The Bear

FOURTEEN

"You cannot expect me to take him or his proposition seriously," Bannagran said to Reandu. "Ethelbert wears his desperation clearly. He is afraid and knows the war is soon to end, and so he tries to turn us to his cause. He has nothing else to play."

"His cause is Dame Gwydre's cause," Master Reandu reminded.

"Father Artolivan's, you mean," said Bannagran. Reandu straightened at that, unable to dispute the simple truth of it. His belief in Father Artolivan and St. Mere Abelle was surely his disadvantage in his dealings with Bannagran, but so be it. Master Reandu would not disavow the church whatever the personal cost of fealty.

"You would have me join with Ethelbert," Bannagran accused. "You would have me turn the army of Pryd about and assault King Yeslnik for the sake of Laird Ethelbert and your church."

"Do you think Yeslnik a more deserving king than Laird Ethelbert?" Reandu asked bluntly. "Truly?"

"I think that the ways of the world do not ask my opinion."

"The ways of the world asked neither Delaval's nor Ethelbert's nor Yeslnik's opinion!" Reandu shot back. "No divine angel swept down and told Delaval to claim the throne. No just and good god would ever ask that of the idiot Yeslnik!"

Bannagran's stinging slap staggered Reandu back several steps. He held his balance, somehow, but came up holding his aching jaw and staring at the Bear of Honce incredulously.

Several times Bannagran-who seemed as horrified as Reandu-started to respond, but each time he just growled and scowled and shook his head.

"You cannot speak of the King of Honce such," Bannagran finally explained, though it sounded hollow, even to him. "I have pledged my fealty to him."

"You have often called me friend," Reandu countered.

"And you make it a difficult proposition ever."

"If I am your friend, then I must be able to speak my heart to you," said Reandu. "And I did." He rubbed his jaw again pointedly.

Bannagran glanced around to see a couple of groups looking over at him and Reandu curiously. They couldn't hear the conversation, but they had no doubt seen the slap. The Laird of Pryd scowled at those onlookers fiercely until they retreated beyond the nearest tree line.

"I know the treachery you plan," Bannagran whispered when he was certain they were very much alone. "You are encouraged by the arrival of Laird Ethelbert. I know that you will flee at the first opportunity with those brethren you have brought, and Ethelbert's men will no doubt rejoin him."

"They will not," Reandu replied. "On their word. They are out of the war as they promised. Laird Ethelbert's arrival here does nothing to change that."

"We shall see," said Bannagran. "And if not to Ethelbert, then they will go with you to your home chapel, to the side of Father Artolivan, where your loyalty truly lies."

"I'll not deny that," said Reandu. "Never have I. I am a brother of the Order of Blessed Abelle. It is his path I follow above all others, and that path leads me to St. Mere Abelle and Father Artolivan and not to Father De Guilbe. The man is a godless opportunist, who has placed personal power and glory above the call of the order."

"Many believe that would make him a wise man."

"A coward!" Reandu insisted. "Throughout the short history of our order, brothers have sacrificed their lives before renouncing Blessed Abelle. I expect no less of myself."

"Because you expect a reward in the afterlife for your grand sacrifice," said Bannagran. "The Samhaists would not agree."

"No," Reandu replied. "No, my friend. It is not for the afterlife or the promises of Abelle, great though they are, and indeed I do believe them. No, it is the principle of behavior that I place above even that promise. The greatest gift of Blessed Abelle is the promise of better lives for all men if all men followed the tenets of his order. The greatest promise is brotherhood joined, is common gain for common cause."

Bannagran began to laugh, and that gave Reandu pause.

"You truly believe that?" the Laird of Pryd asked.

"Enough so that if you present me with the choice of abandoning my course or feeling the mortal bite of your great axe, I will suffer the blow."

"So you say until the axe hovers above your neck."

"So I say until my voice is quieted forever." Reandu straightened his shoulders with his proclamation and stared at Bannagran unblinkingly.

