“You look upon me with contempt, as does your wife,” he said.
Queen Olym gasped in exasperation, even gave a little wail.
“I see it and I do not blame you at all, given the horrible treatment the Order of Abelle has shown to you,” De Guilbe explained. “You scarcely looked at me on the docks, other than a single sneer.”
“You would elevate yourself to the level of Laird Panlamaris, then?” the king asked incredulously. “Or that of his son, who conquered a third of Honce in my name? You believe that you, a monk who no longer even has Artolivan’s ear, is as important to me as those two?”
“More important,” De Guilbe said matter-of-factly, his barrel chest puffing out.
King Yeslnik seemed less than impressed. Queen Olym gave a bored sigh.
“An army might win a man’s body by either breaking it wholly or forcing him to inaction,” De Guilbe explained. “No doubt your great armies will sweep the land with the banners of King Yeslnik and Delaval City. But it is the church and not the state that keeps peasants truly in line. Would you have your entire reign be a matter of destroying one revolt after another?”
“You presume much.”
“I have seen much. The folk of Honce—of any land—need the reassurance that their miserable existence will lead them to some place better. They need hope in eternal life and justice. The Samhaists provided that, albeit harshly, but they are of little consequence now. Because of the war, because of the healing powers of our gemstones, the Order of Abelle has become ascendant. We are the guardians of eternity and the partner you will need if you hope to keep the peasants in line.”
“I mean to kill Father Artolivan. You do understand that, I hope.”
“I would kill him myself if the opportunity ever arose.”
Yeslnik didn’t immediately respond, other than to tilt his head back and study the man more carefully. After a long silence Queen Olym remarked, “He wants Chapel Abelle for himself!”
“Ah,” Yeslnik agreed, as if she had obviously hit the mark.
“We cannot wait for Chapel Abelle to fall,” Father De Guilbe replied.
“We?” asked Yeslnik.
“You have already announced that you will march to Ethelbert’s gates first. You will tame the land around Chapel Abelle to isolate Artolivan and Gwydre and their traitorous followers. You will not return before the end of summer, surely, and you will not camp your army on the field throughout the Honce winter. Nor do I expect defeating the chapel will come easily if you assembled a hundred thousand strong warriors for the task! Her walls are thick and tall and her brothers skilled at the use of gemstone magic, as Laird Panlamaris will surely attest.”
“He doesn’t believe in you, my great king,” Olym remarked, but Yeslnik hushed her with an upraised hand.
“Your assault will not begin within a year, and I fear it may be several more before you finally break through those walls and expel the traitors.”
Again Olym tried to protest and again Yeslnik silenced her by putting the back of his palm before her face.
“You do not have several years,” said De Guilbe. “The peasants will need reassurance. They need to believe that their eternal—”
“Laird Panlamaris has already told me of your wishes to be instilled as an alternative father of the order,” King Yeslnik interrupted.
“His wishes, as well. He understands the need.”
“And I do not?”
“I would never hint at such a thing, my king. I am well-known among the brothers of Abelle. When I was selected to travel to Alpinador those years ago, every brother in the order heard my name, and they knew it even before that time, during the years when I was a leading master at Chapel Abelle. More than a few of my brethren understand, as do I, that Father Artolivan’s decision to walk a neutral line in the greatest war Honce has ever known was a fool’s errand. Wars have winners and losers, and it has been clear from the beginning that Delaval City would become the center of Honce, and her laird the new king of the land. I argued for such as soon as I returned from my adventures in the north. I told Artolivan to follow your edict to its fullest extent with great hope that the war would then soon end and you could assume leadership over the unified kingdom.”
“Perhaps you were not as influential as you believed, eh?” Yeslnik said cleverly.
“Not with Artolivan’s minions at Chapel Abelle and certainly not with Dame Gwydre and her followers,” De Guilbe admitted. “If ever there was an argument against allowing a woman to preside over a holding, Dame Gwydre is it!”
The two men laughed at that declaration, but Olym didn’t follow suit. Yeslnik, then De Guilbe, cut the laughter short with an uncomfortable cough or two.
