Covenants (v2.2)

by Lorna Freeman

  I sighed at the astringent coolness against my brow. The doyen moved to a lit brazier, a teakettle resting upon a wire mesh above glowing coals. “Is Chaplain Obruesk there too?” I asked.

  A crease appeared between the doyen’s brows. “No,” he said as he added leaves to the kettle. “He is not.”

  I was more interested in a cup of tea and let the whereabouts of Obruesk go. I felt anticipation build as I watched Doyen Allwyn drop a large dollop of honey in a cup while he waited for the tea to steep.

  “Were there many hurt?” I asked, to pass the time. I could just make out the steam rising from the kettle spout.

  “Some, when the ship was wrecked.” The doyen laid a fine mesh over the cup. “A few on board here too.”

  I felt something sharp cut underneath my lethargy and I glanced once more around the berth. “Where’s Jeff? Is he all right?”

  Doyen Allwyn nodded his head as he poured the tea into the cup, the mesh straining out the tea leaves. “He was knocked about somewhat.” He saw my look. “Just a little bed rest, Rabbit, and he should be back to his usual self.” He picked up the cup and started towards me with it, but he stopped as footsteps sounded coming down the ladder. He turned to face whoever was descending.

  “Uhm—”

  Without looking, the doyen handed the cup to me, and I put more effort into rising so I could drink it, but the cloth slipped over my eyes. I snatched it off just in time to see Captain Suiden climb down into the berth—and to also see Doyen Allwyn’s shoulders slump as he relaxed. I lay there with damp cloth in one hand and tea in the other, but the captain solved my dilemma.

  “As you were, Lieutenant.”

  The doyen solved my other dilemma by taking the cloth and dropping it back into the bowl. He then raised me by stuffing folded blankets behind me. I sighed and took my first sip—and nearly gagged. “What the hell—”

  Captain Suiden looked at me and I stopped midcurse. “What is this?”

  Doyen Allwyn grinned. “As I said, Lord Rabbit, Ambassador Laurel left strict instructions.” He went back to the bowl and wrung out the cloth again, laying it on my forehead. “You are to drink the entire pot.”

  Captain Suiden walked over to the table and pulled out a chair, sitting in it. “How do you feel, Rabbit?”

  “Like s—Uhm, not so well, sir.” I took another sip. While this time I could taste the mentha leaves, they didn’t help. The second mouthful was as evil as the first. “What happened?”

  “You saved us,” Suiden replied.

  I found my cup of vileness very interesting.

  Doyen Allwyn chuckled. “Not used to being a hero, are you?” He reached over and pushed up the bottom of my cup. “You might want to drink this faster, as the ambassador did say that it tastes even worse cold.”

  I drained my cup and, shuddering, handed it back to the doyen, all the while wondering what I wasn’t being told. Captain Suiden gave a faint smile but said nothing as Doyen Allwyn poured another cup, this time adding two heaping spoonfuls of honey. They didn’t help much.

  After giving me the tea, the doyen went to another chair and sat down. “I came on deck when the ship started pitching and heaving, figuring that it was better to be above than below.” He tucked his hands into his robe sleeves and for the first time I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his penitent sacking. “I came up just in time to see your, uh, battle with the djinn. Or at least what I assumed was the battle.”

  “All that we could see, Rabbit, was that the storm was blocked, then dissipated,” Suiden said, “and the crew of the wrecked windrider was taken out of the sea and placed on the deck of the Pearl Fisher.”

  I stared at the doyen and captain, all of a sudden intensely interested. “Yes, sir, and what is everyone saying?”

  “Most are very, very glad that you’re with us, Lieutenant,” Suiden replied.

  I had opened my mouth to ask who wasn’t when footsteps sounded once more, coming down the ladder. The captain’s head snapped around and both he and Doyen Allwyn stood, the doyen moving to my hammock while Suiden went to stand at the entrance into the berth. Then the captain saluted as the vice admiral entered.

  Vice Admiral Havram nodded, his eyes searching the room until he found me. He walked over to my hammock and stopped, staring down at me as Doyen Allwyn also stepped out of the way. “Well, nephew, I’ve seen you looking better.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, my voice faint. I looked at my uncle, my captain, and the Gresh doyen. “Please, what’s going on?”

