The Dame

TWENTY-SIX

He’s a madman!” Laird Panlamaris roared, storming about and crushing the parchment in his powerful hand.

The courier from Delaval City shrank back from the wild man, eyeing the door of the tavern’s common room as if searching for an escape route. He wasn’t the only one; of the thirty men and women in the room, all seemed more than a bit unsettled by the powerful man’s outburst. All save one dressed in monk’s robes and sitting calmly at the same table Panlamaris had occupied when he had been handed the note-before he had leaped up, fuming.

“A madman!” Panlamaris said again and he kicked a chair across the room.

“He is the King of Honce,” Father De Guilbe remarked. When the Laird of Palmaristown fixed him with a severe glare, he merely shrugged.

“Read it!” Panlamaris said, throwing the parchment De Guilbe’s way.

De Guilbe didn’t catch it, but rather, deflected it to the floor. “He demands that you attack Chapel Abelle,” he said.

“Yes,” Panlamaris replied. “He wants me to throw all that I have against those walls, with the monks hurling fire and lightning at us from on high.”

“And with your finest warriors off rampaging in the far east,” said De Guilbe.

“It is madness!” Panlamaris declared.

“Foolishness, at least,” De Guilbe agreed. “King Yeslnik is a man who does not yet understand battle.”

“Am I to write his lesson in the blood of Palmaristown’s garrison?”

“Are you?”

“No!” Laird Panlamaris yelled. He took a deep breath and seemed to relax a bit. He even managed to grab a chair from a nearby table and take his seat across from De Guilbe. “We cannot go against such a fortress as Chapel Abelle. Not with their magical powers and with my ships getting sunk by powries behind them. Powries! Of all the ill times to have powries in the gulf!”

“A remarkable coincidence, you believe?” asked De Guilbe, and in a tone that suggested that he thought it no such thing.

“Is it not?”

“Among those who did battle against Ancient Badden were a pair of powries,” De Guilbe explained.

Laird Panlamaris and many others looked at the monk incredulously.

“It is true,” De Guilbe insisted. “When the Highwayman dropped Ancient Badden’s head at Dame Gwydre’s feet, he was accompanied by the man Cormack, who betrayed me, by a barbarian woman, and by a pair of bloody-cap dwarves. He introduced those powries to Dame Gwydre as friends, and the powries wintered in Castle Pellinor.”

“This cannot be,” said Panlamaris, giving voice to what almost everyone in the room was thinking.

“But it is, I tell you,” said De Guilbe. “They wintered in Castle Pellinor and were given free passage from the city as soon as the snows had calmed.”

“Powries?”

“Ugliest little creatures I have ever seen.”

Laird Panlamaris stroked his beard and stared through the tavern door and up the hill to the distant outline of Chapel Abelle. “You believe Dame Gwydre enlisted the little beasts?”

“I know that Dame Gwydre did not kill the two who came to Pellinor,” De Guilbe replied. “I know that she released them, and that the one called the Highwayman named them as friends. Friends help friends, do they not?”

Laird Panlamaris stared off into nothingness for a long while, his eyes narrow, his nostrils flared. His defeat at the wall of Chapel Abelle had stung him profoundly, but the loss of three warships had positively infuriated him. Panlamaris had been a sailor throughout his youth, when his father had ruled the port city, and he had traced the Honce coast from Delaval City to Ethelbert dos Entel and from the Vanguard coast all the way to southern Alpinador. He had battled powries before, as well, out on the open Mirianic and in fact had been instrumental in devising ways to cripple the dreaded barrel boats, using ballista-launched weighted nets to drag the low-riding craft under the waves.

As with almost every sailor in Honce, Laird Panlamaris hated powries most of all.

And now-was it possible? The notion that these wretched little beasts had joined in with his enemies boiled his blood.

He slammed his fist down on the table so hard that the nearest leg creaked in protest, cracked, and nearly buckled.

“We attack, my laird?” one commander standing nearby asked with great enthusiasm.

“Shut up,” Panlamaris said, then to De Guilbe added, “I will confront Dame Gwydre in parlay. If she is in league with these beasts, then one day soon Vanguard will bow to the rule of Laird Panlamaris.”

He stood up powerfully, his chair flying behind him, and called for a scribe. “Soon,” he repeated grimly to De Guilbe.

Pedal faster, ye mutts, or we’re to miss all the dippin’!” Shiknickel cried out to his crew. Up in the squat tower, the powrie watched as a pair of barrel boats closed fast on a warship, another flying the colors of Palmaristown.

Below and behind him, the tough dwarves picked up their pace, the barrel boat leaping away across the dark waters. Shiknickel grinned but didn’t openly applaud their efforts, preferring instead the inspiring, “Yah, but ye call that fast? Ye mutts, me dead mum could swim past ye!”

