The Hero's Lot Read online

  “I don’t know what it would be,” Antil said. “Will that be all, Excellency?”

  Martin ignored the invitation to leave. “Oh, we know what it is—or rather, who. I have been dispatched to see if I can find the genesis of their importance.”

  Antil forced the hint of a smile past his bloodless lips. “If you mean Liam, I would welcome the chance to speak of him.”

  Martin elected to let Antil speak of Liam at length, allowing him time to pursue other matters. When Antil finally showed signs of exhausting his praise for the young man, Martin prodded him.

  “What can you tell us of Liam’s birth?”

  Antil grabbed at the question like a drowning man reaching for an offered tree branch. “Strange, Excellency. The boy’s birth would hardly have been notable had not the mother died bearing him.” His face pinched into a look of distaste. “The herbwoman couldn’t save her, but one of the mother’s friends came running for me that I might say the coda for her before she died.”

  “What was his mother’s name?” Martin asked.

  Antil shrugged. “Fallon, I think. It’s been a long time.” He stopped.

  Martin’s frustration edged his voice. “Well, what else can you tell us, man?”

  Antil sighed. “She was a tavern girl. Prince Jaclin’s army billeted in Callowford for a time.” His face stretched in a sad smile. “Eight months after the army left to continue their campaign . . . Fallon delivered a baby boy.

  “After she died, I put the boy with the Redens family.” He smiled. “How is Liam? Well, I hope. I have never seen a child as blessed by Deas.”

  Martin nodded. “Liam is well and still blessed. He is good enough with a sword to be an officer of the watch and has been made a captain already. He has covered himself with honor.”

  Antil nodded as if he expected no less but said nothing. Martin waited for the priest to ask after Errol, but Antil’s curiosity seemed to be at an end. The priest’s thoughtless dismissal brought a flush to Martin’s cheeks.

  “And what of Errol’s birth?” Martin prompted. “Ironic that the two births were so similar in time and circumstance, wouldn’t you say?”

  Antil’s face chilled until it might have been carved from ice. “Doubtless that is where their similarity ends. I placed him with a perfectly decent family and the boy ends up a drunk.” His voice heated. “No doubt he’s out there somewhere trying to drink the kingdom dry. City priests are too soft on those such as Errol.” He panted with suppressed rage, his cheeks flushed and eyes glittering. “A few hours back in the stocks would remind the boy of the price of drunkenness.”

  Antil’s hands had curled into talons, ripping the air with indignations. Martin stepped back. For a moment he wondered if the priest was possessed and under the control of a malus.

  “I’ve seen the boy’s back, Antil,” Martin said. “It seems that you were very . . . zealous for the boy’s punishment.”

  “No more than the little sot deserved,” Antil snarled.

  “Even though he watched the only father he knew bleed to death under a block of stone?” Martin asked. “Hardly a gentle way to treat an orphan.”

  Antil snorted. “Orphan? What would you know? The boy was steeped in sin from birth. Perhaps the noble priests and benefices close to Erinon have grown soft on wastrels and sinners, but here in the outer provinces we still know the value of penance. Only the harshest punishments can drive the sin from a man.”

  Without permission, Martin crossed the small room to seat himself at the lone chair. It was as uncomfortable as it looked. A support out of line with the rest poked him in the center of his spine, and when he leaned forward to escape it, the front edge pressed against the back of his legs.

  Antil crossed his arms, his brows pulled low over his eyes to show his disfavor—the picture of a man waiting for unwanted guests to leave.

  Martin closed his eyes and, in the depths of his heart, prayed to Deas for wisdom. Antil’s behavior seemingly defied logic, but everything had an explanation, even what appeared to be illogical. The chair, the bed, the table were all clues.

  Martin shook his head. Strange that Errol seemed to provoke such strong emotional reactions in people. Love or hate—there didn’t seem to be any middle ground where the boy was concerned. But why was there so much hate in Antil? Every village owned a drunk; most had more than one.

