The Highwayman

16

Hierarchy "What can you do for me?" Every word came out on a gasp of air, as old Laird Pryd lay on his bed, propped on a mound of pillows. Lying flat, the laird could not even draw breath; and even with the pillows, every inhalation was forced.

"We will pray," said Father Jerak. His head bobbed excitedly, as if he had just hit on a revelation.

Beside him, Brother Bathelais paled.

"Pray?" said Rennarq from across the room. "You will pray?"

"Yes, of course," offered Jerak. "We are priests, are we not? Praying is our wont." He chuckled as he finished, though no one else in the room was sharing his levity.

"Perhaps we might try again with the soul stone to make Laird Pryd more comfortable," said Bathelais.

"Perhaps you would be wise to do so," Rennarq replied.

Brother Bathelais nodded, but old Jerak-older than Laird Pryd even-scoffed.

"To what end?" he asked and turned to Pryd. "You are old, good laird. When we grow old, we die. The gemstones are no relief from the inevitable. They cheat not death, unless it comes for one wounded or prematurely ill." Again he laughed, apparently unaware of how out of place his words seemed. "Are you afraid of dying, Pryd? My old friend, I will join you in the next life soon enough, I am sure. As will you, Rennarq-and are you equally afraid?"

Brother Bathelais cleared his throat. "What Father Jerak means-"

"Has already been spoken," a scowling Rennarq interrupted.

"There is nothing?" Laird Pryd managed to gasp.

"My old friend," said Jerak. He moved very close to the bed and put his wrinkled hand on Laird Pryd's arm. He stared lovingly at this man who had been his liege for four decades. "Now comes the mystery. We are creatures of faith, for without it, we are nothing more than the goats and sheep that graze in our fields. I follow Abelle, and I believe his promise of redemption. You will find its truth before I do. Take heart."

Laird Pryd's face seemed as if it were frozen. "What can you do for me?"

Father Jerak fell back from the bed, and Brother Bathelais quickly replaced him. In one hand, he clutched his hematite, the soul stone, and he put his other hand flat on Pryd's chest. Bathelais concentrated and sent his healing powers through the stone, and it did seem as if Pryd did breathe a bit easier then, though only for a short time.

Behind Bathelais, Father Jerak began to pray, and behind him, Rennarq snorted and turned away. "You raise their expectations," Jerak scolded his companion on their walk back from the castle to Chapel Pryd.

"I offer them hope."

"Where there is none, or at least, none for an outcome that cannot be. The laird will die within a week, likely this very night, and would so fail even if all the brothers of our order crowded about his bed, soul stones in hand." He glanced over at Bathelais, who was holding his arm in support but looking straight ahead.

"You disagree?" Father Jerak prompted.

"This is about more than the death of Laird Pryd, I fear. Prydae is off at war and you saw how Rennarq viewed us."

"Rennarq is a scowling idiot."

"One who will soon enough gain full power in the holding."

Jerak shrugged as if it did not matter.

"We fancy ourselves to be healers."

"We alleviate as much suffering as we can," Jerak corrected. "If I could cure age, would I need your arm to get through a fifty-foot stroll?"

"Your bluntness…" Brother Bathelais sighed and quieted.

"Speak your mind."

"You offered no hope to them, even if that hope was a false one."

"You suggest that I should lie to my old friend?"

Bathelais's hesitation was telling. "Bernivvigar was at Laird Pryd's bedside earlier this day and last night," he reminded.

"Preparing him for death. That is all the Samhaists do, of course. Their entire religion is based on the inevitability of death. They mete out harsh justice so that the common fools can see death firsthand, offering them an illusion of conquering it. And the Samhaists dismiss the dead as inconsequential even as they pretend to consecrate the ground that holds the corpse."

"And are we not an alternative to the Samhaists? Is that not the message of Blessed Abelle, that we are the light to defeat their darkness?"

"We are. We are a hope for life after death, but we cannot prevent the passage of the body from this world."

"Rennarq wanted more from us."

"Rennarq is an old fool."

"Laird Pryd hoped for more from our gemstones."

"I hope for more from our gemstones!" Father Jerak laughed again and shook his head, though the movement, with his stiff neck, barely registered. "Laird Pryd is afraid, and who would not be? He goes to that place from which none has ever returned. He goes on promises and prayers and nothing more. That is faith, my friend. And it is a terrifying thing when at last we are forced to take the great leap from life."

Brother Bathelais at last let it go, for he did not want to speak his thoughts bluntly. He believed that Chapel Pryd should put on a grand show to try to save Laird Pryd, that every brother should be constantly at the old man's bedside, praying and healing. He had made that suggestion to Father Jerak when they had first learned of Laird Pryd's sudden ill turn, but the old monk would hear none of it. Perhaps, Bathelais mused, Jerak was looking not so far down the road, when he would find his own deathbed. Perhaps he was forcing the laird to face it without pretense, as if to bolster his own understanding that no pretense would alleviate his own fears when the time came.