  They all looked at each other, then back at me.

  “The wards have failed,” Suiden said and gave another faint smile. “The Dauntless has become a ghost ship.” I heard a gasp from Doyen Allwyn and, turning my head in the direction of his stare, I saw Honor Ash Faena’s haunt float down the ladder. “Heigh-ho,” I breathed.

  Vice Admiral Havram, Captain Suiden and Doyen Allwyn stayed still as the sprite’s ghost approached, and she stopped before them, gazing into their faces, one after another. I began to get up, no matter that my body was protesting, but Honor turned and placed her hand on the hammock—and I decided that lying down was good too.

  “After the storm, you were found lying in the mizzen top, Rabbit,” Suiden said. He nodded towards the sprite. “The only reason why you were discovered so soon was because she chased a crew member up there.”

  “Who is she, lad?” Uncle Havram asked, his eyes on the haunt.

  “Honor Ash, sir,” I replied, also watching the sprite’s ghost. “She was the Faena who strode the area around our farm.” Honor moved to stand against the berth wall, her face turned to the ladder.

  The vice admiral pulled out a chair, and with a small bow to the ash sprite, sat down. “All right. Now explain to me what exactly is a ‘faena,’ and why another ghost has attached herself to you.” I blinked at my uncle, surprised that he didn’t want to know what had happened with the storm.

  “We will get to you and the djinn in a moment, Lieutenant,” Suiden said. “Answer the vice admiral.”

  “Thank you for your help, Your Highness,” Havram said, his voice dry.

  I took a quick gulp of my tea, but was reminded why I hadn’t been drinking it. I finished it, grimacing at the bitterness, and allowed Doyen Allwyn to take my cup. I sighed, though, as he filled it again and handed it back to me.

  “I’d known Honor Ash since I was little, sir,” I said. I looked at the shade but she kept her face to the ladder.

  “So she decided to haunt you based on a long-standing relationship?” the vice admiral asked.

  “No, sir. The moon season—” I began.

  “I’ve already been told about the moon season. Why is she”—Havram jabbed a thumb at Honor—”haunting you? “

  “Because she has chosen me to avenge her, sir.”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know, sir.” I cast another glance at Honor. “Poxy hell!” I shot straight up as I found that instead of against the wall, the haunt stood by my hammock, staring down into my face. I then nearly fell out of my hammock as it unbalanced, the cloth on my forehead going flying and my un-drunk tea splashing everywhere.

  “Damn it all, when did she move?” Uncle Havram shouted as he jumped up, knocking his chair into the table. Suiden and Doyen Allwyn made smothered exclamations.

  My heart slammed against my ribs as I wrestled with my hammock until I finally managed to convince it not to dump me on the floor. I then looked at the sprite’s haunt, who had remained where she was during my struggle. When she saw that she had my complete attention, she pointed at my hand. I looked down and then up again, not understanding, and she pointed again. I turned my hand over to check the rune, thinking that maybe something was wrong, and she grabbed at it, not quite touching me. After my heart calmed down again, I spread my hand out and watched as she traced the rune, her finger again just above my palm. I blinked as the rune grew warm and the lines began to glow in the dimness of the berth.

  “The truth r
une,” the vice admiral said. He had cautiously approached my hammock and now stood at arm’s length from Honor, also looking down into my hand. “His Majesty had written about that.” He shot me a look. “Do you know, lad, that this symbol is part of our family’s device?”

  “No, sir,” I said, still staring at the haunt, worried where she’d end up next if I took my eyes off her.

  “Aye, it is. You must have seen it at our house in Iversly—”

  I gave my uncle a quick glance, and he broke off. He sighed, muttering “brother” and “nodcock,” moving back to the table, and I heard the chair scrape as he repositioned it, sitting down. “So,” he resumed, “for some reason this ghost has attached itself to you—”

  “She has—had the same symbol on her right hand, sir,” I said, watching Honor. “So does Laurel. All Faena do. A marking to bind them to truth.” I vaguely wondered what would happen if she were to raise her rune. Then I more urgently thought that I didn’t want to know. Honor ghosted back to the wall, once more facing the ladder.

