by M. C. Planck
The Vicar faced them alone, without guards or assistants.
“You may speak freely,” he said.
Lalania did so, relating their encounter with the shadows concisely with a candor that surprised Christopher.
The Vicar was reassuring. “Be at ease, Lady Minstrel. Your Ranger should leave the study of healing to more capable hands. There is no particular need for hurry.”
Christopher frowned. “Did he lie to us about that, too?” How many lies had the Ranger told?
“Not necessarily. Druidic magic is all he knows. In any case my rank is sufficient that it can wait until tomorrow. I can give you a room in the church, Brother, but you must see to your men’s quarter.”
“No,” Christopher, Lalania, and Gregor said simultaneously.
“We’re trying to catch someone, Vicar,” Gregor explained. “And he’s got a half day’s head start.”
The Vicar shook his head in dismay. “Your kind are always in a hurry, from one ill-conceived enterprise to the next.”
“It is truly urgent,” Lalania said. “A man’s life hangs in the balance.”
“It always does,” the Vicar said with a sigh. “The spell is not without cost, which I would have to charge you for in any case. However, if you require immediate assistance, I can provide it at a substantially greater price.”
Lalania bit her lip, in a very fetching way. Christopher didn’t think it would help, though.
“How much greater?” she asked.
“Sixteen pounds of gold,” the Vicar said. His sad smile told them he knew it was ridiculous.
Christopher could bring a common man back to life for only ten pounds of gold. “Don’t I get a discount?” Not that the Saint had ever given him one.
“I am afraid there is no precedent for that. Even though I call you Brother, you are a different Church. If Cardinal Faren were to instruct me otherwise, I would be happy to do so, but again your haste preempts such a discussion.”
“And if I wasn’t in a hurry?” Christopher asked, because he wanted to put a tangible figure on just how mad he should be at D’Kan.
“Only two pounds. Because you are of our faith can I waive all but the raw cost. There is precedent for that.”
He’d spent over fifty pounds of gold raising D’Kan and restoring him to his rank. Another fourteen pounds didn’t seem unreasonable, if it allowed him to catch D’Kan before the boy did something stupid and made Christopher mad enough to kill him.
“Do it,” he said, fishing out the little silver vial that hung around his neck. As always, the answer to every problem was an insanely valuable purple pebble.
“As you wish. Please wait here for my return; it will be but a few moments.” The Vicar left, closing the door softly.
“You should build a room like this,” Lalania said to Christopher.
“To think you used to complain about my taste,” Gregor muttered, but Karl was more direct.
“Why?”
“It’s as effective of a defense against scrying as is possible without magic. There’s nowhere for the telltale to hide.”
Gregor and Karl looked around uneasily.
“I just said there was nothing to see,” Lalania said in exasperation.
Christopher thought the room had another attraction. The lack of chairs would keep meetings short.
The door opened, and the Vicar came back in, carrying a plain wooden box. It was a few inches deep and wide and a foot long. When he opened it, dust fell off the lid, joining the dirt from their boots on the floor.
The Vicar removed a rolled-up sheet of paper, or more accurately vellum, as Christopher could tell by the leathery crackle it made when the Vicar unrolled it. The Vicar handed the empty box to Lalania and faced Christopher.
“You are certain you wish to consume this priceless relic for the sake of your immediate concerns?”
“It’s not priceless,” Gregor said. “We just paid you for it.”
“Fair enough, Ser,” the Vicar said. “Still, it has lain in the Church’s possession for over fifty years, stored against need. If we use it today, we may need it even more tomorrow.”
Christopher hesitated, but Lalania seemed to share Gregor’s view. “For what we’re paying you, Cardinal Faren can make two more.”
The Vicar blew dust off the scroll. “Allow me some theatrics, Lady Minstrel. There is a point to our parsimony, after all.”
Christopher opened his mouth to agree. After all, Lalania’s College had gods-knew-what-all squirreled away in their dungeons. Lalania cut him off before he could speak.
“Fair enough, Lord Vicar. Now please, let us proceed.”
The Vicar nodded politely and began to read from the scroll. The words were in Celestial, so Christopher could understand them, but he didn’t really catch what they were. He was too preoccupied by the fact that the scroll was bursting into flame as the Vicar read from it, each word lighting up in fire. By the end of the text the paper was a burning ruin, and the Vicar let it drop from his hands. It turned to ash before it hit the floor.
Christopher felt the strength of his will settle over him, like an indrawn breath of fresh air. He sighed in relief.
“Thank you, Brother.”
“I trust it worked?” The Vicar gazed at him piercingly.
“Yes,” Christopher said. His anger at D’Kan was a righteous wrath now, not a petty rage. “Now if you will excuse us, we have a thief to catch.”
“Oh thank the gods,” he heard Lalania mutter as he marched toward the door.
“It would be more appropriate to thank just one, I think,” the Vicar answered her. Christopher ignored them both. He didn’t have time for theological debates.
“Tell me again why I can’t ride through Gold counties,” he demanded as they mounted their horses.
“He has a point,” Gregor said. “He has the right to reclaim his stolen property, wherever the thief may flee.”
