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

by C. B. Currie

  ‘Cut the old woman loose,’ He said.

  Thirty-four

  Beland woke in pain and wheezing and surrounded by a foul stench. The first face he saw was Donnal’s. His grizzled old comrade-in-arms was forcing a grin - pained, but warm nonetheless.

  ‘Awake you old war hound?’

  Beland nodded and tried to sit up, but his body was wracked with pain. He looked down to his bandaged side, and the cloth was soaked with blood and yellow pus. The smell was unmistakable. He looked at Donnal, who sat on a stool beside the bed then looked around. He was in the keep’s infirmary, a long vaulted chamber with arrow-slit windows that housed two dozen neat beds. Half of those were taken up with wounded.

  ‘Good to see you,’ He sniffed again and looked at his wounded side. Donnal was looking at it too.

  They both knew what they were looking at and his old friend nodded. ‘It will be in Heaven’s hands now.’

  ‘I’ll be in Heaven’s arms soon enough,’ he chuckled, and then grimaced and coughed all at once as pain racked his whole torso again.

  ‘Tell me how I got here.’

  ‘Jandryl Faldon and the Northman brought you. Seems the two of you had quite some adventures together. The heroes of Regent’s Sanctuary I hear.’

  ‘Fights like a demon,’ Beland wheezed. ‘Doesn’t speak much.’

  ‘This is true. I heard most of it from Lord Jandryl. He escaped with his son and a couple of riders. Lord Dorand’s men scattered his forces on the road. His other son and some men he had at Regent’s Sanctuary this morning.’

  ‘Why did Dorand turn for the king?’

  Donnal shrugged. ‘A better offer? He’s fat and was never a fighter. At first it seemed like he would join the king’s cousin Marwynd, but that would mean marching his armies south and leading men into battle himself. Too much responsibility. They say the king offered him more lands and even a pause in taxes to stay at home and keep his own shire clear of rebels. That must have seemed the easier course since he won’t have to leave his estate.’

  ‘He’s not in the city?’

  Donnal shook his head. ‘The Scourge. He fears the sick as much as he fears battle. He sends men into Mowbry’s Refuge when he needs supplies. That village is still firmly his.’

  ‘And in the south?’

  ‘Not much news. There have been no major battles, just some burning and seizing of cattle and grain. I expect they’ll wait till spring before marching anywhere. The King is still in Castlereach and his cousin has declared Chapelford his capital. He’s even started minting coins.’

  Beland recalled there was a royal mint at the southern city of Chapelford and chuckled painfully again. ‘The games that big folk play with one another, eh? Tell me what happened after the battle.’

  ‘You were carried off to the woods. Camped with some Selevians I hear, though I’m told you slept through the whole ordeal. I remember how partial to their music you were.’

  Beland smiled at that. He had never been particularly fond of the energetic rhythms of the Wayfarers. If he had his choice the canticles of the monastery were fine enough, and he still held a soft spot for the wailing chants of the desert folk.

  ‘How long did I sleep?’

  ‘Most of the last three nights. You lost much blood. Our scouts met Jandryl on the back roads and you were brought to the mountain door. His Lordship’s men were already camped on the fields outside the keep by then. They’ve hired mercenaries, some say Barthol Malgan has redeemed himself in the king’s service.’

  It took a moment to remember the name and Beland nodded again. ‘A man like that will simply use the war to enrich himself on plunder.’

  ‘He’s already started,’ Donnal agreed. ‘They raided some hamlets near the Crossroads Inn and carried off food and women. We can get scouts out the mountain path behind the keep still, and they last saw Malgan’s band heading for Brookleith.’

  ‘Will Dorand’s men lay siege?’

  ‘We can easily last the winter and I doubt Dorand wants to spend the money on siege engines. I think there’ll be councils and meetings and the high folk will all sort it out before it comes to that. It’s a family squabble after all.’

  ‘And till then Barthol gets let loose on the countryside?’

  ‘The Knight Commander has already decided we’ve had enough of him. He’ll be dealt with by the time this is over. One way or another, he’ll dangle from a rope.’

