Sword of the Bright Lady (5 page)

Hobilar, enraged, continued to push, shouting insults. Christopher had the advantage. He could brace a leg against the bed frame. Eventually Hobilar stepped back from the doorway. The silence was more terrifying because Christopher could do nothing against it. Had Hobilar remembered the front door? If so, Christopher's best option was to wait here, then flee out the back when Hobilar came in the front.

Fighting was out of the question. Hobilar's helmet guarded his one weak spot. Christopher was no Musashi.

The door rattled, and splinters flew into Christopher's face. Hobilar had come back with the ax from the woodpile. Christopher held as long as he could, but the door rapidly disintegrated under the assault. He had no choice; he staggered back, suddenly aware of his short breath and flagging legs, retreating to the main hall.

He heard Hobilar finish with the door and step through it without haste. Christopher found his bokken, gripped it in sweating palms. The priest's words had been so reasonable that Christopher had forgotten what kind of world he was in. Now he was caught unready, too tired to run, too weak to fight.

Hobilar came into the room. Indoors, his armored figure was unreal, the quality of a nightmare. His cruel, panting chuckles broke the spell, and all Christopher had left was the fear.

Christopher raised his stick to the guard position. Hobilar's sword lashed out, and the wood cracked and splintered. Stumbling backwards, Christopher fell, staring upwards in hypnotic helplessness.

Behind him the cold wind blew in through open doors, and Svengusta sailed past, waving his arms and shouting. Hobilar tried to brush the old man off. Svengusta gestured commandingly at the frieze hanging over the fireplace. Hobilar snarled, but it seemed he feared the wooden god. Reluctantly the knight retreated past Christopher, through the double doors, and down the stairs. There he stopped, sheathed his sword, and unlimbered his shield, digging its pointed bottom into the ground. Resting his hands on the shield, leaning against it, he smiled at Christopher.

No translation spell was necessary to understand his message:
I can wait.

Once again Christopher sat in the little kitchen, drinking hot tea. Svengusta was no longer happy, alternating between scowling at the blankets hung over his ruined door and frowning at Christopher's silence. The old man had tried to draw him out with conversation. Christopher could not see the point of it. He did not speak the language; he did not understand the rules. He did not belong here, and Hobilar would soon resolve that problem. Christopher was only waiting for him to overcome his superstitious fear and finish the killing. When an armored man walked into the kitchen from the main hall, Christopher didn't even look up.

But it was the soldier rather than the knight. Karl frowned at Christopher, frowned at Svengusta, and spoke over his shoulder. Another man followed him into the room—old, white-haired, white-bearded, and dressed in sharp white robes. He greeted Svengusta like a dear friend, but he glared at Christopher like a washer-woman contemplating an unfortunate stain.

Svengusta and Helga went out, leaving Christopher alone with Karl and the new priest. The formality was discomforting.

The priest chanted in the beautiful language, touching his tongue and ears in the same ritual Krellyan had used. When he was done, he spoke to Christopher in English.

“I am Cardinal Faren, the top legal counselor for the Church, and unfortunately the bearer of bad news. As it may have become apparent to you, Ser Hobilar cannot be dissuaded. Though I have convinced him to stop trying to kill you for the moment, he demands a trial.”

“Can I win?” Christopher asked.

“No,” Faren said. “The facts and the law are clear.”

“So I'm to die?” Christopher could not prevent his bitterness from spilling over.

“So we must change the facts,” Faren said.

Now Christopher stopped, made himself consciously set aside his emotions.

“I'm listening.”

Faren tipped his head, a tiny sign of approval. “One obvious solution to this dilemma is to change your status. If you are ranked, then your assault upon another ranked individual does not carry an automatic and inflexible death sentence.”

Suddenly this conversation seemed to be going in a direction Christopher liked.

“But rank is not cheaply come by. Saint Krellyan's pockets are not so deep as to elevate everyone who needs it, or even deserves it, out of mere charity.”

The priest seemed to be waiting for something.

“I would be willing to earn my keep, if that is a possibility,” Christopher offered. What could they possibly want him to do that was worse than farm work?

“I was expecting as much. Still, I hesitate. What I offer you is fraught with danger. Every year our young men are called to war. With them we send a pair of healers. We have considered you for this position, for two reasons: First, we have taken the liberty of divining your suitability for the priesthood, and you qualify. Secondly, your skill in arms indicates you are not wholly unfamiliar with the battlefield, and thus perhaps you will fare better there than one of our young priestesses, whose innocence is matched only by their naïveté.”

They wanted to draft him, and who could blame them? He had no family here to mourn his fall on the battlefield. What did this society owe him, anyway? Hadn't they fed and protected him? Well, not terribly well, actually. He could do with more bacon and fewer rapists.

Then something clicked in his head. If
tael
came from people, and wars killed people, then wouldn't a feudal army count
tael
as part of its loot?

“Does war tend to lead to the collection of large amounts of
tael
?”

“Yes, it does,” Faren said. “But this is unlikely to be of value to you. Battlefield promotions, while the stuff of every boy's fantasy, are in fact quite rare. Politics and privilege govern the distribution of booty, as a man of your age must already be aware.”

“Let me ask you another question,” Christopher said. “Do your armies build siege weapons?”

