by Daniel Ford
She moved her finger along a line east and slightly north, if indeed it was a map, and pointed to the next mark. “Ashmill Bridge.” Further east. “Birchvale.” Her finger moved diagonally across the map, pointing to a large mark that would be far south and a good deal west of Thornhurst. “Londray.” She traced her finger up from that point to a smaller rune that was closer, but still west. “Bend.” She turned to face Allystaire, holding the sheet to him. “I dunno the names of the other places. But you do. These are where yer t’go, the two of ya.”
“Where do we go first?” As Allystaire took the map, he started filling in the details the Goddess had not given it; the line of the Ash River, the High Road that struck north from Ashmill Bridge, the mountains rising on its western side, and rising and rising, and the road along with it, until it met with the southern reaches of Barony Oyrwyn. He filled in other towns as he looked—mostly in Delondeur, but a few over its border with Innadan and just over the very southern edge of Oyrwyn.
“Doesn’t matter,” Mol said. “However you mark it best, I expect. If ya’ve been to a place before…Bend and Thornhurst…ya’ll know if y’need t’return or not.”
Allystaire nodded, slowly, then handed the simple map to Idgen Marte. “Guess you got your wish. We leave today.” He turned to Mol, looking somberly down at her, fearing her reaction.
She smiled up at him, trusting and bright, without a trace of sorrow. “Yer meant t’go, Allystaire,” she said. “The Mother told me so. I’ll go fetch Renard.”
Allystaire watched the girl skip away. He took a deep breath; he felt free, a bit dizzy, but anxious to be in the saddle. Idgen Marte handed him back the parchment after studying it and said, “Best we head out of the valley. Find the Ash and make for those villages first, then the High Road, circle back down and end in Londray.”
“How long do you figure?”
“Three months at least,” Idgen Marte replied. “If we stopped a short time in each one, had no trouble, then came straight back for Thornhurst, mayhap we could beat the earliest snow.”
“And the chances of having no trouble?”
She snorted. “Bloody freezin’ small.”
“What worked with a dozen pisspot slavers and fifty cowed villagers might not work in Londray. Cold, it might not work at Ashmill Bridge.”
She grimaced, smacked his arm lightly. “Stop gatherin’ worry.” Her expression softened and she added, “She put Her faith in us, remember?”
“Aye,” Allystaire said, and was silent for a moment, surveying the still mostly silent, rebuilt houses of Thornhurst. Behind their thin walls and hide-covered windows, village folk who had faced lives of slavery and horror were beginning another hard day. Hard, mayhap, he told himself, but free. Free because of the Mother…and us. He bit his lip and said, “A good start, I think. Yet only a start.” He turned back to Idgen Marte and said, “Saddle the horses.”
“Cold!” she exclaimed, her wide, crooked grin lighting her face again. “Been waitin’ t’hear that for weeks.” She dashed off, and Allystaire ducked back into the house. When he re-emerged, the sun had cleared the foothills and late summer light was bathing the valley in which Thornhurst rested. It glinted dully off the pitted and scarred surface of his grey armor, which clanked and clattered as he walked toward the village, saddlebags over one shoulder, sword belted on his back, his features set in scrunched consternation.
He headed for the village green, a walk of but a dozen yards or so from his door, and found a crowd gathered before the inn, with Mol, Renard, and Idgen Marte at their head. Both Ardent and Idgen Marte’s courser were saddled nearby, and his mule was loaded with packs and bags. Rede loitered at the edge of the crowd, not part of it, but not quite apart from it, either.
Allystaire grimaced and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Mol stepped forward and raised her hand to stop him. A small knot of village folk came behind her, clustered together.
“We know yer leavin,” the girl said, bluntly. “Ya have to. We all knew this day was comin’, and no one here will try t’stop ya. And I know what yer next words were t’be because yer still slow.” She stepped to the side and looked over her shoulder at the knot of villagers behind her; it included Timmar, the stonemason Giraud, Henri, and Gram’s parents. The mason held a large round bundle wrapped in canvas.