For a moment it seemed as if Bannagran would respond, but the powerful man just snorted and walked away, shaking his head with every step.

Master Reandu breathed a sigh of relief.

"He is right, you know," came a voice from above, and Reandu, startled but not surprised, just closed his eyes and sighed.

Bransen dropped to the ground in front of him. "Your idealism is foolish, childish even, in light of the darkness that has come to Honce."

"And without that idealism, my life would be empty," Reandu replied.

Bransen stared at him doubtfully.

"You are to judge me?" Reandu asked. "You, who thought yourself a murderer and nearly destroyed all that you have achieved in that ridiculous self-deception?"

The simple truth of that reminder had Bransen back on his heels.

"Bransen the assassin," Reandu said dramatically, every syllable dripping with sarcasm. "The rogue Highwayman who kills without mercy!"

Bransen pushed past the embarrassment and shrugged off the insult. "Once I believed as you claim," he replied. "And then Garibond was murdered."

Bransen had reversed the conversation and now it was Reandu settling into a defensive posture.

"And I dared to believe again," Bransen went on. "And then Jameston Sequin was murdered. Bitter experience tells me that you chase a fool's road as Bannagran declared."

"Bitter disappointment has weakened your heart and your resolve, you mean."

"You call Father De Guilbe a coward, but you say it from the shadows. Why did Reandu not so declare that to Father De Guilbe back in Pryd Town, I wonder?"

"Because to invite such wrath would be foolish and counterproductive to the cause I serve," the monk replied without the slightest hesitation. "And because other men depend upon me to lead them to safety, and I would not throw that trust to Yeslnik's ill justice. And yes, Bransen, Father De Guilbe is a coward and an immoral opportunist who sees a chance to usurp the power of rightful Father Artolivan."

"And, thus, Bannagran of Pryd must also be a coward," Bransen reasoned.

"A cynic," Reandu corrected.

"They are the same by your definition."

Reandu considered that for a moment, then nodded. "And so is Bransen Garibond, too, a coward?"

"Will he abandon you in your glorious cause, you mean?"

Master Reandu didn't blink.

Bransen considered his own words for a short while, then pulled the soul stone from his forehead and reached into his pouch to collect the other magical gems Reandu had given him. He held his hand out to the monk.

"You cannot bring yourself to profit on the blood of innocents," Reandu replied, making no move to take the gemstones. "And so, since you know that there is no personal gain for you here, you determine that this is no longer your fight. Bransen will run away."

Bransen did not retract his hand.

"You can run from this fight, Bransen," Reandu said. "But you cannot run from yourself. The gemstones are yours, forevermore. I grant them to you without demand, but with expectation that one day you will admit the truth to yourself."

Very slowly, Bransen pulled back his hand. He didn't want to accept the stones, but he knew that without them he would have no chance of defeating Affwin Wi and retrieving his sword or the brooch. Without them he wouldn't likely even traverse the many miles to get back to his wife.

"I am done with this war," he stated flatly. "To you I am a coward, then."

When Reandu didn't immediately reply, Bransen turned and walked away. "You are the bravest man I have ever known, Stork," he heard Reandu say softly behind him, and the weight of that, along with the tender reference to that helpless creature he had been, nearly cut Bransen's legs from under him.

But stubbornly the Highwayman kept going. He didn't slow until he was long out of the encampment, far up the northern road. Who is that?" Bannagran asked Reandu as they watched the approach of Laird Ethelbert and his entourage. It was the same group as the previous day but with the notable addition of a man dressed in the colors of King Yeslnik. He wasn't chained, but the look on his face and his position between the dangerous man and woman from Behr spoke volumes regarding his status.

When the group turned onto the lea, the warrior woman grabbed the prisoner hard by the wrist and twisted until a grimace appeared on his face.

