The Dame

TWO

They were smashed!” cried Yeslnik, the foppish Laird of Pryd and favored nephew of Laird Delaval, who proclaimed himself King Delaval of Honce. He flailed about as he spoke, his voluminous sleeves and leggings flapping and tightening over his limbs just often enough to remind those in the room of how delicate and stick-limbed this excitable man truly was. Not that any would remark on the man’s erratic movements, for Yeslnik was also widely rumored to be the heir apparent to Delaval’s expanding holdings.

“The son of Laird Panlamaris sent the traitors running back to the Mantis Arm! Oh, but we’ll make them regret their decision to take Ethelbert’s gold!” As he spoke, he danced around the circular chamber that marked the bottom floor of Pryd Keep, punching his fist into the air and smacking his hands together as if engaging in a battle with some imaginary foe.

His soft skin reddened under the blows.

A few of the men in attendance, Yeslnik’s entourage from Delaval City and a pair of young brothers of Chapel Pryd, grinned stupidly and became animated at the less-than-inspired performance, but the true center of weight in the room, a muscular middle-aged warrior with long black hair just beginning to show a bit of salt with its pepper and a face that seemed carved out of stone, showed not a hint of emotion.

He did glance to the side, to exchange looks with Master Reandu of Chapel Pryd, the highest ranking of the village’s brothers, who was serving, quietly, as leader of the chapel due to the failing condition of Father Jerak, who was by all reports beyond sensibility. Ever doubtful of the brothers of Abelle, Bannagran had nonetheless found himself growing closer to Reandu over the last few weeks, particularly with Yeslnik and his insufferable wife, Olym, bouncing about incessantly.

Still a young man, barely into his thirties, Reandu had played an important role in the dramatic events of Pryd Holding. He had halted the hand of his superior monk, Master Bathelais, when Bathelais might have struck dead the Highwayman, right before the Highwayman had crashed into Laird Prydae’s room, initiating a fight that had cost Prydae his life. Soon after, it was Reandu who had spoken for the Highwayman, and favorably, and had convinced Bannagran to spare the life of Bransen Garibond and allow the outlaw to leave Pryd.

With all the tumult of the growing war, the investigation of Master Bathelais’s death by Chapel Abelle had never come, and, indeed, the brothers up north had seen fit to elevate Reandu, the next highest-ranking brother in Pryd, to Master, giving him leadership in Chapel Pryd.

That promotion hadn’t bothered Bannagran in the least. To Reandu’s credit, by Bannagran’s estimation, the monk seemed quite unimpressed by Yeslnik’s proclamations and performance. Master Reandu shrugged at Bannagran with obvious resignation, as if to point out that they had to suffer the idiot.

“You do not view this as a great victory?” Yeslnik shouted at Reandu, his tone full of consternation and indignation.

“The Church of Blessed Abelle is neutral in the conflict, Laird Yeslnik, per agreement with both lairds Ethelbert and Delaval,” Reandu replied. “Your claims of great battle mean to us only that we will witness more suffering.”

Yeslnik stopped suddenly, as if some marionette strings had simply fallen limp around him, and his face seemed indeed to be made of wood or stone.

“The Decree of Neutrality by Chapel Abelle is well-known to both warring factions,” Reandu reminded. “And accepted, and was even advised by your mentor, Laird Delaval. We do not ask the allegiance of a wounded man when we prepare our blessed healing.”

Yeslnik gave a little, deprecating snort. “The situation is changing, Brother,” he calmly-too calmly-explained. “A nimble church survives, while one set in the ways of the past can easily find itself marginalized.”

Bannagran closed his eyes at that and tried to tune out of the conversation. Rumors had been spreading from both lines, Ethelbert and Delaval, that as the war had grown more furious, as the stakes had crystallized, pressures had been exerted on the brothers of Abelle in chapels behind each of the respective lines to tend only to those wounded supporting that region’s ruling faction. The lairds were playing a dangerous game with the people, Bannagran knew from long and bitter experience, for the enemy wounded were too often friend and family to the peasants living about the chapels where they were brought for healing.

Peasants could be pushed hard-Bannagran had seen that from his friend and former laird, Prydae. But peasants also had the capacity to strike back hard when pushed too far.

In his mind, Bannagran saw again his errant throw, his axe spinning end-over-end, sailing above the wretched Highwayman and planting itself deep in Laird Prydae’s chest. He saw again his friend’s blood explode from that wound, saw again Prydae thrown down to his back with such force, the fountain of lifeblood spraying high above his horizontal form. Bannagran shook himself from the awful memory.

