Finery
Allystaire’s shoulders bore a deep, comforting ache from turns of work with shovel and mattock, but his mind buzzed relentlessly at the obstacles that he could not move as easily as he could a pile of earth. Having taken time to wash, he retreated back to his tent to find Gideon napping on his cot. In place of his armor lay fresh, new clothes: a long-sleeved blue shirt with the sunburst that was displayed upon his shield and pennant embroidered over the left breast, as well as a pair of breeches of finer and cleaner cut than any he currently owned. He fingered the material. Good linen, he thought. Expensive. Would feel better in armor.
Sighing, he pulled off his work-soiled clothing and carefully pulled on the new garments. He stopped, contemplated his belt and the hammer hanging from it, then tugged it around his waist and cinched it tight. Then, he contemplated what pieces of armor Torvul hadn’t absconded with, and picked up his iron-banded gloves, slipping them behind his belt.
“Does that send the right message?” Gideon hadn’t sat up from the cot, but apparently knew what Allystaire was doing.
Allystaire looked down at the hammer in its ring. It was a plain thing, a rough steel sledge bound to a thick hardwood handle, the bottom third of which was bound with iron bands. “I am so used to its weight that I feel wrong without it. Besides, it is as much a badge of office as I intend to carry.”
Allystaire rolled his shoulders inside the linen shirt, feeling it settle lightly against his skin. Would still rather wear armor. “I will bring you back some food. Do not light a lamp.”
“Don’t need to,” the boy said, a bit smugly, and Allystaire left him with a chuckle.
It wasn’t a long walk to the inn, where the dinner was being held, but Allystaire had hopes of making it alone. They were dashed when he saw the Archioness exit her pavilion just as he passed.
Her white and blue silk had been traded for a simpler but just as richly made dress of dark green, and she carried a matching fur-lined wrap around her elbows, for the dress left her arms bare, and the square neckline was scooped rather low. Her hair was no longer bound up, but fell in a long, dark wave to the small of her back, though it still glittered with gemmary.
Allystaire found himself pointedly not looking too closely at her, though some instinctive remnant of his prior life forced him to stand and wait, then to stiffly offer his arm towards her as she approached, smiling thinly, with a twist of her newly reddened lips. Might not melt iron, some part of his brain noted as it appraised her, but she’d get it nicely red.
“And once again you show gentility,” Cerisia murmured, as her arm slipped through his and her bosom brushed against him so faintly and so expertly he couldn’t help but admire her. “You are not the roughly-worked blunt instrument you wish us to think, Sir Allystaire.”
“I have no claim to the title you give me, Archioness,” Allystaire replied stiffly. He found matching his stride to hers a challenge, and took a false step, causing them both to stop and teeter slightly.
“How long has it been since you walked arm in arm with a woman?” Her tone was gently chiding, but the intrusion of the question bothered him.
Nevertheless, he felt compelled to answer. “It has been the better part of ten years.”
“Well,” she said, setting off again, and managing a slightly longer stride, allowing him a bit more comfort, “that is a long time. And unusual for a knight. You are a knight, no matter how you may deny it.”
“I have denied nothing,” Allystaire said. He cleared his throat and an uncomfortable silence reigned, broken only by their staggered steps on the path. “Why do you ask? What I am now is what concerns you, yes?”
“Indeed, yet there is value in knowing your past, part of which I can guess. Your accent is northern, and your speech and manner are educated. Forgive me if I insult your home, but there are not so very many well educated folk farther north than where we now stand, and all of them are Oyrwyn nobility.”
She leaned close to his ear—close enough that he had to try very hard not to shiver as he felt her breath fall warmly on his neck—and she murmured, “You are doing a poor job of hiding, Lord Coldbourne.”
Her words broke the spell of her contact, and Allystaire mystified her with a peal of loud laughter. “Hiding? You think I am hiding?”
He stepped away from her, pulled his arm free, and held her eyes, reading confusion in their cast. She was caught off guard and doing a poor job of hiding it. Lovely. I wonder how much weight she spent on the topaz for her mask to match her eyes, he couldn’t help but note.
“Archioness, if you have come here thinking you will expose some great secret, you have come in vain. The Young Baron in Wind’s Jaw knows where to find me if he wishes, though of the six knights he sent to find me this summer, only two rode back to him alive. Lionel Delondeur made me a guest of his seat at the Dunes not a month ago, and I am sure he could follow the trail back here if he wished. So if you thought that my past, and my name, and my presence here was some secret you could peddle, some weapon of influence?” He shook his head, his lips twisting with a bit of scorn. “If anyone wants to know who I am, or where I am, tell them. Draw them a map and lend them a horse. Make sure they understand that they will find the Arm of the Mother waiting for them. Not Lord Coldbourne.”