Bannagran glanced all around at the many warriors and archers he had prepositioned. Unsure of how Laird Ethelbert would take his refusal of alliance and knowing now that the man had brought his assassins with him, Bannagran had duly prepared for all possibilities.

"A gift?" Bannagran asked. "A prisoner exchange?"

"A man we found wandering the road," said Ethelbert. "Searching for you." He turned to Affwin Wi and nodded, and the fierce woman shoved the poor and obviously terrified man forward.

"To recall you," Laird Ethelbert went on. "He comes with word of a powrie army swarming out of the Masur Delaval and laying waste to the riverside settlements. We had to take him captive, of course. I have a particular fear of spies in these dangerous times. Surely you understand."

Bannagran looked from Ethelbert to the courier. "It's true, Laird Bannagran," the man said with an obvious Delaval accent. "Hundreds of the little rats, and oh, but they've killed a few and more."

"Your King Yeslnik's kingdom is being assailed before it can even be formed," Ethelbert added.

"King Yeslnik bids you return with all speed-and with his army," the courier added. He glanced back at Ethelbert, who nodded for him to proceed. From his belt he produced a rolled parchment and handed it over to Bannagran. The seal was broken, but the two halves very much resembled the wax press of King Yeslnik.

Bannagran handed it to Reandu, who pulled it open and read it quietly to him. "… with all haste," Reandu finished a few moments later.

Bannagran paused and let the news sink in. "Convenient for Laird Ethelbert," he said at last. "To turn me away with your city gates nearly in sight."

Ethelbert looked to the courier. "Perhaps the old ones, or Blessed Abelle, favor me," he admitted. "But surely I have no love of powries, and this is not my doing."

"I cannot disagree," Bannagran replied, but he added the caveat, "if this man is who you claim, and if his words are true. Else, it is, indeed, your doing."

"Then you will march back to my gates even angrier," the old laird said sourly.

"There are more couriers, laird," the captured page interjected. "Most riding east along the road. They should reach the end of your long line this very day, if they have not already."

"And then you will turn for home," Ethelbert reasoned. "Only to turn back yet again and come against me once more, I expect. I do believe you will kill half your men simply from marching while my army rests and prepares."

Bannagran stared hard at him but did not respond.

"Or we could march beside Laird Bannagran," Cormack offered. "Joined in common cause against the powrie marauders."

Both Ethelbert and Bannagran looked at Cormack as if he had surely lost his mind.

"Give them a tent and food," Bannagran called to his men, and to Laird Ethelbert he added, "You may remain as my guest while I confirm this tale. Perhaps you will find yet another unlikely reprieve, albeit a temporary one."

With Ethelbert's and Bannagran's permission, Cormack and Milkeila did not remain with Laird Ethelbert and his entourage, going instead with Bannagran and Master Reandu. Cormack did not surrender his notion of joining the forces together in common cause.

"This could be our chance to end this miserable war," he pleaded with Bannagran. "An opportunity for the men of Honce to remember that they are brothers and that there are enough enemies in the wider world without them battling each other."

"Who are you?" Bannagran asked dismissively, and he walked away.

"It is not so misplaced a notion," Reandu said when he was alone with Cormack and Milkeila. "I would welcome such a resolution."

"Your own resolution, that of the church, I mean, might be harder to discover," Cormack replied. "You march with Yeslnik, thus with Father De Guilbe."

"You know him?"

"He led my mission to Alpinador," Cormack admitted. "Indeed, it was his fight with me, his determination that I be banished from the order-even executed for my crimes-that precipitated his wider argument with Father Premujon of Chapel Pellinor and ultimately with Father Artolivan, both of whom judged my cause and course correct."

Reandu stared at him and nodded, recalling all that Bransen had told him of the battle in Alpinador.

"Father De Guilbe is no voice of a just god," Milkeila dared to add.

"I bid you to reconsider your course, Master Reandu," Cormack said. "Father Artolivan and the brothers at St. Mere Abelle have spoken of you as a beacon of light in this dark night."

