Carol Berg - Flesh and Spirit

Iero’s bones, where had the monk come from? “Ah, Brother Gildas,” I said, “perhaps you don’t recognize the perils of this night.”

My gait was slow and clumsy on the uneven ground. Gildas quickly caught up with me, grabbed my arm, and drew me to a halt. “This world is naught but perilous. Nothing is simple. Nothing is innocent. And sometimes, those who think themselves the most worldly are the most innocent of all.”

I snorted at the concept of this monk telling me anything of the world. “Sometimes a man must look to his body’s safety as well as his soul’s. Bayard of Morian is hunting his brother, and any man who gets in his way is a fool. Soon to be a dead fool. Though Abbot Luviar seems to disagree, I doubt Iero would have us throw our lives away for nothing.”

Purposeless death was not the only risk in staying. Bayard would surely have pureblood attendants. Any interrogation of Gillarine’s inhabitants could be my downfall. Time only increased the Registry’s determination to recover a recondeur.

I limped past Brother Gildas. He darted in front of me and gently, but insistently, blocked my way. “The god has given your safety into our hands, Valen. Please believe we take that very seriously. You must not leave.”

I wanted very much to believe him. The drizzle had yielded to a downpour. My thigh ached. I was already shivering and had no provisions. All that awaited me in the dark and the wet were pestilence, Moriangi swords, and a hungry winter. “But these riders—”

“—will not find the one they seek. I swear to you they’ll have no cause to broach our walls. The dangers of this night are outside Gillarine, not in. Come. Hurry. And have faith.”

His grip was much stronger than I expected. And perhaps his faith, too. For it was more than the weather and my poor prospects that crumbled my resolve so quickly. Since I’d first taken up soldiering, I had hated the last moments before battle, when it seemed as if the boundaries between earth and body, between past, present, and future, between knowing and experiencing dissolved. But something about this place…every moment I stood on this field multiplied those sensations beyond bearing. As a wind blustering my hair and robe, I felt the sweeping onslaught of the Moriangi. As the sea crashing upon my knees, I felt the surging Ardrans step up to meet them. A horse neighed wildly in the distance and a cheer went up among the Ardrans. My soul ached, and I longed for wine…for mead…for hard spirits or poppy…for the doulon…anything so I would not feel all this.

As the cold deluge soaked my hair and funneled down my neck, I resentfully allowed Gildas to turn me around. “Answer me one thing, Brother,” I said as the monk steadied my steps. “What would it mean if I were to bid you farewell with the Aurellian word meaning we preserve?”

Though Gildas did not miss a step, his arm suddenly felt like a post. Moments passed. “Well, of course, preservation of knowledge is our charter here at Gillarine. Many here use teneamus as a challenge when our spirits flag. A reminder of duty and service to the god. You never mentioned that you understood Aurellian, Valen. Most aspirants must learn it from the beginning. What other talents are you hiding?”

My spine froze. I should have known he would turn the question on me. Stupid tongue-flapping fool. Come on. A story… “I was schooled early…a Karish charity school near Ymir…took to the language. I’ve a gift with the pronunciations, I’m told, though not the writing of it.”

Mumbling curses at my slip and thanking the gods yet again that my curling hair, light complexion, and excess height were so exceptional for pureblood stock, I hobbled back along the wall toward the gatehouse. The sloping apron gave a wide vantage. More riders broached the hardening Ardran perimeter. Arms clashed. Men and horses screamed…

“They should not shed blood upon that field,” I said, shuddering. As the last rays of sunlight pierced the cloud and sculpted the surging sea of bodies with orange and scarlet, the very thought made my veins burn and my stomach heave as they had in the cloister garth. Holy ground, Jullian had called Gillarine. Perhaps that was what I felt.

“Shedding blood is a great evil,” said Gildas. “Yet some causes demand it. Blood spilled in violence has great power for good.”

“Some causes, perhaps.” But not this one. I hobbled faster. “King Eodward could not have meant his sons to bring Navronne to ruin.”

“So you’ve no loyalty to any of these princes.”

“Loyalty never put blood back in a man’s veins.”

We reached the gatehouse just as the party of knights entered the arch, moving like a many-legged insect, stepping smartly around dented shields, bloody rags and bundles, and a few sprawled bodies that even the abbot’s call had not roused. In the center of the lancers’ spiked circle, sheltered from the rain by a cloak held over his head, was a stumbling smudge of silver mail and white-and-purple satin, a tangle of fair hair that ladies called spun gold, a blur of maggot-colored skin, supported on the arms of servants. How like Perryn of Ardra to keep his men in danger while he awaited a triumphal welcome to his last refuge. And now, for the moment, they’d saved him. I’d wager my grandfather’s book that he was more drunk than wounded. The cost of the pelisse his knights held over his head could likely have paid for a month’s provisions for his legions or a troop of mercenaries to aid us.

“Brother Victor,” called Gildas to a diminutive monk who stood in the vaulted entry staring, aghast, at the battle. “Could you please escort Valen back to the infirmary? My duties beckon…” Gildas planted a brotherly slap on my arm and jogged ahead alongside the lancers.

As Gildas and Prince Perryn’s party vanished into the tunnel, the Ardran troops’ brief resistance collapsed into a rout. Night and death rode pillion behind the Moriangi horsemen, as their central wedge plunged inward to slice the Ardran force in twain.

Brother Victor, a tight little man whose features seemed on the verge of sliding off his chinless face, wrenched his eyes from the field, took my arm solicitously, and urged me into the gatehouse tunnel. “Brother Valen? Why, you’re the supplicant who brought us—”

“Yes, yes, the Cartamandua maps,” I said, straining to see over my shoulder. “And you’re welcome to view them at any time, if you’ll just hold up for a moment.”

Halfway along the tunnel, the great oaken gates yet gaped. I drew Brother Victor into the space between the leftmost gate and the wall, where I could peek around and see what was happening here. I dearly wanted to understand it.

The abbot stood at the outer end of the tunnel, outlined against the flares of torches and steel. “Here, brave men, hurry! By Iero’s grace, find safety here, thou who fleest sword or hangman. By Saint Gillare’s hand, find healing here…”

But the Moriangi had encircled the retreating Ardrans and quickly barred the tunnel opening with leveled lances. The snort and snuffles of agitated horses and the chinking of mail and arms could not drown out the shouts of anger and the lingering cries of the wounded.

Through the crush advanced a small party of riders, the foremost being a bull-necked man on a chestnut destrier. Both man and horse were cloaked and furbished in scarlet and blue—not the deep-dyed vermillion and indigo of Aurellian-style finery, but common madder and woad.

Bayard, Duc of Morian, called the Smith, relished his particular ancestry as dearly as any pureblood. He claimed that his Moriangi mother, daughter of a common shipwright, had reinvigorated Caedmon’s royal line with uncommon strength. He made a great show of abjuring silks and jewels in favor of coarse woolens and hammered bronze and believed it made him one with his people.