“Occasionally, I suppose.” Faren seemed slightly mystified.

A mechanical engineer could surely make living out of that. It would make him valuable; more importantly, it would keep him off the front lines.

“I'll take it,” Christopher said.

Faren raised his hands, slowing Christopher's impetuous charge. “There is more to consider. To be drafted is to serve for three years, but to become a healer is to dedicate your life to the Bright Lady. It is not lightly entered into.”

“You said I qualify, right? Or wait, is there a catch? Do I have to give up sex, or stop eating pork, or—” A terrible thought occurred to him. “—cut something off?”

“Nothing as simple as that,” Faren said, grinning for a moment before remembering his severity. “You must agree to serve the Bright Lady's cause. Pursuant to that, of course, is to accept the authority of our Church and its leaders. And naturally, behavior consistent with the Good, which your affiliation suggests will not be unduly restrictive.”

Although the magic translated the words, it did not provide meanings. Affiliation with who, or what, and how did the priest know he had one if he didn't know about it? What was the role of the Church in this society? Was it a force for progress and civil liberty, or a bastion of conservative repression? What was its position on, say, farm machinery?

“We could go into this for hours,” Christopher said, “so I'm just going to take your word for it. Tell me that I don't have to do anything immoral, or give up my wife, or stop trying to go home, or engage in any perverse self-mutilation, and I'm onboard.”

Faren obviously wanted to object, but the pressure of the circumstances swept him forward. “Agreed,” he said. “I swear to you that you need not surrender your morals, your wife, your home, or any body parts. In exchange, you must agree with the Lady's credo. To put it so briefly that it causes me physical pain, it is this: Justice for all, even those who have died and those who do not yet live.”

That sounded like a pretty reasonable creed.

“Deal,” Christopher said.

Faren sighed. “I am sure I must be committing some kind of crime. You know nothing of our Church, you lack the years of training normally demanded of a novitiate, and you know nothing of our realm. Yet I am pressing you into not only war but priesthood, solely because sending a stranger to likely death is easier than sending one of our own.”

“Priests get paid, right?” Christopher asked.

“Yes,” Faren said with a snort, “you will receive a stipend. It will not make you wealthy, but nor will you starve.”

Money meant escape from the peasant class. Every man had his price, and right now, Christopher's was bacon in his porridge.

“Where do I sign?”

Faren pulled a small vial from under his robes, attached to a silver chain around his neck. He opened it and poured out a tiny purple ball, about the size of an M&M.

Christopher stared at it, entranced, although he could not have possibly explained why.

“Consume this, go into the chapel, and pray. You must open yourself to the Bright Lady. Clear your mind and let her speak to you. Ah, how can I teach you this in an afternoon? This is folly!” Faren turned away in frustration.

“I've meditated before,” Christopher said. Zazen was part of the ritual of kendo. “I think I can handle it. Is there anything specific I should chant?”

Faren glowered at him from under his bushy white eyebrows. “You are full of surprises. Yes, there is a phrase, though you need not chant it. Simply recite, ‘I pledge myself a willing vessel to the Name of Ostara, Bright Lady of Heaven.' Then pray, or meditate, as you put it, until she responds. If after a full day she has not responded, then she will not accept you. I do not expect this to be the case.”

Christopher decided to act before he lost his nerve. He picked up the ball, and before Faren could invent further problems, popped it into his mouth.

It dissolved instantly, with no taste or sensation whatsoever. It was as if he had eaten a ball of air. It seemed a bit of a letdown after all the hype.

“Thank you for your generosity,” Christopher said awkwardly, trying to cover his disappointment.

The courtesy seemed to sour Faren. “Considering we have coerced you into risking your life, I think the balance is even.”

They left him alone in the chapel, with a fire in the massive, dusty fireplace, so he sat down on the floor in front of the wooden frieze of the god and goddess and cleared his mind. Meditation was not his favorite activity. He preferred the action trance of kata. Still, he owed it to them to make an honest effort. Then it occurred to him that his total lack of expectation was unwise. He had been exposed to lots of crazy stuff, so maybe he really was going to be contacted by an otherworldly spirit.

But a god? He didn't think so. Clarke's third law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. However all this stuff worked, it was just technology, even if he couldn't see it. He had faith in that.

“Om” had never worked for him. Instead, he thought of the winter wind drifting along the snowy streets of his childhood Pennsylvania. He thought of that one magical night, a full moon on fresh snow, midnight as bright as day, the world still silent and sleeping. He walked along the sidewalk, making the only tracks in sight, snow whispering under his rubber boots the only sound.

Time slipped away.

He was hallucinating.

The snow he walked on was now inside a room that grew brighter and larger. The pale moonlight gave way to color, pouring from great stained glass windows. The altar stretched away from him, down a long white carpet. Statues of gold and silver emerged along the walls, objects of art and beauty. Someone was waiting for him.

Slowly he walked forward to the raised altar, where a beautiful woman dressed in white greeted him with a warm smile. He recognized her from the frieze and the tapestries, although he would have known who she was without them; her identity could not be mistaken. She was suffused with a pearly radiance, bright and pure. He knelt, not because he knew he was supposed to but because something in him wanted to.