The skepticism on Reandu's face was clear to see.

"It is true," Cormack insisted. "I was sent to Ethelbert dos Entel to forge the alliance with Laird Ethelbert, but that alone would not suffice. Nay, to Pryd Town I was to go, to speak to you and implore you to show Laird Bannagran the justice of our cause and the injustice of Yeslnik's road. You are a man of honor, so claims Father Artolivan and Brother Pinower, and, as such, you would understand the truth of Dame Gwydre. Alas, but it saddens me to see you in the service of King Yeslnik and Father De Guilbe."

"I am no friend to De Guilbe," Reandu heard himself replying, and he could hardly believe he was speaking the thought aloud. As telling to Cormack as the words themselves was his pointed omission of De Guilbe's title, something a long-serving master of the order would never do by mistake.

Reandu, so frustrated and teetering between fear and hope, pressed on. "I serve Laird Bannagran. I serve Pryd Town, my home. If they march to war, then my brethren and I are compelled to travel beside them and tend their wounds. But whatever the outcome of this campaign in the east, I deign not to return to Chapel Pryd. My road is to St. Mere Abelle, and how that new name rolls sweetly from my lips! My fealty and that of the monks who have joined me on this march-the whole of Chapel Pryd's brothers-is to Artolivan, Father of the Order of Blessed Abelle."

Cormack and Milkeila both brightened at that surprising and welcomed revelation. "Then speak to Bannagran, your laird and your friend."

"He will not betray King Yeslnik for Laird Ethelbert," Reandu replied, and when Cormack moved to argue, he added, "Or for your Dame Gwydre, whom he does not know."

"But will he allow Laird Ethelbert to bring forth his army to join in the fight against the powries?" asked Milkeila.

"The word of a powrie force is true, then?" Reandu asked.

"The courier was from King Yeslnik, yes," said Cormack. "And by that man's words and not just the letter from Yeslnik, the powries swarm the banks of the Masur Delaval."

"It is rumored that they assailed Palmaristown at the behest of Dame Gwydre," Reandu warned, but Cormack was shaking his head with every word.

"I see doubt on your face, brother," Reandu added.

"In Alpinador, a band of powries fought beside us in our struggle with Ancient Badden, for they, too, would have perished by his hand. It is possible that they are among this force, but by word of the courier it seems that the whole of the Weathered Isles have emptied onto the shores of Honce. This is not the doing of Dame Gwydre-never would she set such a scourge upon the land as that."

"Bransen the Highwayman will support our claims," Milkeila added. "He was there with us when we battled Ancient Badden. The powries of Lake Mithranidoon were the ones who first rescued him after his fall from the glacier."

Reandu's face screwed up incredulously at that strange information. "Bransen is gone," he replied. "To the north, I expect, and his wife at St. Mere Abelle." He paused, shaking his head. "He was there? Beside powries?"

"Common enemies make for unexpected alliances," said Cormack. "Perhaps now again, and with an alliance that will remind the folk of Honce that we are all brothers. Press your Laird Bannagran, I beg. Fate has given us a chance to heal the wounds of a land torn by war."

Reandu looked across the way toward the distant command tent of Bannagran. The monk made certain that he was in that tent with the laird when other couriers came up from along the long line of the marching army to confirm the news and order the recall of Bannagran's forces.

Reandu seized the moment, imploring Bannagran to take the offer of Laird Ethelbert to march beside Honce allies against their common foe.

The Bear of Honce offered a simple and short answer: "Shut up."

Bannagran's turn to the west was immediate, breaking camp that very afternoon. Laird Ethelbert's troupe rode hard to the south, arriving in Ethelbert dos Entel only a few hours later. Ethelbert immediately convened his generals and explained the shifting situation.

Myrick and Tyne took the same line as Affwin Wi, begging their laird to stay put, to let the powries aid their cause, but Kirren Howen stood quietly, doubt clear on his face.

