Ordination

by Daniel Ford

  The crowd had been watching in more or less a cowed silence ever since Allystaire’s earlier outburst, but suddenly someone spoke up, “Ow do ya know e’s tellin’ the truth?”

  “That is something you have a right to know,” Allystaire said, turning to face the crowd. “Perhaps, these past weeks, stories have come to you by merchant or peddler or letters,” he began. “Odd stories. Rumors. My name is Sir Allystaire, as I said, but I did not tell you whom I serve.” He pause, cleared his throat, and said, “I bring to you the word of a Goddess—and She has Gifted me such that no one can speak untruths to me.”

  Having reached the bottom of the steps, Torvul turned to look back up at Allystaire, grimacing sourly. “That’s your patter? That’s the best you’ve got?”

  The crowd, meanwhile, stood unmoved and silent for a long moment. Then one woman separated from the milling mass and walked forward. “We had, well, some tales come through a week ago, speakin’ some silliness of a paladin. Are you tellin’ us that’s you?”

  Allystaire turned a faint, smug smile at Torvul and descended the stairs to approach the woman. “Aye. I am Sir Allystaire, Arm of the—”

  His formal self-introduction was unexpectedly cut off as the woman drew back her arm and slapped him with her open hand, her full weight behind the blow, her face suddenly exploding into tears.

  “How dare you,” she cried. “How freezing dare you come here now. Where were you a week ago?”

  The smack of her hand against Allystaire’s cheek resounded in the otherwise still and quiet morning and left a dark-red handprint against his rough, broad cheek. His hands stayed at his sides even as anger flashed in his eyes, and a cautious curiosity quickly replaced the anger. Finally, in as quiet a voice as his could be, he asked, “Why? What happened a week ago?”

  “A priest! A priest who spoke of paladins and the Mother and a new temple to rise in Londray! And he had men with him and he said he was taking a tithe for our new goddess. And oh, those men o’his took what’er they wanted. Our food, our wine, our seed corn, and our daughters, our sons,” the woman shrieked, and she leapt forth to hit Allystaire again; this time, he caught her hand gently but firmly in his.

  “There is no other priest of the Mother,” Allystaire said quietly. “No true priest. There are but three; two of them rode into your village today, and one is a girl of eleven summers in a village a hard two weeks’ ride around the mountains.” He lowered her arm with gentle but inexorable force and then slowly, carefully, removed his hand from hers. “Tell me what he called himself.”

  “The Eye of the Mother,” the woman replied, speaking brokenly through her tears, “Rede the Sighted.”

  “I see.” Allystaire’s voice was as cold and smooth and deadly as a knife’s blade edged in ice, and the look that came over his face made the poor woman in front of him take a half step back, her quieted half-sobs threatening to break open again.

  Suddenly Idgen Marte was there, behind Allystaire’s shoulder, and everyone started, including the dwarf, who made a pretty fair leap for a man who’d just been getting the feeling back in most of his limbs. The tall, dark-haired warrior stepped past Allystaire, putting herself between him and the woman who’d slapped him, deftly obscuring everyone’s view of the volumes of murder and rage that Allystaire’s face was speaking.

  Idgen Marte placed one long-fingered hand on the woman’s arm. “Sister,” she murmured quietly, “tell me what happened. All of it. Just to me. No one else. We’ll walk, and you’ll tell me…” Gently, she lifted her hand and wrapped her arm around the woman’s shoulders, turning her around and beginning to walk her away from the crowd, with a backward glance at Allystaire and a gesture with her chin to the rest of the crowd.

  With a deeply indrawn breath, Allystaire turned to face them, winding down the boiling furnace that was brewing in his core. “Folk. Good people of Grenthorpe. You have been greatly wronged. There is no temple of the Mother in Londray. There is no Eye of the Mother. Rede is a sick, deranged man and a liar. And whatever it is he did, we will make it right. We will show you that the Mother and Her servants do not force anyone to Her fold.” He took a deep breath and lowered his eyes to his boots, his leather-and-iron clad hands creaking as they curled into ineffectual fists. “I will make it right.” He turned and began to stalk away, fuming; the crowd of villagers spoke amongst themselves in hushed tones.

