The Martyr and the Prophet (The Lost Testament Book 1)

by C. B. Currie

  They looked like happy, light-hearted people, and were laughing, talking and singing all the while, at least until the sight they beheld now. Some had lutes strapped across their backs and others harps; most of the men had swords, bows or short axes. Some of the children carried wooden weapons in an almost charming parody of their elders.

  ‘Wayfarers,’ muttered one of the thieves.

  Vanis knew of these people, as well. Selevian Wayfarers were wandering bands of entertainers, tinkers, traders - some said thieves and harlots - who had come generations ago from the southern lands across the sea. The Wayfarers’ hospitality was as legendary as their reputation for singing, a fiery temperament and blood feuds. They’d visited Havenside from time to time but monks and novices were forbidden to visit such entertainers. He couldn’t even be sure whether it was the same troupe. Haendric had said they were not really from Selevia, but farther to the east, but they had come via that warm country and the name had become theirs.

  The driver of the first loaded cart stopped his pony and raised a hand. The first two men looked over their shoulders casually and stopped as well, but Vanis noted, their hands now rested on the hilts of their swords. The driver stepped down. He was not tall either, and had the same swarthy skin and long mustaches as the first two, but was noticeably older. He had a curved knife in his belt.

  One of the first men whistled and from behind several more men came, similarly dressed and likewise armed. The jubilant gathering rushed forward to join their brothers at the front. They outnumbered the thieves and all wore the bright colors of the first two. A handful of youths in the back trained bows on the robbers.

  The men surrounding Vanis stood their ground. They were used to fighting he imagined, and probably used to standing off with rivals. No doubt the newcomers had also drawn their blades in anger before, but bloodshed could go badly for either side so they all maintained a posture and nothing more.

  ‘My friends,’ the swarthy little driver said in a thickly-accented voice, ‘what are we waiting for?’ The road is well travelled and there is room for all of us to pass. Surely you have places to go as well, no?’

  Vanis looked from the caravan to the men around him. They were thinking of putting up a fight, weighing up their chances. He had been in fights as a boy, and had been pushed around by bullies and though this was more serious, possibly deadly serious, he saw the same calculation taking place. The robbers needed to save face, but a fight would weigh against them. Even winning would cost one or two men and surviving could mean maiming for some. Yet they owned this stretch of the road, or at least they had until moments ago, and it was a difficult transition to back down in front of a potential victim.

  The leader Tometh had to maintain his power over the group, to make at least some show of strength, for this fight was surely lost now before it had even begun, and bullies always led by strength. He had to get something out of the encounter so he tried a lie. ‘Just taking back the bag this lad stole from us, friend. Then we’ll be on our way.’

  ‘The bag I think, stays,’ the little man responded flatly.

  The leader looked from Vanis to the armed caravan, and then back around his own men and finally at Vanis again. His sneer was unmistakable. ‘Well, then, Sunshine. I suppose you can keep it.’

  ‘You have business elsewhere then?’ The caravan master asked.

  Tometh nodded at his men and they backed away a few paces, then melted into the lower treeline and hurried down into the gully. Before long they were out of sight and only the sound of rustling branches and snapping twigs echoed back.

  Vanis picked up his boot as the members of the procession lowered and sheathed their weapons. He stood limply on one unshod foot and nodded at them, hoping they were not simply a worse band of thieves. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  The driver of the cart walked up toward him with a stern face. He was short and stocky, his face was creased and tanned, and his eyes deep and lined from a lifetime spent out of doors. He wore a reddish leather jerkin, faded white shirt with baggy sleeves, loose blue breeches and a mop of unkempt dark hair turning grey at the sides. He stood upright with a stiff back a few feet away as if challenging someone to a fight, and appraised the youth with one bare foot.

  Then he burst out laughing.

  He turned and pointed at Vanis, shouting something unintelligible at his companions and they started to laugh too. Vanis watched, embarrassed, with a sheepish grin forming on his face.