"You remember those skirmishes along the black rocks of the coast," Ethelbert said.

The old general nodded. "Laird Prydae and his champion Bannagran showed well in the fighting," Kirren Howen replied. "Glad I was to be on their flank, for even then the men of Pryd Town fought better than any others-except our own, of course-Laird Delaval's soldiers included. I am not surprised that Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, has risen to such prominence among the ranks."

"Powries striking all along the river, they claim," said Ethelbert.

"They need us," Cormack dared interrupt. Several hard stares turned on him for speaking out of turn, but Ethelbert didn't look his way and kept exchanging his glance with Kirren Howen.

"Had Laird Bannagran agreed to secure our march, it might have been an opportunity to heal Honce," the general remarked.

"Indeed," was all that tired old Laird Ethelbert could manage in reply. "It might have been."

The finality of his tone stopped the budding protests of Myrick and Tyne before they could begin to mount.

"Then make it so," Cormack tried one last time to press upon them.

"If powries are climbing from the Masur Delaval, then the Mirianic Coast is not secure," Kirren Howen pointed out.

"And without the guarantee of Laird Bannagran, I would not risk a man of Ethelbert dos Entel," Ethelbert added. "Even with Bannagran's word of honor, which he did not grant, I would be a fool to put my garrison on the field near to the superior numbers of treacherous Yeslnik. You see the world with the optimism of a priest, truly, but I view it through the eyes of responsibility."

"If we do not go forth and aid against the powries, when they are defeated Yeslnik will send Bannagran and many thousands back against us," Cormack reminded. "We cannot hope to win."

"Then mayhap we should hope that the miserable bloody caps will kill enough of Yeslnik's men to deter him from that march. Or enough, perhaps, so that we can steal the advantage and destroy them all."

Cormack wanted to argue, and so obviously did he tense that Milkeila grasped his forearm and gently squeezed.

"Your bargaining is not with me, young brother," Ethelbert continued. "You wish to turn Laird Bannagran from the side of the fool Yeslnik. Go then, and quickly, and catch up to his march. If the ways of the world turn the Bear of Honce from the cause of the idiot king, he will ever have a potential ally here in Ethelbert dos Entel. We do not forget the days of yore when Bannagran and Laird Prydae fought on our flank."

He was looking at Kirren Howen as he finished, and the general nodded his complete agreement.

It was something, at least, Cormack silently mused. With Ethelbert's blessing, and that of Father Destros, he and Milkeila started out soon after, back to the northwest. Two others watched their departure. Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna did not offer any such blessing or words of encouragement.

"I do not trust this Bannagran," Merwal Yahna remarked.

"Trust?" the woman asked as if the notion was ridiculous.

"If Ethelbert and Bannagran, and thus Yeslnik, unite against the powries, then this young king will demand retribution for the death of Delaval," Merwal Yahna clarified. "They will only find true alliance through the action of mock justice."

Affwin Wi laughed at him. "Fear not, for Ethelbert will not turn against me."

"He is a desperate man" Merwal Yahna said. "We should leave now. For Jacintha."

But Affwin Wi was shaking her head. "This work is lucrative and enjoyable. You fear these barbarians? We have Jhesta Tu hunting us back in Behr, and I would rather face the whole of Yeslnik's army than hide again in the shadows of Jacintha's streets. We will not leave."

"When a peace is brokered, we will be sacrificed to it," Merwal Yahna warned.

Affwin Wi wore a wicked smile. "Peace?"

"So let there be no peace," Merwal Yahna said, reading her perfectly.

Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna were called to Laird Ethelbert's side again late that afternoon for a continued discussion of their options.

The three remaining followers of Affwin Wi, led by Moh Li, a man sorely injured by Bransen in the fight that had driven the Highwayman from Affwin Wi's gang, departed Ethelbert dos Entel soon after sunset, following the path of Cormack and Milkeila.