Ordination

by Daniel Ford

  “To men of station, it isn’t done, Allystaire,” Garth protested, his voice mild, tone reasonable. He opened his mouth to say more, but Allystaire suddenly advanced on him, radiating a frozen anger.

  “It is now,” he said, almost whispering. “Think on the actions of your dead comrades and on what happened to them. You saw the power the Goddess has given me and you saw where evil led them.” He smiled, though as often seemed to the case, the expression did not touch his eyes. “You will carry the news of what you saw, and its proof; you may take the bodies of your fellow Oyrwyn knights—what is left of them—back to the Young Baron, and tell him exactly what you saw.” He waited a moment, and then added more audibly, “Add this warning: by the time he can find me again, I will not be alone. He will have two servants of the Mother to contend with, and together, we will grant him as many dead knights as he wishes. If ever a man in his service sets foot in this village and harms a single being within it, or any other under the Mother’s protection, I will lead a crusade against Oyrwyn the likes of which he cannot imagine. And should it take the rest of my life, I will take Wind’s Jaw apart until no stone stands on another, till no stick of wood remains unburnt. Do you understand?”

  “Wind’s Jaw was your home once,” Garth replied, quietly defiant.

  “Not anymore,” Allystaire replied flatly. “Now answer my question: do you understand the message I have given you?”

  Garth and Skoval nodded mutely.

  “Good. If I ever see the pair of you again I hope we are not across the field. Should we be, I shall not look for you. But know that if either of you becomes the kind of man Casamir or Miles was, then no old bonds of battle or new bonds of marriage will shield you. Now go.”

  He turned his glance to Renard, who had watched quietly, and said, “Fetch their horses. And two more, to bear the bodies. Their arms and armor are to be returned to them, as well as Casamir’s, and the helm of the knight I slew with this—” he raised his arm from which the shackle still dangled “—to serve as proof of the Mother’s wrath.” He dropped his arm and continued, “The remaining horses, arms and armor, and any links the dead men carried, are forfeit. Payment for disrupting the peace of this place. Cut them free so they can deal with this.” He nudged Miles’s limp body with the toe of his boot.

  Renard drew a knife and slipped it through the thongs bound around Garth’s and Skoval’s wrists. Allystaire nodded to Idgen Marte, indicating that she should follow. She nodded, watching him curiously, then did as he bid. They passed through the village, most of the folk busy at one task or another—cutting wood or hauling rock to rebuild various walls, mostly, or rethatching the roofs of buildings that still stood. The pair continued down the track toward the field where the altar stood.

  Sensing their destination, Idgen Marte said, “Now if this is about morning prayers, I already—”

  Allystaire turned to her with a quiet, lightly mocking smile. “Will you, for once, stop talking, and simply look?”

  They rounded the final bend to the Temple Field, as Allystaire was beginning to think of it, and he pointed. Where the heavy rays of morning sunlight struck the altar, a sudden brilliant intensity of light gathered, and a glowing form, so bright it hurt to look at, and yet so inviting they could not turn away, suddenly coalesced.

  Allystaire heard Idgen Marte draw in a sharp breath, almost choking on it.

  “So it only takes a Goddess to silence you.” Allystaire took her arm with his hand and said, “You shall not get the last word with Her, either.”

  They approached the incandescent Goddess, who stood drawing a finger over the stone altar they had raised, as if writing upon it. They could see traces of smoke rising up from the surface as Her hand moved upon it.

  The Mother raised her face to them, and both fell to their knees after but one glimpse of Her face, old and young, wise and maidenly, beautiful and powerful, all at once. “My children,” Her voice sounded in their ears like enormous drumbeats, shaking their entire bodies. “You pleased me with this work.” Allystaire glanced up to see her touching the altar. “Though it remains undone. Others are needed to complete it. Arm, Shadow, and Voice—these are but three. The Will and the Wit remain. It falls to you to find them, and to do it before autumn becomes winter.”

