Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) (6 page)

“Again, I ask, before I take my revenge upon you and send
your soul into the stars, who hired you to take the sheriff’s granddaughter?”

He moved to shake his head, his eyes wide at the pinch of
her blade against his skin.  “No, no.  It was not that we should take the
sheriff’s granddaughter.  He wanted a virgin, any virgin, and he said nothing
about why.  But her purity was of the utmost importance to him.”

“And you sold a seven years child into his lecherous
grasp?”  She pushed the blade against his throat.  “Without a care to what evil
he had in mind for her?”

“I knew right well what he might want of her.  I simply did
not care.  Nay, one thing more I will make clear, though it provoke you to kill
me on the spot.  Knowing his purpose, as it seemed to me, it was my own idea
that we should take the child from Brannagh.”  A sneer crossed his lips again. 
“I’ve naught but contempt for the House of Brannagh, not since the war.”

“Animal.”  She hissed the word, but she held the blade
steady.

“If you’ve such contempt for Renda, why’d you not take your
revenge on her and leave the little child be?”  Gikka asked from the shadows.

“He wanted a virgin.”  He shrugged, as if that explained it
all, then smiled wickedly.  “Besides, taking the child from beneath your very
eyes would hurt ever the more and to the end of your days.”

Renda drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment,
steadying her nerves.  “Who bought her from you?”

“You’ll not hear it from these lips.”

Renda’s pressed her blade deeper.  “For the last time. 
Speak.”

“And once I am dead, what then?”  He ventured a soft laugh,
conscious of the blade against his windpipe.  “You’ll still not know her
killer’s name.  What then of your revenge, Brannagh?  What then of your
precious dead niece?”

Gikka’s hand touched Renda’s shoulder, and the Bremondine
woman whispered to her, something unspeakable.

She wanted to say no, to stay true to B’radik’s doctrines of
truth and light as a Knight of Brannagh should, but as she looked at the
verinara stain on her blade, she only sighed. “A rite of Cuvien…Is there no
other way?”

At the name of the Bremondine goddess of torture, Bernold’s
eyes widened.

Gikka shrugged.  “He’d die with the name just to vex you, an
he speaks true.”  She shook her head solemnly.  “No, I find with them who say
they don’t fear dying and know that’s what is coming, a taste of pain works
best,” she said evenly, drawing some sinister looking barbs and hooks from
Zinion’s saddlebag.  Then she looked down at Sir Bernold’s terrified expression
and smiled.  “Ain’t that right, lad?”

Castle Brannagh

A
landro’s
neighed salute had carried through the stable with an enthusiasm born of sheer
will.  He had tossed his head twice, and Renda could tell that he was pleased
that she had come to gather him for the day’s journey, but before she could
make her way to him, his huge head had bowed, and he’d stumbled in the stall
where he stood, so deep was his exhaustion.  Renda had stopped a moment to
stroke his muzzle and speak some soothing words to him, but she had seen the
sad realization in his eyes: today Alandro would stay home.

Instead, she had had the grooms saddle and bridle her
brother’s sorrel stallion Hero, a powerful creature who since Roquandor’s death
had become well used to carrying her father’s weight, and with full armor.  It
was Hero whom she now tapped up into a gentle gallop over the smoother flats
that led toward the southeast.  The sun was high already, and she judged that
they would reach the temple by midday.  She was not inclined to hurry.

Riding along the road beside the bright sunlit fields of her
father’s lands and past the farmers who worked them, instead of stacks of
golden amaranth and wheat she saw the discolored bundles of parchments that
still lay waiting on the library table.

Would that it were not so. 

Now looking back over the grim adventure of the night, she
wondered bleakly, would it be so much to trade, all the famous errantry of her
life, to have little Pegrine back, chirping and skipping through the castle
halls again?

She and Gikka had returned to the castle just before sunrise
for no more than an hour’s sleep and fresh horses after their ride from
Farras.  Some stubborn, disbelieving part of her had expected to find Pegrine there,
dancing with anticipation in the entry hall, waiting to share with her some
glorious miracle in the bailey gardens, a spider’s web or a fat squirrel
patting away his winter cache.  Renda’s sword hung at her side, only freshly
wiped clean of Sir Bernold’s blood, and she at last knew the name of Pegrine’s
killer. All the same, she had found herself looking for the little girl at the
door.

Instead, she was greeted by silence and the unforgiving
wretchedness of a home that had seen the death of a child.  No one stirred
within the walls.  The sheriff, Lady Glynnis and most of the servants had spent
the night in vigil and had not yet emerged from their chambers. Those few
servants who had risen with the sun praised the gods for chores that took them
out of doors and into the light and life and sun of the world.

The whole of the castle felt dead, empty of life and love.
But as she walked through the ancient corridors of the keep, the air fairly
bristled around her with a dull and restless outrage rising from the crypt
where her kinsmen’s bones—Roquandor’s bones—whispered for vengeance.  Patience,
she prayed them.  I shall not fail you.