  ‘What happened at Havenside?’

  Donnal’s eyes lit up, ‘Haendric lives!’ I left him in Bastion, where he’s tending to the sick in The Gutters district. I said he should come, but the fool insisted he was needed there.’

  ‘And my son?’

  Donnal looked around to see who had heard.

  ‘Heaven’s Chorus man I’m dying aren’t I?’ Beland snapped impatiently. ‘So are half the beds in here. This is no time to worry what men think of me anymore!’

  ‘Vanis has not been seen. I doubt he was at Havenside.’ Then Donnal patted Beland’s arm. ‘You’ll be buried in the white. Inquisitor Miecal says your penance is done.’

  That at least brought Beland some cold relief. He would go to the afterlife redeemed. And unfulfilled.

  ‘You should rest awhile,’ Donnal chided. ‘Perhaps I can fetch some pottage?’

  ‘Show me to the window.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re well enough to walk. You’re feverish and haven’t eaten for days.’

  ‘Then walk me over,’ and Beland forced himself up, groaning and wincing, till he sat on the bedside with his bare feet dangling on the cold stone floor. He had been dressed in a white nightgown while he slept and this fell down to cover him as he sat up.

  Donnal helped him, with more grimacing and moans of pain and together they staggered past the rows of beds to the narrow window, latticed with glass panes. His legs were weak, like blades of grass and he felt they could barely hold his weight. The pain in his side was like a fire that coursed through his whole body, yet it was oddly warm and comforting.

  Outside he could see it was around midday and the sky was sullen. From this high floor, above the castle walls, he could see south to the distant hills past Bastion, toward Havenside, east where the woods stretched up to Brookleith and a little to the west where the hills climbed off to Mowbry’s refuge. Over the walls and in the fields below, there were hundreds of tents and campfires of all sizes. Makeshift stables had been erected and men and horses milled about. Unless they sallied out, his brother knights would be trapped in the keep as more forces arrived.

  He turned back to Donnal. ‘And the books?’

  ‘Haendric’s books?’ He still has one of them in Bastion. The Deacons will be after it.

  ‘No, my books. The ones from Havenside. The monk from Wellstone gave them to me, as well as some of his own. He said it was too dangerous to keep them. I’ve been carrying them in my saddlebags since then.’

  ‘More of those infernal heathen texts? The Northman has your bags, you can ask him. Now let’s get you back into bed.’

  Beland reluctantly allowed his friend to walk him back, with a mournful last glance out of the window. Donnal had just got him back to his sickbed, when Beland saw the Northman in the doorway.

  ‘Algas,’ the knight winced as he reclined, ‘Good of you to come.’

  Donnal stepped toward the door as the tall warrior strode in. ‘I’ll be back at suppertime,’ he said, ‘Make sure you rest.’

  Algas nodded to him as he left.

  Beland gestured at Algas to take Donnal’s bedside stool. ‘I’ll see that Donnal makes sure you are paid,’ the knight said, then remembered his manners. ‘And thank you.’

  ‘For what?’ Algas asked. ‘We fought together at Wellstone, bled together at Regent’s Sanctuary…three battles in as many weeks. I was proud to fight at your side.’

  ‘I didn’t know you liked fighting that much.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten you did. Among my people we are taught to respect old warrio
rs.’

  ‘Old warriors?’ Beland chuckled and it hurt. ‘The books, Algas. They will be safe here. Do me one last favor and make sure Donnal has them, will you?’

  ‘You’ll hand them over yourself when you get out of bed,’ Algas said, but Beland could tell the Northman did not believe that. They’d both seen creeping death before.

  Algas nodded. ‘Better than this sickness isn’t it?’

  ‘Not much,’ Beland answered. ‘But at least I got back before winter set in.’

