'Palmaris awaits your change of mind,' Danube said to her in all seriousness. 'Whether today, tomorrow, or years hence, the city will be yours with but a word.'
Jilseponie started to reply, but changed her mind. The man had just paid her such a great compliment that she could not deny it, whatever might then be in her heart. She bowed her head respectfully and let it go at that.
When she looked up, though, she didn't-couldn't-miss the look of jealousy that Constance Pemblebury had put over her, nor the narrow-eyed warning gaze of Duke Targon Bree Kalas.
Yes, indeed, she thought, the wonderful world of politics!
'He means to make her his next queen,' Duke Kalas said to Constance as they trotted their horses along the road back to the south. 'You know that, of course.' Constance didn't reply, but her silence spoke volumes to Kalas. Of course, she knew. How could she not? All Danube had spoken of in the five days since they had left the Barbacan was Jilseponie Wyndon, the savior of the world. He had promised her Palmaris, and sincerely; and Kalas knew that the invitation would be extended, at but a word from her, to include Castle Ursal and the city itself, to include all the kingdom.
Yes, Kalas knew it and so did Constance: King Danube was stricken with love for Jilseponie Wyndon. He had to bide his time for now, because she would not be moved from the Barbacan, but Danube was a patient man and one who knew how to get what he most desired.
'Queen Jilseponie,' Kalas muttered quietly.
Constance Pemblebury fixed him with a perfectly awful stare.
They came in droves, the sick and the healthy, marching north from every corner of Honce-the-Bear, from Vanguard and from the Mantis Arm, from southern Yorkey, people living in the shadow of the Belt-and-Buckle mountain range, and from distant Entel.
Even from Behren, they came in small numbers, frightened people defying their yatol priests, daring to stow away on trading ships going around the mountain range's easternmost spurs, sailing up the coast all the way to the Gulf of Corona and to the mouth of the Masur Delaval, where they disembarked and began the land journey, desperate for healing.
The line of pilgrims thinned considerably, of course, with the onset of winter, but Jilseponie and Bradwarden and Braumin held their posts atop the plateau-an area sheltered by the magic of Avelyn from winter's coldest blows.
Few came as the year turned, and rumors filtered up the line to the sentinels of the covenant that many had died along the road, caught by storms or by exhaustion.
Jilseponie and the others held their faith, though. Yes, the plague would continue to claim victims, but hundreds and hundreds were now immune to its devastating bite.
And hundreds more would come to the Barbacan in the spring, they knew, for other rumors told of a great swelling of folk in the city of Palmaris, waiting for the word that the trails were clear.
One pleasant surprise came to them in the early part of the second month of the year, when a familiar form, bundled in layers of skins, scaled the rim of the plateau to stand towering above them.
Jilseponie's smile only widened and widened as more and more Alpinadorans followed Andacanavar up to that plateau.
'You did not believe that I could lead them here in the winter?' the ranger asked with a chuckle. 'What feeble ranger do you take me for, woman-ranger-in-training? '
Jilseponie could only laugh and shake her head. Andacanavar introduced them to Bruinhelde, then; and the man, to Jilseponie's eyes, didn't seem overthrilled to be there.
But, she noted, he was thick with plague.
A few tense moments followed, with Jilseponie and Andacanavar offering their reassurances that partaking of Avelyn's blood would not be an admission of any change of faith, that the covenant would hold for them without any promises of that. 'You can return to your homeland, safe from the plague, and go back to your ways and your God,' Jilseponie said, but she was looking more to Braumin than to the Alpinadorans as she spoke.
'You know the Father Abbot of my Church, good Bruinhelde,' Braumin said, surprising both Jilseponie and Bradwarden. But Braumin had spoken at length with Agronguerre about the possibility of this very meeting. 'You know the value of the alliance that you entered into with him and with Prince Midalis. Well, consider this an extension of that alliance, a furthering of the bond of friendship between our peoples.'
They all waited as Andacanavar translated the words into the Alpinadoran tongue, making certain that Bruinhelde understood not only the literal meaning of them but the manner in which they had been offered.
Bruinhelde then said something to the ranger, and Andacanavar turned to the trio. 'He fears that his actions here will offend his gods,' the ranger explained.
Jilseponie turned to her companions, then looked back to the Alpinadorans. 'Then you do it, alone,' she said to Bruinhelde. 'Act as vanguard for your people, the first to try.'
Andacanavar cleared his throat.
'The second, then,' Jilseponie corrected, for the ranger certainly had tasted the blood on his first visit to the Barbacan. 'But the first of your people who was not raised and trained outside Alpinador. Go to the hand and accept the covenant, of free will. Then you will know better how to guide those who followed you here.'
Andacanavar started to translate, but Bruinhelde held up his hand, motioning that he had understood the words well enough. He took a deep breath then, his massive chest swelling, and he strode past Jilseponie and the other two, right up to the upraised arm.
He dropped to one knee before the arm, studying it intently, even sniffing at the bloody palm.
Jilseponie came up beside him. 'Kiss the palm and you will understand,' she promised.
Bruinhelde looked up at her suspiciously.
'How can you properly guide your people if you do not know? ' she asked innocently.
The barbarian stared at her long and hard, and then he bent low and, with but a single quick steadying breath, he dipped his head and tasted the blood.
His expression showed surprise, and then…
Elation.
He looked up at Jilseponie again.
'You are the same man, with the same God,' she said quietly, 'but now the plague cannot touch you.'
And so it went, throughout the day, the barbarians of Alpinador finding salvation at the hand of a soon-to-be Abellican saint. They stayed in the Barbacan for some time, celebrating; and when they left, Bruinhelde promised Jilseponie that he would spread the word throughout his homeland, that other Alpinadorans would follow.
And she promised him that they would be greeted as friends.
As predicted, the swarm of pilgrims began again in the early spring, flowing endlessly out of Palmaris, filtering through the city from points all across Honce-the-Bear.
Jilseponie and Bradwarden watched them from their mountain perches, taking heart again that Avelyn's promise would be fulfilled, that the rosy plague would be washed from the land.
From the wooded trails far below the line of the Barbacan, another watched the procession, but with very different emotions.
For Marcalo De'Unnero, the nocking of all the world to Avelyn Desbris was like a dark mirror held up before his wretched eyes, a reminder of his own mistakes and failings.
He was a beast now as often as a man, consumed by the power of the tiger's paw gemstone that had somehow become a part of his very being. He understood it now to be a curse, and surely no blessing, for no longer could he control the urges of the hunting and hungry cat. He survived by killing, pure and simple. Deer, rabbits, and, when he could find no alternative, feasting on the flesh and blood of humans.
He knew that he was sinking, that the creature was consuming him, mind and soul.
But not in body. Nay, it seemed as if another gemstone, the hematite ring he had taken from a merchant in Palmaris, had also found its way to De'Unnero's wretched being. He should have died from the wounds he had received on that day when he had been chased out of Palmaris, for several of the arrows had struck him in vital areas. He had spent days pulling out the arrowheads, the extraction on several occasions followed by a gush of blood that had left him weak and even unconscious.
But every time, he had reawakened, his wounds healed. The soul stone would not let him die!
And truly, at that time, all that Marcalo De'Unnero wanted was to die, to be released from the bonds of the
