Lady Ariel drained her goblet, and the rest at the table did the same. “God save me,” she started. Askew in her seat, she leaned to face her nephew. “The only ghost around here is you, Gildmane. That tongue of yours is just like your mother’s. It’s bound to bring trouble. It always has.”
Trey grinned sidelong, “I’m counting on it.” Leonhardt felt his arm serpentine her waist, pull her closer on the bench. “And please, tell my squire you were only playing. I don’t want her to think she’s earned your distaste.”
“No, it’s quite alright,” Jael replied. “I’ll take the title gladly. It’s after my father, after all.”
The corners of the duchess’s mouth sagged, and her smooth cheeks became aged jowls. Wrinkles formed on her high forehead, and the lines about her eyes grew dark and deepened. “Not if you knew,” she muttered, hardly louder than a whisper.
Knew what? wondered Leonhardt, but such a question was too imprudent to ask. So instead she responded, “Oh, no, you flatter me, my lady. It’s a squire’s highest honour to be compared with such a legendary knight—and to receive such a lovely gown…” She swallowed the memories mounding in her throat. “I always wanted one when I was a girl, but—”
“But instead you were confined to iron clothes, like a prisoner in your own home?” Ariel’s eyes bored under the squire’s skin, a pair of green, gleaming beetles. “No? Perhaps a captive in your own body, then?”
In that moment, Jael desired nothing more than to squirm out of the duchess’s sight, to shrink small enough to hide beneath the table as she had that first time she’d asked after the dress her mother had promised. Was I so much smaller, then? She thought, unable to budge with Trey’s arm around her. Had her father not done the same? Had he held her close till the nightmare passed?
A new feeling emerged between the now and her memory—like a sickness born in the bowels, boring up through the belly, bleeding her heart dry and then her face. The duchess must have noticed.
“Forgive me, Lady Leonhardt, for asking things so frivolous. It matters not how the past had been. You’re free now to show the whole of Nuw Gard what they’ve been without.”
“Yes,” Trey added, his face a mask half worry, half agitation. He whispered to either lady out of the sides of his mouth, “Carry on, Jael. Just a little longer and we can quit this stuffy hall, fetch some fresh air.” His voice redoubled. “About that, Auntie. I think it’s time we enlighten our guests—What do you think, Duke Stoltz? Might we have the rabble corralled?”
A porcelain grin slashed the duke’s jowls. He’d been waiting for this, some signal Leonhardt had missed among the banter now accumulating into motion spanning the length of the great hall. For when the Duke rose from his throne raising his arms in the air, the chatter contracted till even the furthest sounds from the lowliest benches hushed themselves. Then all was still, expectant and silent, the crackle of hearths either side of the hall suddenly thunderous—their undulating flames licking long across banners and tablecloths, mingling with the glow of candelabras on the nobles’ faces—orange and yellow—their smirks like fire, their eyes like coals. A cold air set between Jael’s shoulders where the back of her gown splay open. Duke Stoltz upturned his palms. The guests at once abandoned their benches, servants swarmed, and the tables vanished in a matter of moments as a space was cleared at the center of the hall. The dance, Jael thought. She glanced at her cup; it was full. She emptied it in a single gulp and stood with the others—would have lost her legs without Trey to lean on.
“Come, quickly, before we’re missed,” was all he said as he led his squire from the swaying hall into an interior passage behind Stoltz’s throne. An attendant was waiting on them, solemn yet with happy lines about his eyes and cheeks. He shut the castle door behind them just as the duke began to speak. Jael caught not a word but only the muffled sounds of singers and strings that smuggled into the dim corridor.
“Where are we going?” She heard herself speak, her tongue sluggish.
Gildmane ignored her question, half-carrying her now, his feet flying beneath him through strips of light and pools of shadow. They twisted and turned down stairs wells, doubled back, then again descended to where the air grew bitter and stale with the chill. The only light was that of sparse lit candles ensconced upon the wooden supports. They were in the basement, she realized. Looking up, she saw the gleam of copper privy pipes, heard the trickle of water above and below and from their destination ahead: a chamber radiant, its door hanging ajar.
