by Glen Cook
Indala said, “Perhaps. So. Tell me about the boy, Azir.”
Surprised, Nassim did so.
“He has potential, then?”
“A great deal. So long as he receives proper guidance now. He’s brilliant. He’s quick. Men like him, most of the time.”
Indala nodded. “Good. I’d hoped. That was his father’s brother who just left. The son of my second youngest brother. They’re competent soldiers, too. But their men don’t like them.”
“Do they take on airs of privilege?”
Indala’s forehead crinkled into a deep frown. Then, “Exactly. They think too much of themselves. Because they’re related to Indala, Nirhem, and Sufik.” Nirhem and Sufik were uncles of Indala, deceased, who had been champions almost as great as Indala himself.
“Family connections. Being an outsider, I can tell you that family connections are the burden that keeps this entire kaifate from moving forward.”
“Most men won’t trust anyone but family.”
“So you marry your cousins and can’t imagine any allegiance beyond a tenuous loyalty to tribe. And that’s why a handful of Arnhanders were able to carve a kingdom and a half-dozen lesser principalities out of the Holy Lands.”
“That and most common folk don’t care who runs things as long as they deliver peace. Which isn’t common in the Holy Lands, historically.”
“One more reason the Crusader states persist. They’ve provided decades of peace where they’re in control. They’ve prospered because of that and the pilgrim trade. At Tel Moussa we fought Gisela Frakier.”
Indala chuckled. “Of course. We Believers of Qasr al-Zed would rather squabble amongst ourselves. Though I’m changing that. I wonder, then, why al-Minphet and the monolithic Sha-lug haven’t reclaimed the Holy Lands. Gordimer the Lion can’t be beaten in battle. And has hordes of warriors trained up from birth, probably the best in the world.”
Nassim started to respond. Indala raised a hand. “The question was rhetorical. The answer is: er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen and Gordimer the Lion. Neither can escape the conviction that an army operating so far from their immediate control represents a personal threat. And they’d rather not take the field themselves.”
“The paranoia of princes.”
“Always justified. The higher you rise the more men want to bring you down. And those two create enemies indiscriminately, casually, willfully, almost deliberately. As though daring Fate to do its worst.”
“Add stupidly. They had no need to turn me against them. As they have no need to tempt the spite of the Night.”
“Let us consider those two. In particular, let us consider Gordimer. How much under the sorcerer’s thumb is he?”
“At the risk of sounding like a fakir, Gordimer is more under the Rascal’s control than he could ever believe. At the same time, he’s far less so than er-Rashal thinks. The relationship hasn’t been tested. It’s been ages since they faced anything where their ambitions diverge. Nowadays, Gordimer wants nothing but to hole up in the safety of the Palace of the Kings, where he indulges all the vices he found so despicable in his predecessor. Er-Rashal makes sure that he can indulge. So he gets a free hand.”
“Didn’t er-Rashal have the same understanding with Abad?”
“You know he did. Abad was farther gone than Gordimer is ever likely to be. If the honor of the Sha-lug faces a large enough challenge the Lion will find his roar. He’ll come out and fight. If that challenge crosses the sorcerer’s ambitions in a way that they need different outcomes to satisfy them, things might get interesting.”
“That’s worth some thought. Especially how to goad Gordimer.”
“An army from the north,” Nassim said.
“Yes?”
“There was a prophecy, when Gordimer removed Abad. It was vague. Those things always are. Gordimer interpreted it to mean that an army will come to al-Qarn to overthrow him. That it might consist of his own people is the nightmare that torments him.”
“In other words, you.”
“Could be. I wish. But, think. He does have enemies who aren’t Sha-lug. We all do. The New Brothen Empire wants to launch another crusade.”
“The Chaldareans talk about it all the time, General. But when the armies come together they fight their own kind.” Indala held up a hand to forestall a response.
Indala had not been aware of the prophecy overhanging Gordimer. Might that have been a true vision passed along by the Night? Might Gordimer fall to Qasr al-Zed? Unified, Qasr al-Zed and al-Minphet would have the power to drive the Unbeliever from the Holy Lands.
