Chapter 12 #3
“How old were you?” His habit of tilting his head when he listened to me was in full force. This was no idle conversation. He was interrogating me. Though why he did that now remained to be seen.
“Eleven years.”
“And he took you as squire?” He sounded surprised.
“Why would he not?” I couldn’t quite keep the prickle from my voice. Why would he doubt me on this?
The dog seemed to cough. It was circling a massive broken clock nestled against the staircase.
Or rather, a clock that seemed broken, because the hands did not move and the time looked like nothing familiar to me.
It had four hands and all four pointed up, and on the face of the clock there was a cup engraved.
Which could mean anything. It didn’t have to be the Cup of Tears.
It could be a clock that timed tea breaks. Who would know?
The clock’s round face was supported by carved hands. There must have been a hundred of them, each the size of a real hand and intricately carved from white marble and then polished until they gleamed. They wove in and out and around one another so that no two were posed the same way.
The ticks around the clock were not labeled with numerals or letters and I didn’t bother counting them beyond checking that the clock base didn’t open.
Sir Adalbrand continued to press his conversation. “You were too old for great book learning and too young to be of physical help. A burden from the moment he took you on.”
The dog coughed again and Adalbrand frowned at it.
Rude to call you a burden. Rude.
I felt my face flush. I had never thought of things like that. I’d always thought that Sir Branson was moderate in every way, neither too generous nor too stingy, not too holy nor too profane, not too indulgent nor too disciplined. Just a man.
I accept this eulogy with gratitude. Blessings on you.
And yet Adalbrand made a good case for him being more than that.
“He must have been a good paladin. Worthy. Honorable,” Sir Adalbrand said gently. The hand on my arm drifted to cup my elbow, as if he were trying to lend an old woman support.
I turned to him, eyes narrowing, and shook his hand off. If he wanted to touch me, he should get my permission.
I agree. Too much flattery is never wise. Why so many flowery words for a man he never met? Why all this touching? From a Poisoned Saint, no less.
I was already agitated and this conversation was making it worse.
“And I killed him?” I hissed, turning my body so that if he drew on me I’d be ready in my defense. “Is that what you’ve come to bring to mind? Will you make a demand now before you agree to keep my secret?”
Cough.
I glanced over my shoulder again, but the others were all still praying, some kneeling, some at parade rest, others with hands lifted upward. I didn’t need to fear what the paladins might hear or see.
“No,” Adalbrand whispered back in a tone fit for the halls of a library. Something I could not read flickered across his expression. “That’s not what …”
“Thank you for your interest,” I said coldly, turning sharply to the first door we’d come to and striding through. I didn’t care where it went so long as it was not where Adalbrand could blackmail me.
It led to a hall with a smooth marble floor and white paneling on the walls that was carved to look as if it were woven.
Someone had fitted the wall panels with candle recesses and in each one was a cup or a goblet or a tumbler.
Each was individual in material, shape, and size.
Inconvenient. How would we find one cup among many?
Wait for me! The blasted knight is in the way.
I should stay to study the cups — though surely the Cup of Tears would not just be one among many, would it?
But the terror that had gripped me when I stepped through the door descended twice as strongly now that I was away from Brindle and Adalbrand.
It took hold of my heart and squeezed. It bid me flee whatever was chasing me, and all my years of tight self-control unwound at once.
I hurried up the hall to where it branched, took the branch to the right, and opened the first door I saw. I had no more reason to choose it than any other. Unreasoned panic alone drove my steps.
I stopped in my tracks the moment I entered the first room.
I had expected a room of study or hall of prayer.
I’d expected books, perhaps, or lines of pews.
This, however, was someone’s personal room.
And that someone was wealthy, indulgent, and appeared to have left in a hurry.
So preserved was the room, it looked as if the owner had just leapt up for a moment, planning to return to the unmade bed, and it gave me the terrible feeling that he was watching me over my shoulder.
Something grabbed me by the pauldrons, shaking a gasp from me, spun me hard and to the left, and pinned me, face-first, against the wood paneling.
My heart hammered in my chest, breath coming in sharp gasps. It couldn’t … there couldn’t be someone living here, could there be? After all this time? Of course not, it was unbelievable, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.