Trey stopped at the mouth of the castle bath. Leonhardt squinted, so bright was it; but even as her eyes adjusted, the room looked nigh unrecognizable to her. Absent was the warmth and white of a steaming cauldron and the sweet scent of lavender salts. Instead, balsam and myrrh were what flooded her nostrils, emanating not from the bath, but from seven gilded braziers brought from the Aestas parish and set alight inside room. And the man who had brought them stood aside from the tub. Jael recognized him at once: the duchy priest, Father Pozchtok, and with him a quarter dozen Religious Sisters. They were dressed like washer women, only the priest donned in his holy attire—white sash and black cassock, and a flax-yellow smile as greasy as the blonde forelock tucked behind his ear.
“What’s going on?”
No one answered. A hand from behind guided her toward Pozchtok, and she staggered the few steps between him and the captain. The priest scowled and shook his head. “Can’t one of you Summerlanders hold your wine?” He took Jael by the arm and led her to where the pipes joined to the castle ducts. There was a hatch affixed atop the stone basin. Without a moment’s hesitation, he unfastened the latch and shoved her head over. The odor hit her like a lance to the gut. Just as fast, Leonhardt retched into the duct, and then Pozchtok pulled her back and handed her to the sisters.
At once, they began to strip her of her gown; but Jael’s head was clearer now. She grabbed one of the women by the hands, and the others backed off, and Trey guffawed from the chamber entrance. “That did the trick, then? I was worried you’d had too much.”
“What’s going on?”
“You haven’t figured it out? I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but I suppose we’re past that now.” He paused and glanced toward the ceiling. “Come on, Leonhardt. Why don’t you tell me?”
She studied Trey’s mien, sober and excited. Father Pozchtok was a man she could not read, but she listened as he murmured blessings over the cauldron, then she noticed the bundle in one of the sisters’ arms: a white tunic and black hose.
She spoke the words slowly, “This is a baptismal wash.”
†††
To become a knight, a man must offer his body in service to his lord. Likewise, a holy knight—whether of the Temple Guard or the Saint’s Cross—must devote his flesh to God. Thus the purpose of the baptismal wash: to make pure one’s offering. Only, isn’t it odd, thought Gildmane during his return to the great hall, for a man to offer himself at all to a god whom he already belonged? A clever ploy on the part of the church. It set him to thinking when instead he ought to be reciting the farce he and Johan prepared. Strange, too, that God lets it occur—though mayhap he doesn’t…if what we’re doing is truly His work. The bishop’s words—or were those his old captain’s?
Trey shrugged the questions from his shoulders and looked himself over one final time. In the gloam of the moonlit yard, his armour looked as ill-fit as Acker’s did when Trey was still his squire. It was the best the duke’s servants could do in the few seconds left to them, their fingers numb and fumbling in the dark. He’d lingered too long with Jael in the bath chamber, and now he could only pray the guests would prove too drunk to notice. He didn’t have that kind of faith with which to test their patience. The music and dance had already been called to a halt; the announcement had been made. He would seize them in their festive mood or not at all.
Under the cry of winches, the great gates parted. Trey marched inside.
“Sir Gildmane,” bellowed Stoltz from hig
h on his throne with his wife sat beside him, everyone else lining either side of the hall. “You have begged my leave to speak before the court. By whose authority do you claim this right?”
“By God’s alone,” Trey spoke, and the great double doors closed on the winter cold. Even so, his breath shewn white as a ghost about his lips and nostrils; and about the shivering nobles, theirs thickening into a cloud.
Only Johan seemed to retain his warmth. Mistless, he shouted, “So you swear, holy knight, but what be the Lord’s purpose?”
“To raise another soul into His fold. My squire would take the oath.”
Pale whispers filled the fog like thunder before a storm.
“You speak truly, holy knight. Such is your right as bestowed by the Lord. In this, I am your servant. Bring forth your charge.”
Father Pozchtok emerged from the servants’ pass, Jael in tow; a warm gale of chatter swelled among the guests, and the phantom clouds faded. Gildmane strained against the muscles in his face. They wanted nothing more than to smile, but that would have to wait until the act was over.
The duchess scrunched her face in fake disgust. She played her part well: keeper of tradition. “What mockery do you make of us, Sir?”
“I make no mockery.”
