by Brian Fuller
“Your Holiness,” she bowed. “And Dason. I’ve the table set up and ready. I so love these card games in the evening, so I apologize if I am a bit presumptuous in my preparations.” Eldwena scrunched her eyebrows together. “But are you both quite all right?”
“We are fine, Lady Moores,” the Chalaine said, attempting a light tone. “My mother only recently returned and I had hoped she would bear me news of my future husband. Alas, she said she found out little, so I have been a bit disappointed and out of sorts. I am sure a game of cards will help lift my spirits.”
“I am sorry, Holiness,” Eldwena said soothingly. “But a rousing game of cards is good medicine for getting a man off your mind.”
The Chalaine didn’t feel much like playing, but she set to it, hoping her mother would exit the maze and take her inside the apartments and tell her everything. But her mother never came. She contented herself with the game, noticing that Dason was letting her win on purpose. This both annoyed and flattered her. After several games, she begged to be excused, wanting nothing more than to sleep and hope for a more informative day on the morrow.
Chapter 5 - Mercy and Weakness
Gen didn’t sleep. He sat hands around knees in a stand of golden maple trees to the side of the Church and waited until everyone straggled out of the square and the lamps in nearby buildings winked out.
Gen watched as the Showleses left the Morewold’s and went home, where they stayed awake for nearly an hour before going to sleep. He watched as Pureman Millershim and Rafael came out of the same door carrying a basin and a large wooden box of herbs that the Pureman used for the healing of the sick and injured. Still he waited, shivering in the autumn chill. Although the wind had died down, the clouds persisted, covering the moons, shards, and stars, creating perfect darkness.
When the Pureman extinguished the lamps inside the Church, Gen paused a few more minutes and determined it was time to put his plan into motion. Convenient to the back of the Church was a small outbuilding where the Pureman stored various implements used for gardening and interring the dead. The door squeaked wildly as Gen opened it, but he hurriedly picked out two spades he knew leaned against the wall within easy reach.
As stealthily as he could, he sneaked slowly across the benighted Churchyard with spades in hand, trying to remember where everything was. A soft orange glow on the back steps of the Church set his heart to racing, and he threw himself prone, worried that someone had spotted him. The spades clattered loudly when they hit the ground, destroying whatever stealth he had hoped for.
“Get up, lad, and come here,” Rafael ordered. “You’re going to kill yourself bumbling around like that in this blackness.”
Gen stood up sheepishly, swiping the damp leaves off his pants and shirt. As he came closer to the Church, he could make out Rafael and Pureman Millershim quietly sharing a pipe on the rear steps. Gen was glad he couldn’t see the Pureman clearly, fearing what those blue eyes might say about what he was doing.
“Good evening, Pureman,” Gen said softly, desperately hoping Millershim wouldn’t notice the shovels lying on the ground behind him. “How is Regina?”
Millershim inhaled deeply, savoring the smoke before handing the pipe back to Rafael. Pipeweed would not grow in Tell, but the Pureman and Rafael ensured that the Morewolds ordered some from the south every autumn.
“She will live,” Pureman Millershim reported. “It took time, Twineweed, and a lot of prayer, but she finally awoke before we left. A bad wound, that one, but she is strong and will be back to herself soon.”
“Were it not for you, Pureman,” Rafael said, “she likely wouldn’t have lived through the night. You do good work.”
“I do as Eldaloth wills, that is all.” He savored the smoke for a moment, smacking his lips. “The tobacco crop doesn’t seem as rich as last year’s, master bard. What do you think?”
“It was a dry spring. Let me have another turn at it.”
“At least,” Gen broke in, “old Billy put the betrothal off for a few more days. Why didn’t they wait until spring? That’s the tradition.”
Neither man spoke for a long time.
“I’m afraid, Gen,” Millershim finally admitted, “that the Showleses ordered me to perform the betrothal as soon as she woke up, though I objected. They will be married come spring. As to why, I think as a capstone to the celebration and because Hubert will leave soon after their marriage to go back to the army. You might get pressed into it, too, if Aughmere attacks and things go poorly. I’m sorry it happened this way, Gen. But Bernard is the Magistrate.”
Gen felt sadness and anger well up within him anew. “How could you?” he protested. “It’s bad enough they’re to be wed at all, not to mention the lack of dignity or concern shown by forcing her into the betrothal when she’s half-conscious and bleeding all over the place.”
The Pureman retrieved the pipe from Rafael. “I agree with you, but make no mistake. Bernard can make plenty of trouble for me, and the two would be betrothed whether I performed the rite tonight or two weeks from now, or in the spring. There is little difference. Perhaps it turned out better this way. Some things are better borne half-conscious.”
“I would think,” Gen countered, getting angrier at Millershim’s cavalier attitude, “that if Regina had the choice of being betrothed to that monster for two weeks fewer, she would take it! What an utter mockery of decency! This is all. . .”
“It appears you have some digging to do Gen,” Rafael cut in, voice stern but sympathetic. “You’d best be about it.”
Gen expected a rebuke from the Pureman, for undoubtedly he guessed what Gen was about. Instead, Pureman Millershim simply said, “Good luck, Gen. And don’t get caught. Be assured that our thoughts go with you, even when our hands cannot.”