She leaned back as he harangued her, raising the fingertips of one hand to her neck and taking a deep breath. A calculated move, he realized, just as much as drawing out his declaration had been. Her eyelashes flickered, then suddenly she met his eyes again.
“Of course a man like you wouldn’t hide,” she replied, sliding her arms around his again, and pressing rather more firmly against him. “You are a master of yourself and much of what surrounds you, no matter what titles you carry or renounce. I will remember that.”
Why do I feel like I’ve just been outflanked? Allystaire cleared his throat and they resumed their walk to the inn, passing it in silence.
When he saw the lamp-lit oilskin windows of the inn, he felt a little like a lost soldier finally stumbling back into camp.
Once he was through the doors, pausing to allow Cerisia to enter first, he caught sight of Torvul and Mol. The dwarf’s freshly shaved scalp gleamed in the lamplight, and he wore, to Allystaire’s surprise, something like Mol’s sky-blue robe, though of a slightly darker color and more generous cut. The sleeves, in particular, were very short and did not impede his hands. Allystaire was comforted to see a few nondescript potion-pouches hooked to the alchemist’s belt, however.
A long table had been set out in the common room, with four mismatched chairs set out to either side. His stomach rumbled at the smell of bread rising from a cloth-covered bowl, and he went around the table to stand next to Torvul. The dwarf gave a subtle tick with his eyes, indicating Allystaire’s seat, to the far left. As far as possible from Cerisia, he noted.
Mol came from the kitchen, bearing a pitcher in one hand and a platter of mugs in the other, and set both down expertly. The Archioness, to whom Allystaire’s eyes were continually drawn, despite himself, arched a brow.
“The Voice of the Mother herself serving at table? I would think you had weightier, more exalted duties.”
Mol turned her smiling face to the woman, and for a moment the girl Allystaire had come to know so many months ago was looking up at them all. “Nothin’s more exalted than beer. Had t’be sure we were gettin’ the best.” Her smile beamed a brief moment more, and then she sat delicately, her back straight, and the cool, poised face of the priestess replaced her girlish grin.
Cerisia swallowed, allowing her hands to clasp briefly. Then one of her servants, the imitation beggar who had carried the Wheel on its staff, pulled out a chair for her. She sat gracefully, briefly managing to arch her back so that Allystaire had a quick, tempting glimpse of the plunge of her neckline.
“I hope it will not offend anyone if we provide wine,” Cerisia said mildly, even as her servants, who’d apparently preceded her, began to unpack a wicker basket they’d set upon a bench pushed against the wall, producing two corked jars.
I thought they clinked promisingly, Allystaire thought, certain there was more. He caught Cerisia watching him as he looked at the bottles for identifying marks. They bore Innadan crests, a greathelm wreathed in green vines, carefully painted. Expensive. And she expects me to react—how much about me does she know?
“I do hope it will meet with your approval,” the Archioness said nominally to Mol, though her eyes flicked to Allystaire as she spoke.
“Never touch the stuff,” Mol said, brightly. “But I am sure Allystaire and Mourmitnourthrukacshtorvul will appreciate it.”
Cerisia betrayed herself, perhaps, by sneaking a glance down to where Allystaire sat. The woman, it seemed, didn’t know how to deal with a child priestess who deftly matched even her mild opening gambits.
She was even less prepared for Idgen Marte to suddenly materialize at the head of the table. Allystaire had to hide a smirk by biting the inside of his cheek. Idgen Marte lifted her swordbelt clear over one shoulder and slung it carefully over the back of her chair, grabbing the beer pitcher and a cup, then filling it before she sat. Much like Allystaire and Torvul, she wore new clothes: a leather jerkin over a loose shirt, and tightly fitted trousers, all of it a blue so dark it was nearly black. No symbols or sunbursts gleamed upon it anywhere that he could see. There wasn’t even a glint of metal on the straps fastening the jerkin closed; they were as dark as the rest of it.
That was not necessary. Mol’s voice echoed in Allystaire’s head, all three of their heads, he was sure.
Idgen Marte’s response was quick. Doesn’t hurt to keep her off balance.
By the time all four of the ordained had seated themselves, Cerisia rallied and indicated for her female companion to open one of the bottles of wine, which she did with practiced efficiency. Wine was poured into three cups, one of which was placed before the Archioness, while the lesser priestess took one each to Allystaire and Torvul.
Allystaire took the cup in one hand. It was a delicate thing of hammered silver that Fortune’s party had provided, plate apparently being among their baggage. The Archioness raised her own cup. Gems glittered around its stem, though he could not identify them in the lamplight.
“To the meeting of differing faiths in peace,” she said, her voice as smooth and sweet as honey.
Mol raised her mug of beer and echoed her solemnly. “To peace.” The other three murmured the same and all drank.
