Lady Knight (27 page)

Oliver laughed. He pointed to the sword hilt protruding over her left shoulder.
“You need two swords?”

Riannon had bowed to the necessity of carrying Aveline’s witchsword, though
still not reconciled to using it. She wore her own sword at her hip and carried
the gift-sword on her back. That kept it out of her way while ensuring that she
would not be parted from it.

“I’m loath to miss the opportunity of killing an infidel on the chance that one
sword broke,” she said.

Oliver smiled and drew his own sword. He gripped it by the blade and offered the
gold-decorated hilt to her. The ruby in the pommel flashed like a predator’s
eye. “This sword was forged by Grandmort in Madusca. It’ll not break however
many infidels you try it against.”

Riannon took the sword with no small sense of awe. “My lord, this is a gift
beyond price.”

“It was not given lightly,” he said. “You might call it a reminder. Not only
that I value your services this day, but of what we spoke yesterday.”

Riannon nodded.

“And it seems only fair, since my brother gave you a dagger, that I give you a
sword,” he said. “But I was wondering if you had need of that second sword,
since I seem to be without a weapon.”

Riannon handed him the sword from her hip scabbard. She saw one or two envious
looks from the men who rode off in Oliver’s wake.

She lifted her new weapon. The shining steel blade bore the characteristic mark
of the best weapon smith in the Eastern Kingdoms – a craftsman of such fame that
he only made swords for kings and princes. Legend credited him with quenching
the hot metal in buckets of blood.

Oliver had given her treasure. More importantly, it might be the forerunner of
even greater rewards. Riannon saw pride and envy in the looks of her squire and
the men who had attached themselves to her since she had joined the crusade.
She could not yet afford the reality of supporting her own mesne of knights and
squires, but, mayhap, the time was not far off when she could. When she owned
lands that would earn her a goodly living, she could endow faithful men. And
support a wife.

“Lord Guy!”

Riannon turned to see where Alan pointed. A knot of men emerged from a street on
the east side of the square. Guy’s azure surcoat led them. He had not yet found
a mount. Only sporadic knots of grappling men and the bodies of the fallen
littered the vast square.

Riannon waved. Guy gave no sign he saw her. Instead, he strode off to the north.
In that direction a handful of men looked like they tried to beat down the doors
of the largest building with a makeshift battering ram. A dull thud–thud carried
across the plaza.

Riannon frowned as she saw the banner flying above the building. A dragon’s
claw. She studied the building harder. Flanking both sides of the broad fan of
steps to the doors stood two large pedestals supporting bronze statues. The
right was a lion and the left a dragon. It was a temple to their god.

Without waiting for the prince’s man to appear with the promised horse, Riannon
strode north across the plaza.

She was about halfway when Guy reached the bottom of the steps. Shouts erupted.
The men at the top flew backwards as if a giant invisible hand swept them aside.
The doors slammed open. Bodies fell onto the steps like broken dolls. Guy and
his men dropped to their knees or fell flat.

Riannon paused, not sure what she was seeing. A single figure swathed in brown
stood at the top of the steps. He held a sword aloft. At the same time she heard
the whining buzz, she saw Guy leap to his feet and bound up the steps.

“No!” Riannon dropped the prince’s sword and hurriedly tugged the baldric off
her shoulder. She drew Aveline’s witch-blade from the scabbard as she began
running. “Guy!
No!
”

Riannon saw the witch-priest scythe his sword down towards her brother, though
Guy had not reached the top of the stairs. Her legs pumped as she ran as fast as
she could. Guy threw up his shield. He recoiled from a blow, though still beyond
the priest’s reach.

She felt as though she ran through thick honey rather than air, so slowly did
she seem to be moving. She could only watch in despair as the witch-priest’s
enchanted blade hit Guy’s sword. The steel of Guy’s severed blade glinted as it
tumbled aside. The two men who had followed Guy stood rooted in surprise partway
up the stairs.

Riannon’s foot planted on the bottom step. The buzzing sword scythed across
Guy’s front. She watched her brother crumple as she hurled herself up the fan of
steps and past the startled men.

The ensorcelled sword swung down at Guy’s defenceless body. She flung her sword
forwards. The warrior-priest’s buzzing blade clanged against it. Where
enchantment met blessing, a crackling sizzled the air. The tattooed priest’s
eyes widened in disbelief. Riannon swung. Surprise slowed him. Her blade carved
into his torso before he moved to parry. Blood burst from his chest as Riannon’s
sword erupted out his back. He fell, all but cloven in two pieces. His sword
dropped from lifeless fingers to clatter on the stone.

