The Hero's Lot (5 page)

Benefice Kell, white-haired and furious, stood in the accuser's box to present his case. Errol tried reminding himself he was an ally of the kingdom. It didn't help much to hear himself described as a deadly incarnation of evil.

“This evil youth has deceived you all,” the benefice said. Flecks of spittle flew from his passionate denunciation. “Under the guise of rescuing the kingdom, he has consorted with spirits. Made bold by his acceptance at court and in the conclave, he has actually admitted to contact with these so-called herbwomen and their sinister familiars.”

“By the three, listen to him go on,” Benefice Credo said. The tall clergyman from the province of Dannick, the man assigned by the archbenefice to interpret events for him, muttered a continuous commentary on his right. The benefice sat so close, Errol
could have touched his far shoulder without completely extending his arm. He liked Credo. In looks he resembled Luis, with lighter skin, but his sense of humor could have come straight from Cruk's mouth. After Conger he was the most unpriestlike churchman he'd ever met.

Few of the benefices displayed an interest in Kell's diatribe. Most sat with their chin resting in one hand, their eyes heavy-lidded. A few involuntary nods of sleepiness decorated the crowd. The archbenefice, towering over the blustering benefice from his position on the raised dais, suppressed another sigh—perhaps his sixth or seventh. Errol had lost count.

“Another five minutes of this and the archbenefice will have to wake everyone up with his staff,” Credo said.

Benefice Dane looked neither sleepy nor bored. He was intent, like a river rat watching the shallows, waiting for his turn to strike. He twitched at odd moments, and adjusted the deep crimson of his robe in sharp jerks that spoke of impatience. The red-haired benefice punctuated those movements with hungry looks at Errol and glares for Benefice Kell and the archbenefice.

Credo dropped his voice to a whisper. “Dane doesn't look happy, not happy at all.”

“Why's that?”

“He thinks he has you, and not only you but Martin and Luis as well.”

After another ten minutes Benefice Kell finished reciting the charges and his evidence. The archbenefice lifted himself from the comfort of his seat with a deep sigh and rapped his staff on the floor. “Who would speak to the charges?”

Benefice Dane sprang from his chair. “I would speak.”

“Well, there's a surprise,” Credo said. His voice must have carried to the first row. Several of the benefices there snickered.

The archbenefice nodded as if he'd expected no less. “Speak no word before the Judica that is untrue. Make no statement that is incomplete. You are adjured by Deas.”

“Judica me, Deas,” the benefice answered. “This is all very entertaining, Archbenefice, but quite beside the point. The status
of the herbwomen and their claim to know unknowable Aurae has been debated for centuries without conclusion, a fact that will almost certainly be unaltered by today's deliberations.”

Dane's lip curled. “With all due respect to Benefice Kell, the matter I placed before the Judica is of far more importance. I respectfully request that we suspend the charges of consorting with spirits so that we may consider the far more serious charge of usurpation of authority.”

Credo patted him on the leg. “Here we go, lad. Pay attention. This could be as unpredictable as a lot blank bouncing across the floor.”

Kell spat. “You insolent young pup. You speak of respect, then attempt to brush my charges aside as if they were of no consequence.” He pointed a shaking finger at Errol. “He consorted with spirits!”

Credo snorted. “Any fool knows the herbwomen are harmless.”

Dane smirked. “Please calm yourself, Benefice Kell. I did say with all
due
respect. Please don't blame me if the amount given seems unsatisfactory.”

The archbenefice's staff interrupted Kell's apoplectic reply. “Benefice Dane, as I've said before, you're well versed in church law. However, I find your attentiveness to church tradition less than exemplary. It is the custom of this body to deliberate with solemn dignity. Baiting your fellow benefice and servant of the church is hardly in keeping with the expectations of your office.”

Errol saw Credo nod his approval out of the corner of his eye.

Dane's smirk never wavered, but he bowed toward the archbenefice. “I crave your pardon and that of Benefice Kell. I was momentarily overwhelmed by the gravity of our situation.”

The archbenefice's voice remained cold. “Your apology is accepted. In accordance with church tradition, the Judica will hear and pass judgment on the charges as they've been presented.”

