They knew the Highwayman here in Pryd Town. And they loved him.
Chapel Pryd was close to Castle Pryd, and as the monks obviously heard the approach of the Highwayman and his considerable entourage, for their courtyard gates opened before Bransen even approached, so too, he figured, had some in the castle heard.
He didn’t think about that as he walked through the chapel’s outer wall, a flood of memories greeting him the moment he stepped again onto Chapel Pryd’s courtyard. Up the white stone path, the doors to the chapel proper were also opened, brothers peering with obvious apprehension.
Bransen moved into the large foyer, Jameston beside him, and before he could even ask the astonished young brothers standing there to see the leaders, Master Reandu appeared flanked by several others.
“Bransen!” Master Reandu blurted. “What are you doing here? Are you mad? You left under condition of a strict penalty.”
“Good to meet you, too,” Jameston muttered so that only Bransen and a couple of nearby monks could hear.
“And I return to insist that the condition be revoked,” Bransen said.
“Are you a madman?” Reandu repeated, apprehension growing on his face.
Bransen reached over his shoulder and produced Dame Gwydre’s Writ of Passage from the scroll tube he had tied diagonally across his back. “On the contrary, Brother Reandu,” he said, handing it over.
“Master Reandu,” one of the monks behind corrected sharply.
“I find this to be a most glorious day,” Bransen announced. He offered a smile before finishing, “Master Reandu.”
Before the monk could respond, a shout came from the courtyard. “You!” came the resonating voice of Laird Bannagran.
“The Bear of Honce!” the monk behind Reandu breathed with obvious terror.
“It would have to be, would it not?” Bransen asked as he turned. But any intention he had of parlaying here, of letting Dame Gwydre’s writ carry any weight for him, disappeared as he swung about.
Great axe in hand, a look of sheer outrage on his face, Bannagran didn’t seem to be in any mood for talking. The laird charged with a roar, his axe upright before him, not tipping his hand about the intended angle of his initial cut.
Jameston moved for his bow, but Bransen, drawing his sword with his right hand, pushed Jameston to the side with his left. His sword came out in the blink of an eye, which seemed to surprise Bannagran. He kept coming, though, his axe head slipped over his left shoulder. He turned his foot in with his closing step at the Highwayman, also to the left.
A lesser fighter would have cringed and braced, and thus been cut in half, but the Highwayman anticipated every movement. When Bannagran went into his sudden spin, axe flying to arm’s length, Bransen was already moving. He shifted to his left, dancing past the retreating Jameston. When Bannagran came around, axe slashing powerfully, he hit nothing but air. Too fine a warrior to leave himself open despite the daring move, Bannagran recovered almost immediately, stopping short his swing as soon as he realized the Highwayman’s dodge. Reorienting himself, he squared up with his opponent.
“Are we to do this dance again?” the Highwayman asked. “And who will die this time when you throw your weapon at me in frustration?”
That last question made Bannagran narrow his eyes with anger. He stepped forward fast, chopping down left to right, right to left, and back to the first strike. The Highwayman swayed to his left, to his right, and to his left again, causing three near but complete misses. He countered with a sudden stab of his sword, but Bannagran threw his hips behind him, less gracefully than the Highwayman had dodged the axe swings but effective nonetheless.
The Highwayman thrust again. Bannagran, his hands wide on the handle of his great axe, drove his weapon down to deflect the blade low, then stepped ahead and threw forward his right hand, the lower on his axe, punching the handle at the Highwayman’s face.
Bransen dropped under it and came on lower this time. Bannagran had to throw his feet out behind him wildly to save his shins. He staggered and scrambled as the Highwayman pressed the attack, stabbing at one leg, then the other.
“Read it!” the Highwayman shouted to Master Reandu, the Writ of Passage still rolled in his hand.
The Highwayman duckwalked in a crouch, his sword prodding faster and faster to keep the retreating Bannagran off balance, to keep him working furiously with his feet and his weapon so that the great warrior of Pryd Town could not begin a counterattack.
