R. Salvatore - The Dame

“It looks like the Highwayman’s,” Bannagran admitted, slurring his words just a bit, for the side of his face was still swollen from a well-aimed and well-thrown rock during his daring and heroic charge that had sent Ethelbert fleeing.

“It is the Highwayman’s!” Yeslnik declared, and he ended with a strange sound that seemed a cross between a growl and a whimper and threw the sword blade to the floor. “I knew that beast would prove nothing but ill to Honce! I implored my uncle to hunt him down and kill him.”

Bannagran rubbed his face, fearing where this might be going.

“Oh, would that he had never been allowed to walk out of Pryd Town!” Yeslnik yelled. “With Laird Pryd’s blood on his hands!”

“It is not as simple as that,” Bannagran dared say.

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” said the champion of Pryd, the man who, indeed, could have executed the Highwayman quite legally. He chuckled helplessly as he thought back to that terrible time after the fall of his dear friend. The people of Pryd had verged on revolt; if Bannagran had not banished the Highwayman and had executed him instead, the streets of Pryd Town would have run red with blood.

Yeslnik growled again and shook his head forcefully, as if throwing all this turmoil to the side. “You have redeemed yourself in any case.”

Bannagran bowed.

“I am the Laird of Delaval now,” said Yeslnik, “and the King of Honce. All the holdings will accept that as soon as we are rid of the troublesome Ethelbert. He is on the run to the south-in no small part because of the exploits of Bannagran the hero, the Bear of Honce, I am told. You do smell like a bear, I am sure.” He gave a little derisive snort and chuckle.

“Laird Ethelbert backed us into a corner with his bold attack,” Bannagran explained, ignoring the insult and reminding himself that if Prince Yeslnik had ever actually been close enough to a bear to smell it, he would have then smelled of his own piss. “Truly, I did not expect that he would move so decisively.”

“But you turned him, broke his line and sent him fleeing.”

“We had no choice in the matter. Charge and win, or die. We chose to fight.”

“No, Bannagran chose to fight, and his choice dragged along the men of Pryd and those Delaval soldiers I left behind,” said Yeslnik. “That is the essence of a leader, and I intend to reward it.”

“As you will, my king.”

“I will name you Laird of Pryd,” said Yeslnik. “No more the steward, but the laird, who will pass the ownership and title down to his own children.”

“I have none.”

“Then make some, dolt!” Yeslnik retorted. “Or name a nephew as an heir, as did-as wisely did-King Delaval. I will see this done, as soon as we attend to pressing needs.”

“To finish off Ethelbert,” Bannagran reasoned.

“I will see to that. I have sent emissaries to Laird Panlamaris and his cowardly son Milwellis to dispatch his forces to the east and then south along the inner coast.”

Bannagran wisely hid his wince at the adjective Yeslnik had attached to Milwellis. To hear the foppish pretend warrior calling Milwellis a coward strained credulity to be sure!

“I doubt that any will stand against them, but neither shall Ethelbert find his escape in that direction. We will push him right back to his city on the sea this time, and there will be no escape. The lairds of the Mantis Arm will join with me now. Their ships will blockade Ethelbert. There will be no escape, and I will push the imbecile right into the Mirianic!”

“The men of Pryd will march with you, my lai…” Bannagran paused, somewhat confused at how to properly address Yeslnik now.

“King,” Yeslnik insisted. “The coronation is a mere formality. Honce is mine.”

“My king,” Bannagran finished.

“And Pryd is yours, Laird Bannagran,” he said. Bannagran bowed. “The men of Pryd will march with me indeed. But not all of them. Not Bannagran, the new Laird of Pryd.”

The Bear of Honce looked at him curiously.

King Yeslnik bent and retrieved the broken sword, then handed it to Bannagran. “Find him,” he ordered. “Find the Highwayman, Bannagran of Pryd. Find him and kill him. You can serve your king no better way than to serve me the Highwayman’s head on a banquet tray. Do that, and Pryd Holding is yours and your family’s forevermore, with borders we will expand.”

Bannagran eyed the sword more closely, remembering when he had done battle against the man who wielded this very blade.

“Find him and kill him,” King Yeslnik said again.

The Bear of Honce, champion of Pryd, nodded.

There is talk that he will be put in line as heir to the lairdship of Vanguard!” Father De Guilbe shouted and waved his arms frantically.

Father Premujon sighed and shook his head. “Cormack is not even of Vanguard. Dame Gwydre would do no such thing as that.”

“I heard it!” De Guilbe protested. “Do you deny that he has been named a hero of the holding?”

“All who participated in the battle with Ancient Badden have so been named,” remarked Brother Jond, sitting on a bench at the side of the hall. “Except the powries, of course. Dame Gwydre made up some other title for them, one that carries no consequence.”

“And you agree with the bestowment?” asked De Guilbe.

“For the powries?”

“For Cormack!” De Guilbe shouted.

Poor Brother Jond appeared uncertain. “Speak freely,” Father Premujon coaxed him.

“Why, yes, I do,” Jond blurted, with such enthusiasm that those who knew him, Premujon included and perhaps most of all, then realized that his tentativeness had been designed to elicit exactly this explicit permission from his Father Premujon. “Of course I do.”

“He betrayed your brethren!” said De Guilbe, and he even took a step toward Jond before Brother Giavno caught him by the arm.

“Dame Gwydre is not of our order and does not answer to us,” Jond explained. “Her titles are secular alone. Despite your hatred for the man, you cannot deny that he bravely battled Ancient Badden. Had it not been for him, it is unlikely that Badden would have been overcome-and his fall is to the benefit of us all.”

“And if Cormack becomes Laird of Vanguard?” De Guilbe asked. “What then for Chapel Pellinor and the Order of Blessed Abelle in his Vanguard?”

Father Premujon just shook his head at the ridiculousness of the premise.

“I bid you, Father, for your own sake, to search this hatred you hold for this man, Cormack,” Brother Jond dared to say, drawing more than a few gasps from around the room. “I have known him but a short time, true, but his character seemed to me in alignment with the precepts of the order.”

“Brother!” more than one voice shouted, loudest of all, that of Father Premujon.

But somehow, Brother Jond seemed above them all at that moment, as if he held some insight they could not share, as if the badges of honor he wore-the one from Gwydre’s recognition and, more importantly, the garish scar across his face-allowed him to speak truth to power with impunity.

“He betrayed the Blessed Abelle to the barbarians!” De Guilbe roared.

“Did he?” Brother Jond’s question, asked so innocently, took the steam from the large man. “Or was it Father De Guilbe, frustrated after years of wandering the terrible environ of Alpinador, who clung to stubbornness beyond all reason and morality?”

“I will not be spoken to in such a manner by a brother!” Father De Guilbe shouted at Father Premujon.

“Enough, Brother Jond!” Premujon said sharply.

The blind monk settled back on the bench, seeming quite pleased with himself.