“You need to give the brothers of the many chapels a choice apart from Father Artolivan,” De Guilbe explained. “There will be debate in every chapel regarding the edicts of Father Artolivan, and it will oft be contested. If you present an alternative to Artolivan—Father De Guilbe of the Chapel of Precious Memories here in Palmaristown—then those arguments will be less conclusive. More and more brothers will cease to resist you as you sweep the land of all resistance to your inevitable rule.” Artolivan paused thoughtfully before adding, “Besides, my king, your ascent is obviously not without the sanction of God.”
Yeslnik’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Absent God’s graces, no man may ever claim such a title,” De Guilbe explained. “Thus, you are not merely King Yeslnik but Blessed King Yeslnik.”
Yeslnik paused and looked to Olym, but she could only offer a shrug in response. “You really believe that?” Yeslnik asked.
“It matters not,” said De Guilbe. “All that matters for your security and the strength of your kingdom is that the peasants believe it.”
“Can I trust you, Father De Guilbe? I do not even know you.”
“You can trust the judgment of Laird Panlamaris. You can know for certain that I left Chapel Abelle in disgust over Father Artolivan’s refusal to admit the obvious: that Yeslnik is King of Honce and that we, his servants, are duty bound to abide by his edicts. That much, my king, you can verify and trust.”
“Loyal to me?” the king asked. He held out his hand, a large jeweled ring sparkling in the room’s torchlight. De Guilbe immediately fell to one knee, took up the slight hand, and kissed the ring.
“I may decide to move you to Chapel Delaval,” Yeslnik said. “It would do well and wise for the seat of the church and state to be near each other, for we would need to converse often.”
“I go where you command,” De Guilbe said with a deeper bow of his head.
“For now that would be the Chapel of Precious Memories. Better that you are here, where the common folk are both weary and wary. I’ll not return to Delaval City until the autumn at least, so I’ll not need you there until then. My subjects of Delaval are very loyal.”
“I am to claim myself as Father De Guilbe of the Chapel of Precious Memories?”
“I will make that claim for you, of course, and will also declare that the Chapel of Precious Memories serves as temporary seat of power for the Order of Abelle.”
“Your faith in me is greatly appreciated,” De Guilbe said.
“Faith?” Yeslnik snickered at him. “I will watch you in your new role. If I am pleased, I will formally appoint you the head of the Order of Abelle. . . .” He paused and considered the sound of that for a few moments. “Your first command from the throne, Father De Guilbe,” he prompted. “Find a new name for your church.”
De Guilbe looked at him curiously.
“It should have a reference to me in it somewhere,” said Yeslnik.
De Guilbe’s eyes widened, but he withered under the cold stare of Queen Olym and held silent.
“Yes, to the king,” Yeslnik said, obviously thinking out loud. “The divine king.” With a wide grin, a wicked grin, he looked at the stunned father. “Surely my ascent is more than accident,” he reasoned. “You just said as much.”
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“I said that the peasants needed to believe in such—”
“You do not agree?”
“I . . . I, there is a difference between the secular and the spiritual, I believe—”
“The Brothers of Abelle have long claimed a beneficent god, have they not? A shepherd overseeing the flock of man who blesses many with magical healing and other divine gifts if they believe that he is the way to eternity?”
“Yes, but—”
“But? Father, if such a god exists—and you believe he does—then surely his will is involved in settling the outcome of this greatest of conflicts. Honce is unified for the first time—or soon will be. A king will rule Honce for the first time, and that king will be me. If divine providence would play no role in that, then how are we to believe your claims of a god who cares about the plight of his flock?”
Father De Guilbe made no move to answer for, indeed, he had no retort against the outlandish claim.
“I am not merely a secular king, then,” said Yeslnik. “I am a divine king. A divine king who deems your order misguided and nullified and who, by his graces, restores that order under the watchful eye of Father De Guilbe.” He paused for a heartbeat before adding, “Perhaps.”