  Algas touched the dressed stone walls as he edged around the dark courtyard. He needed it both for guidance and because he could not tire of such a thing. He had seen small keeps on hilltops, passed under the sturdy stone walls of Northwatch and looked its castle from afar, but he had never seen a mighty southern fortress from the inside. Juniper Keep was built of big limestone blocks, stacked neatly, flush with straight lines and angled corners. To the Northman it seemed to stretch on through corridors, around courtyards and were stopped by rounded towers with arrow slits, battlements and winding stairwells, built so because most men fought right-handed and could not storm up them with a weapon drawn.

  Taking all this in, he knew he had been foolish to dismiss these people as weak, no matter how pathetic their religion seemed. If only his people could construct such fortresses. They built in wood and logs and thatch, with earthen and cob walls that could collapse under heavy rains. Few lasted much more than a man’s lifetime, and most stood only a few years before needing repair. Few were the chieftains who died in their beds before the great halls they built collapsed. With a keep like this, his sons would be safe for generations. He would cast a sword on the ground in front of his them as his father had for him, and tell them that they must win their own fame with it and with such walls behind them, they well could.

  But his cousin now was master of Shorha, lord of his brother’s longhouse and the only stone building they were putting up on his island was a southlander chapel to their weeping holy man. Only he was starting to realize that these stone buildings too were not as worthless as he’d thought.. Nor were they simply repositories of plunder, though he had taken his share of their silver candelabras and golden reliquaries. Those buildings were things people would fight and die for, kill and conquer for. Not just for the wealth within them but because of what they stood for. Their chapels were houses of power.

  He need only look back over his past few weeks, lost in this green country. Southern lords had rushed to defend the chapel at Breglyn, the authority of the red priest at Wellstone was almost undisputed and how hard the villagers fought their own countrymen outside their chapel at Regent’s Sanctuary with a courage they had seldom shown fighting the Northmen. Now the talk was that princes, bishops and kings, even the highest wizard of the southlander’s Faith, were embroiled in a struggle. A struggle over that very power: the hearts and souls of all men. True power. Next to this his dream of hiring sellswords to win back his own land seemed petty. He needed men who would follow him whether he could pay or not.

  He carried the saddlebags to the stables. He had devised a simple plan himself at Wellstone, when the deacon had demanded the books. The monk Falric had not wanted to part with them and Beland agreed. But neither of them had ever stolen anything before and Algas had. He suggested switching them for other books, since the deacon had probably not read them before either. Falric then chose a few foreign tomes from the library that he hadn’t valued highly and gave them to the deacon. The deacon had looked inside the first book and said nothing, but as the knight and Northman had been armed watchmen for the handover, there wasn’t much he could have done in any case. Beland had believed the red priest’s threat that he would be back with more men so they made haste to leave after that.

  There were six books left, all well-made and most intricately bound. Two of these had come from Brother Falric’s collection, and one of them was so plain Algas had almost thought to throw it away. Only a few months ago that is just what he would have done, salvaging only the leather, bindings and the jewels that encrusted so many of the southlanders’ holy texts. But now he was beginning to realize the power of books as well.

  The knight was dying, or so their priests said, and after that, Algas imagined these religious warriors who manned the keep would lock their holy books up in some vault and either send him to fight among the commoners, or pay him a small purse of coin and turn him out on his own. He was not one of them after all. He did not wish to be. He had met few living men who cared for books, so what use could the dead possibly have for them. Though he had no hope of reading himself, he realized now that it was the words in books that made them so valued. Words that men would fight and die and pay good money for. If he could sell the books back to the red priests or others of Beland’s enemies, that would be just as well: he wouldn’t miss them either where he was going.

  There were rush lights atop the outer walls where men stood watching over the fields below. The enemy was encamped there and Algas had no intention of passing through the opposing army for the time being. The cloak he’d stolen from one of Jandryl’s sleeping men would get him out of the gate but would probably only get him into trouble beyond it. He stopped in a corner the shadows near the smithy and looked across at the stables. There were extra horses tethered about and the covered manger was full of beasts, sleeping afoot, breath misting the moonlit night air. He was not a great rider and could never hope to control the armored warhorses that had so roundly defeated his own warriors at Breglyn. Cavalry was something his people would have to learn if they were to compete in southern struggles. But he at least could ride quickly enough on a swift steed and planned to be well away by dawn.