He was smiling wider as he finished, but his grin disappeared a moment later when the Palmaristown warship attacked. Deck-mounted ballistae, giant spear throwers, let fly at the nearest barrel boat, launching thick, weighted netting. Their shots weren’t true but didn’t have to be, for just putting the spears near to the boat, which was no more than twenty yards from the warship’s broadside, sent the net over its tower, hooking fast and draping over the back half of the boat. The drag slowed the craft immediately, and, worse, the netting hooked the barrel boat’s single propeller. Instead of charging in now at high speed to ram the warship, the barrel boat was suddenly adrift and tilting as the heavy weights pulled at her.

Spotters ran along the warship’s deck, pointing out the second approaching barrel boat while the ballista crews reloaded. A host of archers appeared at the rail and began raking the trapped barrel boat even as some of her crew tried to climb to cut the netting free.

“They was ready for us,” Shiknickel whispered. “Bah! Stop yer pedaling!” he shouted down to the dwarves. “Stop, I’m tellin’ ye!”

Mcwigik came to the base of the ladder. “Gwydre’s boat?” he asked.

Shiknickel motioned for him to climb up. “Palmaristown, still,” he explained. “But they’re coming out ready.”

Mcwigik grimaced as he considered the scene. The trapped barrel boat was listing now, water splashing in through her tower. Dwarves tried to come up, and arrows cut them down.

The second boat had turned, but the warship, too, was tacking to give chase.

“They ain’t seen us yet,” Mcwigik remarked, and Shiknickel nodded grimly.

“We got to be quick and hard.”

Mcwigik smiled at him and punched a fist into his open palm.

Shiknickel lifted his signaling mirror and turned it behind the boat, where he knew three other barrel boats to be on the prowl.

“Lay quiet,” he ordered Mcwigik. “They’ll go by us chasing our friends. Almost.” He ended with an exaggerated wink.

“They’re turnin’ inside us, are they?” Mcwigik asked.

Shiknickel smiled.

“Swing out wider?”

“Slowly,” ordered Shiknickel. “They’re lookin’ th’other way, so keep our spray down and keep them looking th’other way.”

Mcwigik went back into the hold and motioned for silence. Facing the crew, he held up his right hand while slowly turning circles with his left, and the right hand crew began a slow pedal, executing a left turn.

“Quarter,” Shiknickel called down.

Mcwigik began a slow cadence of patting both hands and the crew began to pedal in unison at the easy pace.

As the Palmaristown warship continued its turn and gained speed, obviously unaware of Shiknickel’s boat or those trailing, the captain called for a turn back to the right. When the angle was right he shouted down, “Full and fast, and get ready for a jolt!”

A powrie barrel boat was built for head-on collision, with a devilish ram leading its charge just below the waterline. Many buffers had been engineered around that ram, and, even without them, the thin planking of a typical surface sailing ship would have proven no match for the concentrated pounding of a barrel boat’s solid ram. Slammed against a stopped ship, with only the power of pedaling dwarves, that ram would still break through to some degree. In this case, with the barrel boat coming in at an angle before a fast-sailing ship, the explosion knocked every dwarf from his seat and sent Mcwigik flying against the front inside wall.

But the dwarves were laughing, for they knew that their unsettling bounce had been nothing compared to what the unprepared crew of the sailing ship had just felt.

Indeed, the powrie ram drove a gaping hole in the starboard bow of the warship, and the momentum had lengthened that hole considerably, splintering planks near to midship. A man plummeted from the rigging, dislodged by the sudden and unexpected impact. Several others went flying over the rail, and all on the deck were tumbling, caught completely by surprise.

Without even being told, the powries rushed back to their seats and began pedaling in reverse. Wood creaked in protest, for the ram was fairly stuck, and the heavier warship dragged the barrel boat along as its momentum played out.

“Forward! Back!” Mcwigik shouted in succession, the reversals rocking the barrel boat and tearing apart more of the sailing ship’s planking in the process. From above, they could all hear the Palmaristown sailors crying out, “Powrie boat!” and calling for nets and arrows.

That brought more laughter than anything else, for every powrie on Shiknickel’s boat understood the damage they had inflicted on the warship, and all knew that the blustering sailors would very quickly be far more concerned with the fact that their ship was sinking than with the powries.

The barrel boat finally slid free.

“Put her back a dozen and watch the show,” said Mcwigik.

“Can’t see a thing,” one dwarf remarked to the giggles of the others.

“Listen, then,” Mcwigik replied. “Sure to be a song sweet to me ears.”

They heard but didn’t feel another loud crash.

“Tikminnik’s boat,” Shiknickel called down. “Get yer caps ready, boys, for she’ll list over soon enough!”

Much cheering and rubbing of hands ensued.

