The galley loomed massive. Her falcons grumbled, hurling shot that ripped away pirate sails, rigging, even a mast. The attack continued till the pirate fleet had been reduced to wreckage, corpses, and derelicts.
The Aparionese captain came alongside Consiglieri, called a taunting reminder that Dateon owed Aparion a favor.
Brother Candle recognized several of the men at the other ship’s rail as a bloody Kedle loudly suggested that the Aparionese kiss her sweet arse. Their interference had been neither necessary nor requested.
The Perfect forgot his stomach. “Girl. Girl child. Dear girl. Kedle. Shut up. You’re insulting the Commander of the Righteous himself.”
That got through, accentuated by the odor of the Night. “You’re kidding.”
“No. Those standards belong to the Righteous and the Grand Duchy of Eathered and Arnmigal. The Commander is fourth from the left, grinning like he hears every word I’m saying. I saw him closer than this when he was Captain-General.”
“What the hell is he doing out here?” She waved, making a conciliatory gesture that might be taken for belated gratitude. Then, “Crap. You are telling it straight.” A boy had joined those men. He had been at Mestlé. He had negotiated with Hope.
The Perfect said, “I expect he’s headed for the Holy Lands. The Enterprise is his show.”
Kedle growled. “Where is Hope when I need her?” And was startled. The Instrumentality joined the men at the rail yonder. She smiled and tossed an intimate wink.
The galley began to pull away, moving swiftly under oars.
* * *
Hope visited that night. She was low-key, preferring to attract no attention. She crowded into the tiny cabin with Kedle and Brother Candle. The space was too hot and too intimate for the Perfect. She said, “You had a serious encounter today, loves,” with scarcely a hint of accent. “You caught the eye of the Commander of the Righteous. He will be watching.”
Kedle shrugged, indifferent. Brother Candle, though, caught the resonance of facts unstated beneath Hope’s statement. “Meaning?”
“He remembered you, Uncle. Kedle, he worked out who you are even before his son told him. He explained why you’re here. He doesn’t know who Kedle Richeut is but he certainly knows what she is.”
Kedle admitted, “I’m confused.”
“Understand this, beloved. My whole family is with him, supporting him. They could be here now, in a shadow or in the flame in the lamp, and even I wouldn’t know. So from now on, wherever you go and whatever you do, you may be watched by someone more powerful than me. You don’t want to disappoint them.”
Obliquely, Brother Candle observed, “You seem more substantial, somehow.” And, therefore, a greater danger to his soul-though she no longer taunted his worldly side.
The Instrumentality hugged herself, grinned, said, “I made it all the way to the Well of Peace. I’m strong again. I’m young and beautiful. And I talk too much.”
She was, for a moment, very much like a stunningly bright and beautiful, mischievous fifteen-year-old. But how was that unlike what she had been that first night in Antieux? Brother Candle could not define it but the difference was there. Perhaps it was a lessened malicious cynicism.
“Oh, my!” For an instant he had pictured her as she had been that night, in alluring mode, but now fully armed with divine power.
Tinkling laughter. “Dear Brother, I love thee too well to destroy thee that way. I have warned ye both. It’s time for me to go.” She eyed Kedle briefly, yearning plain. A sigh and a shiver, then she just shriveled into a wisp and was gone.
Brother Candle stared, silent. The last he had seen was a conspiratorial wink. Kedle said, “I’m going to sleep, now.” Restlessly, no doubt.
The Perfect went up on deck and contemplated the myriad stars. The sky was cloudless, the air crystalline, the darkness complete. The starscape was astounding. He might fall into it if he did not keep his grip on the rail. In just minutes he counted eleven shooting stars.
Suddenly, like taking a body blow, he realized that he had not been seasick since that boy’s father tried to kill him.
Thought conjured the demon misery.
He groaned and leaned over the rail.
A dozen porpoises paced Consiglieri, trailing bioluminescent wakes. A large darkness lazed along beneath them. The porpoises were not troubled.
* * *
There was an encounter with a Lucidian war galley as Consiglieri neared Shartelle. The galley came on aggressively, but at six hundred yards sheered off and fled away as though her commander was convinced that he had come within a gnat’s whisker of some diabolic Unbeliever ambush.
“What was that?” Kedle wondered.
Brother Candle was too miserable to care. He was obsessed with counting the hours till the torment ended. Forever. Never again would he board a ship. He would die first.
He told the Episcopal captain that, should he have spent his life in error as a Seeker and the Brothen Episcopals had it right, he was bound for heaven anyway. He had done his time in Purgatory.
The Dateonese crew found him endlessly amusing.
* * *
The Connec was hot. The Holy Lands were hotter. Back home the cool of the sea rolled in over the land come evening, making the nights tolerable. At Triamolin the heat of the land rolled out to broil the sea.
Even Kedle was awed. “And it isn’t yet fully summer.”
There had been ample warning. Connectens of the noble and knightly classes had made pilgrimages to Vantrad and Chaldar before. Some had tarried for years, helping thwart the villainies of those emissaries of darkness, the Pramans. Many of those veterans were willing to share their experiences endlessly.
They had declared that no one ever accepted the truth till they met it head-on for themselves.
Triamolin offered another lesson. The Widow and the Vindicated would not be celebrated in the Holy Lands. They were almost unknown. Those who had heard of them were not impressed. There were hard men everywhere in the Holy Lands. The hard men of Triamolin were of Arnhander extraction, in the main. They had no love for the bandits and rebels who had undone the sainted Anne of Menand. Anne’s unwavering favor had sustained their crusader state for a decade.
Brother Candle suspected that disembarking at Kagure or Grove would have been wiser. Those counties had been established by fighters from the Connec.
Kedle told him, “I may have outwitted myself again.”
“Again?”
“Again. I do it all the time. I’m just clever about covering it up. Like a cat. I don’t let the rest of you know. Come. Let’s find a Brotherhood hospice.”
They learned that there were three of those, two of which had opened in the past two months. All three were stuffed with armed pilgrims who had arrived with no plans beyond reaching the Holy Lands. None of the three had room to squeeze the Vindicated in, nor could they handle the animals the Vindicated had brought. A soldier older than Brother Candle suggested that they camp in the countryside. The road east led to pastureland eight miles out. Others were camped there already but the water and grazing remained adequate and the locals were not too predatory when marketing victuals. They would be wise to post sentries, though.
“Needs must needs must,” Kedle grumbled. She did not like that one miserable choice. Eight miles. Animals took longer to get their land legs than did people. Even that brief journey could decimate those that had survived the passage.
It would take a month for the Vindicated to become an effective fighting force again.
* * *
The campsite was not ideal. The best ground was occupied already. Kedle was not prepared to muscle someone and start a feud. She had come to the Holy Lands amply supplied with enemies already.
Her two tagalong gifts from Socia began hauling water immediately, leaving their worshipped mistress, whose wounds still hampered her, to try setting up her tent by herself. Water would remain a constant problem because so much would have to be carried so far.