“Archbenefice, I have presented a motion, surely you'll want the Judica to vote on it,” Dane said.

A sea of red-robed benefices nodded.

“Clever, clever man,” Credo said under his breath.

“Why?” Errol asked.

The benefice put his mouth close to Errol's ear, shielding his face from the Judica with one hand. “He seeks to go against tradition by appealing to the benefices directly. I don't think it will work, but it will cost the archbenefice later.”

“Cost him how?” Errol asked.

“I don't know, lad, but the Judica is jealous of its power. Church tradition or not, they'll feel slighted if the archbenefice denies them the chance to vote on Dane's motion.”

Archbenefice Canon rapped the floor twice with his staff. “It has been the church's tradition to rule in succession. The motion is denied.”

A knot of tension in the back of Errol's neck loosened at the ruling. This was insane; he actually felt relieved to be facing charges of conspiring with spirits.

A sea of faces, stiff and disapproving, now faced Errol—as if he'd overruled them himself. Dane's eyes glittered, and he smiled like a wolf as he bowed to the archbenefice and resumed his seat.

“The charge of consorting with spirits is presented,” the archbenefice said. “Who would speak?”

A thin, blond-haired benefice rose from his seat. He barely looked old enough to be a priest, much less a benefice. “I would speak.”

“Benefice McKeran,” Credo said. “Good man. He hasn't aged in the last twenty years.”

He exchanged the ritual charge with the archbenefice and addressed the Judica. “It has not been established that the herbwomen do, in fact, consort with spirits or that the spirits are evil. The proscription is against contact with evil spirits, made before Magis's war as a safeguard against contact with a malus. What if they do, in fact, know Aurae?”

Robes rustled as a benefice at the far end of the room burst from his seat with his arm waving for the archbenefice's attention. “I would speak.” Without waiting for the charge, he presented his counterargument. “Though I hold Benefice McKeran in highest esteem, I must point out that . . .”

The debate turned interminable, but the archbenefice seemed perfectly content to let it continue. And continue it did.

They broke for lunch, and the deliberation extended into the afternoon. After several hours, during which time nearly every member of the Judica voiced his opinion at least once, the hall stood silent.

“Who would speak?” the archbenefice asked. No one moved. Bertrand Canon fingered his staff but made no motion to close the debate. A sea of red regarded him. “Who would speak?”

Three raps, like the toll of a funeral bell filled the hall, bounced back from the far walls and died, creating a silence more absolute and profound than before.

“Benefices, you are to vote. There can be no dissembling. Earl Stone is guilty or innocent. You are adjured by Deas.”

Errol leaned toward Benefice Credo. “Now what?”

“The benefices will vote by stone—white for innocent, black for guilty. Simple majority.”

Two church guards hefted a large heavily lacquered box onto the dais. The box held no ornamentation, only a hole in the top a little smaller than the palm of Errol's hand. By rows the benefices came forward to drop their vote in the box, each palming their stone of choice so that it remained hidden.

Sweat ran beneath Errol's tunic. If they found him innocent, Dane would have the right to question him on the charge of usurping authority, and readers would check his every word. He darted a glance to the archbenefice, but Canon remained as impassive as rock.

The last of the benefices voted, and Benefice Kell and Benefice McKeran came forward. The archbenefice removed the top and began dividing the votes, counting the black votes placed in front of Kell and the white votes in front of McKeran.

Errol's face flushed. From his seat he couldn't tell which pile was bigger, and the archbenefice's count was too soft to reach his ears.

“Benefice Kell, Benefice McKeran, do you agree?” Canon asked. A curt nod came from both men.

The staff rapped three times on the floor, the sound muted by the proximity of the two benefices. “Earl Stone is guilty.”

Errol might have imagined it, but the archbenefice's voice seemed to hold a smug, satisfied tone to it.

The archbenefice rapped once to quiet the murmurs of the hall. “Errol Stone, are you prepared to accept the penalty of your crime?”

Benefice Credo leaned toward him. “Stand up, face the archbenefice, and say ‘I am.'”

