Tales of the Dragon's Bard, Volume 1: Eventide (10 page)

Perhaps it was inevitable that this strain between conscience and pragmatism would eventually lead to problems.

“Just one moment . . . I am coming!”

The banging continued insistently on the heavy front door.

Patrion tugged with one hand at the mantle vesture that he had hastily thrown over his nightshirt while gripping the precariously swaying candleholder in the other. The feeble light from the candle flickered dangerously as he hurried down the small arcade of his home, his bare feet slapping against the cold stones.

“Why is it that trouble always comes in the dark?” he muttered to himself. In the moment, however, the answer came to him unbidden from a lecture in Masterpriest Duffetus’s Scribner Class:
Night is when our Lady is at rest and trouble awakens in the world.
Still, he wished people could just keep their problems to themselves until a more reasonable hour of the morning—or, better still, early afternoon.

Father Patrion set his candleholder down on the small table next to the door, clasped his vesture unevenly, and then spoke loudly through the door. “Who is there?”

“Percival!” came the muffled voice. “Percival Taylor.”

Father Patrion reached for the door catch and then hesitated. The priest knew the young man all too well. Percival Taylor was the son of Joaquim and Winifred Taylor. His parents were “locals,” meaning that their family had been in Eventide for many generations and had not merely moved in due to some arbitrary convenience. They were well respected, hard-working, and considerate of others . . . in short, they were everything that their son was not.

Percival was a handsome lad who knew it and ensured that everyone else knew it too. He had a strong, cleft chin that was always closely shaven and flaxen hair that was always perfectly coifed. His flashing grey eyes could spot a skirt from a quarter mile, and, truth be told, odds were that it would be moving in his direction as iron to a lodestone. He was always impeccably dressed for any occasion that did not include manual labor and never present at any that required it. He was constantly busy but had never worked an honest hour in his life so far as anyone could recall. Those who were younger than he admired him. Those who were older suspected him. Those who were about his own age fell into two camps: those who were attracted to him . . . and everybody else. He was like a perfectly formed peach on the tree, desirable to look at and tempting, but not anywhere near ripe.

Father Patrion shook his head. A young man in the middle of the night knocking at his door was never joyful news. Their problems invariably revolved around the courting arts, an area where Father Pantheon had no experience whatsoever on which to draw. Worse, Patrion mused, why was it that young lovers always seem inclined to involve the clergy in elaborate, dramatic, and often problem-filled romantic schemes?

Father Patrion drew in a deep breath and opened the door.

Percival rushed in and then flattened himself against the arcade wall, doing his best impression of hiding in the shadows—only there were few shadows in which to hide since he was still within full illumination of the candle.

He was dressed for the occasion, Father Patrion noted with a thin smile. Percival wore a rakish felt cap with a long feather in it that, Patrion realized, looked remarkably similar to the hat worn by that fool Dragon’s Bard who had been parading about the town this last month or so. Percival was wearing hose—a rather odd choice, given the bitter winter night—and stylish brushed-leather boots with soft soles. His tunic and doublet were made of matching deep plum fabric, and the grey great cape that Percival wore over the entire ensemble was held up with his left arm so as to cover the lower half of his face. The entire outfit looked as though it had been made specifically for the well-dressed skulker. No doubt his doting mother had made a point of producing it especially for the occasion.

“Brother Percival,” Father Patrion said, suddenly aware that the hairs on the sides of his head were most likely sticking out at the oddest-appearing angles, “It is late and I must soon to bed.”

Percival nodded, his golden curls bouncing slightly around the sides of his cap. “Yes, but I just have to see you, Father Pantheon—it’s a matter of life and death!”

Such an easy phrase,
Father Patrion thought sadly to himself.
How easily the young use it when they have so little knowledge of either.

“Very well,” Father Patrion said, motioning the youth out into the atrium. His home had been built by the town after the Mordale style popular with the country estates a few years ago. It was actually a small structure but it did feature an atrium garden surrounded by a small arcade. It reminded him strongly of the Cloisters and often made him feel better just to see it and work in its central garden. There was a path that led into the center of the atrium, where a pair of stone benches allowed for conference. “Please sit down.”