  He opened his eyes. In that moment Antil turned away, and the priest’s ruined nose disappeared and only the line of his cheek and jaw were visible. A tug of familiarity pulled at Martin, teasing him. Antil must have felt his gaze—he turned back toward Martin and jerked away again. There! The priest’s cheekbones and the hint of dimples in his face reminded him of . . .

  A jolt shot up his arm. Something cracked in his knuckles. Crimson filled his vision. Martin struck again. Antil or Luis might have cried out. He couldn’t hear. Oceans of rage roared in his ears. He changed hands, beating Antil with the other fist.

  A moment or a lifetime later, Luis placed himself between Martin and Antil. The priest of Callowford lay bleeding and crying on the floor. Blood flowed from a cut on Luis’s lip. Martin looked at his fist, cracked and bloody.

  “Enough, Martin!” Luis yelled. “Remember who you are.”

  He screamed back. “I know who I am.” He flung a hand at the huddled form of Antil. “And I know who he is.” He thrust Luis aside and hauled Antil to his feet. “Your son! No one else filled the stocks—just your son.”

  “Filth,” Antil muttered past the ruin of his mouth.

  “By Deas!” Martin roared. “That boy holds the kingdom in his hands! He has saved the kingdom twice over already, and Deas has made him an omne. Earl Stone is the most courageous man I’ve ever known. What right do you have to call anyone filth? You are as contemptible a wretch as I have ever seen. I . . . I . . .”

  There were no words, no violence short of death that would satiate his need for justice. Martin threw back his head to yell at the sky and the deity beyond it. “How could you? He was just a boy!”

  Antil said nothing but crawled from the floor to sit in his torture of a chair, elbows on his rude wooden table, face in his hands.

  Martin moved to whisper in his ear. “Tell me, priest. Tell me it all.”

  Afterward he ran from Antil’s presence, didn’t bother to close the door as he left. If the villagers happened to see the ruin Martin had made of their priest’s face, let them.

  Luis caught up to him before he got halfway to Cilla’s. Martin kept his gaze forward. “You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me.”

  “I suspected. Remember, my friend, I spent countless hours getting to know every villager in Callowford.” His gesture took in the surroundings. “I saw past the dirt and drunkenness and noticed Errol’s likeness to Antil, but I never cast the question. Even without it, the answer lay before me.”

  “You didn’t even tell me you suspected.” Martin threw it at his friend like an accusation.

  “We had to stay hidden. Errol seemed to be of no consequence to our task, and we were very focused.” Luis took a step forward. “I thought you might kill him if you knew.”

  Martin spun toward the rectory, disgust roiling in his gut. “I still might.”

  Luis shook his head. “Would you sever Antil from grace?”

  “The man doesn’t deserve grace.”

  The secondus nodded. “That may be. Would you shield him from judgment?”

  Martin stopped, dust rose from his feet. “What do you mean?”

  “You vowed to keep no secrets from Errol,” Luis said. “How much vengeance can an earl exact on a poor parish priest?”

  A weight descended on his chest. No. Oh no, no, no. He would have to tell Errol. His vow held the power of compulsion. Only death would prevent its fulfillment. For a brief moment, Martin thumbed the knife at his belt. Then he dropped his hands to his side, forced himself to start moving again. He mounted the steps to the porch and entered the shadowed interior of Cilla’s inn.
<
br />   Karele found him there hours later. Martin noted the solis’s glance for the array of empty tankards, but Karele held his tongue. “I’ve been ordered to find Errol and accompany him into Merakh. Those are my amends.”

  Martin nodded, unsurprised. Of course. And he would accompany Karele because he’d sworn to share his amends. There would be no evading his vow to tell Errol everything. He sighed, tasting ashes. Perhaps he would die on the way.

  19

  Along the Sprata

  AND HOW DO YOU INTEND to get us past the guards, healer?” Cruk asked.

  Martin thought Karele’s sigh held a burden of more than just strained patience. The solis’s pallid face showed new lines in the morning light. Only the unbroken habit of living seemed to keep Karele moving forward.

  “Adele and Radere will take care of them.” The healer shrugged. “After that, the Morgols will return to the steppes or stay and fight.” His inflection never changed, as if neither option held any interest for him.

  “How will the herbwomen take care of them?” Cruk demanded.