  Suddenly She was standing in front of them; there was no sense that She had walked. One moment She was yards away, behind the altar; now it was as if the world had simply shifted about Her.

  One hand settled on Allystaire’s head. “My Allystaire, your anger in my service could undo you. I implore you to remember love and mercy.” He looked up, eyes suddenly stinging with hot tears at this mildest reproach, to see the painful sunlight of Her gentle, sad smile. “The men you killed in hotter blood, I do not grieve. Yet this very morn, in My Light…could that man have been saved? Now you will never know. I do not rebuke your choice, my Knight; I would not have chosen a man of less conviction. Yet I ask that you think on it.”

  She turned to Idgen Marte, and Allystaire dropped his face, eyes tightly shut, squeezing back the wetness in their corners. He heard the Mother say, “This day has been long in coming, my Shadow.” And then no more, as her voice sounded in his head and, he knew, his alone. Leave us, my Knight. This moment is for no one else to see.

  With enormous reluctance weighing on his shoulders, Allystaire rose; he saw Idgen Marte still kneeling, her eyes closed, and the Goddess then lifting her to her feet as She had once done to him, saw Idgen Marte shudder and heard her sob, then saw her fall against the radiant form that held her up. Then, heeding his Goddess’s words, he turned away from a moment he was not meant to see, and walked back to Thornhurst, wondering if he had hanged a man who deserved to live, or suffered to live a man who should have died.

  CHAPTER 21

  Arm, Shadow, and Voice

  The bright thrumming music of the Goddess faded from his head, but not until Allystaire found himself standing sweat-soaked before an anvil in the still un-repaired remains of what had been Thornhurst’s smithy, though not much of one, Allystaire thought ruefully. Enough to shoe a horse and bang out a plow or some other infernal farm implement, he mused. He had a hammer, a prybar, and a chisel, and he realized that he must’ve been popping links off the chain on his wrist one by one, for he was down to the cuff.

  “Damn stupid way to do it. One of those dead bastards probably had a key somewhere on him anyway.” He slipped the thin edge of the bar through the cuff, against the back of his wrist, placed his hand against the side of the anvil, and pulled the bar toward himself. It took some doing, and despite the anvil, it seemed to come within spitting distance of breaking his wrist, but eventually the fetter gave way. He started to toss it to the ground, but stopped himself. After a moment’s reflection he bent down and picked up the links he had broken, stuffing them in a pocket and moving back out into the late morning sunlight.

  In his field of vision, Thornhurst took shape; the sounds of hammers and adzes competed with penned up sheep and clucking chickens. He found Idgen Marte sitting on a rock outside the smithy, nodding lightly to the hum of a voice Allystaire could hear but not quite see. When he took another step, he saw Mol kneeling next to her, speaking. He didn’t strain to hear; both stood as he approached.

  “We’re three now. ‘Tis one closer t’what we’re meant t’be,” Mol said, making this authoritative announcement with a portentous gravity that would’ve been unusual from any other lass of her age and size.

  Idgen Marte smiled gently and reached down as if to tousle Mol’s hair, but the look the girl fixed upon her did not brook that kind of nonsense; the warrior dropped her hands casually to her waist as if she’d meant to all along.

  “She said something to that effect,” Allystaire replied. “Arm, Shadow, and Voice.” As he said this, he pointed to himself, Idgen Marte, and Mol in turn. “Are we in accord?”

  “Does it matter,” Idgen Marte wondered, and fo
r once, her tone lacked acid.

  “We do, and it does. We three of us should go see yer friends off, Allystaire,” Mol declared.

  “How do you know about—”

  Mol turned her large, dark eyes to him, cutting his question short. “Right.”

  The three of them ambled off toward the grove where Miles had hanged; it didn’t take long to find Renard and his spear shepherding Skoval and Garth and four horses. Two of the horses had tightly wrapped bundles bound to their saddles.

  Allystaire pointed to one. “Casamir?”

