Flesh and Spirit (10 page)

“No cowards or gutterwipes will pass this gate before their lord,” said the officer through clenched teeth, “and he will
not
share a common blessing given by some underling friar. He will have his proper reception.”

“Naturally, protocol must be followed.” The monk spread his hands in helpless resignation. “I'll encourage our infirmarian to attend your lord immediately.” One could not mistake a barb of indignation amid the proffered roses.

“See that you do, monk.” The officer nodded stiffly and retreated to a knot of men in the very center of the field—a cadre of knights, twelve lances sprouting from them like a stand of needlegrass.

What lord lay there with no horses or banners? Some landless edane, no doubt, who thought himself Iero's chosen for surviving when mardanes, ducs, and princes lay dead or captive. None of the regular soldiers paid him any notice.

Nestled above the tunnel between the twin gate towers was the room where, as Saint Ophir had commanded, one member of the Gillarine fraternity remained ever alert for those in need of sanctuary—certainly to my own benefit. As I weighed the efforts of finding another haven, someone poked his head from the window and yelled, “Hark, Father Prior!”

The stocky monk craned his neck to see the caller. “Must you shout so loud, Brother Cosmos? Even
underling friars
must maintain our wits and decorum.” His politeness had shriveled like a currant.

“There are more men on the ridge, Father Prior. Coming this way.” Brother Cosmos damped his volume, but he could not mute the quaver of fear that accompanied his report.

“Riders or foot?” said the prior, squinting into the murky evening beyond the firelit field.

“I'm not certain. They seem to move too quickly for foot. Perhaps one with better eyes should take up the watch. If we could just move these men inside—”

The prior sighed deeply. “The soldiers cannot move without their officers' orders, so we must await Father Abbot. The newcomers are likely more sad cases like these.”

“But—”

The stocky monk silenced the protest with a warning finger. “Age does not preclude punishment for disobedience, Cosmos. Stay at your post. As the saint taught, good order will carry us through all earthly trials.” He folded his arms and surveyed the field, dispatching the monks here and there as they bustled through the gates.

Perhaps innocent men were not primed to expect trouble when dealing with such ugliness as war. Or perhaps the prior was just a fool. I had soldiered on and off since I was seventeen and knew that unexpected company rarely brought any good. The monks needed to get these men behind the abbey walls.

If I were to avoid any ugly encounters, I needed to be on my way as well. But first I'd get a better sense of where these men had come from, lest I blunder into the war I had abandoned. Almost a fortnight had passed since Wroling Wood. Some other noble boil must have been lanced in recent days to spew commoners' blood.

A woodcart rattled through the tunnel. I stuffed the pitcher and my alder stick into the bed, gripped the cart rim for a support, and moved into the field. Once we reached the center of the crowd, I extracted stick and pitcher and wandered off on my own, searching for someone who could tell me what I needed to know. I stayed cautious. Little chance any would know me. But if some of these had fought at Wroling, I'd not want it to get about that I'd arrived at Gillarine so much earlier than they.

“Brother, can you help me?” A scrawny man with one arm bound to his chest was trying to roll a bulky comrade onto his side. The pale, slab-sided soldier was retching and choking, half drowned in his own vomit. The heat of his fever could have baked bread.

“Iero's grace,” I said, narrowly avoiding losing my own supper as the poor wretch heaved again, mostly bile and blood. I set my pitcher on the ground and helped prop the fellow on his side. A cold like deep-buried stone weighed my spirit as I touched him. The gore-soaked wad of rags bound to his belly oozed fresh blood.

“Where have you come from?” I said to the other man, snatching my hands away from his friend. “I've heard naught of this battle. Where was it fought?”

The scrawny soldier gaped as if I'd asked him to explain the thoughts of women or the intents of gods. “In the wood.”

“The woods close by here? West beyond the ridge? Or more northerly, near Elanus?”