“Then my eyes must be mistaken, or is that Lady Leonhardt you mean to raise in our court?”
Trey bowed and gestured for Pozchtok to bring Jael forward. Only then dared he look upon the culmination of what began a curiosity, was transformed over months of toil in the yard and moil in blood, what took weeks of subterfuge to prepare. He looked and saw the changes in her: the gentle waves gone from her hair, weighed down by length and oil; her color had become fairer; her stature broadened with confidence enough to fill the ceremonial garb. She seemed taller in the black hose and white tunic, her eyes harder, her jaw sharper, marked by the demon scars. The onlookers would have no cause for second thought. “There is no mistake, my duchess.”
“So you truly mean it, that this lady, whom moments before sat aside us in gown and with all a woman’s countenance, should be pranced about in sword and armour?”
“No more than any northern knight prances.”
Ariel sprung from her seat in feigned outrage. “More mockery, Sir? Haven’t you any respect for your late father’s court? No. I will not have such blasphemy here!”
“But my duchess, she has the saint’s blessing! His own vicar oversaw the Confirmation!” Trey shouted to match his aunt’s emphaticism. Then they paused like partners in a dance and let the rumble of the crowd build into a roar of discontent.
Duke Stoltz interjected, “My lords! My lords!” From roar to rumble, from rumble to attention. “What I believe my lady means is that such a knighting would be unprecedented—perhaps impossible. For instance, how are we to perform the baptismal wash without inviting sin into the ritual? It would require a man as pure as Saint Constance, and even then—”
“It has been done, my duke,” answered Father Pozchtok. “I performed the necessary rites and taught our Religious Sisters how to carry out the wash. I call them now as witnesses.” The priest bowed, and the three sisters emerged from the servants’ pass still dressed in their washer’s clothes.
“So it has,” bellowed Johan, “and behind my back, it seems. I might call that treason if I could call it blasphemy. But I can’t, can I?” He sighed, rubbed his bare chin. “You’ve committed to this, Sir Gildmane, yet still, I dare not reach higher than my station. I am a duke, not a saint. How am I to be certain this is the Lord’s will save for a miracle?”
Trey grinned. “How many miracles do you need?”
“Sir?” the duke answered, likewise his act shattered by a genuine smile, his first for the night.
And so the captain began, Jael standing frozen before the court as Gildmane told them of the rescue of Charlotte Roywynn from a rogue during the Fair, of the justice brought to corrupted bishops and priests alike, how she singlehandedly slew a brackdragon to save a fellow squire and then proceeded to rescue an entire party comprised of clerics, squires, and paladins—himself included— from a demon that had slaughtered dozens of men of the Watcher’s Eye. “Are these miracles enough?” He asked, more challenge than question.
Not a wisp of cold remained in the room. The roar returned, and with it, the warmth of blood raised up in the nobility, hundreds of lords and ladies who believed they’d become wrapped up in some historic event. They had, more than they knew, but just then it was Jael who shook their notion of what was possible. She glanced up from the floor toward Trey; so many emotions emerged on her face, he couldn’t make head or tail of them. He’d been swept up, too, by something about this woman before him that was beyond his political maneuvering—beyond even his feelings. Like ice along his spine, it made him tremble as had the Shroud and the demon and the sacrosanct ritual he planned to profane. He turned away from her and toward the duke, signaled to him with a bow, long and low.
Stoltz called for silence. It was a long time waiting for the crowd to quiet, for the sounds of crackling hearths to reemerge from the anticipation on the verge of erupting from either side of the hall. The act was over. The duke refused no more. “I believe I can speak for the whole of the court when I say, ‘God has spoken.’ Sir Gildmane, bring me the sword.”
He had yet to finish that final word when his duchess turned and, with the gesture, renounced him as she stormed from the hall. It was an excellent performance, Trey thought as he counted the forsaken lords now taking their leave. They were more than he expected; a quarter of the chamber gaped vacant by the time the latent traitors had evacuated. But he would tend to that later. Just then was the task at hand.
The captain marched for the servants’ pass where a man awaited him, Leonhardt’s sword in hand. The blade was naked and stripped matte as satin, and they exchanged the weapon like a newborn babe, cradling it in their arms. The paladin returned to the center of the chamber where Jael knelt before Father Pozchtok and Duke Johan. Again, the sword changed hands—priest’s from paladin’s.