Riannon whirled and knelt beside Guy. He lay on his back. His surcoat and mail
bore a cut angling from breastbone to shoulder. Blood gently oozed from it. Far
more blood ran from the top of his left thigh. Deep red already pooled on the
pale stone.

Riannon shoved his severed mail out of the way. The enchanted blade had sliced
through the tail of Guy’s gambeson and his braies.

“The bastard didn’t touch me,” Guy said through clenched teeth. “I swear it.”

Riannon hastily untied the waist cord of her surcoat and threaded it beneath
Guy’s thigh. She feared some vein in his groin cut open.

“Atuan’s balls,” he said. “That smarts. My sword broke. It’d better not have
cost me –”

He grunted as Riannon pulled the cord tight. She frowned as she watched and
silently prayed that the flow staunched. Her brother’s blood coated her hands.

“I’ll fetch a ladder or cart, Vahldomne, to carry our lord back to the healers,”
one of Guy’s men said.

Riannon nodded. She looked up to see Alan close. “Take the horse that man is
bringing for me. Find a healer.”

Alan reverently set her new sword and the witch-sword scabbard down beside her
before he bounded away.

Riannon eased bloody cloth aside to get a better look at Guy’s injury. The cord
had slowed the bleeding. The cut looked partly burned, just as her own wounds
had been. This would produce an ugly scar that had even nicked and blistered the
bottom of his scrotum. Had his genitals been larger and bulged in the way of the
strike, he would have lost more than just blood.

“Nonnie?” Pain strained Guy’s voice. “I hardly have the courage to ask. The
wound… Has it…?”

“It has not gelded you,” she said. “All the whores from here to the Themalian
desert can breathe easy again. But had you truly been as big as a bull, you’d be
a steer.”

Guy’s grin was more relief than amusement. Riannon was glad to see it.

Riannon walked into the shadowed interior of the vast temple. Space swallowed
her soft footfalls. A thousand and more people could stand between the marble
walls. Painted dragons curled up and around the thick columns supporting the
soaring roof. Fanciful minds might believe the soot patches peppering the walls
had been caused by the fiery breath of such lizards rather than torches burning
in cressets. She heard a murmured obscenity from behind her. Only a handful of
men had followed her inside.

She wandered past the second set of columns when she heard a thin, high-pitched
whine. She looked down at the sword she carried. She had confiscated the dead
witch-priest’s weapon and scabbard, but it was silent. The noise emanated from
near her left ear – from Aveline’s sword. She set the witch-priest’s sword down
and tugged at her shoulder baldric until she could draw her blessed blade. All
the while, she scanned the temple interior ahead.

“Vahldomne?”

Riannon signalled for the men behind her to stop and stay back. How many
witch-priests would a temple like this house?

Riannon held her sword, softly whining, in front of her as she walked warily
forwards. She flicked her gaze left and right, into the shadows.

Instead of an altar, the infidel temple had a large raised dais. A massive
gilded statue of a man with a dragon’s head, claws, wings, and tail, stood on
the top. The inhuman figure towered over Riannon when she paused at the foot of
the dais. The sword in her hand now hummed. To her bare hands, the hilt seemed
warmer than normal.

Doubly alert, Riannon cautiously worked her way around behind the dais. She
found only the body of a priest, his throat slit. She heard voices. When Riannon
returned to the front of the dais, she saw a dozen men striding towards her.
Most wore the distinctive triple bars of blue across their surcoats and shields
of the Most Holy Knights of the Order of the Shield Temple. They were the
paladins of Atuan, god of war. The slender man, with the grizzled beard poking
from the edges of his mail coif, was Grand Master Marbeck. The proud, arrogant
man did not look pleased to see Riannon here before him.

“Vahldomne,” he said. “We’ll have this place cleaned out and reconsecrated.
There are none of the filth left?”

“No,” she said. “Just one warrior-priest. But there must be more somewhere.
Mayhap they retreated into the castle.”

“We passed what was left of a body outside,” one of the knights said. “Cut near
in two.”

“Your handiwork?” Marbeck said.

Riannon nodded. The sword in her hand hummed loudly enough that others must hear
it.

“Well, you can leave this to us now.” Marbeck signalled. “My men will guard the
place and stop any more looting. We’ll have that abomination pulled down.”

Riannon wondered what he would say if she claimed the temple for the Order of
the Goddess. The gilding on the giant statue alone would be worth a prince’s
ransom. She held her tongue, though. Aveline had said nothing about claiming
properties. The Quatorum Council could argue the division of spoils amongst
themselves.

The grand master strode away. Most of his men followed.

