Ravenheart (47 page)

“No.”

“We don’t know what is up there. There might be no route through to the valley. Then we’d have to climb down again.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“I do not like heights. They make me dizzy.”

“You do not look at the height; you look at the rock face. And you climb one move at a time, from ledge to ledge.” He explained all that Jaim had told him about exposure and the need to climb slowly and smoothly, conserving energy. She listened intently.

Kaelin saw her turn back to look at the rock face. “We will be climbing into clouds,” she said.

“Yes. It will be cold and hazardous.”

“Will you go first?”

Kaelin knew that he should. Experienced climbers always took the lead, working out the route. If he climbed second, he risked Chara falling and dragging him down with her. Better that, he thought, than having to see her fall alone. “No,” he told her. “You will go first. I will climb just below you. That way I can help you with footholds.”

Chara’s expression showed that she was still far from convinced. “Where do we start?” she said.

Kaelin rose from the rock and walked along the cliff face, gauging the best route. Finally he stopped. Removing his stolen saber, he dropped it to the ground. “Take off your cloak and roll it into a bundle,” he said. “Otherwise it will flap in the wind. I will tie it across your back.”

“What about that greatcoat?” she asked. “Is it not too heavy to climb in?”

“I will need it when we reach the peaks. It will be cold up there. The coat is loose. If it proves too cumbersome, I will ditch it later.”

Chara rolled the black cloak, then looped it over her shoulder and under her left arm. Then she fastened it with a brooch pin. Kaelin drew the pistols from the front of his belt and placed them at the rear. “Ready?” he asked her.

“Aye, I am.” Her eyes were less swollen now, the bruises on her face fading.

Kaelin held her gaze. “I know you have been hurt, Chara …” She swung away from him, her eyes blazing with anger. “Wait, let me finish!” She paused. “What I want to say is this: You were taken in order to force your father to come out of his stronghold and be massacred by the Beetlebacks. That was Ranaud’s plan. That plan fails only when you walk into the great house. If you die here, Call Jace will likely respond with blind rage. He will come out and fight. And he will lose. The Rigante will lose. I want you to think of this as
we climb. I want it in your mind as your muscles ache and you fear you cannot go on. Anger is good, Chara. Hold to it. Let it give you strength.”

“Are you finished?” she said. “Just tell me where to begin.”

He approached the face and pointed up to a deep crack some fifty feet above them. “We need to reach that chimney in the rock. Once inside, we will find the climbing more easy. Move slowly. Rest often. Try to use the muscles in your legs more than those in your arms. The arms will tire first.”

Chara stepped up to the face and began to climb. Kaelin waited until she was more than six feet above him, then climbed after her. The handholds and footholds were good, and they moved steadily up the face. Just below the chimney was a narrow ledge. Chara climbed onto it. She glanced down. Kaelin saw her face lose its color. Vertigo swept over her, and she closed her eyes, her body swaying. Swiftly he hauled himself up alongside her, propelling her into the wider ledge within the chimney. “Look at me!” he snapped. “Open your eyes and look at me!”

Her eyes flared open. “Do not look down. Concentrate only on the climb.”

“I am all right now,” she said.

Releasing her, he stared up the three-foot-wide fissure in the rock. It snaked up for at least another forty feet, then it narrowed. The rocks were slick with the previous night’s rain, but handholds were plentiful. “Wait here and watch where I climb,” he said. He began on the jagged left side of the chimney, then stepped across to the right, climbing ever higher. When he reached the narrow section, he paused to scan it. Then he descended to where Chara waited. “It is easy to the point where the fissure closes. After that you will need to use your fist to help you climb. I’ll show you how.” Lifting his hands, he held the palms together as if in prayer. Then he drew them an inch apart. “Slide your hand between mine. Once inside, try to make a fist.” She did so, and he felt her knuckles pressing against his palms. “That is good. It is called a hand jam, and that is what you must do with the
narrow fissure while you search for a foothold. Once your foot is secure, release the fist and press your hand a little higher into the fissure. You understand?”

“I am not a dolt. Of course I understand.”

“Then climb.”

