Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) (17 page)

Renda suddenly awoke with a start, having fallen asleep on
her father’s shoulder.  She had no idea what had awakened her until she heard
the knocking again and saw Mika peek around the edge of the open door.  Renda
slipped from beneath her father’s arm, careful not to let it drop too heavily
at his side lest it wake him, and moved quickly to the door.

“Pegrine’s chamber?” she asked softly.

“Aye.”  Mika handed Renda her sword and scabbard and led her
through the corridors of the castle to the nursery. 

“Did you wake Nara?”

The maid shook her head.  “I came to fetch you first.  If
you like—”

“No,” spoke Renda as they approached Pegrine’s door, “let
her rest.  Hearing that rhyme once more will only upset her.”

The maid touched her arm.  “But, my lady, the voice only
laughs and cavorts tonight.  It speaks no rhyme, at least not to me.”

Renda’s step slowed for only a moment before she cast a
courageous smile at the frightened young woman.  “Then perhaps B’radik will be
with us in this.”  Renda moved to listen against the door, but as her hand
touched the handle, it turned, and the door came ajar.  She drew back her hand
at once to listen, half expecting the voice to have gone silent, but the
laughter continued.

Behind her, Mika stood frozen, eyes wide with terror.  Renda
drew her sword and pushed the door open.

Sitting on her bed with a pretty new doll on her lap, was
Pegrine.  Her hair fell in shining ebony ringlets about her chin, just as it
had in life.  She wore her First Rite gown, just as she had when they buried
her, a gown that should have been drenched and foul with the bishop’s blood
from the sword, if not acrawl with vermin.  But now it was bright and clean. 
Had it been so in the tomb just now?  Renda could not recall.

The child’s face looked a bit thin and pale to her, but not
ghastly, with barely a touch of color to her cheeks and lips.  No fire burned
in the fireplace, and Renda shivered in the cold of the chamber, but the little
girl did not appear to feel the chill at all.

“Peg?” whispered Renda from the open door.

“Auntie!”  The little girl jumped from the bed and threw her
arms around Renda’s waist, ignoring the sword in the knight’s hand.  “Oh, but
I’ve missed you so, and I’ve so much to tell you!  Come, tell me you’ve missed
me, too.”

Renda smiled, feeling tears in her eyes in spite of
herself.  “I have, child.  Gods, but I have missed you.”  She ached to hold the
child in her arms and stroke her soft hair, but she held herself back.  This
being wore Pegrine’s shape and manner, but it could only be a creature of evil,
a drinker of gore and a feeder upon men’s souls.  She must not let herself
forget.

Pegrine looked up into Renda’s eyes, and her smile
faltered.  “Don’t be cross with me.”  The little girl’s lip trembled.  “It
wasn’t my fault. Those two knights said they were taking me to see Grandpapa,
and they were knights, so I trusted them, but then...”  She looked down, and
tears spilled from her eyes.

“No, Peg, shh...” soothed Renda.  “No one is cross with
you.  It was not your fault, what happened, but all the same,” she said,
turning away, “you were killed.”  Renda drew a sharp breath before she looked
back at the creature with a frown.  “How is it you stand speaking to me when I
am just come from seeing you on your bier?”

Pegrine sniffed away her tears.  Then she cocked her head a
bit uncertainly.  “She told me you were in the crypt today,” said the child,
and she sat on her bed and stroked her doll’s hair.  “You and Grandpapa.”

“We were,” said Renda, clutching her sword.

“With your armor.” She looked at the weapon in Renda’s hand
and then into her eyes, and Pegrine’s gaze held a look of accusation. “She said
you came to do away with me.  She said—”

“She, and again, she!” cried Renda in confusion. “Who is
she, who knows so much?  Is it Nara, speaks to you?”

“Nara?  No!”  Pegrine looked up with a curious smile.  “The
pretty lady in white.  She came to me after the bishop hurt me.  She gave me
this doll to keep me company since,” she looked around her chamber and sighed
sadly, “all mine have gone away.”

“May I see it?  The doll?”  With no more than a moment’s
hesitation, Renda sheathed her sword, and Pegrine handed her the doll.  It was
a lovely graceful lady doll with long white-blonde hair, silver eyes and a full
white gown trimmed in tiny white ribbons and shimmering stones that seemed to
blaze with light.  The tiny black pupils of the eyes narrowed to focus on
Renda’s face, and the knight’s scalp prickled.  “Peg,” she asked a bit
worriedly, “who is she?”  Renda remembered the voice from the bishop’s chamber
and shuddered.  “Did she speak her name to you?”

