The Dame

TWENTY-SEVEN

He felt naked before her. She was slight of build, with dark hair and brown skin and dark, darting eyes full of energy and life that scrutinized and drank in every inch of Bransen. She moved with incredible grace, as if her slippers weren’t even disturbing the grass as she circled him. He wondered if she looked like his mother. Certainly she appeared similar to how Garibond had described Sen Wi. And her clothes were just like his, and thus, just like his mother’s.

Had she known his mother? Bransen’s eyes sparkled at the thought, but his smile didn’t last more than a moment as he realized that Affwin Wi could not be much older than he, perhaps not even as old.

Perhaps, then, he wondered, Affwin Wi had heard of his mother. How he wanted to ask her, but her command had been uncompromising: Stand still and stand straight, look straight ahead only and say nothing.

This went on for what seemed like ages. It occurred to Bransen that Affwin Wi was testing his patience. A true Jhesta Tu, in tune with his surroundings and comfortable in his own contemplations, could stand silently and unmoving for hours.

“You carry sword of Jhesta Tu,” Affwin Wi said suddenly from the side, just out of his line of sight and so somewhat startling him. Her heavy southern accent bit off every syllable, so it took Bransen a few moments simply to decipher her sentence.

“I do,” he answered, taking her extended silence as a prompt for him to finally speak.

“You dress in clothes of mystic warrior.”

“Yes,” said Bransen.

“You are Jhesta Tu?”

Bransen turned his head to regard her-or started to before her widening eyes and upturning snarl warned him to look back ahead. “My mother, Sen Wi, was Jhesta Tu.”

“Mother?” Affwin Wi echoed in surprise. Across the small clearing, Bransen saw the bald-headed warrior’s apparent relief in his chuckle.

“Sen Wi of the Walk of Clouds,” said Bransen.

“I do not know this name.”

“She left many years ago, twenty-one years ago,” Bransen explained. “She married my father and came to Honce with him.”

“You do not look of Behr. Not full.”

“My father was of Honce, a monk of a Honce church, who went to Behr and the Walk of Clouds, where he learned from the… from your masters.”

“And they taught you?”

“I never knew my father. My mother died the day I was born.”

“But you know!” There was no missing the accusation in her tone.

“From the Book of Jhest. My father penned a copy of the Book of Jhest.”

“You taught yourself?” the bald-headed warrior called out incredulously from across the way.

From the corner of his eye, Bransen saw Affwin Wi thrust her hand to silence him. She stormed around to stand before Bransen.

“I did,” he answered. “From the book.”

Affwin Wi stared at him for a moment then laughed.

“Merwal Yahna”-she indicated the bald-headed man-“says you are worthy of the sword.”

Bransen gave a slight bow, which he knew to be the proper acceptance of such a compliment.

“Why are you here?” Affwin Wi asked.

“I came to find the warrior who broke a sword in the chest of King Delaval,” Bransen admitted, and the woman stiffened at the apparent threat.

“I came to find the Jhesta Tu to honor my mother and to learn,” Bransen quickly explained.

“You were friends with this Delaval?”

Bransen snorted. “Hardly. His successor wants me dead.”

Affwin Wi waited a few moments, even glancing back at Merwal Yahna, who offered a slight nod in reply. “You came to learn?” she asked.

“To confirm that I am correct in how I follow the Book of Jhest,” said Bransen. “And to learn, yes. To learn more about this philosophy that has so guided my life. I have seen the broken end of your sword, and I knew it to be Jhesta Tu. So I came to find you.”

Affwin Wi began to pace back and forth before him, occasionally glancing at him, deep in contemplation. “You are worthy,” she decided. “You may join with me.”

Bransen felt as if his heart would pound right through the front of his chest as he considered the implications, the great step forward he had just taken.

“Your friend will leave now,” Affwin Wi stated.

The shock of that jolted Bransen from his whirling thoughts. Despite the orders placed upon him, he glanced back to the far edge of the clearing, where Jameston stood between the pair who had captured him.

“Begone,” Affwin Wi ordered.

Jameston eyed Bransen.

“I care not where, but far from us,” Affwin Wi said. “Now. Begone.”

“I am supposed to watch over the boy,” said Jameston.

“He is not a boy, he is a man,” said Affwin Wi. “He follows Jhesta Tu. How are you, who are not Jhesta Tu, to watch over him?”

“I was-”

“You are not,” Affwin Wi barked. “Only one more time I tell you, begone.”

The threat in her voice clear to hear, Jameston looked in question at Bransen again. The young warrior took a deep breath and nodded.

Jameston met Bransen’s eyes for a long moment before returning that nod in farewell and slipping off into the forest.

Leaving Bransen nervous and very alone and very naked indeed under the withering gaze of Affwin Wi.