“This is marvelously interesting, General. Food for a feast of thought. But I’m feeling my years. I need rest. Before we part, though, I must tell you that your would-be paramour tonight claims to have come out of the Idiam. Says he’s a resident of the dead city.”
“That can’t be true.”
“I’ve never visited the haunted desert. I have no idea what’s true there and what isn’t. But I’m inclined to agree. The young man is one of er-Rashal’s agents. He may be Sha-lug. He may not. Er-Rashal’s men are good at not attracting attention. Remember that they’re out there. Stay out of places like the one where you were found tonight. Pull yourself together. Azir speaks highly of you. He thinks you’re invaluable. I want you to demonstrate that to the full war council tomorrow.”
When Nassim merely bowed his head in acceptance, Indala said, “I had a taste for vice myself when I was Azir’s age. If you stay here long you’ll hear of my adventures from my relatives. But a man of attainment has responsibilities. You have responsibilities. I want you here tomorrow afternoon, alive, sober, and not hungover.”
“It shall be as you say.”
“My personal guards will see you to your house.”
Nassim had been given use of a small establishment not far away. He shared it with Bone, old Az, and several young bucks from Tel Moussa.
Indala’s guards would make sure the Mountain did not wander during his journey. The message was plain.
Nassim did not look forward to the disapproval he would face from Bone and Az once they heard from Indala’s men. Those old campaigners had little give or understanding left.
Decades had escaped since a young Nassim had faced a disappointed professional sergeant. That Nassim had learned from those instructors then. He prayed that his lessons would take this time, as well.
There was a near full moon up. He enjoyed the silvery light. It went well with the chill of a winter night.
Later, it would cloud over. Snow would come with the dawn. It would stick for days, something alien to Shamramdi.
The children would enjoy it immensely.
24. Brother Candle: Full Circle
The Perfect Master spent more than a month hiding amongst Khaurene’s Seekers, none people with whom he usually associated. The Maysaleans smuggled him out, finally, during the excitement after King Regard abandoned his siege. Most of Regard’s soldiers returned to Arnhand. They would not come back. But a minority, with no prospects elsewhere, stayed. They captured several small castles, murdered heretics — anyone the Society indicted — and built a rambling, inadequately fortified camp only miles from Khaurene.
Thoughtful Arnhanders feared the coming summer. The lack of bluster out of Khaurene and, more so, out of Direcia guaranteed a fiery reckoning.
The most stubborn Connectens, rural lords who shared an attitude with the iconic Count Raymone Garete, harassed the Arnhanders constantly, determined to wear them down before Anne of Menand gathered new swarms of bandits. They responded rudely when Serenity threatened them with excommunication.
Count Raymone and Antieux continued to give heart to those who refused to accept foreign dominion and religious bullying. Though now, with the Viscesment Patriarchs gone, legal pretenses for defying Brothe were more strained.
It had become harder to make a case for the Brothen Patriarch being a tool of the Adversary. God did, after all, have the option of overruling any Patriarchal elec
tion.
***
Hundreds fled Khaurene with Brother Candle, for as many reasons as there were people fleeing. The siege, though never fully effective, had discouraged many would-be travelers. Brother Candle went out in disguise, as part of a family rejoining relatives in Castreresone. The gate guards were not looking for a party of twelve, nor for one old man. The guards were looking for the things Duke Tormond had given Brother Candle, in the possession of one old man.
Those left Khaurene through a different gate. The youth carrying them had no idea. He met Brother Candle near Camden ande Gledes, of grim recollection. The Perfect took the treasures and headed east with his adoptive family, who suspected the identity of their companion but were vague on why the authorities wanted him. They assumed religious crimes.
Castreresone was controlled by Navayans, to whom the White City had passed when Isabeth inherited. The people, including local Seekers, were content. The only grumbling came from those close to the Brothen Church. They did not grumble loudly. Count Raymone had friends in Castreresone. They outnumbered Serenity’s.