  Karele’s lungs inflated, and he pushed out the air, his cheeks puffing. “Deas is going to suspend His protection.”

  Cruk stiffened, preparing to demand an explanation. Martin held up a hand, asking the captain’s forbearance.

  “I can see you’re troubled,” Martin said to Karele. “Only a fool could miss it, but I think our situation requires that you speak plainly.”

  Karele’s brown eyes were lifeless glass. “Adele and Radere are giving up their position as head of the solis. Aurae will no longer hide and protect them from the theurgists who guide the Morgols. After the villagers in Callowford and Berea have been warned, and once his protection is withdrawn, they’ll be able to use their arts to find Adele and Radere and kill them.”

  “You mean they’re just going to let themselves be killed?” Luis asked. “Why?”

  “Their death will buy our freedom. The Morgols will attack, and the way south will be open.” Karele scanned the forest along the road. “It’s unfamiliar country for me, but they’ve told me where to go.” He clamped his jaws against anything else he might say.

  Cruk’s voice hardened. “How will we know when to hide? I don’t fancy blundering into a Morgol patrol.”

  Karele shrugged as if the question and the answer were unimportant. “We’ll know. Aurae will tell me.”

  A thought came to Martin. “Who will head the solis now?”

  Karele slumped in his saddle, and his shoulders shifted beneath invisible burdens under his tunic. “I will, though I am the least and younger than any in the circle of nine. Adele and Radere passed their authority on to me. It seems Deas has placed some importance on your friend Errol.”

  They rode in silence, Cruk ranging ahead on the road back to Berea. The sun shone a handsbreadth above the trees when Karele reined in his horse. “It’s begun.”

  A moment later Cruk rounded the bend, coming toward them at a gallop. Dust billowed up from the road like seafoam on a wave. “We’ve got company,” he said. The tone of his voice left little doubt as to its nature. “They look like they’re in a hurry. We need to get off this road.”

  Cruk made for a break in the trees and picked a path into the shadows of the wood. The still air carried sound. Every jingle of tack became a clarion call. When Cruk nodded his satisfaction and stopped, Karele dismounted and moved from horse to horse, rubbing the aromatic salve on the nose of each mount.

  “Hold the bridles. The Morgols’ affinity for horses will lead them to seek us out if they hear our mounts. The oil will make them a little slow for the rest of the day,” he said, “but they won’t give us away.”

  “Point taken.” Cruk grunted, his face twisting as if displeased to find himself in agreement with the solis.

  A few minutes later feet pounded along the dust of the road, making for Callowford. The sound faded and disappeared. Martin turned his horse, but Cruk waved him back. When the noise of birds in the direction of the road resumed, the captain led them out.

  “How long will it take them to get to Callowford?” Karele asked.

  Cruk pulled at his jaw muscles. “For horsemen, they don’t make bad infantry. Probably not more than an hour if they keep that pace.”

  They remounted and rode. The sun was a semicircle of fire above the treetops when Karele pitched forward in his saddle.

  Martin grabbed the solis and held him steady. “Healer, are you all right?” The solis reeled in his grip, his face the color of maggots. Martin held his tunic in one hand and lifted Karele’s head to see his eyes. His skin felt clammy to the touch, and his eyes stared through Martin.

  “Radere and Adele are dead,” Karele said. His mouth appeared to work without his conscious command. “Deas, help me, please,” he mumbled. “I am head of the solis now.”

  Martin dismounted. Karele slipped from his saddle, his eyes fluttering. Martin caught him, then caught Cruk’s eye. “We need to make camp. Karele can’t sit his horse like this.”

  Karele’s eyes rolled up in his head, and the small man’s legs went completely limp. Martin staggered under the weight until Luis came to help. “Thank you. I think I’m better at handling spiritual burdens than physical ones. He’s heavy for a small man.”

  They found a grassy spot off the road and staked the horses. Martin wanted a fire—the evenings had begun to chill—but Cruk overruled him. Karele lay on the ground where Martin had wrapped him in his cloak—apparently unconscious, but his mouth gaped with an expression of loss and dread.

