Abbot Dusibol held up his hands in surrender and gave a slight shake of his head. He would not oppose the nomination, were it now or the next day, Braumin knew. None would. But to promote Arri before the decisions were brought regarding the wayward sister would afford the man tremendous influence in that trial.
And so a fourth Abbot joined the ranks of Braumin Herde, Haney, and Dusibol soon after, and a fifth followed closely when, to Braumin’s dismay, the contingent from St. Honce selected Ohwan, a man who had been the choice of Marcalo De’Unnero! Father Abbot Braumin would have fought that choice, except that the large contingent from St. Honce had been united on the choice, and were not without allies from the other abbeys and chapels, particularly the myriad chapels from southern Honce-the-Bear, all closely connected to the great city of Ursal.
Braumin Herde wasn’t surprised, but the easy ascent of Ohwan served as a poignant reminder to the Father Abbot that those who believed in the vision of De’Unnero had not all died that fateful day in the fight at St.-Mere-Abelle. Now the Father Abbot would have a man who had been loyal to De’Unnero serving as Abbot of the second most important abbey of the Church, just down the lane from the palace of King Midalis in the largest and most important city, Ursal.
“So what of my abbey, Father Abbot?” Abbot Arri asked a short while later. “Will you grant me a force to go and reclaim it?”
“The group is on the way,” Braumin replied. “The three sisters you witnessed in battle last night, along with one of our most promising brothers. They will return to us the information we need to properly reclaim St. Gwendolyn.”
“I would begin rebuilding my abbey now, from this place, if I may,” said Arri, and Braumin nodded.
He looked to Mars, who held his breath. He had renounced De’Unnero to the Father Abbot, though Braumin wasn’t convinced. Still, considering what had just happened regarding St. Honce …
“I would bring my brother back to St. Gwendolyn,” Arri suggested. “Master Mars.”
Father Abbot Braumin looked around, and the most disconcerted look he saw coming back at him was from his dear friend Viscenti (who, like Braumin, was far from convinced of Mars’s loyalty to this current incarnation of the Church).
“I ask, too, that we four Abbots retire to private quarters to determine the disposition of Sister Mary Ann,” said Arri.
“No!” someone called from the back. “It is a matter for all of us!”
Many arguments erupted immediately at that, but above them came the demand of Abbot Arri. “This would be a matter for my abbey alone, were it properly staffed. As it is not, I would ask for a quiet place of reason and justice, among the Abbots alone. It is my right.”
More shouts came back, but Father Abbot Braumin slammed his gavel to silence them. “It is Abbot Arri’s right.”
He adjourned the meeting immediately and the five retired to a smaller room, where Braumin bade Sister Mary Ann to speak on her own behalf.
He loved the fire the woman showed! She would not back down and would not deny the truth: that she was in love with a Samhaist priest.
“And where does this love place your loyalties with regard to our Church?” asked Abbot Dusibol pointedly. “Surely you are demanding excommunication!”
“Or perhaps she is choosing the man, and not his ways,” Abbot Arri offered to soften that blow.
“Are they not one and the same?” Dusibol pressed.
“Sister?” Father Abbot Braumin prompted.
“It is hard to know what I believe,” Mary Ann admitted. “I believed in my Church and my brethren, and yet they came against me, to kill me. This man, who I am told I must despise, saved my life, and almost at the price of his own.” She reached into her belt pouch and produced a soul stone. “I called upon God, my God, our God, and he granted me the powers of the Ring Stone, and through it, I returned the act and saved Elliot’s life. Does that matter not at all?”
“He is a Samhaist,” Ohwan said with open disgust. “Need I list to you the atrocities of that foul religion?”
“Need I recount for you the image of the skin curling from the bones of goodly and godly Master Jojonah?” Father Abbot Braumin countered.
The hateful look Abbot Ohwan flashed him at that served as a warning of things to come, Braumin knew.
“What would you have, Abbot Arri?” Braumin asked.
“I would take Sister Mary Ann back to St. Gwendolyn with me, if she will,” he answered. “Her reputation is without blemish.”
