Chronicles of Logos Quest For the Kingdom Parts IV, V, VI, and VII Revised With Index (Quest For the Kingdom Set) (6 page)

“By the royal
decree of His Imperial Highness Emperor Urbanus of the Empire of Valerium, the
sect known as Alexandrians is forbidden to assemble in the environs of the
Empire. They are to renounce their allegiance to any kingdom other than the
Valeriun Empire. Any found in violation of this edict shall be arrested and
tried for treason. The punishment for any found guilty shall be imprisonment
and confiscation of property to the Valeriun Empire. Signed this day by His
Imperial Highness, Emperor Urbanus.”

The startled
Alexandrians looked in bewilderment from the soldiers to Marcus. But before he
could respond the Guards dove in among them, driving them out of the library
and shutting the doors. As his fellow believers were sent out into the street,
Marcus stood with Tullia by his side. The Captain strode up to him and looked
him sternly in the face.

“Marcus
Maximus, you are to vacate the Villa Maximus and depart from the city of
Potentus this day, or feel the pain of the Emperor’s wrath.”

A sharp wind
had blown in from the sea the night before. It had howled with the rage of ten
thousand demons to the ears of Brenus. The sound kept him awake into the early
hours of the morning before he at last dozed off into a fitful sleep plagued
with vaguely uneasy dreams.

He woke more
exhausted than he had been when he retired to bed, and reluctantly threw off
his pelt of warm fur to face the morning. The late September days still retained
some lingering warmth, but the chill of autumn descended with the sinking of
the sun.

He recalled
with a groan that he had promised his mother Judoc to hunt some rabbit for the
stew she wished to make for the evening meal. It was the birthday of her
husband, Dag Adalbart, and he had developed a fondness for the stew, so
different from the meats of his homeland of Trekur Lende, where the men hunted
boar and bear to present to the women to roast over large spits in the open
air.

Brenus stuck
one foot out from his pelts, and on feeling the cold, quickly drew it back in
again. A few more minutes would not matter, he reasoned, and he needed to wake
up more fully before starting his day. He quickly nestled down under the fur,
burrowing his chin into its warmth, leaving his nose pointed out to face the
chill of the room.

As he lay
there he thought of Dag, the man whom he called his father. He was not of
course; his own father Denzel had died many years ago while venturing into a
world covered with snow to bring back venison for his son who craved it. Brenus
never forgot that day: the snow blowing around their hut for days and the wind
biting so hard that even a fire had been of little use to warm them. He had
grown weary of the bread and cheese that sustained them during the storm and
craved his mother’s venison stew. Against the pleas of Judoc Denzel had left
the shelter of the hut, never to return. His body had been found a few days
later, frozen to death not far from his home. Brenus had blamed himself for his
father’s death, and had never forgiven himself until Dominio gave him the
strength to do so.

He shook off
the memory and roused himself at last. He was greeted in the small kitchen by
Judoc, who bustled around cleaning up after herself and her husband. She shook
her head at her son, and prepared a meal of porridge and dark bread for him. After
he broke his fast, he kissed his mother swiftly and affectionately on the cheek
and left the hut. Dag was nowhere to be seen, but was already hard at work in
the field, according to Judoc, as she shot a slightly reproachful look at
Brenus, who had slept rather late this morning.

Aye, hadn’t he
been told before that he was a laze-a-bed, he rued. To be compared with the
industrious Dag did not help either. Brenus had never seen anyone as
hardworking as his stepfather. It was an ethic which Dag had passed on to his
adopted son, Cort, who also was seldom to be found at a loss for something to
do. Cort was as dear to Brenus as though they were blood brothers, and they had
already been good friends before Dag and Judoc were wed. Cort was no doubt
working hard with Dag, and Brenus would get a ribbing from him later when they
assembled for the evening meal.

Brenus left
the tiny village of Leith behind him and headed for the deep woods. How he
loved this land, he exulted! Was there any place in the world as lovely as
Eirinia?

The wind from
last night was nowhere in evidence this morning, and the mist from the sea had
rolled in, obscuring the village from view as he looked behind him. The woods
were hidden from his gaze as they were also enveloped in the fog that would not
lift for several hours; no, not until the sun had risen higher in the sky would
it dissipate and be lost in the splendor of the day.

He walked in
haste to atone for his earlier laziness and was soon deep in the woods. He
slowed his pace and crept in stealth, careful not to startle the wild life that
he came to stalk. Here the trees were shrouded even more heavily in the mist,
as the interlocking tree branches captured it and locked it in.

A sound came
to his ears: the cautious step of one trying not to be heard, yet betrayed by
the snapping of twigs and the crumbling of leaves that lay underfoot. Hardly
daring to breathe lest the sound of his exhale expose his hiding place, Brenus
dropped to one knee and aimed carefully with his bow.