“When y’came among us…when y’rescued us, Allystaire,” Timmar began, restlessly tugging at the edges of his shirt and hitching his pants before finally deciding to clasp his hands together behind his back. “When y’rescued us ya were careful t’always say ya weren’t knight nor lord. Wouldn’t let us call ya sir, or m’lord.” He glanced up to Giraud as if awaiting help. The tall, dour-faced man cleared his throat and spoke in a deep, measured voice.
“’Twas plain to all of us you were a lord or a knight o’some kind e’en if ya didn’t like to say so. And, well, Cold, yer the Mother’s own paladin, Her Arm now. That means yer a knight no matter what some baron has to say about it. And, well…” Then he, too trailed off, and Allystaire stood and watched in mute incomprehension, before Henri finally spoke up.
“Cold, it ain’t like he’s the prettiest girl at the first fair dance ya’ll were allowed at. Why’re you so tongue-tied?” Henri shook his head at his townfolk and then turned his creased, smiling face to Allystaire. “All the knights in tales, and all those you killed on the road those weeks back, they all carried shields with, what’re they…sigils and coats and heraldic whatnot on ‘em. Yers was grey. We decided that grey weren’t good enough.”
“Don’t worry, I told ‘em what t’paint,” Mol put in, quickly, as Tim and Henri unwrapped the canvas that surrounded Allystaire’s shield, and boldly displayed its new design.
The design obeyed none of the standards of Heraldry as Allystaire knew them—no animals, no recognized symbols, no halfing or quartering—yet as soon as he saw it he knew it was right, knew it matched the glimpse he had when Garth’s words of rebellion had briefly entranced him. A bright sky-blue field, dominated in its center by a huge, ten-pointed golden sunburst that was bigger than it ought to have been. Centered within it, not touching the top or bottom of the sunburst, was the outline of a simple maul, like the one worn on his belt, in a cooler and lighter shade of blue.
He smiled, and he felt, despite himself, an itch in his throat. Shed a tear in front of them now and you’re freezin’ done for, he thought. He strode forward, face blank, and accepted the shield with genuine, quiet gratitude. He took the old, familiar oak in both hands, studying its face closely for a moment before looking back up at the crowd.
“Who did the painting?” he murmured, just barely loud enough to be heard. “It is startling.”
There was some shuffling in the crowd, and Henri reached to drape an arm around Norbert’s neck and drag the reluctant youth forward.
“He did,” Henri declared, astonishment and pride in his voice. “Just said he felt like he ought t’try, after a few of us had botched it. Had the steadiest hand by far.”
Allystaire slung the shield from his left hand and put his right to use embracing the forearms of the men clustered around him. When Norbert’s turn came, Allystaire pulled the blushing, scraggly-bearded youth closer and whispered, “By the time I return, you will be one of their own. Mark me.”
Norbert nodded and stepped back into the crowd of villagers, blending into it as if he’d been among them all his life.
“Knights also have pennants,” Mol put in, loud enough to be heard over the general din of shaking hands and backslaps and well wishes. “For the end o’the lance.” The crowd let Allystaire disentangle himself and step back. Gram’s mother came forward with a folded square of blue material in her hands and held it out to him, and Allystaire took it in his free hand and let it spill out. It was the same image, stitched rather than painted. Where did they find the time, he wondered, or the material?
“I have no lance,” All
ystaire said, suddenly and a bit stupidly, which drew a bit of a laugh from the gathered crowd.
“Well, that isn’t quite true, m’lord” Renard put in, with a light, throat-clearing cough. “I, ah, took the liberty of keeping one before ya sent those Oyrwyn knights packing.” Gram and another lad came around from the back of the crowd bearing a wooden pole nearly twice as long as the two of them if they laid down end to end, capped with a sharp steel point. They held it up on trembling arms, faces beaming with the solemnity of their task.