Lalania wasn’t happy. “It’s still a risk. If they want to manufacture an excuse for a duel, you’ll be giving them one.”
“The Colonel rides without armor. We can delay any formal duel until that is replaced.” Karl looked over the column of men. “And if they want an informal melee, then we have twenty carbines at our back. They will be no more prepared for them than the ulvenmen were.”
“You would precipitate a slaughter?” Lalania raised her voice over the clop of hooves.
“On the contrary,” Gregor said. “Christopher needs to act his strength, or others will think him weak. We fooled the ulvenmen by doing what they expected. Now we must do the same. No Black lord would hesitate to chase that cursed Ranger through a White county.” Gregor seemed to have forgotten he wasn’t wearing armor either. On the other hand, he did have a carbine strapped to his saddle.
“Then it’s settled. We take the most direct route.” Christopher called out the order. It felt good to be confident again.
“But not the woods,” Lalania admonished. “We stay inside the Kingdom. On the road and in public inns, wherever possible. Let us not tempt them too much.”
“Fair enough,” he muttered. Stabling two dozen horses would cost a fortune at traveler’s rates. He would just have to add it to D’Kan’s bill.
7
THE KEEP AT THE END OF THE LANE
Four days of hard riding left the horses spent. Christopher could feel Royal’s weight loss every morning when he cinched the saddle on. But the animal sensed his mood and made no complaint.
Christopher struggled to match the horse’s stoicism. Four days of riding through Gold lands left him with a jaw sore from the constant gritting of his teeth. If the White counties were an idyllic dream of pastoral life, the Gold ones were a nightmare. In the Green Undaals he had seen poverty and misery to match his preconceptions of the hard-scrabble life of a medieval peasant. But in these Shadowed lands the stench of fear was overwhelming. This wasn’t medieval France, where peasants bowed and scraped to arrogant nobility. It was North Korea, where me
n and women cowered under the rule of capricious and incomprehensible tyrants.
The desire to confront the local nobility and explain the democratizing effect of firearms was a constant spur, applied directly to his spine. Only the abject deference of every person they met prevented him from boiling over into violence. Even the soldiers groveled when they recognized Christopher’s rank. He could not gain any satisfaction by destroying them.
The nobility, the true target of his loathing, was careful to stay out of sight. Lalania assured him the only time he would see them was immediately after they launched an overwhelming assault. That was their preferred introduction.
“They swear that a man is a thousand times more polite and cooperative once he’s hanging from a rack in your dungeon. So why bother with any other negotiations?” This time when she presented the Black’s point of view, she did not try to hide her disgust. Christopher found it immensely more comforting than when she had worn a dark face to sneak them across the land. And that had only been in Feldspar, an outlier of the taint. In Balenar, riding under the shadow of the walls of the city that allegedly housed the Iron Throne itself, she had not had the courage to even speak. Silently they had paid a gate guard a gold for each horse and rider, and then skirted the city altogether, preferring the mud of the fields to the stinking misery of the town.
Only after it was a speck on the horizon, far behind them, could Christopher dare to think his own thoughts.
I’ll be back, he thought, glaring at the distant city, like MacArthur abandoning the Philippines.
“The gods only know what your rashness will provoke now,” Lalania warned him.
“They have no room to complain,” Gregor argued. “Bart rode through our lands as freely as a bird. A carrion crow, no less, carrying his soul-trapped with him.”
“They won’t see it that way,” Lalania said.
Christopher was deathly tired of caring how they would see it. But he understood Lalania’s point. The difference was that he was secretly hoping to provoke a reaction, or at least was not appalled by the idea. Let them send an army against him. For all its terror and evil, the Iron Throne did not command anything worse than three thousand huge, hungry wolf-men.
And if they were truly the pawns of the hjerne-spica, then Karl’s words from the swamp were doubly true. Let them throw their strength against Christopher’s riflemen, instead of defenseless peasants. The mere fact that they had not already done so was proof that they knew they would lose.
At the end of the day the road ran down into a river and stopped. There was no bridge, no ferry, not even a rowboat tied up at the shore.
“Damn it,” Christopher said. “Now what?”
“Now we go from the frying pan to the fire,” Lalania said. She almost managed a laugh. “Keep your hands in the open, where they can be seen, and under no account draw a weapon.” She spurred her horse forward, into the water.
The ford was shallow, only three feet deep. Christopher and the rest of the troop followed her, splashing in the cool water. The horses kept stopping to drink. Christopher felt exposed, sitting on a horse in the middle of a river. It was the perfect place for an ambush, and if his men had to dismount to fight, the water would likely render their weapons useless. Lalania didn’t seem to care, taking her time in leading them across.
On the other side, as they came out of the water in a disorganized crowd, a voice finally greeted them.
“That’s far enough, my lords.”
An interesting greeting, both overly polite—they were not, in any sense, this fellow’s lords—and subtly hostile. Despite the high title he had handed out, he wasn’t exactly being deferential. In fact, he was issuing orders. Almost as if he didn’t care what rank they were.