“I did not return to Pryd to fight you,” the Highwayman said to him.
“I told you to stay away,” Bannagran growled in response. “Forevermore!”
“Things have changed,” the Highwayman insisted.
“The worse for you!” Bannagran shouted as he leaped up and forward, clearing the Highwayman. The warrior landed in a forward roll and came up and around with a great sidelong slash designed to keep the Highwayman far away.
But Bransen was right beside him as he turned. The sword blade hit the axe handle before Bannagran could build any momentum. The Highwayman slid it right up to slam hard at the crook between axe handle and head.
The Highwayman grabbed Bannagran’s chest with his free hand. “I don’t want to fight you!” he yelled in Bannagran’s face.
“Hold, Laird Bannagran!” cried Reandu, who had finally recovered his wits enough to read the scroll.
Bannagran pulled his left hand free of his trapped axe, retracted immediately, and moved to slug the Highwayman, a heavy and powerful punch that would have surely crushed the young warrior’s face. But Bannagran flew backward before he had barely begun the swing, jolted by a blast of lightning-like energy. He landed on his heels but stumbled down to a seated position on the floor some ten feet away, his long black hair flying wildly.
“You cheat with the gemstones!” Bannagran growled through chattering teeth.
“He has a Writ of Passage from Dame Gwydre of Vanguard!” Master Reandu shouted, “Forgiving him his crimes of theft and praising him for the great victory in the north!”
“What?” Bannagran scrambled to his feet, giving no indication he intended to abandon his battle.
“I fought for her,” the Highwayman explained. “I killed Ancient Badden of the Samhaists and freed her people from the grip of horrible war.”
“That means nothing to me.” Bannagran hoisted his axe as if he meant to charge again.
“In return, Dame Gwydre has pardoned me for my past . . . difficulties,” the Highwayman said.
“A Writ of Passage,” Master Reandu said again.
“Does that include your murder of King Delaval?”
“My what?”
“I thought not!” Bannagran said and charged again. He came in furiously, his axe working brilliantly in short strokes and stabs with its pointed iron top. Almost any other warrior in Honce would have been cut repeatedly by that barrage, and all in the room gasped and winced, expecting the Highwayman to fall to the floor in pieces.
But to the Highwayman, it seemed as if Bannagran was moving in slow motion. Bransen easily worked his sword, tip up, tip down, left and right, to slap against the axe every time and always before the powerful Bannagran could gain momentum behind his swing.
Silverel rang against iron and tapped against the wooden handle. The Highwayman’s hand moved in a blur before him, perfect aim, perfect angle. The exchange went on for what seemed like an eternity, though it was not more than a score of heartbeats. More gasps echoed in the nave of Chapel Pryd.
Bannagran came in hard, swinging left to right. The Highwayman chopped a shortened downstroke, sliding his sword again along the blade to hook the axe under the head. He continued his rotation through the backhand, high over their heads, then down to the left and low to the right, where an extra shove of that sword nearly swung Bannagran around.
The Laird of Pryd fought to hold his balance but didn’t even recognize that the Highwayman had disengaged and turned his sword with such precision and speed that the tip was
in at Bannagran’s throat before he had begun to move his axe again.
All in the room gasped to see the great Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, defeated. But Bannagran wasn’t quite finished yet. With a suddenness that startled everyone except the always cool Highwayman, Bannagran threw himself over backward. At the same time he used his tremendous strength to bring his great axe sweeping up from the side so that as he pursued, the Highwayman had to suddenly retract his blade or have it raked aside by the axe.
Bannagran hit the ground in a roll, throwing himself over and stumbling fast back to his feet, slashing his axe the rest of the way to his right, then back again to the left.
Fast and balanced, the Highwayman rushed in as the axe went to Bannagran’s left, stepping quickly past the man’s right. He flipped his sword to his left hand and stabbed behind his back to the right. Bannagran turned and lurched in a desperate dodge as Bransen ran by him. Though the fine sword did whip past, it seemed to all that he had avoided the blow.
