voice was surprisingly soft for such a giant of a man, with a rough accent, like Mol’s had been, but Allystaire felt that he missed very little.

  Allystaire nodded simply, which Johonn met with his own nod. “Any burden,” the man said, hefting up the longaxe he leaned against.

  “It may be a great one, Johonn. We will face something awful,” Allystaire said. Behind him, he heard Mol making small talk with the Barons who gathered around her.

  Johonn shrugged, a tiny gesture that sent mountainous shoulders rolling. “Mother gave me my arms back, a purpose,” he said, nodding, affirming something to himself and to Allystaire. Then, once more, he said, “Any burden.”

  “Any burden,” Allystaire replied, repeating the phrase, feeling something right in it, something that stirred in his chest and sung in his arms. He thought Johonn felt it, too, and they looked back along the column.

  “Tibult, Norbert, and Harrys are back with the supply train and Torvul’s wagon. A few Delondeur folk who attached themselves to the Baron on her way to the congress. They will not be long, a few turns at most.”

  “I’ll go see t’my gear,” Johonn said, shouldering his axe, “unless the Voice finds aught else for me to do.” He looked expectantly at Mol, but she was chatting with nobility, and he frowned. “Never thought I’d stand so close to much greatness,” he muttered. “I’ll fetch the others,” he added, as he turned and stomped away, big boots stamping into the dirt on the end of tree-trunk legs.

  Allystaire watched the Barons and Baronesses clustered around Mol. Ruprecht Machoryn was the most withdrawn, eyeing the girl with cold distance. Loaisa Damarind and her daughter seemed to be listening to her more closely, while Arontis had tugged one gauntlet off and held his hand out to the herding dog, who was cautiously and thoroughly sniffing it. Byronn Telmawr was standing awkwardly at the taller, younger man’s side and seemed uncertain.

  Landen had taken her time dismounting and when she approached, Mol looked expectantly up at her. Alone among the nobles who gathered in front of Mol, the Baroness Delondeur knelt, sliding her helm under one arm. Mol’s hand settled on the pauldron of her armor and Allystaire shuffled a couple of steps closer, listening intently.

  “Voice of the Mother,” she murmured, “I have two boons to ask of you, if you would hear me.”

  Mol nodded and turned to face her squarely, tilting her head lightly to one side and drawing her hands together. “I will hear you, Landen,” she softly replied.

  “First, there are folk who travel with me who have already suffered the depredations of the Braechsworn. If you would grant them refuge here until we make it safe for them to return to their homes, I will be further in the debt of the Mother.”

  “Of course,” she said quickly. “Honest folk do not need to fear asking for the Mother’s refuge. It is theirs if they but wish it. What else would you ask?”

  She wet her lips and looked up at Mol, then at Allystaire. “When this war is done, I would ask that you build a new Temple of the Mother in Londray. I will give you whatever support you ask. A building, links, official legal proclamations. I will give you the Temple of Braech to rebuild, if you wish.”

  “Why do you ask this, Landen Delondeur?”

  She squared her shoulders, shifted on the knee that bore her weight upon the ground. “I remember what the Mother did for us when we were defeated here on the Longest Night. By all right of war and justice, you could’ve killed us. Most would have done so. Instead, you fed us, clothed us, gave us warmth through the winter, and while I can
not speak for all those who were interred here with me, confessing the wrongs I had done to you lightened my heart and cleared my mind. My soul, even. I want all of those mercies available to the folk of my seat and greatest city. I would ask for a chapel in the Dunes, if you would grant it.”

  “A Temple for the people, yes,” Allystaire suddenly put in. “But a chapel in a keep? No. Never.” Without even reflecting on the words, he felt them certainly, deeply, utterly.

  “It is good that you wish to bring the Mother to your people, for that, after all, is why She has come,” Mol said. “But She will not be locked behind high stone walls, or heavy iron gates. The Arm speaks true. We will build up a Temple in Londray, but not a chapel in your keep.”

  Landen nodded and stood in a single smooth motion. Allystaire envied it, as he started to feel the effects of long days of riding along his thighs and up his back.

