Roland Green: The Wayward Knights

Haimya actually blushed at those words, and squeezed her husband's hand.

"But I never suspected the kingpriest of involvement in Sir Marod's death," Pirvan continued. "Even had I done so, I would have thought of the honor of the knights, and my own. Also, I am no longer friends, as I once was, with the thieves of Istar. I have no one answering to me there who could poison the kingpriest, even if I were foolish enough to ask it. More likely they would buy the goodwill of the kingpriest by poisoning me , and taking my head to him in a sack of salt."

Niebar sighed, as if he had just laid down a burden. "I beg your pardon that I had to ask, but the orders came from the Grand Master," he said.

"Is he suspicious?" Haimya said. Had her voice been a sword, the Grand Master would have done well not to turn his back on her.

"No," Niebar said firmly. "But he needs to placate those who are, both in Istar and among the ranks of the knights themselves. I thank you for your frankness and even temper. "

Had anyone else come with such questions, they might not have met either," Pirvan said. "Now can we offer you refreshment? We need to think what a new kingpriest may mean, which means more talking than I can any longer do dry-throated."

"By all means," Niebar said. "Or rather, by means of a discreet servant. And-is this chamber warded?"

Pirvan pronounced four words, each rolling on through five or six syllables. He felt a prickling behind his ears and eyeballs as he pronounced the last word.

"Now it is," he said. "A gift from our old friends, Tarothin and Sirbones. They bound the room with the spell so that anyone at need could ward the room with those words I just uttered. They will come back next year to renew it. For now we are safe with what I have just done."

"I remember now, that you commanded a modest spell or two of your own," Niebar said. He sighed. "I would gladly command one myself, to bring down a pegasus to ride for the next few weeks. The death of the kingpriest will mean work for us all."

Even in the days when all of Istar's priests could meet in a single room there had commonly been one who was first among equals. His title varied. "Kingpriest" was only the most recent and still not accepted by all. It was also a recent development that this first-among-equals was considered a true office, to which a man was, for lack of a better term, elevated. Although in this case, "recent" was a relative term. Istar's priests had thought of themselves as a united body for several centuries.

The ways of becoming the leading priest in Istar had been many and various over the years. Once, it was said, a "principal priest" lived so long that by the time he died, so had all those who knew how to choose his successor, and the priests of Istar had no leader at all for nearly five years.

That would not be the case now, Pirvan knew. The dead kingpriest had reigned barely seven years, after being elected (it was said) through fear of a quarrel with the merchants over his predecessor's fondness for intrigues, assassinations, and general ruthlessness. If this kingpriest had not zealously sought to do good, he had at least cautiously sought to avoid evil. His death was hardly good news, still less so if it was by assassination.

"Of course," Niebar added, "we have only the priests' word that the death was sudden. It could well be that the man died of some common illness that he neglected until it was so far advanced that he needed a god, not a healer, to save him. He who sits on the kingpriest's seat must find room for more work in any given day than most princes."

"All is honorable to the kingpriest's memory," Haimya said. "But what it has to do with us, you have not made clear. Unless the succession to the high seat is likely to be bloody, otherwise of concern to the knights?"

"Our best judgment is that it could be both," Niebar said. "The Servants of Silence were disbanded, true. Many then hired themselves out to priests with more ambition than scruples. Also, the street-corner howling that humans alone have true virtue in the sight of the gods is as loud as ever."

Haimya looked as if she wished to spit, but contented herself with suggesting that all such loud, wrong persons be drowned in hobgoblins' privies. Pirvan said nothing, but frowned. He kept that dour cast of countenance so long that Sir Niebar seemed on the verge of fidgeting when the other knight at last spoke.

"Have you come to urge us to abandon Tirabot Manor and flee into Solamnia?" Pirvan asked.

"I would not use the word 'flee,' myself," Sir Niebar said primly. "No one among the knights will doubt your courage in coming to Dargaard Keep, however, or some other place beyond the reach of the kingpriest and his minions."

"It is not certain that the next kingpriest will have minions," Pirvan said. "As for courage, I would doubt my own if I fled. So might those left behind."

"They are not of the knights," Sir Niebar said, then flushed as he realized how ill chosen his words might seem.

Haimya plucked his stammering attempts at an explanation out of the air, like a falcon swooping on a fat pigeon. "That does not mean they are nothing," she said. "I doubt you meant to say so. But too many among the knights these days seem to think only of what serves the Orders, forgetting all that the Oath and the Measure say about protecting those in need. Have you become one of those knights with short memories, Sir Niebar?"

"I have not," their visitor said. "Because I have not, I remember Sir Pirvan's rare value to the knights, and through them, to all under the knights' protection. Your duties to protect extend far beyond the border stones of Tirabot Manor, Sir Pirvan. Or has your memory begun to fail?"

"My memory is quite sound enough," Pirvan said sternly, "to tell me that Sir Marod forbade you to raise this matter with me, some while ago. He used rather strong words, or so I have heard."

Niebar's face showed the ghost of a smile. "From anyone else who used such language, I would have demanded satisfaction," he said. "Well, perhaps not from you or your lady. But Sir Marod-"

"If you say 'Sir Marod is dead' as an excuse for folly, I will carve out your tongue," Haimya interrupted in a tone that could have frozen a waterfall.

"I was about to say that Sir Marod was also concerned about your folk being used as hostages, to divert you from the concerns of the knights," Sir Niebar said, with the ghost of a smile. "Do you not have a duty to spare them that danger, if you can?"

"If I can, yes," Pirvan said. "Are you offering help to that end?"

"Were you really a thief, Pirvan?" Niebar laughed. "Or did you sell your father's candles and honey in the marketplace, always getting the best of the bargain?"

"Some call that thieving, too," Haimya said. "But I swear this much: I shall hold my tongue while Sir Niebar offers his aid."

"Then the gods are still among us, working miracles," Niebar said. "What next, a kender king-?" at which point Haimya drew her dagger (still sheathed) and mimed cutting the knight's throat.

Pirvan ordered more wine and a plate of dried gooseberry cakes, tested the warding of the chamber, and resolved to open his mind as wide as his ears, to Sir Niebar's offer.

He did not doubt that peril could come to the innocent from the ill will of the kingpriest. He merely doubted that he could do much against it by fleeing over the border into Solamnia like an escaping slave!

Night had come to Tirabot Manor, and with it sleep, to all except those whom nature made wakeful, or whose work kept them up nights. One of these was a shepherd, whose pipes floated on the breeze up from the pastures beyond the Silver Creek bridge.

Two others were those who listened to the piping, the lord and lady of Tirabot Manor. They sat side by side on a bench in a newly-carved window in their chamber, large enough to let in sun by day and fresh air by night. It was too high for rams or other siege engines to easily reach, and iron shutters lay ready to guard it against projectiles or intruders.