Before he could rise, a large benefice with iron-gray hair who'd spoken in Errol's defense rose. “I would speak, Archbenefice.”

“I am about to pronounce sentence, Benefice Horvath, in accordance with church tradition.”

Horvath nodded. “Yet, it is the right of the Judica to determine sentence, according to a strict interpretation of the law.”

On Errol's right, Benefice Credo stiffened. “What is that old fox up to?”

For the space of a dozen heartbeats, the archbenefice remained silent. “That is so,” he said at last, his tone cold. “Are you requesting a formal vote, Benefice Horvath?”

The benefice shook his head. “Not if it may be avoided. I seek to ensure that the will of the Judica, this college of benefices, is observed.” A near-unanimous nod of heads greeted this.

Bertrand Canon nodded. “I see.”

Benefice Credo muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse. “Well, the fat's in the fire now, lad. The Judica's got their back up and there's nothing the archbenefice can do about it. They've got the law on their side on this one.”

Horvath made a placating gesture toward the dais. “What I propose is that we order Earl Stone to serve his penance and the kingdom at the same time. The former secondus and our enemy, Sarin Valon, escaped to Merakh. Earl Stone's valor is unquestioned by most in this body. Moreover, he is an omne, equipped by Deas as no other reader in the conclave—not even Valon.”

The archbenefice leaned forward, his faced pinched. For an
instant he looked like a trapped animal before he reasserted his composure. “What do you propose, Benefice Horvath?”

“Place a compulsion upon Earl Stone to track down Sarin Valon wherever he may be in Merakh—there to capture or kill him.”

Gorge rose in Errol's throat. There would be no need to vote. A sea of nods condemned him.

 5 
Companions of Necessity

T
HE ARCHBENEFICE'S MOOD
could only be described as sulfurous. Yet even as Bertrand Canon paced the rug in Enoch Sten's quarters vowing reprisals and doom on his enemies in the Judica, he maintained a veneer of austere dignity. Enoch Sten and Captain Reynald sat off to the side—the primus the picture of patience, the watchman a study in restrained violence.

Errol understood. The primus would lose his omne, the captain his staff instructor. With all his heart, he wished it weren't so.

“A compulsion,” the archbenefice snarled. He spit the words as if they were a curse. “Just like that, they voted to put a compulsion on you, boy—as if we hadn't spent the last three hundred years trying to weed that abominable practice out of the church.”

“But even that tells us something,” Sten said.

“Ha! What it tells us is that our enemies in the Judica are more numerous and stronger than we suspected.” He grimaced. “I could do without such news.”

Errol posed the question that lurked in his heart close to the spot where his mistrust of the church and its clergy lay. “I don't
understand. Why do you let people like that in the church in the first place?”

Bertrand Canon stopped midstride. Anger slid from his face like a sheet of ice slipping from a cliff wall. He gazed at Errol, his blue eyes intense and unwavering until Errol looked away. “I keep forgetting he wasn't raised here,” he said to the primus.

“I'm just as happy about that,” Primus Sten said. “We've already filled our quota of schemers.”

The archbenefice grunted. “No doubt. The truth, Errol, is that the church exercises considerable temporal power in addition to its spiritual authority. Power attracts men of all types. Some see it as a way to accomplish good.” He sighed. “Others see it as a way to exercise authority over others or to become wealthy.”

“But why?” Emotions he couldn't begin to identify threatened to overwhelm him. “Why let them in? They hurt . . . people.”

“I'm sorry, Errol. The church is vast, too vast to keep them all out. And people change. Some lose themselves along the way, but some find themselves too. A priest is just a man who's taken a vow, Errol, just a man.”

Errol pinched the bridge of his nose. It didn't matter. The Judica had voted, and Benefice Weir, Lord Weir's uncle, had gleefully and savagely laid the compulsion on him. As nearly as Errol could figure, he'd be dead in a few weeks. “How long will it take the compulsion to force me from Erinon?”

The archbenefice grimaced. “I think you can answer that better than we. Despite what people outside the church believe, to this point the Judica has only used compulsion to ensure those with the talent for reading come to the isle.” He shrugged. “Even that has become rare. The threat of compulsion is usually enough. You've had it used on you twice in less than a year. How long did it take?”

