Behind the throne, Rennarq snorted.
"As you will," Prydae said with a bow.
Father Jerak stared at the prince a moment longer, then turned back to Laird Pryd and gave a stiff bow. He and Brother Bathelais took their leave immediately, knowing that they had much work to do.
"Step lightly with the brothers of Abelle," Laird Pryd warned his son as soon as the holy men had gone. "Their Church is displacing the Samhaists in the hearts of the commoners and is fast becoming a dominant force in all Honce. It would not do your aspirations well to turn them against you."
"You overstate their hand, my laird," Rennarq dared to put in.
"And you have stubbornly denied the obvious for more than a quarter of a century, my old friend," Pryd replied.
"The lairds rule Honce, not the Church," Prydae remarked, and then pointedly added, "Not either Church."
"And the wise lairds will see the Church of Abelle for what it is and use it to their best designs," Pryd went on, directing his words to his son. "There is talk of unity in the land, the likes of which I have not heard in my lifetime, the likes of which have not been known in Honce since the Samhaists ruled both body and soul." He looked back at Rennarq again, and teased, "The golden age of Honce?"
Rennarq couldn't help but smile at that, and he didn't voice his belief that such an estimate might not be far from the truth.
"That talk is fostered by the agreement to build the roads," Prydae observed. "What laird has refused his resources in this endeavor?"
"None of the thirty," Pryd answered. "Because the driving force is that Delaval City, on the Masur Delaval, has proceeded with their road building, with or without our agreement."
"I have heard the marvels of the Delaval roads," said Prydae. "Lined in iron, so say the traveling skalds."
"Indeed, and in this endeavor, if we are behind, we risk irrelevance. The world is changing before our eyes and it is up to us to determine where we will fit into those changes. Think of the trade when the roads connect! And we will be better able to move our armies."
"To drive the powries from the land."
"And to exterminate the goblins," Laird Pryd said, his old eyes gleaming, for he still felt the pangs from a wound in his hip, an injury received in his youth from a goblin spear. "We may tame the land, at long last, but only if we are able to work in coordination with the other lairds of Honce and only if we can keep the peasants content through the years of trial they will no doubt face.
"And that is where the brothers of Abelle will prove their usefulness. Their gemstones heal the wounds even as their promises of eternal life strengthen the spirit. The Samhaists ever ruled by fear, but the brothers of Abelle have found a greater means. They guide with promises that no man or woman could resist. See the light of Abelle and you will find eternal rest. Hear the words of Abelle and you will one day be reunited with your loved ones who have died. What mother could deny her desire to one day see again her lost child?"
"These promises have been made before, many times," Rennarq reminded.
"But the brothers of Abelle strengthen such promises with the gemstones," Laird Pryd explained. "They have the gifts of God to prove their words."
Prydae looked at his father, studying the man from head to foot. "You believe them," he said at length. "You believe the way of Blessed Abelle."
Pryd shrugged, but he wasn't quick to offer a denial.
The prince looked back at Rennarq, whose expression clearly showed that Prydae's words had hit the mark.
"Would it be so bad a thing if Abelle were proven right?" Laird Pryd replied. "If his promises were true? You are a young man yet, my son, and do not concern yourself with questions of what might follow this life. Even in your battles, you do not believe that death will find you. But I am old-every day I awaken to feel the creeping of age in my bones and in my heart. Many are the nights that I close my eyes and wonder if I ever shall open them again."
Prydae walked to the edge of the dais and sat down. He had never heard such words as this from the unshakable Laird of Pryd before. A frown creased his face as he considered the words of his father and mentor.
"The peasants cheered you in your splendid armor?" Pryd asked.
Prydae glanced back at him, and did manage a smile. "Four powries fell to my hand-my soldiers will claim that I killed six single-handedly. Of course the peasants were appreciative."
"As they should be. We offer them protection. We give them their very lives, every day. And we ask little in return."
Laird Pryd gave a chuckle as he considered his own words. "Nay," he corrected, "we ask nothing of them. We demand what we must, and they have no choice but to comply. That is the way of it."
"They would be wandering sheep, fodder for the powries, without us," Prydae reminded, and his father nodded.
"As it has always been and as it will always be," the laird remarked. "The young one is brash and headstrong," Bathelais observed, not for the first time, when he and old Jerak finally walked out of Castle Pryd's main gates.
While Bathelais's words were spoken in a jesting and almost dismissive manner, Father Jerak didn't share his amusement. "And we both know that the wretch Rennarq whispers in his ear," he said. "Prince Prydae cares nothing for the suffering of the peasants. I wonder if he even hears their groans."
"Like so many noblemen, he views the world beyond the concerns of the individual," reasoned Bathelais. "He sees the gains the roads might bring to all of us, beyond the pain some might suffer in creating them."
"That is the place of the laird, it would seem," said Jerak. "What, then, might be the place of the Church of Blessed Abelle?"
The seemingly simple question set Bathelais back on his heels, so much so that the old monk walked right past him and continued alone for many moments. For in that seemingly simple inquiry, Bathelais saw many deeper questions. Was Father Jerak insinuating that it was the place of the Church to work against the lairds, as the Samhaists had done, often and futilely, in their string of miserable failures? Though it had made great gains in its seventy years of existence-particularly in the fifty-four years since the death of Father Abelle and the creation of the new Honce calendar-the Church of Abelle was still in its infancy. Missionaries armed with gemstones had traveled far and wide, and every holding in Honce had a chapel of Abelle of one sort or another. And yet it was clear to Bathelais, as it had been earlier to Jerak, that their very existence was under the sufferance of the individual lairds.
With a wave of his hand, Laird Pryd could order the Chapel Pryd dismantled, stone by stone, and all of the brothers expelled from his holding. Or worse.
Bathelais hurried to catch up, and found Father Jerak talking away, as if he hadn't even been aware of his companion's absence.
"The people will love us because we salve their wounds," Jerak remarked, and he picked up his pace, for he could hear the crying and groaning within the chapel now and knew that the wounded were waiting. "We must remain worthy of their trust, that they can trust, too, in the message we bring. But we cannot feed them, can we? We cannot protect them from the monsters of the world, can we?"
"Then what are we to do?"
Jerak stopped and slowly turned to face the younger brother, straining his stiff neck so that he could look Bathelais in the eye. "In serving the lairds, we serve the people of Honce," he said. "Never forget that."
4
Sailing to Civilization It was comforting to smell the salty air and to see the dark swells of the Mirianic again, and with good fortune on the road, Bran Dynard and SenWi made the city of Jacintha at just the right time of year, barely a week before the summer solstice, when the fearsome ocean could be well navigated. The spring storms were behind them and the dark waters had calmed somewhat.