DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (135 page)

Connor shuffled over and sat on the bed, thoroughly stunned and trying to sort it all out. He had been in the Way that night a couple of years before when an enormously fat monk, a man of St.-Mere-Abelle, he had heard, and not of St. Precious, had arrived and spoken with Pettibwa. That meeting had seemed calm enough, though the man had spoken of Jill, which somewhat upset the normally jovial woman. Still, on that occasion, the monk had been gentle enough and gracious enough.

“Did they say why they had come?” Connor asked her. “Did they mention what crimes the Chilichunks were being accused of? You must tell me, I beg.”

“They asked about the mister and missus’s daughter, that’s all,” Dainsey replied. “They said I was her at first, and then two young ones moved to grab me. But the old one, he said that it wasn’t me, and the mister and missus both said so, too.”

Connor put his chin in his hand, trying hard, and futilely, to digest it all. Jill? They were looking for Jill? But why?

“Then they said the mister and missus must be hiding her, and so they went through the whole place, makin’ a mess o’ everything,” Dainsey went on. “And then they took ‘em, all three.”

Connor Bildeborough was not without resources. His network of friends and confidants included people from the palace to the abbey to House Battlebrow, the most notorious brothel—and thus, one of the most powerful houses—in all the city. It was time for him to put that network into action, he realized, time for him to get some answers.

If the Church had come so forcefully for the Chilichunks on a matter concerning Jill, then Connor, too, might find himself under suspicion. These were, after all, dangerous times, and Connor, who had lived all of his thirty years in the presence of the ruling class, understood well how serious the games of intrigue could become.

“You stay here, Dainsey,” he decided. “And keep that door closed, and do not even offer an answer to anyone’s call, except for mine.”

“But how’m I to be sure that it’s yerself come a’calling?”

“We’ll have a secret word,” Connor said mysteriously, and he saw that get Dainsey’s attention. Her face brightened at the thought, the frying pan went back on the night table and she plopped down on the bed right beside him.

“Ooh, but that’s so exciting,” she said happily. “What word, then?”

Connor thought it over for just a moment. “Bymegod,” he said with a wicked smile that brought a fierce blush to Dainsey’s cheeks. “You will remember that one, will you not?”

Dainsey giggled and blushed even more. She had heard that phrase before, had been known to say it repeatedly at certain times when she and Connor were alone in her room.

Connor gave her a little tickle under the chin, then rose and went to the door. “Speak to no one else,” he instructed as he left. “And if the Chilichunks return—”

“Oh, but I’ll let them in!” Dainsey cut in.

“Yes, do,” Connor said dryly. “And then tell Grady to find me. Can you remember to do that?”

Dainsey nodded eagerly.

“Bymegod,” Connor said with a wink as he departed.

Dainsey sat on the bed giggling for a long while.

“You believe this to be a game?” Markwart screamed, sticking his face right up to poor Grady Chilichunk, the old man’s bloodshot eyes boring into Grady’s.

Grady was chained to the wall by the wrists, with the shackles up high so that he had to stand on his tiptoes the whole time. And it was hot down there in the cellar of St. Precious, with a fire pit and bellows set up in the low-ceilinged, tight room.

“I never even liked her,” the prisoner sputtered in reply, sweat and spittle flying out with every word. “I asked for no sister!”

“Then tell me where she is!” Markwart roared.

“If I knew, I would,” Grady protested, his voice more controlled, though hardly calm. “You must believe me!”

Father Abbot Markwart turned to the two monks who had accompanied him to the dungeons, Brothers Francis and Dandelion, the huge and vicious younger monk wearing a hooded cloak, an appropriate garment for this dark occasion.

“Do you believe him?” Markwart asked Francis.

“He seems sincere,” Brother Francis answered honestly. His perspective was biased, he knew, because he simply didn’t want to see any more of this interrogation, truly the most brutal questioning he had ever witnessed. He did believe Grady, and hoped that Markwart would, as well.

Grady’s face brightened just a bit, a hint of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

“Seems?” Markwart pressed, sounding incredulous. “My dear Brother Francis, on a matter as important as this, do you believe that the appearance of truth is enough?”

