The Dame

TWENTY-ONE

A calm spread over St. Mere Abelle. Panlamaris’s army remained entrenched across the field, but they would not come on. No monks were out to guide the many prisoners, who, suddenly, did not seem to be prisoners any longer. Their work was not diligent this day as they milled about, whispering about the grand changes that had come to the world and to their corner of it. Ethelbert man and woman and Delaval man and woman mingled effortlessly and without thought, their old boundaries and battles now, finally, fully left behind.

In every prayer room of the great chapel, the brothers did their work, those lesser monks assisting the more powerful as they used a soul stone to soar out from their bodies, to travel spiritually to every corner of Honce, to their brethren with the word of Father Artolivan.

Come gather in Chapel Abelle, the blessed St. Mere Abelle, their spirits implored their brethren. Or to Ethelbert dos Entel if you must, and pray for the mercy of Laird Ethelbert. Hide, brethren, from the fires and follies of King Yeslnik.

The finality of the decision, a frank admission that the Abellican Church had severed ties, had declared a complete and likely irrevocable break with King Yeslnik and thus the bulk of Honce itself, had weighed heavily on Father Artolivan and the others, but when Father Dennigan of Chapel Delaval had arrived, carrying the head of Brother Piastafan, what choice had been left?

“Let the word go forth,” Father Artolivan had told his brethren, his voice thick with regret and sad resignation. And so the brothers went to their work this calm morning, their spirits soaring from their corporeal bodies and from St. Mere Abelle, flying to the distant chapels to the limits of their power, then entreating the brothers of the outward chapels to spread the word to the wider corners of Honce.

“This ability of the monks to spread the word wide and far is an advantage for us,” Dame Gwydre said to Dawson, Cormack, and Milkeila at the windswept docks of St. Mere Abelle. “Should it come to war, our armies can remain in coordination. Our enemies might wait a week to hear word from a distant battlefield, but we can know…”

“You overestimate the power of spirit-walking,” Cormack dared to intervene. “This is a highly unusual event-we did not dare try it even in those hours when our situation in Alpinador grew desperate. This is most extraordinary for Father Artolivan to command it, or even allow it.”

“He did as much to relate to us the happenings in the southland when we were in Vanguard,” Dame Gwydre protested.

“And paid a dear price. One of the brothers who came spiritually to Vanguard-”

“One of? There was only the one.”

“Only the one who made it,” Cormack corrected. “Out of a dozen who made the attempt. Most fell short, weary before they ever managed to float their spirits across the Gulf of Corona. Another never even made the gulf, having fallen to possess a poor girl he saw along the road. He has recovered from the shock of that ill-fated meeting, but she remains a stuttering fool. And another brother did cross the gulf, only to be drawn into the corporeal form of a dockman on the wharves of Port Vanguard. He did not manage a possession and was driven mad in the attempt.”

“Why would they attempt such a thing as possession?” Milkeila had to ask, her eyes wide with shock.

“Aye, it seems an evil thing!” added Dawson.

Cormack nodded. “It is a compulsion that breaks the greatest of brothers, a temptation borne out of no rational thought and rarely controlled by rational thought. Spirit-walking is outlawed within the order, other than by specific exception. A brother trapped in the forest, freezing to death, would be violating church edict if he so used a soul stone to seek out aid.”

Dame Gwydre started to argue against that reasoning, but stopped and swallowed hard and glanced back at the long tunnels that would take her back to the cliff-top structures, only then truly appreciating the enormous weight that had bowed the shoulders of Father Artolivan.

“They use it now, as previously to inform you of the great events in Honce, because of the magnitude,” Cormack explained. “Even should a few brothers fail, even should a few bystanders be driven mad by an unintended possession, the cost is worth the gain, for Father Artolivan knows well that many of his brethren and the prisoners they shelter are in dire peril now, and he would not have them go to unwitting slaughter.”

“His brethren, or your own?” Dawson asked, drawing a sidelong glance from Cormack. “You sound like one who’s thinking the church a good place to be.”

Cormack glanced at Milkeila, who grinned knowingly, not disagreeing with Dawson’s assessment.

To that, Cormack merely shrugged.

“Sail swift and sail safe,” Gwydre said to them. “To Vanguard, one ship, to Ethelbert dos Entel the other.”

Dawson nodded, then stepped up and gave the woman a hug. “I’ll be for Entel,” he whispered. “So my journey’s the long one.”

“What will I do without Dawson beside me?” Gwydre whispered back.

