The Hero's Lot Page 5

  Enoch Sten chuckled. “I’d hoped so. He’s needed, Bertrand. He can’t help but be needed, and the boy trusts him. Begging your pardon, Archbenefice, but you’re inconsistent. First you say you’re unwilling to lose an asset, and then you refuse one of the best tactical minds in the kingdom.” He gestured toward Errol. “Look at his face. Have you seen this look on him for anyone other than the princess?”

  Warmth rose in Errol’s cheeks. Were his thoughts so easy to read? The archbenefice looked at him, and a cascade of emotions played across his wrinkled face. “You’re right, of course, Enoch. If he can be found, he will be brought.”

  Captain Reynald gave a polite cough as he held one hand palm up. “If I may venture an observation, how do you suggest the boy and his company penetrate the Merakhi interior?”

  The archbenefice nodded as if he’d expected the question. “Merchants. As long as they travel the permitted routes, they’ll be able to seek Valon’s place of concealment without contest.”

  “And if Valon is not close to the routes?”

  The archbenefice leaned back. “Then things will become more difficult.”

  Reynald shook his head. “Blithely said, Archbenefice, but if they’re caught, we’ll lose Errol and the entire company.”

  Bertrand Canon flushed. “What would you have me do, Reynald? The Judica has voted! I have no authority to overturn their decision.” His voice rose until it cracked like a whip. “If you can provide a solution to this, then out with it.”

  Reynald took the archbenefice’s lashing in stride; his manner remained calm, thoughtful. “I mean no accusation or disrespect, Archbenefice. I merely meant to point out that we need someone with knowledge of those parts of Merakh that are forbidden to kingdom men.”

  “There aren’t any,” the archbenefice snapped.

  “I know a man,” Errol said.

  The three men turned toward him as if they’d forgotten his presence. The archbenefice gave a small shake of his head, but Captain Reynald wore a grin as if a voice only he could hear had just said something amusing. “Who would that be?”

  “His name is Naaman Ru,” Errol said. “I worked as a guard in his caravan.”

  Primus Sten’s face lit as if he now shared the captain’s joke, but the archbenefice shook his head. “Granted, he has the knowledge we’re after, but he can’t be trusted, Errol. You of all people should know that.”

  Errol shrugged. The solution seemed simple to him. “Put a compulsion on him.”

  “The boy learns fast,” the primus muttered.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Canon said. “Compulsion is . . .”

  “Wrong?” Errol asked with a sarcastic tone.

  Canon huffed. “Yes, boy, it’s wrong. I know it’s been done to you . . .”

  “Twice,” Errol said.

  He nodded. “Agreed, but my heart misgives me in this. We can compel Ru to guide you, but you will make an enemy of him for as long as he lives. Do you want that?”

  Errol shrugged to show how little he cared. “He’s already my enemy. I want to live, and for that I need a guide. Is there anyone who has the knowledge Ru has?”

  Silence ruled for a moment as Errol, Primus Enoch Sten, and Captain Reynald all watched the archbenefice struggle with the decision. At last, he threw up his hands in surrender. “I can’t gainsay you in this, Errol, but my heart tells me there will be a reckoning for this decision. I have tried to discontinue compulsion for two reasons.”

  “You said it was wrong,” Errol said.

  “Yes, and I believe it is. I believe Deas created the church to serve, not to enforce obedience.” Canon licked his lips. “But compulsion for a benefice is similar to lots for a reader—the results are dependent on the wisdom of its practitioner. Just as in casting the question frames the answer, so in compulsion the requirement frames the response.” He sighed. “We will want to give careful thought to the wording of Naaman Ru’s compulsion.”

  “Now, I want you to take a priest with you,” Canon said.

  Something deep in Errol’s gut rebelled at the suggestion. Unbidden, an image of Antil rose in his mind. He shook his head.

  “You’ll need a priest, Errol,” the archbenefice asserted.

  “Why?” He hadn’t meant for his voice to pop that way.

