S. Stirling - The High King of Montival

“Follow me,” Edain said curtly.

And they do, no arguing , Sam thought as he strolled in their wake. Oi did a proper man’s work raising this’un, bugger me blind if Oi didn’t!

The hundred and twenty Mackenzie archers had turned out and were waiting-not standing at any rigid attention, many leaning on their unstrung bow staves, but in good order. About a quarter were women, and a good half hadn’t been in the First Levy when his son left that April day two years ago, and few of them were older than Edain. He nodded to a few friends, and then stood before them with his thumbs hooked into his sword belt. He spoke in a carrying voice, not shouting and not excited, but hard and clear.

“I am Edain Aylward Mackenzie, called Aylward the Archer; the totem of my sept is Wolf.”

Then, suddenly punching his fist skyward: “Hail to Artos, High King of Montival. Hail, Artos! Artos and Montival! ”

A moment’s surprised silence, then a roar from every throat; to his surprise Sam found himself shouting too:

“ Artos! Artos! ”

When silence had fallen again, Edain went on: “So you’d be the High King’s sworn archers?”

“Aye!” someone shouted, and the others took it up.

“Then I’m to command you. For three reasons, each good and sufficient: I can outshoot any of you, I’ve more time in the High King’s fighting tail than any of you. . and third’s the charm, the High King wishes it so. Any questions?”

Silence, and he went on: “These behind me have been with the High King longer than you, as well. With him through battle and ambush and long hard journeying. That makes them your comrades, and you’ll all be treating each other as such. We’re all going to be like brothers and sisters or I will kick your arse so hard your teeth will march out like Bearkiller pikemen on parade. Is all that clear, mo seanfhaiseanta bithiunaigh fein ?”

“Aye!” his very own old-fashioned cutthroats replied.

“Can’t hear you.”

“Aye!”

“Better. Now here’s your first orders. There’s to be a handfasting this night-”

Ignatius looked around the Sacristia of Castle Corbec’s church, the vesting room behind the altar. He smiled a little at the familiar scents of wax candles and the metal and cloth of the cruets, ciborium, chalice, paten, the altar linens, the vessels of the Holy Oils; they were like old friends, greeting him after long absence. Candlelight glittered on the golden thread of the vestments waiting on their T-shaped stands. Then he stood as Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski entered the room.

“Most Reverend Father,” he said, bowing to kiss the older man’s ring, then standing at the Order of the Shield’s version of parade rest. “I give thanks to God that we meet again.”

The words were conventional, and his face remained calm, but he could not keep all emotion out of the tone.

“At ease. I also thank God,” Dmwoski said, and after a slight pause: “My son.”

They both looked down for a moment in silent prayer, their hands folded in the sleeves of their habits.

“Or perhaps I should say my lord Chancellor ,” the older man said, with a slight smile.

Ignatius felt himself flushing a little. “My acceptance of the office was of course conditional on your approval, Most Reverend Father.”

Dmwoski chuckled. “Which you have.”

“I confess. . I am not altogether sure that I should have accepted. Apart from doubts as to my capacity, we are enjoined to avoid the near occasions of sin . This will be a post of great power, and hence, of great temptation.”

The Abbot-Bishop shrugged. “You swore poverty, chastity, and obedience; my command is that you accept this position, which means that it fulfills obedience rather than violating it. Even the Cardinal-Archbishop in Portland agrees that having a cleric in such a post will be most advantageous to the Church. I do not think that you will be tempted by riches, or that chastity will become harder for you in a high office. Power, though-power itself can be a temptation. But then again, so can anything else in this fallen world.”

Ignatius bowed his head. “I can only try my best and throw myself on God’s loving mercy,” he said quietly.

“And He has blessed you, my son. You have brilliantly fulfilled the mission I assigned to you so long ago,” Dmwoski said warmly. “I have made many errors in my life, but that, I think, was not one of them. I do not doubt that you will fulfill future missions as well.”

His square face was more lined than Ignatius remembered, and his fringe of white hair would never need to be tonsured again. He’d begun to stoop a little, noticeable in a frame that had always had a soldierly erectness, but the eyes were still very shrewd, calm and blue and penetrating beneath the tufted eyebrows.

“Fulfilled it and more besides,” he went on. “Our brethren have been greatly heartened by your reports in this time of war and trial.”

The older man shook his head slowly and turned to look at Ignatius’ sword, hung on the rack beside the door. It was of fine steel but plain and in an equally plain black-leather scabbard, an Order-issue cross-hilted longsword a little under a yard in the blade, with the Raven and Cross on the fishtail pommel. The elder cleric reached one hand out and almost touched the double-lobe grip.

“I have seen our High King’s Sword,” Dmwoski said. “And it is, mmmm, most impressive. Terrifying, even. But this. . she touched it?”

“Yes, Father. The hilt, and my forehead. And. . it was cold, the air was thin there on the mountain above the high white valley, and there was light, so much light, and. . no, it is impossible to describe completely. Words themselves break and crumble beneath the strain.”

Dmwoski nodded and sank to his knees before the cross-shape, taking his crucifix between his hands and bowing his head. Ignatius followed suit, remembering the feeling of being illuminated .

“It was astonishing,” he said softly after a moment. “I saw myself more clearly at that instant than ever before in my life, and the weight and stain of sin and error I saw in me and woven through me should have been enough to break my mind. Yet there was a. . how can I say it. . such a tenderness in her regard, a fire within her greater than suns, which yet warmed and comforted while it burned, as if it flamed away the dross but left me unharmed. I knew my own failings, and wept for the shame of it. But I saw what she saw in me as well. I saw what I could be, what God had made and meant me to be, and knew what I must strive to be every hour of my life thereafter.”

Dmwoski surprised him by chuckling. “Brother of the Order, have I ever told you why I am so glad to be a son of the Church, rather than a Protestant? Or a Jew or Muslim, for that matter.”

“Ah. . because ours are the true doctrines in accordance with the truths set out in Scripture, by the magisterium of the Church, and by reason? And of course that ours are the forms of worship most pleasing to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?” Ignatius said.

It wasn’t a question which had ever occurred to him. Perhaps because I was a man grown, albeit a young man, before I ever really spoke at length with anyone who was not a follower of Holy Mother Church? Things were otherwise before the Change.

“Of course,” the Abbot-Bishop said. “But the reason I find most comforting is that we have the bright legions of the Saints and the mercy of the Blessed Virgin to intercede for us before the terrible majesty of the Godhead.”

“It was. . terrible enough, Father. Not frightening in the way a physical danger might be, of course, but terrible as a storm or a sunset is. To see a soul that was human, so very human, but truly filled with the divine Light, freed from sin and soaring to heights I could not imagine or grasp.”