My breath catches at my first glimpse of our last compatriot. She rides in through the arch on the back of a dark bay, a brindled dog swirling around the bay’s hooves, but I care not for either animal. All I see is the paladin.
She looks exactly like Marigold.
Well, she looks exactly like Marigold would look, if she were eight years older than when last I saw her, streaked in clay, and suffering from multiple injuries, some of which are infected. And if she wore rags, dented armor, and the worst excuse for a bear cloak I’ve ever seen.
I’m so stunned that I miss the greeting the Engineers give her, miss the furious silence of the High Saint who has been interrupted in his prayer, miss whatever they are saying about amulets.
It is as if my past has returned and placed a brand upon my heart. I am betrayed by surprise. It leaves a sore patch under my breastbone and a smarting in my eyes.
Lord of Sorrows, please take mine, I pray, as I have prayed a thousand times before, and unlike the rote prayers the others are so fond of, this one is only for me. It has been mine since I laid her body in the cold earth. Mine for so long that it is now a part of me.
I feel the prayer catching in my throat. Barbed in my unshed tears. I fight to release it — and with it, the breath I dare not hold much longer, lest I draw attention to myself. Some hurts are better kept to one’s own soul.
The Vagabond Paladin — for that is what she undoubtedly is, in that cobbled-together armor — studies us with the kind of hardness that is all for show.
Hefertus shifts uncomfortably. I believe he thinks she is mad. I glance at the naked disgust and horror in the faces of the others. They feel the same way.
I don’t share their reactions. I see through her daring ruse.
She has smeared mud across her chin and through her hair for this exact purpose. In the dried clay, I see the calculation of a razor-sharp mind. In the bold way she sits her horse, I see unrelenting courage. I see the eyes of Marigold when she pled with me to make it stop. I see my own empty hands, hands with no relief to offer.
With effort, I shake off the memories. They will claw at me again later. No need to indulge them now.
“Are you ill, Lady Paladin?” I ask her. I will heal her if she lets me.
But she lies to me, her voice as cold as the body of my former love. “I am well.”
Am I the only one who hears the lie in her voice? Who sees the posturing beneath the front? Or am I the only one who cares?
I send a brief look to my brother and sister paladins. Perhaps the Seer knows. If she does, then she is not saying. The rest seem perplexed by this brash young paladin.
“Do you have the amulet?” Sir Sorken asks her as the dog trots over to Hefertus and snuffles his hand.
Hefertus mindlessly scratches him behind the ears, but when I make to do the same, the dog whines and shies away from me. I feel the frown tightening my face. I can’t help it. Animals usually like me. They relax into my hands as I tease out their pains and aches. This one cannot seem to get away from me fast enough. His claws rattle against the bare stone.
I’m troubled by that. Not as troubled as I am by the Aspect of the Rejected God’s paladin, but still troubled.
Why would the Rejected God send such a very young paladin? This one barely seems to be past squirehood. And this quest will require careful negotiation if the Cup is found. We will need to find a truce between ten different aspects — and one without bloodshed.
Perhaps the Rejected God does not see any chance that their aspect will succeed at this and could not spare a more experienced knight. Or perhaps he plays another game and the way she throws us onto the back foot is intentional.
Rejected Paladins are devilishly difficult to sort at the best of times, but they always surprise us. Sometimes it seems their renunciation of wealth is a renunciation of society as a whole. Sometimes they almost seem insolent in their rejection.
Each aspect that calls paladins works in a similar fashion. We embrace one aspect of the God and when we lean into that, he blesses us with power. But to access that power, we must forswear something, and if we slip, if we fall into what we abhor, then the blessing is gone, and with it, the power.
For instance, if this young paladin were to accept one of Hefertus’s strings of pearls, having forsworn wealth as a Vagabond Paladin, she would lose her unique power — the ability to call on the God for help with open hands, just as she faces life with open hands ready to accept gifts, or accept their loss. Hers is a strange type of power. A power that renounces control.
