Broken Rule | Chapter 19
This post is chapter nineteen of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule, which I'm serializing here on Steemit.
The story so far:
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Lorne's chance to rest did not last as long as he expected. As soon as he was able to stand without collapsing from pain he was pressed back into service. Still feeling too weak to do anything else, Lorne kept up the pretense that he was a soldier in Gavril's army. Many of the men went with Gavril to stomp goblins in the Wolf's Teeth, but Lorne had been left behind with the garrison to guard Thornwood. The officers in charge all knew that he fought the assassin involved in the kidnapping plot, and somehow in their minds this had transformed into the idea that Lorne was especially vigilant. This earned him a role as one of the bodyguards for the duke's other son.
It wasn't hard work. The boy did little but eat, sleep, and work on his sword technique in the practice yard. Lorne was able to beg off sparring with the boy due to his injuries, which was fortunate since Lorne's swordsmanship was rather limited and tended to feature techniques that were considered by some to be dishonorable. Most of them worked better with a shorter blade, anyway. The other men that made up the bodyguard seemed to enjoy practicing with the boy, and that held their attention so they weren't tempted to enter conversation with Lorne. That left Lorne's mind free to contemplate what his future held.
The Black Circle would certainly do something to him. He had botched things too badly for it to be ignored. There were Eyes in Tarkannan. How long would it take for them to get a message back to Old Harbor? How long would the Heart of the Black Circle need to discuss matters to determine what should be done with him? Not long, probably. And then how long to send someone from the Hand down to deal with Lorne? He knew from personal experience that this took a while. Still, his orders had been to proceed to Kubara after his mission in Thornwood. He wasn't entirely sure on the protocol for failed missions. He had never heard of anyone failing before. He wasn't sure whether this meant that he was the first, or whether the sanction was so severe that it was never spoken of, but neither prospect was appealing. With no other guidance, he assumed that the most reasonable course would be to head to the capital and start looking for new orders in the drop that Faber had mentioned. Perhaps they would tell him to go back to Old Harbor for punishment. That would certainly be preferable to facing it here.
Lorne volunteered for nighttime guard duty. He rotated through the various posts until it was his turn to sit outside the postern gate. The postern gate guard's duty was to challenge any people who might approach the castle the back way. No one ever came that way. Most of the guards hated that duty since it required sitting outside in the cold and dark with no one to talk to. Outside, alone, Lorne took the opportunity to simply walk away from Thornwood. It took him two days of walking to find the Redwater River. He turned upstream and walked along the banks to find one of the little villages clustered around a small dock where riverboats could tie up to load goods from the surrounding farms. He sat on the dock, calling to passing boats, trying to book passage to Kubara. He eventually found one willing to take him, although he paid a suspiciously high fare. He wondered if the man would drive such a hard bargain if Lorne hadn't been such an obvious foreigner, but it didn't matter. Lorne needed to get to the city, and this was the best way to get there. Lorne had no love of boats, but several of the other guards back at the castle had sworn up and down that river travel and ocean travel were worlds apart. Lorne would now have the opportunity to see for himself.
The trip on the riverboat depleted most of Lorne's remaining funds, but when he got to Kubara he still had enough to book himself a room for a month in a dockside boarding house that catered to foreigners. Lorne wasn't interested in answering questions about his business in Kubara, and the proprietor wasn't the type that would ask any.
He made his way to the cathedral and got caught up in the mass of humanity that was congregating to hear the prayers for the festival of Saint Andros. He didn't want to make any waves, so he let the tide of people carry him into the cathedral. Inside, it was packed wall to wall, and Lorne felt more trapped and constrained than in any of the hiding places he had used in his career. He felt intensely out of place. For the most part, the prayers were led by the young priest on the raised dais, but there were parts where he would stop and the crowd was expected to respond. Everyone around him seemed to know the proper phrases, but he was bewildered. Should he stay silent? Attempt to speak? Which would be more suspicious? He tried simply repeating what the people next to him were saying, but he wondered if he was calling even more attention to himself by continuing to speak after everyone else had fallen silent.
Eventually the service finished and most of the people left the cathedral while others gathered in clusters, talking to their friends. With the crowd thinning, Lorne found it easier to make his way to the periphery. Every few yards along the wall there were statues. Saints, Lorne supposed. But how was he supposed to tell them apart? There were no labels. He asked some of the people which one was Saint Denisa, but most of them just responded with dirty looks. Eventually one of them pointed him in the right direction.
The statue was of a woman with her hands tied and her eyes cast upwards. Lorne knelt down in front of the statue so that people would think he was praying. The statue had a square base, which appeared to have been originally carved to fit into some sort of receptacle. As a result there was a small overhang, a quarter inch high and an inch deep, all around the base near the floor. A rolled up piece of paper could easily be slipped underneath, and no one would ever see it unless they knew where to look. Lorne bent his head down next to the statue's base so he could see under the overhang behind the statue. That was where his message would be, his new orders from the Heart of the Black Circle. Nothing. He pushed himself up to a standing position, and he hoped that anyone who had been watching him would assume that his actions were part of the prayer, and not anything that merited further investigation.
By surreptitiously watching the cathedral, Lorne had discovered that quite a few people skipped the large services entirely but went later to pray by themselves. This practice appealed to Lorne, since the one service he had attended had been so unpleasant. Each day, around noon, he would enter the cathedral, sit on his knees for a few minutes in front of the statue of Saint Denisa, and then check the drop for messages as he stood. Every day, the drop was empty. Today, as he stood, someone addressed him.
