The White Robe (24 page)

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The Words of the Goddess

Jonderill sat in the common room of the Armsmaster Inn and stared thoughtfully into his half empty pot. As usual the inn was busy although not as busy as the previous night and the pot boy had been able to find him a small table by the back wall where he wouldn’t be disturbed. The remains of his evening meal sat on the table, picked over but barely eaten and next to it stood the two ale pots he had already emptied. He frowned as he once again turned Allowyn’s words over in his mind. What did he want to be and was he prepared to work hard to be it.

The problem was that he didn’t know the answer to the first half of the question, and the more he thought about it, the further away the right decision slipped. Even his decision to stay another day at the Enclave felt wrong; it was as if something was calling to him to leave, but at the same time, something was holding him there. He’d returned to the inn from Allowyn’s camp with a small escort of guards after Dozo had redressed his wounds and had instructed him not to practice with a sword or exercise for at least two more days.

It had been his intention to stay at the practice field longer but Allowyn and Tissian had left to do their devotions in private so there hadn’t been much point in staying. Apart from that he’d left his room at the inn with all the appearance of it being abandoned and he needed to get back there before the innkeeper let it to someone else. The thought of having to spend a night in the rooms given to him by the High Master was not a pleasant one.

When he reached the inn he’d been relieved to find that nobody had been into his room and the pile of clothes and coins lay untouched on his bed where he’d left them. The task of putting things back where they belonged had taken only moments and then he’d sat and stared at the two objects on his bed for a long time hoping that one of them would call to him but neither did. The grey robe looked as it always did; smooth and clean despite his efforts to burn it. The blood from his wounds of the previous night were nowhere in sight, and having been rolled up and tied behind his saddle for half a day seemed to have had no effect on it at all. His sword too looked like it always did; long, bright and sharp although it had felt heavy and cumbersome when he’d laid it on the bed. He put that down to the ache in his shoulder and side from the wounds he’d taken.

After a while he grew tired of staring at them and left them there whilst he set off for the House of Learning. The least he could do was apologise to the master for his failure to attend his instruction. He knew he should have taken his sword with him for protection, but he couldn’t bring himself to pick it up, so he was quite relieved when he noticed that one of Allowyn’s armsmen was following him at a discrete distance. When he reached the House of Learning the Master of Magic wasn’t there, so he spent the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the city and eventually ended back at the inn. He’d only just returned when the pot boy dragged him through the door, found him a table and thrust a pot of the inn’s best ale into his hand.

He was still staring into the half empty pot when the spare chair at his table was pulled backwards, its legs scraping noisily on the rough stone floor. Jonderill looked up in annoyance, straight into the bright blue eyes of Tissian who gave him a broad grin. “I hoped I might find you here. When Allowyn and I returned to his camp I thought you might have changed your mind and left the Enclave, but Allowyn was certain you wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” Jonderill gave him a half smile but said nothing, making Tissian a little less certain. “May I join you? I’m rather in need of a large ale.”

Jonderill thought of refusing but that would have been churlish and besides Tissian really did look like he needed to sit down. His hair was wet again and its darkness contrasted against his very pale skin. Whilst he’d changed his clothes from the ones he’d worn to penance, there were sweat marks on his dark shirt. A large bruise was starting to blossom on his left cheek, and his hands, which looked like they were propping him up at the table’s edge shook slightly.

“I think you’d better sit down before you fall down,” said Jonderill as he waved to the pot boy for more ale. “You look awful. Was it very bad?”

Tissian sat, wincing slightly at having to bend his legs and then sighing in relief as he stretched them out in front of him. The pot boy arrived with two pots of dark, brown ale and Tissian emptied one without stopping. Jonderill pushed the second one in his direction and Tissian took two large gulps before putting the pot back on the table with a look of satisfaction.

“Allowyn is a hard task master and has worked me all day without a rest. I think if he’d made me run around that field one more time I would have dropped at his feet and would never have got up again.” He took another gulp of ale.

“What about the bruise?”

“Oh, that.” He touched the side of his face gingerly. “That’s nothing; you should see the ones on my ribs.” He gave a small laugh and looked a bit sheepish. “We fought for a candle length without weapons and I was foolish enough to make a comment about losing speed and agility when you are past twenty summers. Unfortunately I wasn’t fast enough or agile enough to move out of the path of Allowyn’s right fist.”

“And the ribs?”

“Too slow defending myself with the pike-staff.”

Jonderill shook his head. “Why do you do it? There must be easier ways of earning a living.”

“There are but none that I want to do.” Jonderill shook his head again. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do; to be a protector. From the first day I came here at six summers old and the goddess spoke to me I’ve wanted to be just like Allowyn. He gave me my first sword and Callabris spoke up for me when the masters wanted to apprentice me to a weaver. I’ve trained every day since. Even when I have walked penance all day or I have been on guard duty I train and one day, if the goddess allows, I’ll be paired with a white robe and become his protector.”