  Idgen Marte had trailed far out of earshot, her arm still around the other woman, who could be seen to be talking without pause for more than breath. The women made an incongruous pair—one tall, graceful in her arms and armor, the other shorter and stouter, but strong, too. Idgen Marte had to stoop to listen and shorten her stride to stay in step with the villager, but she did so without notable strain.

  Meanwhile, Allystaire stalked off. Torvul swiveled his gaze between the villagers who’d been about to hang him and the stranger who stopped them, then took off at a fast pace after the paladin. When he caught up, he cleared his throat, pitched his raw but sonorous voice low. “You really think you are, don’t you?”

  Allystaire paused and turned to look down at him. “Really are what?”

  “What you say you are,” the dwarf said, his eyes narrowed. “I’m a cynical dwarf, me. I figured you were puttin’ these folk on. But you did somethin’, boy. You made me give voice to the truth of my thoughts.” He frowned a bit, blew a heavy breath out over his top lip. “Nobody’s made me do that since…well, longer than you’ve been alive, for sure.” The dwarf lifted his eyes and tilted his head to one side. “So what is it?”

  “What is what, dwarf?”

  “What you did? Was it sorcery?”

  “If you had any idea how much I tire of that question…”

  “Still not an answer, is it.”

  “It is not sorcery,” Allystaire replied curtly. “I do not think I am anything, dwarf. I am precisely what I have said. No more and no less. Now! Do you not have some links to gather?”

  The dwarf snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Haven’t got any. And even if I do, you can’t—”

  His patience at an end, Allystaire leaned down and roughly seized the dwarf’s arm with one hand. “How much do you have and where is it?”

  “Fourteen links gold, about half that weight in gold dust. Seventy links silver and twice that in thin bars. I haven’t counted the copper but at a rough guess I’d say one hundred and twenty-two and a half. Also assorted gemmary I haven’t appraised. Hidden here and there. A strongbox in the back of the wagon with a stuck lock I know how to jigger, false bottom in one of the feedbags, false caps on the wagon wheels…” The dwarf suddenly stopped short in his list as he jerked his hand out of Allystaire’s grip with a surprising strength. He pursed his lips and said, “That’s very interesting. You did it again. What else can you do?”

  Suddenly, from behind Torvul, Idgen Marte’s voice answered in an angry, purring, stage whisper, “Pray that you never find out, alchemist.”

  The dwarf leapt a foot in the air, spinning around and clutching his chest when he landed. “Sky! Don’t frighten an old dwarf like that!”

  “Get what you owe them and pay up,” Allystaire ordered. “I need to have done with your foolishness and attend to this so-called Rede the Sighted.”

  “Why’s he called ‘the Sighted’?” Torvul asked, ever inquisitive, showing no sign of leaving.

  “Do you never stop asking questions?” Allystaire growled.

  “Not until I learn enough. Curious dwarf, me.”

  “Fine. This Rede was, until quite recently, an Urdarite priest.”

  Torvul’s face wrinkled in disgust, his mouth sneering. “Fanatics, them. But wait—sighted?” He wrinkled a prominent brow. “Don’t they put out their eyes to save the rest of us the trouble?”

  “Aye. He calls himself the Sighted because I gave him his eyes back.”

  “That was a damn
foolish thing to do.”

  “Smartest thing you have said yet, dwarf. Now go pay up.” Allystaire fixed a hard stare on the dwarf’s lined, wizened face, and Torvul threw up his hands in surrender.

  “Aye, aye. You’ve got to tell a dwarf three times, you know. At least. But I’ll be back with more questions.” The dwarf walked off, watching Allystaire and Idgen Marte with piercing, curious eyes under his heavy brows, until the two turned away and began talking in low, angry voices.

