The Bear

TWENTY-FOUR

Kirren Howen looked at the charred body of Affwin Wi, so disfigured as to be nearly unrecognizable.

"The Highwayman did this," Myrick the Bold said. "There can be no doubt."

"So it would seem," Kirren Howen replied.

"And so he was part of the plan to murder Laird Ethelbert!" Myrick exclaimed. Kirren Howen flashed him an angry glare, reminding him to keep his voice down. They had come with a dozen sentries and the peasant woman who had discovered the bodies. All stood nearby in the shade of the same tree into which Bransen and later Affwin Wi had leaped.

Both generals glanced that way now, to see curious looks coming back at them, but it seemed clear that Myrick's words hadn't fully registered to the group. Kirren Howen breathed a sigh of relief at that. He wasn't sure how he wanted to proceed here. They hadn't let news of Ethelbert's death spread from the castle yet, and Kirren Howen preferred to keep it quiet until he could figure out exactly how the laird's demise had come about. Something about the obvious story, about a woman from Bannagran sneaking in and murdering the man, rang hollow to him.

Where were the guards who had left the gate with this assassin, reportedly taking her to see Ethelbert? What of Bransen, the Highwayman, who had arrived to speak with Ethelbert on the morning after the laird's death? Had that been but a ruse so that he wouldn't be implicated in the murder? But if that were the case, then why had the Highwayman shown his face at all in the city? Certainly he could have gotten out of the city as quietly as he had apparently gotten in!

Now this, the two greatest warriors in all of Ethelbert dos Entel, lying dead on a field outside the city's walls. Little of it made any sense to Kirren Howen.

"What are we to do?" Myrick asked more quietly. "Do we march to Pryd Town to avenge our laird?"

"Avenge? You presume much. To think that we could even go to war with Bannagran is folly."

"Then what?"

"We learn the truth of this crime."

"We know the truth!" the impetuous and hot-blooded Myrick insisted.

"We know nothing," said Kirren Howen. "But we shall." I told him where you went and what you did," Dame Gwydre said to Bransen as they departed Pryd on the morning after his return.

Bransen looked at her skeptically, as if determined to remind her that he really didn't care what Bannagran might think of him. "He said that we lost valuable warriors for our cause, no doubt, should Ethelbert turn to our cause."

Gwydre laughed, showing Bransen that he wasn't far off the mark. "There is that," she admitted. "But more so, Bannagran appeared impressed, both by your simple act of defeating those two warriors and that you went to such lengths to avenge a fallen friend."

"Without reminding you that he hadn't avenged his fallen friend by executing me?" Bransen asked sarcastically, and Gwydre laughed again. Indeed, she seemed to be in a fine and joyous mood this morning.

"Bannagran thinks highly of you. He respects your journey and the place it has taken you."

"Now I feel guilty for all the fantasies I've had of killing the brute."

"There is no end to Bransen's sarcasm, I see."

"Would you have it any other way?"

Dame Gwydre stared at him.

"I am here, am I not? I led you here, in fact! Is that not enough of a show of faith in Laird Bannagran?"

Gwydre let it go at that, and the pair bounded across the countryside. To Gwydre's surprise, though, Bransen headed for the east, and not directly north toward her forces. When she finally found the moment to question Bransen of their course, he said it was time for her to meet Laird Ethelbert.

"You trust that he will not kill you for what you did to his warriors?"

"You think me foolish enough to give him the opportunity?" Kirren Howen brought his hands up to tousle his hair as he leaned back against the wall of a storage shed not far from the city's main gate. Two guards lay dead on the floor before him, ostensibly the victims of the same woman assassin who had murdered Laird Ethelbert.

The crafty old general noted that these two had been bludgeoned, one's neck snapped, while Ethelbert had been slashed across the throat. More and more curious. Myrick postulated that the Highwayman likely killed these two, while the woman murdered Ethelbert.

Father Destros and Tyne argued with him on that point, and it was obvious to Kirren Howen that Destros was sharing his doubts about the whole theory. They had interviewed the other guards who had been at the gate when the woman had arrived, and the snippets she had told them spoke of an altogether different kind of treachery here aimed at Bannagran.

"Take them to the chapel and study their wounds more closely," he instructed Destros. "Then come to me in the castle when you are certain of the type of weapon used and when you can guess at the expertise required."

Myrick started to protest.

"You are a fine commander, Myrick the Bold," Kirren Howen interrupted, "but you show your inexperience with every word you utter. You are speaking of the fate of a city here… of a city that is now fully our responsibility. To run off impetuously is to risk disaster. Nay, our course is to remain calm and to learn."

"But-" the many started to argue.

