Authors: R.A. Salvatore
When he had first entered the room, Viscenti’s eyes had widened indeed at the spectacle of the great window. A mixture of awe and revulsion had crept through him, for it was well-known throughout the Order that Bou-raiy had argued vehemently with the then–Father Abbot Agronguerre
against
traveling to Mount Aida and partaking of the Covenant of Avelyn.
Viscenti shrugged away his negativity, reminding himself that he had no time for such inconsequential worries at present. It was good, he realized, that Father Abbot Bou-raiy had now so obviously embraced the deeds of the hopefully soon-to-be Saint Avelyn. The Abellican Church would need such a boost, given the news from Ursal!
Father Abbot Bou-raiy had listened, without the slightest interruption, to the words of Master Viscenti, the tidings of the great upheaval of secular Honce-the-Bear, but also of the impending upheaval, perhaps even greater, that was sure to befall the Abellican Church.
A long silence held the audience room in this, the greatest of cathedrals.
“There can be no doubt of the identity of the coconspirators?” Fio Bou-raiy finally asked. “It was Abbot Olin and truly Marcalo De’Unnero, the same monk who served under Father Abbot Markwart, the same monk who was consumed by the tiger’s paw gemstone and driven out of Palmaris by Jilseponie, the same monk who led the errant Brothers Repentant in the time of the plague? It was De’Unnero?”
“By the words of Jilseponie, who knew this man better than anyone, it was the same Marcalo De’Unnero,” Viscenti confirmed, and he twitched repeatedly, any control he held over his nervous tic washed away by merely speaking the cursed name aloud.
“What does this mean?” asked burly Abbot Glendenhook, standing in what had long been his customary position, both figuratively and literally, at Fio Bou-raiy’s side. With news of the grim tidings sweeping the land, Abbot Glendenhook had rushed back to the mother abbey to confer with his trusted friend, the Father Abbot.
“It means the end of the world as we know it,” another master glumly remarked.
Fio Bou-raiy snapped his ever-imposing stare over the man, denying the claim visually before he had ever spoken a word. “It means that our time of peace and growth has ended, temporarily,” he corrected, his voice stern and steady once more.
“It means that we of the true Abellican Order may find ourselves besieged with informants and perhaps traitors, and possibly even by an army from the throne that we always before considered our ally. Surely none among the leadership of St.-Mere-Abelle are unused to adversity, Master Donegal. We have been weaned on the DemonWar, on a time of great upheaval within our order, and on a plague. Are you so quick to surrender?”
“My pardon, Father Abbot,” Master Jorgen Donegal said, offering a submissive bow. “If Abbot Olin is in league with the new king of Honce-the-Bear, I doubt that he will be friendly toward the current leadership at St.-Mere-Abelle.”
“Abbot Olin is Abellican first,” Fio Bou-raiy declared. “He understands his position and his responsibility to this church.”
“With Marcalo De’Unnero at his side?” Marlboro Viscenti found himself asking before he could find the wisdom to bite back the words, for that simple question deflated any momentum that Father Abbot Bou-raiy might have been gaining here. Bou-raiy hated De’Unnero profoundly, a feeling that was surely mutual. If Abbot Olin was indeed in league with the infamous former monk, then he was surely no friend to St.-Mere-Abelle, nor to the current incarnation of the Abellican Church!
“Ursal will demand change within the Church,” Abbot Glendenhook observed.
“They already have, according to Jilseponie,” said Master Viscenti. “By her account, Abbot Ohwan was reinstated at St. Honce, but only as a plank for Marcalo De’Unnero to walk to the post of abbot.”
“The crown has no power to determine abbots!” said Glendenhook.
“Then it has begun already,” Fio Bou-raiy put in, and the same despair that had been evident in Master Donegal’s voice was showing around the edges here, too. “If this is all true, then we must assume that Abbot Olin and his henchmen are restructuring the Abellican Church to fit their needs.”
“Bishop Braumin Herde believes that Ursal will demand that Olin assume the position of Father Abbot,” Master Viscenti said bluntly, and though everyone in the room fully expected that, given the line of reasoning, hearing it aloud brought more than a few gasps of astonishment and despair.
Fio Bou-raiy held steady, though, and looked at Master Viscenti hard. “And where does Bishop Braumin stand on this issue?” he demanded.