The gods are good, Allystaire inwardly swore, as soon as the wine swirled around his tongue. It was a better vintage than he’d had in years. One of Innadan’s best reds, strong and rich in the mouth and nothing about it sour. His pleasure must’ve shown on his face, even as the lamps began to lose ground to the night encroaching outside, because Cerisia spoke to him.
“I must say that your neighbors to the east do know how to grow grapes, don’t they?”
Allystaire carefully set his cup down, but not before taking a deep nose of the wine’s breath, which had a pleasant hint of smoke. “That they do. Despite nearly two score years of war an unspoken accord has protected the main part of their vineyards.”
“Foolish way t’go t’war,” Torvul piped up, after having tossed back his entire cup in one go. “Why leave an enemy a way to pay his soldiery?”
Idgen Marte snorted. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d had Oyrwyn or Harlach wine. It’s all sickly sweet.”
“Those are the only grapes that will grow in our climate,” Allystaire replied.
“The colder north does produce hardier, if somewhat rougher specimens,” Cerisia said, moving smoothly on before Allystaire could puzzle out whether she meant grape vines. “Of course, any of the baronies are quite cold enough for me. I hail from the Archipelago.”
“Never been to Keersvast,” Allystaire said. “Sounds entirely too warm and wet and salty for my taste.” Before he could even realize what he’d just said, Idgen Marte and Mol’s voices both sounded in his head, variations on the theme of closing his mouth, with Idgen Marte adding, Unless you are trying to bed her.
He covered his sudden embarrassed distraction by having another sip of the wine, letting its dry and strong flavors fill his mouth.
Cerisia gave him a moment’s quarter and, setting her wine down, laced her fingers under her chin to turn her attention to Torvul. “Mourmitnourthrukacshtorvul,” she said. “What brings one of your people into this new faith? And where is the rest of your caravan?”
Torvul cleared his throat and met her gaze evenly. “I’ve no caravan. Not for years now.”
She sat straighter in her chair, lips pursed faintly. “How does one of your folk lose their caravan? Surely you weren’t cast out. From what I know, that is a criminal punishment.”
“I was,” Torvul replied bluntly. “Yet what you know of my kind, and our caravans, probably couldn’t fill this cup, Archioness—which, by the by, is sadly empty,” he added, lifting it and gesturing at the wine-bearer. “We’re a closemouthed folk, by and large, and what passes for crime among us might be quite different than among you and yours.” The servant moved around the table, smoothly pouring a fresh measure into Torvul’s cup.
The dwarf sipped and smiled broadly. “That’s better. Now as to your first question, Archioness—I’m among this faith because this one here saved me from hanging,” Torvul said, grinning all the while, and then pointing with the rim of his cup to Allystaire.
Cerisia laughed lightly and looked to Allystaire. “There’s a story to be told there, I’m sure. Stories sprout around you like mushrooms after a rain—of thieves bested, folk rescued, vile knights whose bodies are shattered by the force of your lance blow.”
“Don’t forget the gravekling whose head he stove in weaponless,” Torvul rumbled. “Crushed it like you or I might a raw egg. That does make me hunger; is supper on its way?”
That threw her once again, and so as Mol and Idgen Marte began trying to put a solid dent in their pitcher of beer, Cerisia recovered with a sip of wine before speaking to Torvul again. “Torvul— may I call you familiar in this way?” The alchemist nodded, and she went on. “I would be remiss if I did not ask. Just what gods do your people venerate? I have heard so little on the topic and all of it very confused and confusing—Braech? Fortune? Urdaran? I have heard it said you worship stone, but of course that is all nonsense.”
“Not stone, but ores. Metal. And to a lesser extent, gems.”
“Surely you do not worship gold?” Cerisia’s question echoed the thoughts rolling in Allystaire’s own head.
“Well, I don’t. Anymore.” Torvul paused to let that sink in as he had a slightly more moderate sip of his wine. Then he pressed on.
“And worship is probably the wrong word. Different ores embody different ideals that dwarfs strive to attain. Silver, for example. Soft and beautiful. A good silversmith can turn out work to rival any goldsmith, if only because he’s likely to get more practice. Silver, though, is more practical than gold, y’see? You can work it into things that are of some use, rather than things you just wish to stare at and polish once or twice a day. Makes good medicine, for example. Many dwarfs who venerate the spirits of silver—they want to do useful things in a beautiful way. Help their caravan and make it look better at the same time. Silver has a very feminine principle, I suppose, and I mean that as the highest compliment to the ladies at the table,” he added, running roughshod over the follow up questions Cerisia was clearly yearning to ask, and lifting his cup, so that everyone was obliged to follow suit.
Allystaire was inwardly thankful for the excuse Torvul gave him to take another mouthful of wine, as well as the respite from Cerisia’s attention. Even with the way the priestess had thrown his thinking off, a part of him still pondered Torvul’s words. That was more lore about dwarfs than I think I have ever heard from him.