  ‘Saint Bilago!’ The man announced, pointing at him with a short, straight arm and sending another fit of laughter rippling through his caravan. ‘Saint Bilago the Footless!’

  And Vanis remembered his lessons from Brother Cellim. Saint Bilago had been a one-legged itinerant priest who had given his spare slipper to a crippled beggar, also in need of a single shoe. Vanis had always wondered why it was so saintly of the man to give up a shoe he didn’t need anyway, had earned a rap across the knuckles for questioning stern Brother Cellim in class. Bilago was the patron saint of wanderers and travelers; his symbol often depicted as a single boot. Vanis tried to laugh along.

  ‘You look an unlikely bandit, Saint Bilago, not even a sword.’

  ‘Vanis,’ the youth corrected him, ‘of Deywich.’ The place was a fabrication, but it was all he could think of.

  ‘And I am Drelo of the free roads,’ the man said, stroking his mustache, ‘though none I have ever travelled led to Deywich. Perhaps they beat visitors there? Or did those nice fellows toss you around?’

  Vanis remembered his face must still be in a state from the day before, and look as shocking to others as it had to him when Haendric had shown him the mirror.

  One of the two men in front called to the older man again. He turned and nodded then turned back to Vanis and bowed theatrically, ‘Drelo,’ he said again, ‘and these are my sons, Drelus and Carelo. You may travel with us, if your one good foot is carrying you the same way.’

  Vanis was in the middle of pulling the boot back on and managed a nod. He wondered why these strangers would be so trusting on the roads as to take him in, but then even in his state, he must have made an appealing contrast with the ruffians who had just fled.

  The Selevians could be robbers: he had heard of wayfarers who’d turned to brigandage, though he had nothing to steal. In fact, he had nothing to lose at all. So he greeted the two armed sons of Drelo with warm handshakes and back slaps, fell in among the caravan with a smile at the old folk and a wink at the children, and carried on along the hillside trail with creaking wheels, spluttering ponies and the laughter and song of the people of the road.

  PART TWO

  The Priest

  Eleven

  Beland crossed the yard outside the barn and started to fuss over his horse. ‘He can take care of himself,’ Haendric reassured, as the knight roughly buckled another saddle bag.

  ‘Can he?’ Beland asked. ‘Does he know woodcraft, hunting? I doubt he can even make a fire out there, much less find something to spit on it.’

  ‘Then he’ll come back to the priory, hungry and feeling foolish,’ the old priest assured him. ‘He ran away once when he was a boy.’

  ‘A boy, not a headstrong man. He wants a future and he does not see one inside cloistered walls.’ He realized how foolish it must sound from a man who had chosen a life of service to the Chapel himself. Yet Beland’s life had been one of travel and, for better or worse, adventure and he understood the impulse.

  ‘I’ll send letters to the priory at Bastion and to Father Birgald in Brookleith. He may not even be going into Somersvale, but that seems the most obvious. Those towns are nearest.

  ‘And Wellstone? It might as well be Venchy or Selevia.’

  ‘I said as much to the prior, Beland, but the decision was his. He had to think of the priory and he could as easily have had the boy banished from Chapel service altogether.’

  ‘Now he has chosen that, can he come back?’

  ‘Probably not, unless he accepts his penance a
nd goes to Wellstone. But since he has missed this trip perhaps it will be to another distant house.’

  ‘But distant.’

  ‘Yes. As far as Prior Algwyn is concerned, the smaller and more remote the monastery, the less trouble the boy can get into. Someplace where there aren’t any village girls to distract him.’

  The knight shook his head and almost chuckled at the irony.

  He had arrived the evening before and been told of the theft, and of his son’s transgressions. After meeting with the prior and Haendric he had received his orders to ride north to Wellstone with the goods and a bundle of books – the contents of these were not his business: books were books. He could read the Strictures and sing his psalms in chapel but otherwise had little need for books. Now the monks were loading the cart and a couple of the lay brothers were rolling barrels out of the storehouse. Beland had put the wrapped books in his own saddle bags as these were the cargo he was personally entrusted to oversee. The morning was cool and fine, but low, dark clouds on the horizon promised rain.