“The right thing,” he replied and squeezed her tighter. “I lost me heart last night,” he whispered even more quietly. “And now I’m leaving her here under your own protection.”

“Callen?” said Gwydre, loudly enough so that Cormack and Milkeila caught it and looked at the hugging couple curiously. She pushed Dawson back to arm’s length. He didn’t answer, other than to smile.

And Gwydre’s own smile more than matched his own. How strange the fates could be! A deception to bring Bransen to Vanguard to serve in a war had brought Dawson together with a woman who stole his heart, an event that neither he nor Gwydre had ever expected would happen again.

“Sail swift and sail safe,” she said, her voice breaking. “And come back to your lady, who will be by my side.”

The good news carried Dame Gwydre back through the tunnels and stairs to the high ground of St. Mere Abelle. When she arrived, though late for a meeting, she did not go straight to Father Artolivan’s audience hall. Instead she climbed the ladder of the back wall, overlooking the narrow bay that sheltered St. Mere Abelle’s docks.

Lady Dreamer was just putting out, all lines away. A second ship was already out from the docks, awaiting Dawson’s craft. The two would travel together throughout the first couple of days, moving to the middle of the gulf, before Dawson turned east to run the coast all the way to Ethelbert dos Entel at the end of the Belt-and-Buckle and the other went north.

The tide brought Lady Dreamer out a short ways, and one sail dropped open, Dawson tacking hard and expertly to turn his bow out to open waters.

Gwydre took comfort in the great confidence she held in Dawson McKeege. If anyone could get to Laird Ethelbert and properly deliver her message, it was he. The comfort helped her to get past the great sadness that enveloped her as Lady Dreamer started away, for she missed her longtime companion already. He had become a true brother to her, a confidant and the one man who kept her focused on and honest to what was in her heart. How would she get through these trying days without him?

She made a mental note to look in on Callen and Cadayle. She was quite fond of the mother and daughter, and if Dawson saw so much in Callen, then Gwydre figured her positive impressions of the woman must be valid.

When she finally arrived at Father Artolivan’s gathering, she found the elderly church leader with Father Premujon, brothers Pinower, Jond, and Giavno, and several other monks she did not know by name engaged in a heated debate about their next moves.

They stopped chattering as one when Dame Gwydre entered, Father Artolivan motioning for her to take a seat beside him on the raised dais that centered the gathering.

“My ships are out for Vanguard and for Ethelbert dos Entel,” she explained. “Our break with King Yeslnik is complete.” Several deep breaths, signaling fear and determination, came back at her. “We cannot turn back from our stance now, Father Artolivan,” she pressed. “Yeslnik will not forgive.”

“Let us hope your good man Dawson gets to Laird Ethelbert’s side before Yeslnik pushes him into the sea,” Brother Pinower remarked, and Gwydre winced at the proposition.

“King Yeslnik and Laird Panlamaris will not forgive, Lady of Vanguard,” said Father Artolivan. “We must hold them off long enough to diminish their appetite for war. Perhaps then we might find some common ground upon which a peace can be enacted.”

“Or we must win,” said Brother Pinower, and all eyes turned his way.

Their expressions told Gwydre that this was exactly the argument into which she had walked.

“Yeslnik proclaims himself King of Honce and there seems to be no one who can stop him,” Pinower explained. “But his actions have already wrought great disdain. Almost to a man and woman, the prisoners we hold here have pledged their loyalty to our cause. They will fight, though the option of sitting to the side of the battle is open before them without ill consequence. How many men in Yeslnik’s army would be so willing and eager for more battle, I wonder?”

“How many of Laird Panlamaris’s men did not look on in horror when our brethren were evilly murdered on the field outside St. Mere Abelle?” Brother Giavno agreed. “And if Brother Fatuus so touched and inspired us, what might be the effect of his determined march on those among Panlamaris’s ranks who witnessed it?”

“Our hopes may prove correct and will aid us,” Father Artolivan warned. “But they alone will not turn the tide against the power of Delaval City and Palmaristown and Pryd and all the rest.”

“We sit and wait, and we fight if we must?” Dame Gwydre asked. She made it clear with her tone that she was not enamored of that passive course. “And we seek Ethelbert for alliance, though we know not what he has left to even continue in this war. Dawson might well arrive at Ethelbert dos Entel’s docks to find Yeslnik’s soldiers manning them. Or to find Laird Ethelbert helplessly trapped within his city, as we seem to be here.”

Her grim assessment was met by blank stares, until Father Artolivan offered, “We are seeking other routes of resistance and alliance.”

