by C. B. Currie
‘Sending them to the capital is none too careful. There are no deacons here.’
‘I wasn’t sending them to the capital. The Bishop’s translator is at Wellstone Priory. I was going to have the knight Beland escort the wagon there. I suggested to Miecal that a Knight-Penitent on a dull little tour of the countryside would be more discreet.’
‘So you told him about Vanis.’ Haendric rolled his eyes. ‘And sending the lad to Wellstone?’
‘That was just fortuitous. I had not planned that. I thought it a kindness to give the knight a chance to see his boy before...well, they’d have to say their goodbyes eventually.’
‘It’s exile,’ Haendric accused, but he knew his protest was pointless. Algwyn was Prior and landlord, and if he did not approve of bastards it was because he was one of the few clerics of his rank who’d never fathered any.
‘Wellstone’s lay brothers are mostly orphans and runaways in any case,’ Algwyn said. ‘Havenside is no place for the boy. What texts are left?’
‘Of the Heathens? Some poetry, an atlas of their sea routes and one of the Al-Ghalil volumes that I was reading in my chamber the night of the theft. I had hoped to read the other, but it was taken.’
‘You were getting somewhere with them I know. So much of what we think we know is different in their telling. But the High Fathers sense only sorcery in heathen words and they want it expunged from the land. We cannot let knowledge die. Wellstone is a simple place, an orphanage and hospice. Nobody will look for them there.’
‘Nobody will find the stolen ones at all now,’ Haendric mused. ‘Probably burned on some knave’s campfire.’
‘Beland doesn’t know about the books, and nor will he ask. You know the order knights, they follow instructions and seldom ask questions.’
‘Beland more than most,’ Haendric assured him. ‘He is a man of honor and duty. What other holy knight would seek to know his bastard? When is he arriving?’
‘Probably today. But we have to decide what to do about the books. Do we send him with just those we have or send him looking for the others?’
‘To catch thieves you need a thief,’ Haendric replied. ‘They know how to avoid watchmen and knights.’
‘We don’t have a thief at hand. As you say, the books are probably destroyed. But if these miscreants are found with them and word gets out they came from Havenside, I fear the deacons will investigate. It’s different this time. They’re more fervent.’
Haendric did not want to part with the books but did not want to be denounced for heresy, apostasy or witchery. Heretics were excommunicated, exiled, sometimes jailed or worse. None of these were ways he wanted to spend his final years. ‘We send the books to Wellstone then. We hope the stolen ones are destroyed and don’t end up in the of some seller of curiosities or tent magician at a fair.’
‘And the boy, Vanis?’ Algwyn asked.
‘He’s just trying to scare us,’ Haendric suggested. ‘He ran off once when he was a little lad, when he first got here, remember? Said he didn’t like the food. He’ll be back in a day or two.’
But he knew in his heart that Vanis was gone for good. He was not a boy anymore and a spirit like his could not be cloistered in a house of the Faith. In that he took after his well-travelled father.
‘You’d best sort the books. Get them from the library and have them ready for when the knight arrives.’ I’m sorry it had to happen this way.’
Haendric nodded and left the prior’s chamber.
He wanted to worry about the boy some more, to think about what would bring him back. If Beland was the father Vanis never knew, Vanis felt like the son Haendric had never had. In a way they were a little family and the three of them got along well when all were together. But he had greater concerns. It always took two days for Beland to arrive from Juniper Keep, except for when he had ridden hard that first visit after learning of his son. He would stay overnight in Bastion the first day and arrive before dark the following evening, depending on the weather and the season. That meant since he hadn’t come the day before and if he wasn’t due the next, then he may only be hours away.
It was good then that Algwyn had entrusted Haendric with handing over the books. These were an invaluable treasure as only a few like he and Algwyn seemed to recognize. So much of their knowledge, their history and their holy works were written in Old Selevian, so little in their own tongue. So much of the knowledge of the Qureshi had never reached them, dismissed as heathenism or sorcery or daemon worship at every stop on the long road westward, and was never even translated.
