R. Salvatore - The Highwayman

"Or the other way around!" Dynard argued.

" 'Twas your own idea to take the ripened tomatoes from farmer Filtin."

" 'Twas my idea to take only the ripened ones after you dragged me to his fields," came Dynard's not-so-subtle correction.

The two laughed, and SenWi did as well, until Garibond began to pat his hands in the air and whisper for quiet, reminding them that his house wasn't that far out of town, after all.

"What are you doing to her?" Garibond asked SenWi then, for she had bent over the gravely injured younger woman and slid her hands under the blanket around the poor girl's midsection.

"She is offering her healing powers to the poor girl," Dynard answered.

"Callen," said Garibond. "Callen Duwornay. She was indeed guilty of the accusation of adultery, from what little I heard, but she's not deserving this fate. Poor girl indeed."

He studied SenWi as she slid her hand back out and shifted to put it back from a different angle. "She uses no soul stone," he remarked.

"SenWi is Jhesta Tu," Dynard replied.

Garibond shrugged. The name likely meant nothing to anyone north of the mountains, Dynard knew.

"Just one of the many marvels I have to share with you," the monk said, and he began recounting his journeys then, from the road to Ethelbert to the sea voyage around the Belt-and-Buckle and all through the wild deserts of Behr to his culminating exploration at the Jhesta Tu monastery. He spoke with passion and true admiration as he detailed those years spent at the Walk of Clouds with the devoted mystics, and his story lasted until the eastern sky had begun to lighten with the coming dawn. Garibond didn't point out the lateness of the hour and neither did SenWi, whose work with Callen was hardly finished.

"What are you going to do?" Garibond asked somberly when at last Dynard settled back in his chair.

"In the morning, I return to Chapel Pryd with SenWi."

"Take care," Garibond warned. "Things have changed in the ten years since you left, my friend."

"How so?" Dynard asked, responding to the alarm in his friend's voice.

"The work on the road is hard on the people; and Laird Pryd, like all the lairds of Honce, is determined that his holding will not be outdone in this endeavor. But the land is not tamed-less so than even when you left, I would say."

"Laird Ethelbert spoke of goblins and powries."

"The powries are as thick as trees, as you saw for yourself," said Garibond. He paused and looked curiously at his friend. "How did you get rid of the beasts? You've never been a warrior."

Dynard led Garibond's gaze to SenWi.

"Interesting," Garibond remarked.

"So you are not surprised to hear that we encountered powries?"

"The bloody caps are all about," Garibond explained. "They've left me alone, for the most part. I don't know why. Mayhap they think my dirty old blood will soil their berets."

"Or it could be those tunnels beneath your house," Dynard said with a wink.

"Perhaps you should move closer to the town," SenWi offered in her halting command of the language.

"Ah, that would kill me sooner than any powries ever could!"

"Fie the day that we granted them the safety of our coast," Dynard added, and Garibond nodded.

"A group of powries came to the shores of Honce many years ago," Dynard explained to SenWi. "Perhaps a score of years ago now. The lairds chose not to confront them, but parlayed instead, granting the dwarves a region of the coast as their own. We have come to regret that generosity."

"Your own Church did not oppose the decision," Garibond reminded, to which Dynard could only hold up his hands.

A long pause ensued, and Garibond's last statement led Brother Dynard back to the meetings he would face in the morning. "How fares Father Jerak?"

"He is getting very old, and looking even older. Rumors say that Brother Bathelais has assumed most of his duties now."

That news saddened Dynard but did not surprise him; Jerak had already been an old man when Dynard had set out on his mission, after all. Nor did it alarm him in any way. He and Bathelais had been friends before he had left, and, from what he knew, Bathelais was possessed of a good heart and a clear mind.

"More important is the passage of the title of laird," Garibond explained. "Laird Pryd is robust yet, so many say, but he was not at Bernivvigar's court last night. Day by day sees the rise of Prydae."

"A good man?"

Garibond shrugged. "That would hardly be my place to judge, though I have heard nothing contrary to that. His courage against the powries cannot be dismissed, and the soldiers of Castle Pryd follow him with great loyalty. He is as proud as he is fierce, some say, but whether that will prove a strength or a weakness in these days of change, who can know?"

It occurred to Dynard to ask about how this young and rising prince might view the Church of Abelle, but he held the question private. Garibond wouldn't likely know the inner workings of Pryd's Church of Abelle, since he wasn't one to visit Chapel Pryd. Had he ever gone to the place after the monks had turned him away, except on that one occasion to see Dynard off on his mission?

The conversation drifted away then, and so did the three companions, falling into light sleep right where they sat. Sunlight awakened them soon after, though, streaming in through every crack and opening in Garibond's old house.

"And what am I to do with her?" Garibond asked when Dynard and SenWi moved immediately to collect their packs.

Dynard looked to SenWi.

"She will not likely awaken today," SenWi said with confidence.

"And we will return to you this very night," Dynard promised. He looked all about, then reached into his pack and pulled forth his most-prized possession, the transcribed Book of Jhest. He stared at it for a few moments, wondering whether he should reveal it to Father Jerak immediately upon his return to Chapel Pryd. A nagging thought in the back of his head, undefined but forceful, made him reconsider, and he glanced all around. He moved to the back of the two-roomed upper house and pulled open the partially hidden trapdoor, revealing a narrow shaft. He tenderly wrapped the tome and went down the hole with it. He returned a moment later without the book, to see his two companions, particularly Garibond, watching him intently.

"More trouble you're bringing to my house?"

Dynard looked at his friend. "It will not remain here for long," he promised, and Garibond merely smiled and shook his head-a familiar look that sent Dynard's thoughts careening back to the garden raids of their youth.

"First sign of the laird's men, and Callen's going down the hole, as well," Garibond warned.

"Gently, I trust."

"Quickly."

Dynard smiled, knowing the truth of his compassionate friend. Another fine, warm summer day surrounded Dynard and SenWi as they moved back to the end of Pryd's lengthening road. Workers and soldiers were all around, some studying the myriad tracks, others looking to the empty pole where Callen had been strung.

"To think that they meant to work all day under the shadow of the hanging woman," Dynard quietly remarked as he surveyed the scene, while he and SenWi were hidden from the sight of the crew. He noted that the powries had apparently returned after the fight and retrieved the bodies of their fallen. Still, the signs of the struggle clearly remained, a puzzle that the folk milling about the area were trying hard to decipher.

"Are you ready to meet them?" Dynard whispered. He couldn't suppress a helpless chuckle when he regarded his wife, who seemed so uncomfortable dressed in a typical Honce woolen tunic. The dress was normal for the land, true, but wearing it, SenWi hardly seemed like any normal Honce citizen.

SenWi looked up at him, her typically calm expression telling him all he needed to know. He took her hand and rose, then crossed out onto the open ground before the work area.