  Martin knelt on the soft grass, his knees creaking, and recited the panikhida for Adele and Radere. He shook his head in wonder. Those two shriveled women had protected Liam for a score of years. There was a story there that needed safeguarding. Martin resolved to have it from the healer. He sighed, reciting the familiar liturgy, commending their souls and spirits to Deas. If he had any say in it, their story would be entered into the kingdom’s record.

  Luis adjusted Karele in his cloak, trying to make the healer comfortable in the midst of his stupor. The solis didn’t respond. Then Martin, Luis, and Cruk ate cold rations of cheese and hard bread around the spot where the fire would have been.

  Cruk spoke first. “How are we going to find the boy?”

  Martin sighed. “I don’t know. All I do know is that he has been compelled to go into Merakh to find Valon.”

  “It’s impossible, then,” the captain said.

  “Perhaps not,” Luis said, his voice soft. “There are any number of ports Errol could depart from, but the Merakhi won’t allow kingdom men to disembark anywhere but Oranis.”

  “The boy is weeks ahead of us,” Cruk argued. “If he’s already in the interior, it would be suicide to seek him out.”

  Luis nodded his agreement. “They are touchy about kingdom men.”

  “You’ve got quite a gift for understatement, Secondus,” Cruk said. “When the Merakhi get touchy, they like to take those curved swords of theirs and chop away at the source of their unease until they feel better.”

  Martin stirred, searching for a more comfortable spot of earth for his backside. Cruk and Luis were right, of course. Both men were knowledgeable and experienced, but their objections were beside the point. Martin had bound himself with vows and oaths. If Karele meant to seek Errol out to make his amends, Martin would go as well. “I think the solis will be able to lead us to him.”

  Luis’s head tilted to one side. “And what makes you think so, my friend?”

  Martin licked his lips, nervous. “I think Aurae will guide him.”

  His stomach tightened as Cruk and Luis stared at him. With that simple admission he’d committed himself to a path that would strip from him the comfort of his familiar clerical traditions. He’d never shied from confrontation, but this would be of a magnitude greater than any change in doctrine he’d proposed. Compared to this, his petition to the archbenefice to let the general populace read the liturgy would be as a lake to the ocean.
r />   They’d haul him before the Judica.

  Cruk’s voice broke his reverie. “We still need to choose a route to the boy.” He grunted. “He’s even more inconvenient now that he’s sober.”

  Martin smiled at the captain’s note of pride. “Do you have a map? Let us see what options we have before us.”

  Cruk retreated to his pack and returned with yellowed parchment that crackled as he unfolded it. A dark spot in the lower left might have been blood. The captain clicked his tongue as he considered. To Martin the symbols on the map might as well have been incantations in another language.

  Cruk settled back on his heels. “We’ll have to backtrack to Windridge and make our way to Longhollow. From there we’ve only got two choices—we can take a boat downriver to Longhollow or we can cross over and ride overland to Basquon.”

  “Which one is quicker?” Martin asked.

  “Boat,” Cruk said. “It’s slower, actually, but a good river captain can sail even at night. You can’t match that pace on horseback.”

  Karele sat up, conscious but haggard. Cruk’s mouth tightened as the solis brushed past Martin to study the map.

  “Going back through the province of Avenia will take too long,” Karele said. The tone of his voice precluded argument, and Cruk’s face tightened further. “We’ll have to go this way.” The healer’s finger began to trace a route south along the Sprata River, where it hugged the mountains before it split.

  The route would be dangerous, but it made sense. They could follow the Sprata until it flowed east. Then they could hug the western side of the mountains until they hit the coast and at one of the villages try to catch a ship that would carry them along the edge of Illustra to Basquon.

  But Karele didn’t trace the expected route. Instead the healer’s finger followed the river east through the Shattered Hills into the shadow lands. No. That couldn’t be right, but the solis tapped the map with his index finger indicating his mind was made up.

  Luis looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach, and Cruk’s hand twitched near the pommel of his sword. Martin pulled a shuddering breath into his lungs. Karele had spent the last twenty years of his life on the steppes. He wouldn’t know—couldn’t know—about the shadow lands.