“Of course not, Father Abbot,” Brother Francis replied with a resigned sigh.

Father Abbot Markwart turned on Grady. “Where is she?” he asked calmly.

The man whined as he searched for an answer that he could not know.

Markwart nodded to the hooded Dandelion. “We must be certain,” he said, and then he walked away, Brother Francis in tow.

Brother Dandelion was right before Grady in an instant, his huge fist slamming hard into the man’s exposed ribs. “Please,” Grady stammered, and then he was hit again, and again, and again, until his words came out as undecipherable groans.

“And when you are finished,” Father Abbot Markwart said to Dandelion, “do go to an upstairs hearth and take a poker, then lay it in the fire of this room for a bit. We must test this one’s sincerity, after all, and teach him a lesson of obedience to the Church.”

“No!” Grady started to protest, but his breath was blasted away by another heavy punch.

Markwart left the room without looking back. Brother Francis did pause before following, staring back at the spectacle. Grady Chilichunk wasn’t the only one in this room being taught a lesson.

Another punch brought a pitiful groan, and Francis rushed away, skittering to catch up to Markwart.

“You would not really use a heated poker on the poor fool?” he asked.

Markwart’s look stole the blood from his face. “I will do whatever I deem necessary,” he said calmly. “Come along, the old man down the hall is near to breaking, I believe. Perhaps we can invade his thoughts once again with the soul stone.” Markwart paused, studying the expression on the younger monk’s face, recognizing doubts etched there.

“Whenever the business gets unpleasant, all you need do is think of the greater good,” he quietly instructed.

“But if they are telling the truth…” Francis dared to argue.

“A pity, then,” Markwart admitted. “But not so much a pity as the consequences if they are lying and we do not probe deeper. The greater truth, Brother Francis. The greater good.”

Still, Francis was having a hard time reconciling his heart with the spectacle. He said no more about it, though, but produced the soul stone and dutifully followed his superior to the next cell in line.

More than an hour later, a painful hour for Grady and Graevis, Francis and Markwart exited the heavy door leading to the narrow stone stairway to the abbey’s chapel. They found Abbot Dobrinion waiting for them on the top step.

“I demand to know what you are doing down there,” the abbot fumed. “These are my subjects, and loyal to the Church.”

“Loyal?” Markwart spat at him. “They harbor fugitives.”

“If they knew—”

“They do know!” Markwart yelled in his face. “And they will tell me, do not doubt!”

The sheer intensity, the sheer wildness, of his tone sent Dobrinion back a couple of steps. He stood staring at Markwart for a long while, trying to get a reading of the man, trying to find out just how far this all had gone. “Father Abbot,” he said quietly at length, once he was back in control of his own bubbling anger, “I do not doubt the importance of your quest, but I’ll not stand idly by while you—”

“While I begin the canonization process for our dear Allabarnet of St. Precious?” Markwart finished.

Again Dobrinion paused, his thoughts whirling. No, he decided, he could not let Father Abbot use that as leverage against him, not in a matter as important as this. “Brother Allabarnet is deserving—” he started to protest.

“As if that matters,” Markwart spat. “How many hundreds are deserving, Abbot Dobrinion? And yet only those chosen few ever even get nominated.”

Dobrinion shook his head in defiance to every word. “No more,” he said. “No more. Choose your course concerning Brother Allabarnet based on the work and life of Brother Allabarnet, not on whether or not the present abbot of St. Precious agrees with your campaign of terror! These are good people, good in heart and in deed.”

“What do you know of it?” Markwart exploded. “When enemies of the Church bring St. Precious down around you, or the rot within the Church brings you down inside the walls you thought sacred, or when goblins freely roam the streets of Palmaris, will Abbot Dobrinion then wish he had let Father Abbot Markwart conduct the matters with a just, but iron, hand? Do you even begin to understand the implications of the cache of stolen stones? Do you even begin to understand the power they might bring to our foes?” The Father Abbot shook his head and waved disgustedly at the man.

“I grow weary of trying to educate you, foolish Abbot Dobrinion,” he said. “Let me warn you instead. This matter is too important for your meddling. Your actions will not go unnoticed.”

