R. Salvatore - The Ancient

Cormack held up a pair of trout strung on a line-fish that Milkeila had given to him, as was their custom whenever they met on the sandbar.

“You always do better when you’re out alone,” the other boathandler said. “They should put you out there every day!”

Cormack grinned and nodded, thinking that meeting Milkeila at their special place daily wouldn’t be so bad a thing. None of the three on the beach understood the prophetic nature of the remarks, however.

With a noticeably lighter step, Cormack trotted back up from the beach to the chapel, and indeed all of Chapel Isle seemed as if a great weight had been lifted from it, as if perpetual storm clouds had at last parted. The three-week siege had taxed the brothers greatly, and though they were not all thrilled that their prisoners had escaped, and less thrilled that four of their ranks had been lost to battle and several others would be a long time in recovering, life got back to somewhat normal fairly quickly.

It occurred to Cormack that the work on the walls hadn’t been this frenetic since the early days of construction. Frenetic and with true zeal, he realized, for the brothers were going at their labors with a renewed sense of purpose, as if they were finally, finally, doing much more than the simple tasks necessary for day-today survival. They had built the chapel for defense and as a celebration of Blessed Abelle. Now they had seen it through its former purpose firsthand. They had witnessed what had worked and what hadn’t; already many plans had been drawn up for strengthening the walls and giving the brothers more and better options for repelling any future attackers. Mingled in with those practical plans were the requisite glorious design features, the marks of pride and gratitude to their patron.

“Purpose,” Cormack whispered as he crossed into the courtyard. He wondered then if that need to find meaning wasn’t in some twisted way responsible for the continuing warfare among the various peoples and powries of the Mithranidoon islands. Without the ever-present enemies, could the folk of the islands find meaning in their lives?

It was a truly chilling thought for the gentlehearted man, but he didn’t let it weight the spring in his step.

Brother Giavno’s look at him as he entered Father De Guilbe’s office did exactly that, however, a withering gaze that immediately sent Cormack’s thoughts back to the beach, to the second, overturned boat, which had obviously been recently returned.

“Fa… Father De Guilbe, I was told that you wished to speak to me,” Cormack managed to stutter, though his eyes never left Giavno as he spoke.

“Where have you been?” the leader of Chapel Isle replied, and Cormack couldn’t miss the undertone of his voice, so full of disappointment.

He turned to regard the man, and paused just a few moments to collect his thoughts and to try and sort all this out before answering, “Fishing. I go often, and with Brother Giavno’s blessing. I landed two this day-one of good size-”

“You fish from your boat or from another island?”

“The boat, of course-”

“Then why were you on an island?” Father De Guilbe demanded. “It was an island, was it not? Where you met with the barbarian woman?”

Stunned, Cormack shook his head. “Father, I…”

This time De Guilbe did not interrupt, but the stammering Cormack couldn’t find a response anyway.

“You freed them,” Father De Guilbe accused. “During the frenzy of battle you slipped into the tunnels and freed our four prisoners.”

“No, Father.”

De Guilbe’s sigh profoundly wounded the young monk. “Do not compound your crime with lies, Brother.” He paused and sighed again, shaking his head, before finishing, simply, “Cormack.”

“Four souls for Blessed Abelle released to pursue heathen ways that will surely damn them for eternity,” Brother Giavno put in harshly. “How will you reconcile your conscience with that, I wonder?”

“No,” Cormack said, still shaking his head. “We thought they were not eating in protest, but it was an enchantment, perhaps. Or…”

“Brother Giavno followed you out onto the lake, Cormack,” said Father De Guilbe, and again, his omission of Cormack’s Abellican title struck hard at the young monk’s sensibilities. “He heard you with the woman-all of it. And while your lust could be rather easily forgiven and atoned for-brothers often surrender to such urges-the action which precipitated your tryst is a different matter.”

Cormack stared at him blankly, and indeed, that was exactly how he felt. He replayed his conversation with Milkeila in his head, and quickly recognized that an eavesdropping Giavno had heard more than enough to erase any doubt, or to defeat any protests coming forth from him. So he stood there and took Father De Guilbe’s stream of anger, and he felt an empty vessel through it all, though he would not let that venom fill him.

“How could you betray us like that?” De Guilbe demanded. “Men died to protect that treasure: the souls of four Alpinadoran barbarians. Four of your brethren are dead, and a fifth might soon join them! What would you say to their families? Their parents? How would you explain to them that their sons died for nothing?”

“Too many were dying,” Cormack said, his voice barely above a whisper, but the room went absolutely silent as he started to speak and all heard him well enough. “Too many were still to die.”

“We would have held them!” Brother Giavno insisted.

“Then we would have murdered them all,” Cormack retorted. “Surely there is nothing holy in that action. Surely Blessed Abelle-”

The name had barely escaped his lips when a bolt of lightning erupted from Father De Guilbe’s hand and threw Cormack back hard to slam into the doorjamb. He crumpled to the floor, disoriented and writhing in pain.

“Strip him down and tie him in the open courtyard,” Father De Guilbe instructed, and Giavno waved a couple of monks over to collect the fallen man.

As Cormack was dragged away, Brother Giavno faced Father De Guilbe directly. “Twenty hard lashes,” De Guilbe started to say, but he stopped and corrected himself. “Fifty. And with barbs.”

“That will almost surely kill him.”

“Then he will be dead. He betrayed us beyond redemption. Administer the beating without remorse or amelioration. Beat him until you are weary, then hand the whip off to the strongest brother in the chapel. Fifty-no less, though I care not if you exceed the mandate. If he is dead at forty, administer the last ten to his corpse.”

Brother Giavno felt the deep remorse in Father De Guilbe’s voice, and he sympathized completely. This business was neither pleasant nor pleasurable, but it was certainly necessary. The fool Cormack had made his choice, and he had betrayed his brethren for the sake of barbarians-barbarians who were assailing Chapel Isle at the time of Cormack’s treachery.

That could not stand.

Brother Giavno nodded solemnly to his superior and turned to leave. Before he got to the door, De Guilbe said to him, “Should he somehow survive the beating, or should he not, put him in a small boat and tow him out onto the lake. Leave him for the trolls or the fish or the carrion birds. Brother Cormack is already dead to us.”

More than two hours later, the semiconscious Cormack was unceremoniously dropped into the smallest and worst boat in Chapel Isle’s small fleet as it bobbed on the low surf at the island’s edge.

“Is he already dead?” one of the monks asked to the group congregating around the craft.

“Who’s to care?” another answered with a disgusted snort-which pretty well summed up the mood. Many of these men had been friends of Cormack’s, some had even looked up to him. But his betrayal was a raw wound to them all, and too fresh a revelation for any to take a step back and see any perspective on this other than the harsh sentence imposed by Father De Guilbe.