The Bear

  A long while passed as Bransen just stood, deciphering some of the information he had come away with. He was truly surprised to realize that he had learned so much, for when it was being imparted he had barely been aware of it!

  He knew of Cormack and Milkeila’s latest mission to Bannagran and of the attack by the Hou-lei assassins. Brother Giavno had saved his friends in the south, surely. Giavno had sacrificed himself for the sake of his old friend Cormack. Bransen had felt the intersecting notions of altruism, of greater good, and of compensation within the mad monk, for he knew the tale of Giavno and Cormack and of how Giavno had betrayed Cormack to the sentence of Father De Guilbe in faraway Alpinador. Indeed, Giavno had been the one to carry out the sentence, whipping Cormack nearly to death.

  “You are redeemed,” Bransen said to the monk, who sat across from him, his head lolling stupidly from side to side. Bransen glanced out the window and noted the sun. Gwydre and Pinower were long out of St. Mere Abelle, moving east along the southern shore of the Gulf of Corona to an assigned spot where they were to meet up with Dawson McKeege and the Vanguard flotilla.

  The thought of saying goodbye to Cadayle yet again stung Bransen as he considered his course, but his wife had made her own feelings on this very clear, after all. It was their war, too, hers and Bransen’s, and a war worth fighting and worth winning.

  “Fight well, Brother Giavno,” Bransen said, and he respectfully bowed to the monk and rushed from the room.

  “You, as well,” Giavno replied, though not loud enough for Bransen to hear. The monk blinked his eyes a few times, taking in his surroundings.

  “St. Mere Abelle?” he said, or started to say, but then Ishat attacked again in his mind and his head rolled and he began to babble, and all the world became again a knot of supple appendages and discordant thoughts.

  It was a kiss of promise, a kiss of hope and desperation, a longing for quiet times ahead—but, Cadayle insisted, quiet times under the rule of a goodly queen.

  “Bannagran is key,” Bransen said when at last their lips parted and he moved back a finger’s breadth from his pretty wife.

  “He seems uninterested,” Cadayle replied, for Bransen had told her of the news from the south.

  Bransen smiled. “I know him. I know who he is.”

  Cadayle backed off a bit more and looked at Bransen with puzzlement.

  “I know his fear,” Bransen said. “That is the key to it all, for all of us. Fear is the emotion that most guides our actions.”

  Cadayle appeared unconvinced.

  “In the Book of Jhest, the ancient wisdom of the Jhesta Tu insists that it is fear of death, of that greatest unknown, that guides most lives. Whether moved to goodly deeds or to heinous ones—as with the Samhaists toward your mother—it is that overriding fear of nothingness that allows a man of good heart to rot. Bannagran watched your mother put into the sack with the snake. He allowed it. Master Reandu allowed it.”

  “They could not stop it,” Cadayle replied.

  “Half the townsfolk of Pryd watched it and cheered it and allowed it! Perhaps some of them thought it justice, though Callen’s crime was hardly worthy of such an awful retribution. Nay, most endured it and embraced it because they were afraid, not of reprisal at that time, but of eternal damnation or nothingness had they not supported the evil Bernivvigar. That was his hold, and as he commanded death itself, so his hold grew stronger.”

  “You think Laird Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, the greatest champion alive, is afraid of dying?” Cadayle asked skeptically.

  Bransen half nodded, half shrugged. “Not exactly that,” he replied. “But in many ways, the hero Bannagran is less brave than Laird Delaval or Laird Ethelbert, or even the idiot Yeslnik.”

  “Yeslnik cowers and shrieks like a child when threatened,” Cadayle argued. “Bannagran smiles and attacks.”

  “Without responsibility,” said Bransen. “For that is his fear.”

  Cadayle spent a long while digesting that and trying to make some sense of it, but in the end, she just conceded the point and asked, “And you believe that you can turn him to our cause?”

  Bransen thought, Or to his own, but he kept that to himself and answered, “If I cannot, then the best we can hope for is a retreat to Vanguard, where we will all be so far away that Yeslnik will not think it worth the trouble to pursue us. Even if I do convince Bannagran that our cause is correct and just, Yeslnik holds the upper hand.”