  “Our feud with the Merakhi and the Morgols goes back centuries, boy. Rodran’s childlessness is only the spark that lights the tinder. You’ll need someone who knows the history. That knowledge is confined to the priesthood.”

  Errol laughed out loud. The archbenefice’s face grew stiff and cold, as if affronted. Errol raised a hand to explain. “There was a man in Ru’s caravan . . . I don’t think you’d like him very much, but the only time I saw him without a book on church history was when we were fighting. After we’d been attacked, he was back in his book before the blood dried.”

  “Who is this man?” Primus asked.

  “His name is Conger,” Errol said.

  “Never heard of him,” the archbenefice said. “How do you know he has the knowledge you need?”

  “He’s a defrocked priest.”

  The archbenefice wore a momentary look of horror. Then he laughed. “The boy seems determined to gather the worst sort of refuse for his mission to Merakh. For someone who has every reason to despise the concept of penance, Errol, you seem quite willing to impose it on others.”

  It was meant in jest, but the words cut. The archbenefice was comparing him to the Judica. “I just want to live. Rale and Conger are men I can trust, and Naaman Ru knows the way.” He shrugged away the comparison. “How long will it take to get everyone together? I think they’ll be tough to find.”

  The archbenefice and the primus smiled. “My dear boy,” the archbenefice said, “you are about to find out just how long the arm of the church can be.”

  “I heard,” Adora said. Undercurrents Errol couldn’t interpret stirred in her voice. They sat in the shade of the sparring yard. The clack of practice swords came from Errol’s right, where Liam educated two minor nobles. Periodic grunts of pain indicated those times Liam’s weapon struck home. Errol didn’t bother to watch if either of the nobles landed a blow on his friend. The notion was ridiculous.

  A long-familiar twinge of jealousy pricked him at the thought of Liam, but today his fellow villager had Errol’s gratitude. Liam’s presence and the adoration it engendered among the men and women of the court, assured Adora and him of an uninterrupted conversation.

  “How soon will you leave?” An unaccustomed tightness at the corner of her eyes warned him, like a portent of danger.

  “As soon as the men I asked for are brought,” Errol said.

  When he offered nothing more, Adora slipped a hand up her sleeve and brought forth her fan. She snapped it open and began fanning herself with brusque, imperious strokes. She shifted in her seat so that she no longer faced Errol, but rather the yard and Liam. With a nod she indicated him, or so Errol thought.

  “Lord Weir’s father, the duke, has petitioned the king for me on Weir’s behalf.” Adora said this with so little inflection Errol couldn’t begin to guess her thoughts on the matter.

  “Oh,” he said.

  The fan snapped shut with a soft crack of sound. Adora’s eyes widened, and their green darkened to slate. “Oh? Some man comes to my uncle to ask for my hand for his son and all you have to say is ‘Oh’?”

  For the first time, he grew angry with her, fed up with her expectations of him, tired of her seeing him as more than he really was. “What else is there to say? The church is sending me to Merakh! After Valon! He’s a reader. No, I’m sorry, he’s more than a reader—he’s a possessed reader who’s linked to a circle of readers. He’s going to see me coming!” The words spilled from him now, as if a dam had burst in his heart. “Don’t you understand? They’re sending me off to die!”

  Tears welled in her eyes. Errol had seen such interactions between husbands and wives in his village. This was the part where the w
oman ran away crying and the man chased after her, apologizing for telling the truth, telling her and himself with soft-spoken lies how mistaken he’d been. Adora blinked, and a tear dropped from each eye to darken the light blue of her dress. Then, with motions slow and deliberate, she rose from her chair and came to him.

  A crack sounded in his ear. A split second later heat blossomed in his left cheek. The princess stood before him, shaking the tingle of the slap from her fingers. “You are an omne and the best fighter I’ve ever seen.” She bit her lower lip.

  “Second best,” he corrected.

  “Hush.” Her voice dropped, moved from steel to velvet. “And I have seen you show mercy to supposedly greater men who’ve used and insulted you.” She breathed deeply. “Do you want me?”

  He did his best to ignore the stares that registered in his peripheral vision. “What?”