Peg nodded smugly, tossing her curls. “She called Herself
B’radik, Auntie.  She said you knew Her.”

“B’radik.”  The goddess of truth and light.  A moment later,
Renda nodded. “Aye, my sweet, well do I know Her.  She has answered many a
prayer for me.”  She crouched and pulled the child into her arms and held her
for several minutes, sobbing gracelessly against her musty gown, so grateful to
her goddess, relieved of so many fears.  “But did She tell you why?”

The little girl nodded and drew breath.  Peg only drew
breath to speak, to Renda's dull horror.  The rest of the time, her chest was
still.  Pegrine looked somberly into her aunt’s eyes.  “I was all bound up when
She found me, Auntie.  Not my body, not so I couldn’t move.  More so I couldn’t
think.”  The child looked up at her to see if she understood.  “The bishop did
that so he could eat my spirit.”  Her nose wrinkled.  “He locked it away whilst
he cut my body to bits.  He was supposed to eat my spirit when he drank—”

Renda nodded weakly.  “Gikka and I were there.”

Pegrine tossed her head and sat back on the bed.  “So my
body was killed and my spirit was trapped with no place to go when She found
me.”  She laughed.  “It was smashing good luck for us both, you see.  She told
me She could fix my body for a little while if I would be Her helper here.  But
only for a while since it drains Her so.” The little girl shrugged and swung
her feet back and forth on the bed. “Then I shall be finally, truly dead, but I
suppose I shan’t mind so much.”  She smiled bravely at Renda and ran a childish
finger along the sword hilt.  “I guess I shall never be a knight now.”

Renda swallowed a sob and touched the little girl’s hair. 
After a time, she spoke. 

“Child, why have you locked the door if you’ve wanted to see
me?  I’ve come to the door each night; why did you not speak to me sooner?  And
why did you stay away when I was here alone?”

“I wanted to.  Talk to you, I mean.”  Pegrine looked away. 
“But you would not have understood.  B’radik told me to say that rhyme over and
over in hopes that you might understand it whilst someone else, someone very
bad, might not.”  She sighed and looked away, and Renda thought she saw fear in
the child’s eyes.  “But now...”

“Who?  Did She say who the someone very bad might be?”

After a moment, Pegrine shook her head.  “But it vexes Her
terribly.  She cries, Auntie.  Her priests beg for Her help, and She can do so
little for them now.  And then they turn away...”

The woman took her hand gently.  “Peg, look at me.  Can you
help us fight this disease that kills the priests?”

“No, Auntie, no.”  She stood suddenly, wringing her hands. 
“The sickness is only a very small part of what you fight; it’s meant to keep
you from the real battle.”

“Real battle?”  Renda stood in alarm.  “But I know no enemy! 
Where do I begin?”

Pegrine took the doll from Renda and fussed with it for a
time, looking into its eyes and murmuring softly to it.  “She understands,
now,” came a quiet whisper, and for a chilling moment, Renda’s ears were not
sure whether the voice was the child’s or not.

Renda paced across the chamber.  “Understand?  I understand
nothing!”  She knelt suddenly beside the child where she still played with the
doll.  “Pegrine, please.  Please!”  She gently took the doll and held it on the
bed beside the girl, drawing a frown from her.  “What is it that keeps B’radik
from helping Her priests?  Perhaps if I start there.”

But Pegrine took the doll again, taking it from beneath
Renda’s hand with surprising ease.  “She tells me that for now it is enough
that you have seen me, and that you understand.”  Her voice was cold, and her
eyes gleamed with determination and power, enough that Renda stood back and
touched the hilt of her sword in its scabbard.  But then the little girl’s eyes
brightened again, and she smiled.  “But come, I’ve been away nearly half again
a month.  Tell me what news!”

Pegrine would say no more about B’radik or the priests’
illness, no matter how Renda coaxed her.  They talked on until nearly sunrise,
mostly of childish things and of her frightening life in the crypt. She was
pleased that her frocks and toys had gone to help the war orphans in Farras,
although now her chamber looked sadly bare.

