R. Salvatore - The Bear

"I could have you executed for this admission."

"You could have taken my head several times, Laird Bannagran, with or without cause, and always with the blessing of King Yeslnik. In fact, it is exactly your hesitance that has led me to this place and this time, with Dame Gwydre beside me."

"On a fool's errand."

Bransen shook his head. "You are better than this role you have played, like the palace dog doing tricks for the spoiled child that is Yeslnik."

"We are back to this," Bannagran interrupted. "I already gave my answer to the woman who holds your leash. Your desperation shines darkly on your cause. Did you really think to march into Pryd Town and turn me to your side, to trade one master for another?" He held up his hands and closed his eyes, then shook his head fiercely and glowered at the Highwayman. "I have told you more than once to be gone from this place, on penalty of death."

"Hear me, Laird Bannagran, I beg," Bransen pleaded. "I just saved your life and ask only that you hear me out fully."

"I know everything you mean to say, and it bores me, as you bore me. You want me to turn against King Yeslnik in the desperate hope that we might put Dame Gwydre on the throne of Honce-Dame Gwydre, who knows nothing of the land and people south of the Gulf of Corona, and they know nothing of her. Dame Gwydre, who is just a name, after all. King Yeslnik has won the day. You know it to be true. The best advice you might offer to your precious lady is that she sue for peace and beg forgiveness. Her cause is lost."

"That she will never do," came a woman's voice from the doorway, and both men turned to see Gwydre herself standing there, wearing nothing but a simple nightshirt, her short hair rumpled as if she had just awakened.

"Then you do a disservice to those you claim to champion, lady," Bannagran said. "I have more warriors here in Pryd Town alone than you and Ethelbert together might muster, and my force is a third of what King Yeslnik can put on the field against you, less than a third!"

"It matters not at all," the unshaken woman replied. "I follow the cause of justice. I can march no other way, and justice demands the defeat of King Yeslnik. This is not about me, Laird Bannagran, nor is it about you, nor about Bransen. It is about the people of Honce, the farmers and the fishermen, the children and the elders so full of wisdom. They call out in voices thinned by the thunderous march of armies, but I hear them. And Bransen hears them. Does Bannagran?"

The Bear of Honce laughed and walked over to stand right before her. "For them, Dame? Or should I call you Queen Gwydre?" he asked sarcastically.

"It is not about me," Gwydre said quietly.

"Is it not?" Bannagran shouted in her face. "You feign humility and generosity and will send a thousand more to their graves, and all, and only, so that you can be queen!"

Gwydre slapped him across the face, and Bransen sucked in his breath.

Bannagran laughed, though, and Gwydre moved to slap him again, but this time, he caught her by the wrist. Undaunted, the woman slapped at him with her left hand, but again, Bannagran caught that one, too, in his iron grip, and with a quick tug, he brought Dame Gwydre right up against him.

And then he kissed her.

Bransen tried to shout in protest, but he had no voice with which to yell. He started forward just as Gwydre finally managed to pull back from Bannagran.

She held her hand up to stop Bransen.

"Get out," Bannagran called over his shoulder to Bransen, and he tossed the bandanna and the soul stone to the floor near the wiry man. "The same way you came in."

"I'll not leave Dame Gwy-"

"Bransen, go," Gwydre bade him.

"And you, lady, would do well to get yourself back to your room, lest one of my sentries see you with your charms so exposed and… well, do what a man will do."

"It is not about me, Laird Bannagran," Gwydre said as she moved to the room's door, where, indeed, a sentry stood and stared at her with a rather lewd smile. Dame Gwydre just ignored him.

"I'll not make you the Queen of Honce, lady," Bannagran assured her.

"Then make yourself the King of Honce," Gwydre said and exited.

Bannagran had no response to that. He stood staring at the open doorway, and behind him stood Bransen, frozen in place with his hands tying the bandanna about his head.

Finally, Bannagran managed to turn about and fix Bransen with a glare. With a tapped salute, Bransen slipped out the window and disappeared into the night.

The Highwayman wandered for more than an hour, ending up at the lake, not far from the house where he had lived with Garibond. He looked back at that dark structure now and thought of all the good times he had shared with Garibond. Fishing, reading the secrets of his father's Book of Jhest, just those moments of quiet and serenity sitting across the table from his adoptive father, a man who needed little and asked for nothing.

The distraction of that pleasant memory could not hold, however, and Bransen found himself staring across the dark waters, wondering what in the world had prompted Dame Gwydre's parting remark to Bannagran.

"King Bannagran," Bransen said aloud, just to hear it, just to try to absorb it.

He couldn't. No matter how many times he whispered the name, it sounded discordant in his heart-a heart still broken from the loss of Garibond, a heart still stung by the actions of Bannagran. Bransen had thought that he had put most of this behind him. Had he not come here, Gwydre in tow, to make peace with the man, after all? Had he not come here to teach Bannagran the truth of Bannagran, for it was, in many regards, the same truth Bransen had finally come to know about himself?

So why had Dame Gwydre's words so unsettled him?

Because he had come to enlist Bannagran in the cause of Dame Gwydre, a goodly cause. He had come to Pryd to give Bannagran a chance at redemption and perhaps a greater opportunity to follow a more just road going forward. But this was different, for if Bannagran fought for the cause of Bannagran there was no altruism, no penance, no redemption, and in that void, how could Bransen ever consider the man worthy of the title?

And in that regard, could Bransen really fight for Bannagran as he had chosen to fight for Dame Gwydre? He had no answers to those unsettling questions, none at all. But he had to find them. He stared at the water, reached up, and untied his bandanna with one hand, dropping his soul stone into the other.

Bransen took a deep breath, then another, afraid of the journey before him. He thought of Giavno, forever wounded, and reminded himself that Bannagran, though untrained in the magic of the sacred gemstones, was a man of great discipline and fortitude.

But Bransen had to know.

He closed his eyes and brought his clenched fist and the soul stone right between his eyes, focusing on its teeming energy, seeking its inviting depths. In the gray smoothness, Bransen found release, his spirit drawing from his corporeal form and flying free into the dark Pryd night.

Straight for Castle Pryd, he flew, up high along the keep's sides and to the same windowsill through which he had charged earlier that night.

Snoring, Bannagran lay sprawled in his cushiony chair before the now dark hearth, his arms hanging out to either side, legs straight out before him. He still wore his muddy boots and had his great axe near at hand, leaning on the side of the chair. Two bottles lay on the floor, one empty, one nearly so.

Bransen built a picture in his mind-a scroll Father Artolivan had shown him of the order from Yeslnik that all of the prisoners from Laird Ethelbert's forces be executed. Bransen wasn't sure of the exact wording, but he formulated the thought clearly-Ethelbert's men were to be executed-and used that solid notion to lead the way into the spirit of the sleeping man.