That she comes to us wounded, swaying on her feet and streaked in blood, barely garners a second look from the rest of them. They expect her hollow poverty as they expect Hefertus’s pearls and flowing locks. We are a collection of types and we fit them so strongly that you could set us in stained glass and use us to decorate a church and no one would blink.
“Here,” they would say, “is the green-faced Poisoned Saint holding the cup with which he swallows our sorrows; here is the Prince Paladin, two fingers held up with the blessing he will speak over us; and here is the Beggar Knight, ragged and bloody, ready to take our evil and flee into the night with it.”
The others do not give her a second look because she is exactly what they expect, thrust-out jaw and challenging stare included. After a first disgusted look, they hardly even care about the clay smeared in her hair. She was a missing puzzle piece. Now she is found. That is all that matters.
I do not feel the same way.
I sneak another look at her face and hope that no one notices me doing it. I don’t want anyone getting ideas about why my interest tarries here. I’m tangled up with myriad thoughts and feelings slithering like a clump of snakes in the jar of my mind.
Part of me is upset about her obvious injuries. No mortal should contend with such pain. When she dismounts, she is favoring one side and one of her arms hangs lower than the other. The clay she has smeared over herself might distract the casual watcher, but my eyes see to the pain. Perhaps she has a broken or twisted rib. There’s definitely infection in those gashes. Whoever bound them was either hurried or incompetent.
That would be enough to bother me, but the dog makes it worse. There’s something wrong with the creature. When I look at it, it is well, and happy, and currently demanding affection from the blind Seer. She is trying to hide her shy smile at the attention, and that is all well and good, but the dog is a demon in canine form if I’ve ever seen one. It gives me a baleful glare and I return the sentiment. What manner of paladin rides with such a dog?
My heart is racing as it always does when I sense something that does not fit. There is something wrong about this Vagabond. Something on which I cannot place my gauntleted finger. Her beauty makes it worse. It stands in a rude contrast to her ragged filth.
My feelings of deep sorrow and tangled guilt at memories of Marigold muddy the waters further. Can I even trust my own observations when such a veil lies over them?
And under it all is something far more dangerous. Something I have not felt in a long time. Were I Hefertus, it would hardly signify. But I am a paladin of the Sorrowful God, called to heal others … and called to celibacy. I should not feel the stirrings that I do.
“We’ll go through the door tomorrow,” the Majester General is saying, and I gather that he’s been talking for a few minutes. “It’s too late in the day to enter now. We’ll camp for the night, have a friendly bout of swordplay to stretch the limbs and take one another’s measure, and then tomorrow we go in together. No need to all spread out and get into trouble on our own.”
“I am not here for games,” the Beggar Knight says, and I think she’d say more but the High Saint interrupts her.
“You’ve ridden in while we were saying Terce. I’d like to finish.”
She nods and bows as if to join him in prayer, but he’s shaking his head. “We can’t say prayers with your horse as part of the assembly.”
“I’ll guide her to the pickets.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize I’m the one speaking. This is close enough to sin that I shuffle my feet and a bead of sweat forms along my hairline, but I am the only Poisoned Saint here, and the others do not notice.
“Very good. We will say the prayer without you, and you will join us in your hearts,” the High Saint orders. Clearly, he is loath to wait even one more second.
It takes a solid effort not to smirk. I’ve always found pomp hilarious and the nerves I’m feeling at my slip are clawing down my tight control. I mask the rising smirk by making the holy sign, bent knuckle to forehead, heart, and sword arm.
“If you’ll come with me, Lady,” I murmur.
“Victoriana,” she corrects me.
“Lady Paladin,” I acknowledge, still refusing her name.
Hefertus’s snort is very quiet, but not quiet enough to be spared by the High Saint, who shoots him a venomous look as he begins the chant of the second prayer. Hefertus joins him loudly in his clear baritone, a look of cherubic innocence on his face.