Through the
trees just ahead a shape emerged and he let his arrow fly. A scream tore
through his brain, and he saw that a young woman clad in a long gray cloak had
fallen to the ground. With his heart feeling as though it had shot up from his
chest into his throat he rushed to her side, terrified that he had wounded or
killed her.

He turned her
over to face him and was startled by the loveliness of the face that looked up
at him. He judged her to be about eighteen years old, with eyes of a deep mossy
green and hair as golden-brown as chestnuts rippled from the confines of the
hood that had fallen back when she fell to the ground. She had a slim little
nose that tilted upward, and a pair of full red lips that would have puckered
pleasingly had they not been slack with shock. For a moment he forgot his
urgency in the sheer delight of contemplating her countenance; then recalled
himself to his senses.

“Are you hurt?
Did I injure you?” the words spilled out of him as she struggled to rise to her
feet.

Brenus put an
arm around her and helped her to stand. He kept his arm around her for a
moment, and she gazed up at him as if as entranced by him as he was by her. She
blinked her eyes and stared at him, then seemed to realize that she was being
held by a complete stranger to whom she had not even been introduced.

She stepped
back from him slightly and nodded her head.

“No, I am not
injured,” she whispered in a voice that was slightly husky and low in pitch
with a foreign accent; then her voice rose in anger. “But the inhabitants of
this land must be even wilder than I was told if you let loose arrows on
innocent travelers.”

Brenus
bristled slightly, but admitted she was right to be angry. He bowed to her and
took her hand in his.

“I do
apologize,” he said, “but I came to hunt and could not see you in the mist and
mistook you for an animal. And, if I may ask, why were you walking alone and
unprotected in the woods? That is not our custom with the women of Eirinia.”

Sparks of
green fire shot from the girl’s eyes, but she clamped her mouth tightly as if
to stifle her words. She looked at him for a long moment, clearly weighing her
words before addressing him again.

At last she spoke.

“I am looking
for a village called Leith,” she answered him. “I landed at a village called
Annick, where I took a room let to me by an old woman, and was told it is not
far, and my road ran through the woods. I am not familiar with this land, but
have been warned that the inhabitants are wild and unfriendly. When you shot at
me I thought perhaps rumor was correct.”

“That may be
so,” Brenus replied, “but our maidens do not wander alone in this land. There
are too many dangers abroad, the least of which are the inhabitants. You may
have been taken by a wolf, or shot by another hunter. Or worse.”

He did not
elaborate on this last statement, and the girl wrinkled her forehead in
puzzlement.

“I am Brenus
Adalbart,” he said suddenly. “Please forgive me for not introducing myself, but
this is not the customary way to meet strangers and I simply forgot.”

The girl
blinked her eyes, and turned a little pale. Brenus thought that his words
brought back a momentary return of her terror and thought nothing of it. But
her next words proved him wrong.

“What did you
mean when you said “worse” could have happened,” she asked. “I have heard
strange tales of this land; don’t expect me to believe that they are actually
true. For that I’ll
not
believe!”

“Tales? What
tales,” he asked her.

Yet he already
knew.

“Tales of
strange beings that walk by night, who are so terrifying that the inhabitants
lock themselves in and refuse to venture out after nightfall. That
can
not be true!”

Brenus decided
this was not the time to refute or confirm the wild tales that had always
circulated about his native land. Instead he felt it would be a good time to
get better acquainted with the pretty young woman.

“And where do
you hail from, Miss…”

“I am from far
away, a land you will not have heard of,” she said in haste. “And my name is
Melisande. Melisande de Camille.”

They would not
understand, Brenus told himself. Neither his mother, nor Dag, nor even Cort
would have been able to comprehend the passion that swept through him and
exhilarated his waking moments. So he did not share his new love with them.

He kept it
secret, as he did the fact that he met Melisande in the woods every day when he
roamed them to hunt. He was older than she, being already thirty-two years old,
but in Eirinia men often deferred marriage until they were established on their
own land and able to support a wife. Brenus still lived in the hut where he
grew up, as he had no real desire to farm his own land.

Judoc
despaired of that fact, and he knew that in his heart his step-father Dag
regarded him as lazy. Cort teased him about it, yet under the banter he sensed
that he was serious. Cort himself had built his own small hut and bought a few
acres of land which he tilled diligently, yet still helped Dag on his larger
property. Brenus convinced himself that he was still needed at home, where his
four younger siblings, the children of Dag and Judoc, kept their mother on the
run from the time she rose in the morning until the time she sank into grateful
sleep at night.

Yet the truth
was that Brenus had no desire to work his own acres and was happiest in the
woods where he could roam freely and hunt for game, his own contribution to the
family dinner, he told himself. And until now, he had met not a single maiden
that induced him to give up his freedom to support her.