They had kept a trove of that knowledge right there in the priory. Haendric had studied these books for years and had taken it on himself to acquire more whenever he could – from a bookseller in Bastion, a trip to Castlreach, and whenever he heard of a parish that had possession of strange books. From them he had learned so much about the lands around the Holy City and further afar, the strange people and creatures, of history and of medicine, which had made him the parish’s principle healer.
Haendric arrived at his chamber, closed the door behind him, sat down on his simple wood-framed bed and picked up the Al-Ghalil book from the desk beside him. He opened the lambskin-bound volume to the last page he’d attempted, barely halfway through. His fingers traced the strange script of the east, ancient and faded even in this later copy. Most texts in the library were illuminated manuscripts with beautiful illustrations and intricate lettering. This book was quite simple, without colors or drawings, just plain, flowing text in the heathen tongue. He wondered what use it could possibly be if all that knowledge were shut away in some distant monastery on the edge of the sea, even with a skilled interpreter to pore over it. Such minds would only study it, whereas he had been using it.
The two books that concerned medicine were gone but he had his own translations of those still. The atlas he had copied years ago by hand, though his maps were cruder. The poetry was a good way to understand the hearts of the heathens, and Haendric had learned they lived, loved, sang and wept like any other men, but those he could live without. The priest was not sure of the message of the books by Al-Ghalil. He had only half finished one, and the other was now likely lost forever. It certainly could not be brought back if it was found. He was sure of one thing however: there was power in those twisting, rolling words, deep, ancient and arcane. What good could it be in anyone else’s hands?
Ten
Vanis woke cold and cramped and free. His bruises and welts still hurt, but his spirits were lifted. He had left late at night and walked until fatigue took him and he’d been forced to seek a spot to sleep. The runaway sat up from the filled satchel that was his pillow, but kept the thin woolen blanket wrapped tightly around him. A ground shrew scurried into a pile of leaves and disappeared. He had slept under a rocky overhang he had found in the woods not far from the trail, where a narrow mountain brook wound its way down slope and eventually crossed the trail. In the dark his refuge had looked a secluded enough, but there were signs now in the daylight that others had occupied the site: charred stones, what looked like chicken bones, and an old leather slipper, half rotted from being left out in the elements.
His only possessions were in the sack. He had raided the kitchens for double-baked bread, hard cheese and smoked cheese, some dried meat and his brown novice’s robe, rolled up. That would come in useful someday, he was sure. He also had the lute which he’d kept beside him all night. He did not have much stomach for work and would avoid labor if he could get away with it. But there was always a place, he reasoned, for a wandering brother who could sing psalms and prayers. He would not go hungry.
He had lived under the protection of a mother who had been unable to care for him, of grandparents who didn’t seem much to want him and of a priory that, excepting Father Haendric, almost certainly did not have a place for him at all. Now he was alone in the cool autumn morning and giddy over the possibilities. If those pious fools back at the priory had gotten their way he’d hav
e gone hungry - sent away to half starve at some forsaken northern monastery where the monks lived like animals eking an existence out of the hardscrabble shore.
And lashes! Were they just going to cane him like a common thief? He had known pious brothers accept such a punishment for the rudest transgressions, but he had no such desire to martyr himself for the Faith. Maybe they should just castrate him like the chaste brothers of Whitelock Abbey were reputed to do. Prior Algwyn had his nose so far up the bishop’s arse he had always been looking for an excuse to get rid of Vanis. They’d all made him unwelcome, especially Brother Cellim and his interminable sermonizing. They could all go and bugger the Prophet if they loved the dead bastard so much. Vanis could make his own way. The world owed him that much at least.
He reached for his flask, which he had filled from the mountain stream, and took a long draft of cold water. Then he reached into his satchel for some of the food. The road was open before him. He could travel north into Somersvale, or southwest to Castlereach. He had once visited Bastion on market day when he was a child and he knew it was closer. Perhaps there they had need of singing monks. Or perhaps he’d be too well known, or the priory might be looking for him. At the very least Father Haendric might send letters to people he knew, and Haendric knew people all over this shire and the next. That was fine too. He would go further afield if he had to. He had a whole country to see.