On the way to her chamber she had seen the temple priests
making their ways through the entry hall between the crates of Pegrine’s
belongings that the maids had brought down.  Nara would live, they announced
wearily when Renda saw them out, although they had not the strength between
them to awaken the nun.  That would come with time.  They declined Renda’s
offer of guest chambers saying they would be expected at the temple, but she
suspected they were anxious to leave the house of mourning.  One, the elder of
the two, saw the angry purple bruise on her wrist where she had caught the hilt
of Sir Bernold’s sword and bowed his head in prayer.  The two clerics exchanged
glances before the second put two drops of healing oil on her wrist and rubbed
them into the skin, apologizing for their weariness.

Then they were gone, and Renda stood rubbing her aching
wrist, alone and undefended amidst all the gathered treasures of Pegrine’s
life.

The maids had spent the early morning hours crating
Pegrine’s dolls, her wooden horses and knights, faded puzzles, toy animals,
clothes and hair ribbons, everything, to free the child’s soul of attachments and
speed her through the stars; the coachman from the orphanage in Farras would
come in the afternoon to fetch the crates with many sympathies and grateful
kowtows to the household, and then he would carry away the trappings of
Pegrine’s life forever and free her soul of attachments.

All the little girl’s frocks and gowns save one had been
carefully folded and wrapped so that the splinters of the crates would not ruin
them.  Renda had asked the maids to set aside Pegrine’s First Rite gown and the
matching hair ribbons for the child to wear to the crypt.  The gown was
glorious and very grown up for being so tiny, purest white with delicate
slashing in the sleeves to show the deep blue silk undersleeves and a lovely
lace overskirt dotted here and there with tiny deep blue bows.  It had been
Pegrine’s favorite.

Forever.  Renda shook her head sadly and rose from the
steps, stretching the stiffness from her legs.  Rather than give in to the
thousand different hues of pain and sorrow, she turned and moved toward the
stairway, flexing out the last aches from the night’s ride.

But as she turned to leave the hall, she saw something
through the corner of her eye.  In one of the crates of toys, she spied
Pegrine’s wooden sword and picked it up.  The hilt was worn smooth with hours
of happy shadow fighting, and the cross guard was coming loose, but the blade
had held up well with only a few nicks and scratches to mar the carving.

It had been Renda’s own, years ago, put into her tiny hand
by her father despite Nara’s most strenuous objections, and it had been her
favorite toy.  Last spring at Pegrine’s birthday feast, Renda had been the one
to place the sword in her niece’s hand, this time with Nara’s resigned
acceptance if not her blessing.  Knighthood, it seemed, was to become a
tradition among Brannagh women, scandal be damned.

Now Renda’s hand rested gently over the sword’s wooden hilt
as she rode southeastward toward the temple grounds. Afterward, after she had
taken revenge against Pegrine’s killer, she would place it in the little girl’s
hand again—this time in the crypt, while the toy weapon dripped with the blood
of the one who had murdered her, so that her spirit might be granted rest.

The one who had murdered her.

Cilder.  It was Cilder.

With his dying breath, Sir Bernold of Avondale had sworn it
upon the asp guardant and the fillet d’or of the House of Wirthing, even upon
the tomb of the first earl, and yet the idea that she should accept a
dishonored knight’s impeachment of a Bishop of B’radik struck her as somehow
preposterous.

Avondale and his comrade had kidnapped and sold a
seven-years child to a priest—Renda could think of no wholesome purpose to be
met thus—and surely this was a deed unworthy of knights.  The act spoke ill of
Avondale’s honor, as did his cowardice, and she should trust no oath of his. 
He might have accused anyone in vanishing hopes of gaining his freedom, even
the duke himself, had the thought occurred to him.

Instead, he had accused a Bishop of B’radik. Sir Bernold had
seemed to Renda a man of little imagination, but he had described the bishop
quite exactly, mimicking his pebbly voice and quiet, sensible manner far too
well, far too disconcertingly, for someone who had never had reason to have met
him.

Still, she could not imagine such driving evil coming from
as true a man as Bishop Cilder.  In her mind’s eye Cilder was still the gentle
old priest who had given her and her brother their First Rites as children—who
had given Pegrine her First Rite just this year—not the all important Bishop of
B’radik he had become since.  When he was a high priest in the temple, he had
been the one to pour the consecrated Oil of Truth over her sword at her
knighting, and his first act as Bishop had been to bless her new order upon
their return from the war, the Knights of the Crimson Lioness, and to swear
them to B’radik’s service.

Only five days past, Cilder had come to consecrate the new
chapel in the east wing, and Renda had seen him in bishop’s robes for only the
second time since the war’s end.  His radiant white cassock was concealed as
always beneath the Damping Mantle to keep the brightness of Bradik’s power from
blinding the faithful, and he looked much the same as she remembered him, hale
enough but with perhaps a few more wrinkles.  Cilder’s appearance at the
consecration had come as a surprise to all the House since his outings had
become increasingly rare during the last several months.