  “Go, see to your horses, and then to yourselves,” Mol said, waving her hands to the knights and lancers who still stood back, the Barons who had stepped away to watch Landen’s request. “Our home is open to you, as guests. I must speak with the Arm,” she added, turning on one bare heel to walk up to Allystaire and take him by the hand.

  Gideon appeared asleep on his feet. Mol looked at the dog at her side, who then wandered and put her head under Gideon’s slack hand. He opened his eyes and curled his hand into the dog’s fur.

  “Go and sleep in your own bed, son,” Allystaire said. “It will be an early start in the morning.” The boy started shuffling wearily up the road. Mol whistled lightly and Ardent and the palfrey started following her.

  Mol came to his side then and took his left hand; her small hand was hard and warm against his unarmored palm. “Must it be?”

  “I am afraid so,” he answered, squeezing her hand gently. “Pinesward Watch is—”

  “I know,” the girl said quietly. “I knew before I asked the question. But I wanted to ask, and to hear you answer.”

  Allystaire laughed lightly. “What do you mean, Mol?”

  The girl sighed lightly, then smiled up at him. “I know how you will answer most questions I could put to you now, Allystaire. But there is comfort in hearing the weight of your answers, and the movement of your voice and thoughts as they come round to the blunt truth, as they always have.” Her smile turned impish, and her accent became a country girl’s once more. “Reminds me of our first days, is all.”

  Allystaire smiled and squeezed her small hand again. “I thought you were going to drive me mad with your queries then.”

  WIth her free hand, she patted his gauntlet. “Setting off after a dozen men on your own, with naught but the word of a frighted innkeeper’s daughter. The questions just kept ya distracted from how mad y’already were.”

  Allystaire knew that Landen and Arontis were following them, a few paces behind. They were screened by the horses that plodded along behind him and Mol, without benefit of leads. Ardent suddenly drew to a halt, the palfrey as well. Mol’s pace quickened and Allystaire matched it easily, despite the ache in his legs. He heard Gideon laughing faintly, and he looked over at the boy; he saw another hint of a private thought shared between him and Mol.

  “I’m sorry I’m so tired, Allystaire. I will be right in the morning,” Gideon said, driving the smile from his face.

  “Go and sleep, then,” Allystaire said, “I will see to your horse.”

  “No,” he said, shaking the weariness out of his eyes, or trying to. He patted the dog that walked by his side on the head and went to the palfrey and collected the leads. “I’ll take care of Ardent as well. You haven’t the time.”

  Allystaire almost cried out for him to stop as the boy reached out for the destrier’s reins, but stopped, surprised, when the huge grey didn’t snap or toss his head.

  “Where are we going, Mol?”

  “To the Temple or to Leah,” she said, “your choice of where to go first.”

  “Leah? Has she had her child?”

  The girl nodded brightly. “Lynn. Just a few days ago. A bit small, but perfectly healthy.”

  “Does the village have a midwife?” Allystaire felt a flush of shame creep up his cheeks as he asked. “I should know that.”

  “The village has me.”

  Nodding, Allystaire asked, “Will she want to see me?”

  “Aye. She wants your blessing upon the girl.”

  “My blessing?”

  “Yes.” Her flat tone brooked no further discussion of the matter, he felt, so he started reaching for the words he might say.

  “Best we go there first,” he said.

  In silence then, Mol led him to the village green, which was green in truth for the first time that he had seen it. Wildflowers grew in scattered lines along its edges, in rows of white, yellow, and orange.

  “How?”

  “Torvul,” she said, “and me. And you, of course.”

  “I am nothing to do with that,” he said, gesturing, as he walked to the edge of the green and looked down. “I neither planted nor tended.”

  “Think less literally, Arm,” Mol chided him. “Had you not ridden here, drawn by the smoke of the pyre lit on this very green, none of this would be here. I would be dead, having despaired and allowing myself to be drowned in the wreckage of my father’s Inn. The rest of our people would’ve been cut up upon the sorcerer’s table, chained to Islandman oars, or sold to brothels in Keersvast. This village would have been slowly reclaimed by the land, its fields overgrown and untended, its flocks scattered and dying, dogs and horses gone wild, if they were lucky.”