When his meal was done he rolled up his blanket, picked up his lute, shouldered his pack and made for the road. He could still see the ragged hilltop strand of disorderly greybark pines that stood over Havenside in the distance. A bloodhawk circled high overhead and redcheeks flittered from branch to branch. Ahead was a winding woodland trail that snaked northwards through the border of Foresthills and Somersvale. He had left the monastery before dusk, skirted Havenside through the woods and found the trail where it led off Blackbarrow road. He had been told the trail bypassed landmarks such as Taryn Mill, and instead wound its way through the uplands passing quiet hamlets and isolated farms, eventually becoming a back road into Brookleith. That was a larger village with two taverns and distant enough, he thought, to make a new start.
He started off north along the trail. The day was warming and he could see a long way in the distance whenever the track crossed ridgelines and the trees parted to reveal distant hills, where dark clouds were gathering from the east. He expected the trip might take a day or two which seemed alright to him, but after several hours and passing no signs of other people, he became footsore and stopped by the road to rest. His boots were of good quality but they were not his: he had taken these clothes from the storeroom where those who entered the order left their earthly belongings and while the loose clothes were a reasonable fit, the boots were too tight. He sat on a boulder, took one boot off to examine his foot and found large, angry blisters forming on his heel and over his big toe.
Despite his discomfort though, his spirits remained high. The sky above him was still its usual deep autumn blue and as he gazed at it for a moment, the distant clouds called to him from the horizon. They may have been the color of rain but they also promised change and change was what he needed most. He sucked in the cool air and told himself to smile. This was the start of a new life, one not cloistered in a stuffy old monastery copying the words of dead saints.
He picked up the boot and was about to put it on, when he heard voices. Vanis hurried across the trail, boot still in hand and crouched down in the bushes at the side, thankful that the leaves had not fallen yet and he could find some cover.
He saw first one man come around the bend of the trail ahead, where the woods rose to one side and dropped off into a gully below on the other. The fellow looked alert, but not especially cautious. Another followed closely behind and the two were speaking but not especially loudly. Both were armed, one with a short sword at his hip, the other a small hatchet tucked into his belt. The second also had a short bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows on his shoulder. Both were holding dead rabbits by the feet.
They looked like hard men, hunters, survivors; men used to living out of doors and sleeping in the woods. Both were lean and wiry, with rough skin and scraggly beards. Their clothes were simple linen and wool, with leather shoes and for one, a leather cap.
‘If she found out you were the father, would you go back?’ The first asked his companion.
‘I might. But it’ll be hard feeding a child and a wife both. ‘
‘No harder than living out here. You can at least work, if they’ll take you back.’
They were close now, almost about to pass him, when they both stopped and seemed to look directly where he was hiding.
‘Found him yet, Hyllis?’ The first fellow called, and Vanis involuntarily whipped around. There were three more behind him, two armed with swords and one more with a bow. All were smiling down at him from up the slope, only a dozen paces away. His throat caught and his stomach sank.
‘Stand and come onto the road,’ the first speaker said.
Vanis could not flee, because he was surrounded and still only had one foot clad. These men were almost certainly poachers, probably brigands and barefoot or not, would be far more adept at running around the wilderness than he.
The three behind him moved down onto the road and he was surrounded by five men now, though none drew their weapons. Up close they were indeed a hard-looking group, with scars, leering stares and tough, uncompromising faces. The one he assumed was the leader, the first he’d seen, had some guile, and his smile was if not charming, at least real. In fact it was chilling.
The leader looked at Vanis, then glanced over to where he had left his satchel and lute lying on the rock in plain sight, then back to him. He felt stupid now as well as afraid.
‘What’s a pretty lad like you doing all alone out here? Taking a shit in the bushes? Looks like you’ve had a fair beating, there. Get humped by a wild pig?’
