R. Salvatore - The Dame

“Dawson!”

The sailor shrugged but didn’t retract.

“I would not have sided with the Samhaists in any event, and that much was clear before Alandrais and I fell in love,” Gwydre insisted. “As their grip on southern Honce eroded, Ancient Badden grew ever more demanding and desperate and vicious.”

“Aye, I know,” Dawson admitted. “And Alandrais loved you. I know that, too, though I’m wanting to punch the fool in the nose right now.”

“You can’t blame him for… this,” said Gwydre. She reached up and stroked her friends grizzled face. “It’s been a long time in coming, and it is for the best.”

“Still would feel good to punch him.”

Gwydre managed another laugh. She pulled herself to her feet and began to pace in much the same manner as Dawson had earlier. “I am quite the fool,” she muttered. “To get involved with a monk at a time such as this-nay, to get involved with a monk at all! Oh, what pain have I brought upon my people? I have betrayed their trust for the sake of my own selfish needs.”

“You betrayed nothing!” Dawson shouted and leaped from the couch. “ ’Twas Badden who betrayed you, who betrayed us all. He held Vanguard hostage to protect his losses in the south. He demanded of us-of you-that which you could not do! Were you to deny the folk the blessings of the monks’ gemstones? Were you to let the sick and injured die because Badden didn’t want the monks praying over them with the soul stones?”

“The situation wasn’t so bad before my tryst with Alandrais.”

“Before the war in the south turned the folk of Honce away from the Samhaists, you mean. Wasn’t about you and wasn’t about your monk lover. Badden’s desperation came from knowing that his priests were being chased from half the holdings of Honce, and even where they stayed in their groves, the lairds weren’t listening to them. Delaval and Ethelbert have the whole of Honce in flames, and the folk’re suffering. In that suffering they’ve turned to the brothers of Abelle and their gemstones and away from the Samhaists.”

Gwydre considered the reasonable rebuttal for a few long moments, then nodded and smiled her gratitude at this man, her friend Dawson. Dawson took his leave and went back to his own rooms, pleased that he had been able to help his friend through her trying night, for surely Dame Gwydre was as a beloved sister to the old sailor, a woman he would gladly die defending.

Dame Gwydre continued to pace the room long after Dawson had gone. She did feel much better than when she had walked out of her meeting with Alandrais. Dawson was a valuable friend to her, unafraid to speak to her as a friend and not as his liege lady.

Truly he was a shining gem to Gwydre. He kept her grounded, kept her humble, and she knew that his love for her was unconditional, that if she were thrown down the next day from her position of authority and cast penniless into the street, Dawson McKeege would treat her no differently and no less affably.

Some of his honesty that night had stung, though, she had to admit. She didn’t think that Dawson had mentioned the gains her tryst had brought to the brothers of Abelle simply to make her feel better. There was a ring of truth in his claim.

Too much, she decided, and so, instead of going into her private chambers to don her bedclothes, Gwydre, Dame of Vanguard, went into the cold winter night.

The brothers of Chapel Pellinor had just finished their evening prayers when she arrived at their door. Father Premujon did not deny her request for an audience. Nor did he say anything when she entered the room and told his attendants, who included Father De Guilbe, to leave them.

“May I help you, Lady?” Premujon said when they were alone. “This is most unusual.”

“I was visited by one of your brothers this night,” she said.

“I see,” Premujon mused. “And who-”

“I’ll not speak around it,” Gwydre said. “You know well of my relationship with Brother Alandrais, and you know by now that the relationship ended this night.”

“Dame Gwydre, I am not-”

“Father,” she prompted in an exasperated tone.

The man sighed in surrender. “I know. Of course, I know.”

“As you knew of it when it commenced.”

The father tilted his head and eyed her curiously.

“Before it commenced, perhaps?” she asked slyly.

“Now how would I have known that?”

“Because you blessed Brother Alandrais’s decision, this night and those months ago when first we began our relationship.”

Father Premujon sat back very straight, as if he had been slapped. “Good Lady, what do you imply? Do you believe that I sent Brother Alandrais to your bed?”

“Our relationship benefited Chapel Pellinor greatly.”

Father Premujon considered that for a moment and conceded the fact with a nod. “Indeed, you were a mighty ally in our struggles with Badden’s Samhaists, but I expect that you would have supported us over him in any case.”

“A cool war of words and not a fighting battle.”

“True enough,” said Premujon. “So now you fear that I orchestrated your relationship with Brother Alandrais, that I sent him to you hoping you would fall in love for the sake of Chapel Pellinor?”

Gwydre didn’t answer the charge.

“I did not,” Premujon stated flatly. “When Brother Alandrais became smitten with Dame Gwydre, he came to me and confessed in full, and he was a man in terrible conflict. He understood the implications of any advances he might make, both for the church and for his continuing role in the order. What would you have had me say to him, Dame? Generally, my order frowns on such relationships, of course, but we often make exceptions, or merely let the situation quietly run its course.”

“Quietly?” Gwydre asked sarcastically.

“Such situations do not usually involve a laird or a dame,” came the dry reply.

“And in this case?” Gwydre asked. “Which course did Father Premujon prefer?”

“That you and Brother Alandrais would find love, and that such love would bring benefit to Chapel Pellinor and help us rid the land of the vile Samhaists,” the man admitted without hesitation.

Dame Gwydre fell back a step, surprised by his forthrightness.

“What would you have me say?” the Father of Chapel Pellinor asked. “What would you have had me do? I saw the gain to my order, to be sure, and did not dissuade such a beneficial outcome.” He rose from his seat and walked over to Gwydre, placing a hand on each of her shoulders and looking her straight in the eye. “But milady, good Dame Gwydre, not I nor any of my surrogates sent Brother Alandrais to court you. In no way. We simply decided not to interfere with nature’s course. And now, this evening, no one here bade Brother Alandrais to bring an end to your relationship.”

Dame Gwydre didn’t doubt him. Somehow, the truth he had just spoken hurt her and comforted her all at once. Her love affair with Alandrais had been real. Of course, that meant that the end of that love was real, as well.

Gwydre reached up with her right hand and pulled Premujon’s hand from her shoulder, grasping it tightly. “It is my friendship and trust with you that placed me on the side of your order against Badden’s Samhaists, you know. My love for Brother Alandrais did not determine my actions.”

“But it spurred many of Badden’s,” the monk replied. “To the great benefit of Vanguard in the end.”

Gwydre nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly and took her leave.

She spent a long night thinking of her many days with Alandrais, days in the sun and in the snow. She laughed and she cried that night; she let the light and the darkness have their play in her emotions.

For the next morning, Dame Gwydre had to let it all go, had to be again the leader of her people in a time that was far from settled and far from safe.