The unambiguous qualifier stole any forthcoming debate from De Guilbe. Yeslnik made it clear with his tone and posture that De Guilbe was in a trial period here and that the impetuous king would think it no large matter to simply replace him.
“The Church of Divine Yeslnik!” Queen Olym blurted, clapping her hands together.
Yeslnik smiled at her but patted his hands in the air to tamper her sudden enthusiasm. “Father De Guilbe will find the right notes,” he assured her and warned De Guilbe at the same time.
“Indeed, my king,” De Guilbe replied and bowed again, and he started backing out of the room before he even stood up straight again, for Yeslnik was absently waving him away. As he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him, he heard Olym say to her husband, “Brilliant play!”
The father sighed and stood upright, considering. He could do this, he supposed. What mattered the name, anyway? Still, for all his reassurances he found himself muttering curses at Father Artolivan as he headed for the castle exit. If only Artolivan had gone along with Yeslnik’s demands! The Laird of Delaval had won the war, after all! Of that there could be no doubt.
Now to restore the church to any semblance of prominence De Guilbe would have no choice other than to give in to King Yeslnik’s every self-glorifying demand.
“So be it,” the man said, focusing his anger on the brothers he had left at Chapel Abelle and not on the rather pathetic King Yeslnik. He muttered a few possibilities before nodding as he said, “The Church of the Divine King.”
Yes, De Guilbe thought, that one might be ambiguous enough to satisfy both of his needs.
Bludgeon them mercilessly,” King Yeslnik instructed Laird Panlamaris and Prince Milwellis. “Fell every tree between here and Chapel Abelle to build your catapults and throw stones and livestock and peasants alike at their walls. Bring them pain. And do not let even one of them escape your web.”
The Prince of Palmaristown nodded, quite satisfied with the task put before him.
“My ships will secure the river, let yours secure the gulf,” the king said to Panlamaris. “Let us destroy any powries that may still be about and, more importantly, do not allow any to sail out of Chapel Abelle’s docks.”
“And none from Vanguard,” Laird Panlamaris replied. “Oh, but we’ll be paying Dame Gwydre’s ports a visit or ten.”
“As you will,” Yeslnik said. “Your primary duty is to secure the siege of Chapel Abelle and to send the wretched powries to a cold and watery death. If you find the time to harass the minions of Dame Gwydre in Vanguard, then go with my blessing.”
“We should destroy the wench now and be done with her and with those idiot monks,” Panlamaris replied.
“One snake at a time,” Yeslnik replied. “One snake at a time, and that snake now is Ethelbert. My army swells with the soldiers of the western holdings. I will gather Laird Bannagran in my wake and ride straight to Ethelbert’s gates. His city will be mine before midsummer’s day.”
Yeslnik smiled, noting Prince Milwellis’s uncomfortable shuffle. “Bannagran will know no more glory than the man who rains punishment upon the treasonous monks in Chapel Abelle,” he promised. “Palmaristown will be the second city of Honce, behind Delaval, and it occurs to me that the great Laird Panlamaris’s son should not wait for his father’s death to find his own holding.”
“Here now, my king!” Panlamaris protested.
“Ethelbert,” Yeslnik explained. “When I have chased the scum laird into the Mirianic, his city will need a new laird. Perhaps your son will be that man, and what a glorious control that would afford the both of you of the long coast of Honce!”
Milwellis looked to his father with clear intrigue and excitement, but he found no such reciprocal expression. No, from Panlamaris there was only the unrelenting anger toward Gwydre and Artolivan, the curs who had loosed powries upon his beloved Palmaristown.
King Yeslnik remarked that he was tired and took his leave, but when he and Queen Olym reached their private room they were anything but weary!
“My king!” she tittered and swooned. “O, Divine King! Take me!”
She didn’t have to ask twice.
Later, as the two lay in bed, Yeslnik asked, “Do you think I handled them accordingly?”
