Killingford: The Hieromonk's Tale, Book Two

by Robert Reginald

  “Hey, what’s going on here!” shouted the captain of the squad, riding over from the other side of the column.

  He was a tall, amiable-looking man in his late thirties, clean-shaven save for a trim mustache, and neatly decked out with light chain mail, helmet and jaunty feather, and military cloak. His gear was beautifully polished, and he sat confidently astride a handsome bay, its shiny black mane and tail floating in the breeze. He gracefully dismounted, and gave the priest a hand, steadying him a bit as Athanasios tried to regain his composure.

  “Sorry, father,” the officer said, “these rubes don’t know any better.”

  He glared at the assembled soldiers, and vigorously waved them on.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?” he yelled. “You! Get along over there. Come on, move it out!”

  His men gradually sorted themselves into loose ranks again, and the column started forward.

  The captain quickly grabbed Dyskolos’s reins to prevent him from running off, and handed them over to Athanasios, simultaneously inclining his head.

  “Sir Maurin von Markstadt, Lord Ézion, at your service, father. You seem to be having a little trouble with your mount.”

  The hieromonk looked upon his savior with immense gratitude.

  “Oh, thank you so much, milord,” he said. “I’m the Archpriest Athanasios Hokhanêmsos.”

  He shook his head in dismay, brushing futilely at his damp clothing.

  “I must confess, I don’t really know what I’m doing wrong. They showed me how to control the beast, but Dyskolos is the devil himself.”

  “Dyskolos, eh?” The officer snorted. “Oh, I’ve heard about that one. I think someone was trying to play a joke on you, father. This donkey’s a real ass.”

  He cleared his throat as he swallowed a laugh.

  “However,” the officer said, “we have our ways.”

  Maurin led Athanasios and his mount off the crowded road and over to a nearby tree. He chose a small, supple limb, broke it off with his bare hands, then carefully stripped it with his knife. He whipped it experimentally through the air a couple of times.

  “Yes, that’ll do nicely,” he muttered to himself.

  Then he turned to the priest.

  “Would you happen to have an old spare rag,” he said, “something you won’t be needing again?”

  Athanasios pondered a moment. “Well, I think so, milord, but....”

  “If you’ll get it, please,” the captain said, “I’ll demonstrate.”

  The priest rummaged around in his kit, and finally tore a strip from a frayed, well-worn tunic.

  “Will this do?” he asked.

  “Perfectly,” Maurin said, smiling. “You just have to be a little smarter than the beasties,” he said, abruptly stepping on the donkey’s reins to hold its head momentarily still, and then wrapping the cloth several times around its eyes.

  He stepped back to admire his handiwork, tucking in the ragged edge of cloth.

  “There, that should fix him. Now you can mount,” Maurin instructed the priest.

  Athanasios climbed back into the saddle. Dyskolos stirred uncomfortably, badly wanting to be rid of his burden, but uncertain of himself in his blindness.

  “You see, father,” the officer said, “without his sight, old Dysk here has lost his manhood, so to speak, although he had already lost that some years ago, ha ha ha, and so he won’t go running off to where he shouldn’t be going.”

  “Well, then, how do I get him to move?” the priest asked.

  Maurin handed him the switch.

  “Try this, father,” he said. “A little application to the appropriate hindparts will work wonders, you’ll find.”

  Sure enough, the beast was quite docile now, and moved when and where the hieromonk directed.

  “It’s a miracle!” Athanasios said, “a gift from God.”

  “Not really,” Maurin responded. “You just have to outthink them. You’ll find that after a few days, friend Dyskolos will have decided that you’re the master here, and then you won’t need the blind any longer.”

  “May I ride with you a while, milord?” Athanasios asked.

  “Certainly, father, I’d enjoy your company.” The captain nodded cheerfully. “But please call me Maury. Most of my friends do.”

  “And I’m Athy,” the priest said, happy to be back in control. “Whence do you hail?”