  He put on the cloak and the helm, covering his long fair hair, which he had tied up behind his head because none of the southlander soldiers wore their hair as long. It was late, nobody was working and whoever tended the horses must surely be asleep by this time. He then walked calmly across the courtyard to the stables and looked for Beland’s horse in the dark. It was important he find the same beast for it at least knew him. He had followed the stable hand to see where the horse would be kept because he had not been invited to the infirmary with the wounded knight and because in an unfamiliar place, his first concern was the means by which he’d arrived and might eventually have to leave. The mare was where they’d left it, in a stall, with hay, saddle hung on a large rusted hook on the timber framework.

  Looking around, he began to rig the saddles and straps to the beast. It shifted and spluttered but made no protest. He was not quick at this, but had gotten plenty of practice in the past few weeks of travel. The minutes went by slowly, and the clinking and scraping of metal fittings, the creak of leather and the jingling of his own mail coat sounded like a cacophony in the still closeness of the stable. Yet nobody on the distant walls seemed perturbed, for even on a quiet night a fortress at war could be a noisy place. Men paced, talked on the battlements and those who had work at night still moved to and fro occasionally. Nobody need fear the enemy sneaking inside the walls for Juniper Keep was reckoned impenetrable.

  Finally when he was satisfied that the saddle and bags were in place, he stopped, scanned the courtyard and walls again then led the horse out. The floor of the stable and yard were earthen but he would soon meet the cobblestones of the courtyard. Once the hooves began to slowly clatter, men would know that a horse was about. There was only one watchman at the door and two more on the battlements above, their platform reached by a stone stairwell up the side. It was a light guard, but then the enemy could hardly mount any sort of attack up the winding, rocky path that snaked its way up the mountainside behind the keep. They certainly wouldn’t try without a main assault on the front. The main fear in a position such as this would have to be spies and scouts. Otherwise he had noticed folk come and go all day, from handfuls of peasants fleeing the prospect of battle to peddlers, tinkers, farmers bringing sacks of produce and of course messengers. The keep was a hub of activity in t
hese troubled times and riders never stopped coming and going.

  The two guards on the battlements looked on as the one by the gate asked his business.

  ‘Where are you bound for?’ The guard asked. He was not one of the holy knights, though one of the men atop the wall was in a white cloak.

  ‘I’m taking messages to Northwatch from Lord Jandryl.’ He could not name enough other towns and he had heard that the city’s lord was an ally in the southlanders’ cause against their king. He imagined it would be as good a story as ever considering the guards were unlikely told of every rider who would have to come and go.

  ‘Ride safe then,’ called down the knight on the wall. ‘Stay off the main roads.’

  It was as easy as nodding a farewell and waiting while the door was unbarred and opened. Algas led Beland’s horse out of Juniper Keep and began his descent of the twisted mountain path behind it, just as the first crow sounded from somewhere behind him.

  Thirty-five

  Barthol Malgan was leading his men to Regent’s Sanctuary. They had taken most of the wealth of the villagers, in coin and plate, as well as a cartload of flour, meats, ale and cider for victuals. They took Caera and some of the young women for cooks and Heaven knew what else; poor Berryck to serve as a smith and old Drunith to tend to their health. Poor Ellie, lithe and pale, with blue eyes and hair so fair it was almost white, was downcast and tearful. They had separated her from her family and marched her into the column with the rest. Caera noticed it was mostly the pretty ones.

  The mercenary captain insisted that the column leave immediately, in order to reach the next village by morning. He told Deryld and Caera’s father that they were being sent to punish the town for harboring fugitives, but when they were lined up to be marched out, she had found herself next to Berryck, who told her that Barthol probably wanted his own revenge on the town for his defeat there by the Northman and the holy Knight, but that was before his fortunes had changed and he had been paid to join his band of sellswords to Lord Dorand’s army.