Shattered Stones

It's remarkably hard to sustain the image one has of oneself when riding into danger, sword held aloft, sitting astride a fine black warhorse, when it's pissing rain down on your head. First of all, riding about with a rapier extended just gets you funny looks to go with your sore arm and rusted blade. Second, if you push a horse to run great distances at speed in a downpour you generally just end up with a dead horse. By the sixth day since our departure from the Martyrium, however, I was no longer entirely opposed to that outcome.

'Stop leaping over everything, you damned fool,' I said to my horse for the hundredth time, but the damn thing ignored me. As usual.

I've never had a very good relationship with horses. It's not that I dislike them I mean, who doesn't like horses? They just don't reciprocate the sentiment in my case.

My current mount, a copper-coloured Tivanieze, was bred for travelling through rough, mountainous terrains and insisted on staying in practise by jumping wildly across every puddle, bump or pothole on our otherwise smooth road. I was slowly, mile by mile, being driven mad by his choppy, stuttering gait. It didn't help that I was spending most of that time watching Ethalia riding a few dozen yards ahead, slowly succumbing to the Saint's Fever. So much faster than it had taken Kest, I thought.

I'd tried to stay close to her, to reassure the woman I loved, but my proximity only made matters worse.

'Maybe you should try talking,' Brasti suggested.

'I've tried,' I said. 'All she says back to me is, "I can abide".'

'No, no, I meant talk to the horse. Be nice to the poor fellow maybe give him a name.'

The sight of a broken tree branch lying in our path no, not even a branch, a twig, no more than two inches high, sent the Tivanieze leaping several feet in the air and I was very nearly jolted from the saddle. 'Stop it, you arsehole!' I shouted.

'"Arsehole" is a terrible name for any beast,' Brasti chided.

Kest looked back from a few yards ahead. 'He did call the last one "Monster".'

'She had fangs,' I countered. 'It was a perfectly reasonable name.'

A few seconds later a squirrel skittered across the road in front of us and my damned horse veered playfully towards it as if he were contemplating chasing after it. I pulled hard on his reins to get him going in the right direction again. 'I'm definitely sticking with "Arsehole",' I informed him.

'Church up ahead,' Allister called out.

'Joy of joys,' Brasti said, standing in his stirrups to look down the road. 'Maybe the seventh time's the charm.'

It was going to have to be. We'd stopped at every roadside church and backwoods shrine on the road from Baern in hopes of finding a working sanctuary. We weren't quite sure what we were looking for, but we were quite sure we hadn't found it.

'I can abide,' Ethalia said each time we failed to find a place with whatever invisible spiritual characteristics were required to ease her suffering, and each time I'd wait until she'd ridden ahead, out of earshot, before I turned to Kest and asked, 'How long until it overcomes her?'

Not that he ever gave me an answer that was any use. It had taken him longer to feel the effects of the Saint's Fever during his brief tenure as the Saint of Swords, but that might have simply been because Kest is so damned disciplined that he forgets to acknowledge agony, even when he has a pistol bullet lodged in his shoulder. Or even a hand severed from his arm by his best friend's blade, I reminded myself.

'This one's no good, either,' Allister called back. He and Ethalia were already off their horses and had made it into the church grounds ahead of us. Kest, Brasti and I followed.

'Most of the damage is old,' Allister said, surveying the broken walls and crumbling ceilings. He knelt down and examined a piece of wood, part of a shattered wooden pulpit. 'Some of this is newer, though, maybe six or seven weeks.'

That troubled me: the destruction might be too recent to be coincidental, but it was too old for us to be able to track whoever was responsible.

'Looks like a war-axe took out that pulpit,' Kest observed.

'Maybe,' Allister said, 'but I see blunter work done on the door.' He lifted a sheered-off wooden railing out of the way so he could peer down the stairs that led underground. 'It's all just dirt and rubble down there. The stones look like they've been shattered methodically with hammers.'

Kest turned to me. 'Those stones are the markers for the sanctuary. It's within them that a new Saint binds themselves until the Fever passes.'

'How does it work? What . . . mechanism takes away the fever?'

He shrugged. 'Who can say? I wasn't the Saint of Swords long enough to learn how any of it worked.'

'Maybe that's why you never quite got the hang of it,' Brasti suggested. 'Maybe they should hand out little pamphlets for new Saints, you know, a guide to get you past the first few months.'