He turned and the Highwayman continued back a couple of steps, then spun to face him directly once more, tossing his sword back to his main hand.
A curious expression crossed Bannagran’s face, and he slyly slipped one hand behind his hip to feel his torn tunic and shirt under the back of his breastplate. He looked questioningly at the Highwayman.
Bransen half shrugged, half nodded to confirm Bannagran’s suspicions: He had lost this fight not once but twice, for in both the movement that had removed the sword from under his chin and in his dodge from the Highwayman’s charge, the only thing that had saved him was Bransen’s mercy. Twice in the span of a few heartbeats, the Highwayman had beaten him.
“Are we to continue this folly all the day?” Bransen asked. “Read the Writ of Passage.”
“You murdered King Delaval!” Bannagran snarled.
“His sword is whole!” Master Reandu cried in sudden realization.
The Highwayman glanced back at him curiously, then looked to his magnificent blade.
“He repaired it!” Bannagran insisted.
Bransen snapped his sword down beside him and retreated three fast steps. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “My sword, my mother Sen Wi’s sword, has never been broken.”
“The sword that slew King Delaval was broken in half,” Reandu explained.
“In the man’s chest,” another monk added.
“Surely not a blade like this,” said Bransen, presenting his sword before him.
“Exactly so!” Reandu replied pointing to Bannagran. When he looked to the laird, Bransen saw Bannagran draw the top half of a delicately curving blade from a sheath on his hip, a scabbard that Bransen had thought for a long dagger and empty since no hilt had shown there.
“The blade that killed King Delaval,” Bannagran said, holding it up for Bransen and all the others to clearly view. “So much like your own. Too much like your own!”
Bransen turned his blade over up before his eyes, noting the unmistakable similarities. “Where did you get that?” he asked, finding it hard suddenly to even draw breath as the implications of that blade—unmistakably a Jhesta Tu blade—began washing over him.
“From King Delaval’s chest,” Bannagran answered. “And for it, King Yeslnik has declared you guilty of murder.”
“But it is not my blade,” Bransen protested, turning his own over again to accentuate his point.
“It is too similar, possessed by one of like mind and training as you,” Bannagran said.
Bransen had no answer other than to shake his head. Eventually, he managed to say, “I was in Vanguard when Delaval was murdered. Dame Gwydre will confirm my claim. Last time I was in Delaval City was before the winter, and Laird Delaval—”
“King Delaval!” Bannagran corrected.
“King Delaval,” said Bransen, not wishing to argue such points. “He was very much alive when I left, and I have never returned. That is not my sword, and I have never seen another sword of this type in my life until just this moment!”
Bannagran stared at him hard. If he was softening at all to Bransen’s reasoning, he wasn’t showing it.
“Does the truth not matter?” Bransen asked.
“Not to King Yeslnik,” said Bannagran.
“What is this insanity that has gripped all of Honce?” Bransen asked as he spun around, sheathing his sword in a single fluid movement to address all in the chapel. “Is there no limit to the misery these lairds will inflict for the sake of their own gain?”
“Enough of your speeches!” Bannagran yelled at him. He turned his gaze wider. “All of you be gone!” he demanded. “Now!” Brother, soldier, and peasant alike scrambled to escape the volatile man’s wrath, leaving only Bransen and Jameston, Reandu, and a pair of Bannagran’s guards in the wide nave.
“You have seen Dame Gwydre’s Writ of Passage,” Bransen said when the commotion died away. “She offered to me and my family a full pardon in exchange for my actions on her behalf against Ancient Badden. Will you honor her decree?”
Bannagran paused and continued to stare at him. “Your family? Callen Duwornay and her daughter, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“For them, yes,” said Bannagran. “For you, no. Not until you clear your name with King Yeslnik, and I think that unlikely.”
“And if I do? Am I to be welcomed back in Pryd with Callen and Cadayle beside me?”
Bannagran looked to Reandu, gave a deep and profound sigh, and then stated, to Reandu’s obvious surprise and to Bransen’s, “Yes.”