“The brothers of Abelle should be aware that Honce is changing,” Prince Yeslnik was saying when Bannagran tuned back in. “The shameful Ethelbert has no sense of the community of Honce! He is not worthy of the title of laird, and many of the folk of his rogue holding bear more allegiance to their brethren south of the mountains than to their fellow men of Honce!”

“You speak of Honce as if it is a united kingdom,” Bannagran couldn’t help but interject.

“And it will be!” Yeslnik barked back at him. “And King Delaval will rule it!”

The answer was perfectly expected, of course, but Bannagran always liked hearing the insistence with which it was pronounced, particularly by this ambitious young man, who had everything in the world to gain if his fantasy came to fruition.

“But it will never be united under Ethelbert, and this the brothers of Abelle must know,” Yeslnik went on, and he was flailing his arms again and turning and storming this way and that, as if little bolts of lightning were exploding through his limbs. “Nay, under the wretch Ethelbert, the Holdings of Honce will become subservient to the needs of the desert kingdom of Behr to the south!”

A couple of attendants gasped at that-so perfectly on cue, Bannagran thought.

“Will our women be sent south around the mountains to serve as whores for the sheiks of the desert wastes?” Yeslnik asked. “Will our children be indentured as water-carriers to mule the precious element from the few springs and ponds to the cities?”

Bannagran had followed Prydae into the court of Laird Delaval and thus against Laird Ethelbert, and his loyalties rested there, to be sure, but he could not help but be amused by the rapt expressions on the faces of many in the room. The bigger and more outrageous the tale, the more it intrigued, it seemed. For Bannagran knew Laird Ethelbert, or had known him a decade before, when the men of Pryd and Ethelbert had fought side by side in the east against the powries. On two occasions, Ethelbert had entered a battle in the nick of time to save Prydae, Bannagran, and their men. When war had later broken out between Ethelbert and Delaval, Prydae had initially sided with Ethelbert, in spirit if not in action. Laird Ethelbert, with no living children, had hinted strongly that he would name Prydae as heir. It wasn’t until it became apparent that Prydae, because of wounds he had suffered in those previous powrie wars, was also the last of his line that Ethelbert had moved away from that course. He would not name Prydae as his heir, and so Prydae had thrown in with Delaval, who was offering the better deal to the young laird.

Part of that deal, though, had ceded Pryd Holding to Laird Delaval upon the end of Prydae’s line, and that end had come prematurely at the end of Bannagran’s thrown axe.

Now Bannagran was stuck with little Laird Yeslnik.

He sighed and pushed the frustration away, ever the good soldier, and tuned in to the continuing conversation. To his credit, again, Master Reandu seemed unfazed by the outlandishly dire exaggerations Yeslnik was spinning regarding Ethelbert’s relationship with Behr.

“What say you?” Yeslnik finished, rushing right up to within a few fingers of Reandu and staring at him hard.

“I am a servant of Abelle,” the Master from Chapel Pryd replied. “My course is determined not by my own emotions, not by the pleasures of a laird or prince, but by the edicts of the father of Chapel Abelle. You appeal to the wrong man, Laird and Prince Yeslnik. Your passion would better serve you in the north, where Father Artolivan’s pen proclaims the actions of all in his clergy.”

Yeslnik continued to stare at him for many heartbeats, and gradually Yeslnik’s face softened into a cold chuckle. “Practiced in the art of diplomacy, I see,” he said. “Well done! You have successfully delayed-not avoided, but delayed-the inevitable confrontation. But take heart, for I am certain that your Father Artolivan will choose wisely, when choose he must. Delaval is for Honce, Ethelbert is for Behr, and the beasts of Behr are no friends to the brothers of Abelle. Their gods precede yours and reject yours, and their God-Voice, the father of their religion, has put more than a few of your missionaries to the stake.”

It was true enough, Bannagran knew, but remained quiet. Many of the missionary brothers of Abelle, those nagging and unrelenting proselytizing prigs, had indeed ventured into Behr and never returned, by all reports. Bannagran knew one exception, however, a monk from Pryd who had come back from the deepest reaches of the southern desert, along with an exotic wife, no less, when Bannagran was a young man, serving his friend Prydae and Prydae’s father, Laird Pryd. The brothers of Chapel Pryd had not treated that monk very well, Bannagran recalled.

The standoff between Yeslnik and Reandu, neither of whom was blinking, ended when a man crashed into the room, huffing and puffing, and breathlessly announced, “They come.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Yeslnik, turning to the man. He rubbed his hands together eagerly and flexed his fingers as if he couldn’t wait to wrap them around a sword hilt (which amused Bannagran, since he had seen this one in “battle” before).