I ignored him. It had begun to drizzle again. 'We should go,' I said. 'Maybe the next sanctuary will be intact.'

'You know,' Brasti pointed, pulling up the collar of his coat, 'if one of these clerics had had the sense to build his little sanctuary inside a tavern, it'd be the best maintained and most visited religious site in the country.'

As I walked back outside I saw Ethalia standing there in front of her horse, hair tangled from the rain and wind, her pale skin somehow made paler by the grey clouds overhead.

I began walking to her. 'Are you-?'

'I will abide,' she replied. She put a foot in the stirrup and wearily hoisted herself onto the saddle before kicking her horse into a slow walk.

I looked after her. This had become the pattern with us, as if even my concern was somehow painful to her.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. 'She doesn't mean it,' Kest said. When I didn't reply, he added, 'There is always the sanctuary of Saint Forza-who-strikes-a-blow on the border near Aramor. That's where I found my reprieve from the fever. It's not more than three days away from here.'

'And if it's been desecrated, too?' I asked, and mounted my own horse. What was happening wasn't happenstance. It wasn't just the long and steady decline of religious observance in Tristia. Someone had a plan, and I was far too many steps behind them.

We trudged on like that, day after day, watching the miles pass, and villages large and small pass by with them. The people who lived nearby claimed to have no knowledge of what was going on, and showed little sign of being concerned, though they were quick to blame us for failing to protect the churches. I got an earful from Allister when I brought it up.

'The country didn't stop falling apart the day you took up residence in Castle Aramor,' he said, giving me his trademark glower. 'For every Knight who no longer comes to beat on their door demanding taxes a second and third time each season, there's a bandit leader or band of brigands equally happy to tear things apart. These people are poor and they're scared, and you sending people to shout The Greatcoats are coming! The Greatcoats are coming! in every tavern and inn really isn't helping.'

'That wasn't the entirety of the message,' I said.

'Oh?' Allister asked. 'So the Bardatti just forgot to mention what circuit courts each of us is assigned to, or who replaces the gold coins we use for the juries? Ran out of my supplies years ago no hard candy left, no amberlight, no black fog.' He ran a hand down the front of his coat. 'Three of the bone plates shattered a while back. Do any of you know how to replace them? Can't even figure out what kind of animal has bones this thin and strong.'

'You know, Allister,' Brasti said, reaching into the pocket of his coat and pulling out an apple, 'your nervous griping is taking all the fun out of this trip.' He took a bite and grinned. 'Maybe if we found you a proper weapon you wouldn't feel quite so scared all the time.'

From atop his horse, Allister casually reached back and loosed the iron-shod staff attached to his back. He let it slide down into his palm and spun it around before flicking his wrist. Suddenly the staff was fully extended and Brasti's apple had gone flying into the ditch.

'Feel free to let me know when you want a bout, Goodbow. Kest says you're even worse with a sword now than you were the last time I knocked you off your feet.'

A good deal of nonsense followed. Brasti, Kest and I had spent so much time together over the past few years that I'd forgotten how competitive Greatcoats could be when they got around each other. At least the vigorous debate over weapons and tactics improved Allister's mood. Normally I'd have been happy to join in (especially since the rapier is, obviously, the finest weapon ever devised) but my thoughts were occupied with visions of heavy iron masks, of desecrated churches, and of the shallow cuts on Birgid's skin. How in the world were a handful of Greatcoats supposed to protect however many dozens of Saints and hundreds of churches when we didn't even know what we were facing?

No wonder the fucking clerics brought out the Inquisitors.

'We should stop for the night,' Kest said, startling me out of my reverie. 'The sun's getting low and the chances of one of the horses taking a stumble will only increase once it's dark.'

'Been down this road before,' Allister said, 'back when I used to ride the King's Seventh Circuit. There used to be a tavern, quite a large one, couple of rooms to rent, about five miles ahead.'

'Perhaps we should make camp instead,' Kest said, doing his best not to look right at Brasti. 'Less risk of running into trouble that way.'

Brasti groaned. 'Of course you'd rather sleep out in the cold, Kest. It's perfect for men like you and Falcio. You two are only happy when you've got some cause for misery.' He stood up on his stirrups and looked down the road ahead. 'But I hear the call of music, a soft bed, women and, most importantly, beer.'

'You can hear the beer?' Kest asked incredulously.

Brasti ignored him and pointed ahead. 'Those are my Gods, Falcio. That's my sanctuary. Refusing me the chance to pray at my righteous altar is nothing short of religious persecution.'