The wall smelled of mildew and dust and rotting books. But it was nothing compared to the panic I felt at having my chest pressed hard to the wood by a force between my shoulder blades. My right cheek was flattened against the wall and I could not turn.
A door slammed. My dog barked. My heart choked me with fear.
My attacker had been smart enough to pin my sword hand. I fought against the vise-grip on my gauntlet, unable to shake him loose or even see who it was who had pinned me. Behind the door, Brindle’s growls were deep and demanding.
What’s he doing to you? Are you dead?
He! Which he?
My breath sawed in my lungs. All I could see in my mind was the looming shape of the black demon unfurling from the ceiling and sliding down the wall to rip out my windpipe. A scream rose in my throat.
“I wouldn’t scream.” The voice was right in my ear, quiet, growling, but laced with something dangerous. I thought I felt the warmth of lips against the shell of my ear.
Adalbrand, of course.
I let my exhale out slowly.
“What are you doing?”
Look, I’ve wanted to be pinned to a wall by an attractive man in armor for about as long as I’ve fantasized about men, but I thought that — ideally — we’d be married and he’d be interested in having fun, not growling threats in my ear.
I couldn’t fault the actual person who pinned me.
He lived up to the standard of my dreams just fine.
The Poisoned Saint was attractive enough to be distracting, but it was pretty clear from how he slammed my hand against the wall when I tried a twist escape that he wasn’t doing this for fun.
Well, not that kind of fun. He might be one of those who enjoyed cruelty to others, and if he was, he could march right off.
“I heard you when you went through the door, even if no one else did,” he whispered. “I heard you confess to doubt. That isn’t the confession of a paladin.”
“Isn’t it?” I asked through gritted teeth while trying to aim a kick backward. “What is the confession of a paladin? Murder? In a moment, Brindle will come through the door and then you’ll have two of us to face at once.”
“Just like Sir Branson did before you stole his cloak and sword?” His whisper became a growl and the brush of his lip stung as the bristle of unshaven face scraped against my ear. “I don’t know what you are, but you are no Vagabond Paladin.”
I held on to my dignity. I wouldn’t plead or demand.
“Who are you to judge? The book says, ‘For each judgment wrought, to each a dole given.’ If you’re judging me, then you’ll be judged the same way.”
“I welcome it.” His breath was hot. I tried again to shake his grip and flinched when he slammed me back against the wall with twice the force he had used before.
Pain made my breath spasm and my vision darken.
“May the God judge me indeed, for you are no Vagabond Paladin. The Vagabond forswears wealth so that the generous God might provide. The Vagabond asks for a blessing in faith and receives it in a way that no other paladin is given — straight from the heart of the God, in acknowledgment of her physical deprivations. The Vagabond lives a life soaked through with faith, and by your account, so did your lay parents, and so did your mentor.”
“If you have a point to make, make it.”
I kicked out at “make it” and tried to land a blow to his vulnerable knee, but he must have dodged.
It was only meant as a distraction as my off-hand went for the dagger in my belt.
He was faster than me and just as cunning.
He pinned my off-hand with a knee, not once lessening the pressure on my back and other hand.
I had to clench my jaw to keep from crying out as his steel greave dug into the small bones of my hand.
“When you confessed to doubt, you confirmed my fears.” He was no longer whispering but his voice was breathy. “That you are no paladin, but a pretender. That you should not be here at all.”
Again, that stab of fear sliced through me from gullet to brain. He knew the edge of my secret. That I was unworthy. That I should not be here.
You should. You must.
“Tell me you deserve to be here,” he breathed into my ear and I shivered.
“I do not,” I confessed.
Saints and Angels, girl. You deserve it if any of them do. Who cares who is “worthy”? In the end, it’s always the one willing to get dirty and do the job.
“Tell me you are the best your Aspect had to offer,” he pressed.
“I cannot.”
How do you know? You met so few of us!
“Tell me, then, if you can, whose authority rests on your shoulders.” The steel in his voice he’d been masking with gentleness slid out now. He was readying himself to fight me and kill me. I could feel it. “Tell me what gives you the right to stand with the rest.”