  She huffed, her exasperation obvious. “Do you want me?” she repeated.

  He took a deep breath, forced himself to speak past the weight that sat like a draft horse on his chest. “More than life.”

  “Then find a way to live.”

  With a swirl of skirts she passed through the onlookers and left without a backward glance.

  Smiles came to him at her departure. Men, young and old, nodded their approval, as if he’d won a bout.

  Except for Lord Weir.

  He stood at the edge of the crowd with the look of a man bent on murder.

  6

  What Lies at Windridge

  MARTIN HELD HIS BREATH as a group of horsemen, their faces hooded, their dark cloaks flailing and snapping behind, thundered by their hiding place. As the sound of pursuit faded, Luis dropped from his horse, pulled a pair of pine blocks and a knife from his saddlebag, and began carving. The secondus muttered imprecations under his breath in time to the strokes of his craft, some of them directed at Sarin, some at the men and ferrals who served Illustra’s enemies, but most directed at Martin.

  “Told him we shouldn’t chance Windridge,” the reader said under his breath. Stab. “Even cast lots for it.” Stab. “Safer to go around to the south.”

  Just ahead, from the position he’d assumed guarding the entrance to the copse of trees that concealed them, Cruk grunted with amusement. The watchman spoke little, but five years in Callowford had given Martin insight into the taciturn captain’s vocabulary. Cruk was laughing at them.

  Martin decided to address Luis’s concern. “You only cast for the safest route, old friend, not the route we should take. There are questions—questions that may have their answers in the abbot’s cathedral.”

  “Would it have made any difference if I had cast for the route we should take? Would you have skirted Windridge then?” Luis’s voice held exasperation. The three of them had spent too much time together. Keeping secrets or even private thoughts had become difficult.

  “No,” he answered.

  Cruk grunted again.

  Luis’ voice softened. “You couldn’t have done anything about it, Martin. You didn’t have the authority.”

  His ears heated. “I did, Luis. You and I both know it. Had I gone to Morin’s superior, I could have used my position as benefice to win the herbwoman’s release.”

  “Aye,” Cruk said. His gravel voice rasped across Martin’s hearing like a saw blade cutting wood. “And at what cost? You can’t save everyone during a battle, Pater. If you try, you’ll lose the battle and the men. Any soldier knows that.”

  “Is this a battle, then?” Martin asked.

  “Ha. You know it is—it is, in fact, a war.”

  The captain’s correction rankled all the more for being true. He could have saved the herbwoman from Morin’s foul use. He’d chosen not to. His failure obligated him to her. And she might be able to answer questions. He rubbed his backside. A whiff of horse and his own sweat wafted up to him. There could be no doubt about the matter. His years of being able to ride all day and still function had long passed. Luis’s lighter build and Cruk’s tougher constitution allowed them to endure the four-footed torture better than he. Men of his maturity and bulk were more suited to carriages than horses.

  “I’ve replayed every minute of our journey, Luis.” He shifted in his saddle. “Cruk, do you remember what happened in Abbot Morin’s prison?”

  The watch captain snorted; the lumpy contours of his face pulled his reddish beard to one side. “It’s not the kind of incident I’m likely to forget. I’ve seen plenty of strange things during twenty years in the watch, but I’ve never seen a woman try and batter through the bars of her prison that way.”

  “Nor I,” Martin said. “If I had known beforehand a malus awaited us, I could have tried the rite of purification.”

  “Not exactly your area of expertise,” Luis said. The reader replaced his knife and pulled a piece of rubbing cloth to finish the lots.

  He couldn’t deny it. Like most of the priests who attained the red of benefice, theology was his primary focus. “No matter. I’m more interested in that creature’s target. I’d assumed it to be Liam at the time.”

  “As did I,” Cruk said, “but Errol stood right beside him.”

  “You don’t think you’ll be able to find the malus’s host and question her, do you, Martin?” Luis asked.

  “No, of course not. According to Errol, the woman is almost certainly dead. Shot by Merodach as he jumped from the bridge.”

  “So, we come back to the herbwoman,” Luis said.