  My uncle was quiet. “I see,” he said after a moment. “And what are these faenas?”

  “They are the Border’s justicers—”

  “Thieftakers then,” the vice admiral said.

  “No, sir. More like thiefcatchers. They don’t just go after those that they know have broken the law, they also discover who has.”

  “Discover how?” he asked.

  “Well, say there’s a murder and no one knows who did it; they find out, and then go get the murderer.” My voice trailed off and my eyes widened as the haunt turned her head to look at me.

  “I see,” Uncle Havram said again.

  I reluctantly looked back at my uncle. “But they do more. Are more.”

  “Such as?” Havram asked.

  “Warrior priests—they led us in the war with Iversterre.”

  Uncle Havram nodded, while the doyen slid a glance at Honor Ash. “What else?” the vice admiral asked.

  I hesitated, wondering how to explain the effect the Faena had on a land full of excitable, disparate folk, all pulling in different directions. After the battle between Dragoness Moraina and the intruder dragon over our farm, Honor Ash had gone, unasked, to visit both as they recuperated from their wounds. Not only did my parents get reparation for their destroyed crops and damaged buildings, but Moraina’s son Gwyyn had come to our Weald while the other dragon had hosted a bard, and between the two we had nights of poetry, songs and stories that healed us as the land was healing.

  “They balance us, sir,” I finally said, “and hold us together.”

  “They are very important, then,” Vice Admiral Havram said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the murder of one is very serious,” he continued. “Perhaps even catastrophic.”

  My throat closed for a moment and I had to swallow, hard. “It would be like the murder of a doyen, sir. Worse.”

  “So she’s come to you to be her, uh, thiefcatcher,” the vice admiral finished. “As has the trooper who has been murdered by one of his own. You who have the symbol of truth on your right hand, drawn as it is in both Ivers Palace and in the House of Chause.”

  “But what about the magic?” Doyen Allwyn asked.

  “Last I heard, being able to work magic wasn’t cause for excommunication,” Captain Suiden said.

  Doyen Allwyn waved his hand. “I know Church law, Your Highness,” he said, his voice dry once more. “Unfortunately, so does Obruesk—better than either of us, I fear.” He saw me looking at him and he sighed. “The archdoyen-turned-chaplain is calling you apostate, young lord, and is saying that you should be expelled from the Church.” He once more tucked his hands into his robe sleeves. “Never mind that without you he—along with the rest of us—would be at the bottom of the sea.”

  “Hmmph,” Uncle Havram said. “His reverence is saying the reason why the Dauntless is full of phantoms is because you have called them to us.”

  “And that you were able to fight off the djinn storm because you conjured it in the first place,” Captain Suiden added.

  “But he can’t excommunicate me,” I said, skipping over the archdoyen’s charges. “He couldn’t when he was an archdoyen, and he certainly can’t now as an army chaplain. Only the patriarch can expel someone from the Church.”

  “That’s true, Lord Rabbit,” Doyen Allwyn said.

  “However, if he could convince someone that you imperil the physical and spiritual well-being of the crew and passengers—” Captain Suiden began.

  I made a sound, deep in my chest, and the doyen stepped back while Uncle Havram’s gaze sharpened. “Just like your grandpapa,” he said, his voice soft.

  “—and offer the Church’s sanction and covering—” the captain continued.

  The sound increased.

  “—who knows who might do what?” Suiden finished.

  “Do not worry, lad,” Uncle Havram said. “You have guards.” He cast a glance at Honor’s haunt. “Most of them alive. Just in case someone’s piety overcomes their good sense.”

  I looked down and was rather surprised that my hands weren’t shaking. “This man is second only to Patriarch Pietr?” I asked, my voice almost normal.

  “Rabbit—” Uncle Havram began as he and the doyen frowned at me.

  I met stare for stare. “Why did His Holiness palm him off on us, sirs? He knew what kind of man Obruesk is. And if he’s like this here and now, what’ll he be like when he reaches the Border?”

  “He was sent for the same reason that Commander Ebner allowed Slevoic to write his own orders to join us,” Suiden said. “It got him out of the commander’s backyard, making Freston a much nicer place. So it is with Obruesk and the patriarch.”