Within a very short time, the Palmaristown warship lay on her side, most of her underwater. Men bobbed and splashed or hung on desperately to the rigging while the powrie boats circled like sharks.

Shiknickel led the way onto the deck, calling for gaff hooks as he went. Heartbeats later, the first third of the crew in rotation had climbed from the tower, long hooked poles in hand. The remaining dwarves pedaled slowly and turned to Shiknickel’s call, bringing the barrel boat beside one floundering sailor after another.

“Please, sir, no!” one man cried desperately. “I’ve a wife and little girl!”

“And ye should’ve stayed home with them, eh?” a powrie replied. He slapped his gaff hook down hard, catching the man by the shoulder, and hauled him to the side of the rounded deck.

Other dwarves were fast to the spot, serrated knives in hand. They expertly opened up the best areas for a long and thick bloodletting. And so it went throughout the rest of the day, until the sharks arrived. The boats went to the aid of their netted kin then, helping them finish cutting away the pesky ropes and then holding tight to the listing craft, keeping back the sharks while the crew powries bailed her.

The next morning the seas were calm, the Palmaristown ship and all her crew gone from sight, with not even flotsam to be seen.

The powrie captains and their top advisors all sat atop their respective decks.

“Where to, then?” one asked. “Getting tired o’ waiting for them fools to come out here in the open waters.”

“From the west, always,” another observed.

“Palmaristown,” Shiknickel explained. “West and at the mouth of the river.”

“And with most of her fleet down? And most of her men out fighting on the field?” Mcwigik asked slyly.

Half a dozen barrel boats started out to the west, a shiver of sharks.

Hungry sharks.

They were in range of Palmaristown’s archers, but in range, too, of the monks on St. Mere Abelle’s wall with their devastating gemstones.

Dame Gwydre and Laird Panlamaris rode from their respective ranks simultaneously, meeting on the field at a tent Panlamaris’s men had set up. Beside Gwydre rode Father Premujon and Brother Pinower, and a pair accompanied Panlamaris, as well, including Father De Guilbe.

The sight of the large and imposing monk distressed Gwydre, but not as much as it unsettled poor Premujon. She felt naked out here without Dawson beside her. Reports magically collected by the brothers had reached her of his escape from the Palmaristown ships in the gulf. She was beside herself with relief but sorely missed the man she had leaned upon for so many years.

Given the events in the gulf, where Palmaristown warships had somehow been defeated, Gwydre eagerly accepted the invitation to parlay with her opponents, hoping against reason that the impasse might be at an end. As she neared the tent and noted the expression on Laird Panlamaris’s face, her doubts overwhelmed her optimism.

A table had been set inside the tent, three chairs on each side. Gwydre took hers in the middle, directly opposite Panlamaris.

“Lady, it is good to see that some among you have a bit of honor, at least,” Laird Panlamaris began. “A very tiny bit.”

“Good tidings to you, too, Laird Panlamaris,” Gwydre retorted, “who came unbidden with his army to the gates of a chapel and stained the field before her with the blood of innocent men.”

“Innocent?” Father De Guilbe growled, but Panlamaris silenced him with an upraised hand.

“You know Father De Guilbe,” Panlamaris said. “And this is Captain Dunlevin Brosh, who commands the Palmaristown fleet.”

“Father Premujon of Chapel Pellinor,” Gwydre replied. “And this is Brother Pinower, who speaks for St. Mere Abelle.”

“What?” De Guilbe noted, his brow furrowing. “Saint?”

“St. Mere Abelle,” Dame Gwydre said again. “Until recently known as Chapel Abelle.”

De Guilbe gave a wicked chuckle. “The fool Artolivan. Does he think that his symbolic gestures will help him against the inevitable fall? Will he hide behind a name-a name he dishonors with every treasonous action he takes?”

His voice grew louder with each question, his outrage bubbling over. “We will return to our mission when I am installed as the proper head of the Order of Abelle!” He slammed his fist on the table, trembling.

Gwydre and the two monks accompanying her looked to one another helplessly, incredulously. The dame turned to Laird Panlamaris. “You support this subversion?”

“Subversion?” the old warrior repeated. When De Guilbe began to bellow in protest again Panlamaris reached out and forcibly pushed the man back into his chair.

“Subversion?” he said again. “You would say that to me after what happened in the gulf?”

Dame Gwydre eyed him with confusion. “Your ships tried to attack-”

“You sent powries against my warships!” Now Panlamaris’s voice began to tremble and rise with righteous outrage. “Powries! Bloody-cap dwarves working in concert with the ships of Vanguard!”

“My men plucked from the water and cut open so that the vicious beasts could brighten their berets!” Captain Dunlevin Brosh cried.