  “From up north,” the captain said, “a county called Kosnick. My cousin Dónan’s the ruler there.”

  “Why, I know the place!” Athanasios said. “It’s tucked between the crook of the upper Paltyrrh and the Kultúra Rivers, west of Tavársky. Very nice location. But I’d have thought that you would have marched straight south to Myláßgorod. It’s much shorter, isn’t it?”

  “Well, as the crow flies, sure,” Maury said. “But the roads are just a mess these days, clogged with wagons and foot-deep mud, and Count Dónan thought we would do better by taking the barges down the Paltyrrh. We had an awful lot of rain up there this spring. It only took us a few weeks to get downstream.”

  “I see.”

  The priest’s clothes were beginning to dry, and even though he was sure to be sore from his fall, Afanásy was finally feeling more comfortable with his situation. A thought came to mind.

  “You look as if you’ve seen quite a bit of military service,” the cleric said.

  “’Bout twenty years, off and on,” the officer said, “in six-month or one-year stints. I’ve experienced a lot of action, from the barbarians to bandits to brigands.”

  Athanasios nodded.

  “I rather thought so,” he said. “I wonder if you could satisfy my curiosity. Part of my work involves copying documents for the king and his court. The other day I came across a military record that I couldn’t decipher. Now, you understand that I’m supposed to know these things, even when I don’t. It’s a little like handling this donkey: no one wants to hear excuses about why I can’t ride, even though I’ve had very minimal experience in recent years. So I couldn’t ask anyone there at court without looking the fool, and I put the pages aside. But a man of your great military experience just might be able to help me.”

  “Anything I can do, Father Athy,” Maurin said.

  “Why, thank you, Lord Maury.” The archpriest smiled. “Here’s my problem. I have an old service record that consists only of a name followed by a series of initials.” (He was referring to a document that he’d located earlier that year in the Official State Archives while investigating the mystery enveloping his own past history.)

  The captain removed his hat and scratched his head. The sun was bright in the sky and beginning to heat the ground.

  “Well, I have seen a few of these registers. Usually, they indicate an officer’s rank and assignment, in that order, followed by subsequent postings, if he’s been transferred to another unit.”

  “Ah, so the letters ‘SL’ would be Sublieutenant?” Athanasios asked.

  He had already worked that one out for himself.

  “Of course,” Maury said, “and ‘FL’ is full Lieutenant, ‘CP’ Captain, ‘CM’ Commander, and so on.”

  “Then what would ‘KG’ stand for?” the priest asked.

  The soldier laughed. “That one’s easy,” he said, “King’s Guards! Very elite bunch, reconstituted during the wars with the northerners.”

  “Of course,” Athy said, chuckling along with him, “and what about ‘DD’?”

  “Hmm.” Maurin looked puzzled. “Hmm!” he rumbled again. “Well, I honestly can’t think of any unit having those initials. Now you’ve really got me interested. Just a moment,” he continued, “let me, uh, check with someone else who’s been around longer than I have. Back in a snap.”

  The captain pounded further up the column, stopping to talk with an older officer leading another unit. They conversed together for a bit, and then Maurin came trotting back, smiling broadly.

  “You almost had me fooled there, Athy,” he said, c
oming alongside the donkey. “I was right. There isn’t any troop with that designation. It means ‘Detached Duty.’ Very rare.

  “Usually,” he continued, “they’re scouts or spies working directly for the king or one of the high councilors of state. They’re sometimes given passes that allow them to sequester anybody for questioning whom they wish, or to secure any goods they might need to complete their mission. Basically, they carry the authority of the king on their person.

  “I’ve only knowingly met one or two in my entire career. They’re very quiet fellows, operating strictly behind the scenes. They wear no badges and have no units, and you won’t even know they exist most of the time, unless they’re forced to reveal themselves, and they really don’t like doing that. Trained killers, too, very nasty in a fight. Wouldn’t mind having a few of them with us for this ‘go,’ if you know what I mean.”