Brother Candle spent several weeks seeking those friends, who might be men he knew and trusted, but enjoyed no success. In time he left the White City, hurriedly, because members of the Maysalean community bragged that a famous Perfect was among them. And that word reached Count Diagres Alplicova, Queen Isabeth’s proconsul.
Out of sight of the city’s white walls, Brother Candle changed into his Seeker travel wear. That would mark him for his enemies, yes, but in the Connecten countryside it would mark him more clearly for his friends. And, sure enough, he fell in with bandits that same afternoon. Bandits who, recognizing him as Perfect, never asked to see what was in his pack.
Those fourteen men played only a brief role in the Perfect’s tale. They fed him and protected him on the road to Sheavenalle. He learned only a few names, Gaitor, Geis, and Gartner, who were brothers. The band presented a social history of the past half decade. These men came from several countries, had deserted several armies, had been driven from their homes by fighting, or were criminal fugitives from the cities. A half-dozen ragged families followed them, mostly women in circumstances more dissociated from the main than those of their men. In gratitude for their assistance, and despair over what the women and children were suffering, Brother Candle found the means to write a short message. He gave it to Geis. “Take that to Antieux. Give it to a man named Bernardin Amberchelle. Your fortunes should improve.”
Geis thanked him, though he was suspicious. No one did them favors. Geis could not read, nor could any of his companions, so there was no way to be sure the note would not betray them to the authorities. But, on the other hand, the author was a genuine Perfect Master. Those people did not play cruel games.
Geis promised.
***
The Maysalean community in Sheavenalle had abandoned that city during the Connecten Crusade, shortly before it fell to the Captain-General. The rest of that city’s religious minorities had gone, too. Only a few returned when Pacificus Sublime called the crusade off and sent the Captain-General to fight pagans on Artecipea. Brother Candle had trouble finding the modern community, then was uncomfortable among them. Though they called themselves Seekers After Light, their doctrine differed from that practiced farther west. Brother Candle found them too worldly, while strangely otherworldly.
They disbelieved in the marriage sacrament, but not in physical abstinence, so held one another in common. Likewise, property, such as survived. And they believed in a different form of reincarnation.
Errors, Brother Candle thought. They had come into being because these Seekers had no Perfect to guide them. Then he learned that their erroneous thinking came from Firaldia. Seeker doctrine there had come under the influence of thinkers in remote reaches of the Eastern Empire. Brother Candle met several Firaldian Seekers there, and was dismayed. They were as militant as the brethren of the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.
He left Sheavenalle as soon as he found passage aboard a coastal trader that meant to sail up the river Job. Agents of the Society, of Navaya, of anyone else interested in what Brother Candle carried, might be watching the approaches to Count Raymone but he doubted that anyone would anticipate him arriving by ship.
The vessel was small. Its cargo seemed to be salted fish. Its crew were all related and fit perfectly Brother Candle’s idea of coastal pirates. They would indulge, too, no doubt, if they thought they could get away with it. They might have robbed a passenger, too, were they sure they could be rid of the body effectively. But they gave that no thought in Brother Candle’s case. Being what he was, he would have nothing of value. And preying on a Perfect would be begging to bring a curse down on the family.
Brother Candle was ever amazed that supposed holy men, good or bad, enjoyed so much deference. Especially these past few years, when so many had been so blatantly predatory.
He did not fail to take advantage of that deference.
At his urging the sailors waited till dusk to tie up at Antieux’s waterfront. Time of arrival made no difference because tidal effects were minimal on the Mother Sea.
The waterfront, such as it was, lay outside Antieux proper, downstream, and consisted entirely of slapped-together facilities. Several sieges in a few short years left people unwilling to invest in structures that could not be defended. It was an article of faith that the new Patriarch would seek revenge on the city that had injured and humiliated him.
***
The Perfect first searched for fellow Maysaleans. And found them in numbers. Count Raymone had made Antieux a haven for Seekers After Light. He knew they would fight when the Patriarch’s men came. But the Perfect could find no one he knew, personally or by repute. Carrying what he carried, he dared not reveal himself to strangers.
