Ordination Read online

  The child nodded slowly, lowering, but not dropping, the stone she clutched. Her eyes moved over the fire, to the pile of gear across it, lingering over the arms. “Yer a knight.” Half statement, half question, as her gaze lingered over them.

  Allystaire grimaced lightly, hoping the child wouldn’t see it in the dark. “No,” he said, after a pause.

  “Ya have food?”

  She moves on quickly, this one, he thought, and nodded.

  “What can I call you? I cannot go on with “lass” and “child” for long.”

  Her turn to pause, eyes still moving between him, the packs, and the sword, shield, and hammer. “Mol,” she said, uncertainly.

  “Mol, then. A fine name. I am going to come back to the fire now, Mol, and sit on the other side of it from you. I will not touch a weapon, and I will get meat and bread for both of us. I prepared some hot broth while you slept.” With that said, he took slow, measured steps until he could squat back down by the packs he had unloaded from the mule and began rummaging.

  “Y’ must be a knight or a lord to have three horses,” Mol finally said.

  “I have neither title nor land. What you see is everything I own,” he replied, sweeping one arm in a gesture of mock grandiloquence.

  “Then why d’ya have three horses? Man can’t ride more’n one at a time,” she countered, lifting her chin.

  “Well,” he replied, pointing back towards the picketed, munching beasts, “there are in fact only two horses, and one mule. The mule carries packs, which neither of the horses could do as well. The larger horse, well, he is only for riding in battle or…” He stopped short, and went on. “The smaller one is a riding horse; he can bear a rider at better speed for longer than the destrier might. The right animal for the right task, you see,” he added, smiling tightly. Finally, he found the bag he was looking for, and dug out hard bread and dried meat, holding it out toward the girl.

  Unselfconsciously, Mol leaned forward to reach over the fire for the food and asked, “What are their names?”

  Startled enough by the question, he almost let a chunk of meat fall into the fire, but caught himself. “What? Names?”

  “Horses have names,” she said, nodding authoritatively.

  He shook his head, handed over the food, and sat back. “I have never thought on it. It does no good to get too attached to an animal. They are well-trained and healthy. All that matters.” He dug out food for himself.

  “Ya talk about them like they’re tools,” Mol frowned, a piece of bread held halfway to her mouth. “They aren’t shovels. They deserve better’n that.”

  “They are considerably more expensive than shovels, so they get better than that.”

  She ignored him for a moment, staring at the animals, her head cocked to one side as if listening to some distant noise. Then she shrugged, began gnawing at her food, and was silent for a moment.

  “Where were ya bound?” she suddenly asked around a mouthful of bread and meat.

  Allystaire shrugged, shook his head, and relaxed, sitting back on the ground and stretching his booted feet toward the fire. “Nowhere certain. I told you; I saw smoke in the valley, and so instead of skirting it, I sought the source.”

  “’Twas foolish,” the girl said, and went on before he could protest, pointing at him with the chewed bread in her hand. “What if they’d been there still?”

  “I suppose I would have had to fight,” Allystaire replied with the gentlest of shrugs.

  “And if there’d been a dozen? A score? A warband turned to banditry?”

  “In order then,” he said, raising a finger, “were it a dozen or a score—makes little difference, I suppose—if they were organized, had bows, knew how to use them, I would likely die.” He shrugged. “If only some or none of those were true, perhaps I could scatter them. A warband, though?” He nodded. “I should like my chances better. Likely to have a career man-at-arms or two, even an officer or landless knight among them. I could have parlayed with such as that, perhaps talked them down, or challenged one to a single fight. A warband would kill me, but I could make them understand that some of them would die, too. Those sorts of men do not throw their lives away cheaply.”

  “Y’know a lot o’ warbands,” Mol said, turning her head and studying him sidelong. He wasn’t certain, but perhaps there was a tiny accusatory note in it.

  “I do,” he allowed. “I have had occasion to learn of them. I might even be headed to join one, for all I know.”

  In short order the child worked her way through the food he had given her and scooted closer to the fire, now staring straight at him. “Ye’d seek to join such a group? Even if y’came upon them at the slaughter?”

  He thought a moment, narrowing his eyes. “Perhaps.” Then he raised a finger. “Only if I saw some men among them, not just rabid dogs. Understand that even a good soldier, a man of strong guts with good intents, he can go a bit mad at the wrong time. Especially if he follows the wrong man.”

  “And ya’d be the right man then?” Her eyes narrowed as well.

  “Where are all these questions coming from, Mol? None of these things happened, did they? But I will answer this last one: no. But if I were aware of who the wrong man was in such an instance? The man who did that?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, to the distant, shadowed shapes of her ruined village. “I would see him into the ground and on to the next world, if there is one.”

  “Slit ‘is throat then?” Finally, she tossed aside the rock she’d been holding onto.

  “Cold, lass! I said I would answer one more and I did!” There was more laughter than heat in Allystaire’s voice, but it quieted, and he said, finally, softly, “I have never slit the throat of a man who did not know what was coming. If I found the man who did that, he would die with a weapon in his hand. But he would die.”