“It must be amazing to know with such certainty what it is you want to be.”

“It is but I wouldn’t have known if the goddess hadn’t spoken to me.”

“I wish she would speak to me then,” said Jonderill despondently as he drank down the last of his flat ale. “I might then have a clue about what I am going to be.”

“Have you not heard the voice of the goddess?” asked Tissian in surprise. “I know that she hardly ever speaks to acolytes, not even someone like Gellidan who will be the next protector, but I thought that all those with magic would hear her words otherwise how would they know what their calling was?”

“That could be my problem.” He waved to the pot boy who hurried over with another two pots of ale and a bowl of fish stew for Tissian.

“Perhaps it is,” mused Tissian thoughtfully as he ladled the hot stew into his mouth. The pot boy returned with a small loaf of bread which Tissian used to mop up the sauce and clean the inside of the bowl. When he’d finished he sat back with a look of mischief on his face and gave Jonderill a big grin.

“I think you need to hear what the goddess has to say to you and as the High Master has not arranged for you to enter the goddess’s sanctuary to speak with Federa then I think the task will have to fall to me.”

“I’m not sure about that.” said Jonderill doubtfully. “Won’t you get into trouble?”

“I’ll only get into trouble if someone finds out.” He gave an excited laugh “Come on Jonderill, I think we should do it tonight, right now. What do you say? Shall we go and find out what the goddess has planned for you? At least then you will know if you should stay or not.”

Jonderill thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Let’s do it then, but how do we get into the temple, it must be guarded or something?”

“Well, that’s where you come in. You’ll have to use your magic to open the doors.”

“If I could do that I wouldn’t need to go into the temple, would I?” He thought about it for a moment and then grinned. “I might not be able to open doors but I have something in my room which can.” He pushed his chair back swaying slightly from the effect of the strong ale. “Come on!”

Jonderill led the way out of the inn and up the stairs to his room where he took Plantagenet’s old iron blade from under the bed where he kept it. It felt strangely heavy and awkward in his hand and he felt a little dizzy as he held it at arm’s length. Tissian looked at him curiously but said nothing. Instead he led the way back down the stairs, past the front of the inn and into Smith’s Square.

The square was lit by flickering torches which gave people enough light to find their way along the pathway but sent long shadows dancing up walls and filled the corners with darkness. Fortunately it was a moonless night and was still, quiet and late enough for most people to be home or eating at an inn. Tissian led the way around the edge of the square keeping to the shadows. Half way around Jonderill stopped him so he could turn back to see if he was being followed, but the armsman that Allowyn had sent to watch over him had gone off somewhere else. They took one of the turnings off the square almost opposite the pathway which lead to the inn and keeping to the side streets and shadows they made their way across the city until they reached the wide area of marble paving which surrounded the temple.

Jonderill hadn’t been back to the temple since the day he had arrived at the Enclave and, in the darkness, the looming building looked even more forbidding than it had in the long afternoon he’d stood outside its walls watching people passing by. Tissian led them to a place about a quarter of the way around the building where the marble pathway was quite narrow and they couldn’t be seen from the front entrance with its massive doors and the night time guards.

“One of the advantages of having spent so many days walking penance around the temple,” whispered Tissian, “is that you get to study every block of stone and every mortared joint in detail.”

He grinned at Jonderill, took a quick look around to make sure that there was nobody about, and scuttled across the marble pathway until he was pressed tightly against the temple inside one of the small alcoves carved into the wall. Jonderill followed him in, cursing under his breath as the old iron blade clattered against the stone. They froze but nobody came to investigate the noise.

“I think this is a hidden door,” whispered Tissian. “The jointing is a shade lighter than the rest of the wall and when you touch it the stone is warm.” Jonderill felt the stone and nodded in agreement. “Can you open it?”

Jonderill shrugged and turned to face the wall. If it was a door there was no sign of a handle or hinges and when he ran his hand across the surface he couldn’t feel any cracks where the door might meet the wall. He pulled the old iron blade from beneath his jerkin and held it firmly in his hand. Plantagenet had assured him that there was no magic in the blade and that it was just an old, disused iron sword, but he knew that it had opened all the doors in Maladran’s tower when he had needed it to. He muttered a quick prayer for the goddesses help and pressed his hand which held the blade against the stone wall. With a small click the door swung open.

As before he was so surprised at what had happened that he nearly fell over, but Tissian grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him firmly through the doorway. Once they were on the other side the door closed gently behind them with barely a sound. If they had thought it was dark outside it was nothing compared to the total blackness of where they stood inside the temple. Hesitantly, not being sure that it would work, Jonderill gathered his focus and a small ball of white light appeared in the palm of his out stretched hand and lit up a long corridor.

“Where do we go now?”

“The only entrance to Federa’s sanctuary that I know of is through the High Master’s room, it was the way I was taken when I went there. Do you think you can open the door, it might be warded?”