Marlboro Viscenti stood up very straight, his slight frame seeming to grow very tall and formidable. “Bishop Braumin supported the election of Father Abbot Bou-raiy,” the master from St. Precious reminded. “But even if he had not, Bishop Braumin is a true Abellican, and he would not support any usurpers trying to steal away our Church.”
Only after speaking the words aloud did Viscenti realize the irony of them, for hadn’t Braumin and all the others come to power through those very means? When Markwart had gone astray, Braumin and Viscenti had led the charge beside Jilseponie and Elbryan to take the Abellican Church from them.
“The Church is not astray,” Viscenti quickly added. “We have learned so very
much over the last two decades, culminating in the Miracle of Aida. We follow the way of St. Abelle, and soon-to-be Saint Avelyn. We follow the orders of St.-Mere-Abelle and Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy with all confidence that those orders are in accordance with the precepts upon which we build our faith. Bishop Braumin will not forsake St.-Mere-Abelle nor Father Abbot Bou-raiy in this, at the price of his own life! If Marcalo De’Unnero desires to enter St. Precious, it will either be as conqueror or in chains. There is no negotiating that point!”
The stirring words seemed to bolster Fio Bou-raiy and all the others in the room.
“You say that De’Unnero and Duke Kalas are marching north from Ursal toward Palmaris,” the Father Abbot prompted.
“The last report I heard, before Captain Al’u’met sailed me out of the Masur Delaval, was that they had advanced halfway up the river to Palmaris,” Viscenti explained. “They are absorbing all the countryside as they proclaim the new King Aydrian. There have been some skirmishes, but nothing of any note, for the people have no rallying call denouncing this treacherous usurper. It is likely that Prince Midalis in Vanguard has not even learned yet of the death of his brother and his nephew Merwick, nor that his other nephew, the only other person in the royal line, is missing. Captain Al’u’met sails even now for Vanguard, but it will be weeks, months perhaps, before Midalis can muster any reasonable response. Until then, King Aydrian, with the legions of Ursal and Entel behind him, stands unopposed among the unwitting populace.”
Fio Bou-raiy folded his fingers before him in a pensive pose and spent a long time digesting the words. “Then we must inform the people,” he decided. “Then we must hold out against this treachery and rally the resistance against phony King Aydrian until Prince Midalis arrives.”
“Thousands will die,” Master Donegal remarked.
It wasn’t really Viscenti’s place to speak, for the remark had been directed to Fio Bou-raiy, but he among all the others held the weight of his previous actions and not just his convictions to answer, “Some things are worth dying for, brother.”
Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy sat up straighter and gave an appreciative nod to Viscenti. “You must return with all speed to St. Precious,” he instructed the nervous master. “Tell Bishop Braumin that he must lock down Palmaris against this army. If Aydrian declares himself as king, then the army he commands is not the army of Honce-the-Bear, is not the army of the Ursal line, and must not be given admittance to a city loyal to that line.”
Strong words, Master Viscenti knew, especially coming from the man who had the most to lose, and who was secure in what was arguably the most fortified bastion in all the world. But Viscenti didn’t disagree with the reasoning. Some things were indeed worth dying for, and worth asking others to die for.
“Dispatch official emissaries to every abbey outside of Ursal, even to St. Rontlemore,” Fio Bou-raiy instructed Master Donegal, referring to the second abbey of Olin’s hometown of Entel, a place that had long been under the shadow of the
more prestigious St. Bondabruce and powerful Abbot Olin. “Let none forget the truth of Marcalo De’Unnero, and let none misinterpret the actions of Abbot Olin here as anything other than treachery and blasphemy.”
“Do we know for certain that Abbot Olin will not approach us civilly and with explanation?” Abbot Glendenhook dared to ask.
“He has overstepped his boundaries here, and there is little he could say to convince me not to excommunicate him,” Fio Bou-raiy declared flatly, and that brought more astonished and nervous gasps, and more than a few concurring grunts.
Master Viscenti was among those concurring, and he dipped a low bow and begged his leave.
“Our wagons are at your disposal to return you to the Masur Delaval,” Fio Bou-raiy told him, and Viscenti left at once, determined to stand beside Bishop Braumin when the darkness fell, a darkness that he couldn’t help but believe would be the end of the world as he knew it.