She asked after her favorite knights and servants by name,
especially Gikka and Nara. More than anything else, the child was desperate to
see her Grandmama and Grandpapa again, but she promised to wait until Renda
could speak with them.  The sheriff, having been in the crypt with Renda, might
well understand, but Lady Glynnis was still a bit fragile; she had good days
when she seemed herself, but she still had frighteningly bad days, dark,
despairing days when the maids were afraid to leave her alone.  Who could know
how news of Pegrine’s revenant might affect her?

Pegrine slipped out through the open window at the far end
of her chamber and faded into the first pink streaks of dawn, promising to
visit Renda another night.  After closing the window the knight returned down
the stairs to her father’s audience chamber.

T
he
sheriff climbed the last of the crumbling stone steps leading to the castle’s
eastern battlements and pulled his mantle close about his shoulders while he
waited for Sir Waydon to join him. He truly hoped the boy was jumping at
shadows, but he had never known Sir Waydon to show an abundance of imagination.

Clouds had gathered just before sunrise, thick and dark gray
against the usually fair skies of the Gathering, and with the chill winds, the
day had never quite warmed.  Daerwin’s mouth thinned to a grim line.  This was
none to the good.  A few days spent beneath the clouds, especially if the
nights cleared, and the frosts would come early this year.  They could lose
most of the harvest if what Waydon had told him was true.

“There, you see?”  Sir Waydon’s voice rose above the
whipping of the knights’ banners at the gatehouse.  The sheriff’s gaze followed
the knight’s own, into the valley just west of the river. “But three of each
four are afield today, fewer still than yesterday.”

The sheriff sighed.  Unfortunately, Waydon was right. 
Truly, no more than three quarters of the families harvested their crops
today.  From the parapet they seemed no more than tiny specks of dark cloth,
and a twilight sky of sun sparkled steel blades slashing through the gray
ripples of grain, specks and movements so small he could see them move only
through the corners of his eyes.  Many Gatherings spent watching over them for
fear of Kadak’s armies attacking had trained his eye.  Besides, if he had had
any doubt of what he saw, he had only to look at the rest of Waydon’s fields. 
These stood abandoned, great even stands of amaranth and wheat rippling evenly
in the cold wind.  At the roadside, scythes and wagons lay just where they had
fallen, as if those families had simply retired at the end of a day of harvest
and not returned.  He could all but feel the grain rotting as he watched, and
the thought filled him with dread.

“I fear the tenday shall see no one out at all.”  He
gestured to the nearest portion of his lands and spoke with wearied resignation. 
“From here, you can see only a few of my fields, but they show what is true of
the whole.”

“Aye.”  But Lord Daerwin’s gaze had already turned away,
toward the lands of Sir Teny and those of Sir Forin, the knights whose lands
neighbored Sir Waydon’s to the north and northeast.  Like Waydon’s lands,
theirs rolled away over the horizons north and eastward, and only the nearest
of their fields were visible. Daerwin could see that all of Teny’s and Forin’s
farmers and their families gathered feverishly against the coming cold.  Praise
the gods, he breathed with relief.  Waydon’s grain might be lost, but with
luck, they would have enough even so.  No one would starve.

Presently, he directed Sir Waydon down the stone steps and
inside the castle that they might speak together without shouting over the
noisy banners flapping on the battlements or shivering in the cold wind of the
afternoon.

“How now,” Daerwin spoke at last, having removed his cloak
and settled in at his own desk with the young knight seated before him.  “I’ve
known you these many years, Waydon, and your father before you.  Ever your
farmers have trusted you; I assume you have not taken to abusing their good
will.”  He deliberately kept his tone gentle, but when Waydon only gave him a
blank and almost guilty stare, he pressed the point.  “Overtaxing them,
punishing them without cause, taking liberties with the women, so forth...”

Sir Waydon adamantly shook his head.  “Oh, never, my lord. 
To my knowledge, they have no complaint against me.  To all appearances ere
now, they have considered me a fair lord.”  He cleared his throat and sat
forward most earnestly.  “In faith, when the first of them failed to work his
fields for some days on end, I said not a word, thinking his new bride to keep
him engaged at home.”  The knight laughed weakly. “I count it quite the act of
generosity on my part to grant him such liberty.”

“More generous than wise.”  The sheriff stroked his beard,
considering.  Waydon was almost cowering, not from the sheriff’s words, since
he had not spoken them in anger; more as if he feared his own farmers somehow. 
But why?

