And so began the impromptu trial of Anders Castinagis, with De'Unnero, Brother Truth, holding him up as an example of the errors of the world, an Abellican monk who, like all the brown-robed churchmen, had fallen from the path of God and had thus brought the rosy plague down among them all. The plague victims wanted to believe those words-needed someone to blame-and they came at poor Castinagis viciously, spitting at him and kicking at him.
Over by the abbey, there came the sound of a lightning stroke, and even more general rioting.
That would have been the bitter end of Anders Castinagis, but then a contingent of horsemen, city guard, turned into the alleyway and came charging down, scattering plague-ridden peasants and Brothers Repentant alike.
De'Unnero thought to make a stand against them, thought to leap astride the nearest horse and kill the soldier, but he understood that this was not a fight he wanted. He wasn't personally afraid, of course, but thus far the soldiers of Palmaris-and thus, implicitly, the Duke serving as ruler of the city-had not hindered the Brothers Repentant from their orations and their occasional attacks on the Behrenese. Better not to make them an enemy, the cunning De'Unnero understood.
He leaped out of the way of the nearest approaching soldier and yelled for a general retreat. There was no pursuit, for the soldiers likewise did not wish to do battle with De'Unnero and his group. No, they were merely acting as the law required them, to protect an Abellican brother.
From the end of the alley, the fierce monk watched the soldiers scoop up the battered form of Anders Castinagis and turn back for St. Precious, forming a tight, defensive ring about the monk and warding the angry peasants away.
De'Unnero smiled at the sight. He knew that while many were dying each day of the plague, the numbers of the discontented, of the outraged, would continue to swell. He knew that he would find many allies in his war against the Abellican Church-no, not the Abellican Church, he mused, for it was his intent to reestablish that very body in proper form. No, this incarnation of his beloved Church more resembled a Church of Avelyn, or of Jojonah.
He would remedy that.
One abbey at a time.
One burned abbey at a time.
'It was De'Unnero,' Castinagis, lisping badly from a lip swollen to three times its normal size, insisted. ' No one else could move like that, with such speed and precision.'
'Rumors have named him as the leader of the Brothers Repentant,' Abbot Braumin replied with a sigh.
'Then we expose him to the people of Palmaris,' Viscenti chimed in eagerly.
The door of the audience chamber banged open then, and a very angry Duke Tetrafel stormed into the room. 'How did you-' Abbot Braumin started to ask.
'His soldiers had just helped us, abbot,' came a nervous remark from behind the Duke, from the brother who had been charged with watching the gate that day.
Abbot Braumin understood immediately; Duke Tetrafel had used the leverage of his soldiers' intervention to bully his way into the abbey. So be it, Braumin thought, and he waved the nervous young sentry monk away.
'You submitted to the gemstone inspection, of course,' Braumin remarked, though he knew well that the Duke most certainly had not.
Tetrafel scoffed at the absurd notion. 'If your monks tried to come to me with that stone of possession, my soldiers would raze your abbey,' he blustered.
'We are allowed our rules and our sanctuary,' Braumin replied.
'And did my soldiers not just allow several of your monks to get back into that sanctuary?' Tetrafel asked. 'Your friend Brother Castinagis among them? He would have been killed in the gutter. Yet this is how you greet me? '
Braumin paused for a long while to digest the words. 'My pardon,' he said, coming around the desk and offering a polite bow. 'Of course we are in your debt. But do understand that we have set up St. Precious as a sanctuary against the rosy plague, and to ensure that we must spiritually inspect everyone who enters. Even the brothers are subjected to such inspections, myself included, if we venture out beyond the tussie-mussie bed.'
'And if it was discovered that you had become afflicted with the plague? ' Tetrafel asked suspiciously.
'Then I would leave St. Precious at once,' Abbot Braumin replied without the slightest hesitation and without any hint of insincerity in his voice.
Tetrafel chuckled and stared at the abbot incredulously. ' Then you are a fool,' he said.
The abbot only shrugged.
'And if I became afflicted?' the Duke asked slyly. 'Would I, too, be denied admittance to St. Precious? And if so, would you and your brethren come out to tend to me? '
'Yes,' said Braumin, 'and no.'
Tetrafel paused a moment to clarify the curt responses, then a great scowl crossed his face. 'You would let me die?' The soldiers behind the Duke bristled.
'There is nothing we could do to alter that.'
'The old songs of doom proclaim that a monk might cure one in twenty,' Tetrafel argued. 'Would not twenty monks then have a fair chance of saving their Baron and Duke? '
'They would.' Again, Abbot Braumin kept his response curt and to the point. 'But you would not send them,' Duke Tetrafel reasoned.
'No,' answered the abbot.
'Yet I risk my soldiers for the sake of your monks!' the Duke snapped back, and he was having a hard time masking his mounting anger.
'We can make no exceptions in this matter,' Braumin replied, 'not for a nobleman, not for an abbot, not for the Father Abbot himself. If Father Abbot Agronguerre became so afflicted, he would be cast out of St.- MereAbelle.'
'Do you hear your own words as you speak them?' Duke Tetrafel roared. 'Could you begin to believe that the lives of twenty minor monks were not worth the gain of saving a duke or even your own Father Abbot? Pray you then that King Danube does not become so afflicted, for if he did, and if your Church then did not come to his aid with every Abellican brother available, then the kingdom and the Church would be at war!'
Abbot Braumin seriously doubted that, for it was not without precedent. Furthermore, while it pained gentle Braumin to watch the suffering of the common folk, Tetrafel's point was lost completely on him. In his view of the world, the life of a single brother, even a novitiate to the Abellican Church, was worth that of a duke or a king or a father abbot. As were the lives of every commoner now suffering on the square outside St. Precious. Yes, Braumin Herde cursed his helplessness daily, but he was glad, at least, that he was not possessed of the arrogance that seemed to be a major trait among the secular leaders of the kingdom.
'I have your words and your thoughts now,' Duke Tetrafel fumed. 'I see your perspective all too clearly, Abbot Braumin. Understand that I now relinquish all responsibility for the safety of your brethren if they venture outside St. Precious. Exit at your own peril!' And he turned and stormed out of the room, sweeping his soldiers up in his wake.
'That went well,' Castinagis lisped sarcastically.
As if to accentuate the point, a stone bounced off Braumin's window, clattering for a second, then falling harmlessly away. All day long, since the near riot at the back door, the peasants had been throwing rocks and curses at the abbey.
'We have lost the city,' Abbot Braumin remarked.
'We could send word to St.-Mere-Abelle for help,' Viscenti offered.
Braumin was shaking his head before the man even finished. 'Father Abbot Agronguerre has his own troubles,' he replied. 'No, we have lost the hearts of those in Palmaris, and cannot regain them short of going out with our gemstones among the people.'
'We send out salves and syrups, blankets and food, every day,' Castinagis interjected.
'And it is not enough to placate those who know they are dying,' said Braumin.
'We cannot go out to them,' Viscenti reasoned. 'Then we weather the plague within our abbey,' Abbot Braum decided, 'as it has been in the past, as we have done thus far. We will co tinue to send out the salves and other supplies as we can spare them, but the peasants-led by the Brothers Repentant, no doubt-come against i then we