  As she spoke Allystaire bent down and carefully, with the tips of his gauntleted fingers, plucked out a single blanketflower, looking closely at the orange petals for a moment. Behind him, the first squadrons of horsemen had ridden on towards the Temple and the food that had been readied for them. He looked over his shoulder and saw a few, including Landen and Arontis, had stopped to watch him, letting their accompanying knights take their horses onward.

  Mol appeared at his shoulder and leaned her arm upon him. “The Temple would not exist,” she murmured into his ear, “and I know not how long the Mother would have had to wait for a chance to come to the world again. So yes, Allystaire. You had everything to do with this becoming a green place again, and for the flowers growing upon it. What do you call that one? I just asked for ‘em by color,” she suddenly said, leaning forward to point at the flower held between two steel-cased fingertips.

  “Blanketflower,” he said, “and those are beggarticks, and those arrowheads,” he said, pointing to the rows of yellow and white, respectively. “Might be some barberrys in amongst them, too,” he added, peering with narrowed eyes.

  “How does a man who lived his life so dedicated to weapons and war know of flowers?” Mol’s question was once more murmured to him alone.

  “I knew a woman once who thought very much of them, and taught me something,” he said.

  “Loved a woman, you mean.”

  “Aye,” Allystaire said. He stood up, face flushed, unsure of what to do with the tiny flower he’d picked. “Where does Leah stay? The Inn, still?”

  The girl nodded. He studied her a moment, the serious priestess almost having pushed out the fierce Innkeeper’s daughter he’d known. Almost, he thought, then impulsively he bent at the waist and carefully tucked the blanketflower he’d picked behind her ear. She giggled, and lost for a moment the somber gravity she wore like an extra garment. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek, then settled back on her feet. “I have to go see to our guests,” she said. “Go to the girl and then to the Temple. I imagine,” she added, “that you’ll want some time there to pray.”

  He stepped away, watched as Landen moved to Mol and offered her arm with courtly grace, despite the mail she wore. Mol had to reach up to take it, but she settled her hand on Landen’s vambrace, and w
ith Arontis in tow, they walked off.

  The Inn was nearly empty, Timmar busy in one corner with a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush. Allystaire hailed him as he came in, but he didn’t want to burden a busy man with small talk, so he made the stairs and sought out Leah’s room.

  She was sitting in a chair by the room’s only window, its shutters open and oilcloth pinned up, almost dozing, the baby held snugly by her arms beneath a sling tied around one shoulder. From what he could see from the doorway, the bundled child was little more than a scrunched pink face with a tuft or two of straw-colored down atop it.

  Leah’s eyes suddenly swung open when he shifted his weight, his armor clinking. Almost as suddenly she raised a hand to cover them, murmuring, “Cold but that stuff is bright. Couldn’t you throw a cloak over it or something?”

  Quickly, Allystaire half-stepped into the room and out of the path of the window’s light. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I forget.”

  She smiled faintly and stood slowly, carefully cradling the babe in her arms as she walked to him. “Best piece of looking-glass I ever saw,” she said, bending her legs in order to look at her face in the silvery cuirass. She clicked her tongue disapprovingly, and said, “And I look a fright in it.”

  “Nonsense,” Allystaire said. “You look beautiful, Leah. And so does your daughter,” he said, looking down at the sleeping babe, whose features, while still muddled to his eye, were peaceful, calming. He found it all too easy to watch the girl simply breathe as she slept.

  “Tch,” Leah said. “You’re just bein’ kind.”

  “I cannot,” Allystaire said, “speak a lie. Even to be kind. There have been times these months I wish I could have, but I did not come here to speak of them—I mention it only so that you know, Leah, that if I say you and your girl are beautiful, I must be telling the truth.”

  She smiled, weakly though, and gave a slightly forced laugh. He took the chance to unbuckle the gauntlet on his left hand, and set it down on a stand next to a washbasin and jug.