On the other hand, this was the first person to say so much as “boo” to Christopher in four days, and he was in no mood for it. He turned his horse to face the man, a plain-looking fellow standing in the middle of the path that passed for a road on this side of the river.
“I’m here to reclaim my property. You can either deliver it, or get out of the way.”
“What property would that be, my lord?” The man wore faded green leather, and only one sword to the two D’Kan had worn, but his bow was as long and stout.
“The Baronet Cannan.” Christopher was uncomfortable speaking of the man as property, but that was the only argument that would carry any force here.
“The kin-slayer, you mean. He is not yours anymore, my lord. He belongs to the Mother now.”
“Not yet,” Lalania interjected. “Not until the sun sets on the Verdant Court. And the court has not yet begun.”
The man did not glare, exactly, but the look he gave Lalania would have frozen water. “No matter. The court starts and ends with the morrow, and until then the border is closed.”
“The Vicar will lay his claim to the court, not to you.” Lalania shot Christopher a glance that said, That is the best I can get you.
“Attendance to the court is by invitation only. And regrettably, the Vicar does not have an invitation.”
“Oh, but I do,” Christopher said. “I do have an invitation.”
The green-clad man looked up at Christopher, a small smile of incredulity tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Then present it, my lord, and I shall not tarry you further.”
Christopher jerked his thumb over his shoulder, at the men behind him.
“It’s right there, behind me. On horseback.”
“What, that lot?” The tone was almost amused. “They’re not even armored. We only let them across the river out of kindness.”
“They don’t need armor,” Christopher said. “They have rifles.” Damn, but it was time he got some respect around here.
“I confess I do not know what that word means,” the man said. “But I fail to see how it is relevant.”
“Two excellent questions you should put to Ser D’Kan, as soon as you see him. But for now, I’m following that road to the court, and I’m saying my piece, and that’s all there is to it. Is that clear?”
The man said nothing, staring up at Christopher as inscrutably as a stone gargoyle. Gritting his teeth again, Christopher pointed his horse forward. This display of recklessness was stupid and yet necessary. Gregor fell in on the left, and together they rode past the man, one on either side.
The fellow didn’t flinch, standing as steadfast as a fencepost. But arrows didn’t rain down from the forest. Apparently they had won this round.
As the column trotted down the faint track, Christopher asked Lalania, “This is the way to the court, right?”
“Yes,” she said with a wry grin. “It’s the path in, even if I am not certain it will lead us out again.”
The land was different on this side of the river. Behind them the forest had been ravaged and beaten into submission; here, it stood all but untouched. The trail was starkly out of place, an unnatural artifact in a pristine wilderness. The illusion was strong enough that Christopher was surprised when they passed their first field.
Above the regular furrows of wheat nestled a stone farmhouse in a grove of trees, a hundred yards from the road. It looked sturdy and clean and wholly unlike a hovel.
“Apparently they are not elves after all. They find they cannot live without the plow any more than we.” Lalania seemed more satisfied with this observation than she had with all her condemnations of the wickedness of the Iron Throne. Christopher could guess the reason. To condemn the unrelenting evil of the Black was the work of an instant. But the druids were Green. They were allies and friends. Their arguments would not be so easily dismissed.
“Don’t underestimate them,” Gregor cautioned. “They may not wear shiny armor and ride horses the size of mountains, but they have their own dangers. Not, I suppose, that I needed to tell you that. Dark take it, Christopher, all my life I thought the druids were the definition of different, and now you’ve gone and changed the meaning of the word.”
Christopher wasn’t s
ure he wanted to change this. It looked pretty good.
“These people don’t seem so poor.” Or as miserable, although since he hadn’t actually seen anyone, it was hard to be sure.
“They’re not,” Lalania said. “They eat better than even your peasants, Christopher. They are free men, not bound to the land by law or custom. And they are not tenants.”
“They own their land?” That seemed very non-feudal. Maybe he should have started his revolution here, instead of Knockford.
“No, they don’t own it either. But neither do the lords. They all borrow it from the Mother. Not that the lords are poor farmers. They have the right to commandeer labor, for the common good, and the Lady of the land collects her fee for blessing the crops. It is a fine life, if you want to live in a farmhouse in the middle of a forest with nothing but trees for company.”
“Lala likes towns,” Gregor said with a wink. “And the things they produce, like lace and pastries and scented soap.”
Christopher liked towns, too, and the things they produced, like rifles.
“How much farther is it?” The sky was getting dark. He started looking for another farmhouse. With luck it would have a barn big enough for his herd of horseflesh.
“A few miles. The road will lead us to Farmark Keep. I know this because it is a contentious issue amongst the druids. It is the only druidic keep one can find at the end of a road; indeed, this may be the only road in the entire Near Wild.”
“How do they get around?”
“That’s the point, Christopher. They don’t.”
He grinned in sympathy with Gregor. The exhibitionistic Lalania would find this life as bad as a prison sentence.
But for peasants, it would be an improvement. “Why don’t the miserable, poor, starving wretches from back there come over here?”
“For a thousand reasons, not the least of which is that they are not welcome. They’re dirty and smelly and have no idea how to live in harmony with the land. Nor do they hold the Mother to be absolute in her rule.”