Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (12 page)

Another of the marquess’s guards reached across his horse to
cuff the younger guard.  “Apologies, Your Honor, won’t happen again,” he said
with a low bow.  “As you say, not looking to start a war, especially not with
the damned––that is to say, not with the Bremondines or the House of Tremondy, my
Lord…”  He cuffed the younger one again for good measure and gestured to the
rest to bow.

“We had no notice of your coming,” offered another with an
obsequious smile.  “With your indulgence, we should send word ahead to the
marquess that he might be better prepared to receive you.”

Nestor smiled generously and gestured for the men to rise. 
“Peace, son, I do not come to pester my old friend Gray.  My path is on to
Durlindale, and I would not be stayed.”

The guards looked at each other strangely.  “My Lord,” began
one of them, “Marquess Gray of Moncliff passed into the stars years before my
grandfather was born.  Many, many years before…”

Damerien cursed under his breath.  Nestor had made a
mistake, and now the duke was not sure how Moncliff’s men would react.  Nestor
had counted on their not knowing that the present Baron Tremondy was but six
years old, and apparently he had been right in that, but the mistake in not
knowing the present marquess’s name was costly.  He watched Nestor calculate for
a moment, considering his options.  The men were not suspicious yet, merely
confused.  Good. 

Nestor laughed, “Oh, but what a prankster old Gray is. Did
he put you up to this?  You run along to him and you tell him we’ll beat that
Kadak for him yet, yes we will, and I’ll hear none of this foolishness about
his being dead.  He shall outlive us all, bless him.  My word, but he’s a funny
one, that Gray…”

They looked baffled yet again.  “No, sir.  The present marquess
is his great-great-great-grandson, Banya.”

The youngest broke in, “And Kadak––”

“Banya? You’re making that up.”  He turned to Jath, who took
up the gambit neatly.  “What sort of person names a child Banya and lives to
tell about it?  Did your mother name you Banya?  Surely not.  If so, why then,
you should be the marquess, according to these men.”  He laughed at the
notion.  “And you’re not the marquess, are you?  Of course not.”

“No sir,” soothed Jath, dabbing at Nestor’s mouth with a
cloth, “My mother named me Jath, and for that, I’m but a stable boy.  You
remember me, don’t you, sir?  Jath?”

“Of course, Jake, of course.  There’s a good boy.”  He waved
dismissively to the guards.  “So there you are, and thus it is proven.  Gray is
having fun at my expense, the silly old appeaser.  Banya.  The very idea…”

Damerien frowned.  Nestor could not be less subtle, but the
guards seemed not to be getting the point.  “Gentlemen,” said Damerien softly,
“a word in your ears.”

The leader of the guards and a few of his men drew near. 
Damerien was pleased that now he, Nestor and Jath no longer had to prove that
they were not, in fact, poachers nor even who they were. Now all they had to do
was turn the guards’ sympathies toward accepting Nestor’s story, a much simpler
thing done with an admission of embarrassment.  “My Lord Vilford is ancient, as
you well can see for yourselves, even for a Bremondine, and I’m afraid last
night’s supper is not as clear in his memory as his days at the academy with
Gray of Moncliff two centuries ago, poor man.”

The guards nodded.

“The truth is,” continued Damerien, lowering his voice
again, “his own great-great-great grandson, a sweet boy of but six years, now
carries the actual title of Baron Tremondy.  But we don’t tell Vilford.  It
would only hurt him, and then he would only forget it again by morning, and
then we would find ourselves hurting him again to tell him, over and over.  I
trust you understand our dilemma and will keep our confidence.”

They chuckled quietly but with growing sympathy.  Good, he
thought.  It’s working.

“You understand that discussing this embarrassing display
will only upset both him and your marquess and will bring entirely too many
questions begging answers.  Come evening, he will not even remember having seen
you and will deny it to the winds.  So you understand, he being Baron Tremondy,
you would only impeach yourselves in the telling of it.”

They nodded again, with soft looks toward the old man who
smiled and waved at them, rambling on about something to the stable boy.  Damerien
was sure that now they saw him as no more than a dotard for all that he had
seemed so strong at their approach.