I was about to tell him to shut up, that the last thing we needed was the risk of conflict with the local bully-boys, but Ethalia gave a weak smile. 'I don't think even I could stand to witness Brasti's equivalent of the Saint's Fever.'

That smile, the flicker of ease, however temporary, in her eyes, was enough for me.

Brasti grinned. 'Ethalia, you're my new favourite Saint.' He kicked his horse into a trot and set forth down the road.

'All right,' I said, 'let's go and visit Brasti's Gods and see what they have to tell us.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

The Tavern

The Bone Maiden's Tavern proved to have all the things Allister had promised and Brasti required. There were beds for rent, and food aplenty. The price was cheap enough and the rooms small enough that we could afford to each have our own, a rare luxury on the road. I didn't really notice the noise coming up from the common room downstairs as I lay back on my bed, still clothed, enjoying the relative peace and quiet for as long as it would last.

That didn't turn out to be very long.

Banging on my door was swiftly followed by Brasti's head as he pushed it open and peered in. 'There you are! What in the name of Saint Zaghev's balls are you doing hiding in here?'

'Trying for peace and quiet. Unsuccessfully, apparently.'

He hauled Kest in behind him and the two of them stood awkwardly in the narrow gap between the door and my bed. 'Well, this is just pathetic,' Brasti said.

'Why are the two of you here when you're supposed to be guarding Ethalia?' I demanded, pushing myself up.

Kest put a warning hand on Brasti's shoulder. 'I told you this was a bad idea.'

Brasti was having none of it. 'Oh, don't worry about Ethalia. Allister's keeping a very close eye on her. In point of fact, that's why we're here. Kest and I are on a vital mission of friendship and loyalty.'

'And here I thought you were on a mission to get drunk and bed the local schoolteacher.'

He folded his arms across his chest. 'I can do more than one thing at a time. I'm ambidextrous.'

Kest began to speak. 'That's not what-'

I sighed. 'All right. Get on with it.'

'I just thought you should be aware, oh First Cantor, that our esteemed colleague Allister is, even as we speak, downstairs and setting lustful eyes upon your woman.'

I stiffened. 'He's taken her down to the common room? Has he lost his mind? What if-'

'She's unharmed,' Kest said. 'It was her idea. She said the music was helping to soothe the fever.'

'Did it do that for you when you had it?'

'No, but then, Ethalia and I aren't exactly alike.'

Thank the Gods for that, at least.

'The point is,' Brasti said, jabbing a finger at me, 'that it shouldn't be Allister down there with her. It should be you.'

'She doesn't want me,' I replied, too quickly to maintain anything that sounded even remotely like personal dignity. I tried to recover with, 'Her Sainthood makes my presence painful to her.'

Brasti leaned back against the wall and put the heel of one boot on the edge of my bed. 'Well, it just so happens I have a suggestion that might soothe the spiritual troubles between you. How about, instead of pining here in your little room, you go down there and be a fucking man for a change?'

'All right,' Kest said, grabbing Brasti by the arm, 'that's enough for-'

'No,' Brasti said, shaking him off, 'it's not. You want to know what the real problem is with you, Falcio?'

'Yes,' I said. I'd pretty much already decided that this conversation was going to end with me punching Brasti in the mouth so any additional fuel he wanted to add to the fire was fine with me. 'Go ahead and tell me what's wrong with me.'

'You buy into all this shit about Gods and Saints and magic and curses.'

Even Kest was surprised by that. 'You don't believe in Saints and magic? After all the things we've seen?'

Brasti waved a hand in the air. 'Of course some of it's real. I mean, it's a giant pain in the arse, so it has to be real. But that doesn't mean you have to take everything as if it's a commandment from the fucking universe to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness.'

He took his foot off the bed, which I knew was because he was about to say something he knew I didn't want to hear and he needed to keep all his limbs free to deal with my reaction. 'The thing that's keeping you and Ethalia apart isn't her Sainthood, Falcio. You can pretend all you want that everything was perfect with you both before, but there's a reason you didn't ask her to marry you when you had the chance.'

'You stupid son of a bitch, I was trying to recover from the damned-'

'No, Falcio, don't use the Lament as your excuse for everything. The problem started long before that.'

I started working through the distance between my fist and his face and the sequence of movements required to bridge that gap. 'Is that so?'

'I'm fairly certain that you should stop talking now,' Kest said.