  Martin nodded.

  “I think they’re ready,” the secondus announced. Two indistinguishable pine spheres rested in his hands. He retrieved a rough canvas sack, deposited the lots inside, and bounced the bag a couple of times.

  Soft clacking sounds drifted to Martin, the gift of Deas. “What question did you cast?”

  A slight smile tugged the reader’s face into an expression of resigned surrender. “Whether or not there is anything valuable to be learned in Windridge.” He presented the bag to Martin for the draw.

  Yes came up eight times out of ten.

  “Not much of a surprise,” Cruk said. “When you know nothing, almost anything you learn is bound to be helpful.”

  “True enough,” Martin said. Luis had wasted a pair of lots and his craft on a question that didn’t need to be cast. The secondus gave a small lift of his shoulders. No, the draw wasn’t wasted. This was Luis’s way of standing with him, of giving Martin his support. “Thank you, my friend. Now, can you check for the safest time for us to resume our journey?”

  With a nod, Luis pulled a dozen blanks from his pack and began the process of delivering them to Windridge.

  The clouds, threatening throughout the morning, surrendered their rain as the three of them approached the city gates. Fat drops struck Martin’s head with soft pops and hisses before he pulled up the hood of his cloak.

  Windridge had changed. The guards at the city gates no longer waved carts into the city with casual, bored gestures. A line of wagons and carriages stretched from the left side of the main entrance to the city, while a shorter line consisting of those on horseback or on foot snaked in from the right. Martin and Luis loosened their swords. Cruk’s free hand rested on the pommel of his saddle, inches from his throwing knife. The guardhouse bristled with a full complement of guards.

  Martin surveyed the line. As each cart approached the gate, the merchants and their guards lowered their hoods and offered their goods for inspection.

  Cruk stiffened as they rode past a caravan displaying a flag of vertical red and blue stripes. “Martin.” They edged their horses closer together. “That merchant train back there . . . One of the guards is Merakhi.”

  Martin schooled his features and leaned forward as if to check his horse’s tack. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not likely to be mistaken.”

  Dread blossomed in his stomach at the watchman’s certainty. Then Luis put words to his apprehension. “They’re scouting us. We need to get away from that caravan, Martin. If they have a r
eader with them, we’ll be hard to miss.”

  As they approached, the guard took note of their hoods and leveled a crossbow at Cruk. “No one approaches the gate hooded.”

  They threw back their hoods. Martin shook the rain from his hair. He gave Cruk a nod.

  “Name your business in Windridge,” the guard said.

  Cruk’s hand rested on the pommel of his dagger. “Rest and food as we pass through.”

  The guard nodded and waved them through, but Cruk kept his horse still. “Things have changed since we last visited your city, Sergeant. Why is there extra security at the gate?”

  The guard’s eyes darted, flashed a warning before he waved them through without answering. “Be about your business.” He signaled the next rider to approach.

  Smells of food, mud, and men washed over them. The rain muted the cries of the marketplace, where people moved from stall to stall, their heads uncovered and water dripping from their noses. Those closest to the gates looked at each set of newcomers in fear.

  Cruk headed to a large covered stall whose owner hawked swords in a dispirited voice. Martin dismounted and edged close to Cruk, followed by Luis. “I think it best to find rooms and information before we approach the new abbot.”

  “I understand your caution, Martin,” Luis said, “but if we don’t keep moving, they’ll have us.”

  “How about an inn close to the market?” Cruk asked. “If it’s busy enough, it should keep pursuit at bay, even if they find us.”

  The suggestion made sense. Martin nodded his approval to Cruk. “Find the busiest inn available. Something close so we can get out of this cursed rain. Get a room so Luis can cast for the best approach to the cathedral. Then see if you can find one of the off-duty guards and get him to talk.”

  Cruk barked a laugh. “A couple of tankards of ale and it’ll be hard to get him to stop. Every guard alive wants a sympathetic ear.” He cast a look up at the rain. “I wouldn’t mind one myself.” The captain remounted and disappeared into the sodden press of the crowd.