I lead Victoriana to the pickets. Her name is quite a mouthful and it doesn’t suit the mud-streaked specter following me.
The dog comes with her. I could have done without his company. He springs forward to lope ahead of us. I keep one eye on him because I swear he looks as if he’d tear my throat out if he could. Quite the pair. Beauty and the Beast; Rose and Thorn.
“I think this is the only fresh water source,” I tell her as we reach the pickets, grasping desperately for a safe source of conversation. “If you’ve a flask or skin to fill, now is the time.”
She pauses, staring at me as if she wants to say something. I wait patiently for her words, but my eyes are busy. She looks very vulnerable under that thick clay. I can feel it almost as easily as I can feel the heat of the infection beginning in her wounds.
“Clay is not a good choice for infected wounds.”
I shouldn’t have spoken first, but the words rip out of me unbidden. Something inside me wants to protect her — and kill her dog — in equal measure. I shudder at that random thought.
Kill her dog? What a terrible impulse. What could have made me think that?
I force myself to look away and to turn to an old pillar, where the other paladins affixed the picket line. I run my hands over the worn carvings to where it is abruptly broken off. The head of the pillar lies a few feet away, coated in thick orange lichen.
She’s replying to me. “I had little choice. My superiors bid me ride without pause or succor.”
That brings my eyes up. She arrived here last. And has ridden without pause. I suppose I should not be surprised that an order known as “Beggar Knights” is stretched so thin, but still, I am.
“You’re pausing now. Let me look at those wounds.”
I shouldn’t press her, but it’s a matter of professional integrity. How can I let another human walk around ailing when I have the ability to heal them?
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. In truth, I am as drawn to this woman as I am drawn to these ruins — illogically, instinctually, in a way I cannot properly describe.
Perhaps I should beg the Seer to pray for me that the God will tell her what my future holds. Stirring up such deep waters in me can only lead to tumult — as it did once before.
“No,” she says, meeting my eyes defiantly. “I will bathe them here. I do not require the riches of your gift.”
“Are you forsworn to healing then, too?” I press.
I don’t know why I’m pushing her like this. Were she Sir Sorken or the High Saint, I’d gladly let the matter drop.
Annoyed, I fiddle with the pillar. Whatever was carved so thickly into the rock before is now worn down to only faint relief. The top portion narrows to a point and lichen grows in the grooves between the letters.
I frown. It looks very much like Ancient Indul, but that makes no sense. This monastery must be far more ancient than the Indul language.
“I’m not forsworn to healing. I just don’t want it from you.”
There’s probably some deeper meaning to how she has emphasized “you” but I’m not paying attention anymore. I am tracing the lettering with my finger.
What’s this one? The “au” sound? I think so. But it’s been a very long time since I read Ancient Indul. I could use a priest right now. A scribing priest by preference. While we paladins are well educated in the holy scrolls, we also have to reach physical attainments for battle and war, and that prevents scholarly specialization.
A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking there is no war when the church rules all the world and installs and pulls down her kings. They’d be wrong. Wars abound as priest fights priest and paladin fights paladin. It’s enough to make the heart weep.
I trace the letters and try to make the sounds in my mind. Pinnacle. Or mountain. Or rock? That’s this first one. I think I was right guessing pinnacle.
“Are you listening to me, Poisoned Saint?” Her voice is faint in the background, but I’m trying to concentrate and she doesn’t need me.
I hear her huff something and it almost sounds like a curse.
I turn back to the script. Pinnacle of something. Pain, perhaps?
“Look, you were warned. I’m not going to wait out whatever this is.”
Yes, pain. Or aching? Pinnacle of Aching … I know this one. Souls. Pinnacle of Aching Souls.
I think this next part is a date. And now, in smaller lettering, a note of some kind.
Woe to you, supplicant. Five woes. For the attainment of … something. I can’t decipher it. With a curse, I turn away and my eyes fall on her.
Blood rushes to my cheeks so that they sting.