  Cadayle smiled and came forward, tightening her hug on her husband. “Nay,” she whispered. “Gwydre does.” She kissed Branson softly. “For Dame Gwyd—Queen Gwydre has my husband at her side, and woe to any who deign to challenge the Highwayman.”

  She kissed him again, and again, and it seemed to last forever while it was happening, a deep and inviting and warm blackness. But when it ended, all too soon, Bransen felt as if hardly a heartbeat had passed, and, truly, he never wanted to leave Cadayle’s side ever again. He let his hand slide down as they embraced, to feel her belly, to feel his child in her womb. What an extraordinary year it had been!

  When Bransen rushed out of St. Mere Abelle’s front gate a short while later, he understood clearly the stakes in this dangerous game he played: the promise of happiness weighed against the potential of utter ruin.

  Just outside, he fell into the malachite again, lessening his weight, using those giant running strides, lifting and floating and propelling himself past any obstacles to cover a tremendous amount of ground in short order. He focused on this task, speed, most of all, finding the limits and balance of the gemstone magic to perfectly complement his powerful strides, with minimum physical and mental effort.

  He felt like he could run like this, effortlessly, the leagues rolling out behind him, for all the day long.

  Gwydre and her force had left before the dawn, Bransen had exited the gates of St. Mere Abelle with the sun already low in the western sky, and still, his steps greatly exaggerated and elongated by the gemstone magic, he came in sight of Gwydre’s camp before darkness fell.

  The soldiers and the monks greeted him warmly, even by a round of cheering at one point, and it struck him in this moment, in this mood, with this plan, poignantly. A self-deprecating chuckle escaped him as he came in sight of Dame Gwydre—and no doubt, she viewed it as his typical humility in the face of public applause.

  But Bransen wasn’t thinking himself unworthy at that moment, he was laughing at his inability to accept the role such accolades had afforded him in all the weeks and months before. He was the Highwayman, a hero to the people, not because of his physical prowess, though that was surely a vehicle for his ascent, but because he had taken up their cause against the injustices of callous lairds. And he had not been able to bring himself to accept such accolades, not out of humility, but out of cowardice, for to admit them was to take responsibility for them. To admit the cheers was to accept responsibility for the man who was cheering.

  “How fares Brother Giavno?” Brother Pinower asked him as he approached Gwydre.

  “He is in there, fighting,” Bransen replied. “I tried to unravel enough of his thoughts to allow him a grasp of identity. But the entanglements are vast, I fear, and only Brother Giavno can truly find his way through the knots.

  “But I did garner much information from him,” Bransen announced, turning his attention to Gwydre.

  “Good news from the south?” she asked hopefully.

  “Possibly,” Bransen answered. “And certainly I learned of critical developments that teeter on the edge of victory and disaster. I have come for you,” he added, holding out his hand.

  “St. Mere Abelle?” she asked, obviously not understanding.

  Bransen shook his head. “South.”

  “Dawson will dock in two days, my army behind him.”

  “There is no time for delay, and no need for your army at this time. Indeed, in this instance, bringing your army would likely do no more than ensure its destruction.”

  “What is this about, B
ransen?” Brother Pinower asked.

  “It is about Bannagran of Pryd and about Cormack and Milkeila and their valiant efforts to turn him from the side of King Yeslnik.”

  “Bannagran has turned?” Gwydre asked, and Pinower sucked in his breath in desperate hope.

  “No,” Bransen answered. “But I think he will.”

  Gwydre looked at him curiously.

  “You would take our leader to Bannagran’s court when he has not yet deserted the ranks of King Yeslnik?” Brother Pinower asked incredulously. “When he has not proclaimed a truce or allegiance to Dame Gwydre? A fine prize you would deliver!”

  “Yes,” Bransen answered. He turned to look directly into Gwydre’s eyes. “Yes,” he repeated. “I will protect you, there and back again. I know Laird Bannagran, and, for all of our battles, I know that he is a man of honor. He will accept our offer of parlay, honestly and honorably. And I believe that when he sees the truth of our cause and of our queen, he will recognize the folly that is Yeslnik. Now is our moment.”

  “She cannot go,” Brother Pinower declared. “I have been charged with her safety and I will not allow it.”