“You warned the monk, who was too independent, and you brought hope back to Panlamaris and his son,” Olym replied. “Your wisdom knows no bounds and grows by the day. You will have everything you desire. Bannagran, more worthy than Milwellis by far, will lead your charge against Ethelbert. And with so fat a carrot dangled before their lustful eyes, know that Panlamaris and his son will not let Dame Gwydre and the monks escape their prison at Chapel Abelle. Your enemies have herded themselves into irrelevance, and Father De Guilbe, distasteful creature that he is, will frighten the other chapels to accede to your desires.
“Accordingly, my love?” she said mockingly. “Nay, masterfully. The world is yours, is ours, by autumn’s turn.”
SIX
Dealing at Heaven’s Door
He approached at night, for he wasn’t certain if new residents had come to the house. He expected that some had, given what he had seen in the last miles of his trek. Only one year before, the hill upon which this house stood had been the outskirts of Pryd Town and afforded a view beyond the borders of civilization. But how the place had grown! Hundreds of new cottages had been constructed; an entire forest had been cleared away! And all for security reasons, Bransen realized. None had made a greater name for himself in the miserable war than Laird Bannagran of Pryd, whose garrison had chased Ethelbert’s army from the field and rescued many towns from the crush of enemies.
When he had come through Pryd Town briefly with Jameston, Bransen had approached from the north and departed to the east, and in those places, though there were more cottages, the region seemed much the same. But here across the way, in the southwestern reaches of the holding, the explosion of residents was truly dramatic.
Bransen noted no candles burning in the house as he climbed the hill. So many memories followed him to the doorstep. The broken door and darkness beyond showed him to his surprise that the place had remained deserted, though whether out of respect for the former residents, fear of some curse because of their apparent fate, or simply because Pryd Town’s traditional populace had been decimated in the many months of fighting, where so many of her men and women had marched off to battle, he could not tell.
This had been the home of Callen Duwornay and her daughter, Cadayle. Here Bransen, disguised as the Highwayman, had first courted Cadayle. Here on this very spot before the door marked where the Highwayman had killed his first enemy, a thug who had come here to do great harm to Cadayle and her mother.
Mixed emotions filled the young man
as he stood staring at the spot where he had killed that young man. His actions had been justified—necessary even—for the sake of the women, and he felt no remorse for the thug. But in the larger reality of the world that had fallen like a boulder upon him, the sense of futility and ultimate despair colored his every thought. He couldn’t escape the sense that the road he had begun that night at this door, the role he had taken on as a defender of some greater sense of justice, seemed the fool’s errand.
Bransen walked away. He couldn’t smooth the dissonance of his thoughts and feelings. He had done right in coming here to defend Cadayle and Callen on that long-ago night. Of course he had! But to what end? To what point?
He thought of Dame Gwydre as he walked across the rolling fields of Pryd Holding. The fighting had not come here, other than one small battle, and so the town itself appeared much as it had when Bransen had called it home only a year before.
Only a year, but it seemed like a lifetime to the young man. He could hardly believe the journey, physically and emotionally. He had walked from Pryd Town to great Delaval City and up the river to Palmaristown. From there, he had gone to Chapel Abelle and across the Gulf of Corona to Vanguard. Pressed in service to the Lady of Vanguard, he had traveled to the wild and frigid land of Alpinador.
And all the way back again, across the gulf to Chapel Abelle, south to Pryd Town and to the far eastern reaches of Honce to Ethelbert dos Entel. Despite the widening boundaries of its cottages and tents, how small Pryd Town looked to him now! Bransen had spent the entirety of his life here until that fateful night when, in rescuing Cadayle, he had also brought about the death of Laird Prydae. His road had begun with banishment, and in so short a time he had traversed the length and breadth of Honce and more. Was there a man alive more traveled than he?
That thought led him back to Jameston Sequin and reminded him of the man’s tragic fate . . . and all for the crime of escorting Bransen to the east.
He paused on a hilltop, Castle Pryd and Chapel Pryd visible in the north, Cadayle’s house behind him in the southwest, and the edges of a small lake visible across the way. There lay his first home, with Garibond Womak, before the ailing and aging man had put him in service to the brothers at Chapel Pryd.
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