In any case, Bathelais feared that Father Jerak wasn't looking at the implications beyond the immediate political situation. This was about more than the impending death of Laird Pryd: it was about the future standing of Chapel Pryd itself. That very night, the monks of Chapel Pryd were summoned to the castle.

"He will not last the night," one of the guards, another old man in this town of very old men and very young boys, quietly explained.

The two monks hustled by, as fast as Father Jerak could manage. They crossed from the gatehouse and climbed the four flights of stairs to the largest tower and Laird Pryd's private chambers. They came into the anteroom of the laird's bedchamber to find Rennarq inside, pacing nervously, along with several of Pryd's attendants and a pair of guards blocking the door.

"We will offer the sacred rite of passage," Brother Bathelais explained, and he and Father Jerak started for the door.

Rennarq nodded, not to them but to the guards, who promptly blocked the way.

Bathelais and Jerak turned curious expressions upon the old adviser.

"Bernivvigar is with him," Rennarq explained.

Bathelais furrowed his brow, and Jerak argued, "Laird Pryd is of the Church of Blessed Abelle, is he not? As he accepted the sacred rite of birth and the sacred rite of second affirmation, the sacred rite of passage is expected, and expressly granted."

"The Samhaists have rituals of their own to ease the way into death."

"Ours is to prepare the dying for their meeting with Blessed Abelle. On his word alone shall a man know the joy of paradise."

Rennarq shrugged. The guards did not move aside.

The two monks looked at each other with concern.

"Perhaps in the end, Laird Pryd was persuaded by the honesty of your rival," Rennarq said. "You could not cure him and neither could Bernivvigar, but at least the Samhaist never pretended that he could."

"Nor did we, against your protests," said Father Jerak, and Rennarq shrugged again and seemed not to care.

"This is madness, Rennarq," Father Jerak declared, and he straightened more formidably than he had in many years. "Laird Pryd long ago embraced the Church of Blessed Abelle and commissioned our chapel to be built right beside his own castle. There can be no doubt as to the road of his faith."

"A dying man chooses his own path, father."

Father Jerak had to wonder about that. He was no fool, and was not unversed in matters politic. Jerak understood the reality of this moment. When Laird Pryd passed on, Rennarq would likely step in as ruler of Pryd until Prince Prydae returned from the powrie war-if that ever happened. This ending, right down to the call for the monks to quickly come to the castle, had been orchestrated by the shrewd old adviser for a very definite effect. Rennarq was sending a clear message to the brothers of Blessed Abelle-not one of outright rejection, perhaps, but one designed to remind them that they remained no higher than second in the hierarchy of Pryd-a very distant second.

"Let us go to him, at the end," Father Jerak said quietly, wanting to seem appropriately cowed for the sake of peace in the holding and the sake of the dying Laird Pryd. "Allow Laird Pryd the benefit of both blessings, Abelle and Samhaist. In the end-"

He stopped as the door to Pryd's bedroom opened. Old Bernivvigar stepped out, announcing at once, "The Laird of Pryd Holding has passed from this world to the ghostly realm. We are diminished as the ghosts about us grow stronger. Let us prepare an appeasement ritual to them."

Always it was about fear with the Samhaists, Father Jerak mused.

Bathelais, meanwhile, hardly registered Bernivvigar's words, so busy was he in scrutinizing and measuring the old Samhaist himself. The brothers of Abelle had a formidable opponent in him, Bathelais understood. Though no one really knew the man's exact age, Bernivvigar was at least as old as Jerak, and yet he was full of energy and the strength of life. By his own example of longevity and health, might Bernivvigar be silently enticing the folk of Pryd to lean the Samhaist way?

"The laird is dead, long live laird-guest Rennarq!" one of the guards proclaimed, and Bathelais's eyes went from the Samhaist to the new ruler of Pryd Holding. Never had Rennarq shown any love for the Church of Blessed Abelle.

Without another word, without a look at anyone-and pointedly none at all toward the brothers of Abelle-Bernivvigar walked past the monks and the others and left the castle.

"We will formally declare the transfer of power tomorrow morning," Rennarq said. He looked at the monks. "We are done here. You may return to your beds or your prayers or whatever it is you brothers of Abelle do at this hour."

"You and I must talk at length, laird-guest," Father Jerak replied, and Bathelais didn't miss the respect in his superior's voice, nor Jerak's insertion of the soon-to-be-formalized title.

"In time."

"Soon," Father Jerak pressed. "Most of your subjects are among the flock of-"

"In my good time, good father," Rennarq cut him off.

Father Jerak started to reply, but then just half nodded and half shook his head. He accepted Bathelais's arm and hobbled away.