But now
everything was changed. For a fortnight he and Melisande met secretly in the
woods. And his heart was taken as it had never been by any other. He rejoiced
in the smile that lit her face when she caught sight of him, the demure glances
from under lowered lids that she shot up at him from her modestly bowed head,
the husky laugh so unlike the high-pitched giggles typical of the maidens of
his homeland. In his eyes, she was the ideal of womanhood, and it was not long
before he asked her to share his life with him.

He would never
forget the day she agreed to become his. They had walked in companionable
silence together, listening to the few remaining birds that had not yet flown
south for the coming of winter, and enjoying the effect of brilliant sunshine
on the leaves now turning gloriously in the mild October air. The forest looked
like a shimmering jewel, and as he turned to comment on it to Melisande, he saw
that her eyes were slightly closed and she breathed deeply of the scent of
leaves beneath their feet. She too, he thought, felt the beauty of this moment,
and he found the courage to speak to her of what was in his heart.

“Melisande,”
he began.

She turned to
him with a slight smile, and the words tumbled from his lips.

“Oh,
Melisande! My darling Melisande: will you marry me?”

Such an abrupt
declaration of his feelings had not been his intent, but he did not have Cort’s
gift with words and the bluntness of his speech at least bespoke his sincerity,
even if it did not ring with the romantic cadences that most maidens desired.

Her eyes
widened, and she suddenly laughed. But it was a laugh of joy, he saw, and not
of mockery. He had feared that she would rebuff his rude proposal, but such was
not the case he noted with relief.

“Why, yes…of
course, I will,” she said simply as her eyes sparkled in amusement. “When shall
we wed?

“You will? You
mean it?” Brenus fumbled, hardly daring to believe his good fortune. “As to
when, the sooner we are wed, the happier I shall be!”

They laughed
and turned to face one another, then clasped their hands and entwined their
fingers in the oneness that Brenus already sensed between them.

“Then let us
not delay, but marry as soon as it is possible!” Melisande exclaimed.

“Yes, we
shall!” Brenus laughed. “But first, we must tell my family. And what of yours?
Do you know, I just realized that you have not once mentioned anything of them
to me! Are they in your homeland still?”

Melisande’s
eyes darkened at the mention of family. Brenus could not believe that he had
never noticed such a glaring omission, when the custom was to relate the
details of family to strangers in order to establish the stranger as a person
of respectability.

Melisande,
however, merely shrugged her shoulders.

“There is
nothing to tell of them,” she said with an air of nonchalance. “My parents are
both dead, and I have no siblings. Therefore, I had nothing to relate to you
and am alone in the world.”

As she said
this last, he noticed that her lips narrowed and her chin appeared to quiver.
Compassion stirred within him, and with it the desire to protect and shelter
his love.

“Oh,
Melisande,” he whispered tenderly. “My dear Melisande. How lonely you must be
at times.”

And he took
her hand and kissed it, then stroked it with his fingers.

“Yes, I am at
times,” she said with a trace of tears in her eyes. “But no more, because I
shall have
you
, Brenus!”

“You shall
indeed!” he exulted.

And he turned to
her and swept her off of her feet and swung her in a circle as she laughed in
delight and the golden leaves of an oak tree drifted gently around them.

It was
painfully obvious to Brenus that his family did not share in his delight when
he told them that he was soon to wed. Judoc questioned him at length regarding
Melisande’s origins and beliefs. He stated that she was an orphan but would now
have him by her side. As to her beliefs, he realized with a start that he had
no idea what they were. So entranced was he by her that it had never occurred
to him to interrogate her about such things.

Dag found that
statement inexcusable.

“Do you mean
to tell me,” he bellowed, “that you did not ask her what God she serves? Or if
she serves a God at all? How could you not ask such a thing?”

Brenus was
both embarrassed and angered by the interrogation. Perhaps he
was
slack
to have omitted such a question. But surely he was old enough to decide such
matters for himself!

Judoc sided
with her husband.

“Tis true,
Brenus,” she nodded her head. “You must be sure to take a bride who will serve
Dominio with you, or the union will be cursed.”

“Oh, come now,
surely that is too strong a word!” Brenus protested.

“No, it is
not,” Dag confirmed. “If you do not both serve Him, no fruit will come of it.
Except for evil.”

Inwardly
Brenus scoffed, but he did not dare to disagree openly with Dag. He was a man
highly respected in the village of Leith and the surrounding territory, and he
had always been taught to revere his elders. And Dag had been a good father to
him, treating him and Cort with the same love that he had his own children by
Judoc.

And yet…Brenus
could not agree fully with the reasoning of his mother and step-father. Even if
Melisande did not serve Dominio, surely no harm would come of their union.