“A fearful dark wood.” He could be no more than sixteen. “They kept coming at us. Knights. Halberdiers. And the mad ones…screaming like beasts and waving orange rags on their spears.” He shuddered and swallowed a little twisting noise. I'd heard that sound before. Felt it. The terror that sat inside your gut and kept trying to climb out. The fellow didn't know any more. He'd likely never left his mother's croft until he was dragged off and told to kill Moriangi.

“Have you a cup or bowl?” I said. “And one for your friend?”

I filled two crude wooden bowls from my ale pitcher. The youth took a grateful sip, and I left him trying to give the bulk of his own portion to his friend. He ought to have drunk both portions himself. The wounded man wouldn't live past midnight. I'd known it when I touched him, known it with the certainty that always gave me the shudders—a hint of my mother's bent, I'd always thought, that showed up at random through the years, never biddable, never revealing matters I could do anything about. Control of death and life were beyond
any
pureblood bent.

On the near side of the field, a blood-slathered Brother Robierre sawed away at a whimpering soldier's thighbone. Young Gerard sat on the man's good leg to help keep the poor sod still, his gawking taking in every gruesome detail. Jullian, pale as a mist-dimmed moon, held the glowing cautery iron in a fire they'd built a few steps away. I gave the wretched proceeding a wide berth.

“Iero's grace.” I approached a hollow-cheeked veteran who sat off by himself at the edge of the field, tending his feet. “Tell me, good sir, how close by the abbey was this terrible engagement? And in which direction?”

“Not so close as to threaten holy folk like you. We fought Bayard the Smith himself at Wroling Wood. The whore priestess of the Harrowers rode beside him.”

“Wroling! But I thought—” I caught myself before blundering into any confession. “I'd heard rumor of a fight there, but days ago. You must have given Prince Bayard a noble struggle.”

He spat and continued blotting his peeling toes with a scrap of dry cloth, pulling off bits of straw he'd used to stuff his boots. “Pssht. Three days' killing and what's left of Ardran honor is scattered to the winds. Unless Kemen Sky Lord brings forth this Pretender, the Prince of Brutes will be king in a fortnight, for all the good it'll do 'im. When the orange-heads finish burning Ardra, they'll burn Morian, too.”

He was probably right. But I needed to understand his geography. “Here, if you've a cup, I can ease your thirst. For certain, you've had a long adventure to get here from Wroling. Perhaps you went the long way round and ran into another fight along the way?”

Looking up at last, he wrestled a tin cup from his belt. “Nay, good brother. We'd all be dead if we'd had to face aught since Wroling. If there'd been horses to commandeer, we could have nipped off to these fine walls in three days or less, despite our wounded. But even His Grace and his lordlings lost their mounts there at the end.”

“Prince Perryn unhorsed!” Who'd ever believe the cowardly princeling would get close enough to combat to lose his horse? “He's captive, now, I suppose. Or dead.”

“Aye, one or the other. At least that's kept the Smith off our backsides. With noble prey ripe for plucking, he needn't bother chasing dregs like us. A few unchartered knights is all they'd have to show for taking this lot.”

“But your lord lies just over—” Unreasonably disturbed, I held the pitcher poised above his cup. “Prince Perryn…you didn't see him taken, then?”

“Nah. But he's likely squealing in Bayard's dungeons by now. Pompous prickwit.” The soldier licked his lips and jerked his cup toward the pitcher.

When I'd heard of Prince Perryn's foiled plot to burn Navronne's fleet—our only defense against Hansker raiders—because his brother Bayard commanded the ships, I was done with the Ardran prince for good. Who of any mind could wish for either the Smith, the Pompous Prickwit, or Osriel the Bastard to wear good Eodward's crown? I feared the tales of a fourth brother, a Pretender, were naught but wishing dreams, wrought to hold off a kingdom's despair.

As I filled the soldier's vessel, my mind toyed with his news. If Prince Bayard had captured his half brother, the throne was indeed likely his, no matter what Eodward's lost writ of succession had to say. In Evanore Prince Osriel squatted on the richest treasure in the kingdom—veins of gold to satisfy an Aurellian emperor's wildest dreams—but most people deemed his sparsely populated domain too small to mount a campaign for the throne.