  “And Jarmir, Ifhans, and Miles,” Garth answered dourly. “Or such pieces of them as will be necessary to identify them for the baron and their kin.” The pale knight swallowed once and said, “It was an ugly way for knights to die. Even Casamir.”

  “Then they found fitting ends, for they were ugly men,” Allystaire replied.

  “You didn’t know Jarmir or Ifhans,” Garth began, only to pause as Allystaire waved away his words.

  “They stood by while a ten-year-old child was held at knifepoint. They let a child be threatened to secure their own surety and favor. That is all I needed to know. You make sure you tell the Young Baron how they died.”

  “When it comes to Casamir and Miles, I agree with you, Allystaire,” Garth replied. “Yet I remember my old arms-master and teacher telling me that a man who was badly led was not always to blame for his own deeds. I remember a man who cautioned me against absolutes.”

  “That man made excuses for those who were useful to him, or were his friends,” Allystaire replied quietly. “Or at the whim of his misplaced loyalty.”

  “You were like a son to the Old Baron, Allystaire. The son he wished he’d had. Can you truly call that misplaced?”

  Allystaire was silent a moment, then finally shook his head. “No. No, I do not think I can.”

  Garth nodded, then pulled his helm back over his head, its scales clinking lightly as they settled over his long hair. He pulled himself up into the saddle. Allystaire quickly checked to see that Garth’s longaxe and Skoval’s sword had been tied into their sheaths, the knots cinched tightly around their horse’s pommels.

  “You don’t believe in the Mother, do you?” Mol stepped forward, her young voice carrying a heavy weight beneath it.

  The blond knight shook his head from side to side, looking curiously at the small girl who approached his horse.

  “Why not? Ya’ve seen her miracles.”

  “I have seen the work of sorcery before. Fortune grant I never do again.”

  Mol tilted her head to the side, as if listening to some sound audible to only her, then nodded. “You believe, yer just not ready t’admit it yet. Think on it as y’ride.”

  Allystaire stepped up to Garth’s horse and hooked his fingers through the halter. “I spoke to Miles of this; the other men who died, had they family? Widows, children?”

  Garth shrugged, setting the havelock of scales that lay along the back of his neck jingling against the pauldrons of his armor. “Jarmir and Ifhans, I do not think so. None that I know of. As for Casamir, there are probably bastards about.”

  “If there are any, the price of their fathers’ lives should be paid. I would not look to the Young Baron to do that; can I depend on you?”

  Sighing reluctantly, Garth nodded. “The good a father does may buy the son loyalty, but the ill a father did should not buy him spite,” he said in a tired voice, as if repeating something he’d memorized.

  Allystaire nodded and let go the halter of Garth’s destrier, a black horse of similar size and, Allystaire knew, temperament to Ardent. “Good. In that case, there is a casket of valuables buried underneath a linden tree outside Coldbourne Hall; the one I scolded Audreyn for climbing too high in when she was a child. She will know it. Gemmary, mostly; some plate.”

  Garth blinked, turning in the saddle to look down at Allystaire, leather and metal creaking as he moved. “Thought you’d have taken it all with you.”

  “Seemed unbrotherly, as half of it belonged rightly to Audreyn. I suppose all of it did, technically.”

  “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “What I just told you. Pay the life price if the baron will not. Give the rest to Audreyn.” Allystaire patted the neck of Garth’s great black horse, which barely acknowledged him. “Go with the Goddess. Think about what you saw and heard. And try to convince the Young Baron not to send more men after me. I will make it cost more than it is worth.”

  “Haven’t you any words for your sister, then? Or is it all warnings and worry for other men’s sons?”

  “There is nothing Audreyn needs to hear from me. We spoke before I left.”

  “Doesn’t mean there isn’t more you could say,” Garth countered. He shook his head, sighed heavily, and added, “You’re one of the bravest men I ever knew, Ally. Always were. Yet when it comes to your own family, you remain a coward.” He jerked his reins to turn his horse and gave it a quick, light jab with his spur, and it galloped off.