Oh. That’s what she was trying to tell me. That she was going to bathe here. I feel my cheeks go hot. She isn’t indecent, but still, I am seeing feminine skin, a thing I’ve been avoiding since I joined the Poisoned Saints fifteen years ago and gave my squire vows.
Her skin is ripped and rent with slices, as if she recently fought a sword battle. They are inexpertly stitched. She prods at one with a finger while standing in the creek in just a pair of leather trousers and a corset-type garment that keeps her decent while letting her inspect her wounds. Already, she has washed off enough clay that I see the woman that was hidden beneath the grime. She is young. Twenty, perhaps? Twenty-one? And her small mouth frowns over her wounds as her long hair hangs in a sheet down her back, ready to be re-braided. She is both severe and terribly vulnerable.
My face is instantly hot. I go to great lengths to avoid situations such as this. Two weeks ago I waited a full six hours to refill my flasks because it was washing day for the nearby village and all the maidens would be … well, just like this, I suppose. I’d spent the time healing an elderly man and then in prayer.
All of that effort, only to find myself here.
When she looks up and catches my gaze, I steel my jaw and gaze steadily back. I am annoyed that she’s caught me failing, but I won’t make it worse by pretending it’s not happening.
“I tried to warn you,” she says. “Celibate order, yes?”
“Yes,” I grit out. “How long have you been a paladin?”
It’s the first question that comes to mind. I ask because I don’t want to talk about celibacy — or my very non-celibate thoughts — with a dripping woman standing in front of me. She is not a great beauty, but she is well-looking enough, and she radiates health and cleverness. Her sharp eyes seem to catch all the things I’m trying to keep wrapped inside.
“Ten days.”
Her answer is like a wave crashing over me from a sudden swell of the sea. I am instantly sober again.
“Ten days? You must have been halfway here before you even said vows!”
I’m understandably shocked. This is not my aspect, but it offends the orderly paladin in me to see such haphazard planning.
“We were serving a remote village.”
She prods again at an angry wound. Her stitches have popped along one side of it.
“Really, you should let me heal you.” I feel physical discomfort watching her.
Her eyes shoot up and meet mine. “No.”
I swallow down the annoyance I want to let loose. “Tell me, then, who is ‘we’? I don’t think you mean the dog.”
She smirks as if I’ve told a joke. “Oh, he was there.”
“And?”
“And what?” She says it so casually that I know she is dancing around something.
“And who else.” I put steel in my words as I lean against the pillar I can’t read.
Her dog trots out of the woods, turns its head to one side, and then barrels forward, stopping only when it is between her and me. The beginnings of a growl rumble deep within his throat.
“And a demon. He was troubling the village.”
“Did he have someone in thrall who fought against you?” I ask, nodding at her wounds.
I don’t expect an answer. I probably wouldn’t give one, but she’s young enough that she still thinks she has to answer when someone questions her.
“He did,” she says gravely. There is a challenge in her eyes. “My paladin superior, Sir Branson.”
“Blessed Saints.” The curse tears from my throat like a growl.
I don’t know what comes over me but I’ve left the pillar and I’m by her side in an instant, gripping her arm even as the dog snaps at my legs.
She orders it to stop. It’s not listening to her, which makes sense, since it’s not really her dog, right? It’s her paladin superior’s dog.
But I’m not looking at the dog, I’m looking all around us at the trees. God forfend she wasn’t heard. We can only hope that Terce prayers have dragged on.
I saw a squire burned at the stake once for less than this. His screams were like tearing fabric. I thought my lungs would tear with him.
In a low voice, I tell her, “Whatever you do, do not confess this to the others.”
“Confess what?” She lifts a brow in a challenge.
“That you have killed your paladin superior, taken up his mantle, his quest, and even his dog.” My voice is growing rougher. I force out the words before it breaks. “That you’re barely even out of squirehood and possibly not even called by the God.”
She pales at my words. And then pain blossoms in my leg as her dog gives up on her and sinks his teeth into my thigh.
