R. Salvatore - The Dame

“They’ve a new laird and not a promising one from what I could discern. The war rages, escalates even.”

“Idiots,” Jameston muttered.

“Beyond all reason, Father Premujon told me. This war is to the death.”

“Oh, it is,” Jameston agreed. “To the death of Honce.”

Both paused and sighed at that harsh reality. “Southern Honce,” Gwydre added at length. “Vanguard has found peace, it would seem.”

“It’s true,” Jameston assured her. “No goblins or trolls or barbarians to be found. Most of Badden’s priests weren’t too happy with his decision to employ mercenary monsters. The priests are split now and fighting among themselves, and that’s always a good thing. It’ll take them a year and more to put a new ancient in place. I expect before that time, you’ll be hearing from many Samhaist priests who want to make peace. They’ll be asking you to allow them to hold their groves and tend to their followers.”

“Do they think they will have any followers in Vanguard after the misery Badden has loosed upon us?”

Jameston shrugged. “Prideful bunch, and I never thought much of the intelligence of the average man or woman.”

Gwydre gave a little chuckle at that, a helpless one. “Vanguard knows peace on the battlefields, perhaps, but not peace of mind.”

“I’ll go out on a thin trail of old turds here and guess that the Abelle crowd is causing you misery.”

Gwydre laughed again and held up her hands helplessly. “They wish to try Cormack for heresy. They demand it.”

“Cormack? The tall one who went to the glacier and helped kill Badden?”

“The same.”

Now it was Jameston’s turn to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. He stopped when he noted that Dame Gwydre was staring at him intently.

“How well do you know him?” she asked.

“Cormack? Don’t know him at all. Heard about him. Talked to him once.”

“How well do you know Bransen?”

“The Highwayman?”

Gwydre nodded. “He arrived in Pellinor this morning at my request.”

“I traveled with him for a short time,” said Jameston. “Good fighter, that much I know.”

“Not unlike Jameston in skill or in temperament.”

“I don’t think I ever fought like that,” the scout replied. “Not that well, but I hope I had better sense than that one even when I was a young man.”

“Not unlike Jameston in his disdain for the Samhaist and the brothers of Abelle-oh, and for the lairds of Honce.”

“I’m liking him all the more.”

“Spend some time with him,” Gwydre bade Jameston.

“That an order?”

“A request. I think that you might counsel him well.”

“Ah, you mean that you want me to make sure that he likes Dame Gwydre more than he likes the other lairds.”

Gwydre smirked at him, and Jameston couldn’t suppress a return smile.

“You’ve earned that much from me, at least,” the scout said. He took Gwydre’s hand and kissed it. “Since you’re th’only one worth a dactyl demon’s damn.”

“My husband was a good man.”

“You do well by his memory.”

“You loved my father,” Gwydre added.

“Hard man not to love,” Jameston admitted. “Were more lairds like him, were more people like him, I might spend less time in the forest.”

“Then you’ll spend some time with Bransen?”

“For you, pretty lady? Of course.”

Dame Gwydre leaned forward and kissed Jameston on the cheek then walked past him and out of the room.

For the first time in several days her smile was genuine.

He stood alone in the center of the circular room, but he did not bow his head. Nor did he remove his powrie beret, even after Father Premujon, after whispering with Father De Guilbe, ordered him to do so.

Instead, Cormack calmly looked over at Dame Gwydre and asked, “Is it required of me, in this, your chamber, to remove the cap?”

She shook her head. Cormack didn’t even bother to glance back at the monks.

From the front of the room, near the door (which was open so that many of Pellinor’s citizens could view the proceedings), Bransen watched it all with a grin and a growing respect for Cormack. The man was cool-headed, unconcerned, as if the monks could not truly touch him. They had whipped him near to death and cast him away in a rickety boat to die, and yet he had survived. Perhaps Gwydre was the source of his confidence-maybe she had told him that she would stand with him in these proceedings-but more likely, Bransen thought, Cormack would have acted no differently were this trial in the chapel and governed only by the two fathers.

They couldn’t touch him. Not truly. Even if they burned him at the stake, they couldn’t touch the soul of Cormack.

Premujon called upon Father De Guilbe to open the trial with an explanation of the man’s alleged crime. Bransen listened intently through it all, hearing of the battle at Chapel Isle, where the monks had “rescued” and were “saving” three wayward Alpinadorans when the barbarians came against them viciously. After days of successful defense and another prisoner taken and, De Guilbe declared, with the barbarians ready to break and retreat, Cormack had snuck into the room and ferried the Alpinadorans away, betraying the brotherhood, scorning his superiors, and condemning the four Alpinadorans to eternal damnation.

It was a rousing recanting, Bransen thought, if one were inclined to believe such things. Many in the room, monk and Vanguardsman alike, called for Cormack’s head. Of course, to Bransen the courageous actions only made Cormack more the hero.

Dame Gwydre wasted little time in quieting the ruckus and made it clear that she would tolerate no mob mentality here.

“Father De Guilbe,” she said, “it would appear that Brother Cormack-former Brother Cormack-did no more than to grant men their freedom. Were they, the Alpinadorans, incarcerated for any particular reason? Had they committed criminal acts against Chapel Isle?”

“They owed their lives to us,” said De Guilbe. “To Blessed Abelle. Only through the power of the gemstones did they draw breath, for we found them adrift on the lake, grievously-nay, mortally!-wounded.”

“But they wished to leave after you saved them?”

De Guilbe squared his shoulders and did not reply.

“Do you consider their incarceration their cost for your efforts, then?” Gwydre calmly asked.

“I had my charge from Father Artolivan of Chapel Abelle,” the man replied staunchly. “My Alpinadoran guests would have come to our way-perhaps they would have then become emissaries of the good word to the rest of their heathen folk. That is a more important healing than the closing of any physical wound.”

“The captured Alpinadorans would have come to Blessed Abelle?”

“They were not captured! They were saved! And yes!”

“Never!” a woman cried from the back of the room, directly opposite Cormack, and all eyes went to Milkeila. “Not like that,” she added quietly, speaking directly and in apologetic tone to Dame Gwydre.

“It is not your place to speak here,” Father De Guilbe said through gritted teeth.

“Unless Dame Gwydre requests it of you,” Dame Gwydre added, throwing a disdainful glance at De Guilbe. “And she does, Milkeila of Alpinador, so please, continue.” With a steadying deep breath and a nod at her husband, Milkeila stepped tentatively from the gathering.

“What do you know of this incident?” Dame Gwydre asked her directly. “Were you there?”

“I was among those attacking the chapel,” Milkeila admitted, and she looked to Cormack again. “Even as the man I love was defending it.”

“You admit to a crime punishable by death?” Father De Guilbe demanded.