The sword in her hands still hummed. The noise grew louder when she walked away
from the dais. She stopped and turned. The gold-skinned giant loomed over her.
They worshipped a fearsome and ferocious deity rather than a benign or lordly
one.

Riannon mounted the dais steps. The sword’s hum strengthened and deepened. Her
ears rang as if she stood too close to pealing basilica bells. She frowned as
she put the tip of her sword to the back of a colossal gold calf. Green sparks
sprayed from the contact. A bone-deep boom rolled over Riannon.

“What was that?” one of the knights shouted.

The grand master and his men halted and turned back to stare.

Riannon swung her sword. The blessed blade bit through gilding and into the
idol’s wooden leg.

An unseen force smacked into Riannon’s front. The impact lifted her off her feet
and flung her backwards. Her shoulders slammed against something solid. Riannon
crumpled in pain. Before her vision dimmed to black, she saw the gold dragon god
toppling.

Eleanor…

Aveline tried not to show her disappointment and impatience as she looked around
the chamber. The afternoon sunlight angling in the windows, like bright spears
hurled from the Goddess’s own hand, cruelly highlighted the sagging features of
the three mother-naers. Sibyl of Hierenne accentuated her wrinkles with a scowl
directed squarely back at Aveline.

“This is all very well,” Sibyl said, “but our Wise Mother is more familiar with
the distaff than the axe. War is men’s business, not ours. I’ve told the
matriarch this and have no qualms about repeating it.”

She paused to lubricate her scratchy voice with a sip from a cup that held
something considerably stronger than watered wine. Inviting the crotchety old
bird had been a mistake. Still, the other two looked less obdurate. Aveline had
best make haste to ensure that they did not lend too close an ear to Sibyl’s
anti-war talk.

“The crusade has been launched,” Aveline said. “We –”

“To your glee.” Sibyl levelled a gnarled finger across the table at Aveline.
“I’m not in my winding sheet yet, girl. My body might be decaying, but the rot
has yet to touch my wits. I know full well why Katherine cast so unusually sharp
a shadow at the Quatorum Council. It was because you walked closely behind her.”

Aveline sat back in her chair. “I hardly think, madam, you would be the first
person to castigate another for ambition. You and I could count the bodies we
have clawed our way over. The tally would not be in my favour.”

Sibyl’s eyes bored into her. For a taut moment, Aveline thought she had
misjudged the old woman yet again, but Sibyl barked out a strange, harsh
chuckle.

“It’s true,” Sibyl said. “You’ve a ways to go yet, girl, before you could steal
any light from me.”

Aveline allowed her relief to leak out in a faint smile. “The surest way of
safeguarding yourself from my ambition is to render me indebted to you.”

Sibyl snorted and signalled for her attendants to pull her chair back. Aveline
frowned as she rose to watch Sibyl prepare to leave.

“If I were one of the twenty,” Aveline said, “you’d have an ally.”

“I have allies.” Sibyl shuffled to the side and stood to allow her attendant to
settle a mantle about her bony shoulders. “Even if I did sponsor your
candidature, I could not count on you for support save when it suited you.”

Aveline discarded the idea of a denial.

“I know you better than you imagine,” Sibyl said. “I know you almost as well as
I know myself, for I see myself in you. I’ve less doubt about your becoming one
of the twenty than I do about the sun rising in the morn. But I also know to the
marrow of my bones that it’d be a mistake for it to happen yet. Now, I thank you
for dinner. My compliments to your cook for the sturgeon. Good afternoon to you
all.”

The old lady’s walking stick tapped on the floor as she departed.

“Time will cure the problem of my lacking in years,” Aveline said, “just as
quickly if I’m a member of the convocation as not.”

“True.” Sibyl paused near the doors. “But think how much more easily and without
chaffing and ill-will the time will flow after the advent of a new matriarch.”

Aveline frowned to herself as she watched Sibyl limp out the doors. So,
Matriarch Melisande actively sought to block Aveline’s nomination and selection.
After the chilly reception Aveline had met with from the matriarch at the
Quatorum Council, she was surprised not at the intention, but that so staunchly
independent and outspoken a mother-naer as Sibyl would bow to that pressure had
exceeded her calculation. Perhaps she had underestimated Melisande. Then she
would have to try all the harder to bring about the Goddess’s wish that Aveline
become matriarch.

When Aveline returned her attention to her remaining pair of exalted guests, she
saw the reserve she expected.

Mother-Naer Urraca drained her wine cup. “The last woman elected to the
convocation so young was the seer Blanche of Astyria. A truly holy woman.”

Aveline watched her leave.

