R. Salvatore - The Dame

They stopped chattering as one when Dame Gwydre entered, Father Artolivan motioning for her to take a seat beside him on the raised dais that centered the gathering.

“My ships are out for Vanguard and for Ethelbert dos Entel,” she explained. “Our break with King Yeslnik is complete.” Several deep breaths, signaling fear and determination, came back at her. “We cannot turn back from our stance now, Father Artolivan,” she pressed. “Yeslnik will not forgive.”

“Let us hope your good man Dawson gets to Laird Ethelbert’s side before Yeslnik pushes him into the sea,” Brother Pinower remarked, and Gwydre winced at the proposition.

“King Yeslnik and Laird Panlamaris will not forgive, Lady of Vanguard,” said Father Artolivan. “We must hold them off long enough to diminish their appetite for war. Perhaps then we might find some common ground upon which a peace can be enacted.”

“Or we must win,” said Brother Pinower, and all eyes turned his way.

Their expressions told Gwydre that this was exactly the argument into which she had walked.

“Yeslnik proclaims himself King of Honce and there seems to be no one who can stop him,” Pinower explained. “But his actions have already wrought great disdain. Almost to a man and woman, the prisoners we hold here have pledged their loyalty to our cause. They will fight, though the option of sitting to the side of the battle is open before them without ill consequence. How many men in Yeslnik’s army would be so willing and eager for more battle, I wonder?”

“How many of Laird Panlamaris’s men did not look on in horror when our brethren were evilly murdered on the field outside St. Mere Abelle?” Brother Giavno agreed. “And if Brother Fatuus so touched and inspired us, what might be the effect of his determined march on those among Panlamaris’s ranks who witnessed it?”

“Our hopes may prove correct and will aid us,” Father Artolivan warned. “But they alone will not turn the tide against the power of Delaval City and Palmaristown and Pryd and all the rest.”

“We sit and wait, and we fight if we must?” Dame Gwydre asked. She made it clear with her tone that she was not enamored of that passive course. “And we seek Ethelbert for alliance, though we know not what he has left to even continue in this war. Dawson might well arrive at Ethelbert dos Entel’s docks to find Yeslnik’s soldiers manning them. Or to find Laird Ethelbert helplessly trapped within his city, as we seem to be here.”

Her grim assessment was met by blank stares, until Father Artolivan offered, “We are seeking other routes of resistance and alliance.”

“Other routes? Surely any allies we could find would be welcomed.”

“There are two names being spoken across the breadth of Honce behind those of the warring lairds,” Artolivan explained. “Two men have distinguished themselves and have led Yeslnik to near-certain victory. Every prisoner in St. Mere Abelle, Ethelbert and Yeslnik man alike, knows of these generals: Bannagran of Pryd and Milwellis of Palmaristown.”

“You wish to find alliance with Yeslnik’s generals?” Dame Gwydre tried to keep the incredulity out of her tone. How desperate were they, truly?

“Not Milwellis, certainly,” said Artolivan. “He is a man of ill temperament and great hubris. He holds no love for St. Mere Abelle.”

“Particularly since we just sent his father scurrying away with lightning prodding his arse every step,” Gwydre added.

Artolivan conceded that point with a nod and just a hint of a much-needed grin.

“Master Reandu of Chapel Pryd is a good and temperate man, and he has the ear of Bannagran, whom he considers a friend. Perhaps…?”

“If Master Reandu still holds court in Chapel Pryd,” Dame Gwydre warned.

“He does,” said Giavno. “I went to him in spirit this morning, though I had not the strength to impart the message of Father Artolivan. Still, I sensed calm about that town.”

“I doubt that King Yeslnik would force Bannagran to move against his friend Reandu, but should Yeslnik do such a thing it is possible that Bannagran would take great exception.”

“It seems a desperate plan, but I see few other options,” Gwydre admitted. “If we could turn this General Bannagran to our cause, then it would bolster our hopes, of course. But to what do we ask him to pledge his fealty? To Vanguard? That seems unlikely, at best.”

The monks all glanced around at each other and Gwydre realized that she had touched upon the very heart of the debate into which she had intruded, the backdrop that had inspired the notion that they might “win.”

“Yeslnik and Ethelbert have torn Honce apart with their war of greed,” Father Artolivan began, his tone measured. “We have rejected Yeslnik and have little connection to Laird Ethelbert, though we seek him, not to serve him, but as an ally against our common foe. We will not serve King Ethelbert, Dame Gwydre. The Abellican Church will fight beside him, perhaps and if he is willing, but we will not serve him.”

“He is very tied to the ways of Behr,” Brother Pinower explained. “And to the religions of Behr. He is not hostile to our order, but neither is he a believer.”

“So if we gain ground, if we can hold against Laird Panlamaris and even begin to move against King Yeslnik, then to what end?” Gwydre asked. “Am I to declare autonomy of Vanguard from Honce? Will the Abellican Church then become the Church of Vanguard?”

“Suppose we show the people of Honce a third way, beyond Yeslnik and Ethelbert?” Father Artolivan asked.

“And that would be?” Gwydre asked. “Compromise?”

“A queen.”

“You are mad!”

“Perhaps,” Father Artolivan conceded. “It is a difficult proposition.”

“A desperate one, you mean,” said Gwydre.

“And are we not desperate?”

Gwydre sighed.

“You saved Vanguard, Dame Gwydre,” Father Artolivan said. “Can you save Honce as well? Two lairds hungry for power have driven the land to near ruin. Every family has been devastated now by a war that will not end.”

“Will it not?” asked Gwydre. “It seems that Laird Yeslnik has a strong upper hand, by all the reports and your own admission.”

“That result might prove the most disastrous one of all,” said Artolivan. “Yeslnik is a merciless, privileged beast of the highest order. He would have me murder all the prisoners he has sent while freeing all the men sent by Laird Ethelbert, and both by treaty for honorable recusal from the war!

“Nay, Dame Gwydre, that outcome cannot be allowed. The Samhaists have been driven from most of their groves, Blessed Abelle be thanked, and now King Yeslnik has declared war with the Abellican Church. Indeed, I expect him to declare Father De Guilbe as Father of the Order of Blessed Abelle and to enlist his phony interpretation of the teachings of our Blessed Abelle as his official religion. You wish to sue for peace and to declare autonomy, but you know that this man, Yeslnik, will not agree and will not relent.”

“Have you come to regret your words and actions against King Yeslnik and Laird Panlamaris, Father Artolivan?”

The old monk smiled more widely than ever before, and, for the first time in the meeting, serenity washed over his wrinkled face and his eyes twinkled with hope. “Not for a moment,” he replied. “Though I have come to realize the difficulty of the road such principles demand.”

“Cordon Roe,” said Brother Giavno, surprising them all with the reference to a most terrible incident that had occurred in Delaval City in the early days of the Order of Blessed Abelle. “Brother Fatuus,” he added, grinning, against the confused expressions. “We all will die, after all, be it now or in a decade or in several decades. Better to die contented. Better a life guided by principle, even a short one, than a century of misery wrought by the knowledge of personal cowardice.”