Stoltz’s sonorous tone echoed, “Jael Leonhardt, squire of the Lord’s court, sworn sword of the Saint’s Cross. I stand before you by my divine right as duke of the Summerlands, vassal of His Holiness, Saint Paul; and it is with His Holiness’s authority, ordained to him by God, that I might raise you to peerage within the holy order—so be if you swear by your life in sight of God and men.”
“In sight of God and men, I swear by my life,” she said, her voice shaking at first then settling as she recited each line of the oath.
“I shalt forever hold faith in God and in His church.
“I shalt observe the commandments of my father, in Heaven and on earth, and shalt remain leal to my lord long as his law lies in piety;
“for I shalt live in eternal service, both in flesh and in soul.
“Never shalt I grace safe haven to heretic, nor allow blasphemy to go unpunished.
“I shalt become a ward to the weak and an aegis to the frail. My hands are of the Lord and shalt give to his children freely.
“I shalt revel in my toil, finding relief only in prayer and never in the pleasures of the flesh.
“May Lord God judge my soul and forgive me my mortal sins.
“This I swear before God and man in faith that soon his kingdom come.”
“May soon His kingdom come,” answered Father Pozchtok, offering to the duke Leonhardt’s Temple blade. “My lord duke,” he said.
Stoltz took the bare sword on his sleeve and the hilt with a delicate grip of spindle-knob fingers; he brought it to bear on Jael’s shoulders, slapped with the flat of the blade each cheek, then atop her crown—the final strike she’d take while forbidden retaliation. Her last humiliation, henceforth she should never forget from whence she was raised, never let her pride fall into shame.
“Rise now, Knight Leonhardt.”
Jael rose, head down at first, biting her lips trying to dam the tears alighting either side of her face. A
heavy breath filled her breast, air laden with anticipation. Then her eyes lit up, all the lights from the chandeliers and hearths and candelabras reflected in her stare. Forward, not at the duke standing in front of her, but at her sword. She almost stole from his hands—Trey caught the urge: a tension in her legs, a tremor in her fingers. She hungered for it, could hardly hold still while Pozchtok dressed the bare steel in anointing oil. He flicked the sodden rag above her head, sprinkling her hair as if with an aspergil.
“Sir Gildmane,” exclaimed the duke.
Now it was Trey who could hardly contain his excitement. He knelt, his armour shifting noisily as he did, but it didn’t matter now. More certain he felt than in anything else in his life that the crowd must be enamored with Jael as he was, as he answered, “Yes, my duke?”
“Lady Leonhardt is your charge, your ward for this night until dawn shines again. It is your duty to bear witness that His holy vigil is observed—as it is yours, Father Pozchtok.”
The priest bowed to hide a scoundrel’s smile.
Johan continued, pretending not to notice. “Now, take your posts at our parish’s holy altar. Given the rest of the measures my nephew has taken, I’m certain your armour has been prepared for you there. Don it, and stand guard against that which rules the dark.”
Then Stoltz spoke no more, nor did he try to quell the upswell of gossip among the guests. He’d have encouraged them if he could, Trey was sure. For what happens next is dependent on them, and us…and her. He took Jael by the arm, sidled close to hold her upright lest she faltered. He wasn’t certain how much she’d drank or how much she’d sobered, just that the walk would be arduous in the snow.
Seven men were chosen, Aestas knights every one, to escort the three of them crossed the castle bailey, from the great hall to the Aestas parish—either structure buttressed the central keep like the arms of a titan; it towered over every building Gildmane had ever seen, save for the Impii monolith. But that was mere monument. This was the place he had once called home; then and now, it retained the magic of his memories: its high, white walls; five stories each as tall as the roof of a chapel crafted from the ridges said to have once scored the land; and beyond them, the tower. As a boy, he’d imagined sitting atop that royal spire roof so blue it seemed part of the sky. He’d imagined what his Father must have felt like, commanding his subjects from above the world like a game of frapugna. He’d imagined it, for never in his boyhood had he been allowed into those chambers. They were for the duke, duchess, and heir apparent alone, and not for an idle, vain, third son—nor the second, though he tried.
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