  “The village woman told me the whole story. Rede arrived here just over a week ago with a group of strong-arms; sounded like half a score, at least. He preached about the Mother, and Karinn—the woman—said it sounded good. Till he told them what they owed and took some of the younger folk hostage.”

  “Where was he headed? Where did he get half a score men? Why would he want hostages?”

  She sighed, ticked off her answers with raised fingers. “I don’t know. It wasn’t with his natural charm. And he seems to think he’s raising an army, to lead the Mother’s Church to glory. Only he’s not giving anyone a choice in joining.”

  Allystaire closed his eyes and pressed his gloved fingertips to his temples. “So where did he get the links to pay men to follow him?”

  “I’ve no idea. What are we going to do about it?”

  “We are going to find him. Then I am going to kill him.”

  Idgen Marte bit her lip and her dark brown eyes looked to the grass; she toed the ground with her foot for a moment, kicked it lightly, then looked back up. “I’m not sure that’s the answer.”

  “Then we will keep asking new questions until it is,” Allystaire replied hotly. “I give him back his eyes, and this is how he repays us? I made one rule. One! And he breaks it. Now the Mother is just another god who demands, represented by more men with weapons taking what they please.”

  “No,” Idgen Marte said, shaking her head and peering carefully at him. “You didn’t give him his eyes back. The Mother did.”

  Allystaire winced, and he heard Idgen Marte’s words echoed in his head by another voice, chiding him gently but powerfully. He closed his eyes and nodded assent, whispering, “You are right.”

  “She meant for him to see. Had he not seen, we wouldn’t be here. If you’ve healed someone with the Mother’s Gift, is it right to kill him later, even if he betrays you? I’m not sure you can. Or should.”

  “We can think about that later. We must find him.” Allystaire’s eyes were shut, his hand rubbing lightly at his forehead.

  “Agreed, but I need you to promise me something.”

  He lifted his head and dropped his hand to his side, swinging it carefully away from the head of his hammer; he fixed his eyes on hers and nodded slightly.

  Idgen Marte nodded back and laid a hand, for a moment, on Allystaire’s shoulder. “Let me decide if he needs to die. If he does, the Mother will—She will let me know. I think it would be wrong for you to kill a man the Mother just healed. Yes?”

  He nodded again; Idgen Marte patted his shoulder with almost sisterly affection, and they took deep, heavy breaths. “We can’t stay here,” she said, after their brief pause, fixing her hands back to her swordbelt. “He’s poisoned the waters for us. These folk won’t be willing to hear us until that’s accounted for.”

  “Aye. We will be off today. Need to purchase some supplies, I think.”

  “Nonsense,” grated the dwarf’s gravelly, attention-grabbing voice. While they’d been speaking, he had managed to creep up on them. “I’ll cover all that.” He hefted a thick, heavy leather purse with metal rings drawing the top of it closed, the rings themselves affixed with a miniscule mechanical lock.

  “Very generous of you, Torvul,” Allystaire replied. “We will be—”

  The dwarf waved a hand dismissively. “Please, son. I live on the road. You think I can’t guess your supply list? Besides, I didn’t tell you my condition.”

  “Your condition is that you get to live another day, dwarf.”

  “Which is more than I can say for you if you go haring off after this Rede fella and his dozen hardcases,” Torvul said. “Which could be a dozen and a half now, or two dozen, or two score for all you know.”

  “It would not be the first time I did just what you described.”

  Torvul snorted and tucked the purse almost delicately beneath one arm as he crossed his forearms over his belly. “Bragging is well and good for wenching, lad, but—”

  “Dwarf, he does not lie. He cannot lie. When I met him, he was pursuing a dozen ‘hardcases’ by himself, and when he found them, he walked into their lair. None of them are still alive. He is.” Idgen Marte crossed a few steps and leaned down till she was on eye level with Torvul. “And that was before the Goddess blessed him with Gifts.”