“Until this,” Abbot Ohwan said with a sneer.
“I will not denounce Elliot,” Mary Ann insisted. “Nor will I pretend that my love for him is no more.”
“But you wish to remain an Abellican?” Braumin asked.
Mary Ann hesitated and looked to Arri. “Yes,” she then answered.
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure of nothing anymore, Father Abbot,” she answered honestly. “I thought my life settled and complete, but Marcalo De’Unnero and his followers showed me differently.”
Braumin nodded, and bade her to go into the anteroom that they might discuss their decision, and when it came to that moment of truth, Father Abbot Braumin was greatly surprised and greatly relieved to discover that he would not have to exercise his greater rank to break the tie, for Abbot Dusibol voted Sister Mary Ann innocent along with Arri and Braumin, and Abbot Ohwan, frustrated as he was, had no recourse and so agreed to accept the decision.
“All that we ask of you,” Braumin explained to Mary Ann later on, “is that if ever you learn something of the Samhaists that is important to our Church, to your Church, that you not be silent.”
“You would have me be your spy?”
“I would have you be honest,” Braumin replied immediately. “To us and to your love. Should you come to see the Samhaist way as suited to your heart, then you must renounce your position in the Abellican Church. Until you have done so, you must never forget your responsibilities to St. Gwendolyn-by-the-Sea and to the other abbeys and chapels. If the Samhaists plan to return in large numbers and vie with us for the hearts of Honce, then we will know of it, Sister Mary Ann.”
She started to argue, but Braumin cut her short in no uncertain terms.
“When we go back out among the others, there will be calls for you to be executed, sister,” he said harshly, and Mary Ann stiffened her jaw and did not blink. “Do you understand what Abbot Arri and I, and even Abbot Dusibol, have offered to you? In any normal time, you would be found guilty of heresy and burned alive. Or even if mercy were to be shown, you would have your head shaven and would be stripped of your robes, outcast from the Order of St. Abelle forever. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Father Abbot,” she said quietly, and humbly.
“But these are not normal times,” Braumin went on. “Abbot Arri trusts you, and needs you, as do I. You accept our offer to remain in the Church, so you cannot dismiss the responsibilities that come with the white robe you wear.”
“Yes, Father Abbot,” she said.
“Good then, it is settled. Be true to your heart, sister, in all matters.”
When they went back out among the others, and Sister Mary Ann took her place beside Arri and Mars, Braumin’s prediction came true, and indeed calls of “Burn her!” erupted in the hall, and so began another great argument, like all the others before it.
Except this time Father Abbot Braumin would not hear it. He slammed down the gavel repeatedly, demanding quiet, and when finally it came, he spoke with the voice of Avelyn, and Jojonah, and Jilseponie, and Mullahy, and Francis even. He spoke with the voice of all who had stood up against the abomination that had festered in his beloved Abellican Church.
“We are Avelyn!” he shouted. “We are not Markwart! We are Jojonah—Saint Jojonah, I say, and so I will prove! We are Jilseponie, who battled the demon dactyl beside Avelyn, and who should now be sitting as Mother Abbess of our Order—would any have dared vote against her?”
The Father Abbot paused the
re again, but not a sound was to be heard in the hall.
Pointedly, staring at the contingent from St. Honce, he finished, “We are not Marcalo De’Unnero.”
And so the debate of Sister Mary Ann ended, but had Father Abbot Braumin glanced her way with his final proclamation, he might have noticed the scowl that crossed the face of Master Mars, standing right beside her.
* * *
“I’ve rarely seen a man pout for so long without reprieve,” Diamanda teased Thaddius as they gathered about the fire on their third night out of St.-Mere-Abelle. The weather was cold and miserable, with cold rain, sleet, and even snow taking turns falling on the adventuring foursome.
Still, the other three knew well that Diamanda wasn’t talking about the dreary weather. The three sisters, so thrilled at being able to fully realize their dreams in joining the Abellican Church, so excited about the possibilities Pagonel had shown to them and their remarkable progress in just a few weeks of intense training, could not be muted by clouds and cold rain. Their steps could not be slowed by the mud.