“Bannagran?” Reandu asked.
“Yes,” the Bear of Honce said again more forcefully and confidently. “I’m sick of it all.”
“I did not mean for you to kill Prydae,” said Bransen. “But I went to his tower to protect my love and would do so again!”
“Silence,” Bannagran warned. “I have given you what you desire and all that I can. Ask no more of me. Understand, Highwayman, that I’ll not tolerate any of your indiscretions should you ever return.”
“I will return.”
“King Yeslnik will never agree.”
“But, my family? You said—”
“They can return to Pryd Town at their leisure,” Bannagran assured him. “That poor woman, Callen, never deserved the sack, though her sniveling lover surely did. The Samhaists are long gone from Pryd Town, so I care not if the Duwornays walk here openly. But you remain another matter.”
“I will clear my name,” Bransen said.
“I am tasked with killing you,” Bannagran admitted.
Bransen laughed. “Care to try again?”
“Bransen!” Reandu and Jameston scolded in unison.
Bannagran held up his hand to silence them and assure them that all was calm here. “Be gone from my town and my holding.”
“I ask two things of you before I leave.”
The Bear of Honce put his hands on his hips and stared at Bransen hard, thinking to question the young man’s nerve in making requests. However, remembering their fight and noting that the young warrior did not flinch or back down, Bannagran merely waited.
“First, I would speak with Master Reandu.”
“You have until the noontime hour.”
“And, second, allow me that broken sword.”
“It is not mine to give.”
“Let me study it at least,” said Bransen, desperation creeping into his voice. Bannagran, Reandu, and particularly Jameston looked at him with surprise.
“Please,” said Bransen. “I believe that to be a Jhesta Tu blade.”
“Like your own.”
“Perhaps.”
Bannagran tossed the blade to the floor at Bransen’s feet. With trembling hands the young man picked it up and turned it over and over, pointing it away from his eyes so that he could study the break.
Wrapped metal. Just like his own sword. Only the Jhesta Tu were known to create such blades. Bransen could hardly draw breath. He closed his eyes and considered the possibilities here, if
the Jhesta Tu mystics had truly come to Honce. That long road, that long-avoided road, now loomed before him, within his grasp, as never before.
“Then Laird Ethelbert has hired Jhesta Tu mercenaries from Behr,” Bannagran remarked.
Bransen blinked out of his contemplations. “No,” he said as he tried to sort through Bannagran’s claim. “No.”
“It is such a blade,” said Bannagran.
“Jhesta Tu are not mercenaries. They cannot—”
“That blade slew King Delaval. The wielder of that blade, part of a small band by all reports—and dressed as you are, by all accounts—scaled the castle walls and defeated King Delaval and his elite warriors in short order.”
Bransen couldn’t doubt the claim, but he did not understand the concept of Jhesta Tu mercenaries. If they were fighting for Laird Ethelbert, which seemed likely, then it was for philosophy and preference and not for coin. The notion shook the young man profoundly. “May I keep this?” he asked.
Bannagran held out his big hand. Bransen reluctantly set the sword blade in it.
Bransen turned to Master Reandu. “In private?” The monk nodded and started for a side room.
“Noontime,” Bannagran reiterated as Bransen walked past. “Then be far from Pryd, and return not other than on pain of death unless King Yeslnik has declared your innocence and freedom.”
Bransen didn’t bother to respond.
M
aster Reandu’s visage and posture changed noticeably when he and Bransen were away from Bannagran and alone in a side room of Chapel Pryd. His face brightened and his step lightened, and his smile seemed truly genuine.
“My heart warms at seeing you walking so tall and straight,” he said.
“You saw it before I left, when you took me to kill Laird Prydae,” Bransen replied curtly. Reandu stiffened and took a step back at the grim reminder of that fateful day.
“But that was because of the soul stone.”
“As is this,” said Bransen. He brushed his long hair aside and indicated the brooch set in his forehead.