Allystaire’s hands being full with shield and pennant, he fumbled for a moment before whistling. Ardent tugged his reins free of Idgen Marte’s light grip and trotted over to his rider, and Allystaire slung the shield on the pommel and carefully tucked the pennant into his belt. Then he reached out and took the lance, lifting it easily with both hands, and slid it into the boot that descended from Ardent’s saddle; it settled in perfectly. Course it does, he thought, it was made to fit there; shaft-pole, point, and tack were all made at Wind’s Jaw.
“Now, Sir Allystaire, Paladin, and Arm of the Mother,” Mol said, or rather intoned, her voice suddenly loud and clear and solemn, “you are attired for the task set to you.” Her eyes were briefly distant, clouded, and she continued, “Carry, in word and in deed, the news of the Mother’s awakening.” She blinked several times, her eyes cleared, and she took a deep breath, smiling as Allystaire lifted his foot to Ardent’s stirrup.
“One more thing, m’lord,” Renard said, and Allystaire could have sworn the old soldier was blushing behind his thick beard. “Ah, if you would, before you go…as the Goddess’s servant, if you’d…” He looked to his side and swallowed once, as Leah had suddenly appeared next to him, her cheeks glowing in the early day sun, her eyes beaming—but at Renard, not Allystaire. “We were hoping you’d marry us,” the soldier finally stammered out.
Give yourself a moment to think on the words, he thought, but said, “Of course, Renard. I would be honored.” He added in a booming voice, as he swung up into the saddle and flung his arm toward the Temple, “Come, we will all of us celebrate the first wedding at the Mother’s Chapel. But first,” he lifted his lance from its boot and held it down toward Gram, then shook the pennant free of its place on his belt, held it out, and tossed it to the lad’s waiting hands. “If you would.”
With surprisingly deft fingers, the lad quickly knotted the ends of the blue pennant around the wooden pole, just below the point. Allystaire half-bowed in the saddle in thanks, then held the lance high enough for the pennant to catch what little wind there was. He gave Ardent a brief nudge. Soon Idgen Marte was up on her courser to his right, and the two of them dashed off toward the temple with the crowd of villagers streaming behind them and the pennant snapping in the wind on the end of his lance.
The scene may have been bright and gay, but Allystaire sweated the entire ride, wondering just what a marriage ceremony ought to entail. Think on what the priests of Urdaran, or Braech, or Fortune would say, he thought, then do the opposite.
Idgen Marte swung easily out of her saddle and let her courser stray in the grass beyond the temple. In his armor, Allystaire was not so quick to dismount, and his boots left divots in the rain-softened ground. She offered him a sly, teasing smile, but left him to his thoughts as the crowd of villagers approached, Renard and Leah in the fore.
“Renard,” Allystaire called, “for one day, set aside your weapons, eh?” The bearded man laughed and, with some hesitation, handed his spear to the excited crowd behind him. Allystaire turned his back to them and walked into the still-unfinished Temple. He stood behind the alter and prayed, Give me the words, Mother. Please. They deserve it, and traced his hands over the stone.
Then, all too soon, Renard and Leah were standing in front of him expectantly, with the villagers circling the hip-high walls. Mol had made her way to the front of the crowd; Idgen Marte lingered at its edges. Rede had managed to squeeze his way to the front.
Allystaire’s armor clinked as his hands moved restlessly before settling on the altar in front of him, against which leaned his shield. “My friends; my brothers and sisters and children in worship of the Mother,” he began, once the crowd had quieted, armor “I have served you in justice; I have served you in grief; I have served with you these several weeks in labor. Today, I am allowed to serve you in joy.”
He paused to gauge their reaction; the crowd seemed to fairly buzz with the tension of waiting; Mol beamed an encouraging smile at him; Leah stared happily at Renard, who looked somewhat overwhelmed.
Allystaire leaned forward across the altar and gestured for the couple’s hands; they each held one to him, and he placed them on the stone and gestured with his index fingers, till they comprehended and linked their free hands together.