“Other routes? Surely any allies we could find would be welcomed.”

“There are two names being spoken across the breadth of Honce behind those of the warring lairds,” Artolivan explained. “Two men have distinguished themselves and have led Yeslnik to near-certain victory. Every prisoner in St. Mere Abelle, Ethelbert and Yeslnik man alike, knows of these generals: Bannagran of Pryd and Milwellis of Palmaristown.”

“You wish to find alliance with Yeslnik’s generals?” Dame Gwydre tried to keep the incredulity out of her tone. How desperate were they, truly?

“Not Milwellis, certainly,” said Artolivan. “He is a man of ill temperament and great hubris. He holds no love for St. Mere Abelle.”

“Particularly since we just sent his father scurrying away with lightning prodding his arse every step,” Gwydre added.

Artolivan conceded that point with a nod and just a hint of a much-needed grin.

“Master Reandu of Chapel Pryd is a good and temperate man, and he has the ear of Bannagran, whom he considers a friend. Perhaps…?”

“If Master Reandu still holds court in Chapel Pryd,” Dame Gwydre warned.

“He does,” said Giavno. “I went to him in spirit this morning, though I had not the strength to impart the message of Father Artolivan. Still, I sensed calm about that town.”

“I doubt that King Yeslnik would force Bannagran to move against his friend Reandu, but should Yeslnik do such a thing it is possible that Bannagran would take great exception.”

“It seems a desperate plan, but I see few other options,” Gwydre admitted. “If we could turn this General Bannagran to our cause, then it would bolster our hopes, of course. But to what do we ask him to pledge his fealty? To Vanguard? That seems unlikely, at best.”

The monks all glanced around at each other and Gwydre realized that she had touched upon the very heart of the debate into which she had intruded, the backdrop that had inspired the notion that they might “win.”

“Yeslnik and Ethelbert have torn Honce apart with their war of greed,” Father Artolivan began, his tone measured. “We have rejected Yeslnik and have little connection to Laird Ethelbert, though we seek him, not to serve him, but as an ally against our common foe. We will not serve King Ethelbert, Dame Gwydre. The Abellican Church will fight beside him, perhaps and if he is willing, but we will not serve him.”

“He is very tied to the ways of Behr,” Brother Pinower explained. “And to the religions of Behr. He is not hostile to our order, but neither is he a believer.”

“So if we gain ground, if we can hold against Laird Panlamaris and even begin to move against King Yeslnik, then to what end?” Gwydre asked. “Am I to declare autonomy of Vanguard from Honce? Will the Abellican Church then become the Church of Vanguard?”

“Suppose we show the people of Honce a third way, beyond Yeslnik and Ethelbert?” Father Artolivan asked.

“And that would be?” Gwydre asked. “Compromise?”

“A queen.”

“You are mad!”

“Perhaps,” Father Artolivan conceded. “It is a difficult proposition.”

“A desperate one, you mean,” said Gwydre.

“And are we not desperate?”

Gwydre sighed.

“You saved Vanguard, Dame Gwydre,” Father Artolivan said. “Can you save Honce as well? Two lairds hungry for power have driven the land to near ruin. Every family has been devastated now by a war that will not end.”

“Will it not?” asked Gwydre. “It seems that Laird Yeslnik has a strong upper hand, by all the reports and your own admission.”

“That result might prove the most disastrous one of all,” said Artolivan. “Yeslnik is a merciless, privileged beast of the highest order. He would have me murder all the prisoners he has sent while freeing all the men sent by Laird Ethelbert, and both by treaty for honorable recusal from the war!

“Nay, Dame Gwydre, that outcome cannot be allowed. The Samhaists have been driven from most of their groves, Blessed Abelle be thanked, and now King Yeslnik has declared war with the Abellican Church. Indeed, I expect him to declare Father De Guilbe as Father of the Order of Blessed Abelle and to enlist his phony interpretation of the teachings of our Blessed Abelle as his official religion. You wish to sue for peace and to declare autonomy, but you know that this man, Yeslnik, will not agree and will not relent.”

“Have you come to regret your words and actions against King Yeslnik and Laird Panlamaris, Father Artolivan?”

The old monk smiled more widely than ever before, and, for the first time in the meeting, serenity washed over his wrinkled face and his eyes twinkled with hope. “Not for a moment,” he replied. “Though I have come to realize the difficulty of the road such principles demand.”