  “Indeed I do,” Athanasios said absently, reeling from the impact of the information Maurin had given him. Because, if Arik Rufímovich, he who had later become Metropolitan Timotheos, had been on detached duty from the military during the period when he had delivered the child Athanasios to Saint Svyatosláv’s Monastery in May of 1166, just who was he working for then? When exactly had he joined the church? The answers to these questions, if he could find them, probably would tell him all that he needed to know about his origins.

  He gradually shifted the conversation to other matters as they moved through the hazy afternoon light west of Paltyrrha. Around them the flies buzzed idly ’round and ’round, cruising in large circles about the horses and their riders and the marching infantry, knowing that they would feast that evening on horse and human dung and other assorted garbage. Life for them was very good indeed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “A MIGHTY CROP OF BASTARDS”

  The column traveled about ten miles that first day, not halting until the pale orange sun was starting to set in the darkening sky.

  They erected the king’s tent first, both for its symbolism as the monarch’s point of command, and even more importantly, because it contained their only reliable transit mirror. Establishing and maintaining a mobile viridaurum was notoriously difficult, even for an experienced group of Psairothi, but it was crucial to their operation to be able to communicate regularly with the capital and with the different troops now converging on Myláßgorod.

  Prince Arkády was everywhere at once, frantically trying to keep the units together, and pausing for a word here and there with his officers. The experienced ones knew exactly what to do, but the rest had to be taught, step by painfully slow step. Even though they were still deep within their own kingdom, the lords had decided at the last meeting of the War Council to pretend from the very beginning that they were operating in hostile territory, as a training exercise.

  Arkády kept an admiring eye on his father, as the king expertly organized the layout of the camp, based on the availability of water and the natural defenses of the place. King Kipriyán had settled down somewhat during the last few weeks, since the shock of Feognóst’s suicide. Thankfully, there had been no further incidents, although the prince was under no illusion on that score: more would follow, of that he was certain. They had all been watching each other constantly, looking for the tell-tale signs of hidden workings. Tension was high.

  Soon the camp was established, with large, well-stocked tents for the officers, councilors, and major churchmen, and campfires and bedrolls for everyone else. Savory stews were already simmering over the open flames; he could smell the juicy meat and vegetables flavored with field onions and other fresh herbs, so generously if sometimes reluctantly donated by the local farmers. His mouth watered. To his complete surprise, he found himself suddenly ravenous, and hastened off to his own tent, where he had been housed with several of the chief officers of the court.

  After everyone had filled their bellies, the king, his sons, and the major lords and councilors gathered around a large bonfire near the monarch’s tent. Arkády spied Melanthrix lurking to one side, and his dinner briefly crawled back up his esophagus. Choking down the bile, he lowered his head, and carefully watched the thin figure of the astrologer from the corner of his eye. He had been avoiding contact with the king’s boon companion ever since Melanthrix had saved the life of little Ari, the prince’s eldest son and heir, but Arkády knew that a time would come soon when he would have need of the philosopher again, and he dreaded that rendezvous-to-come.

  The king was in fine form this night, telling stories of the old wars that he had waged, of the great triumphs and narrow escapes that he had known. Everyone loved to hear the tale of the Åvarswood, of how sixteen men had clawed their way through hordes of Northmen and an entire forest finally to rejoin their comrades. There were cheers all around when Kipriyán recounted their joyous reunion with the main army, and how they had pursued and punished the barbarians for weeks, until they were all butchered or enslaved, each and every one.

  “Tell us about the great war with Pommerelia,” someone suggested.

  “But I wasn’t there,” Kipriyán said, laughing. “Oh, would that I had been. Is there anyone amongst us who has stories to sing about that conflict?”

  Athanasios, who was sitting in the background with the other churchmen, was surprised when Metropolitan Timotheos said nothing. He almost spoke up on his mentor’s behalf, when he suddenly realized how he would have felt if placed in a similar position.

  “Come, come now,” the king said, “surely somebody has something to contribute. What about you, friend Melanthrix?”