“So it will begin as we expected right here in Pryd Holding,” continued Yeslnik. “Ethelbert’s move in the north was crushed by Milwellis of Palmaristown. He knows that Milwellis will now march east and then south along Felidan Bay, then south from there, sweeping up in his wake villages formerly in Ethelbert’s pay. Thus, Ethelbert did not retreat-he cannot retreat. Not this time, or he will be pushed into the sea. So he comes with all that he has left to strike at the heart and center of King Delaval’s gains.”

Yeslnik clenched his fist, his eyes sparkling with diabolical glee. “Never could you have guessed that your humble little hamlet of Pryd would become the center of the world! For all the world is drawn to this place, as if the weight of Pryd Town pulls in the armies, compels them to this place in this time to finally, undeniably decide! Never could you have guessed this, eh, Bannagran?”

Not in my darkest nightmares, the warrior thought but did not say.

Laird Ethelbert slowly sauntered on his mount toward his tent, as if neither he nor the beast could handle a swifter pace. Palfry, his devoted attendant, rushed up to help him dismount. Glancing around to ensure that no one else was watching, the proud old man accepted the helping hand.

He was just into his seventies now, his once bulky frame wilting and thinning about his arms, while thickening about his waist. He was glad for the comfortable robe he wore, a gift from a Jacinthan merchant. The men of Behr were so much more practical in their dress than the men of Honce.

“You must have ridden under a low branch, my laird,” Palfry said. He brushed a leafy twig from what remained of Ethelbert’s hair. Once thick, black, and curly, now it was thin gray fluff. Ethelbert’s eyes, though, were still the steel blue of an ocean under clouds, still hinted at a great depth behind them, and still held the sparkle of a dancing wave.

“Bah, more likely a squirrel threw the branch upon me,” Ethelbert replied somewhat churlishly. “Every creature in this part of Honce is against me, I say!”

Palfry smiled, so in love with this man who had become like a father, though Ethelbert had no living heirs. The laird had made it clear to Palfry that, though he was not in line for Ethelbert’s title, neither would he be cast from the court of whomever ruled the great holding. Ethelbert had seen to that.

“Where are my commanders?” Laird Ethelbert asked.

Palfry turned and nodded his chin toward a distant clearing, where three warriors sat on logs around a tree stump, a parchment spread upon it. Ethelbert started for them, Palfry at his heels.

“My laird,” the three commanders said together, standing as one.

“The soldiers were pleased that you rode their line, no doubt,” said Kirren Howen, the senior of the group.

“Huzzah for Laird Ethelbert!” added Myrick the Bold, champion of Entel, the name given to the port regions of the city of Ethelbert.

Ethelbert hushed him with a waving hand and a snicker. “It is the least we owe them and less than they want, I am sure,” he said. “They want to be done with this foolishness and go home, as do I.”

“Our cause is right,” said Tyne, a young and promising leader, a man Ethelbert had attached to his elite guard right before the advent of war.

“Righter than Delaval’s, to be sure,” the more seasoned Kirren Howen added.

“The claim of a dactyl demon would be more right than that of Delaval,” Ethelbert said with a derisive snicker. “And I’d sooner my one daughter, were she still alive, marry the dactyl!”

Ethelbert’s joke prompted an uncomfortable laugh around the tree stump, for all knew that Laird Ethelbert spoke only half in jest, revealing his deep wounds over Laird Delaval’s treachery. In times past, the two greatest of lairds had worked together to build Honce’s network of roads. With those roads connecting the many holdings, marauding powries and goblins had been more easily driven away. Trade had blossomed, and a sense of unity had spread across the land. Citizens thought of the notion and nation of Honce more than a particular holding.

All that changed abruptly when Laird Delaval struck, and struck hard, declaring himself King of Honce.

Laird Ethelbert had lived too long, had fought too many battles, and had worked to bring too many warring lairds to common ground to allow such a thing. And thus the current war began.

“What news of the son of Panlamaris?” Ethelbert asked now.

“He has not turned south,” said Kirren Howen.

“To the east, still,” said Myrick.

“He will turn,” Ethelbert assured them. “Milwellis’s win in Pollcree has convinced Delaval that this push to the center is our last, desperate try. And not without reason,” he admitted.

“Had that battle turned differently…” Kirren Howen started to say, but Ethelbert cut him short.

“It could not have. We did not understand the true strength of Palmaristown or how deeply Laird Panlamaris had entrenched himself with Delaval. Panlamaris is seeking the favor of the man who claims the title of king, no doubt, so that Palmaristown can control all of the seaborne merchant trade in this new kingdom Delaval proposes. Our friends from the Mantis Arm peninsula could not match Prince Panlamaris’s ground forces.”

“I do not consider this to be our last and desperate try!” Myrick exclaimed.