“Leah, and Renard. If you would be wed in the sight of the Mother, promise but two things to each other: love, and service. Love and serve one another in day and in night, in joy and in grief, in plenty and in want. Know that in the Mother’s eyes, love is the greatest and highest of ends. Failure to love is the deepest and darkest of sins. Do you swear, as I have said, your love and service to one another, and to the friends and family gathered here?”
They both nodded, waiting, and Allystaire cleared his throat in a prompt; Renard caught on and said, “I do swear my love and service.” Leah, her eyes gleaming now with bright wetness, echoed him.
Allystaire smiled, waited, and the couple did the same. Then, clearing his throat and perhaps flushing a bit, the paladin said, “I presume you know what to do.”
Renard was suddenly surprised as Leah’s hands seized the collar of his shirt and pulled his bearded face to hers. They kissed passionately and for longer than Rede, at least, thought proper, or so Allystaire assumed given the former Urdarite’s furious blush and thin-pressed, white-lipped mouth.
When their kiss broke, a wild cheer filled the air, and Renard swept Leah up in his arms and carried her with a joyous flair. Someone cried out, “Ale!” and another, “Wine!” and someone else, “Breakfast!” and the crowd bolted off in one great mass back to the green.
Idgen Marte cleared her throat, and Allystaire turned to her; their eyes met, and she jerked her chin toward their horses that roamed in the field beyond. He nodded very slightly and turned to face Mol and Rede, the only two left behind.
“Where are we going,” Rede asked, suddenly and impatiently.
“We are going nowhere,” Allystaire replied shortly. “I have not time to debate it with you, monk. I welcome you to the worship of the Mother and I hope it will see you well, but the journey Idgen Marte and I undertake today is for us alone.”
Rede snorted indignantly, stood up, and stomped off.
“At least you get a day’s respite from joining in the work,” Allystaire couldn’t resist calling after him. But by then, Mol had come and looked up at him with her large, dark eyes and her smile that were both so much older than she was, and the paladin knelt to embrace the young priestess. They spoke no words. Allystaire wrapped one arm around her back, and her arms clung around his neck. When he let go and stood, Mol turned and raced off, and he walked out of the temple and swung into Ardent’s saddle, alongside Idgen Marte, who was already mounted.
Without a backward glance at Thornhurst and its joyful wedding celebration, they set off for the foothills to the north.
CHAPTER 25
Tales Scatter Like Leaves
“There was five of us. Five, and every man-jack knew his trade and kept ‘is knife sharp.”
The man was weasel-faced and pock-cheeked, and he sat at the bar in The Sign of the Boar and the Bushel, selling his story for the cheapest, newest white wine the tavern-keeper had, and as the turn grew later, the wine grew ever more watery. The tavern-keeper was a grim man who believed the worst of his custom and was usually proved right. Tending bar and shepherding drunks and trying to keep the stoop free of corpses will inure a man
to all manner of tales and boasts, and though he had heard this story three times already, he found himself listening again as yet another drunk threw an extra copper link on the bar to encourage the teller.
“Five of us, and an easy mark. A farmer, y’know, some dirt-digger, an turn outta the gates and headin’ back to whatever patch o’ land he’s been wastin’ ‘is life t’grow. N’we knows this racket, good work every harvest time. In they come wi’ the fam’ly horse an’ cart full o’…well, whate’er ‘tis, melons or ‘taters or cabbages. And a day or two later, out they comes with a less full cart, a purse full o’links if it’s a good year they’ve had, maybe some brandy in the wagon, maybe some beer, few sides o’ beef. Maybe they comes out w’the flamin’ red skitters in their nethers if they been t’see Shary over there,” the man said, pausing after this great outburst to prime the pump with half a cup of his wine, after raising his glass to a slightly bedraggled, none-too-fully-dressed woman at the back of the room who crowded near the hearth fire, small though it was.