  Skoval sighed, stepping his horse over to the two horses bearing bodies, gathering up their reins. He looked back at Allystaire. “I’m no man of wit nor learning, Ally,” he rumbled, his voice slow and ponderous, “yet I know what I saw on the field yesterday. I’ve not had much truck with gods or goddesses, but somethin’ has put power in your hands. Not sorcery. ‘Twere it some foul bargain, I expect ‘twouldn’t happen the way it did. From where I sat you were saving a lad’s life, n’then you healed a man you’d hurt. Doesn’t seem like devilry to me. Y’can count on me to tell folk the plain truth of what I saw, if they’ll listen.”

  Allystaire reached up to take Skoval’s hand at the wrist and give his arm a pump. “Mayhap I should have listened more, Skoval. You are a good man. Better, I think, than I gave you credit for in years past. Goddess go with you.”

  When Allystaire uttered the small but sincere benediction and let go of Skoval’s hand, he felt some tiny tingle pass between them, and some small note of the Mother’s music sounded in his head. The big, sad, mustached knight nodded, gathered up the reins of his dead comrade’s horses, and rode off after Garth at a calmer pace.

  Renard shouldered his spear and wandered over, and the four of them watched as Skoval trotted out of sight. Renard spat into the weeds and wondered aloud, “Y’sure you want to let them leave, Allystaire? May not be the wisest course.”

  “Wise or not, it is the course I have chosen. Enough blood spilled over my past. And,” Allystaire added, smiling lightly, “I think we may have made a pair of converts. One for sure.”

  “I felt it,” Mol added, nodding decisively.

  Idgen Marte cleared her throat almost delicately, then said, hoarsely, “As did I.”

  The four of them stood like that for a moment, watching the woods, watching the sunlight slowly fill the copse, listening to the distant sounds of the village, the ring of tools and the chatter of industrious work. Renard snapped them back to life with a grunt. “Enough gawking, I expect. Plenty of work t’be done, plenty of light left. Off we go, eh?”

  Allystaire laughed lightly. “You are the Mother’s own sergeant, Renard.” He clapped the man companionably on the shoulder. Mol reached up and took the bearded soldier’s free hand in hers, and Idgen Marte chuckled subtly.

  “We will catch up with you,” Allystaire called, though Mol had already led Renard away, his spear parting the leaves and branches above them. They were soon out of sight.

  Idgen Marte stood fixed in the same spot, squinting at a beam of sunlight. Allystaire took a step forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, she slumped her shoulders and leaned back against his hand, but quickly straightened and turned to face him. “She doesn’t leave much room for argument, does She?”

  “None,” Allystaire replied.

  “Then why choose me? Why not choose anyone and impose Her will? Isn’t t
hat what She did?”

  “I do not think so. You earned Her attention with your faith. Now She is returning it.”

  “You’re telling me a Goddess has faith in me?”

  “Should she not? Since we came together, Idgen Marte, have you made the choices you expected yourself to make? Do you think Mol talked you into coming out to that warehouse by yourself? Was it an accident that you arrived in time to save me from bleeding to death? Would you, a year ago, six months—Cold, even six weeks ago—have decided to follow a half-crazed beggar knight who talks to himself and takes on a dozen men at once without a plan and who, most importantly, cannot afford to pay you?”

  “You’re saying all this was fated, are ya? Has She been pulling strings since we met?”

  Allystaire shook his head, his eyes closing for a moment as he thought. When he opened them again, he said, “No. I think that She tested you, as She did me. You have had several chances to walk away, aye? And most would have left you with more links in your purse and fewer people depending upon you.”

  “I followed ya for the story; stories usually have great piles of treasure. Heaps of gold, gemmary, ancient weapons, and the like—”

  “I do not think this story ends with our getting rich,” Allystaire offered mildly.

  “I could probably beat the Pale Knight and his Hound Man back to that linden tree you talked about,” she muttered.