"I know your pain, friend," said Kirren Howen. "And I would see Laird Ethelbert's assassin dead in the most painful manner I can determine, do not doubt. But many important decisions lie before us, and we have not nearly the information we need to make them properly." He glanced at Destros and nodded. The monk rushed outside to summon fellow brothers to help him carry the dead sentries to Chapel Entel.

Kirren Howen had barely returned to the castle when the excited Destros rushed in to speak with him. "The Highwayman returns," he blurted.

Kirren Howen stared at him dumbfounded. "He is here?"

"Soon."

"How can you know this?"

"He came to me, spirit walking, and bade me to speak with Laird Ethelbert, to arrange a parlay this day at sunset."

"He will be taken when he enters the city."

Father Destros shook his head. "He wishes a parlay outside the gates in an abandoned cottage at the edge of the forest not far from here."

Kirren Howen narrowed his eyes threateningly.

"He brings Dame Gwydre to speak with him."

Kirren Howen's eyes opened wide at that! "He asked for Ethelbert?"

"He does not know that our laird has been slain."

"Or he is a practiced liar."

Destros shook his head. "Spirit walking and communicating in such a form is a joining of minds and of souls, my laird…" He paused and looked at Kirren Howen curiously, and the general, too, was caught off guard by the reference to a title that he surely would call his own.

"In such a state there can be no deception," Father Destros concluded. "The Highwayman was not lying. He does not know that Laird Ethelbert has been slain."

Kirren Howen wasn't truly surprised by that bit of news when he paused to consider it. So much of the assumed story had kept him off balance, with nagging doubts regarding the tiny details at the edges of the tale.

"We will go and meet with the Highwayman and Gwydre," the new Laird of Ethelbert dos Entel said.

"Perhaps you should send someone in your stead."

"Would Laird Ethelbert have done so?"

There was no need to answer that question, of course, particularly considering that Ethelbert had personally traveled to the edge of Bannagran's army, ultimately vulnerable.

Still, both Destros and Kirren Howen breathed a sigh of relief to find only Bransen and Dame Gwydre waiting for them in the appointed rendezvous, a ruined cottage not so far from the city, the same cottage where Jameston Sequin had been slain.

"I would speak with Laird Ethelbert directly," Dame Gwydre said.

"I speak for the city," Kirren Howen replied.

"I would not have my words misinterpreted when they reach Laird Ethelbert's ears."

Father Destros shifted nervously, a move Bransen noted. When Dame Gwydre continued, Bransen stopped her with an upraised arm. Staring hard at Destros, he asked, "What is it?"

"Your man here need answer some questions," Kirren Howen said, deflecting the inquiry and causing Bransen to turn and face him directly. "Concerning a man and woman from Behr."

"Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna," Bransen replied. "I killed them. Both of them."

Father Destros gasped and put a hand to his mouth. Dame Gwydre turned to Bransen sharply, but Kirren Howen didn't blink.

Bransen pointed to the back corner of the single-room cottage, to a hole in the wall about a foot off the floor. "Jameston Sequin was murdered in that spot," he explained, and Dame Gwydre gasped this time.

"My companion," Bransen explained. "Dame Gwydre's friend… indeed, a friend and legend throughout the Vanguard Holding. Merwal Yahna killed him on the word of Affwin Wi. She took from me my mother's sword and this brooch"-he pointed to the star brooch set on his forehead-"entrusted to me by Father Artolivan. I went to retrieve them, and she fought me in fair combat, as did Merwal Yahna. They are dead."

His matter-of-fact tone did much to defeat any protest coming from Kirren Howen, and it was obvious from his reaction to both Bransen and Gwydre that the man hadn't been overly fond of Ethelbert's assassins.

"Laird Ethelbert named them as champions of Ethelbert dos Entel," Kirren Howen warned. "You should take care your admission."

"Then are we to presume that Laird Ethelbert sent them to murder Cormack and Milkeila, as well as Laird Bannagran?" Bransen retorted.

Kirren Howen winced at that. It was the same story he had heard from the guards who had been at the gate when Bannagran's "courier" had arrived.

"This is true, then?" he asked.

"It is," said Bransen. "Another friend paid dearly in that unwarranted attack."

"If you thought pursuing Bannagran would bring safety to your city, then we can ignore that indiscretion," Dame Gwydre added. "We have all been pushed to desperate measures in these trying times. But I would speak with Laird Ethelbert directly. The events in the north will change swiftly-"

"He is dead," Kirren Howen said bluntly, and to their astonished stares he added, "murdered in his bedchamber. I know not by whom, but we found a courier from Bannagran dead at his bedside, killed by Affwin Wi, who found her over Laird Ethelbert's body."

Bransen and Gwydre looked to each other blankly for a few moments, but then Bransen softly chuckled and said, "Convenient."

"What do you mean?" Kirren Howen asked.

