world too clearly, with all of its soiled corners.
With all of its cairns over buried heroes.
— Jilseponie Wyndon
Chapter 22
The snow was deep, the northern wind bitterly cold, but Abbot Braumin showed a distinct spring in his step as he approached the. gates of Chasewind Manor.
The sentries at the outer gate held him in check for a long while, as he expected, and didn't even offer him the meager shelter of their small stone gatehouse nor any of their steaming tea. No, they merely eyed him, their stares as cold as the north wind; and Abbot Braumin, despite his fine mood, had to wonder if he could ever repair the damage Duke Kalas had done to the relationship of Church and Crown in Palmaris.
A short while later, the abbot was finally admitted to the main house, and there he was made to sit and wait yet again, as the minutes became an hour, and then two. Braumin took it all in stride, whistling, singing some of his favorite hymns, even coaxing one flustered servant into an impromptu penitence session.
That session-certainly not a welcome thing in the court of Duke Targon Bree Kalas-was interrupted almost immediately by Kalas' aide, bidding the abbot to enter and commence his business with the Duke.
Abbot Braumin muttered a little prayer for himself, begging forgiveness for so using the unwitting servant, and promised to attend his own penitence session once he returned to St. Precious.
'Good morn, God's morn, Duke Kalas,' Braumin said cheerfully as he entered the man's study.
Kalas peered up at him from behind a great oaken desk, his expression one of pure suspicion.
Braumin took a long moment studying that scowl. It was no secret about the city that the Duke had been in a particularly foul mood of late; and Braumin could guess the source of that discontent. Many of Ursal's nobles were no doubt wintering in Entel or at Dragon Lake, a favored winter palace, while he was stuck up here, in the bitter Palmaris winter, alone and without any close friends. Even many of the stoic Allheart knights were beginning to shows signs of discontent, of homesickness.
'It is morning,' Kalas replied gruffly, shuffling some papers and nearly overturning his inkwell, 'and I suppose that every morning is God's to claim.'
'Indeed,' Braumin said, intentionally making his tone annoyingly chipper.
'Whatever concept of God one might hold,' Duke Kalas continued, narrowing his eyes.
'Ah, the purest concept of all,' Braumin answered without the slightest hesitation. He tossed a rolled parchment on the desk in front of Kalas.
Still eyeing Braumin suspiciously, the Duke picked it up and slipped the ribbon from it. He snapped it open with a swift, sudden movement, his eyes scanning, scanning, while he tried to hold his expression steady. Then, finished, he simply dropped the parchment back to his desk and sat up straight, folding his hands together on the desk before him. 'A chapel for Avelyn Desbris? ' he asked.
'In Caer Tinella,' Abbot Braumin said cheerfully, 'with the blessing of new Father Abbot Agronguerre-a good friend of your King's brother, I understand.'
Kalas, well aware of Prince Midalis' relationship with the Abellican Church in Vanguard, didn't blink. 'How steady is your Church, Abbot Braumin,' he remarked. 'First you claim Avelyn a heretic, now a saint. Do you so sway between good and evil? Do you worship God today and a demon tomorrow, or in your eyes are they, perhaps, one and the same? '
'Your blasphemy does not shock me, Duke Kalas,' Braumin replied, 'nor does it impress me.'
'If you believe that I have any desire to impress you, or any of your clergy leadership, then you do not understand me at all,' came the confident and firm answer.
Abbot Braumin gave a slight bow, conceding the point, not wanting to go down this tangent path.
'I have no jurisdiction over Caer Tinella,' the Duke of Wester-Honce went on. 'You should be throwing your writ upon the desk of Duke Tetrafel of the Wilderlands.'
'I need not the permission of the Crown or any of its representatives to begin construction of the chapel of Avelyn in Caer Tinella,' Abbot Braumin returned.
'Then why come here?' asked Kalas. 'Do you mean to taunt me by flaunting the expansion of your Church? Or to convince me, perhaps, that your way-the Light of Avelyn, I am hearing it called-is the one true way, and that Markwart and all the evil he wrought was but an aberration, a corrected mistake? ' 'I inform you of the construction of the new chapel in Caer Tinella merely as a courtesy,' Abbot Braumin answered. 'I intend to use masons from Palmaris for that work, and for the expansion of St. Precious.'
Kalas was nodding, obviously bored, and it took a long moment for that last part to even register. He snapped his glare up at Abbot Braumin, his eyes again going narrow and threatening. 'We have already settled this matter,' he said.
'What is settled in one moment might be altered in another,' Braumin replied.
Kalas just stared at him.
'There is new information,' the abbot said.
'You have found a way around the law? ' Duke Kalas asked skeptically.
'You decide,' Abbot Braumin replied, with equal confidence. 'Brother Dellman told me of a most unusual encounter up in Vanguard, Duke Kalas: a battle fought with powries.'
'Not so unusual in these troubled times,' Kalas replied, glancing at the lone sentry in the room, an AUheart knight, standing at attention to the side of the great desk.
Abbot Braumin studied the Duke carefully, looking for any signs of unintentional personal betrayal, as he continued. 'Apparently, these powries had some trouble with their ship.'
'Abarrelboat?'
Now it was Abbot Braumin's turn to glance at the AUheart knight, then questioningly back to Kalas.
The Duke caught the cue. 'Leave us,' he instructed the knight. The man looked at him curiously, but then snapped a chest-thumping salute and strode from the room.
'Palmaris ship,' Braumin said bluntly as soon as the door had closed, and he paused and let the notes of that devastating information hang in the air. Kalas did shift in his seat then, and Braumin imagined the man fighting an inner struggle at that moment. Should he feign ignorance? Or should he concoct some wild tale of escape?
The Duke folded his hands but did not sit back comfortably in his chair, a clear sign to Braumin that his words had intrigued the man and, perhaps, had scared him.
'A curious thing,' Braumin went on, his tone now casual. 'Brother Dellman insists that he recognized one or two of the powries.'
'They all look alike, so I have observed,' Duke Kalas said dryly.
'Though some might carry remarkable scars or wear distinctive clothing,' Abbot Braumin remarked.
Duke Kalas sat very still, staring, probing; and Braumin knew that he had hit the man squarely, that Brother Dellman's beliefs about the origins of the powrie band in Vanguard had been right on the mark. And now, given Kalas' reactions, Abbot Braumin knew that the powrie band had not escaped from Palmaris. Duke Kalas had a secret, a very dark one.
'And where does your Brother Dellman believe he once saw these same powries? ' Kalas asked, again in dry and seemingly unconcerned tones. But again, a subtle shift in his seat betrayed his true anxieties.
'He cannot yet be certain,' Abbot Braumin replied, emphasizing the word 'yet.' 'He envisions a misty and drizzly morning…' He let his voice trail off, the threat to Kalas hanging obvious and ominous.
The Duke stood up suddenly. 'What games do you play?' he asked, walking to the side of his desk to a brandy locker with, Braumin noted, a rather large sword hanging over it. The Duke poured himself a drink and motioned an offer to Braumin, who shook his head.
Kalas swirled the liquid in his glass a couple of times, then slowly turned, half sitting on the edge of the locker, his expression calm once more.
'If you have more to say, then speak it clearly,' he bade the abbot.