“Yes, my lord.  As you see, yon farmer did not return to the
fields as I had thought he might, and thoughts that some…ill might have
befallen him came to me.”  Neither of them had to say the words.  None of the
sheriff’s farmers had fallen to the plague yet, but it was only a matter of
time.  “I did at once ride to his home and knock upon the door, but he told me
only that he was at prayer.  He’d not so much as open his door to me.” 

“Prayer?”  Daerwin had expected almost any other answer. 
“Are you sure?”

“Aye, my lord, and in the midst of the Gathering, no less.” 

“What feast day did he claim to mark?  No god of Syon
interrupts the harvests with a feast day.”

“None, sire.”  He stopped himself and shook his head. 
“Rather, let me say in all honesty, I had not the mind to ask him.  Far be it
from me to stay a man from his piety.”

“Piety, indeed.  The Gathering is short enough without
losing days to idleness, and idleness it is.  The gods simply do not plague us
with obligation during the Gathering. He simply makes an excuse for lying abed
the season.”  The sheriff sat back and crossed his arms.  “So you did not
confront him, then.”

The knight’s eyes met his lord’s before he turned away.  “I
did not,” he admitted.  “In faith, so taken aback was I that I found myself
quite lost for words.”

“So you did nothing.”  Lord Daerwin rose and paced to the
window, counseling himself to patience.  Shouting would only make matters worse,
he told himself.  “Go on.”

“There is more,” Waydon said, lowering his gaze.  “My lord,
I was of no mind to vex them, not having just refused them—”

The sheriff looked at him sharply. 

The younger knight sighed.  “They were demanding a larger
share of their crops, something touching how the noble houses no longer needed
so much of the grain to feed their armies.  But to this, I held fast.  I’ve my
own lord to pay as well, after all.”

Daerwin nodded.  “You could not make such a decision without
speaking to me first, so that was the correct decision.”

“Aye,” Waydon replied weakly, looking away. 

Daerwin watched him for a time, wondering why Waydon was
still groveling.  Something else within Sir Waydon ached to be said, ached to
be let into the light, but Lord Daerwin only stood silent, letting the knight
wrestle with himself until at last he spoke. 

“It’s true,” he said at last.  “I refused them in this,
but...”  He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under the sheriff’s gaze.  “My
lord, the priests’ disease lies at our very doors, and well the farmers know
it.  It was their concern, or so they spoke, that should a farmer fall to it,
should his lands fall back to my demesne, then the crops would be lost since
I’ve no one to harvest, myself.  Their answer seemed sensible to me.”

“They would have you divide the lost land between the
neighboring farms.  In the interest of saving the grain,” spoke the sheriff
grimly, quietly.  “Such was their proposal, aye?”

Sir Waydon swallowed hard and nodded.

“And you agreed.”  Daerwin tapped the ends of his fingers
together, considering his words carefully.  Now it all made sense.  The refusal
to harvest, Waydon’s groveling…“You set aside the law for them, Sir Waydon, and
in so doing, you broke faith with them and with me.  With the House of Damerien
itself!”

“My lord!” gasped Sir Waydon.

The sheriff’s rage exploded.  “These laws have stood for
nearly four thousand years, and with an afternoon’s thought, you set them
aside?  It is no wonder that your farmers do not heed you now.  And now people
will starve because of your rashness!  You would break faith with us; what
keeps you from breaking faith with them?”

“Breaking faith!”  Sir Waydon rose, pleading.  “Sire, their
argument had merit!”

“As it has every time farmers have made it since time
immemorial, and ever at harvest!  Do you think their arguments had less merit
during the war, when farmers were dying in battle?  And still we refused
them.”  He leaned heavily on his desk.  “The law is clear:  When no rightful
heir presents himself, the property reverts back to demesne lands that it might
be granted anew.”

“But, my lord Sheriff,” said Sir Waydon, visibly trying to
control his temper, “perhaps they make petition time and again because the law
does not—”

“It does not let one farmer take his neighbor’s lands by
murder and mishap!” Daerwin thundered.  “The lands revert back and are granted
anew at the lord’s discretion so that no man is assured gain by another’s
loss.  By the gods, can you not see your folly?”  He pointed out the window
toward the empty fields.  “And now, see the contempt they hold for one who does
not keep the law!”

Sir Waydon watched the sheriff fearfully for a time before
he looked away.  “First one, then another of the other fields stood the same
from dawn to dusk.”  He shut his eyes, still stung by the sheriff’s anger.

“Did you let lie these idlers as well?”