  “Sure o’ yerself,” Mol said, a note of reproach in her voice.

  Allystaire laughed lightly. “I suppose so.” He reached into the small stack of wood at hand and tossed some into the flames. “You probably need to sleep. Question me more in the morning, if you must.” He stretched his legs so that his boots just brushed the stones defining the firepit.

  Mol was silent a moment as she considered this. Then, with a yawn she didn’t try to contain, she stretched back out on the ground. Her head lifted up, and she quietly asked, “Y’ll still be here in the morning?”

  “I will,” Allystaire said, his own voice slightly weary.

  “Promise me,” she said urgently, leaning forward to peer at him across the fire.

  “I promise, Mol, that I will be here in the morning,” he said. The words rolled out of him more easily than he expected.

  That seemed to satisfy her, and she settled her head down on pillowed hands, and soon her breathing eased.

  With a small sigh, Allystaire leaned back further against his saddles and packs. “Fool,” he murmured, almost silently. Unbidden, a voice whispered to him, You could leave the child. You fed her and warmed her. What more do you owe her? He sneered at no one, at his own thoughts, and stood up to see once more to his animals. When their feedbags were stored, their coats given a quick brushing, he sat back down across from Mol, pulled his hammer across his lap, and let his mind drift.

  He slept, but lightly. Every so often he would stir himself awake, tensing his legs against the ground as if he’d need to spring to his feet. Each time he looked across the fire, Mol was sleeping well, but the sense of being watched and measured never left him.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Second Step

  Dawn broke weakly, pushing thin, reedy stems of light through grey clouds. Mol woke shivering; the fire hadn’t quite died, but it threw little heat. Immediately her head snapped up so she could see where Allystaire had been sitting last night, but he wasn’t there. She sat bolt upright, eyes searching the camp, until she heard the solid
thump of his boots in the dust.

  “Food in a moment,” he said suddenly, without turning to look back at her. “Your dress ought to be dry enough if you want to slip it back on.”

  She stood up, blanket still held around her shoulders, and half-circled the fire for her homespun wool. Quickly, she dropped the blanket and slipped the dress back over her head, shivering again. “S’damp from the dew, y’fool. Why’d ya not pack it ‘fore you slept?”

  Allystaire pulled the strap of a saddlebag closed and turned slowly around. “Do I look like a washerwoman to you, that I should know this?” He tried to soften his words with a smile, but it was an expression that sat uneasily above his heavy, lightly stubbled jaw. Mol glared at him. He sighed, changed tack, hefting a sack in his hand.

  “Hungry? Bread and cheese. And a piece of this, which I suppose you could do with.” He lifted his other hand, which held a long, mottled white and brown cone and a pair of hinged, dark iron pincers.

  Her eyes widened and she took a few quick steps toward him. “Sugar? How d’ya have so much of it?”

  “Long story.” He held the sack out to her to forestall more questions, then applied the nips to the sugar loaf, breaking off a few small pieces and tipping them into his other hand. Loaf and nips went back into the saddlebag; he held out the sugar to her, and she took it. Quickly, she stuck a piece into her mouth, but didn’t chew, instead letting it sit in the center of her mouth and melt, her eyes closing as she concentrated on the unusual sweetness.

  “While you eat,” Allystaire said, walking back to the fire and retrieving the last things he’d left there, the shield and warhammer, “think about where you want to go.” He slung the shield off the pommel of the larger horse; the hammer slid into a loop on the saddle’s right side. “We could be back out of the valley by noon if we cut straight for the High Road. Have any kin around these parts? Ashmill Bridge? Birchvale? Those are the nearest towns I know.”

  As he spoke, the girl’s eyes opened again, fixing on him steadily. Her tongue tucked the sugar chunk into one side of her mouth. “I’ve no kin except what lived here in Thornhurst,” she said, carefully. “And those places are the wrong way, too far upriver.”

  “Too far upriver?” Allystaire puzzled over this for a moment, brow furrowing. “Oh no. No lass. No. You do not mean what I think you mean.”

  “Frozen Hells I don’t!” she yelled. “’twere slavers came through and they’ve my family and I mean ta find ‘em! They’re takin’ em downriver meanin’ to sell ‘em and you know it!”

  Allystaire raised a hand, shaking his head gently. “Lass… Mol. I mean no cruelty to you. You have suffered, I know. I have seen this happen to villages such as yours before.” Ordered it done, you mean, he thought, wincing. “And if you could find them, what do you mean to do? Be enslaved? Let me take you somewhere out of their path.”

  “Come with me,” the girl said, suddenly, passionately. “Track ‘em. We’ll find ‘em and kill ‘em, free m’ folk so we can come back and rebuild.” Her words came out in a rush, the sugar he’d given her crunching between her teeth.

  He sighed heavily, looking to the ground for a moment. “There were how many? I am one man, and they have a head start.”

  “Y’can move faster than they can. And what was it you told me last night? Y’came riding for the smoke knowin’ it could be a dozen or a score. Y’sounded plenty confident in the dark. Not so much in daylight.”

  Allystaire grimaced, then forced his features to relax and took a deep breath. “How many were there?” You are not considering this.