  “I went to the glaciers of Alpinador to do battle with the most dangerous man in the world on your behalf,” Bransen reminded Gwydre. “I delivered the head of Ancient Badden to you, for your sake and for that of your people. And I support your cause now—you know that.”

  “I do not question your loyalty.”

  “It is your judgment we question,” Brother Pinower added.

  Bransen flashed Gwydre a wry little smile. “I am correct in this. I know Bannagran. I have a message for him, and that message is you, and I will deliver it with a mirror.”

  “You speak in riddles!” Brother Pinower protested, but Dame Gwydre held up a hand to silence him.

  “You trusted me to win your war,” Bransen reminded her.

  Dame Gwydre took his hand, and Brother Pinower protested loudly.

  “How long will we be away?” Gwydre asked.

  “A matter of days,” Bransen promised.

  “Pryd Town is a week’s hard march from here!” the agitated monk argued. “At least!”

  Bransen winked at him. “You should learn how to better manipulate your gemstones,” he said, leading Gwydre away.

  “Are you ready to fly, milady?”

  “Fly?”

  “Well, perhaps ‘bounce’ would be a better description.”

  “Bounce?” Gwydre repeated again, as Bransen fell into the malachite and transferred its levitation powers to her as well. Still holding fast to her hand, he leaped away, soaring ten strides from Brother Pinower, touching down lightly, and springing away once more, an even farther leap.

  All witnessing the deerlike movements gasped, some giggled, and more than one, Pinower included, made the sign of the evergreen.

  By the time Dame Gwydre caught her breath, the campfires of her forces were long out of sight. Bransen had asked her if she was ready to fly, and she thought that a perfect word for this experience. For she barely touched down at the end of each stride and felt weightless even then. Away they flew, another ten long strides in one great bound.

  The moon rose in the east, a cloudless night, and still they ran on. It rose up above them, just south of their position, hanging in the air before them and dulling the multitude of stars with its glow, and still they bounded across the miles.

  “How far have we come?” Gwydre asked Bransen when finally he stopped, along a line of thick pines that offered shelter.

  “A long way,” he replied.

  “Are you not weary?”

  “It is late, and I need to sleep, yes, but the effort is remarkably light. Blessed, indeed, are the gemstones of Abelle. Each step is easy . . . and far.”

  “I could move my armies across the miles, surround King Yeslnik,” the Dame of Vanguard mused.

  Bransen grinned at her. “Our movement is as much a matter of my Jhesta Tu training as the gemstone magic,” he said. “I doubt you would find five brothers, nay two, who could so manipulate the malachite to travel as we have.”

  “Your humility is endearing,” Gwydre said sarcastically, but she was smiling back at Bransen. He bowed.

  “When will we arrive in Pryd Town?” Gwydre asked.

  “Probably not tomorrow, but the next day, I expect.”

  Dame Gwydre nodded and chewed her lip.

  “Bannagran will honor a flag of parlay,” Bransen assured her. “As he did with Ethelbert.”

  “He refused Ethelbert, you said. He mocked the man and sent him away with a promise that he would soon tear down the walls of Ethelbert’s beloved city.”

  “All true.”

  “He is going to dismiss me out of hand . . . if we are fortunate.”

  “It is possible,” Bransen replied. Gwydre looked up at him curiously with obvious disappointment, letting Bransen know that she was hoping he would disagree with her. But he didn’t. He just smiled and shrugged.

  “You are irascible,” Dame Gwydre said.

  “Sleep well, milady,” said Bransen. “We have a long . . . bounce tomorrow.” He held up a low-hanging branch, inviting her into the cavelike hollow beneath it.

  “Out here, under the moon and the stars,” Gwydre said, waving him away and turning from the pine tree shelter. She moved to a grassy patch and lay down on her back. She folded her fingers behind her head and seemed so very much at ease.

  Bransen just stared at her in admiration. There was so much simple truth about Dame Gwydre. He thought of Bannagran, he looked at Gwydre, and he was certain that the Laird of Pryd would have a harder time sending her away than he had Ethelbert.

