CHAPTER 20 #2
She stuck her head out of the kitchen window. “Yes?”
“We have a visitor. Could you please fix my hair?”
She beamed. “Of course, my lady!”
I sat at the table by the wine tree, wearing my green gown, with my hair hastily braided and pinned into something Clover deemed decent.
She waited on my left. Reynald assumed the bodyguard position behind me and to my right.
He had changed into a dark jerkin, put on a cloak with the hood up, and pulled the lancer’s coif over his face.
The menace meter had gone all the way up.
“Do you know Earl Berengur?” he asked quietly.
“Not personally.”
“Do you know why he is here?”
“He’s looking for his brother.”
“How did he find you?” Reynald asked.
“That’s what I want to find out.”
He nodded and waved at Lute, who waited by the tunnel. Lute went to the front door. A moment later two men emerged from the tunnel into the courtyard.
The first was about six feet tall, with dark hair and broad shoulders.
He wore Southern scalemail, a kind of knee-length tunic of overlapping metal scales, and a plain metal pauldron on his left shoulder.
Solentine’s pauldron had been a fashion statement.
This one was functional, with a rerebrace, almost a full metal sleeve.
The man didn’t carry a shield, and he would use that arm to block in a fight.
A simple sword hung from his belt. His skin was an even, warm beige, his features were sharply cut, and his hooded eyes were alert and watchful.
His bodyguard was larger. He loomed three or four inches over Berengur and wore the same armor, except for a full-face helmet, which hid his features. He also carried a simple sword.
They could have been private guards, mercenaries, men-at-arms, or sergeants of some knightage. If you met this pair on the streets, you wouldn’t give them a second glance. This was not their real armor. They didn’t want to be recognized.
The dark-haired man approached the table and put a crest on it.
Regular crests, the kind trusted servants and guards carried to show their affiliation with a noble household, were painted over wooden pucks, lacquered, and then wrapped with a cord, so they could be suspended off belts or wrists.
Sometimes they were embroidered on clothes.
This thing was solid metal. A miniature shield, a green background with a white tower, wrapped in rising rose vines bearing blue flowers. The crest of Berengur.
Who had sent him my way? It had to be the Shears. I couldn’t think of anyone else, but I had to find out for sure.
“Please sit, my lord.”
I invited him to a chair with a sweep of my hand. Clover and Reynald had been teaching me etiquette, and I was getting better at imitating a noble.
Berengur sat. The huge man parked himself behind him, directly across from Reynald. I couldn’t see his face because of the helmet, or Reynald’s because he stood behind me, but I would’ve bet money that the two of them were staring impassively at each other.
“What can I do for you, Lord Berengur?”
“I’m told that you sell information. I’m looking for a man, and I will pay generously.”
That’s what I thought. To tell him or not to tell him? That was the question. If I told him, would it make things worse? I wasn’t worried about the impact on the timeline. I was worried about Pelegrin. If I made a mistake, he would lose his life.
Berengur waited for my response.
Silence stretched.
“Do you sell information?” he prompted.
“Under the right circumstances. I’m trying to decide if helping you would do more harm than good.”
“What is the meaning of that?” His voice held a hint of warning.
“Let me ask you a question. A horse that carried you into battle has gone lame. There is no cure. He will never bear a rider again and the injury prevents him from being a stud. What would you do with this horse?”
Berengur frowned. “I would put him out to pasture. He would’ve given me years of faithful service and deserves a peaceful life. I don’t see how this is relevant.”
Maybe this would work out after all.
“Clover, please bring our guests some tea.”
“Yes, my lady.”
She turned and smoothly glided toward the house.
I faced Berengur.
“Your brother is alive.”
Berengur didn’t seem surprised that I’d guessed who he was looking for. If I truly was a competent information broker, I would’ve heard about it. He’d been looking for his baby brother for over a year.
“He isn’t a captive. He is within the borders of this kingdom in a place of his choosing. He remains there of his own free will.”
Berengur’s face told me he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t blame him. He’d been scammed more than once.
“And how much will his location cost me?”
“Nothing.”
He studied me.