“Oh, I just can’t, Father Pantheon,” Percival continued in a rush. “This is one of the most important nights ever—maybe of my whole life!”

“Then I’ll sit,” Father Patrion replied, sitting down as slowly as his aching back would allow. “What do you need, Brother?”

“You’ve got to help me, Father Pantheon,” Percival moaned. He placed one foot on the stone bench and leaned toward the priest. “It’s about a woman.”

Father Patrion sighed, and then, seeing that Percival had come to a full stop, urged him on. “Of course, go on.”

“I need to invite this woman to the Couples’ Dance of Spring Revels,” Percival replied.

Father Patrion rolled his eyes. Spring Revels! What person in the town
wasn’t
concerned with Spring Revels? All the inhabitants were stuck in their homes, the fields all covered under snow or frost and asleep until spring. There was nothing to do
but
talk of Spring Revels. In a flash, however, Father Patrion thought he might see a way out of this discussion. “Then you have my blessing, my brother, to go and ask this woman to the Revels. I trust that the blessings of—”

“No!” Percival continued, “I can’t just ask her like anyone else. It needs to be special, romantic and memorable, so that she’ll see how great I really am. My mother told me the other day—”

“Your mother?” Father Patrion asked.

“Yes, she told me this great story she heard the other day about a man who met a woman in a romantic secret rendezvous—that was the very word she said,
rendezvous—
and how the man asked the woman in secret and she was so overcome by his romantic-ness that she swooned in his arms. That was the very word—
swooned.
”

“That’s fine, Percival, but what has all this got to do with—”

“You’ll arrange it for me!” Percival crowed, poking his finger firmly into the priest’s chest for emphasis. “You, the honest, trusted cleric of our community, will convey my invitation to this secret rendezvous.”

“But that’s over a month away,” Father Patrion exclaimed.

“Sure, but you’ve got to get this message to her right away,” Percival said earnestly. “I mean, what if some other man arranged for you to deliver this message before I did?”

“Percival, I really don’t think this is anything that I—”

“What was that!” Percival leaped back with less the grace of a cat than the stumble of a startled puppy.

There was a banging once again against Father Patrion’s front door.

The priest frowned.

“Quick! Hide me!” Percival said to the priest.

“Hide you? Whatever for?”

“I don’t want anyone to know I’m here,” Percival said sourly. “Someone might think I’m having trouble asking her out myself!”

The banging on the door resumed.

“It’s going to be all right.” Father Pantheon held up both his hands, then pointed toward the east side of the atrium. “You see that doorway there? Go in, close the door behind you, and wait for me.”

“But it’s dark in there,” Percival whined.

“That’s because it’s night,” Father Patrion answered, shoving the young man toward the doorway. When he was sure Percival was properly out of sight, the priest threw open the latch to the door once more.

“Good evening, Father, may I see you a moment?”

Before the astonished Father Patrion could answer, the Dragon’s Bard had slipped past him and into the atrium.

“You!” the Father exclaimed.

“Indeed, it is I, the Dragon’s Bard, in your very atrium, good Father Pantheon,” the Bard replied with a flourish of his hat.

“That’s Father
Patrion,
” the priest corrected, “and what are you doing here at this time of night?”

“I have come on behalf of a young man in need of your assistance,” the Bard intoned in his most serious, resonant voice. “It’s about . . . a
woman!
”

Father Patrion felt the blood coming into this face. “If you have had a dalliance with any of our good women, the town council will—”

“It is not for
me
that I come!” Edvard drew himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. “I am but a servant in this matter of one of your own good men who needs the help of his friends in order to secure the woman he loves!”

Father Patrion slowly drew his hand down the features of his face. “My good man, I am in no position—”

“Ah, but you are in the
perfect
position, and that is the point of my coming here,” Edvard exclaimed. “Only you are in such a position of trust that your message may be believed without question and—”

“Hold!” Father Patrion thought he could hear some moaning from the eastern room. “Edvard . . . isn’t it?”