  Vice Admiral Havram turned his frown on the captain. He then sighed. “That’s true. It is sometimes easier in the short haul to push the problem onto someone else. Unfortunately, the only place we can push the good chaplain is overboard.” The vice admiral gave a sudden grin. “Though the captain here threatened to hang him from the yardarm and do all kinds of interesting things to him if the chaplain didn’t stop inciting his men.”

  There was an answering smile on Doyen Allwyn’s face, which he tried to hide by picking up my dropped cup, setting it on the table. “I have moved in with you and Lieutenant Groskin,” he said. He looked up and met my eyes. “It shows that you have the support of the Church—and are not considered a heretic.”

  “But—” I began, thinking that a knife in the dark didn’t care who was bunking with whom.

  “But, in the meantime,” Suiden said over me, “you will adhere to your guards, Lieutenant. I have asked Sro Laurel to hold your lessons under the mainmast—”

  Uncle Havram quickly turned his head to the captain. “Oh, aye?” His brow rose. “The ‘What cannot be hidden is to be thrust down everyone’s throat’ approach?”

  “More the ‘What is frightening in the dark becomes ordinary in daylight, and so can’t be used as a bogey’ approach, sir,” Suiden replied.

  “That will irritate His Reverence,” the vice admiral remarked.

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said. “However, adversity, I’ve been told, is good for the soul.”

  Doyen Allwyn smiled again, this time not bothering to hide it. “Rabbit should do his devotions there too, gracious sirs, so that everyone can see that he’s still a faithful son of the Church.” His smile faded rather fast as he took in my expression. “You have been diligent in your prayers, Lord Rabbit?”

  My uncle gave me a quizzical look as I muttered something about not really having time lately.

  “If I recall correctly,” the doyen said, frowning, “you made time for them during our trip from Gresh to Iversly.”

  I muttered again as to how it was different then.

  “I see.” Doyen Allwyn turned to Captain Suiden and Vice Admiral Havram. “The ambassador gets him only after I do.” He looked back at me, his face full of reprimand for the backslider. “Daily devotions
, overseen by me.”

  Uncle Havram gave me a faint wink. “Aye, sure.” He grinned. “That’ll also do wonders for the chaplain’s soul.” His grin deepened. “Do not worry, Rabbit. Leave His bloody-minded Reverence to us, and trust that we will make certain of your safety.”

  I said nothing as echoes of three years of leaving Slevoic to “them” washed over me.

  “Of course, if you are threatened, you are commanded to defend yourself, using any and every means at your disposal, no matter who comes at you. Understood?”

  I liked that better. A little. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” The vice admiral cast a wary glance at Honor Ash and, seeing she hadn’t moved, settled back in his chair, gesturing for Captain Suiden and the doyen to join him. “Now, nephew, tell me everything that happened last night. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  “Are there any oranges left?” I asked as I finished my fourth pickled egg.

  Doyen Allwyn pushed the fruit bowl towards me and I plucked out an orange, peeling it as fast as possible. He watched in awe as the orange disappeared in two bites. I selected another.

  Laurel plunked a cup of tea on the table before me. “Here, Rabbit. Drink this first.” I sighed and swigged the honey-laced tea down, having discovered that was the best way to drink it—the less time on the tongue, the better. I then shoved as much as I could of the second orange in my mouth to cut through the bittersweet taste.

  I’d fallen back asleep after I had spoken with Uncle Havram, Captain Suiden, and Doyen Allwyn, despite every intention to keep an eye on Honor Ash’s haunt as she kept an eye on me. I awoke the next morning to find Honor gone. Also gone were my aches and pains, except in my stomach, which growled at me as though I were at the tail end of a five-day purification fast.

  Though the ghost Faena was gone when I awakened, Laurel was there. He hovered over me all morning like a broody hen, looking puzzled when he thought I wasn’t looking. He now caught my glance and gave a brief chuff. “You have flown before you’ve even figured out how to crawl, Rabbit.” He placed the kettle back on the brazier (he was right, the tea tasted much worse cold). “Yet you sit there as if you’ve done nothing more strenuous than go out on patrol. My first work of the talent left me as weak as a newborn cub.”