are allowed to enter the abbey,' came Castinagis' unyielding response.
'I will be gone but a few minutes,' Roger argued.
'A few seconds would be too long a time,' came the answer, and the panel at the end of the corridor slammed shut.
Roger's heart sank with that sound. He had hoped that he, as a personal friend of Braumin's, would find some assistance here, some of the compassion that St. Precious was not lending to those other unfortunate victims. He had hoped that his connections with the powerful churchmen would save Dainsey.
But now, even though he hadn't yet uttered one word to Braumin, Roger was being forced to face the truth, the fact that not Braumin, not Viscenti, not any of them, would do anything at all to help Dainsey, that her affliction would bring to her the same end as everyone else so diseased.
It took Roger a long while to find enough strength to lead his dear Dainsey back out of St. Precious. Never in his life, not even when he had been caught by Kos-kosio Begulne of the powries, had he felt so helpless and so wretched.
'There's not many goin' into the city o' late,' the ferry pilot said to the leader of the curious group of men as they neared the Palmaris wharf. They wore robes like those of Abellican monks, except that theirs were black with red hoods instead of the normal brown on brown. 'Den o' sickness, it is!' the pilot said ironically with a cough.
'Do you think you can hide from it?' the leader of the group, Marcalo De'Unnero, said to the man, his voice a tantalizing whisper. 'The rosy plague is a punishment from God, and God sees all. If you are a sinner, my friend, then the plague will find you, no matter how deep a hole you find to climb in.'
The pilot, obviously shaken, waved his hands and shook his head. ' Not a sinner, I ain't!' he cried. 'But I'm not wantin' to hear ye no more.'
'But hear me you must!' De'Unnero said, grabbing the man by the front of his dirty tunic and lifting him up to his tiptoes. 'There is no place for you to hide, friend. Salvation lies only in repentance!' he finished loudly, and all the hundred red-hooded men behind him, the Brothers Repentanttheir numbers swollen by the rush of eager townsfolk to join their ranks, for they, after all, by De'Unnero's own words, held the secret to healthcheered wildly.
'Repent!' De'Unnero yelled, and he drove the man to his knees.
'I will, I will!' the terrified pilot replied.
De'Unnero lifted his other hand, which was now the paw of a tiger, so that the pilot could see it clearly. 'Swear fealty to the Church!' he demanded. 'The true Church of St. Abelle, the Church of the Brothers Repentant.'
Eyes wide at the sight of the deadly appendage, the poor pilot began to tremble and cry, and he even kissed De'Unnero's hand.
Behind De'Unnero, the Brothers Repentant howled for blood. They began jumping so violently that the ferry rocked dangerously. They began punching each other; several stripped off their black robes and walked through the rest of the gathering, accepting slap after slap so that their bare skin reddened.
'We are your salvation,' De'Unnero said to the trembling man.
'Yes, master.'
'Yet you took our money for passage,' De'Unnero went on.
'Kill him, Brother Truth!' several men yelled.
'Take it back!' the pilot begged, pulling his purse from his belt and thrusting it into De'Unnero's hand. 'I swear, Brother Truth, if I'd'a known, I'd not taken a copper bear. On me mum's soul, I swear.'
De'Unnero took the purse and eyed the pilot dangerously a bit longer. Then he shoved the man down to the deck. 'Get us in to dock,' he said disgustedly, and he moved forward. The city was coming into clear view now, the buildings showing through the morning fog.
His anger was feigned, though, for in truth, the former Bishop of Palmaris was in a fine mood this particularly sweet day. He and his ferocious brood had swept across the southland, all across Yorkey, scouring town after town of infidels, and taking care to avoid any Abellican abbeys-with the sole exception of Abbot Olin's St. Bondabruce. As De'Unnero had guessed, Olin had been quite sympathetic to his cause, and while the man hadn't openly endorsed the Brothers Repentant, hadn't even let them into his abbey, neither had he opposed them and he had secretly met with De'Unnero. That meeting had gone wonderfully, as far as De'Unnero was concerned, for he hadn't missed the intrigue on Olin's face when he had hinted that he might know the way to Pimaninicuit, the far-off isle holding the treasure equivalent of the hoards of a hundred, hundred kings on its gem-covered beaches.
But those were thoughts for another day, the fierce master knew. For now, before him lay the most coveted jewel, the city of his greatest triumph and greatest defeat. Here lay Palmaris, mighty Palmaris, thick with the plague and ripe for the words of the Brothers Repentant.
Marcalo De'Unnero had not forgotten the treatment the folk here had given to him, nor the stern words of Abbot Braumin when the fool had expelled him from the city.
No, De'Unnero had not forgotten anything about Palmaris, the city in which all of this trouble with the plague had really begun. The city where Markwart and the old ways had been abandoned for this new foolishness. The city that embraced Braumin, and thus Jojonah and thus Avelyn and their insane ideas that the Church should be the healer of the common folk.
De'Unnero spat as he considered the irony of that goal. Where were the healers of the common folk now, this kinder and more compassionate Church? Hidden away, by all reports, behind thick walls and stinking flower beds.
Their cowardice would be their undoing, De'Unnero knew. Their cowardice would deliver the desperate, abandoned people of Palmaris to him, would make them heed his words of potential salvation.
Then Abbot Braumin and his foolish friends would come to understand what their errant beliefs had bought them.
Yes, this was a particularly sweet day.
Roger suffered through the indignity of another spiritual rape in the gateouse of St. Precious, then stormed out when at last he was cleared to titer. house of St. Precious, then stor enter.
'Where is Abbot Braumin?' he demanded of Brother Castinagis, who was again manning the gate.
Castinagis snorted and shook his head, patting poor Roger to calm him. 'He will see you,' he assured the man, but Roger shoved him away.
'He will hear me!' Roger retorted. 'And woe to those who turned Dainsey away!' Roger turned and stomped off, heading for the main building and the office of his friend.
'Abbot Braumin already knows,' Brother Castinagis called softly behind him, stopping Roger in his tracks. 'He knew even as we were inspecting you and the woman, even as we were following his orders that no one enter St. Precious without such inspection. He knew that your woman friend was turned away before it ever happened. Do not look so surprised, Roger! Have you forgotten that similar treatment was afforded Colleen Kilronney when Jilseponie brought her to our door? '
'B-but…' Roger stammered, and his thoughts were all jumbled. 'I am your friend.'
'Indeed,' said Castinagis, with no trace of sarcasm, 'a valued friend, and it pains me, as I'm sure it pains Abbot Braumin, that we cannot help your woman companion. Do you not understand? This is the rosy plague; we have no weapons against it.'
'What am I to do?' Roger asked. 'Am I to sit by and simply watch Dainsey die? '
'You would be wiser by far to stay here with us,' came a soft voice behind them. Roger turned to see his old friend Braumin Herde emerging from the building. The man had aged noticeably in the last year, the first signs of silver streaking his curly black hair, and deep lines running out from the sides of his eyes. 'There are plague houses which will make your Dainsey comfortable. I can arrange it. You need not return to her.'
Roger stared at him incredulously.
'There is nothing you can do for her,' Braumin went on. He moved closer and tried to put a comforting arm on Roger's shoulder, but Roger danced away. 'And contact with her greatly endangers you.'
'There must be some answer…' Roger started to argue, shaking his head.
'There is nothing,' Abbot Braumin said sternly. 'Only to hide, and you must hide with us.'
'Dainsey needs me,' Roger argued.
'You will do nothing more than watch her die,' Castinagis said.
Roger turned back to him, his expression grim and determined. 'Then that is what I must do,' he declared. 'I must watch her die. I must hold her hand and bid her farewell on her journey.'
