Again Markwart did not seem overly concerned. “We will see what happens,” he replied. “By the time Rochefort Bildeborough is even informed, we will have discerned what Connor knows, and the mere fact of his arrest will publicize our presence and the identity of our other prisoners. After that, this man means little to me.”
He started away then, and Brother Francis, after a short pause to consider the ramifications of this meeting, to consider the strain between Markwart and Dobrinion and the dire consequences that rivalry might hold for the abbot of St. Precious, turned to follow.
“Are we to do battle in the streets of Palmaris?” a frustrated Brother Francis fumed at Abbot Dobrinion. They had barely begun questioning Connor Bildeboroughusing polite and friendlytacticswhen a host of soldiers arrived at the gates of St. Precious, demanding the man’s release.
“I told you that arresting the nephew of Baron Bildeborough was no small matter,” the abbot shot back. “Did you not believe that his uncle would react with force?”
“Enough, enough, from both of you,” Father Abbot Markwart scolded. “Bring to me the emissary of Baron Bildeborough that we might settle this.”
Both Dobrinion and Brother Francis started for the door, then stopped, glaring at each other.
“And you, Abbot Dobrinion,” the Father Abbot went on, drawing the man’s attention, then motioning for Francis to go and complete the task. “You are needed with the centaur. He wishes to speak with you.”
“My place is here, Father Abbot,” Dobrinion replied.
“Your place is where I deem it to be,” the old man said. “Go to the pitiful creature.”
Abbot Dobrinion stared hard at Markwart, not pleased at all. He held no reservations about speaking with Bradwarden, but the centaur’s cell was far below, perhaps the farthest point in all the abbey from their present position, and by the time he got down there and back, even if his conversation with Bradwarden lasted but a few words, the meeting with Bildeborough’s men could be long over.
He did as he was instructed, though, bowing to his superior and storming out of the room.
Brother Francis entered a moment later. “Brother Youseff will bring the emissary presently,” he explained.
“And you will go right off to Connor Bildeborough,” Father Abbot Markwart said, tossing a gray soul stone to Francis. “Or near to Connor, though not where you can be seen. Go to him in spirit only, at first, and be not gentle. See what secrets his mind might hold. Then bring him to me. I will delay the Baron’s soldiers for as long as possible, but they will not leave here without Connor.”
Brother Francis bowed and ran off, and had just exited when another man burst in.
“Where is Abbot Dobrinion?” the gruff soldier asked, pushing past Brother Youseff to stand before Father Abbot Markwart. He was a burly man, dressed in the overlapping leather armor bearing the house insignia, the eagle, of House Bildeborough. That emblem was emblazoned on his metal shield, as well, and on the crest of his shining helm, a tight-fitting affair that pulled low over his ears, with a single strip running down between his eyes to fit over his nose.
“And you are?” Markwart prompted.
“An emissary from Baron Bildeborough,” the man said imperiously. “Come to secure the release of his nephew.”
“You speak as if young Connor had been arrested,” Markwart remarked casually.
The burly soldier rocked back on his heels, taken a bit off guard by Markwart’s cooperative tone.
“The Baron’s nephew was only asked in to St. Precious that he might answer some questions concerning a previous marriage,” Markwart went on. “Of course he is free to leave at his leisure; the man has committed no crime against the state or the Church.”
“But we were informed”
“Erroneously, it would seem,” Father Abbot Markwart said with a chuckle. “Please, sit and take some winefine boggle from Abbot Dobrinion’s private stock. My man has already been sent to retrieve Master Connor. They should join us within a few minutes.”
The soldier looked around curiously, not really knowing how to react to it all. He had come out with a contingent of more than fifty armed and armored warriors, ready to do battle, if necessary, to pull Connor Bildeborough from his imprisonment.
“Sit,” Father Abbot Markwart bade him again.
The soldier pulled a chair from a side table, while Markwart retrieved a bottle of boggle from a cabinet at the side of the room. “We are not enemies, after all,” the Father Abbot said, again in an innocent tone. “The Church and King are allied, and have been for generations. It amazes me that you would be so impetuous as to come to the gates of St. Precious thusly armed.” He popped the top from the bottle and poured a generous amount in the soldier’s glass, then just a bit for himself.