He is powerful with your stones. Are you not interested in protecting your Laird Ethelbert?” Affwin Wi asked succinctly and directly when Father Destros of Chapel Entel balked at arming his monks with sunstones in Laird Ethelbert’s hall for the meeting with the strange Highwayman.

Father Destros swallowed hard. “Are you not confident of your abilities to protect my laird?” he asked. As soon as the words left his mouth he knew that calling out Affwin Wi on such a matter might be unwise.

The woman’s hand snapped up quicker than Destros could react, her poking finger right before his eye, meaning that she could have jabbed that finger right through his eye had she chosen to do so.

“He uses your stones, priest,” she warned. “And he fights as Jhesta Tu. You will protect your leader, and my people will protect him.” She backed away but didn’t take her eyes off the man until she was out in the hallway.

Father Destros had to remind himself to breathe. She was right, of course. This wasn’t about their growing personal rivalry but about the safety of Laird Ethelbert. He went to his desk and retrieved a sunstone, pocketing several others as well. When he entered Laird Ethelbert’s audience chamber a short while later, he had the sunstone firmly in his grasp. Not only would the gem allow him to counter any use of magic, it would allow for detection of magic as well. Destros figured that he might learn more than a bit about this mysterious Highwayman; he only wished that Affwin Wi hadn’t been the one to deliver the suggestion.

And certainly not the command.

Jameston Sequin picked up his pace. He knew that he had already been seen and was being followed, so moving stealthily really didn’t help him much.

Perhaps they were just ensuring that he continued far from Ethelbert’s holding.

Jameston wasn’t one to leave things to chance, however, so instead of trying to find a way to hide or outrun them, which he almost certainly could not do, he sought instead a place to face them.

These were fine warriors, he knew from bitter experience, fast and deceptive. Unlike his usual confrontations, Jameston didn’t believe that the chaos of a forest favored him. He needed something solid to narrow the field of battle.

He had passed this way the previous night, knew the lay of the area. So he moved quickly to a cluster of abandoned, mostly ruined cottages. Jameston picked a fairly concealed course and stealthily gained the door and slipped inside. He went fast to the far corner and put his back against the solid wooden wall, watching the door.

He hadn’t long to wait. Within moments a black-clothed figure entered the dimly illuminated, one-room cottage.

Jameston smiled, thinking it the same woman he had battled earlier that day.

“You should relax and tell me why you’re following me,” the scout said.

Caught by surprise, the woman froze in place, slowly swiveling her head to regard the man and his leveled and ready bow.

She stood straight and turned to face Jameston squarely.

“Don’t even think about trying to get back out that door,” Jameston said. “You’re leaving in front of me, in case your friends are about and curious. Now, tell me why you’re following me.”

The woman narrowed her eyes and took a deep breath as if contemplating her options.

“You won’t get to me, and you won’t get out that door,” Jameston promised. “And you won’t get a dagger or some other bolt into the air before I let fly. I don’t miss. So start explaining why you followed me.”

“You are to be gone,” she said in a halting command of the language.

“I was going. Do better.”

The woman lifted her chin defiantly.

Jameston pulled back on his bowstring just a bit more. He hated the thought of killing a woman, or anyone for that matter. But he had done so before and would do so again if he had to. Saving his skin was an acceptable reason.

And saving Bransen’s, he realized. If this woman had come out to kill him, what did that portend for Bransen?

Jameston’s face tightened, and he drew back his bowstring further. “I’m going to ask you just one more time,” he said grimly.

B

ransen was not wearing his mask across his eyes as he paced into Laird Ethelbert’s audience hall beside Affwin Wi, instead letting it hang loosely about his neck. They strode right up to the large chair on which sat the aging laird, a disarming smile on his face.

“So this is the Highwayman,” Ethelbert began. “Yes, young warrior, I have heard of you even here. I was quite sorry to learn of the death of Laird Prydae.”

Bransen took the jab calmly. “He was killed of his own actions by his own champion.”

“Yes, yes, I know the sad tale.”

“Do you know that he was trying to rape my wife when Bannagran’s axe found his chest?” Bransen asked.

Affwin Wi’s hand flicked out at Bransen’s side, jabbing his thigh hard. He looked at her; she glared her reply. “Proper respect,” she whispered.

“That is quite all right, my huntress,” Laird Ethelbert said with a lighthearted laugh. “Better that this one speak the truth in his heart so I may better come to know the truth of him, yes?”

Affwin Wi gave a curt bow.

“And I do know enough of Prydae to acknowledge what you claim. Well, let us just say that he was not capable of such an act,” Ethelbert said to Bransen.

“That did not stop him from trying,” Bransen replied. “Or from falsely condemning her mother”-he glanced to the monk wearing the robes of a father and standing at Ethelbert’s side as he finished-“to the Samhaists.”

