“You’ve grasped the surprise, then?” Trey asked.
Jael surveyed the crowd. “Why didn’t you tell me we were coming here?”
“I just said it was a surprise, didn’t I?”
She scanned them again. “You left me. Alone, for two days in that rattling ice-trap.”
“I wouldn’t say mine was any less noisy, nor any more warm.” He stepped in close and lowered his voice. “But let’s talk about that later, after supper if we can. This was supposed to be a reward, a whole day back home.”
“Home,” she echoed, calling back to mind her simple and familiar life prior to the bloodshed and subterfuge. She thought of Gavin and her father, how much she wanted them both to see her now—how far she’d come. She thought too of her mother—for the first time without fear or rage; what was Dahilla, after all, compared to what Jael had faced already? But then she saw the source of her rabbit heart. She saw it in Trey as he looked down at her, smiling, squinting against the reflection of the sun on the white so bright his hair seemed dark as sand. He had become her promise, broken. Leonhardt looked to the crowd now already half dispersed and was glad that Zach was not to be found among them. His heart will break when he hears that I didn’t come see him, yet so too would her own if she did.
Gray clouds rolled in out of the southeastern sky. The world dimmed, and Trey’s visage returned to that of Captain Gildmane. He ordered the coach drivers to find lodging, for Ogdon and Harpe to unload the luggage; and Sir Schirmer went off of his own accord toward Gruit Inn and Tavern. Then Trey returned to her. “The day is yours, my lady.”
She glanced where the sun shone but faintly through the overcast. The day was hers, yet the day was dwindling. Her first urge demanded they march into the tailor’s and charge him with sewing the dress promised to her as a girl. That urge Jael squelched. She had her own gown now, one that would put Dahilla’s lilac silk to shame, and it would take too long besides. There was only a couple hours of daylight left. “I’d like to visit the deacon,” she decided. It would be nice to see Gavin again.
She was too late.
They’d hardly set foot inside the vestibule when a stranger greeted them dressed in a simple white robe. He was no Herbstfield native, not that Leonhardt could recall such a tall, trim, broad-jawed man. Given his ice-blue eyes, his hair and beard the color of straw, she figured him an immigrant from another Summerland village. Yet his accent threw her off—like something from another country she’d never heard before. “Welcome to Herbstfield chapel,” he said, looking them over. “My name is Abel, serving for the saint as vicar-deacon here. What brings you at such an hour?”
“Vicar-deacon?” Jael asked. “What happened to Gavin?”
The man paused. “I’m sorry. You must be locals coming home. The former deacon passed before my coming. I was told it was an autumn illness: rain, cold, and his aged constitution.”
“He’s dead?” Jael felt Trey’s hand press softly between her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” repeated Abel, then, “You must have been close. I didn’t get the chance to know him, but I’m certain he would have been happy you came. Perhaps he’s smiling down from Heaven now. From all accounts, he was a good man. I’ve never known a clergyman so beloved by his assembly, nor a people so heartbroken by his pass.”
“Yes,” Jael mustered, speaking in portions just small enough to keep the tears at bay, “he was like family.”
“He is buried with the chapel graves. The church afforded him a worthy headstone; I can show you to it if you wish to pay your—”
“No,” she interjected, inhaled, then reversed her tone and breath. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to be so brusque. On the morrow, I’ll come. Just now, I can’t. There’s too much today already. I—”
The captain’s hand landed gently on her arm, squeezed and calmed her some. “Tomorrow, then. We’ll come first light.” He bowed to the substitute deacon. “Thank you for your kindness.”
Abel bowed in return. “It was a pleasure meeting you—And again, I’m sorry to have been bearer of such sad news, Lady…”
“Leonhardt,” she finished for him.
His eyes went wide like she’d knifed him in the gut; then he tore them away from her, nodded to Trey, “My lord.”
“Sir, actually.”
“You’re an Aestas knight?”
Gildmane shook his head. “We’re of the Cross.”