“Baron Bildeborough wastes no effort where young Connor is concerned,” the soldier replied, taking a sip, then blinking repeatedly as the potent wine washed down.
“Still, you came here looking for battle,” the Father Abbot went on. “Do you know who I am?”
The man took another sipa larger one this timethen eyed the wrinkled old man. “Another abbot,” he answered. “From some other abbey, St.-Mere-Able, or something like that.”
“St.-Mere-Abelle,” Markwart confirmed. “The mother abbey of all the Abellican Church.”
The soldier drained his glass and reached for the bottle, but Markwart, his expression changing dramatically to one of outrage, pulled the boggle away. “You are a member of the Church, are you not?” he asked sharply.
The soldier blinked a couple of times, then nodded.
“Then you should be aware that you are now addressing the Father Abbot of the Abellican Order!” Markwart screamed at him. “With a snap of my fingers I could have you banished and branded! With a word to your King, I could have you declared an outlaw.”
“For what crime?” the man protested.
“For any crime I choose!” Markwart yelled back at him.
Brother Francis entered the room then, Connor Bildeborough right behind him, the nobleman looking somewhat unsettled, though not physically harmed.
“Master Connor!” the soldier said, rising so quickly that his chair toppled behind him.
The Father Abbot rose as well, and moved about the desk, coming to stand right before the obviously intimidated soldier. “Do not forget what I told you,” the old priest said to the man. “With just a word.”
“Now you threaten the soldiers of my uncle’s house?” Connor Bildeborough said. His presence and the forcefulness of his tone bolstered the soldier’s resolve, the man straightening and looking Father Abbot Markwart in the eye.
“Threatening?” Markwart echoed, and that laugh came again, but this time it held a sinister edge. “I do not threaten, foolish young Connor. But I think that it would do you well, would do your uncle well, and would do the soldiers of your uncle’s house well, to understand that these are matters quite beyond their understanding. And interference.
“I am not surprised that a willful young man, so full of pride, such as yourself, would not look past his own importance to comprehend the gravity of our present situation,” Markwart went on. “But it does surprise me that the Baron of Palmaris would act so foolishly as to send an armed contingent against the leaders of the Abellican Order.”
“He thought that those leaders had acted improperly, and dangerously,” Connor stated, working hard to keep from seeming defensive. He had done nothing wrong, after all, and neither had his uncle. If there had been criminal conduct in all of this, it was perpetrated by the old man standing before him.
“He thought… you thought,” Markwart said dismissively. “It seems that all of you make your own judgments, and act upon them as though God Himself blessed you with special vision.”
“You deny that you came and took me?” Connor asked incredulously.
“You were needed,” Markwart replied. “And were you mistreated, Master Bildeborough? Were you tortured?”
The soldier puffed out his chest and clenched his jaw.
“No,” Connor admitted, and the burly man relaxed. “But what of the Chilichunks?” he asked. “Do you deny that you hold them, and that their treatment has not been so kindly?”
“I do not,” Markwart replied. “They have, by their own actions, become enemies of the Church.”
“Rubbish!”
“We shall see,” the Father Abbot replied.
“You mean to take them from Palmaris,” Connor accused.
No answer.
“That I will not allow!”
“You hold jurisdiction in such matters?” the Father Abbot asked sarcastically.
“I speak for my uncle.”
“How pretentious,” Markwart said with a snicker. “And tell me, Master Connor, are we to do battle in the streets of Palmaris, that all the city might learn of the rift between the Church and their Baron?”
Connor hesitated before responding, realizing the potentially disastrous implications. His uncle was held in high regard, but most of the common folk in Palmaris, and in any other city in Honce-the-Bear, truly feared the wrath of the Church. But still, the fate of the Chilichunks was at stake here, and for Connor that was no small matter. “If that is what is necessary,” he said sternly.
Markwart continued to laugh, his agitated trembling hiding the movement as he slipped his hands into a pouch on the sash of his voluminous robes, drawing forth a lodestone. Up came the hand, and a split second later the magnetite shot out to smash the soldier’s helmet on the nose guard. The burly man yelped and grabbed at his face, blood pouring freely from both nostrils, waves of pain rolling over him, driving him down to one knee.