“I surrender, I surrender,” Ethelbert said with a jovial laugh. “I will not replay those events and will not argue with one who was there when I was not. I was saddened by the death of Prydae, a man I had known as an ally in battle. Whether he deserved it or not…” He let it go at that with a shrug.

Bransen accepted that reasoning with a bow.

“And you are an interesting mutt, are you not?” Ethelbert said. “You wear on your forehead the gemstones of an Abellican monk, yet you fight with the techniques-and clothing-of the southern mystics.”

“My father was of the Order of Blessed Abelle, my mother a Jhesta Tu,” said Bransen.

“I know that,” Ethelbert said. “I met your father and your mother on their return from Behr. They came through my city two decades ago, and I granted them an audience. It did not end well for them, I assume.”

Bransen’s face went from a sudden brightening to a dark cloud at the grim reminder of Bran and Sen Wi’s respective fates.

“I warned your father that the brothers would not be as tolerant as he hoped,” Ethelbert said.

Bransen felt as if the ground were shifting under his feet. He had come in here full of confidence and determination, and now Laird Ethelbert had maneuvered the conversation to a place that clearly had Bransen on edge. He wanted to hear more of Ethelbert’s encounter with his parents, and he knew that such desire ensured that he would not.

Ethelbert read him perfectly and quickly deflected the conversation yet again.

“You know of my struggle with Laird Yeslnik?” he asked.

“I thought he called himself King Yeslnik,” Bransen replied with enough obvious disdain to draw a large smile from Ethelbert.

“He can call himself God Yeslnik if it pleases him,” Ethelbert replied. “Because when I kill him it will matter not at all.”

Bransen didn’t react.

“So I have met him as you desired,” Ethelbert said to Affwin Wi, suddenly sounding very bored with it all. “What is the purpose? Is he friend, or is he foe?”

“He states that he is Jhesta Tu,” the woman replied. “He will pledge loyalty to Laird Ethelbert.”

Bransen looked at her in surprise.

“Because I am his superior,” Affwin Wi clarified boldly. “And the decision is not his to make.” She turned to regard Bransen directly. “Is that not true?” she asked, invoking a clear test of his loyalty.

Bransen paused, but only for a moment, before answering, “Yes.”

“Is there anything more?” asked Ethelbert.

Affwin Wi studied Bransen for a few moments then said, “Speak your mind freely. This is your last chance to do so.”

Bransen didn’t know exactly what that might mean. “I am Jhesta Tu,” he explained. “In part. But because of my heritage and my experience, I am more. I have found the promise of my father, the joining-”

Affwin Wi hit him so hard across the face that he was sitting on the floor before he had even registered the pain of the blow.

“You are Jhesta Tu, or you are not,” she said while Ethelbert laughed. “Which are you?”

“I am Jhesta Tu,” Bransen said, lowering his gaze to the floor.

My arm’s getting tired and I just might let go,” Jameston warned. “You must be gone,” the woman replied.

“I was going-” Jameston started to say, but he bit it off, suddenly realizing what she really meant. He had tracked them and had found them. He had fought this very woman and believed he was beating her when her friend had intervened.

He knew of them, which made him an intolerable threat.

“So that’s what it is, is it?” he said. “You can’t have me wandering on my way knowing what I know.” He gave a little laugh. “Well, I know a lot more now, I expect…”

He heard the pop behind him, a sharp bang and the splintering of wood, followed by what he thought was a hard punch in his back just behind his right hip.

Jameston instinctively glanced down, and then he knew. For the nun’chu’ku had blown right through the wall behind him and into his back with such force that Jameston’s leather jerkin was pushed out in the front.

“Oh, now,” Jameston muttered, realizing that the pole had gone right through him. Already the feeling was leaving his legs, and he was having a hard time drawing breath.

He looked up at the woman, who stood easily now, smiling at him.

Jameston managed a nod. Growling, he drew back and sent his arrow at her. She got her arm up with amazing speed, but the arrow bored right through her forearm and into her forehead. She was still smiling when she fell dead to the floor.

Jameston shuddered, a thousand fires exploding within him as the warrior with the shaven head-it had to be that one, Jameston knew-tugged the nun’chu’ku out of him and back through the wall.

Jameston was sitting when the fierce warrior came around the front and entered through the door. The scout wanted to put his bow up for one last shot, for one chance to kill this vicious man, but when he lifted his left arm, he only then realized that he wasn’t even holding the bow anymore, that it was on the floor at his feet.

Merwal Yahna crouched over the dead woman, then rose and glanced at Jameston. He would come over and finish the job, Jameston figured, but surprisingly the man just snorted and turned away.

Jameston watched as the warrior cradled his fallen friend, then carried her out of the house.

And as he left, the darkness began to close in on Jameston Sequin.