After the consecration, she had spoken with him for only a
few moments before her duties called her elsewhere, but she had heard that her
father spoke with him at length.  Surely if the bishop had been harboring some
plan against the House, Renda, or at least her father, would have known it. 
The goddess would have made such a thing plain.

But then her thoughts turned uneasily to Nara and to
B’radik’s refusal to grant her protection—against what?—and to the darkness the
nun had seen when she was searching for Pegrine.  The knight shuddered and
pulled her mantle up even in the sun’s warmth.  To confound Nara’s formidable
rapport with her goddess enough to hide Pegrine from her, especially while the
child was being killed, took considerable power.  Compared to such an act,
fooling Renda and her father for a few hours during the chapel consecration
would have been insignificant.

Now Renda looked ahead to where Gikka reined in her fresh
mount out of a thin stand of trees and dropped back the hood of her cloak.  The
late morning sun drew a faint outline around the Bremondine woman and her wiry
young mare where they stood looking across the temple grounds to the priests’
rectory and to the bishop’s manse beyond.

Gikka had accepted Sir Bernold’s word at once, as if he were
merely confirming what she already .  No one without true magic or divine
intervention could have hoped to clean a trail so fast or so well, not even
Gikka herself, and a sorcerer like Dith would more likely burn the clearing to
the ground, body and all.  But then, no mage ever offered blood sacrifice—at
least, not since before the Liberation.

A priest, then.  But for a priest to invoke a god’s
intervention to clean up a trail was a very visible and physical manifestation
of power—a terrible extravagance and not the sort of feat a young priest would
consider.  To build that sort of spiritual discipline and that strong a
relationship with the god would take many, many years. 

So Sir Bernold’s answer had struck Gikka as true in spite of
Renda’s objections that he was not to be trusted.  As she had told Renda on the
way back to the castle, “Comes it from the mouth of honor or no, truth is truth
and has a bite about it as leaves no doubt.”  The bite was there.  For all that
she wished it were not, the bite of B’radik’s truth was there.

B’radik did not accept blood sacrifice—that was certain. 
And what of Nara’s terror at the sight of Pegrine’s body?  Darkness rises to
smother light...  Why would B’radik tolerate Her bishop offering blood
sacrifice at all?

Darkness.  No light...

Renda’s breath quickened.  She recalled how Nara’s frantic
invocations in the courtyard had gone unanswered, and she remembered the
sluggish feeling of the priests’ healing in her wrist, even with their oils.
The quiet glance that had passed between the two clerics, she saw now, was a
look of resignation.  They had not been surprised.

I call upon B’radik and I see only darkness.

Perhaps Pegrine’s murder, horror that it was, had been the
least of the atrocities committed.   But Renda’s mind would not let her deepest
fears come to light.

No light.

Surely it was not possible to destroy a god.  Was it?  Renda
swallowed hard and nudged Hero forward to where Gikka had already dismounted
and settled her horse beside a row of hedges, not daring to let herself
consider the possibilities.

The lock on the side door was old and well worn, and its
tumblers moved aside willingly for Gikka. Within a few moments, the two women
were inside. The outside of the bishop’s manse was freshly whitewashed and well
kept, and the door opened without a creak, admitting them into the mudroom
where some white cloaks hung from wooden pegs and where many white leather
boots were stored against the snow and mud of the coming cold.  As Gikka had
promised, the room was empty, although beyond it stood a corridor with a
doorway leading into a loud and bustling kitchen preparing the midday meal.

Across from the kitchen doorway stood a plain servants’
stairway that spiraled up through a small corner space.  Without a second
thought, Gikka sprinted for it and fairly flew up the flight of stairs, her
feet barely touching the wooden plank steps.  Renda followed, her steps a bit
heavier over the creaking boards but still unheard above the din in the
kitchen.

The stairs came out at the end of one wing of the manse, a
broad hallway with pristine white walls and white furs along the floors.  A great
tall window stood at the far end, undressed to let in the full light of day,
and tiny candles of the purest white burned with hot blue-white flame in simple
candelabrum along the sideboards between the evenly spaced chamber doors.

Renda looked through one open doorway to a vacant white
guest chamber, but Gikka shook her head and moved toward the landing of the
huge central stairway that joined the other wings to this.  Then Gikka stopped
short.

“Do you smell it?”

Renda sniffed quickly at the air, but between the smells of
oil soaps and the luncheon being served in the dining hall, she took a moment
to place the other odor.  Blood, certainly, though it smelled a bit tainted to
her, like stale kidney pie.  The vile smell had about it the same sense of darkness,
of something being badly out of place, as the feeling she had had in the
clearing, and now the white purity of the halls which had struck her as clean
and perfect seemed almost to swell and boil, ready to burst with the evil that
they concealed. 
Please,
she prayed,
please, let it not be Pegrine’s
blood that I smell.