She scaled the chimney with ease, but where it narrowed, she stopped. Kaelin moved closer to her. “I cannot find a foothold,” she said.

“Move your right foot up another two feet,” he told her. As she did so, he guided her foot to a small jut in the face.

“I’ll slide off it,” she told him. “It is too small.”

Steadying himself, he pressed his hand under her foot. “Push now,” he said. Chara levered herself up—then slipped. She cried out as her hand wrenched clear of the fissure. Kaelin grabbed her as she slid into him. Her foot hit his left leg, dislodging it from the face. He clamped his right hand tight to the rock on which he hung. Chara reached out and grabbed a tiny overhang, relieving Kaelin of some of the weight. Then she levered herself clear. Kaelin regained his foothold. He glanced across at her. There was blood on the back of her left hand where the skin had been gashed. Ignoring the wound, Chara moved back to the fissure and, pushing her hand into it, drew herself up. Kaelin followed close behind.

They were now almost a hundred feet above the forest. The wind was blowing strong, and there was rain in the air. Kaelin prayed that it would hold off.

As the fissure finally closed, they came to a ledge of rock some five feet deep. Chara sank down, her back to the face. Kaelin drew himself alongside her. “Any tremble in your arms yet?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Let me know when there is. Jaim says that is when the muscles are about to give out. We’ll need to rest then.”

Kaelin eased his way along the ledge. It ran for almost sixty feet. The rock face was smooth almost all the way. Kaelin, who had been climbing rocks with Jaim since he was a child, knew he could find holds. Chara could not. Stepping
back as far toward the edge as he could, Kaelin scanned the cliff. There was another ledge some thirty feet higher but no obvious route to it. Returning to where Chara was resting, he stepped over her outstretched legs and examined the rock above the chimney. Centuries of rain had washed over the stone, smoothing it. But there were holds that Chara might manage. The problem was that an overhang obscured his view of the upper face. What if they were to climb past that, only to find no way forward? Would they be able to descend again?

Passing Chara again, he walked the ledge, seeking a better way. He did not find one.

“Time to go,” he told her.

It took more than half an hour to reach the overhang. For most of that time Chara clung to the face, unable to reach the only handhold available. Kaelin tried to help her, but his own footholds were so small that he could not risk trying to push her. Eventually Chara took a chance and hurled herself up, her left hand scrabbling at the rock. Kaelin’s heart was in his mouth. Had she fallen, there would have been no way to stop her. They would both have been swept from the face. But she did not fall.

They reached the overhang, traversed along a ledge, then faced an easier climb to a wide shelf of rock. Wispy mist floated by them, and the air was cold and damp.

“You are walking in the clouds now,” Kaelin told her. “How does it feel?”

For the first time since the rescue Chara smiled. “It feels good. How high are we now?”

“Four hundred feet. Perhaps a little more. We need to push on. The light will be fading soon.”

For another hour they climbed steadily. In places they were able to walk and scramble up slopes created from fallen rock. At last they reached the crest of the mountain, a huge cleft between two peaks. To the west they could see the gentle slopes of the Rigante valley. Chara turned back and stared down the way they had come. The light was fading, and now the drop
seemed even more dizzying. Suddenly giddy, she sat down. “I cannot believe I climbed that,” she said.

“But you did, Chara,” said Kaelin. “You conquered your fear and conquered the mountain. And you are free.”

Wearily she pushed herself to her feet. “I am free thanks to you, Ravenheart,” she said. “I am sorry I have treated you so badly.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. I mean that with all my heart. Now, let us get to the great house. We did not come all this way to die of cold on a mountainside.”

The wind was shrieking around them as they began their descent. There were no sheer faces there, only a series of downward slopes. Chara lifted her bundled cloak clear of her shoulders, shook it loose, and wrapped it around herself.

They trudged on through the dusk and into the night, coming at last to within sight of the main Rigante settlement. Chara was close to exhaustion. They were seen by scouts from the high pass to their right. Two men came running down to intercept them. One was Rayster.

“By the Sacrifice, where the hell did you come from?”

“From the clouds,” said Chara.