  ‘Do you mean to go after him?’

  The idea was an enticing one. He could easily track the lad by asking a few questions checking the roads and looking for signs. He could hire a local hunter even. It would be challenging to find a lone traveling youth but these roads were not deserted, even if they were quiet, and he was confident that within a few days, he could be heading in the same direction as the runaway novice. A few more and he will have caught up.

  ‘No,’ the knight answered, ‘I have my orders, Father.’

  Haendric looked mildly disappointed. But of course it was the only sensible response. A Knight of the Chalice did not go galloping off after escaped bastards when he had been given more important business to attend. He would escort the cart to Wellstone Priory and drop the bundle of books there and receive further orders. He’d never been there but it was at least ten days away. That was long enough for the lad’s trail to go cold, unless he stayed in some village or town for a while. But then who knew how many more leagues away Beland’s orders would take him? He started to feel perhaps it was Heaven’s destiny that they be parted. For once he wanted to choose his own destiny and be done with it.

  ‘We did nothing to drive him away,’ Haendric said softly. ‘This place was always too small for him.’

  The knight adjusted a strap on the harness and paused a moment, eyes on the muddy ground. He had been so close. And now, duty - the one thing that was ever left in the end.

  ‘Where would you go?’ He asked the priest, though they’d been over this already the night before.

  Haendric shrugged. ‘Bastion, Brookleith, perhaps some way south, though he grew up near Taryn Mill, so it’s around here he knows. He won’t get far on a few days’ food.’

  All the knight could do was hope Vanis had enough sense to stay out of trouble. He went over to the cart to ensure the last of the victuals being transported had been loaded. He checked the four armed men who had been hired for him to command, judged them a sorry lot and hoped he would not have to rely on them in combat. He spoke to the senior of the two monks who would accompany the cart to Wellstone and was satisfied that he knew his business better than the effete youth of a novice who accompanied him. He could imagine why that lad was being sent away at least.

  Beland wondered as he mounted the horse, whether it was his bad blood that had driven the boy to sin. He had fathered the bastard and the Strictures said that the bastard’s blood was tainted. Could it have been his inherit sinfulness, despite the years of atonement he thought he had suffered and the penance he was assigned now, that had rubbed off and tainted his son?

  He looked back at Haendric as a lay brother patted one of the two ponies drawing the cart. The old priest raised a hand in a farewell salute and Beland turned back toward the road. He remembered the youth in Bastion dangling at the end of the hangman’s rope. That was what became of vagrants and vagabonds. As they started out, Beland hoped to the Prophet he had not sired a man like that.

  Haendric went directly to Prior Algwyn’s chambers as he had been instructed. He found the prior tense and standing by the arched window, looking out over the courtyard beyond. Father Caddock was back at his music lessons, arm in sling, with a circle of young men in brown robes sitting around him. The prior turned from the scene and closed the shutters to drown out the cacophony of competing pipes and strings. The room became dark and somber, lit only by the candles already burning on the desk and the mantelpiece.

  ‘Are they gone?’

  ‘The books have been dispatched.’ Haendric said. ‘The knight is disappointed.’

  The prior nodded in acknowledgement but had nothing to say on the matter. ‘I have been summoned to Castlereach. Archbishop Celwyn will speak with me, about this matter with the deacons.’

  ‘Will you be gone long?’

  ‘It’s Castlereach friend, not Bastion. I expect I‘ll be about a month. Brother Cellim will run the day-to-day while I’m gone.’

  ‘He knew about this?’

  ‘No, I will tell him today. I’ll leave tomorrow.’

  ‘The deacons?’ Haendric asked.

  ‘They grow more and more…demanding, I am told. They are asking to see records, accounts and they have a keen interest in chapel libraries. I fear soon they will start recommending dismissals and transfers. The new Patriarch and well, the King even, are especially concerned about spiritual purity.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Haendric said. ‘Is that not what we do here?’