Gen turned from the two men, gathered the spades, and ran across the square as fast as he could, holding one spade in each hand to keep them from banging together. As quickly as he could safely and quietly manage, he ran up the small incline to the left of the Showles’s home and into a thicket. Gant waited for him underneath a tall ash which was pushing up through the center of more diminutive trees. Before them, some twenty feet from the rear of the Showles’s house, was the outhouse. It was almost invisible in the darkness, but the stink was unmistakable.
“You sure you want to go through with all this, Gen?” Gant whispered. “This could mean real trouble. I mean real trouble. I know you like the girl and all. . .”
“It has to be done. If you want to leave, then do. I’ll manage.”
Gant stood silent and still for several moments, and Gen thought that he might just turn and go. Gant was usually the first to cause trouble, but his apprenticeship had mellowed the mischievousness of the young man, and Yeurile brooked no boyishness. Still, Gant hated the Showleses, and Gen wondered whether the hatred or the thought of Yeurile scolding him would win out.
“Let’s be quick about it,” Gant finally acquiesced. “I got work to do in the morning. You layabout bards don’t know what that’s like.”
Gen patted his friend’s back and they approached the outhouse slowly, listening for any sign that the Showleses were awake. After a few minutes of listening to Bernard or perhaps Hubert snore loudly enough to scare away birds, they set about their work.
Although no one had ever done it before, what Gen proposed to do to the outhouse was really a simple alteration. First, he and Gant edged the structure backwards until the waste pit was exposed. Breathing through their mouths to prevent the smell from overcoming them, they dug around the pit, creating a sloped funnel that descended into it. Damp ground made for quiet digging.
That done and the dark dirt piled away behind the thicket, they moved the entryway of the outhouse over the new hole. The next Showles to visit the outhouse would find himself sliding down until he was arm-pit deep in his own filth.
“Thank you for your help, Gant.”
“You gonna wait?”
“Yes. I need to see this,�
� Gen replied
“Well, I’m not crazy. If you get caught, you’ll find yourself banished from Tell. You be careful, Gen; you stand to lose a lot if Bernard catches you.”
“I know, Gant. But how could I stay in this town, season after season, year after year, and watch her with that buffoon? I have to leave here, and whether I’m forced to or choose to, it makes little difference now. But don’t worry, Gant. If I’m caught, I’ll leave you out of it. You and Yeurile will have a happy life. Take the spades back.”
“There will be another girl, Gen. You’ve got to believe that.”
Gen answered nothing, and Gant jogged into the night, leaving him to his crude, cruel vigil.
At first the anger and anticipation kept him awake, but as the night wore on, the rough emotions lost their edge and turned from ardent hate to empty coldness. It rained lightly on and off. While the trees above him protected him from the wetness, the soft pattering of the rain on the leaves and ground soothed and dampened the hurt within him. Gen felt that nature wept with him in the dark, and knowing that someone—or something—shared his pain unclenched his nerves and subdued his nagging headache.
Several times he considered undoing his trap, replacing the dirt, and walking away, but just when he would decide to do it, the image of Regina lying bleeding on the stones of the square returned to his mind, shoring up his resolve. He needed something more than just the comfort of the rain and the trees. Deep inside his heart something demanded justice—and barring that—retribution. Justice in a town controlled by the Showleses was impossible. Justice would be Regina betrothed to someone she could share her heart with, someone like Gen. Justice would have the entire Showles family carted away and left in the Rede Steppes to live or die far from the company of decent folk.
Pureman Millershim taught, however, that in the fallen, shattered world of Ki’Hal, good and right were not always followed or rewarded, and evil was not always shunned and punished. The Church urged the people not to seek their own justice when the men of the world failed but rather to be humble and to pray for deliverance from grudges and hatred. Revenge, it was said, was Mikkik’s tool to destroy souls and spread violence and sorrow.
But Gen knew there were limits to how much should be tolerated in the name of humility and faith, for history abounded with stories of those who refused to live with injustice any longer. History counted them heroes.
Ignati, a Prelate of the Church itself, turned against his religious superiors when he saw corruption and vice in them, leading the fighting orders in a five-year-long war against the Church and the nations that would follow it. His action in the face of injustice earned him the adoration of Church leaders in the years afterward. What would have happened if he had sat in his monastery chamber and only prayed for deliverance or hoped that justice would eventually prevail?
While Gen had no delusions that his cause was nearly as grand as that of Ignati, he hoped the same principle applied to his predicament. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how rabid and unthinking he let himself become in the hours after hearing of the betrothal. Gen remembered Ignati’s letter to the Pontiff announcing his intentions to rid the Church of corruption. The man was deeply sorrowful about what he felt he had to do and his mind was clear, far different from the wild passions that pulsed through Gen earlier that evening, passions that were ebbing as fatigue gained a foothold upon him.
A couple hours before dawn the clouds began to break up and the soft light from the moons Myn and Duam illuminated the small clearing where the rigged outhouse sat. The moon Trys, eclipsed, was an abyss ringed with light. Two moons set against the one, a symbol of the Chalaine and the Ha’Ulrich standing fast against the murdering purposes of Mikkik.