A brief silence reigned till Mol stood up, gave a fractional nod of her head to excuse herself, and disappeared into the kitchen. “Be back with supper,” was all she offered by way of explanation.
“Wherever did you find this girl?” Cerisia murmured, mingling admiration and disbelief. “One moment she is a child and the next she is an ancient sibyl.”
“Well,” Allystaire began, letting one fingertip rest lightly on the base of his cup, “since you asked, I found her right here.” He gestured with his chin towards the newly erected wooden bar, with a rack of barrels behind it and a shelf full of smaller spirit casks bracketed to the wall above them. “In the cold well, with the village a smoking charnel house.”
He couldn’t help but feel like a point had been scored when the Archioness’s back straightened and her eyes—which he was grateful he could only make out the shape and not the color of—blinked in confusion. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“The village folk had been set upon by reavers—some taken, but many, especially those who resisted, slaughtered and burned upon the green. Mol’s father hid her in the cold well. I heard her cries as I rode into the village, following the smoke.” Allystaire shrugged, lifted his wine cup, and drank. When he set the cup down, Cerisia was still looking at him, puzzled.
“Then how is the village peopled once more? How do buildings stand? Who came back?”
“As many of the folk as were alive when Allystaire found them,” Mol said as she emerged from the kitchen, bearing a tray that looked too big for her, yet she managed it to the table and set it down without help. It bore two huge pies, the slits in their brown crusts releasing a wonderfully scented steam, a stack of simple wooden bowls, and a large spoon. “Beef and onion in ale gravy,” Mol said, pointing to one pie, “and hen and leek with prune,” she added, pointing to the other. “Mind the steam.”
The girl picked up the spoon and held it out to the Archioness, who took it uncertainly, then decided to hand it off to the male servant at her left hand. Mol frowned, not bothering to hide the expression, and sat.
“Are you so accustomed to being served that you cannot put food in your own bowl?” Mol waited till the servant was done putting delicate portions in Cerisia’s bowl, then took the spoon and ladled herself a sizable serving, holding the spoon out to Idgen Marte afterwards.
“Part of the duty of my students is to attend me,” Cerisia noted, just barely keeping a defensive tone out of her words. “And to learn service and etiquette that way. I did so myself when I was younger. However, your words do make a point. Few of us should ever be so exalted so as not to serve. I did bring a few delicacies with me for the meal. Do you mind?”
Mol shook her head, not speaking an answer aloud, for her mouth was full of steaming, savory pie. Allystaire’s was as well, having dished more of it up onto his bowl than anyone else at the table, though Torvul was a close second. He ignored the steaming heat with the aplomb of a man who’d often had cold food, and too little of it, but he did watch as Cerisia stood and went to her basket.
Cold take me, it has been a long time, Allystaire thought, then lowered his face and tried to bury his thoughts in beef pie, blindly reaching into the bread basket and seizing a loaf to sop the ale and onion gravy. Beef’s good, he told himself. Maybe not as good as…
His thoughts were interrupted as fingertips landed lightly on his shoulder. He glanced up and got an eyeful of the pale, smooth expanse of Cerisia’s neck as she placed a tiny bowl in front of him.
“Fish roe,” she explained. “A luxury from my home.” Two other similar bowls had been placed upon the table. Allystaire reached for the one nearest him, though he paused and his shoulders tensed as soft, manicured fingertips just lightly brushed across the skin of his neck as Cerisia retreated to her own seat.
The bowl was cool, light, and smooth to the touch. He held it closer to a lamp that descended from a crossbeam and saw the light shimmer across its surface. A miniature spoon was thrust into a mass of tiny black dots. “Is this made of—”
“Nacre, yes,” she answered, anticipating his question. “Purists believe that anything else can spoil the flavor. Please do try some. It is only rarely transported this far inland.”
“Well,” Allystaire said with a gentle shrug as he carefully set the bowl down, trying without much success to grasp the spoon between forefinger and thumb without looking like an oaf, “we do not see much in the way of saltwater fish in my home. But,” he added, finally getting a grip and coaxing some of the stuff into the shallow spot on the spoon, “an old campaigner never turns down food.”
Idgen Marte had already eagerly put a spoonful into her mouth. Eyes closed, she savored it, tongue moving behind her cheeks. Allystaire plunged the spoonful into his mouth. The explosion of salt on his tongue and the half-liquid half-solid texture were welcome. Bit too delicate for a proper food, though, he thought, even as he chewed and swallowed.
He inclined his head, gratefully, as he swallowed the last, jellied scraps. Cerisia smiled warmly and he felt her eyes linger on him as he turned his attention back to his meal.
“From what I remember of Keersvast,” Idgen Marte said as she pushed the half-empty bowl of roe towards Mol, who eyed it uncertainly, “that much good quality roe could pay a small fisherman’s license and catch tax for a year.”
