PART THREE
I resist.
I do not know where it comes from, what deep-seated instinct or subconscious component of my being precipitates the apathy, but for all the truth and truthful desperation of Dame Gwydre’s plea I resist her call to arms. She is correct in everything she said. I do not doubt that, had I stayed in Honce proper, the Church or the lairds would have caught up with me and brought me to an untimely and painful end. I do not doubt Dawson’s words that the brothers of Chapel Abelle knew the truth of the Highwayman and were prepared to capture or kill me. I have seen Abellican justice before.
I do not doubt that the Dame of Vanguard is desperate or that her people are suffering terribly under the weight of encroaching hordes, bounded (as they are Samhaist driven) by no moral constraints.
And still I resist.
I have seen the result of the troll raids, a town burned to the ground, every soul slaughtered. I am revolted and repulsed and angered to my heart and soul. I feel Dame Gwydre’s outrage and her desperation and know that if she felt anything different she would be a lesser person. I see her trembling with outrage, not because of the tentative nature of her survival and title, but because she truly feels for those people who look to her for leadership-that alone, I know, elevates her high above the average laird of Honce proper.
And still I resist.
Who am I? I thought I knew, for all my life the answer was so self-evident that I never bothered to ask the question. At least not in this manner.
The Book of Jhest and the gemstones freed me from my infirmities and redefined me in a physical sense. That much is obvious. But now I come to know that the blessing of the inner healing is forcing upon me a second remaking, or at the very least, a very basic questioning of this man I am, this man I have become.
Who am I?
And what am I beyond the confines of my strengthened flesh?
Quite contrary to my expectations, this strengthening, this healing, has led me to a more uncomfortable place. It has forced upon me a sense of obligation and responsibility for others.
For others…
For all of my youth and into early adulthood there were few others, and those-Garibond, some few brothers of Chapel Pryd, Cadayle on those occasions when I was graced with her presence-were important to me almost exclusively because of what they could do for me. They were in the life of Bransen Garibond because Bransen Garibond needed them.
It is difficult for me to admit that there was something comfortable and comforting in my infirmities. While the other young men were competing in this game we call life, whether simply running against each other, or seeing who could throw a rock the farthest, or in the more formal competitions to gain a position in the Church or in the court of the laird, I was excluded. It wasn’t even an option.
There was pain in that exclusion to be sure, but I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that there was also a measure of comfort. I did not have to compete in the endless battles to determine the hierarchy of the boys my age. I did not have to suffer the embarrassment of being honestly beaten, because no one could beat the Stork honestly!
My infirmity was no dodge, of course, but I cannot be certain that I would have eschewed a dodge had I needed one. I cannot make that claim because I never had to face that choice.
Then, suddenly, I was freed of that infirmity. Suddenly I became the Highwayman. Even in that identity I cannot claim purity of intent or righteousness of motive.
Who did the Highwayman truly serve in his battle with the powers that were in Pryd Holding? The people? Or did he serve the Highwayman?
The world of the Highwayman is not as simple as that of the Stork.
– BRANSEN GARIBOND
NINETEEN
Uncomfortable Riddles
A splash of water brought a cough. With that convulsion Cormack slid back from the deep darkness of unconsciousness. He felt wet along one side and sensed that his lower legs were floating.
The first image that registered to him was that of a glacial troll face, not far from his own, the creature hanging on the side of a (of his, apparently!) small boat and forcing its edge under the water to swamp it.
Cormack reacted purely on instinct. He rolled up to his elbow, facing the troll, reached across with his left hand, and grabbed the creature by its scraggly hair. He kept rolling, using his weight to push that ugly head back, then turned under, rolling his shoulder and hopping to his knees, thus driving the troll’s head forward and down. It cracked its chin on the side rail but slid over so that Cormack’s weight had it pinned on the rail by its neck.
Up leaped the man. The quick movement freed him enough to lift one leg and stomp down hard on the troll, eliciting a sickening crackle of bone. Cormack nearly overbalanced in the process and tumbled overboard.
Overboard? How had he gotten on a boat, out in the middle of the lake? Burning pain from his back reminded him of his last awful conscious moments, and the rest began to fall in place even as he tried to sort out his present dilemma.
They had cast him out, set him adrift, and now the trolls had found him.
The boat rocked, and Cormack had to work hard to hold his balance. The aft was almost underwater, lifting the prow into the air. Cormack started to turn back that way when he noted a troll scrambling over the prow and coming down at him.
He feigned obliviousness until the last second, then jammed his elbow back, cracking it into the creature’s ugly face, crunching its long and skinny nose over to one cheek and tearing its upper lip on its own jagged teeth. The monk retracted and slammed his elbow back again, then a third time, for the troll’s weight wouldn’t allow it to simply fall away on the steep incline.
Cormack turned and knifed his free hand into the troll’s throat, clamping tight. The troll scratched at his forearm, drawing lines of blood, but he held fast, choking the life from it. Or he would have had another of the creatures come over the aft, further tipping the boat.
Cormack turned fast but didn’t let go, dragging the diminutive creature along to launch it at its companion. As the two trolls tumbled, Cormack leaped forward and stomped his foot hard on the newcomer’s exposed head. He grabbed the second in both hands, by the throat again and the groin, and lifted it up over his head, then slammed it down on its companion.
He stomped and kicked desperately until one went completely still, but Cormack was out of time and he knew it, for yet another troll appeared at the low-riding aft. When the creature pushed up onto that rail the rear of the boat submerged, water flooding in.
Cormack turned and scrambled to the high-riding prow, trying to counteract the weight and lift the rear.
He was too late, so he went to the very tip of the prow, glanced around quickly, and dove away. He counted on surprise, for though he was a strong swimmer he certainly couldn’t outdistance glacial trolls in the water!
But he had to try.
Milkeila sat on the sandbar that she often shared with her Abellican lover, remembering fondly their last moments together. She didn’t know why Cormack hadn’t come out to see her after that encounter. It really wasn’t unexpected that time would pass between their trysts, for, given both of their responsibilities to their warring peoples, they more often than not sat alone on the sandbar.
But something nagged at the woman this day, some deep feeling that things were amiss, that something was wrong.
She rose and walked to the eastern end of the sandbar, the point nearest to Chapel Isle, and peered into the mist as if expecting some revelation or maybe to see Cormack gliding toward her in his small boat.
All she saw was mist. All she heard were tiny waves lapping the sand and stones of the bar.