  They were out again soon after dawn, moving even faster than on the previous leg of the journey. For now, the sun bright in the sky above, Bransen didn’t need to waste any of his magical energy on the cat’s-eye agate, the gem which allowed him to run in the dark. He could plan his steps better and—even more important—plan his landings better. Also, Dame Gwydre was less a passenger this day and far more involved in coordinating her movements with Bransen’s. She laughed to him that this journey reminded her of games she used to play as a young girl, skipping and dancing.

  In the early afternoon, Bransen had a good idea of where they were exactly, recognizing the small town just three days’ normal march north of Pryd. They crossed fields now, open and level, and heard the cries of onlookers.

  They just ignored those commotions and kept right on bounding along, knowing that none of the concerned citizens could hope to catch up to them.

  They ended earlier that night than on the previous, for Bransen knew that they were but a couple of hours north of Pryd Town, and he didn’t want to go in under cover of darkness.

  “Nor do I wish us exhausted,” he explained to Gwydre as they settled in under the stars once more. “We must be sharp and rested for our parlay with Bannagran, for convincing him will be no easy feat.”

  “But you think it possible?”

  “If I didn’t, I would never have so inconvenienced you.” He tossed her a wink and lay back on his natural bedding.

  “Bransen, why?” Gwydre asked him before he had even closed his eyes. He sat up to his elbows.

  “Why?”

  “Why this change in you, so full of hope and determination?”

  “I told you when I returned with Badden’s head—”

  “That was a long time ago,” Gwydre interrupted. “Not so long in months, perhaps, but ages in terms of what we have experienced since. And even then, when I saw that you had come around to the notion of a just cause and a greater good, you were not nearly as animated as this warrior I see before me now.”

  “You disapprove?”

  “Hardly that!”

  Bransen laughed. “Three good women, Dame Gwydre,” he answered.

  “Your wonderful wife, surely.”

  “And her mother.”

  “Dawson would agree.”

  “And you,” Bransen added.
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  Dame Gwydre did not blush, but neither did she reply.

  “The difference between you and Yeslnik, particularly regarding the lives of those you would rule, is too great for even stubborn Bransen Garibond to dismiss,” Bransen explained. “When winter fell deep in Pellinor, you brought your subjects into the warmth of your home. You fed them and gathered wood for them and made sure that they were safe. In such a state, I expect a hungry Yeslnik would eat his subjects.”

  “Bransen, no!”

  “He would feed them to his wife, at least,” the Highwayman replied. His grin disappeared after a moment, his expression reflecting the seriousness of the situation. “Honce will be united under a single ruler. Of that, I have no doubt. The brutality of the war between Delaval and Ethelbert has assured that outcome—few holdings could hope to stand on their own any longer, even without the deep resentments that have been fostered from land to land and laird to laird. If Yeslnik is king, his rule will be marred by almost continual war, for the people will suffer and the lairds will face uprisings. Even the church will turn against the common folk, for Father De Guilbe, I assure you, is an unpleasant and wicked man.”

  “I have seen enough of him to know the truth of your words. But I assure you that such is not the case with Father Premujon.”

  Bransen nodded his agreement, then lowered his gaze, considered his own words, and shrugged. “This is worth the fight,” he said quietly. He looked up at Dame Gwydre. “This is worth dying for.”

  NINETEEN

  King’s Favor

  “Powries!” Yeslnik screamed. He threw a pillow across the room. “Always it is something to deny me my glory! Can they not all just accept God’s proclamation and let me have my due?”

  “Soon, my love,” said Queen Olym, who sat at her vanity powdering her cheeks and nose.

  “It is unpleasant!” Yeslnik whined.

  Olym dropped her powder box to the vanity with a clunk and swung her ample form about to better view her husband. “It always will be,” she said. “There will always be a powrie, or a peasant, or a nasty laird to cause mischief. That is the way of it, and that is why you have Bannagran and Milwellis. You need not bother with the details of order, just the luxuries that order brings to you—to us—as King and Queen of Honce. So there are powries running the river coast, killing peasants. Oh dear, but it pains my heart!” She fluttered her eyes and mockingly grasped her chest, but came out of the pose with a stern and fixed look. “Why do I care and why does King Yeslnik? The silly dwarves cannot harm us behind these walls. I did hope to summer in Palmaristown this year, but the city is still damaged anyway, and next year will suffice.”