“Perhaps with enough left over for a bribe or two as well,” Cerisia said, chuckling.
The room suddenly chilled for Allystaire, as though a window were thrown open and the warmth sucked away. “That much?” An angry note thrummed through him as he spoke, deadening his voice. Questions abounded in his head. Was the right fish difficult to catch? How much profit could the man who caught it make? Why would a fisherman need to bribe anyone?
The effect was noticeable. Cerisia turned to him, stiffened. Mol’s voice sounded in his head, a resounding, Do not!
“Have I given offense, Lord Allystaire?” The Archioness’s voice was careful, teetering on a display of wounded affection.
Allystaire swallowed a mouthful of pie and tried to choke down his anger with it. “Not at all, Cerisia,” he murmured, though how much conviction he managed to put in the words he did not know. “Simply raised questions.”
“Questions we may explore another time,” Mol smoothly put in as her spoon clattered into an empty bowl, which she pondered a moment, before reaching for the serving spoon.
Allystaire sopped his bowl clean with fresh bread, filled it again and emptied it the same, as the Archioness traded investigative gambits disguised as inanities with Idgen Marte, Mol, and Torvul. His mind still seethed, if more as a faint, glowing ember than a truly roaring furnace. The extravagance, he thought aimlessly. Does she think to buy us with luxuries? Has she any conception of what we are, what we do, whom we serve? Clearly she knows some, but how much?
Finally, with the large pie plates more emptied than Allystaire might have expected, they all sat back, sated. Cups were refilled. Torvul produced a long sliver of polished bone and began to pick his teeth with it.
Mol leaned forward in her chair, hands steepling beneath her chin.
“We have shared meat, salt, and beer at table together now, Archioness. You are our guest, and entitled to all rights and protections of hospitality. I believe I am entitled to ask a question now.”
Cerisia nodded gravely, a loose tendril of hair spilling forward onto her neck. “Of course, child.”
Mol frowned at being called child, but let it pass, sitting straight up. “To what purpose have you come to the Mother’s people and Her Temple? What ends do you pursue by assailing the mysteries of Her Ordained with your subtle questions?”
Cerisia smiled. “It is quite simple. The Arch-Council of Fortune’s Temple believes there is a very strong possibility that this Mother of whom you speak is, in point of fact, a newly discovered,” she paused, searching for a word, “facet of the Goddess Fortune Herself.”
The explosion of angry noise nearly drove Cerisia out of her seat in fright, as Allystaire leapt to his feet, one balled fist pounding the table so hard that wine cups spilled and an empty nacre bowl flew off the table and shattered. He roared in a nearly wordless rage, uncertain and uncaring of precisely what he said.
He was not the only one, either. Torvul leapt to his feet, as had Idgen Marte. The clatter of chairs falling and voices mingling in anger made any words indiscernible, though Cerisia tried to answer in her defense. Her male servant suddenly stepped in front of her chair and drew a knife from his belt.
Allystaire’s hammer was halfway into his hands before he knew it, but Idgen Marte was, as she always had been, faster. Her arm was a blur and her blade moving in the air in the time it took for him to think of drawing steel.
“Silence.”
The single word that left Mol’s lips was not spoken at a volume or a pitch that should have cut through the noise, yet it did, carrying enormous power with it. Allystaire felt his own voice strangled into nothingness. He could breathe, yes, but he could make no sound. He saw, from the startled expressions on the faces of Fortune’s servants, that it had done the same to them. Idgen Marte frowned, but did not lower her blade.
Mol remained seated, the only one to do so, and somehow a common peasant’s chair became a seat of office, occupied not by an eleven year-old child, but by a priestess of sober and powerful mien, her eyes practically flashing with radiant anger.
“Put up your weapons and be seated.”
Allystaire was back in his seat, hammer on his belt, without thinking about it.
Cerisia’s two acolytes, for whom no chairs were provided, suddenly folded their legs under them upon the ground.
Voice of the Mother, Allystaire thought in wonderment as silence spread throughout the room.
“So like the Sea Dragon, the Mistress of Wealth would seek to make the Mother subordinate. To control Her, and we Her Servants—”
“It is not about…” Cerisia spoke up, voiced meek and strained.
“I did not give you leave to speak,” Mol suddenly snapped, leaning forward in her chair. “When I am finished you may respond.”
Cerisia straightened in her own chair, skin drawing tight across her cheeks as her jaw quivered in what Allystaire estimated was her first display of genuine anger. She rallied herself somehow.
“I will not be ordered about by a child—”
“You are being ordered by the Voice of the Mother in the very place where the Mother woke in this world, where She spoke to me, the place where She and I are strongest. In this I will be obeyed. Test me at your peril.”
