Later, it would cloud over. Snow would come with the dawn. It would stick for days, something alien to Shamramdi.
The children would enjoy it immensely.
24. Brother Candle: Full Circle
The Perfect Master spent more than a month hiding amongst Khaurene’s Seekers, none people with whom he usually associated. The Maysaleans smuggled him out, finally, during the excitement after King Regard abandoned his siege. Most of Regard’s soldiers returned to Arnhand. They would not come back. But a minority, with no prospects elsewhere, stayed. They captured several small castles, murdered heretics-anyone the Society indicted- and built a rambling, inadequately fortified camp only miles from Khaurene.
Thoughtful Arnhanders feared the coming summer. The lack of bluster out of Khaurene and, more so, out of Direcia guaranteed a fiery reckoning.
The most stubborn Connectens, rural lords who shared an attitude with the iconic Count Raymone Garete, harassed the Arnhanders constantly, determined to wear them down before Anne of Menand gathered new swarms of bandits. They responded rudely when Serenity threatened them with excommunication.
Count Raymone and Antieux continued to give heart to those who refused to accept foreign dominion and religious bullying. Though now, with the Viscesment Patriarchs gone, legal pretenses for defying Brothe were more strained.
It had become harder to make a case for the Brothen Patriarch being a tool of the Adversary. God did, after all, have the option of overruling any Patriarchal election.
Hundreds fled Khaurene with Brother Candle, for as many reasons as there were people fleeing. The siege, though never fully effective, had discouraged many would-be travelers. Brother Candle went out in disguise, as part of a family rejoining relatives in Castreresone. The gate guards were not looking for a party of twelve, nor for one old man. The guards were looking for the things Duke Tormond had given Brother Candle, in the possession of one old man.
Those left Khaurene through a different gate. The youth carrying them had no idea. He met Brother Candle near Camden ande Gledes, of grim recollection. The Perfect took the treasures and headed east with his adoptive family, who suspected the identity of their companion but were vague on why the authorities wanted him. They assumed religious crimes.
Castreresone was controlled by Navayans, to whom the White City had passed when Isabeth inherited. The people, including local Seekers, were content. The only grumbling came from those close to the Brothen Church. They did not grumble loudly. Count Raymone had friends in Castreresone. They outnumbered Serenity’s.
Brother Candle spent several weeks seeking those friends, who might be men he knew and trusted, but enjoyed no success. In time he left the White City, hurriedly, because members of the Maysalean community bragged that a famous Perfect was among them. And that word reached Count Diagres Alplicova, Queen Isabeth’s proconsul.
Out of sight of the city’s white walls, Brother Candle changed into his Seeker travel wear. That would mark him for his enemies, yes, but in the Connecten countryside it would mark him more clearly for his friends. And, sure enough, he fell in with bandits that same afternoon. Bandits who, recognizing him as Perfect, never asked to see what was in his pack.
Those fourteen men played only a brief role in the Perfect’s tale. They fed him and protected him on the road to Sheavenalle. He learned only a few names, Gaitor, Geis, and Gartner, who were brothers. The band presented a social history of the past half decade. These men came from several countries, had deserted several armies, had been driven from their homes by fighting, or were criminal fugitives from the cities. A half-dozen ragged families followed them, mostly women in circumstances more dissociated from the main than those of their men. In gratitude for their assistance, and despair over what the women and children were suffering, Brother Candle found the means to write a short message. He gave it to Geis. “Take that to Antieux. Give it to a man named Bernardin Amberchelle. Your fortunes should improve.”
Geis thanked him, though he was suspicious. No one did them favors. Geis could not read, nor could any of his companions, so there was no way to be sure the note would not betray them to the authorities. But, on the other hand, the author was a genuine Perfect Master. Those people did not play cruel games.
Geis promised.
The Maysalean community in Sheavenalle had abandoned that city during the Connecten Crusade, shortly before it fell to the Captain-General. The rest of that city’s religious minorities had gone, too. Only a few returned when Pacificus Sublime called the crusade off and sent the Captain-General to fight pagans on Artecipea. Brother Candle had trouble finding the modern community, then was uncomfortable among them. Though they called themselves Seekers After Light, their doctrine differed from that practiced farther west. Brother Candle found them too worldly, while strangely otherworldly.
They disbelieved in the marriage sacrament, but not in physical abstinence, so held one another in common. Likewise, property, such as survived. And they believed in a different form of reincarnation.
Errors, Brother Candle thought. They had come into being because these Seekers had no Perfect to guide them. Then he learned that their erroneous thinking came from Firaldia. Seeker doctrine there had come under the influence of thinkers in remote reaches of the Eastern Empire. Brother Candle met several Firaldian Seekers there, and was dismayed. They were as militant as the brethren of the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.
He left Sheavenalle as soon as he found passage aboard a coastal trader that meant to sail up the river Job. Agents of the Society, of Navaya, of anyone else interested in what Brother Candle carried, might be watching the approaches to Count Raymone but he doubted that anyone would anticipate him arriving by ship.
The vessel was small. Its cargo seemed to be salted fish. Its crew were all related and fit perfectly Brother Candle’s idea of coastal pirates. They would indulge, too, no doubt, if they thought they could get away with it. They might have robbed a passenger, too, were they sure they could be rid of the body effectively. But they gave that no thought in Brother Candle’s case. Being what he was, he would have nothing of value. And preying on a Perfect would be begging to bring a curse down on the family.
Brother Candle was ever amazed that supposed holy men, good or bad, enjoyed so much deference. Especially these past few years, when so many had been so blatantly predatory.
He did not fail to take advantage of that deference.
At his urging the sailors waited till dusk to tie up at Antieux’s waterfront. Time of arrival made no difference because tidal effects were minimal on the Mother Sea.
The waterfront, such as it was, lay outside Antieux proper, downstream, and consisted entirely of slapped- together facilities. Several sieges in a few short years left people unwilling to invest in structures that could not be defended. It was an article of faith that the new Patriarch would seek revenge on the city that had injured and humiliated him.
The Perfect first searched for fellow Maysaleans. And found them in numbers. Count Raymone had made Antieux a haven for Seekers After Light. He knew they would fight when the Patriarch’s men came. But the Perfect could find no one he knew, personally or by repute. Carrying what he carried, he dared not reveal himself to strangers.
It was not a good time to have no place to stay. Winter had its teeth out.
The warmth of the coast had vanished after just a few miles of river travel. There had been ice floes the rest of the way. Brother Candle tried life on the streets but gave up after one night.
He was too far past his prime.
He went to a Maysalean church that helped Seekers in need. A church! That was a wonder in itself. Seekers did not have churches. But this one had been taken from the Brothen Episcopal Church because of the bad behavior of its priests. To make his point loudly, Count Raymone had handed it over to local Seekers, who made of it a