D
uke Bretherford sat on the edge of his cot in his private room on
River Palace
, leaning forward and rubbing his hands repeatedly over his grizzled face. He heard the stirring on the deck outside of his room and saw the light around the edges of his dark curtains and supposed that it must be morning.
Another night had passed him by with only fitful short periods of sleep. It had been that way since he had returned to Ursal, rushing in upon hearing the news of Danube’s untimely death.
His whole world had changed, so quickly, and Bretherford couldn’t sort through it. He spent hours tossing and turning, trying to find a place of acceptance, as had Kalas and so many of the other Ursal noblemen, but he had found no answers. He wished that he had been there on that fateful day, to witness the events. Perhaps then he might be more willing to embrace this young king and the promises the other nobles were whispering. Perhaps then he might be able to place Prince Midalis in a different light. Perhaps then …
Bretherford looked over at the small table set beside his bed, at the nearly empty bottle and the glass beside it.
He brought that glass in close, swirling it around, getting lost in the golden tan liquid.
Then he swallowed the whiskey in one gulp and moved to pour another, but a knock on his door stopped him short.
“What’d’ye want?” the tired man called.
How he changed his tone and his demeanor when the door pushed open and King Aydrian walked in!
“My King,” Bretherford blurted before he could even consider the words. He scrambled about and ran a hand through his thin hair. “I am not ready to receive—”
“Be at ease, my good duke,” said Aydrian, and he stepped in and closed the door
behind him. “I desire no protocol here. I have come to ask a favor.”
Bretherford stared at him dumbfounded. The king of Honce-the-Bear
asking
a favor?
“This has all come so quickly,” Aydrian remarked, and he saw himself to a chair across from Bretherford’s bed, and waved for Bretherford to remain seated when the man finally composed himself enough to try to stand and salute.
“You know that Abbot Olin has departed for Entel?” Aydrian asked.
“I suspect that he is well on his way, yes.”
“Do you know where he will go from there?”
“Jacintha,” said Bretherford, and Aydrian nodded.
“This is a dangerous mission,” said the young king. “The Behrenese are not to be taken lightly. They present potentially formidable opposition, though I know that Honce-the-Bear will never again see as clear an opportunity as we have right now to strengthen our ties to our southern neighbor.”
To conquer her, you mean
, Bretherford thought, but he kept his face expressionless.
“Abbot Olin has a great fleet at his command, but he must coordinate its movements with the movements of a land army, as well,” Aydrian explained. “It will be a daunting task, I fear, and with my attention now so obviously needed along the Masur Delaval, Abbot Olin will find little support from Ursal.”
Duke Bretherford couldn’t help but narrow his eyes with suspicion.
“Of course, the fleet at Abbot Olin’s command is not—how shall I say this delicately?—conventional.”
“Pirates and vagabonds,” Bretherford dared to say. “The same dogs I have chased along the southern stretches of our coastline for years.”
“Better to harness the dogs, eh?” Aydrian asked.
Bretherford was hardly convinced of that, and so he didn’t reply.
“Better if I could spare the Ursal fleet, I agree,” Aydrian remarked. “But Palmaris may not be so welcoming, and then there is the not-so-little matter of St.-Mere-Abelle, and Pireth Tulme, Pireth Dancard, and Pireth Vanguard after that.”
“It is ambitious,” Bretherford remarked, hoping that the sarcasm in his voice would not be so evident as to have Aydrian execute him.
“It is necessary,” Aydrian corrected. “As is our pursuit of the heart of Behren, at this time. And it is attainable—all of it! But I fear that I may have distributed the able leaders at my command errantly here—of course, I had little knowledge of the dukes and commanders before decisions had to be made.”
“You wish me to sail to Entel?” Bretherford asked skeptically.
“I cannot spare the ships it would require for you to safely make such a journey,” Aydrian explained. “I wish you to
ride
to Entel.”
“To what end?” Bretherford asked, and he rose from the bed, holding his arms out wide. “If the fleet remains on the Masur Delaval, then what am I to do …”
“Abbot Olin has warships of his own,” Aydrian explained. “I need you there, my good duke. I need you to go and join with Abbot Olin, to take command of
his seagoing operations. The delicacy of this situation cannot be overstated, and as such, I need the most experienced commanders I can find supporting Abbot Olin.”
Duke Bretherford could hardly spit out a response. King Aydrian was saying it so cleverly, but what he was really doing here was placing Bretherford out of the main picture and off to the side.