The two priestesses locked eyes for but a moment. Anger and power radiated from Mol in waves that Allystaire could feel pressing against his senses. The two acolytes looked to one another. Allystaire saw the fake beggar’s hand move uncertainly towards his belt and tightened his fist reflexively. He thought to reach for his hammer, but his fingers brushed his iron-studded gloves. He pulled them free of his belt and laid them carefully on the table. He made sure the studs thudded dully and loudly against the wood.
The man looked up, going half into a crouch, saw the gloves, lamplight flickering off the studs. Then he saw Allystaire’s huge, scarred knuckles clenched on the table behind them, and his eyes finally climbed to the paladin’s face.
Allystaire reached for a glove and tugged it onto his right hand, flexing his fingers into a fist, then out and back again, leather creaking.
The acolyte sat back down and folded his hands together in his lap.
Meanwhile, Mol spoke. “Do you act out of simple fear of what the Mother’s rise might mean? Or is this a part of some longer game, some stratagem?”
“Everything is part of a longer game,” Cerisia said, her voice slightly weary. “And to suggest that a tiny temple in a hinterland village where something is worshipped by three score peasants could be a threat to Fortune’s church is absurd. What I come offering is your only chance of survival.”
“Explain,” Mol said, drawing her hands into her lap.
“This is how Temple politics work,” Cerisia began. “New cults spring up more often than you would think. Take this fad for worshipping the Elvish Green, as if any of the fools going to its rented Temples even understood what the concept even means. It will die off. In a year or two the dilettantes who run those Temples will lose interest, or their parents will cease to pay for it, and it will melt away.”
Mol snorted. “No one is funding us in the first place, so it can hardly vanish.”
“That’s part of your problem,” Cerisia replied. “Yet I digress. New gods, new goddesses—they arrive and they disappear. If they survive at all, it is because we absorb them. Fortune, Urdaran, and Braech are the godheads of this world. Their worship has gone unbroken, undaunted, as long as there are records. Other spirits might claim divinity, or have it claimed on their behalf, yet in the end they are shown to be aspects or servants of one of the true three.”
Mol smiled. “Urdaran tells his flock to turn a blind eye, literally, to the suffering around them, to focus on a peace in the next world. The Mother demands that we work to alleviate suffering as we find it. Braech is merely strength calling to strength, all bluster and noise and lust. The Mother tells us that strength is often an accident of birth, that mercy and charity are no kind of sin. Fortune concerns Herself with the wealth of the world. How much do you believe the Mother cares for gold or gemmary? Can they be eaten? Planted? Used to comfort the weak or the dying or the oppressed?”
As the rest of the room sat in rapt stillness, Cerisia raised a hand. “Fortune does not seek wealth for wealth’s sake, nor is the gain of it the end of those who serve Her. If it were, we would not count being miserly a sin—and we do. Wealth, treasure, power, riches, these things are as rivers, meant to flow towards all who mean to work along their banks. Perhaps,” she allowed, lowering her hand and adopting a reasonable tone, “it is that they have been damned up or diverted too long from too many. Perhaps this is why a new aspect of Fortune has arisen, demanding that they be freed up again.”
For the briefest moment, Allystaire felt he saw a kind of sense in the Archioness’s words. She was a reasonable woman, and Fortune was no evil, grasping goddess. Certainly it was possible, he found himself thinking.
Then Mol’s laughter rang out, and reminded him of the times he had heard the Goddess Herself laugh, had seen Her, touched and been touched, been kissed by Her, and something bright and clean and sharp thrummed through him, and he joined the Voice in laughter, as did Idgen Marte and Torvul, and the room filled with it for a moment.
“You think this is about wealth? You think the Mother can be bought off with bright metal and glittering rocks?” A sneer played over Mol’s face for a moment, then was replaced with a kind of warm, yet poised distance. “You poor woman. You have listened to nothing I have said. The Mother has not come to us to see us gain in riches, but to see us gain in love, in mercy, in charity, and kindness.”
“Then why do so many of you carry weapons? Why do violence on Her behalf?”
Mol tsked. “You think to trip us with childish sophistry? There are those who will not accept love, and those who cannot earn mercy, but the truest answer is this—when our arms are raised to give battle, it will be truly in the defense of those who are weak, needful, desperate, suffering. It is not something we do for the Mother; it is something we do for Her people. Love is not a shield unto itself. Can anyone be said to love if they sit passively by and spout congeries of naive platitudes when what they love is threatened?”
“Then why did your paladin respond violently to my statement? What threat do we pose?”
“What a silly question. You threatened our very existence. Yet that is not what drove the Arm or the Shadow to their weapons; your acolyte drew his knife first,” Mol pointed out. “And, I would remind you, he is not my paladin. We all serve the Mother and Her people.”
“And if he bares steel in the presence of the Voice again,” Idgen Marte suddenly put in, her voice as smooth and deadly as a blade as she stared hard at the acolyte Mol had named, “I will have his hand. At least.”