A second stab. The vicar-deacon stepped back, his breathing quickened. “I see. You have my condolences…Sir. My lady,” He bowed to each of them. “I’ll be happy to receive you in the morning. And if there is any need, I beg you’ll come speak with me. What else are the clergy for but to shepherd their fold?”
“Nothing.” Save for kidnap, rape, torture, and murder, thought Jael as she turned for the portal. “May soon his kingdom come.”
Abel echoed her affirmation with the same somber tone. The doors drifted shut, and Leonhardt marched straight off for the stables. Don’t stop, carry on, she repeated to keep her mind too busy to process what occurred, what she’d learned, what she was about to face. Carry on. It could be worse. Dahilla’s nothing. Don’t think about it. Let’s go see Father. Think of how happy he’ll be…Gavin would’ve been happy… Don’t think. Keep moving.
“What do you think?” asked Trey as soon as they were clear of the chapel. “About that deacon, I mean. Anything seem off to you?”
She swallowed down her tears but did not dare to speak. She would not cry; she’d had enough of crying, enough of weakness. The captain was trying to distract her from her grief, and she couldn’t even play along. How was she going to handle her mother if she couldn’t manage her own feelings?
Then Gildmane uttered the worst thing, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she snapped, angry beyond intention.
But he didn’t stop. “I didn’t mean for something like this to happen.”
“Nothing seems to go as you intended, does it?”
They arrived at the stables, every guest stall full with Aestas coursers, the carriages themselves stationed like sentinels along the fence. One long stride and Trey crossed in front of her. He tossed open the stable gate, found the two horses he’d ordered saddled and bridled. “Not a thing,” he answered. “If it did, Corvin wouldn’t have been arrested, you wouldn’t been mauled by a pagan freak, we wouldn’t be stuck picking up after Little Lord Sylvertre’s mistakes,” mounting his horse, his tone became playful, “and mayhap my cock would be thawed out by now.”
“Very funny,” she mocked, climbing on her courser, but it was too late to hide behind fake wrath—he’d gotten her with laughter. One snickering smile and the foul winds turned sweet, her stagnant ship took sail, ocean sprayed about the bow like the tears stinging her cheeks, steaming in the air. She nearly fell from her horse laughing and crying. “God dammit, Gavin. You couldn’t have waited another year?—I swear to God, I’m going to slap him when I see him again.”
They rode out at a trot to keep off the cutting winds and talked much and more about Herbstfield’s good deacon. He was as much a grandfather as Jael had ever had, and her first lost loved one. She’d never known either of her parents’ parents, not even where they were they were from.
“Truly?” Trey said, astonished. “And you never asked?”
“I have, but Father never knew his own, and my mother’s died young. She said she moved around a lot south of the castle after that and couldn’t remember the name of her home village.”
“I suppose that makes you the start of your lineage.”
She chuckled, her cheeks stiff where the tears had dried. “The start and the end. I don’t have any siblings to carry the name.”
“A cold marriage bed, then?”
Jael nodded.
The captain glanced about the dead trees and rolling, white mounds. “Yours is too great a name to just let it die out.”
“And what exactly is so great about it?”
“You mean aside fro
m your own deeds? I thought I did well presenting them at court.”
“I mean my father’s. He’s told me loads of stories about other knights and men-at-arms, but he wouldn’t ever say anything about himself. It took talking to Sir Rillion before I even knew he was at Babylon. I used to make him tell me that one over and over, and never once did he even hint that he’d seen it first-hand.”
Trey smirked.
“What’s funny now?”
“The Babylon account,” he said like the words tasted sour, “You mean Saint Lucius’s farce, right?”
“It wasn’t a farce; it was a sermon: the orthodox version first, then Acolyte Gareth rewrote it more…flowery—but he didn’t change the details!”
“Wouldn’t have mattered if he did. Hardly a word in it is true—orthodox or not. I’ll say, though, Lucius did a damn good job at spreading the lie.”
“How do you know it’s not true?” she asked, half accused.