It will be a great war, Father Millershim preached. Most of us will not stand in battlefields against the enemy. Most of us must win the war only in our hearts and in our homes. While we will wield no sword, we must wield forgiveness; we wear no armor but clothe ourselves in kindness; we spill no blood, but we just as surely strike the heart of evil with every wound we bind, with every tear we shed in sympathy, and with every smile with which we lift the spirit of another.
With a sigh Gen looked at the Showles’s house and then back through the trees where he could barely make out the window where he knew Regina slept. Something broke within him, and tears fell from his eyes and onto the ground. He did not let the feeling engulf him and would not let himself sob or wail. The sadness drained from him in silence, and after a few minutes he wiped his face, cursing Rafael for teaching him introspection. He got up and took a step toward the Church to retrieve a spade. There was little time to undo what they had done, if it could be undone at all.
You are weak. It should not be so.
The voice came from within his own head, but squinting into the moonlight, he could see the figure of a girl, no more than six or seven, standing just outside the line of trees. The light from the moons did not illuminate her, but instead cast her as a black silhouette against a dim backdrop, almost as if his mind projected a shadow untouched by the world around it. Gen wanted to walk forward to see if she were real or a figment of his imagination but found he couldn’t move. Something about the voice seemed familiar, but only faintly so. It was not the voice of a child.
You want the woman, so why do you not take her? Why do you defer to idiots and dullards? You should kill the boy and take the woman. You do not yet realize your station. Instead you sit and weep and let things pass as they are, let the world drift by without your mark. I teach you and return to find you wandering ever further from the path set before you! Time grows ever shorter and you are a poor tool, indeed.
What she spoke was not in the common tongue, but Gen somehow understood it. His mind raced. This had happened before, but he couldn’t remember it clearly. Every time his mind would find the memory, it slid away. The figure chiding him, half-seen and unknowable, wanted him to do something, to learn something. Gen knew this, but he couldn’t retrieve a single lesson or instruction. The apparition demanded obedience, was desperate for him to accomplish something, but with no commandment he could recall, Gen found nothing to obey.
You have resisted me for too long, and it must end! You are without mother. You are without father. What you are, you owe to me. It took three years to find you after they stole you from me! Three years! And the damage done is indeed great. Tell has made you soft and unsuited for your destiny. The world needs to tremble with fear, and you dally. But your time for play has ended. You may not serve as you should, but you will. The power is in you, waiting with Trys to be born. Against that day, I have given you knowledge and instruction, but you do nothing with it. Prepare now, Gen. Tonight I set you on a path to repentance.
The figure dissolved into the night. The force that held him released, and he fell to the ground gasping for air. With effort, he scooted up against a tree and sat for several minutes quite unconscious of anything. A raven landed on the branch above him, startling him from his stupor. He felt dizzy for a moment and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he found himself prone on the dirt. With effort, he composed himself. What had happened? Someone talked to him, but the memory slipped away. Startled, he realized the morning sun already paled the night sky and the trap still awaited a victim. Breathing deeply and shaking his head to clear it, Gen stood.
As he took his first step, he caught movement in the corner of his eye and turned to see if he had been discovered. Men moved carefully between the boles to his left, slowly stepping toward the back of the Showles’s house. He counted five with swords drawn, blades reflecting the shafts moonlight. They wore cloaks and moved carefully, knees bent for silent walking.
Gen wondered if they might be thieves coming out of the wood to steal supplies for the winter, something that occurred every few years. A dog barked and they stopped, standing as still as the trees, the man at the head raising his hand in a signal to wait. Their unity and weapons made Gen
doubt they were mere brigands, though he couldn’t imagine who else would take an interest in such a small town. Abruptly the barking ceased with a yelp. As one, the five sprinted forward and with brutal efficiency shattered the Showles’s back door, pouring inside.
Gen’s chest tightened, heart hammering. Screams erupted from the house and echoed into the night. Throughout the town arose a cacophony of surprise and terror. Women and men yelled in alarm. Children cried. Dogs barked and were silenced. Gen thought quickly. The house where he and Rafael lived was but a short walk from town down the main road. If the men were attacking the center of town, perhaps they had ignored the outlying farms and houses. If he could manage it, he could warn others to flee and press on to Baron Forthrickeshire to get help.
Gen came to a crouch. The noise inside the Showles’s house subsided to whimpering and crying. He looked back toward the city center. Someone had lit a lamp in Regina’s room, casting a silhouette against the window. His heart took a blow as he thought of what might be happening to her, and, without further consideration of his initial plan, he ran from underneath the ash tree toward the back door of the store. He knew the terrain well, but his feet still tripped on deadfall and rocks he could have avoided easily in the light. Within a few seconds, he leapt up the four back steps and pushed the door open.
The storeroom had no windows, and, while he knew roughly how the Morewolds arranged their goods, he had to walk blindly and slowly, feeling the shelves and sacks of grain as he made his way to the door that led to the storefront. Heavy boots thudded above him, creaking the boards, Regina’s father shouting for the men to leave them alone.