“Cordon Roe,” said Brother Giavno, surprising them all with the reference to a most terrible incident that had occurred in Delaval City in the early days of the Order of Blessed Abelle. “Brother Fatuus,” he added, grinning, against the confused expressions. “We all will die, after all, be it now or in a decade or in several decades. Better to die contented. Better a life guided by principle, even a short one, than a century of misery wrought by the knowledge of personal cowardice.”

“Queen Gwydre of Honce,” remarked Father Premujon. “It rings of hope.”

“It rings of presumption and arrogance,” said Dame Gwydre.

“Perhaps it is the time for both, good lady,” said Father Artolivan. “Perhaps it is time for both.”

Dawson stood near Lady Dreamer’s prow, his favorite place when his ship found a good wind and threw her spray up high. She opened her sails now, leaving the docks of St. Mere Abelle far, far behind. The slight splash of salty water felt good to Dawson, made him feel alive and gave him a burst of that brine smell that seemed to define his life. He came up here to be alone with his thoughts, to reflect on his life and the point of it all.

And today, Dawson needed that contemplative energy more than ever. The night with Callen Duwornay had thrown his emotional balance into a delicious swirl, a jumble of possibility. Terrifying possibilities, since Dawson had stepped away from his typical course. But that was the way of the world right now, was it not? Honce was at war with itself in a struggle that would dramatically redefine the old feudal holdings, however this insanity ended. And the roads! Dawson had long been among the most worldly of people in parochial Honce and even more parochial Vanguard. Lady Dreamer was his freedom, his transport to exotic lands. Until these last few years, only the sailors and the marching armies typically saw any of the world beyond their own home villages. The average person in Honce would spend the entirety of his or her life knowing only a few square miles of land and a few score, perhaps a hundred, other people.

While that no doubt remained the truth of the land, the roads connecting all the major holdings of Honce proper were taming the land and making possible many more journeys to Delaval City or Pryd Town or St. Mere Abelle. The world was changing, and the tumult of those monumental shifts was a big part of the reason for the war.

Now Dawson’s world, too, was changing, had changed. He couldn’t believe that he had found the courage to be so forward with Callen, couldn’t believe his good fortune to find his feelings reciprocated. He could only hope now that he would be able to get to the city of Ethelbert dos Entel and back in time to realize the sweetness of his courage. Suddenly, he couldn’t imagine his life without Callen.

Dawson took a deep breath. If Callen went home to Pryd Town, then was he to abandon his life at sea? How could he give up Lady Dreamer? How could he give up Callen?

“I say, Captain!” said an insistent voice from behind, in such a tone that Dawson realized he must have been hailed several times already.

“What? What, then?” Dawson stammered. He focused on the situation at hand, noting that they were fast closing on Shelligan’s Run, the ship he had selected to deliver Dame Gwydre’s message back to Vanguard. At first all seemed as it should, but Dawson’s face crinkled a moment later when he noted the commotion on the deck of the other ship, with sailors running to the port rail and to the rigging.

“West, Captain,” Dawson’s crewman said.

Dawson looked that way and felt his heart sink.

Palmaristown warships, three of them, each twice as large as Lady Dreamer, sailed in tight formation. Their decks were full of crewmen, archers with their deadly longbows. Even from this distance Dawson could make out the distinctively high poop deck of a Palmaristown warship, for those craft had each been equipped with a large ballista, a gigantic crossbow set on a rotating platform.

Giant sails full of wind, the ships came on fast.

Dawson’s thoughts whirled. Could Lady Dreamer tack fast enough and fill her sails with the westerlies quickly enough to outrun them?

He shook his head doubtfully. Lady Dreamer could get up to speed and outmaneuver anything on the water, true, but she wasn’t even at full sail, and she couldn’t straight-line outrun Palmaristown warships, the greatest vessels in all of Honce.

Dawson glanced back the way they had come, thinking that maybe they could turn about and get into the protection of St. Mere Abelle’s harbor before the warships got in range and laid waste to his two ships.

And there, Dawson McKeege saw his doom, for he sighted two more Palmaristown warships running the coast.

He had sailed into a trap.

Five ships, fully manned and armed for battle, any one of which could probably defeat both Lady Dreamer and Shelligan’s Run.

Two of the ships in the west continued their straight charge, while the third had veered to the north to cut off any attempt to flee into the open waters of the gulf.

There was nowhere to run.

He thought of Dame Gwydre then and how he had failed his friend. He thought about Callen. Once the notion of the beautiful woman entered his mind a great despair washed over him. He knew that the beautiful possibilities had just flown away.

Would he take comfort in the memories of his last night when the Palmaristown fleet put him into the dark water? he wondered.