“Which leaves just me for you to turn your charm on.” Mother-Naer Hildegard
signalled for a servant to bring a plate of sweet wafers closer. “You realise
that, with Melisande set against you, you’re pissing into the wind?”

Aveline poured her large guest a refill of wine. “Actually, I would’ve thought
the matriarch’s opposition would be a confirmation of my competency. She’d not
fear a fool.”

Hildegard laughed and sprayed wafer crumbs across the table. “Sibyl has the
right of you. But ambition is not enough. A pity, for your sake, that you’ve not
been blessed with some mystic gifts. Speaking in tongues. Levitation. That would
impress many.”

“Not least of all myself.” Aveline signalled for another dish of wafers.

Hildegard chuckled. “You’re honest, I’ll give you that. But failing a touch from
the finger of the Lady of Destiny, you’ll have to bide your time until –”

A bone-deep boom, like thunder from the entrails of earth rather than the
distant sky, rolled up over Aveline. She felt it with every sinew. Green sparks
showered before her. A gold giant toppled through it and crashed to the ground.
Gilded wings quivered with the force of the fall.

The sparks died. The fallen statue stilled. Through the quiet, made more
profound by the preceding loudness, a faint buzzing hum rose. Aveline peered
hard. Beyond the statue’s broken left arm, she saw a body. An armoured man. A
big man. A sword lay near him.

Aveline picked her way around the broken statue. The sunlight angling through
the windows set the gold dazzling. But the broken elbow showed that the gold was
merely a skin. A surface brightness. False and showy with no substance.

Aveline stopped near the sword. It hummed. She recognised it as the Goddess’s
gift sword. The armoured body was Riannon. Her eyes were closed. She looked
crumpled though she lay several feet from the statue. Aveline crouched.
Riannon’s chest moved with breathing. Aveline reached out. Her hand passed
through her cousin’s cheek.

“Lady!” Aveline muttered.

Riannon vanished. The sword vanished. The statue disappeared, leaving Aveline
crouched in the middle of her hall. Servants and her guest’s attendants watched
her, wide-eyed. One moved towards her.

“No!” Hildegard whispered vehemently and gestured with podgy hands.

Aveline rose. The chubby mother-naer stood staring back at her with a plate of
wafers forgotten in front of her.

“Did you hear it?” Aveline said.

“You’re back,” Hildegard said. “What did you see?”

“The fall of a dragon-headed god,” Aveline said.

Hildegard hissed in breath and put both hands to her elaborate crossed-circle
pendant. “By our lady!”

“Just a statue,” Aveline said. “But it’s a beginning. I believe… I believe it
might have been at Marketvale. The city has fallen to us. Riannon – Our paladin,
the Vahldomne, toppled the statue of their god. The altar can be cleansed and
re-dedicated. The crusade moves from victory to victory.”

“All praise,” Hildegard said. “You… you said nothing of any claim to visions.
You might have persuaded Urraca had you done so.”

Aveline’s hand trembled as she reached for a wine cup from the table. “I’ve not
known such a thing before. The whisper of the Goddess, yes, but… what did you
see? Did you hear anything?”

“Nought but your cry,” Hildegard said. “And the aura around you as you moved.
You looked elsewhere as if truly seeing what our eyes were blind to. I’ve
witnessed enough fakings of such Seeings to know the real thing.”

Aveline took a long drink. Her nerves were raw. That rolling boom had been deep
and strong enough to leave her teeth aching still.

“Here.” Hildegard passed her the wine jar. “Now, you’d best sit. We have much to
talk about.”

Aveline should have been delighted, but she felt shaken and unsure whether what
she had experienced was good or bad – like the morning after losing her
virginity.

“We must dispatch a swift messenger,” Hildegard said. “To Namour. This very
hour. With changes of horse, he can reach the matriarch in four or five days.”

Aveline looked up from sipping her wine. She felt unusually dullwitted.

“How else to prove the trueness of your Seeing?” Hildegard said. “There’s no way
a rider from Evriat could carry the news so fast. Our Wise Mother must have had
a hand in it. Through you. And we’d not want to delay for a moment breaking the
good news to our dear matriarch.”

“Good news? Of the fall of the statue, or my being granted a vision?”

Hildegard beamed and knocked her cup against Aveline’s. “Exactly. Melisande is
going to be delighted. How I’d love to be a flea in the rushes to see her face!”

Aveline smiled.

Eleanor jerked off her gloves and thrust them at a servant. Across the hall, she
saw Geoffrey lounging on his padded bench with a wine cup in his hand. He looked
happy. That did not sweeten her temper after a hurried two hour ride in the
autumnal chill and drizzling rain. She gave her damp skirts an angry shake
before striding across the hall.