Vanis was still holding his boot. ‘My shoe,’ he stammered, ‘I had blisters. I was going to Havenside on pilgrimage.’
‘A pilgrim? All alone?’ He looked over at the rock where Vanis had stopped to check his foot and nodded at the satchel still lying there. ‘Any coin or chapel offerings in that bag?’
‘No,’ Vanis stammered.
‘Don’t lie to me. Hyllis here knows magic. He’s a sorcerer.’
Vanis looked at Hyllis, a wiry man perhaps a couple of years his senior and a few inches shorter, with jet black hair and sharp features. He was not unhandsome, though his face looked as hard as the others. He wore cleaner clothes and a short cowl over his tunic, and his eyes spoke intelligence and cunning. He was armed with a curved sword at his hip. ‘That’s right Tometh,’ Hyllis answered, widening his eyes for effect, ‘Magic.’
He looked like he could no more perform magic than Vanis could, but this was not the time to argue.
‘I have nothing of value,’ Vanis assured them, feeling queasy in the stomach. Thieves like this would as soon cut his throat then search the bags. They’d take the lute, for at least that was worth some coin, or could be traded for ale and whores. Maybe they’d bugger him too. He had heard all sorts of stories from refectory gossip about what such men were capable of.
‘Maybe we’ll have that boot,’ Tometh continued, ‘and the other one.’ You can leave the bag and that lute and go. To Havenside if you like.’ He gripped the pommel of his sword and drew it a little out of the scabbard, showing a hint of blade that looked like good, clean steel.
‘Maybe we should cut his balls off first.’ suggested one of the others and they all chuckled.
Vanis thought his mistake was that he was still standing, and realized it might look like defiance. But before he could do anything, one of those behind him pushed his shoulder roughly and he stumbled forward but did not dare look behind. He was caught by the leader who pushed him back again, then lunged forward, gripping his collar and putting his face only inches away. He was sneering now, the smile turned into a cruel grimace of
rage. ‘What’s in the fucking bag?’
He was engulfed now in grasping hands, jeering voices and shoves and insults. One of them spat at him but it missed and landed at his feet. He was cuffed about the head, punched in the ribs, kicked and pushed back and forth between them in a cacophony of shouts and demands he could not register. He thought his bowels would come loose on him, and prepared to curl up and drop to the ground, hoping at least death would come swiftly and regretting that he had only just started to enjoy his life.
The sound of bells interrupted them all. The gang leader stepped back and looked around, and the others seemed to note the sound came from along the trail, the same direction that Vanis had been coming from before he’d stopped. The thieves drew their weapons. One of them, who had picked up Vanis’s dropped boot in the confusion, and might have been about to hit him with it, let it fall to the muddy track. The commotion grew louder: bells, voices shouting and laughing and Vanis thought he even heard hooves or cartwheels. A strange procession lumbered around the bend of the trail.
First came a pair of men, flamboyantly dressed with swords at their waists. They were not especially tall, had weathered dark skin and long mustaches. Their jerkins were motley shades, their leggings loose and similarly colorful. One had a simple woolen cap of bright blue and the other a feathered hat of brown leather. They had large earrings and polished buttons, and were chatting and laughing loudly in a strange tongue, showing little caution on the road.
They were followed by an old pony pulling a brightly-painted cart. Though it was a sad, tired-looking beast of mottled grey, it was draped in dazzling orange and blue and driven by another long-mustached popinjay sitting atop the loaded cart. The pony was followed in turn by a long trail of bodies, walking two and three abreast – men and women of all ages and a gaggle of children, all in the bright colors of their people, surrounded by scurrying, yapping dogs. There must have been three dozen of them, and another colorful cart driven by an elderly couple, the woman in a floral headscarf. The pack of dogs weaved its way through the crowd, all black and brown and impossible to count on the move; a half dozen goats were led on a rope behind the second cart, which was loaded with all manner of wares and goods, including several cages of chickens. Two pack mules carried more goods, looking as miserable as the ponies.