At the same moment, Brother Youseff leaped forward, tightening his hand as though it were a blade and driving it into the kidney of unsuspecting Connor Bildeborough, dropping him to his knees, as well.
“Possess him,” Father Abbot Markwart instructed Brother Francis. “Use his mouth to instruct the soldiers to let us pass.” He turned to Youseff. “The prisoners are ready for transport?”
“Brother Dandelion has all the caravan loaded and readied in the back courtyard,” Youseff replied. “But Abbot Dobrinion, before he went down into the dungeons, set many guards about that yard.”
“They will not battle us,” Markwart assured him.
The soldier groaned and tried to stand as the Father Abbot retrieved the lodestone, but Youseff, the alert watchdog, was right there, launching a series of vicious, snapping blows to the man’s face that laid him low on the floor.
Markwart looked to Brother Francis, who stood staring at Connor but apparently taking no action. “Brother Francis,” the Father Abbot prompted sternly.
“I did get into his thoughts,” Brother Francis explained. “And learned some things which might prove valuable.”
“But…” Markwart prompted, recognizing the hesitant tone.
“But only when he was caught unawares,” Brother Francis admitted. “And only for a second. He is strong of will and readily expelled me, though he knew not the nature of the attack.”
Father Abbot Markwart nodded, then stepped closer to the still-dazed Connor. Out shot the old man’s fist, brutally snapping Connor’s head to the side, and he crumbled to the floor. “Now possess him,” the Father Abbot said impatiently. “It should not prove too difficult!”
“But I will learn nothing when he is in this state,” Brother Francis argued. It was true enough; an unconscious or dazed man might be relatively easily possessed, but of body only, with no invasion of memory or desire. When consciousness returned, the fight for control would begin anew.
“We need nothing more of this one’s mind,” Markwart explained. “We need only his body and his voice.”
“Evil doings,” Brother Braumin whispered to Brother Dellman as the two stood solemnly in the courtyard of St. Precious, surrounded by their brothers of St.-Mere-Abelle, and with the four prisoners close by. Brother Braumin was not surprised by the sudden order to ready the wagons, for he had been watching the Father Abbot and his lackey Francis closely in their interactions with Abbot Dobrinion, and knew their welcome at St. Precious was wearing quite thin.
What did surprise the monk, though, was the presence of armed soldiers at all of the abbey’s gates, a force sent to contain them, he realized, and particularly to contain their prisoners. Whispers among the ranks had spoken of a new captive, a nobleman, though none save Markwart, Brother Francis, and the Father Abbot’s two personal bodyguards had been allowed anywhere near the man. Still, given the appearance and the demeanor of the soldiers, it wasn’t hard to understand that the Father Abbot might have overstepped his bounds here.
“Why have they come?” Brother Dellman whispered back.
“I do not know,” Braumin replied, hot wanting to involve this promising young monk too deeply in the intrigue. Brother Braumin feared that he and his brothers would be leaving, and if the soldiers tried to stop them, Palmaris would see a display of magical devastation heretofore unknown in the city.
What should I do? the gentle Brother Braumin wondered. If the order came from Father Abbot Markwart to battle the soldiers, what course should he follow?
“You seem distressed, brother,” Dellman remarked. “Do you fear that these soldiers will attack us?”
“Exactly the opposite,” Brother Braumin replied in exasperation. He growled and smacked his hand against the wagon. How he wished that Master Jojonah were here to guide him!
“Brother,” Dellman said, putting a hand on Braumin’s shoulder to calm him.
Braumin turned to face the younger monk squarely, took him by the shoulders and locked his gaze. “Watch closely the coming events, Brother Dellman,” he bade the man.
Dellman stared at him quizzically.
Braumin Herde sighed and turned away. He wouldn’t openly accuse the Father Abbot to this young man. Not yet. Not until the evidence was overwhelming. Such an accusation, such a declaration that so much of what Dellman thought holy was a lie, might break the man, or send him running to Father Abbot Markwart for comfort.