The captain scanned their surroundings again. “I heard it first from Bishop Ba’al. Apparently, Lucius wasn’t at all content with whatever happened with the Imps, so he drafted the Purge story to protect his legacy. I never truly looked into it, but as far as I know, all original records have been burned.”
“But the battle did happen,” Jael insisted, “so it’s at least partly true. And the seven heroes couldn’t just be made up.”
“Not all of them.”
That sent a chill down her spine worse than the numbing cold. Hesitantly, she asked, “So some of them were real?”
“Flesh and blood, none heroes though. But we should save this for another time.”
“Which ones?” pressed Leonhardt.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Jael sucked in a breath and then nodded.
“Alright. I’ll need some help with the names.”
“Warrior-Priest Desmond,” she started.
“The Watcher?” he replied. “A real fanatic, that one. The Scribes still have his letters locked up in the Temple library. There’s more than a hundred, I’ve heard, and every one a complaint about someone or another in the Order or in the church who needed to be purged. The man was a regular witch-hunter, so, ‘off to war, he goes’ says Lucius.”
“And the clerics from Quiet Harbor? Marcus and Antony?”
Gildmane stroked the blonde shadow two days grown over his chin. “Not sure, probably just a couple of left-over protestants of Lucius’s tithe cuts, if indeed they did live. It’s more likely they didn’t, though. I think the only other ‘hero’ with any record was Iago. He was one of the first missionaries Pareo sent to Babylon. Tale tells he came home in pieces. Impii savages—I swear, if Paul’s done one thing right, it was the Second Purge.”
Second Purge? she’d never heard of that before. Then, doubtful, she wondered, Is he trying to lead me off the trail again? “What about the converts? and Camilla?”
He leaned back in his saddle. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? The three of them are almost certainly whole cloth. You’ve seen for yourself how impossible it is to bring pagans into the faith. They’re practically wild animals. Likewise, you saw how many strings I had to pull for your own knighthood, and even then half the lords stormed out of the room. No, there never was a woman knight before you, Jael. Camilla is just a convenient way the church could reclaim some interest from the skylords. There’s a limit to how much power tithes can buy, after all.”
“You said Bishop Ba’al told you this?” asked Jael, watching the captain stare into the sky. When he would not meet her eyes, she knew he was hiding something. “Why do you trust him so much? What makes him different from the rest of the clergy?”
“Going straight for the source, huh? You’re getting good at this, Leonhardt—but you asked me a question, ‘Why do I trust him?’ And I ask you this, ‘Why should a child trust his father?’ Because the scriptures say too, or does a child even care about truth? What is truth to a child? To a man? It is whatever allows him to live in the world, to conquer it, shape it to his whims.” His gaze descended from Heaven to the road ahead, then at last to Jael beside him. “But you don’t have to trust me. Why don’t we ask the former captain of the Temple Guard himself? Is that his farm there?”
Her head snapped around like she’d been slapped with a gauntlet, and her gasp intimated much the same. A sudden rush of feeling flushed the tip of her nose, her ears, her cheeks, her fingers and toes. Her legs came alive tight about the sides of her horse; she threw her body forward, felt the speed of the courser become wind, its hooves turn to hammers on the surface of the snowy road. And for just those few moments, her heart warmed. She was home.
Across acres of frozen beans, peas, carrots, and onions smoked the Leonhardt farmhouse with its dug out stable and snow-buried barn. A fire was roaring in the kitchen hearth, she could smell the wood-smoke; and as she drew closer, the sweet scent of fried dough and the tang of meat pies with mustard. Her mouth watered. She dismounted at a half-trot, Trey still galloping to catch up as she tied her courser beside Troy in the stable. The old hackney hardly noticed, though Jael took note of the goatskin curtains lining the stall—a new addition—but just then, the captain reined in, and she heard commotion coming from the house. The kitchen door creaked open then shut. Gildmane was securing his horse as the figure turned the corner.
“Father?” Jael called.