  “Like you, my king, Melanthrix never served,” the philosopher said. “But he heard tales, oh yes he did, of what happened in those far-gone days, and of the great King Makáry thy father, and of thy valiant brothers, the Princes Néstor and Karlomán.”

  “Show us!” came the eager refrain from all sides.

  Melanthrix reached into a hidden pocket of his robe, and pulled forth some powder which he sprinkled over the fire, creating a flash that momentarily blinded them, and much putrid green smoke. When they could see again, there was the rotating visage of Makáry I King of Kórynthia, as if he had been there in real life.

  Suddenly, the picture dissolved into the image of a column of soldiers, very similar to their own, marching off to war. That faded off into another portrait, and then another, like a series of vivid tapestries, leading them further into the history of the conflict. First came the great victory at Argöliß and the death of King Michael—cheers all around—the early onset of the freezing winter weather that stopped their advance cold, the privations faced by both sides, the second expedition of the following year, the troops assembled before Dürkheim, the siege of that mighty walled city, the trickery of the Walküri and the death of King Makáry—groans from everyone—the retreat to Einwegflasche, the third-year stand of King Ezzö the Elder at Borgösha and the siege of that city, and Ezzö’s final suicide that marked the end of the campaign.

  No one ventured a word for several moments after the last picture frayed into nonexistence.

  “Well,” said the king, breaking the silence, “at least I hear that our boys plowed a mighty crop of bastards that year in fresh Pommerelian soil.”

  Most of the soldiers laughed, but a few men—Arkády, Athanasios, Timotheos, and some others—privately grimaced or said nothing at all. This was not an achievement worthy of boasting. Arkády wondered what the poor women had done with their unwanted children; he’d heard tales of dozens being left in the woods by their anguished mothers for the elements and wild animals to eliminate.

  The party gradually dissolved into separate knots of men discussing strategy or the practical matters of getting the units moving on the morrow. The king soon rose to retire, ordering all but the pickets off to bed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “YOU WILL OBEY ONLY ME”

  But there was one who roamed far into the hollow of the night that evening, bypassing the guards quite readily, sloughing off his human form fo
r another semblance that was far more comfortable. At the hour of the wolf he silently stood beside Kipriyán’s bedroll, and gazed down upon the snoring image of the king, watching the tendrils of beard waver in the exhaled breath of the great ruler. Then he reached down and touched the sleeping beauty on the middle of his forehead, and a green glow swept slowly down over the recumbent body of the monarch, sparing not even his toes.

  Suddenly he heard someone coming, and turning halfway towards the entrance, quickly twisted his hands together—and was gone!

  “Father,” said Prince Arkády, opening the tent flap and peering in. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were already asleep.”

  The king didn’t wake, however, and his son was about to take his leave when abruptly he stopped. He sensed a strange fragrance in the air. He took a deep breath, trying to place it in the context of his memory, but the odor eluded him, and gradually diminished even as he tried to draw it closer. He had encountered the taint somewhere before, of that he was certain. Finally, though, he dropped the cloth back over the exit, and headed towards the perimeter to check the pickets.

  In the tent, a black moth came to rest on the center of Kipriyán’s chest, its wings lying flat to either side. Another soon joined its sister, and then another and another, until the king’s entire body, save only his nose, was enshrouded in a dark, slightly moving cloak.

  In his own mind, the king was dreaming of Paltyrrha in the summer of 1164. He was studying the Romanish tongue with Fra Callanus, when the door of the study banged open, and he was abruptly dragged from his tutor by a pair of burly guards whom he had never before seen, and locked away in a windowless storeroom. Once each day these same men brought him bread and cheese and water, and changed his bucket, but they would not respond to his questions, and he was left, finally, with nothing but tears of frustration and anger and fear.

  On the tenth day he was half-dragged to a viridaurum and taken to Saint Ióv’s Church, where his great-uncle, Metropolitan Víktor, was waiting for him by the main altar.