And they had embraced Brother Thaddius fully, their every discussion in the days before their departure pertaining to how they could properly incorporate him into their defensive formation for maximum effect, or of how they had to protect him, so proficient with the Ring Stones, at all costs. When they had left St.-Mere-Abelle, Father Abbot Braumin had told them all that Thaddius was considered the leader of the band, and not one of the sisters had protested publicly or privately.
But Thaddius wouldn’t engage them, wouldn’t answer their talk with anything more than a noncommittal grunt, and wouldn’t even look any of them in the eye. His every expression exuded disgust.
And he was disgusted, and thoroughly, and not only by the inclusion of so many sisters, which before had been a matter of tokenism and nothing substantial, but by the inclusion of unworthy individuals, like Elysant, who could not use the Ring Stones, or even Diamanda, who could barely bring forth their powers. Thaddius had left friends who could not enter the Church with him those few years ago, and most of them, in his mind, were far more worthy than these three.
He had complained about that very thing to Father Abbot Braumin on the day of their departure, and Braumin had promised that he would go back and call upon many of the brothers who had not come to St.-Mere-Abelle beside Thaddius.
Thaddius didn’t believe him, but even if he had, those friends he had left behind did not deserve this honor of ordainment in any case!
But this, these three and the others Braumin had pushed into St.-Mere-Abelle … this was an abomination!
And Mars, Master Mars! Thaddius had gone to great lengths to chase the man out of the Church, and now he was back and as a Master? The man couldn’t light an oil-soaked rag with a ruby on a sunny day!
“Have you ever before seen a man whose entire life had been proven a lie?” Thaddius shot back at the tall and powerful Disciple of St. Bruce.
“Are you a follower of De’Unnero, then?” a smiling Elysant teased, and it was just a lighthearted remark, they all knew, for smiling Elysant seemed incapable of harboring a malicious thought.
The look Brother Thaddius threw back at her, however, was full of just such a sentiment.
“Your home was attacked by De’Unnero!” Diamanda exclaimed.
“He did not say that he followed the man,” Elysant cut in.
“Need it be one or the other?” Thaddius said. “Perhaps there is good in what Father Abbot Braumin is trying to do…”
“But perhaps there was truth in De’Unnero, too, yes? And in Markwart before him?”
Thaddius stared at her but didn’t respond.
“It galls you that we are in the Church now,” Diamanda asserted.
Brother Thaddius didn’t reply, but did glare at her.
Elysant hopped over to sit on the fallen log beside the man, and put her arm about him. He looked at her with a shocked expression, and she kissed him on the cheek. “You will come to love us, brother,” she said with a grin.
Thaddius didn’t reply, but this time because anything he tried to say would have been stammered gibberish. He was quite relieved when Elysant moved away again, to the laughter of the other two.
“We will prove ourselves,” Victoria said then, and in all seriousness. “That is all we ever asked for, brother, a chance to prove worthy of the Church we all love.”
“And does loving the Church count for nothing with you?” Diamanda added.
Thaddius looked down into the bowl of stew, and lifted another steaming bite to his lips.
Diamanda started to speak again, but she was overruled then by a gruff, unexpected voice.
“Yach, but there ye are, ye blasted monks,” came a call from the side, through the trees, and the four looked over to see a group of squat and square figures coming their way. Short and powerful warriors wearing distinctive red berets.
“Powries,” Diamanda whispered.
Elysant moved as if to reply, but she really couldn’t get any words past the lump in her throat. She looked to Thaddius, as if expecting, hoping, praying that he would launch some lightning of fire, or some other enchantment to blow these monsters away! But he sat as wide-eyed and dumbstruck as she.
“Be ready,” Victoria whispered harshly from the side. “We have prepared for this!”
“Ye said ye’d be meeting us in the morn, and so ye was nowheres to be found!” the powrie grumbled.
“Yach, but never could depend on weakling humans,” said another, and he spat upon the ground.