Ricard entered the stable looking more a bear than she’d ever known him, his shoulders broader from working the winter crop, his belly rounder from autumn barely, and his whole head was a mess of brown curls—loose on top and wiry at his beard. He grinned, and that’s when she saw the thick, pink scar slashing his face, the unfamiliar sword hanging from his waist. “I was hoping it was robbers again, but I suppose my daughter will do.”
Jael sprinted the distance and leapt into her father’s arms. He squeezed and she winced at the knives in her ribcage till he placed her on the ground in front of him.
Still grinning, he asked, “How goes it, squire?”
“She’s been knighted, actually,” answered Trey, stepping forward. He bowed, “Please excuse the insolence. It’s an honour to meet you, Sir Leonhardt. My name is Trey Gildmane, knight-paladin and captain of the Saint’s Cross.”
Ricard slung an arm around his daughter and pointed a finger at the captain. “Listen to this one. ‘Knight-paladin,’ he says. He’s trying to get one over on you Leonhardt.” He let out a giant’s guffaw—then no sooner did Trey join in did Ricard turn dead serious. “You’d better not be playing with me, boy, or I swear I’ll break your neck.”
Gildmane stuttered a syllable before Jael’s father hoisted him a foot off the ground, one hand clutching his collar, the other a cocked fist rolled thick as a boulder.
“Stop! Stop! It’s true, I swear!” shouted Jael to Trey’s rescue.
A moment’s pause—Ricard dropped the captain and steadied himself on his daughter’s arms. “Truly?” he uttered, his tone and breath like sweet willow ale.
She glanced aside to make sure Trey was alright, then to her father, she confessed, “It was only a few days ago, but—”
At once, the old Guard captain swept Leonhardt up in his powerful arms, and again she winced at the stabbing in her ribs. Only this time, her father noticed. “You’re hurt.” He set her down gently, waited expectantly while she caught her breath.
“It’s nothing,” she finally said.
“Forgive me, Sir,” started Trey, back on his feet and brushing hay from his cloak, “it was my fault…” He hesitated, his body rigid for a second expecting to be throttled again. But it seemed Ricard was done playing around. Gildmane continued, “It was my fault. We were on a raid with the Watcher’s when it happened. It was supposed to be a soft target, the remnants of a pagan village, something for Jael sharpen her teeth on.”
“It was her first real action, then?”
“Yes…” Trey hesitated. “And all was going well until the pagans used some sort of spell craft: they
summoned a thick mist, and inside that, a demon—if you’ll believe it. Whatever it was injured her just before she slew it. Six broken ribs and those scars on her face.”
The old Guard captain squinted in the dim of the stable. “Scars?”
“My apologies,” repeated Gildmane, bowing, his voice tense.
“They’re not so bad,” Jael interjected.
Ricard frowned. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“As do you,” she challenged her father, pointing out the pink slash fresh on his face. But just then, Dahilla called for her husband from within the kitchen. Supper was ready, she said, her voice was worried, so Ricard hurried Jael and Trey inside, promising stories and surprises and mustard meat pies.
The man did not lie. Within, the kitchen was a transformed thing from when Leonhardt had last set foot inside. She’d gone back in time, a girl once more—only she never remembered her home feeling so warm. Light from half a dozen candle lamps and the blazing hearth made bright the glazed vases placed artfully about the table and counter top. The floor had been swept and mopped, sanded and oiled. And over the table, a simple linen cloth, quilted cushions on the newly hewn stools. But it was more than the room. Who was this plump and simple woman serving pies onto the table—her smile, stable; her gestures, calm—where all before were faerie hysterics? Where was her precious dress of lilac silk now changed for a cotton frock dyed the color of jonquil? Jael lived the confusion and terror of the Watcher’s raid all over again—then she saw him and realized the worst was yet ahead.
Spotting her simultaneously, Zach’s squinty eyes spread wide as he started to rise from his seat; and Leonhardt, faster than the rhythm of her frantic heart, flew with autonomic movement across the crowded kitchen to a stool opposite him. She felt the quivering in her breast before she ever heard it as she said, “Zach! What are you doing here?”
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