Over the soldier's head the forested folds of hill and vale were enveloped in gathering gloom. With Perryn taken, Bayard would never chase down sixty wounded men, a few knights, and a minor lord. But if the Duc of Ardra had slipped Bayard's grasp, and some pureblood scout had detected royal blood on this rabble's trail…Brother Cosmos had seen riders on the ridge.

I shoved the ale pitcher into the startled soldier's hands. “Riders are coming from the west. Drink up, put on your boots, and set a watch. Remember, you've no sanctuary as long as you're outside the abbey gates. If by some chance a certain unhorsed lord were hiding here among you, and if by some chance the Smith were to get wind of it from one of his pureblood lapdogs…”

The soldier stared at me for a moment, and then over his shoulder into the darkness flowing down from the forested ridge and pooling in the valley on every side. “Yo, Tobit, Gerrol!” he called, snatching up his boots.

I sped away as fast as I could hobble. No bed or board was worth involvement in the princes' bloody argument. I'd had my fill of killing. My leg was not up to running, but I needed no stick to propel me across the field toward the river and the cart road south.

Did these monks understand what was going to happen here? Bayard, Duc of Morian, called the Smith for his crude and thuggish manner, would surely slaughter these men to take his rival and might violate the abbey itself. Sanctuary was only effective if the pursuers respected the concepts of mercy and salvation. And in such regards, I had no confidence in either Bayard the Smith or Sila Diaglou.

The stench of charred meat hung over the crowd of wounded surrounding the infirmarian and his assistant. Jullian and Gerard were wiping bloody implements with bloody rags and replacing them in Robierre's wooden chest.

I ought to warn the brothers. Robierre and Anselm would likely not come away from the field. And truly, as I thought of it, I owed them no debt, as their service had naught to do with saving me, but with their own gifts and obligations. But the boys…I'd given my word to protect young Jullian, and I didn't break my word.

I pushed through the listless press and crouched down behind the boys. “Father Prior bade me send the two of you into the church,” I said quietly.

Gerard gaped at me blankly, as if too horror-sated to make sense of common speech. Jullian, though, snapped his head around. “Valen! What are you doing out here? Your leg—”

“I'm carrying Father Prior's commands. Everyone must help in such a desperate time, even such as me. Come now, leave your task for those more knowledgeable, and get you to the church. You're needed for…” My mind juggled to come up with anything that sounded reasonable.

“But we were told to help Brother Infirmarian.”

The glassy puddles beside my feet shivered. Horses.

“Well, all that's changed. You're wanted in church…for the singing…as so many of the brothers are occupied and your voices and hearts are pure…and we will need Iero's grace very much with what's to come this night.”

In an instant, Jullian's puzzled expression blossomed into the most profound awe. His voice dropped to a whisper. “The dark times…the long night…come so soon?” He glanced quickly at Gerard, who seemed to comprehend as little as I did of his meaning, and then back at me. Jullian jumped up, dragged the other boy to his feet, and gave him a shove. “Gerard, run for the church! Go! Begin the psalm for the end times!”

Gerard scooted away. Jullian crouched down again, whispering excitedly. “I wasn't sure you knew. This afternoon, Brother Gildas reprimanded me for my loose tongue…I mean, I had heard them say that your book could be the key and surely the god had sent you here, and so I assumed you knew of the lighthouse. But for this night to come so soon…”

My teeth thrummed with the approaching hoofbeats. Cries of dismay broke out from several sides. “Jullian, I've no idea what you're saying, but you must go into the church with Gerard and say whatever prayers you can think of. Don't come out until Father Abbot himself tells you it's safe. Do you understand?”

Face glowing with more than the ruddy torchlight, eyes pooled with determined innocence, the boy ducked his head and raised his hand. “I understand,” he said, and then added softly, so only I could hear,
“Teneamus.”