“Ah, my dear!” Geoffrey clasped her wrist and drew her down beside him. “You
find me the happiest of men.”

“That is both gratifying and surprising,” she said. “The tenor of your summons
for me to return with all haste from Forditch, where I’d planned to spend the
night, led me to suspect calamity.”

“You can gossip with your friends any time, dear.” Geoffrey’s dismissive gesture
ended with him indicating a handsome young man sitting on the facing bench.
“This is Sir Simon of Ravan.”

Simon rose to bow to Eleanor. His gaze lingered a fraction too long on her
bodice and his smile curled into insolence. Eleanor wanted to slap his face.

“He’s come from Evriat,” Geoffrey said. “From the crusade. He’s brought news of
Ralph.”

Eleanor mouthed a polite greeting. She might have known such a man would be an
intimate of Ralph’s. She set aside for later her bone of contention with her
husband, which did not decrease with the realisation that her plans had been
overset because of Ralph.

“He brings us the best tidings,” Geoffrey said. “My son comes home soon.”

Eleanor counterfeited a smile.

“Ravan has been telling me all about the campaign,” Geoffrey said. “I know
you’re not interested, my dear, in the details of war, but I’m sure you’ll be
delighted to know how well Ralph acquitted himself, and how highly every lord
thinks of him.”

“Indeed,” Eleanor said. “I’m sure you have grounds for pride.”

“As I was saying to his lordship, my lady,” Simon said, “Lord Ralph is honoured
by the noblest men of the crusade. I myself witnessed an occasion when Lord
Henry, the Earl Marshal, praised Lord Ralph for his gallantry and vigour in
pressing an attack.”

Geoffrey beamed and patted Eleanor’s thigh. “Hubert! More wine! The best. We
have much to celebrate.”

Eleanor thought better of reminding him that the healer had cautioned him
against drinking too much. She did not want another of his peevish scolds on top
of everything else.

She accepted a cup of wine and feigned interest as Simon Ravan related an
anecdote about Ralph that would have done the most imaginative bard credit.
Eleanor could think of no chivalric virtue the tale failed to attribute to
Ralph. Geoffrey swallowed it all as eagerly as he did sweetened wine. Eleanor
wondered how much of it was true, and what Simon hoped to gain by it.

“Oh, splendid!” Geoffrey clapped his hands. “Exactly so! Tell my lady how – No!
I’d almost forgotten. My dear. A letter. Ravan brought it from Ralph. I’d rather
you read it to me than my clerk.”

Eleanor kept some bitter thoughts to herself at the idea that she had been
dragged from her comfortable evening with friends at Forditch to act clerk when
any of half a dozen men in the household could perform the role.

She opened the page out. She saw Simon watching her. His gaze aimed below her
neckline. Geoffrey gave no sign he noticed his wife being ogled.

Eleanor bent her attention on the letter. The writing was the beautiful, dark
script favoured by the scribes of the chapels of Naith.

“Be not alarmed that this comes to you from a place where I have had need of
minor healing,” Eleanor read. “It was but a scratch, though you would think I
needed raising from the dead if you knew of the amount I have been required to
donate for these services. I have had recourse to borrow money from a
silversmith because of the laggard division of spoils and the unfairness with
which it has been carried out. I have pledged you for the debt, father.”

“Of course I’ll make good his obligations,” Geoffrey said.

Eleanor frowned at the letter. Ralph had grown no more wise or discreet in the
last months. Not only did he complain and spend money not his own, but he had
dictated his criticism to a member of the chapel he found fault with.

“I trust Ravan to answer your questions about what we have done here,” Eleanor
read. “He rode at my stirrup from the time we crossed the Deander River into
northern Iruland. He knows the particulars of all our victories. Those victories
would have been speedier and more numerous had it not been for certain
commanders. Our valiant Earl Marshal constantly tried to direct the sieges and
attacks with boldness and daring. Alas, timidity unmanned the other generals and
they overrode our excellent lord. I can scarce believe that any man who claims
the name would harken to that unnatural creature –”

Eleanor broke off in surprise. Her heart gave a startled thump.

“My dear?” Geoffrey said. “You arouse in me fear of bad news.”

“Nothing is amiss.” Eleanor arranged a smile before continuing. “That unnatural
creature Riannon of Gast. She has the ear of Oliver of Iruland. That prince has
been duped into believing the fable that she is the Vahldomne.”

“It passes all understanding,” Simon Ravan said, “how men good and true can
believe this claim of a woman to be the Vahldomne. Valour, honour. These things
are strangers to the weaker sex. Not that Riannon of Gast could be mistaken for
a true lady. She –”