  Torvul stared up at the woman with quiet equanimity. “Generous lady, this goddess you talk about. My condition may not be as onerous as ya think. I want to help you find this Rede and his band. I owe these people somethin’, I guess.” He shrugged uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck. “My craft failed me. Failed them. I’m happy to take anyone’s weight but I don’t like makin’ ‘em sick. ‘Less that’s what they want, of course,” he said, speculatively, his brow furrowing. “I have had the odd fat bastard of a lord ask for a regular emetic, and a couple of courtesans—”

  “Enough,” Allystaire said, halting the dwarf’s musings. “What can you do that would be of help, dwarf?”

  Torvul raised a finger to bid them wait. Then he dipped into a pocket and pulled free a small, stoppered glass vial and held it up to the light, revealing its yellowish liquid. “Drops of this in your eyes, your ears, and your nose, and you’ll be trackin’ ‘em like a bloodhound and a hawk all at once. And it’s just the start.”

  Allystaire and Idgen Marte exchanged glances and looked back to the dwarf. “How’s it work,” the swordswoman asked, reaching a tentative hand for the vial.

  Torvul tched and the vial disappeared into a sleeve, or his pocket. “Not until you agree. And as for how it works…” He waved his free hand, the fingers jangling lightly in the air. “Magic.”

  “Alchemy?”

  Torvul rolled his eyes and sighed a bit dramatically. “Yes, alchemy is a kind of magic. Sort of. Look. I haven’t got the time, the books, or the patience to explain it to a couple of humans. It is a Dwarfish art that would take either of you a lifetime of study. So let me try it again.” He made the same motion with his fingers while saying softly and dreamingly, “Ooh…magic.”

  “Why not just give it to us, then? Along with what else you think might be of use to us, and be on your way. After you have paid the village what you owe.”

  Torvul sighed, his brows drooping and eyes and broad, lined face affecting the aspect of a long-suffering martyr. “I don’t suppose you’re going to drop that bit. Buyer beware and all that. No guarantee stated or imp—”

  When the dwarf lifted his gaze, his grey eyes met Allystaire’s implacable blue, the paladin’s face flat and impatient; the dwarf took an involuntary step back and exhaled flatly. “Hoo, boy you’re a hard one, aren’t you?” He stepped close to Allystaire, peered up at him closely for a long, still moment. “If you had thought I was guilty, that I’d deliberately poisoned these folk, say, or laid ‘em all out to rob blind, you’d have hanged me, eh?”

  Allystaire considered this a moment, and shook his head very slightly. “Not if you only meant to rob them. But I would have found a suitable justice.”

  “What about poison?”

  “You would have danced your last but a few minutes ago.”

  “You’ve a robust approach to problem solving, lad. I like that.” Torvul nodded and stepped back. “And I fancy the prospect of seeing it applied to this Rede.”

  Allystaire’s mouth twisted sourly, and in his gut, muscles tightened as the dwarf’s words stirred images of flattening Casam
ir’s armor, of taking a man’s head off with a flick of his wrist, of lifting a knife-wielding bandit into the air and thinking how it might just have been possible to bend the man until his back snapped. “It will be dangerous, old dwarf. We cannot promise to protect you if it comes to an open fight.”

  “Son, I’ve been on the road longer than you’ve been alive, and alone on it for five years. I have dealt with every kind of brigand, bandit, highwayman, road agent, city guard, warband, and pissant ne’er-do-well you can imagine and a dozen more you can’t,” the dwarf said, jabbing a finger in the air toward Allystaire to punctuate his points, “and I’ve bartered with, conned, snookered, hid from, outfoxed, run from, and killed more than my share. I don’t need your protection. You might just need mine.”

  There was silence for a moment as the paladin and the warrior stared at the dwarf, then their gazes turned toward each other. “I like this one,” Idgen Marte said, grinning in her lopsided way. Allystaire chuckled humorlessly and threw up his hands in defeat.

  “Fine, alchemist. Get your wagon ready to leave within two turns.” Then he frowned. “Pay the people first.” The dwarf ambled off, waving a hand and muttering. Allystaire looked to the crowd that was still more or less milling around near the hastily erected gallows. “I should speak to that woman, Karinn—”