There were five of the dwarves at least, moving in a tight but disorganized bunch straight through the trees toward the camp. They all carried weapons: an axe, a spiked club, a couple of long and serrated knives, and the one in the middle, the primary speaker, held something that looked like the bastard offspring of a double-bladed axe and a handful of throwing daggers, all wrapped together into a long-handled weapon that seemed like it could do damage from about ten different angles all at once!
To the side, Victoria slowly picked up her short bow.
“They think us allies,” Thaddius whispered.
“Well, see, then, what your words might do,” said Victoria, who appeared very calm through it all, more than ready to fight. Her hand held steady the bow, her other eased an arrow from the quiver she had set upon the ground against the log she used for her seat. When she got that one out, she stuck it in the ground beside her foot in easy grasp and began subtly reaching for the next one.
That movement, so calm, so practiced, so mindful of the lessons of Pagonel, proved infectious for the other two sisters. Elysant moved off the log, but stayed in a crouch, quietly bringing her quarterstaff up before her, while Diamanda slowly shifted around the back of Elysant, putting the defensive Disciple of St. Belfour in the middle, between herself and Victoria.
“Quite far enough,” Thaddius said, standing up. “What do you want?”
“Eh?” the powrie asked, and he stopped, as did the four flanking him.
“We said we would meet you in the morning, at the appointed spot,” Thaddius bluffed. “Tomorrow morning!”
“Not what was said,” the dwarf replied. “And not said be yerself, either.”
“Yach, who’s this one, then?” asked another of the powries.
“Ain’t seen him before,” said yet another.
The one in the middle, clearly the leader, patted his thick hands in the air to quiet them. “In the morning, meaning tomorrow morning, eh?” he asked, his voice conciliatory and reasonable.
“Yes, when we join with the others,” Thaddius replied.
“Where might they be?” asked the dwarf. “Over in the farmhouses, then?”
Thaddius looked around at his allies, searching for some answer. “Aye,” he blurted. “That’s where we were to meet them, and with important news from the west. And in the morning, tomorrow morning, we’ll all gather and talk.”
The dwarves looked around at each other. A couple mumbled under
their breath, too low for the monks to hear.
“Ah, but I’m losing me patience,” said the leader. “Right at dawn then, and don’t ye be late!” He spun about and slapped the dwarf near him on the shoulder, and the group started away.
“By God,” Elysant breathed a moment later. “Bloody cap dwarves!”
“We should move, and quickly,” Thaddius advised, and the two women nearest him nodded.
“No,” said Victoria, surprisingly, and when the three looked at her, they noted that she had set an arrow to her bowstring, two others stuck into the ground in easy reach. “They will be back,” she quietly and calmly whispered. “Ready your gemstones, Brother Thaddius. Diamanda, slip off to the side and put that cat’s eye circlet to use.”
“How can you know?” Elysant asked, but Victoria held up her hand to silence the woman.
On Victoria’s lead, the three slipped back a bit, to the edge of the low glow of the campfire.
And waited. Their hearts thrummed, but every passing moment seemed an eternity.
“You will stay close, but behind Elysant, Brother Thaddius,” Victoria reminded him.
“I am the leader,” Thaddius replied.
“Elysant, dear sister, fall back on your training,” Victoria quietly encouraged her, ignoring Thaddius. “Remember the arena. Those brothers were formidable, yet not one got a strike past the swift movements of your quarterstaff. We are ready, sister.”
“We are ready, sister,” Elysant echoed.
“Right, southeast!” came Diamanda’s call from the side, just as the dwarves appeared again before them, four this time, weapons high and charging through the trees.
Victoria stepped forward, right before Elysant, and leveled her bow, pointing out in the general direction Diamanda had indicated.
“Two fingers left,” Diamanda corrected, and Victoria shifted and let fly.
“They come!” Thaddius warned, but Diamanda noted movement in the woods and knew that her arrow had not missed the mark by much. She reached back and grabbed a second, and that too flew off, and this time, they heard a grunt as it struck home!
“They are here!” Thaddius cried. “Swords! Swords!”
Reckoning of Fallen Gods Page 47