“Besides,” Damerien smiled beneath his cowl, “clearly we
have no game about us, and upon my word as the…Baron’s man, I offer my
assurance that we will not hunt as we cross the marquess’s lands.  We are well provisioned
for our journey and in all truth cannot be bothered with the fuss of hunting as
we need to reach Durlindale by nightfall.  An it please you to do so, you may
come to Durlindale tonight, to the inn on the west side, and you may inspect
our goods to assure yourselves of our faith.”

The guards looked at each other.  “That will not be
necessary,” spoke the eldest of them, suddenly looking rather ashamed of their
intended extortion of the good old man and his party.  “Reminds me of my late
grandfather, he does, bless him, even in spite of being a Bremondine.  If it be
not impertinent to say of a Baron, may he pass quietly into the stars when his
wits quit him completely, as my grandfather did.”  The others nodded sagely and
turned their horses to leave.  “The marquess will hear nothing of this.  Peace
be with you.”

Colaris had by now turned his head completely upside down
and was glaring at the guards from between his own legs as they rode off.  He seemed
a bit put out that no blood had yet been spilt on his behalf, but no matter.  Damerien
was sure Colaris would poach another mouse out of spite once they were out of
view.

“Silly old appeaser?” The duke cocked an eyebrow at his
retainer. 

Nestor grinned.  “Who better to speak the truth than a fool,
my Lord?”  He winked at Jath.

They kicked their horses up to a trot and took the center of
the road toward Durlindale, and Colaris flew off to scout again.

“Aye,” laughed Damerien, “but who knew you had such gift for
the role?”

“Well, my Lord, dramatics run in the blood,” he laughed as
his cloak reverted to its subtle greens again, “I am a ‘damned Bremondine,’
after all.”

The Abbey of Bilkar

Renda started awake at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. 
The light coming into the surgery had changed from the stark blue-white of noon
to a fading purplish gray.  She felt the stiffness and soreness in her joints,
some of which came from the battle, but a good portion of which came from
having fallen asleep in the hard wooden chair beside her father’s bed.

“Forgive us,” Laniel said quietly, “we did not mean to
startle you.”  He had with him two postulants carrying steaming bowls.

“No, it’s quite all right.” She sat up self-consciously. 
“Forgive my lack of decorum.  I had not intended to fall asleep.”

“We forgive only that which requires forgiveness.  To do
otherwise is wasteful of grace.”  Laniel smiled.  “A knight succumbing to her
exhaustion after battle is no sin, even in the cold eyes of Bilkar the Furred.”

She watched Laniel examine her father’s injury, trying to
ignore the delicious smells coming from the bowls.

He gestured toward the two postulants.  One handed her a
bowl of venison stew, and she took it gratefully, embarrassed by the noises her
stomach made in anticipation.  Such sounds in camp would have passed without
remark, but her peacetime sensibilities were displeased.

The other postulant handed Laniel a bowl of thin broth for
the sheriff.  The abbot held it for him, and the sheriff woke only enough to be
able to sip at it without choking.

Bowls delivered, the two postulants left without a word.

“Are you not hungry yourself, Laniel?”  Renda hesitated over
her bowl.

Laniel shook his head.  “We ate at midday with the rest of
the abbey, my Lady.  We would have had you join us, but you slept so peacefully,
we had no heart to wake you.  Please, do eat.  The stew is Bilkar’s own bounty
while it is warm, but when it grows cold,” he said, raising a wry brow, “it
becomes the day’s challenge.”

She fell to it and enjoyed the stew more than she supposed
she had enjoyed any meal since the end of the war.

“This broth is an ancient recipe,” Laniel murmured,
carefully directing the bowl so that the half-asleep sheriff did not spill a
drop.  “Venison stock, the same base as the stew, but with dried and ground
mushrooms gathered during the Feast of Didian to speed healing, rose grass to
dull pain, and for the entire pot, a single dried leaf of henpickle.”

“Henpickle.”  Renda frowned in alarm.  “That is a poison,
aye?”

Laniel nodded.  “But fear not, the leaves have only the
slightest trace of the poison once they’re dried, which acts as a relaxant and
mild euphoric when brewed into a tea or a broth.  It should at once dull his
pain and free his body of tension so that it might better heal itself.  Were we
to use the flowers or fruit instead, this broth would be more entertaining to
the mind but deadly.”

Daerwin finished the last of the broth and dozed off again.

