Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

Grow paler still; and paler still. Shock, now, Kat realized. The young knight's jaw sagged loose. He stared at the one named Erik as if he were seeing him for the first time.

Then, as suddenly as everything else was happening, his face seemed to snap shut. He shouted something Kat did not understand?words in Gaelic, she thought?and strode forward to the knight holding her.

An instant later, Manfred's huge hands closed upon her captor's own shoulders and wrenched him loose as easily as a man wrestles a boy. Suddenly released, Kat staggered on her feet for a moment. By the time she regained her balance, the knight who had seized her was crashing down onto one of the pews, turning the cheaply made wooden bench into so much kindling. She found herself marveling at the strength that could send an armored knight flying through the air like a toy; almost giggling at the sheer absurdity of the sight.

But she had no real difficulty suppressing the giggle. The situation was now on the brink of utter carnage, almost a dozen knights ready to hack each other into pieces?with herself right in the middle of them.

The young knight named Manfred whipped out his own great sword and brandished it. "Dia a coir!" he shouted. Then, took two steps toward the abbot and commanded him: "Unhand the child, Sachs!"

The abbot, through all this, had been paralyzed. Kat realized, now, that he was a man whose authority had always come from his position?not respect gained from his subordinates in action. It was obvious that Sachs had absolutely no idea what to do, now that he was faced with open rebellion.

Neither did any of the other knights, for that matter. But it was also obvious, even to Kat, that they were about to react the way fighting men will when faced with such a naked challenge. These men were cut from the same cloth as the bravos of any great house of Venice?but were far better trained, and more deadly. In open combat, at least, if not in the subtler skill of the assassin.

The hands on swords were clenched now, not loose. And two or three of those swords were beginning to come out of their scabbards. Frightened they might be, at Erik's savagery and Manfred's incredible strength?but they were not going to crumple under it. Not men like these.

Suddenly, one of the other knights thrust out his hands, his arms spread wide in a gesture commanding peace. A somewhat older knight, this one. Most of them were men in their early twenties. His face, though not creased with middle age, was that of a man in his thirties. A man accustomed to command.

"Enough!" he shouted. "Enough! No weapons!"

His voice seemed to calm the situation instantly. Kat thought he must be the knight in command of the party. The hands on sword hilts loosened; some were removed entirely. Even Erik and Manfred seemed to settle back a little.

"Erik is right," the older knight said forcefully. "Quite right! And every true Knight here knows it!"

He turned to Sachs and glared at him. "You have completely exceeded your authority here, Abbot. Abused it grossly, in fact."

The abbot gaped at him. "But?Von Gherens…"

"Shut up," growled the older knight. "You disgust me, Sachs." Seeing the abbot's hand still on the child's shoulder, the knight reached out his own hand and flicked it off as he might flick off an insect.

"My family has held the frontier in Livonia for six generations. Unlike you, Sachs, I have faced real demons?not figments of your fevered imagination."

Stolidly, the knight examined the still-trembling boy. "Had you ever seen a child's body on a pagan altar, Abbot"?the term was a pure sneer?"you would understand the difference."

Von Gherens. Erik. Manfred. As always, Kat found northern names harsh and peculiar. But for the first time in her life, she began to understand them better also. Harsh, yes; rigid and intolerant, yes. Yet… sometimes, at least, names which rang clear. Clearer, perhaps, than any of the soft names in fog-shrouded Venice.

Oddly, for a moment her mind flitted to old lessons of her tutor Marina. Lessons in theology she had not understood at the time. There was a reason, child, that Hypatia compromised with Augustine, if not Theophilus. And treasured Chrysostom, for all his rigidity and intolerance. There is such a thing as evil in the world, which cannot be persuaded, but only defeated. And for that?harshness is needed in the ranks of Christ also. Neither Shaitan nor his monsters will listen to mere words. She remembered his lips crinkling. Even a Strega, you know, does not doubt the existence of either Christ or the Dark One.

The gray-cassocked abbot looked as if he was about to have a stroke?or faint. Even in the candlelight Kat could see his face was suffused, simultaneously, with rage and?fear. His lips trembled as he groped for words; words which, apparently, he was unable to find.

Yet another knight had no such difficulty. With a slight clashing noise, he thrust his sword firmly back in the scabbard and removed his hand from the weapon.

"Von Gherens is right?Hakkonsen and Manfred also. We cannot take them out of here, by Church law. The law which, as Knights of the Holy Trinity, we are sworn to uphold."

The knight's eyes glanced at Kat, then at the children. His lips peeled back in a half-snarl. "And my name is Falkenberg?also a name of the frontier. And also one who can tell the difference between brats and devils."

Now there were nods and murmurs of agreement all around the circle of Knights. The tension was draining out of the scene as rapidly as water through a broken dam. All danger of physical violence was past. Whatever might be left would only take the form of words.

Words which Sachs was still quite incapable of uttering, it seemed. Only one of the two monks who accompanied him seemed disposed to argue the matter any further.

"We cannot let witches go free," he protested, almost squeakily. "God has guided us to this evil. We must root it out!"

"Didn' do no evil," whimpered one child. "Just came to get outa the rain."

Finally, Abbot Sachs tried to salvage something from the situation. He cleared his throat noisily.

"If we cannot take them away, we will put them to the question here." He essayed a sneer of his own; a feeble one. "Or do you deny my ecclesiastical authority for that also, Ritters Hakkonsen and Von Gherens?"

The blond knight's cold eyes did not waver for an instant. "Yes, Abbot Sachs, I do deny you the authority."

Von Gherens's words rolled right after: "The right to afford sanctuary, without arrest or violence, is inviolate. And by Church law, they may only be expelled by the priest of the parish."

Flushing furiously, Sachs turned on the terrified-looking old sacristan. "Fetch me your priest, then! I'll have these hell-spawn. So help me God?I will have them."

The sacristan left with as near to a run as the old man could muster, and never mind the rain.

Sachs turned on Von Gherens. "As for you?I'm going to make an example of you!"

Von Gherens barked a laugh. "For obeying the oath of the Order? I think not!"

"And who will enforce your 'example,' Abbot?" asked the blond knight. The question was posed quietly, but grimly. The war hatchet was back in the scabbard, but his hand was still perched on it.

"Yes?who?" demanded the big one called Manfred. Quite a bit more loudly, if not as grimly. The tone was almost mocking.

Kat saw the Knights clustering together a bit more closely. One order closing ranks against another, she realized?and realized, as well, that the identity she had always assumed existed between the Knights and the Servants of the Holy Trinity was not as solid as she'd thought. Which, she remembered vaguely, was something else Dottore Marina had once told her.

Silence followed, for some time, while they waited for the sacristan to return with the priest.