  ‘Perhaps not enough to please them I fear,’ then the prior turned back to the window. ‘The heathen texts, they’re all gone aren’t they?’

  ‘Of course’ Haendric replied.

  ‘They’re dangerous Father. Best to pretend they were never even here. I know you were fond of them, and I did like your retelling as well.’

  ‘They’ll be safe at Wellstone.’

  ‘It’s not the books I’m worried about.’

  Haendric left the prior’s chambers and hurried back to his own spare cell. How small and empty the place seemed without Vanis to sit there sharing the reading with him in the firelight.

  He reached under the stuffed mattress of straw and down and fished about and for a panicked moment, he thought someone had come in and taken it. But the book was there, bound in lambskin and soft and cool to the touch, yet warm and reassuring nonetheless. Opening to the last page he’d read, he again examined the cursive script, so different from his own writing. If he could just unlock the message hidden within, the secrets, then perhaps he would know what it was the deacons thought so dangerous about foreign writers. But they had always been suspicious, and this latest scare should have come as no surprise, for the Chapel Fathers lashed out at the unknown every few years almost as a matter of policy.

  Perhaps the safest place for the book was not at Havenside priory either. Large ecclesiastical houses were inspected from time to time. When a new regime came in at the diocese or even as far as the Patriarch’s seat, there was always a chance that some house-cleaning would be done. As a parish priest he had asked for and gotten this assignment from Bishop Aldric at Bastion, the nearest large town, though in a different shire because Havenside’s Chapel was attached to the priory and Algwyn was an old friend. He shared his parochial duties with Father Caddock, though Caddock much preferred teaching music to the novices of the priory.

  Yet even though Algwyn was a trusted friend, and thought much the same as he on matters of knowledge, the priory was not the most secluded place, with dozens of residents, frequent visitors and never truly free from the prying eyes of sanctimonious buffoons like Brother Cellim. If he wanted to continue his research into his dotage and to have the space to do so, he had long thought he needed to have his own parish chapel and control of his own library. Such a refuge would likely be overlooked by the church fathers, for they had scant time to audit every single village chapel or converted barn. Such secluded hamlets almost certainly never attracted deacons. H
e could also be alone with some fond memories he’d been keeping inside, a plan and a dream he’d long held for his dotage. With Vanis gone, he had precious little other reason to stay.

  Haendric looked out of the window at the darkening sky. It was not even mid morning, but the clouds were low, grey and covered the land as far as he could see. A wind was brewing, whipping the early-fallen leaves violently around. The storms would come soon. It was a good day to be indoors reading, but he would have to go to the chapel soon in any case. Perhaps it was coming time to pay Bastion a visit.

  Twelve

  Algas did not have to kill the old man. He had kept his word and kept the Northman’s presence secret for two more nights and then on the third, he gave him some oats, which was all he could spare, and sent him on his way. Algas carried some money that he had kept to reward his men and to show his wealth for all such sea-lords had to give gold and silver if they wished to be reckoned men of means. From these coins he gave the old man one, and had to press it on him for at first he would not take any payment.

  And with that the northern raider was free again, though he’d have to eat horse feed. He tracked his way north and west toward the coast and some hope of reaching the Shorhan isles, where his people had carved their chiefdom and his cousin must have escaped with the other survivors of the battle. They would welcome him to take his brother’s place as jarl.

  The Battle of Breglyn it was called now. It had been a slaughter, he had learned. Word had reached the old man that the survivors of his warband had been slain where they stood and fought, or hunted down and hanged after capture. Yet according to the village gossip, there were no survivors. The local lords claimed to have killed all of them. So Algas was as close to a free man as he could be. He knew it couldn’t be that easy and he’d have to use caution, but if nobody was looking for him then he was no longer a fugitive. Northern traders and sellswords were not uncommon, and increasingly since taking on the southlander religion, pilgrims from his homeland were becoming a frequent sight as well. As long as not too many questions were asked, he could claim to be any of these.