“I won’t be charging you today. I know you love Pelegrin. I know you and your mother are both worried about him. You lost track of him after the Halaros campaign. That was by his design. He doesn’t wish to be found.”
“And why is that?” His tone told me he was clearly skeptical.
“Pelegrin wanted to be a knight from a very young age. He admired your late father. Part of it is your fault. You used to tell Pelegrin stories of your father’s bravery, stories you’d embellished. You made him into a heroic figure, a man of flawless character, who embodied the knightly virtues.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s not important.”
Clover brought out a platter with a teapot and poured the tea into two cups. She set the cups in front of us, placed a dish of honey between them, and withdrew a polite distance away.
“Like you and your father, Pelegrin joined the Defenders. The knight orders spend a great deal of time discussing the knightly virtues, while training their squires in violence. And yet, they never address what happens when those two halves of knighthood come into conflict.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “I do not follow.”
“Pelegrin was knighted at seventeen and given his first command at eighteen. He was very young. His view of the world was simple, but I don’t need to tell you that war is complicated and messy.
It demands brutality and sacrifice. Pelegrin was put in an impossible situation, and he had to make a decision that conflicted with everything he had been taught to believe.
It haunts him. He dreams of it over and over.
He thinks he failed the legacy of your father and failed himself as a knight. ”
Berengur stared at me, his face shocked.
“He’s deeply damaged by what he endured. He let the war touch his soul, and he felt too much. When he looks at his hands, they’re still covered in blood, and he’s searching for a way to wash it off.”
“Where is he?” He didn’t say it like a demand. It was almost a plea.
“He has chosen to recuperate at a monastery. He hasn’t taken vows and has no plans to do so, but he conducts himself as a monk.
He does manual labor. Growing things in a garden soothes him.
He is accepted by the other monks, and the abbot, who is very experienced in these matters, is helping him to come to terms with his past. It’s a simple life and that is all he can handle right now.
He is healing, slowly, gradually, but he is healing.
If you go there and force him to return to your castle, you will take the little bit of peace he’s found from him.
He will obey you, but one day you will walk into the great hall and find him hanging off a beam. ”
Berengur drew back.
“I urge you with everything in my power to let him recover. When he is ready, he will return to you on his own.”
Silence fell. I drank my tea.
“You truly believe he will take his own life?”
“Yes. He’s already thought about it. He hasn’t done it because it would be selfish, and he doesn’t want to hurt you or your mother.”
In the book, Berengur found his brother, and his mother begged Pelegrin to return to their castle.
He did. He ate, he bathed, he seemed to be functioning, but he rarely spoke, and then there was a scene where he stared at the beam of the great hall for way too long.
Then, in the chaos after the crown prince’s assassination, Arvel, the head of the Defender Order, wished that he had Berengur by his side, but the earl was gone to “tend to his family in mourning.”
Pelegrin had hanged himself. I was absolutely sure.
My father hadn’t come unscathed out of his service. I knew a lot about PTSD and the damage it brought, but convincing Berengur that I was right without modern psychology and veteran suicide statistics on my side was tricky. I had to put it in a framework he would understand.
“We place such a crushing burden on knights,” I said.
“We tell them they’re supposed to be heroes, defenders of the realm, people of superior character.
Then we send them into a slaughter and force them to butcher.
They experience fear. They exist in constant vigilance, always ready to fight for their lives.
It exhausts their body and soul. They watch their friends bleed out and die, and they have no time to grieve.
Nobody warns them about this. Nobody sings songs about a young man trying to push his guts back into his stomach, or being so scared that the world turns dark, or being knocked off your horse and drowning in a muddy field in heavy armor while riders stomp on your back. ”
The two men in front of me were very still.
“We do this to them and then we expect them to return to a peaceful life as if nothing happened. Some of them get a taste for the killing and can’t let it go. Some of them learn to distance themselves from their war selves. Others, like Pelegrin, need help and time.”
“What did he do?” Berengur asked.
“He was put in charge of a border village that was a vital point in the supply chain for the front line of the Halaros conflict. The village sympathized with the Crimson Empire. The Emperor’s agents promised them ten years free of taxation if the region raised the Crimson Banner.”