Ethelbert’s chuckle calmed him. “I am more interested in what our enemies consider it. In recognizing their thoughts may we act appropriately. Fear not, my fearless Myrick”-his joke on the man’s title brought a bit of laughter from Palfry, Kirren Howen, and Tyne-“for I am not desperate, I assure you, and while I mourn the loss of so many allies at Pollcree, I have no doubt that the fierce peninsula warriors handed the son of Panlamaris great losses in the battle. He is stung, surely, and his soldiers, who have never marched across the land, are already missing their homes, I am certain. Their legs are built for ship planks, not cobblestones. We are not as wounded as they believe, of course. We have other allies and other methods, and I can only hope that the apparent victory in the north has served to foster a feeling of invulnerability among Delaval and his followers. None fall harder than the confident, after all.”

“And no one’s fall is more relished than the defeat of he who thinks himself invulnerable,” said Tyne, the youngest of the group, to approving nods from Kirren Howen and Laird Ethelbert.

“Young and proud Milwellis will turn south,” Ethelbert said. “Delaval and his commanders have come to think this our last stand. The son of Panlamaris, hoping to secure a prominent seat for his father and his town, will not be left out of the victory.”

“And when he does turn?” asked Kirren Howen. “How long do we hold?”

“We know the terrain east of Pryd Holding,” Ethelbert explained. “Laird Delaval does not. His generals are not well versed in the eastern reaches of Honce. The same is true, even more so, of Milwellis of Palmaristown.”

“As long as we can, then,” Kirren Howen replied, and Laird Ethelbert smiled and nodded, fully confident in these men who served him. Kirren Howen would not allow Ethelbert’s army to be smashed by the bulk of Delaval’s forces here in the middle of Honce; they were not here for that purpose.

“We hold faith that our journey to central Honce will not be in vain,” Myrick the Bold asserted, and there was nothing but supreme confidence regarding Laird Ethelbert and these unknown ulterior motives in the old man’s words. He bowed low, as did Tyne and Kirren Howen, and Ethelbert took his leave, signaling for Palfry to remain here with the commanders.

In another clearing not so far away, the Laird of Ethelbert dos Entel met with a second group of warriors, a half dozen men and two women of darker skin and black hair and blacker eyes. It was no secret among his ranks, or among his enemies, that Ethelbert had hired mercenaries from the deserts of Behr, but this group was another matter altogether. Their leader was a petite woman with deceptively soft facial features, a disarming wide, white-toothed smile, and dimples that could melt a man’s heart at the same time that her sword-or even her bare hands-could dismember him. And, oh, how she could dance, Ethelbert mused, the turning and weaving of those supple limbs enough to melt an old man’s heart.

Her name was Affwin Wi, the Eyes of Bursting Sunrise, given to her by her masters at the Walk of Clouds, home of the Jhesta Tu. Affwin Wi had been known among that order not as a creature of introspection or quiet meditation but rather as something akin to the sudden explosion of light when the sun peeked above the eastern horizon, an excitable and impetuous sort. These characteristics had gotten her into trouble among the introspective ascetics who sought to teach her. Jhesta Tu was an art of mind and body: Affwin Wi’s masters feared that she possessed too little of the former and an abundance of the latter.

She had left the Walk of Clouds as a young woman, only a few years before. Again, contrary to Jhesta Tu teaching, Wi had taken on the role of teacher for the similarly fiery men and woman standing around her.

“Laird Delaval continues his advance?” she asked Ethelbert now.

“He cannot surrender the center, and Pryd Town is the center,” the old laird replied. As Ethelbert spoke Merwal Yahna walked over to stand beside Affwin Wi. Ethelbert noted that the rest of Affwin Wi’s disciples, amazing warriors all, shrank back as this one passed. He wasn’t a large man, and the loose fit of his soft black silk clothing did not reveal his tightly packed muscles. Only his clean-shaven head could perhaps be construed as imposing-that and his eyes, narrow, small, and intense.

Watching the sureness of the Behrenese man’s stride and the pure grace of his movements reminded Ethelbert of the value of this gift of deadly mercenaries the Sheik Kali-kali-si of Jacintha had given to him.

“Laird Delaval intends to meet me on the field with every warrior he can spare, and he can spare them all, so he believes.”

“But he has not arrived to join them in this glorious victory?” Merwal Yahna asked, his voice measured. The deference Affwin Wi showed him by allowing him to speak was yet another testament to the man’s rank.

“He is not well, by all word, and desires to heap praise and stature upon his buffoon of a nephew. No, my warrior, Delaval will not be on the field.”

Merwal Yahna’s small eyes lit up, and he gave a slight nod. A quick glance around by Laird Ethelbert told him that he need say nothing more, that the plan was understood and now in action.

Ethelbert bowed to these fearsome disciples of Affwin Wi and took his leave.

He would sleep well that night.