Laniel wiped Daerwin’s brow with a soft cloth and sniffed
it.  Then he began cleaning the wound again, wiping away the foul smelling ooze
and examining the ominously dark flesh around the wound.

She looked up from her bowl and saw the look of concern on
Laniel’s face.  “He is worse?”

Laniel nodded.  “His sweat still has a marked tang of
duress.  We fear he is losing this fight in spite of his Damerien blood. 
Normally the essence of good treatment would be to provide support and stand
aside, but we see now that this will not be enough.”

“My Lord Abbot, I must ask, is there truly nothing more you
can do for him?”

“Short of removing his arm?  We think not.”

Something in his tone seemed unconvinced or at least
unconvincing.  “You’re certain?”

“The answer to your question is…not simple.”  He looked down
for a moment, then continued cleaning the wound.

Her heart jumped, but whether with hope or fear, she could
not be sure.  “The question warrants either a yea or a nay.  Either you have
means or you do not.  By your evasions, methinks you do but would deny it.”

“Our truthful answer must be yea.”  The abbot suddenly looked
very pale.  “Strictly speaking, such knowledge belongs to us as we are the
keepers of it, but it is not ours to use or offer.”

Renda laughed darkly.  “For all Bilkar’s insistence on
efficiency and directness, yet you embroider your words with meanings within
meanings, just like every other priest.  Yes, you have it, but no, you cannot
offer it?”  She could see the terror and conflict in the abbot’s eyes, the
Abbot of Bilkar, a man she should have reason to fear, and her anger blew out
almost instantly.  He was genuinely afraid.  But not of her.  What then?

She would not ask this priest to give his life to call upon
Bilkar to cure her father’s arm.  Surely he had to know that.  Something else
was frightening him.  “Laniel, please.  Speak plainly with me.”

“We…cannot speak more plainly than this.”  He snipped away
the dark papery burned skin on the sheriff’s arm and swabbed the wound gently
with a sweet smelling oil that bubbled into the wound and vanished.  “The first
Bilkarian abbots who came here from Byrandia recorded the curious Dhanani means
of calling upon the powers of their gods.  We of Bilkar said we were studying
it for the academic value, and rightly so.  The Dhanani’s rites were different
and far more powerful than anything we’d seen in Byrandia from any of our gods,
and the power they could command…”

Laniel shook his head and began swabbing the wound again. 
“In shameful truth, our priests had gathered this knowledge selfishly. They’d
sought to bolster their strength––our strength––as priests.  When we of Bilkar
call upon His power, as you know, we pay a high price, almost always our
lives.  Bilkar’s intention, if we may venture to guess His intention, is to
teach the virtue of self-sufficiency.  Those of us who understand this fully
are grateful for His discipline. We are the chosen of Bilkar, sacrificing all
the comforts and joys of this life to be close to our god.  However, for all
our sacrifice, we can never be more than ordinary men except by our own gifts
and labors, unlike the servants of other gods.  We of Bilkar become formidable
men and women in our own rights, which accomplishment adds to Bilkar’s glory.”

She nodded.

“At the same time, we of Bilkar are not perfect.  Some of
our brothers and sisters lose faith and become jealous in moments of…weakness. 
Our first encounter with the Dhanani was such a moment of weakness for us. 
Some of our less enlightened brothers and sisters saw the power the Dhanani
priests enjoyed without consequence and felt cheated.  These among us
rationalized gathering and using this knowledge as a means of gaining the power
they felt we of Bilkar deserved without incurring Bilkar’s cost.”  He laughed
bitterly.  “They even spoke of efficiency and convinced themselves that Bilkar
would approve.”

She smiled grimly.  “They found a loophole.” 

“Aye, a loophole our god did not eye with mirth,” answered
the abbot.  “Bilkar’s judgment in this matter did not sit lightly upon our
brotherhood.  He was especially displeased with our abbots for having
sidestepped the spirit of His law even as we obeyed its letter.  We abbots are
beacons to our monks and give example.  After the Rebellion, since we had
already gathered the knowledge, it became our role to safeguard that knowledge
and lock it away until such time as it might be needed again.”

“Every Bilkarian priest has this knowledge, then?”  Renda’s
mind raced.  She wondered if this might not be the vector by which Xorden began
his return.  If so, they could still be in grave danger.