Abbot Dobrinion squared his shoulders and eyed the old man directly. Truly, some of Markwart’s claims of the potential calamity had shaken a bit of his confidence, but still, his heart told him that this inquisition of the Chilichunks, and of the centaur, could not be a righteous thing. He had no arguments that would stand against Markwart at that time, though. The hierarchy of the Abellican Church did not allow him, as a mere abbot, to seriously question the authority of the Father Abbot, even within the walls of his own abbey. He gave a curt bow, then turned and walked far, far away.

“Who is Dobrinion’s second at St. Precious?” Father Abbot Markwart asked Brother Francis as soon as the other man was gone.

“In line for the position of abbot?” Francis reasoned, and then, when Markwart confirmed that to be what he had in mind, Francis shook his head and shrugged. “No one of any consequence, certainly,” he explained. “There is not even a master now in service at St. Precious.”

Markwart’s face screwed up with curiosity.

“They had two masters,” Brother Francis explained. “One was killed on the battlefield to the north; the other died of the red fever just a few months ago.”

“An interesting void,” Father Abbot Markwart remarked.

“In truth, there is no one in St. Precious ready for such a succession,” Brother Francis went on.

Father Abbot smiled wickedly at the thought. He had a master at St.-Mere-Abelle who might be ready for such a position, a man whose hand was no less iron than his own.

“Impeaching him of his title will thus prove all the more difficult,” Brother Francis reasoned, thinking he saw where Markwart’s thoughts were leading him.

“What?” Markwart asked incredulously, as though the idea never crossed his mind.

“The College will never strip Abbot Dobrinion of his abbey, given that there is no logical successor at St. Precious,” Brother Francis reasoned.

“There are plenty of masters at St.-Mere-Abelle ready to assume the role of abbot,” Father Abbot Markwart replied. “And at St. Honce.”

“But history tells us clearly that the College would not strip an abbey of its abbot without another within the abbey ready to assume the title,” Brother Francis argued. “The Twelfth College of St. Argraine was faced with just that prospect, concerning an abbot whose crimes were clearly more egregious than Abbot Dobrinion’s.”

“Yes yes, I do not doubt your understanding of the matter,” Father Abbot Markwart interrupted, somewhat impatiently. He looked in the direction in which Abbot Dobrinion had departed, still showing that smile. “A pity,” he muttered.

Then he started away, but, as in the dungeon, Brother Francis paused before following, surprised, when he considered it more closely, that Father Abbot Markwart would even entertain such thoughts. The impeachment of an abbot was no light matter, most decidedly not! It had only been attempted a half-dozen times in the thousand-year history of the Church, and two of those were prompted by the fact that the abbot in question had been proven guilty of serious crimes, one a series of rapes, including the assault on the female abbess of St. Gwendolyn, and the other a murder. Furthermore, the other four impeachment attempts had been in the very early days of the Abellican Order, when the position of abbot was often for sale or an appointment made as a matter of political gain.

Brother Francis gave a deep sigh to steady his nerves and dutifully followed his superior once more, reminding himself that the Church, indeed all the kingdom, was at war, after all, and that these were indeed desperate times.

Brother Braumin Herde was not in good spirits. He knew what was going on in the dungeons of the abbey, though he wasn’t allowed anywhere near the lower levels. And even worse, he knew he was now alone in his stance, should he choose to take one against the Father Abbot. Master Jojonah was long gone, taken from him as his old mentor had warned might happen. Father Abbot Markwart knew his enemies and had the upper hand, a position he had no intention of relinquishing.

So Brother Braumin, avoiding monks of his own abbey for fear that they would run to Markwart to report any discussion, spent his hours among the brothers of St. Precious. They were a more jovial bunch than the serious students of St.-Mere-Abelle, he discovered, despite the fact that they had been hearing the sounds of battle not too far to the north for many weeks now. Still, on the whole, St. Precious was a brighter place. Perhaps it was the weather, Brother Braumin thought, for Palmaris was normally much more sunny than All Saints Bay, or perhaps it was the fact that St. Precious was built more aboveground than the larger St.-Mere-Abelle, with more windows and breezy balconies. Or maybe it was the fact that these monks were less secluded, being housed, as they were, in the midst of a huge city.