“At your service, good Father Priest!”

“Edvard, do you see that doorway?”

“The one to the west, you mean?”

“Yes, the one that I’m pointing at—await me there and I will be with you directly.”

“With heartfelt assurance,” the Bard replied.

Father Patrion smiled and waited until the Bard had closed the door behind him. Then he turned quickly and padded to the east room door, his candle in hand.

Percival looked enormously relieved as the light entered the room. The room itself was Father Patrion’s study, and Percival was rather out of place in his newly tailored sneaking clothes. One of the chairs had been knocked over as the youth had moved about in the dark, but gratefully nothing more had been disarranged by his blind stumbling.

“I appear to have a very busy evening, so if you do not mind—”

“It’s very simple; I’ve worked everything out,” Percival said. He turned and started rearranging the items on the top of Father Patrion’s desk. “This book thing . . . what is it?”

“That’s my Psalter of Morning Reflections!”

“Right. This psalter is the Pantheon Church, see? This plate over here is Chestnut Court, and this . . . what is this ribbon?”

Father Patrion shook his head in despair. “The Sash of Prayer.”

“Well, now it’s the West Wanderwine,” Percival continued without pause. “This inkwell is the Cursed Sundial, and that blotter is Jep Walters’s place on the south side of Charter Square. Here’s all you have to do—”

“All I
have
to do?”

“It couldn’t be more perfect,” Percival went on. “You go to Vestia Walters—that’s Jep’s daughter—and deliver a message to her. She’s to meet me in the deep shadows of the Pantheon Church right after the Ladies’ Dance. There in the darkness I will deliver to her the feelings of my heart—along with one really expensive present my mother picked out—and then, HUZZAH! We’re off to the Couples’ Dance, with Vestia completely smitten with my charm and grace.”

Father Patrion shook his head. “Tell me, Percival, just where did you get an idea so—”

“From my mother,” Percival answered quickly.

“Your . . . your mother?”

“Absolutely!” Percival beamed. “She heard this story the other day from the Dragon’s Bard about a young princess who desperately wanted to be loved but her beauty was so great that no one in the town could speak with her but there was this handsome prince who really wanted to court her but couldn’t figure out a way to do it and so the young woman was told by the local priest to console herself by the light of the moon under the shadow of a gigantic oak tree that—”

“Percival, I don’t need the whole story,” Father Patrion said, holding up a staying hand.

“Of course, I’ve adapted it myself,” Percival basked in his own cleverness. “I mean, I figured out to substitute your church for the oak, which is much better suited for lurking and skulking, and, of course, I’m not actually a prince but then Vestia is no princess either—”

“Well, that may depend on who you ask,” Patrion muttered to himself, but then he spoke up again. “So, all you want is for me to tell Vestia Walters to meet you after the Ladies’ Dance in the church.”

“No!” Percival said, slamming his hand down hard on the desk and scattering the map of the town he had just built. “You cannot tell her it’s me! That’s the
mystery
part that will draw her heart into the church!”

“And presumably the rest of her with it,” Father Patrion chuckled.

“Huh?”

“Don’t you worry,” Father Patrion answered through a yawn. “I’ll deliver your message for you. Now, go home before your father figures out you’re running about in the night looking like Dirk Gallowglass.”

Percival grinned as Father Patrion took his candle in hand. They both left the room and entered the arcade around the atrium. Father Patrion watched with a weary smile as Percival moved with exaggerated stealth among the columns before letting himself out the massive front doors.

Father Patrion chuckled into the darkness of the atrium and was about to turn back toward his bedchamber at the back of the house when he suddenly remembered that he still had company. His eyes were stinging and longed to close for the night, but he could hardly leave such a rogue cooling his boots inside his own house. The priest stepped across the atrium and opened the door.

This room was a guest room set aside for any visiting Masterpriests who may happen to call upon him from Mordale. That there had never been any visiting Masterpriests had not deterred Father Patrion’s hope, so the room was always kept ready for visitors who never came.