He thought back. Luis had laid the coercion on him in Callowford. “We left for Erinon immediately. But when I was stopped along the way”—such as in Windridge, where he'd jumped into the river to escape, only to be washed downstream, and was nursed back to health from pneumonia by Rale and his family—“it took
quite some time for the compulsion to overwhelm me again.” He exhaled. “At least a month.”

“That gives us some time,” the archbenefice said.

“Time for what?”

The archbenefice's heavy brows rose in surprise. “To pull together the men to go with you. You didn't think we were just going to put you on a horse and send you off to get killed, did you?”

Errol stammered. “I didn't know, but who'd be willing to go with me?”

“I'll go with you, boy, and gladly,” Reynald said.

The archbenefice stilled. “No.”

“But—”

“No.”

Reynald nodded, but his lips compressed into a thin line of disapproval.

The archbenefice barked a laugh. “As for the rest . . . Willing? I don't care whether or not they want to go. Those we can't order, we'll buy.” He paced the carpet. “I need recommendations, gentlemen. I have no intention of losing an asset to the enemy. Who do you think we should send, Primus?”

“That's easy enough—Martin, Luis, and Cruk.”

Distaste twisted Archbenefice Canon's features at the mention of the three. “Yes, if they hadn't already left on their own penance.” His face closed. “They're not here. I need people we can put our hands on.”

A desire built in Errol's chest, grew until it demanded utterance. “I want Rale.”

The archbenefice turned to him, gave him a look of patient forbearance. “Who?”

Errol's tongue spilled words that tumbled over each other. He wanted Rale more than he could hope to express. “He's the farmer who taught me how to use the staff. Cruk told me his real name is Elar Indomiel.”

“No!” The archbenefice reddened. “I forbid it.”

Errol edged back from the archbenefice's sudden anger. He looked to the primus and Captain Reynald for explanation, but
the pair sat in their seats with the look of men willing to wait out a storm. The archbenefice employed an extensive vocabulary to describe Rale and his ancestry. Quite a few words were unfamiliar to Errol.

What had Rale done to warrant such a tirade?

After the archbenefice's tempest passed, Primus Sten fingered his blue robe of office and offered a diffident proposal. “It's unlikely that Elar would willingly consent to a trip into Merakh.” He picked a piece of lint from the front. “Anyone would consider it a long-overdue penance.”

“He is quite good with a staff,” Reynald said, “and the second-best tactician I know.”

“No,” the archbenefice said. “I will not lay eyes on that man again.”

Enoch Sten kept the same constrained tone to his voice as before. “You wouldn't have to actually see him, Bertrand. Let a low-level assistant deliver the order. You'd deprive Elar of a chance to respond.”

“Ha.” The planes of the archbenefice's face softened. “Elar always did insist on being the last to speak.” He rounded on the primus. “I know what you're doing, Enoch. Do you honestly think appealing to my vanity will induce me to work with him?”

Enoch Sten chuckled. “I'd hoped so. He's needed, Bertrand. He can't help but be needed, and the boy trusts him. Begging your pardon, Archbenefice, but you're inconsistent. First you say you're unwilling to lose an asset, and then you refuse one of the best tactical minds in the kingdom.” He gestured toward Errol. “Look at his face. Have you seen this look on him for anyone other than the princess?”

Warmth rose in Errol's cheeks. Were his thoughts so easy to read? The archbenefice looked at him, and a cascade of emotions played across his wrinkled face. “You're right, of course, Enoch. If he can be found, he will be brought.”

Captain Reynald gave a polite cough as he held one hand palm up. “If I may venture an observation, how do you suggest the boy and his company penetrate the Merakhi interior?”

The archbenefice nodded as if he'd expected the question.
“Merchants. As long as they travel the permitted routes, they'll be able to seek Valon's place of concealment without contest.”

“And if Valon is not close to the routes?”

The archbenefice leaned back. “Then things will become more difficult.”