“You are mad to think I would-”

But Panlamaris cut her off. “It’s a coincidence, then, that the ships of Vanguard were allowed to sail free while the ships of Palmaristown were sent to the bottom, all hands slaughtered? Am I to believe that a cruel trick of fate, Dame Gwydre? Or am I to call it what it is? You, and your church”-he added, poking his finger at both Premujon and Pinower- “have allied with powries against the men of Honce!”

“That is a lie!” Father Premujon leaped from his chair as did Brother Pinower, shouting with rage. For a moment it looked as if negotiations might turn physical.

But Gwydre calmed it all, standing tall between the brothers and her opponents. “Enough!” She turned a withering eye on Laird Panlamaris. “You requested a parlay. For no better reason than to offer this slander?”

Laird Panlamaris forced both De Guilbe and Brosh to sit quiet. “Is it slander, Dame of Vanguard?”

“I know nothing of any powries in the gulf. I know only that your warships gave chase to my ships, unlawfully and without provocation.”

“Without provocation?” Panlamaris howled, his voice thick with incredulity. “You have come here and stolen Honce land.”

“I have offered support to the autonomous Abellican Church, which chooses secession before giving in to the heinous demands of the one who calls himself king. To murder men taken honestly in honorable battle! Shame on him, and shame on you if you agree with such a thing! Laird Panlamaris was known throughout Vanguard as a man of honor, but I wonder if that is still true, if you would agree with this vile edict of King Yeslnik!”

She accompanied her strong words with a wary eye on Panlamaris’s every move. She’d clearly pricked his vanity when she mentioned his reputation throughout Vanguard, which was hardly true, given that few in Vanguard had ever heard the name before.

Panlamaris sat for many heartbeats in silence, never blinking as he looked across the table at his adversary.

“Reconsider your course,” he finally said. “Come back into the fold of a unified Honce. And you as well,” he added, addressing the monks. “Your Father Artolivan’s time is passed, but we can salvage the remnants of your order. All can be forgiven-even Father Artolivan’s reputation can be protected when he quietly retires-but only if you act quickly and wisely.”

“And if we do not, you will storm the walls of St. Mere Abelle once more?” Dame Gwydre asked with obvious sarcasm.

“Or perhaps I will cede Chapel Abelle to you,” he said, and beside him, Father De Guilbe winced. “And lock you in your walled prison. The waters of the gulf will be mine in short order despite your evil alliance with the dwarves.”

“There is no such alliance!” Gwydre insisted.

Panlamaris snorted derisively. “Whatever the case may be,” he said, “I will own the gulf. The Palmaristown fleet will find allies from Delaval City soon enough, and we will chase the vile dwarves from our waters. I will hold you in this prison of your making, your own little kingdom, while the armies of King Yeslnik debark in Port Vanguard and sweep your holding out from under you. How inviting will Chapel Abelle’s walls seem then, good lady?”

Dame Gwydre didn’t blink, though Panlamaris’s words had indeed shaken her, for she saw their prediction as a quite likely prospect. Suddenly, it was a staring contest between the two, across the table, and it became apparent quickly that Laird Panlamaris wasn’t nearly as confident as he sounded.

Still Dame Gwydre didn’t blink.

The six rode away soon in opposite directions.

“So now we know how Dawson escaped,” Brother Pinower dared say, walking his mount beside Gwydre’s on the way back. “Powries. Powries! I cannot declare them god-sent, though I surely am glad that they chose their targets well!”

“It is a minor victory,” Dame Gwydre warned. “As was our victory when we turned back Laird Panlamaris’s charge. Neither offer far-reaching consequences or relief if the outcome across Honce continues in favor of King Yeslnik and his brutal lairds.”

“And Father De Guilbe,” Father Premujon said grimly. “He will fight us to the death, and more than a few brothers, I fear, will follow his angry call.”

“It is going to be a long, dark summer,” said Dame Gwydre.

Send out couriers to my son,” Laird Panlamaris instructed Captain Dunlevin Brosh. “Runners across the land and a battle group of your fastest warships to run the coast in the hopes that he is near enough to see their pennants. Together Milwellis and I will drive the traitorous witch from her castle and right into the sea! And then we will win the waters of the gulf, as I promised, and will bring Vanguard under the rule of Palmaristown.”

“Palmaristown?” Dunlevin Brosh echoed with surprise. He immediately swallowed hard, tipping his hand that he did not mean to blurt out his thoughts so freely.

“King Yeslnik will be so grateful to us for putting the Order of Blessed Abelle back into his fold under the fine Father De Guilbe, so grateful that we crushed the insurgent Gwydre, that he will allow me to expand my holding to the north all the way to the borders of Alpinador.”

“Yes, my laird,” Brosh replied.

“And even if he does not,” Laird Panlamaris said with a snicker. “Simply killing Gwydre and Artolivan will be worth the war.”