  “Near a dozen, wi’ two big covered wagons. Came to our inn, it was run by my dad and nuncle. Stayed two nights, drinkin’ their weight and then refusin’ to pay. Then when nuncle told ‘em to pay and leave…”

  “They turned violent. And the covered wagons turned out to be a cage, aye?” Allystaire raised an eyebrow at the girl, watched as she nodded slowly, turned her eyes toward the ground, tears gathering in her eyes.

  Freeze. “Listen. Mol. If we trail after them—if—mind you, understand that I am no hero of legend. There might be no rescue, no help we can give.” Allystaire knelt, so that his face was closer to hers, but stopped himself short of reaching out to touch her. “Your kinfolk would not thank me for delivering you to the slavers you escaped.”

  Mol lifted her head, sniffling, and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “I don’t fear that. And I haven’t other kin to go to. Leastways if I find ‘em I can be with ‘em again.”

  Until they sell you to a brothel or a whoremonger. “I cannot convince you to ride with me somewhere? To a church?”

  She shook her head defiantly, eyes suddenly agleam. “Folk here didn’t hold with any gods. What good’ve they done us? I’m followin’ my kin whether you come or no. If I have to walk after ‘em while you ride away, I will.” Then, as if to prove the point, she started stomping off, her small bare feet kicking up dust clouds.

  He sighed, stood, briefly rubbed at his closed eyes with two fingers. The famous vineyards and friendly women of Barony Innadan seemed further away than ever. Allystaire looked eastward over his shoulder. Could put her in a sack and tie her to the mule, he mused. And then how would I be any different from the reavers? Finally, he looked back to her; she was several paces away and showed no signs of slowing. He took a deep breath and called out to her.

  “Mol, lass! Can you sit a horse?

  * * *

  “These reavers leave a trail one of the Blind Priests could follow,” Allystaire remarked, as, a day and a half later, he and Mol followed them steadily east.

  “D’ya think there’s a ship waitin’ for ’em?” Mol sat on the smaller horse, the stirrups shortened in a way that might have been comical, if she weren’t sitting in the saddle so seriously, so competently.

  The man shook his head, walking alongside the warhorse a few paces ahead of her. “No. Not much further, another day and a half if I make my guess, ‘til we come to the bend in the Ash and the town I have heard now squats upon it.”

  “What town? I had ‘em just makin’ for the bay…”

  Allystaire shook his head, frowned up at Mol. “No getting to the bay without going straight through Londray, and they will not be able to move slaves through there. The baron’s law will see to that, at least.”

  “Baron’s law?” The girl twisted in the saddle to look down at him. “Don’t have a baron.”

  “You do. His name is Lionel Delondeur. And for a whole new town to have raised itself up beyond the reach of his laws, he or his lords must be taking regular payments from whatever thug has back-stabbed his way to running the place, and so Delondeur’s knights, wardens, and rivermen pretend not to know what goes on there.”

  Mol reined in the palfrey, her face suddenly contorted in a rage that was somehow unchildlike; it was no temper tantrum, but rather a sudden, bright anger that took Allystaire aback.

  “He’s supposed to protect us if he’s our baron,” she shouted. “What good is lordship if—”

  “Do you want everyone else on this road, or within a mile of it, to know where we are?” Allystaire interrupted her brusquely. Dropping his voice, he added, “Yet in truth, lass? You are right. That is what lords ought to do. But he is busy fighting wars to move his borders and win honors, and the gold from pirates helps him do it. Slavers, though? I would be surprised if Lionel would brook such as that.”

  “Ya say his name like ya know him. If that’s so, then why not go t’him, after m’folk are rescued, and tell him of it.”

  He sighed, dropped the reins he held, and walked to the side of the palfrey, tilting his head just slightly upward. “Child, I am going to tell you something true. Something you should remember.” He paused, pressed his lips together for a moment. “Do not expect the great folk of this world to care what happens to you. The only place kings and barons give a damn about farmers and la
borers is in legends.”

  “But yer a knight and ya do care or y’ wouldn’t be here now,” Mol insisted, pointing a stubborn finger down at him.

  “I am no knight,” Allystaire said wearily. He turned, abruptly ending the conversation, picked up his reins, and starting walking the destrier again.

  “Then how d’ya know the names of barons and so much of the land? Those’r the kinds of things knights know,” Mol persisted.

  “I am merely educated,” he replied, through nearly clenched teeth.

  “What’s that mean? Y’can read, n’cipher?’

  Allystaire nodded. “That and more.”

  “What more is there?”

  “Doing sums, reading maps, memorizing heraldry and bloodlines. And music, and dancing…but I was never any good at those.”

  “And where’d ya learn all this?”

  He shook his head sharply. “Nowhere you know, Mol.”

  “Well y’know a lot o’things farmer folk dunno. And yer rich,” she went on, blithely. “Either of yer horses would cost more’n the entire lot our village would sell on fair days. And ya’ve more sugar than I’ve ever seen aside from oncet a dwarf caravan came through.”

  He looked back, frowning. “Enough. I have answered as many of your questions as I intend to. Now let us have silence.”