“Peace, Shadow,” Mol said. “They will remain our guests, though his action could have forfeit that right. I will grant them their surety so long as they remain in peace. That, of course, presupposes they do not wish to simply break camp and leave immediately, given the futility of their mission?”
“Please give my words thought, all of you,” Cerisia said, her eyes flickering to Allystaire’s end of the table, then back to Mol. “I argued for this course of action, to extend this chance, rather than to simply declare you anathema, to call you heretics. I warn you,” she said, her voice turning urgent and pleading, “that is what will happen if I return to Londray with this answer.”
“Our faith cannot be brushed aside,” Mol declared, frowning. “Our Goddess is no part of yours.”
“Very well,” Cerisia sighed, a touch melodramatically. “I do hope you will allow us to stay at least a day or two, in order to recover from our journey—and to speak Fortune’s words to such folk as might see enough sense to listen?”
Allystaire felt a denial rising in his throat, but Mol cut him off with a simple light laugh. “Speak to them if you will. It is unlikely you will turn folk aside from the Goddess who rescued them from slavery and death.”
Cerisia nodded and rose slowly. Her eyes lingered briefly on Allystaire, but turned away in hurt from the angry silence they encountered. Without a word, she swept out the door, and the four ordained were left in the semi-darkness, the silence broken only by the creak of the front door and the clatter of departing footsteps.
Allystaire stood and came to Mol’s side. Placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder, he found her trembling, or shivering as if she were cold. He knelt beside her chair, saw Torvul and Idgen Marte coming towards her in concert.
“Mol?”
The girl shook her head and rose on unsteady legs. Allystaire caught her and she fell against him in an exhausted embrace.
“Sorry,” she murmured against his chest. “’T’were like workin’ all day at haulin’ wood with no beer and bread at the end of it. Goddess but m’tired.” She pushed herself away and stood, keeping one hand against his shoulder.
“You were brilliant, Mol,” Allystaire said, smiling, feeling a swelling of pride in his chest that he wasn’t sure he had done anything to earn.
“Aye,” Torvul added. “You were the Goddess’s voice indeed tonight. Masterful.”
“M’gonna be masterfully and brilliantly ‘sleep,” Mol muttered, her eyes drifting closed and her shoulders starting to slump. Allystaire was close enough, and knew the signs well enough to catch her and lift her small form gently, already asleep, as he stood.
“I know well what it feels like to have the Mother’s Gifts overtax your body and mind,” Allystaire whispered to Idgen Marte and Torvul. “She will need sleep.” He jerked his head towards the staircase and started to carry Mol there. “We all will.”
Torvul and Idgen Marte nodded, and the dwarf gestured to the meal’s detritus that lay spread across the table. “Let’s deal with this. Then I’m for bed. Well for a drink and a pipe, but bed at the end of all that.”
Idgen Marte began to respond with her usual disdain for chores, but Allystaire couldn’t make out her words, as he was already halfway up the stairs, looking at the unconscious girl in his arms. He was not sure why he spoke aloud, but his heart and his throat were swollen with the need to express what he felt, so he whispered, “I could not be prouder of you, Mol. I could not love you more if you were my own daughter.” She could not have heard him, he thought—but then, as he carried her into her room, in the darkness he thought he saw her lips form a smile.
* * *
Allystaire brought a cloth-covered bowl back to his tent, the wood hot in his hands after Torvul had done something he wouldn’t explain to warm the heaping pieces of savory pie it held. Navigating by moon and starlight now, he pushed open the flap and stopped immediately inside the pitch dark.
“Gideon?”
There was a scratching sort of hiss, then a tiny dot of flame came to life, found a lantern at about knee height, and the interior of the tent suddenly flooded with surprising brightness.
“What was that?” Allystaire blinked at the sudden light and crossed to where Gideon sat on his cot. He handed over the bowl and took the lantern in exchange. He found a hook along the ridgepole and set it in place.
“A firestick. Torvul’s been making them and spreading them around. Says it is more efficient than flint and steel.” The book he’d been reading was closed on the cot, and Gideon eagerly pulled away the cloth and began tucking into the pie.
“A damn sight more, I would say,” Allystaire said. “As you eat, if you can find a moment to pause for breath, I believe I put two questions to you that still need answers. The first—how do we protect the outlying farms?”
“We don’t have to protect the farms. We have to protect the people on them,” Gideon said.
Allystaire smiled. “Good answer, though it evades the spirit of the question. How do we do it?”
“We can’t. Not properly.” The boy hastily swallowed another mouthful. “We haven’t got the men to post out there. We can’t ask the folk there to move here, to trade their livelihood and land for safety.”
“Stop telling me what we cannot do. Tell me what we can do.”