The preliminary hearing into the case of the church versus Maev Ring was held in the Holy Court, a marble building set in the grounds directly behind the cathedral. It was a beautiful copy of the ancient temple in Stone where Persis Albitane was said to have delivered his first sermon. For more than a hundred years the Holy Court had been the main church in Eldacre, until the construction of the colossal cathedral.

Some two hundred feet long and supported by fifty-six columns, the building was mainly used now as a museum and a repository for books and scrolls depicting the spread of the faith through these northern lands in the last eight hundred years. The prime exhibit was a golden urn said to contain the ashes of Persis himself. Once a year the urn was carried into the cathedral for the Service of Healing, and pilgrims would travel hundreds of miles for the opportunity to touch it and
beg Saint Persis to intercede on their behalf, healing their bodies or the illnesses of their loved ones.

There were no pews now in the main hall of the Holy Court, but there were two hundred seats in the high galleries, one hundred on each side. At the western end of the hall, set upon a raised dais beneath an arched stained-glass window, stood the judgment table.

The bishop of Eldacre sat at the velvet-covered table, two abbots and three senior priests filling the other chairs. On this day the galleries were empty, for the trial proper could not be set until the judging panel had decided the merits of the case. Despite this, the trial date had in fact been organized for the following day.

Maev Ring stood before the table, her hands behind her, her wrists manacled together. Two priests, swinging bowls of holy incense on slender chains, were stationed alongside her. According to church ritual, no evil demon or spirit could be released while the incense burned.

Maev glanced up at the tall stained-glass window. It showed the saint Persis Albitane kneeling before a veiled woman. Golden light was flowing from her fingers and forming a halo around the head of the saint.

“Let the hearing begin,” said the bishop. “I have many duties today, and my lunch is waiting.”

A black-garbed cleric moved into sight. He was a short man, potbellied and wearing an ornate white wig. He bowed to the panel. “Lords and Brothers,” he said, “I represent the church in this matter and have affidavits and depositions to present.”

“The court recognizes Arlin Bedver,” said the bishop. “Let it be so recorded.” The priest at the farthest end of the table took up a quill and began to write. The bishop leaned forward and stared at Maev Ring. “The trial is set for—,” he began.

“I appear for the accused,” came a voice that echoed from the back of the building. The bishop appeared startled. His eyes narrowed.

Alterith Shaddler moved past the equally surprised Maev Ring and bowed low before the panel.

“You were not summoned here, schoolmaster,” snapped the bishop.

Alterith opened a leather satchel and produced a sheaf of papers and an elderly leather-bound volume of Holy Law. “According to the laws of church and state—and I have here the relevant documents and texts—any Varlish of good standing, with a degree in theology, can represent himself as an advocate. I also have here copies of my degree from the Academy for the Instruction of the Righteous.”

“You wish to be recorded as a speaker for witches?” asked one of the abbots, a thin, elderly man with a reedy, high-pitched voice.

“As I recall, sir, Saint Persis Albitane began his career by appearing for other saints accused by the church of the day. He, too, was derided for speaking up on their behalf.”

The abbott reddened. “Are you suggesting, sir, that this holy and august panel can be compared to barbarians? Have a care, Master Shaddler.”

“What I am saying, Lord Abbot, is that it is the right of every defendant to have an advocate. Maev Ring is an honest highland woman, accused by men who have much to gain from her downfall. I have my credentials with me. Do you deny me the right to represent her? I urge you to think carefully on this matter, for I also have here a letter which I shall dispatch to the church authorities in Varingas, making it clear that should I be denied, this hearing should be voided as an illegal action. A second letter will be sent to the king’s privy council charging church leaders in Eldacre with breaking the law of the king himself.”

“You are threatening us?” said the bishop.

“Indeed I am, my lord. I will also petition the Moidart to arrest those who break the king’s law. Since the Moidart himself has found Maev Ring innocent of earlier charges, I feel sure he will listen most attentively to my plea.”

“This is insufferable!” shouted the bishop. “I shall have you flogged for your impertinence.”

“May I speak, my lords!” said Arlin Bedver, stepping forward to the table. He leaned in close to the bishop and spoke too softly for Maev to hear what was said. The silence grew. Then the bishop waved Bedver back.