It was not a good time to have no place to stay. Winter had its teeth out.
The warmth of the coast had vanished after just a few miles of river travel. There had been ice floes the rest of the way. Brother Candle tried life on the streets but gave up after one night.
He was too far past his prime.
He went to a Maysalean church that helped Seekers in need. A church! That was a wonder in itself. Seekers did not have churches. But this one had been taken from the Brothen Episcopal Church because of the bad behavior of its priests. To make his point loudly, Count Raymone had handed it over to local Seekers, who made of it a charity shelter and hospital for refugees.
The Perfect received a thin mattress filled with wheat husks. He was allowed to fill his begging bowl with soup from a communal pot. The man dispensing the soup, a tanner by his odor, apologized. “Usually it isn’t so thin and we don’t limit how much you can take, Brother. But business is too good. Weather like this. Most of these people aren’t really Seekers. But if they know the words we don’t turn them away.”
“As should be. Charity stands at the heart of our faith.” But, his worldly side reminded, it also posed a danger.
There would be agents of the Society among the ragged and forlorn evading winter and the dank of Night, making lists.
Three days of scouting left Brother Candle confident that there was no hue and cry for one Charde ande Clairs, alias Brother Candle, in this end of the Connec. Those who wanted him kept away from Count Raymone must be lying low, waiting for him to come to them.
Each morning Brother Candle pursued a careful routine, following his begging bowl, affecting a cane and bad limp, wearing an eye patch, with hair and beard gone fallow. He could not disguise his age or poverty so he exaggerated them. Though tempted, he did not add feigned madness. He adopted the name Brother Purify. Nothing he did could abuse that man’s reputation.
One morning he settled on the steps of the burned cathedral. He meant to rest just a moment. Sleep ambushed him.
Prodding wakened him. He looked up, groggy. Three men faced him. By his dress one must be the new Brothen Episcopal bishop. One of the Bishop’s companions had bee
n poking him with a truncheon. Vaguely, he wondered why anyone would accept the see of Antieux. Bad bishops had a brief life expectancy in Count Raymone’s demesne. And only worse and worse examples seemed willing to assume the risk, especially since Bellicose ended Antieux’s brief turn as an archbishopric. He supposed most of them hoped to get rich when the Church came triumphant.
“Yuck!” said the man with the stick. “There’s stuff running out from under his eye patch.”
“Then we won’t talk to him. Just beat him and send him along.”
“An excellent idea,” said a horseman who had materialized behind the threesome. “Only let’s make it the black crow who takes the cane.”
Brother Candle met Bernardin Amberchelle’s merry eyes. He did not want this but dared not speak up.
The Bishop’s men knew Amberchelle. Still, they were inclined to be uncooperative. Till more horsemen arrived.
Amberchelle said, “Lay into it, men. I want him to remember his place. I’ll stick him with my sword when you’re done. If he squawks I’ll have you beaten, too.”
This Bishop was new. He thought he could bully the boldest priest-baiter in this end of the Connec.
Amberchelle kicked him in the mouth. “That’s the way you feel, I’ll kill you now so I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder.” He drew his sword.
Brother Candle bit down on his tongue.
Amberchelle held back. “I find myself feeling merciful. Carrion bird. Bishop. If you offend me again I’ll take your head. No courtesy warning. Just a quick chop. And stay away from the cathedral. It’s Antieux’s memorial to all the evil done in Brothe’s name.”
The Brothen Episcopals staggered away, the Bishop unbeaten but bleeding. Amberchelle peered down at the old man. “I thought so. Come along, then. Want to ride?”
“I’d rather go looking like a prisoner.”
“You want the boys should hit you once in a while?”
“You don’t have to make it that authentic.”
Amberchelle laughed. “A pity.” Then, “I sense disapproval, even though I didn’t beat that vulture. But you know nothing we do will appease the Church. So I might as well enjoy sticking knives in while I can.”