Waydon recoiled as if struck.  “Hear me, sire.  Having seen
three more farms go untended, naturally, I rode to their homes, ready to hear
their excuses, or that they, too, were at prayer or some such.  Perchance the
priests’ disease had spread among them, or the fear of it.”  He drew himself
up.  “Or perhaps, as I thought, it was but a single hair of some new pique that
the four had taken up against me.  Regardless, I went to smooth what I could
and see them back to their fields ere we lose the season.”  But then, Sir
Waydon fell silent and stared at the deep burls of wood in the sheriff’s desk.

“At prayer were they?” the sheriff prompted impatiently.

Looking up, the knight stammered, then sat back in his
chair.  “Not just as I came to them, no.  But to my questions, they spoke not
of prayer nor to the matter of their deserted farms, but only of visions and
divining and of Chatka.”

“The old Verdura fortune teller,” the sheriff laughed
suddenly.  “But she is harmless!  Were she any less skilled at matching
husbands to wives and naming the sex of unborn babes, they should have driven
her out years ago, these farmers.  Sensible, practical folk, they are.”

Sir Waydon nodded and licked his lips.  “Aye, my lord, so
they are,” he began uncertainly, “save that the priests’ disease fills their
hearts with desperation and dread just now, and so with nowhere else to turn,
they look to her visions.”  He shifted in his seat again.  “It’s but mine own
thought, my lord, but if they cannot bring themselves to trust their priests
against it, and they cannot find protection from it in their lords, they will
take what solace she offers, cold though it be.  But with her solace, methinks
she sows discord as well.  That she pronounces it all as the will of the
gods...”

“I’ve heard naught of her but in scoffing tones from the
farmers.”  The sheriff crossed his arms.

“Aye, ere now.”  He shook his head.  “But look you, she
foresaw the disease, my lord, or so they believe, and now they speak of her
with naught but reverence.”  At this, he saw the sheriff’s brow rise, and he
sat forward in his seat to continue.  “These three farmers, my lord. They spoke
of prayer, aye, and chaff and vigilance, and in the most hushed and humble
tones.  To mine ear, the farmers made no sense, but the matter is this: they
refuse, these people, to harvest grains belonging to Brannagh,” and here he
leveled his gaze at the sheriff, letting the echo of his words linger a moment,
“and no argument of mine could sway them.”

“They said as much?  You mean to say that they’ve taken it
into their heads that they should starve the winter rather than harvest for
Brannagh?”  He stood, rubbing his brow in astonishment and concern.  “Did they
say why?”

“No, my lord.”  The knight’s lips tightened.  “But they were
most adamant.”

Daerwin’s mind raced.  “You reminded them, of course, that
they serve your household and not mine.”

Sir Waydon looked down.  “In the interest of having them
harvest their grains ere the cold fell, aye.  I reminded them that they were
bound only to my house, not to Brannagh, lest your house and mine should fall
afoul...”

Lord Daerwin looked out the window.  “This made no
difference to them, or you would not be here now.”  It was not a question.

“No.  Since the trade grain comes to your storehouses, they
would not be swayed.  By law or no,” Waydon said with a cracking voice, “they
say the lord of their lord is their lord.”

“All right, then, by their own word, they harvest for
Damerien, for the duke himself.  What say your farmers to that, then?”

The knight shook his head impatiently.  “Such words only
fanned their ire, my lord.  Apparently, whatever their worries are, they extend
beyond Brannagh to Damerien.”

Lord Daerwin turned to Waydon, no longer hiding his
frustration. These families had farmed the same lands for the same noble houses
for centuries.  Why this sudden disdain for Brannagh and Damerien?  What
argument could they have with the duke?  Trocu Damerien had just taken the
throne only two seasons ago upon his father Brada’s death; he’d not had time to
anger them yet.  Was the young duke bearing the blame for half a millennium of
terror and loss under his predecessors now that the farmers were safe from
harm?  The irony might have amused him if the situation were not so dire.  But
perhaps the farmers were not as simple minded as he gave them credit for
being.  Perhaps the reason for their anger was more concrete, more immediate. 
He looked up sharply.

“Does she speak sedition against Brannagh and Damerien to
them, this Chatka?”

“Truthfully, I cannot say, my lord.  I’ve heard no word of
hers.  But I know only that each night at sunset, they gather at her doorstep,
and as I’ve watched by night from my own castle, more gather to hear her
visions by each night that passes.  But I have no doubt that she speaks to them
her own mind and makes of it the will of the gods.”