Reynald shook his head. “Blithely said, Archbenefice, but if they're caught, we'll lose Errol and the entire company.”

Bertrand Canon flushed. “What would you have me do, Reynald? The Judica has voted! I have no authority to overturn their decision.” His voice rose until it cracked like a whip. “If you can provide a solution to this, then out with it.”

Reynald took the archbenefice's lashing in stride; his manner remained calm, thoughtful. “I mean no accusation or disrespect, Archbenefice. I merely meant to point out that we need someone with knowledge of those parts of Merakh that are forbidden to kingdom men.”

“There aren't any,” the archbenefice snapped.

“I know a man,” Errol said.

The three men turned toward him as if they'd forgotten his presence. The archbenefice gave a small shake of his head, but Captain Reynald wore a grin as if a voice only he could hear had just said something amusing. “Who would that be?”

“His name is Naaman Ru,” Errol said. “I worked as a guard in his caravan.”

Primus Sten's face lit as if he now shared the captain's joke, but the archbenefice shook his head. “Granted, he has the knowledge we're after, but he can't be trusted, Errol. You of all people should know that.”

Errol shrugged. The solution seemed simple to him. “Put a compulsion on him.”

“The boy learns fast,” the primus muttered.

“He doesn't know what he's saying,” Canon said. “Compulsion is . . .”

“Wrong?” Errol asked with a sarcastic tone.

Canon huffed. “Yes, boy, it's wrong. I know it's been done to you . . .”

“Twice,” Errol said.

He nodded. “Agreed, but my heart misgives me in this. We can compel Ru to guide you, but you will make an enemy of him for as long as he lives. Do you want that?”

Errol shrugged to show how little he cared. “He's already my enemy. I want to live, and for that I need a guide. Is there anyone who has the knowledge Ru has?”

Silence ruled for a moment as Errol, Primus Enoch Sten, and Captain Reynald all watched the archbenefice struggle with the decision. At last, he threw up his hands in surrender. “I can't gainsay you in this, Errol, but my heart tells me there will be a reckoning for this decision. I have tried to discontinue compulsion for two reasons.”

“You said it was wrong,” Errol said.

“Yes, and I believe it is. I believe Deas created the church to serve, not to enforce obedience.” Canon licked his lips. “But compulsion for a benefice is similar to lots for a reader—the results are dependent on the wisdom of its practitioner. Just as in casting the question frames the answer, so in compulsion the requirement frames the response.” He sighed. “We will want to give careful thought to the wording of Naaman Ru's compulsion.”

“Now, I want you to take a priest with you,” Canon said.

Something deep in Errol's gut rebelled at the suggestion. Unbidden, an image of Antil rose in his mind. He shook his head.

“You'll need a priest, Errol,” the archbenefice asserted.

“Why?” He hadn't meant for his voice to pop that way.

“Our feud with the Merakhi and the Morgols goes back centuries, boy. Rodran's childlessness is only the spark that lights the tinder. You'll need someone who knows the history. That knowledge is confined to the priesthood.”

Errol laughed out loud. The archbenefice's face grew stiff and cold, as if affronted. Errol raised a hand to explain. “There was a man in Ru's caravan . . . I don't think you'd like him very much, but the only time I saw him without a book on church history was when we were fighting. After we'd been attacked, he was back in his book before the blood dried.”

“Who is this man?” Primus asked.

“His name is Conger,” Errol said.

“Never heard of him,” the archbenefice said. “How do you know he has the knowledge you need?”

“He's a defrocked priest.”

The archbenefice wore a momentary look of horror. Then he laughed. “The boy seems determined to gather the worst sort of refuse for his mission to Merakh. For someone who has every reason to despise the concept of penance, Errol, you seem quite willing to impose it on others.”

It was meant in jest, but the words cut. The archbenefice was comparing him to the Judica. “I just want to live. Rale and Conger are men I can trust, and Naaman Ru knows the way.” He shrugged away the comparison. “How long will it take to get everyone together? I think they'll be tough to find.”

The archbenefice and the primus smiled. “My dear boy,” the archbenefice said, “you are about to find out just how long the arm of the church can be.”