"Did you, did Laird Ethelbert, send Affwin Wi's assassins on the road after Cormack and Milkeila? Or after Bannagran himself?"

Kirren Howen's silence spoke volumes, and both he and Bransen knew that they were drawing the same conclusions here.

"So you speak for the city now, wholly so?" Bransen said.

Kirren Howen nodded, and Bransen stepped aside with a nod to Dame Gwydre.

"I have not much time," Gwydre started. "Laird Bannagran wavers in his support of King Yeslnik. I know not if he will turn against Yeslnik, but I do not believe he will fight in support of the man. Great armies will clash in the north. Now is not the time for the warriors of Ethelbert to remain behind their walls."

"Or is it precisely that time?" Kirren Howen retorted. "To let others spill blood while we strengthen our defenses?"

"The fate of Honce hangs precariously," Dame Gwydre replied. "Should Yeslnik win the day, do you think your walls will hold him at bay? For no matter how hard I sting him in the north, you know that the victor of that conflict will come out stronger."

"So if Dame Gwydre wins, will I need my walls, good lady?"

Without hesitation and with a wide and sincere smile, Dame Gwydre replied, "No. The warriors of Ethelbert dos Entel have earned their place and their peace many times over. All of Honce is grateful that Laird Ethelbert stood strong against the darkness that is Delaval City."

"I will hold you to those words, Lady, whether we come forth or not," said Kirren Howen. Dame Gwydre nodded.

"We take our leave," the dame announced. "There is much astir in the north." With appropriate bows, she and Bransen strode from the cottage.

"Following seas, Lady of Vanguard," Kirren Howen said, tipping his heart if not his hand, for that expression, shared by sailors the world over, was the most sincere of well-wishes.

Hand-in-hand, gemstone magic flowing through them, Bransen and Gwydre bounded away to the north to rejoin the army of Vanguard, to begin again the wild flight about the holdings of Honce. The summer had deepened now and, with the heat, so, too, had deepened the misery of Milwellis's futile pursuit.

Both Gwydre and Bransen knew that the time to finish the war was nearly at hand. If Laird Bannagran is settled in Pryd Town, we are not forced to remain here," Kirren Howen said to Myrick, Tyne, and Destros soon after Bransen and Gwydre had departed.

Myrick shook his head in protest.

"Do speak your doubts," said Kirren Howen.

"Our charge is to protect the city, for the memory of Laird Ethelbert."

"You would have us join with Dame Gwydre against the masses of King Yeslnik?" Tyne asked, his voice thick also with reservations. "By all accounts, Yeslnik and Milwellis and Bannagran all command many legions of skilled and well-armored warriors. The power of Delaval City is not to be discounted."

"And I do not do so," Kirren Howen replied.

"But you would have us join with this desperate plan of Dame Gwydre's. Are we to believe that she was not a party to the murder of Laird Ethelbert?"

"Yes," Father Destros interjected in answer to the latter conclusion.

"Perhaps join with her," said Kirren Howen. "Perhaps not."

"Laird?" Myrick and Tyne asked together.

"Which side will we join?" Kirren Howen asked rhetorically. "Why, whichever side will win, of course. We know that we'll not have the kingdom to claim as our own… not now, with Laird Ethelbert lost to us. And we haven't the reserves any longer to entertain any such notions. We are for Ethelbert dos Entel now. Nothing less and nothing more. And so we will enter into a treaty with whichever side will win the day, and always we will march with a clear road back home behind us."

Father Destros bristled at that.

"Your church will choose as you and your brethren see fit," Kirren Howen assured him. "I will take no actions against you and, indeed, will help facilitate your retreat to St. Mere Abelle should it come to that." He looked to the others and lifted a glass of wine in toast.

"This is not our fight, Gwydre and Yeslnik," he explained. "But, for the good Laird Ethelbert and for Ethelbert dos Entel, perhaps we can make it our fight when the moment of victory is upon one or the other and, in joining, become the tipping point to a crushing victory.

"Our numbers double, and our importance multiplies many times over in such a situation," he explained. "For not only will we be joining in the cause of Yeslnik or Gwydre, we will not be joining in the cause of their opponent. And so we will very likely be able to dictate terms favorable to our city in return."

Smiles spread on the faces of the two younger generals, and both lifted their glasses in agreement.

"Take heart, my friends," Kirren Howen proclaimed. "If the Highwayman's confidence is at all justified, and King Yeslnik has reason to be worried, then we will profit. Let us assemble a swift and agile force. I'll not have us caught outside our walls and not engage in any battle until and unless it is of our choosing."

"For Ethelbert dos Entel!" Myrick the Bold said and lifted his glass once more.

"For Laird Ethelbert!" Tyne added and corrected, tapping his glass against that of his friend.