“Brother, is there something you would like to talk about?” It was an older man, with cloth-of-gold trim on his vestments. Lorne cursed himself for not preparing for his role better. How could he have a plan involving frequent visits to the cathedral without bothering to learn more about the practice of the religion of the Most Holy?
“No, thank you. I was just praying.”
“Yes, and I have seen you praying every day,” said Bishop Vasili. “Every day you come in and pray before the statue of Saint Denisa, patron of the falsely accused. Prayer is important, but sometimes it also helps to talk about your problems. Maybe I can help. Have you been falsely accused of something?”
Falsely accused? If anything, the accusation would be proper. What was maddening was that it had not yet been leveled. He had bungled his mission in Thornwood, but the Black Circle seemed to be in no hurry to address the matter. “No, I...” He cursed himself again for not planning ahead what to say. He couldn't dismiss the man completely. He needed access to the cathedral every day in order to check his drop location, and he couldn't afford to antagonize the bishop. Perhaps give the man some part of the truth? In training they had said that the best lies had elements of truth in them. “No, I haven't been falsely accused. I... I failed at a task, but haven't been punished for it.”
Vasili smiled. “So, if Saint Denisa is the patron of the falsely accused, she must also be the patron of the falsely pardoned? I haven't heard that argument before, but it seems sound enough to me. But why should this trouble you? Is someone else being punished in your place?”
“No.” Why did it trouble him? Most people went to inordinate lengths to avoid punishment. If they didn't, it wouldn't take so much skill to act as the Hand of the Black Circle. Why wasn't he relieved? “It just seems to me that punishment should be swift and sure. That the world would be a better place if it was.”
“That may be, but the world is as the Most Holy made it, not as we wish it to be. Perhaps your failure is not so grievous as you make it out to be. What is this task that you failed at?”
“I can't talk about that. I'm sorry.”
“Hmmm,” said Vasili. “I understand that it can be difficult to speak of some things. But perhaps reflecting on the story of Saint Denisa and the shopkeeper will help you. Do you remember the story?”
Lorne cursed himself again. If he revealed that he knew nothing about the saint he was pretending to pray to, surely the bishop would become suspicious. “No,” he said. “No, not all of it.” The old bishop smiled. Ah, he must like telling the stories. Somehow he had stumbled into the proper answer.
“In the village where Denisa lived, there was a selfish and lecherous shopkeeper. He had a wife, but he also pursued Denisa. Denisa rejected him, and the shopkeeper flew into a rage. In his anger, the shopkeeper killed his wife. When he saw what he had done, he wanted to conceal his crime. He also blamed Denisa for his anger, rather than his own faults, so he told the other people in the village that Denisa had murdered his wife. In the shopkeeper's story, Denisa had pursued him, and when he rejected her she killed the wife out of jealousy. The shopkeeper was very persuasive, and soon the whole village was repeating his story.
“As often happens, as the story was repeated, it was embellished. Not only did people report that it happened, they added their own details. This one saw Denisa making advances on the shopkeeper. That one saw Denisa take a knife to the man's house. Another one saw her flee with blood on her hands. When the local knight came to the village to sit in judgment, people repeated their stories to him, and the knight had no choice but to judge her guilty.
“The people of the village gathered in the square to witness her execution, and the people shouted and screamed at her, calling her whore and murderer. But though she was afraid, she did not lose faith. She stood tall and protested her innocence. The knight was so moved by the power of her faith that he stayed his hand. One by one, the people in the crowd confessed that they had invented the details in their testimony, not truly seen them. Eventually, the true murderer stood alone, and the people saw that the story he told was a lie. The shopkeeper was punished, as he deserved. Denisa was set free and went on to perform all of the holy acts that earned her sainthood."
Lorne considered the story. “I am like the shopkeeper who deserved the punishment, but didn't get it when he deserved it.”
“Perhaps,” said Vasili. “But you said that no one is being punished in your stead. Maybe you are someone else in the story. Maybe you are the knight.”
“The knight? I don't understand.”
“By the law, the knight should have taken Denisa's head. The testimony he heard named her guilty. His duty was to kill her, but he failed in that duty. But by failing, he was truly doing the will of the Most Holy.”
“You think that I was meant to fail?” That was nonsense. Even if this Most Holy existed, why should He want Lorne to fail in his mission?
“I don't know,” said Vasili. “But it is something you should consider. The Most Holy tests us, but not always in the way we expect. You believe that all failure deserves punishment but, as we saw in the story, it is never that simple. If following rules were all that mattered, the Most Holy would not have given us minds capable of more. If the knight were only capable of following rules, he would have executed Denisa. Instead he was able to balance duty and compassion and made the right judgment in the end. Maybe your own judgment of your failure has been too swift, too simple. Without knowing the details, I can't say for sure. But it is something for you to think about.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course, brother. Perhaps after you have considered it, we can talk again another time.”
“Perhaps.” Lorne was uncomfortable with the topic. It had been easier, simpler to believe that the Black Circle should be more perfect, swifter, surer. But what the bishop was saying made a sort of sense, if you could separate it from the story. That was unsettling. The world needed rules, and people needed to follow them.
“The blessings of the Most Holy on you, brother,” said Vasili as he walked away. Lorne didn't feel blessed. His doubt and confusion over his failure were bad enough already, and now the bishop's theology had added to it.