“Fine. We can train some of the folk who live there, give them bows and spears.”
“We will. Ivar could teach a blind, three-legged dog the rudiments of the spear. Still, they are hardly soldiers. And it is our duty to protect them, not to let them serve as pickets.”
Gideon chewed thoughtfully. “We could build signal fires for them to light at the sign of danger.”
Allystaire shook his head. “Too much fuel, too much maintenance, too hard to predict; they would have to leave someone at each fire every minute of the day, ready to light it.”
The boy suddenly sat up straighter, his food briefly forgotten. “I have it. The early warning bit, at least. Torvul can make small bottles full of something that will ignite on contact with the air. I’m sure he can. They throw the bottle upon the ground, it breaks, it releases a colored gout of flame or smoke into the air.”
Allystaire straightened his back and crossed his arms. “That idea has merit. Provided Torvul can, and if I suggest that he cannot I am sure he will do it just to spite me. Yes. That will do.” He looked to Gideon, said, “So those are your two best answers? Bows and bottles of flame?”
“Well,” the boy said, jabbing at his food with his spoon, “Torvul likely could make bottles of real flame they could hurl at attackers.”
“And no doubt someone would hurl one at a lad or a lass sneaking back home after a late night’s…” he stumbled over the next word, settling on, “mischief.”
“Then bows and signal bottles are all I have,” Gideon said. “That and quick reaction. It does not…I don’t know that it makes them much safer.”
“It is a balancing act. We cannot make their world perfectly safe. Nor should we try, for it would reduce them to children. We will do what we can. Now my second question, and then off to bed with you. With both of us, in point of fact,” Allystaire said, even as he helpfully reminded himself silently, You’ve a conversation to have with Keegan before too long.
“You asked whether someone could wear as much wealth as the priestess did and not be guilty of some ill-defined crime somewhere in the acquisition of it,” Gideon said. “The answer is no, but only on the rhetorical technicality that you never specified anything. When you cast that wide a net, you’re bound to catch something.”
Allystaire furrowed his brow and lowered his head into his hands. “I may be too tired to follow this, lad, but I will try.” He took a deep breath, ambled a few steps, sank heavily into a chair that creaked as it took his weight. “Do you not see how wearing that much gold in a miserable and war-torn country is a kind of sin in itself? How much suffering could she ease if she stopped and gave some of it away?”
“This assumes the people she would give it to would have the opportunity to trade it for what they lack, an assumption that is likely to be untrue. They can’t eat the gold itself.” The boy quickly ate another spoonful before continuing. “And how do you know she doesn’t? I saw the clergy of Fortune once or twice in Londray, when my…when Bhimanzir allowed me out of the castle. They were quite liberal about tossing links to beggars.”
“Were they tossing gold, silver, or copper?”
He thought a moment. “Probably copper.”
“They could do more, Gideon. So much more. So could Braech, so could the nobility.”
“Not doing more is as much a judgment of the frameworks that exist as of the individuals,” Gideon said, prodding at the bowl with his spoon. “If they think they are doing good, or doing right, because it is how they’ve been taught.”
“Some things are right or wrong no matter what a man or woman has been taught,” Allystaire growled.
“Yes, but wearing the regalia of her priesthood, which was probably either handed down to her or made specifically for that purpose, is not a sin in itself,” Gideon said almost plaintively. “I think you are too quick to anger. She could be our ally.”
“She told us plainly that she came here as an envoy to seek to fold the Mother’s church into hers, to claim that the Mother is merely some newly risen aspect of Fortune.”
Gideon’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth. “That’s absurd,” he said, letting the utensil fall down and clatter against the bowl.
“Aye,” Allystaire agreed. “Yet apparently it is politics. I knew her visit meant us nothing good. When she returns and tells them we have refused, it is likely the three great temples will turn against us in unison, declare us a heresy.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“A host of things, none of them good.” As if bandits, the Baron, sorcerers, and refugees from Bend incoming weren’t enough, Allystaire reminded himself. “I think this is enough talk for the night. I need to find what sleep I can, as do you. Good night, Gideon. Rest well.”
The boy stood. He hesitated a moment before saying, “Rest well,” and then he slipped out the back of the tent.
Allystaire tugged off his boots and his new linen shirt, setting the latter carefully on the table, and then slipped the hammer from his belt and rested it, haft pointing up, by the side of his cot, which he fell heavily into. Details of the day began to fill his mind. What does a nightjar sound like? How long till Bend’s refugees get here—are they coming here? We should be scouting. Mistrust Cerisia’s guards. As soon as he thought of the Archioness, though, his mind filled, nearly instantly, with the way her figure tugged at her dress, how her hair looked unbound and spilling down her back, and the way her eyes had smoldered when he had raised his voice.
Embarrassed, flushed in the dark, he pushed the thought away and quickly found sleep.