Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Vagabond Paladin
The dog cursed in my brain so intensely that one curse rolled over another.
I gritted my teeth against the mental maelstrom, shifting my weight from knee to knee.
All my senses prickled, demanding my attention, insisting a blow was coming quickly, that they could feel the rush of the air, smell the sweat of the attacker.
I shook myself free from the onslaught and forced my brain to focus.
There was no attack yet, though even if there was, what could I do about it?
I couldn’t even draw my sword properly from this position.
How could Sir Kodelai think I was guilty of such a grisly crime on the scant evidence of a knife found here?
Was I to have sawn off her head with my belt knife?
Not that I couldn’t, exactly. I’d seen pigs butchered with a knife no longer than my palm and I could only assume people were the same.
But I had never engaged in such mad butchery, nor would I, God forfend.
Besides, what motive could I possibly have to kill the Seer? I did not know the woman.
And now what? I wasn’t even sure what happened next. I’d never seen a Hand of Justice perform his duties before.
Adalbrand preemptively challenged. For you. What have you done to this man? Sir Branson sounded panicked, and it infected me, making my heart race. I didn’t even know what that meant. No one does that. Not many men would give their lives for an innocent person — never mind one who might be guilty.
But I wasn’t guilty. This was all a misunderstanding. They had to realize that.
They don’t. They don’t realize and they won’t until you’re dead. His panic was spiraling, making his voice higher and higher.
But I was a paladin. A servant of the God!
Remember when I told you that I hadn’t quite had time to tell you everything? I might have forgotten about this part.
No, he’d told me. I knew about the right to challenge. If someone thought Sir Kodelai had judged wrong, they could challenge him. But only after he’d carried out justice.
I was going to die no matter what and for no reason.
Unless it’s done preemptively. Sir Branson cursed, seemed to shatter apart in my mind, and then gathered himself again. Saints and Angels! Adalbrand must really believe you’re innocent, my girl.
His voice trembled a second time and was blotted out by more cursing before it returned as my two specters fought for control of the dog. When he resurfaced, he was yelling, as if trying to drown out the demon.
To preemptively challenge like that means that he will share your fate. If he is wrong and you killed the Seer, he’ll die with you.
This was all out of control. My heart was in my throat, pulse racing like I was in the heat of battle.
The last time I felt like this, a band of highwaymen had set on us in the night while we slept, taking even Brindle unaware.
I’d woken to fishy-breathed laughter in my face, the stark white light of the moon, and a sticky blade at my throat.
I remembered thinking that they could have at least kept the blade clean.
We’d survived that. With cool heads and decisive action.
I could survive this, too. I took a long, measured breath and refused to join the tenants in my head in their loss of control even though the grey smoke choked and pulled at my throat like a noose and the scent of it — a cloying bergamot — made my stomach twist.
I scanned the faces surrounding me, my heart bobbing a little — like a child’s toy boat pushed under the water and then popping up again.
I saw no challenge in anyone else’s expression.
Hefertus, Sir Owalan, and the Inquisitor looked worried.
The High Saint and the Majester looked eager.
The Engineers watched with riveted gazes, as if they were being taught a new technique.
They agreed with Sir Kodelai, then. They thought I was guilty. Or they didn’t care. And they would punish another innocent person along with me. They stood around the broken body of the Seer as though surveying a breakfast table and deciding what they would eat first.
“Any judgment I bear must be borne alone,” I said firmly, loudly enough to carry. Let them chew on that. I could go to my death bravely. I was no craven. “It’s mine alone to prove I am innocent or accept my fate.”
This is madness, sweetmeat. Bravery means nothing when your sweet, hot blood is flowing over the crisp white marble. You’ll not be able to snatch it back again. Once spilled, twice regretted, as we say in the depths.
“The challenge has been offered. It is not for you to speak to it, Beggar,” Sir Kodelai said with a chopping motion of his hand.
He was every inch the king he had once been, tall, straight, noble of brow and jaw, beautiful and finely dressed, and superior to me in every way.
He would not be out of place right now in a throne room or before an assembly of bishops.
He held himself even now with grave dignity, his face a mask of duty.
I had never liked kings. They were too blind to see they were no greater than beggars, no more secure, no more inured to the whimsy of fate allowed by the sovereignty of the God.
Speaking of which.
Rejected God, I beg your aid. Deliver me from evil and false accusation.
There. A respectful prayer. I may not be truly called by the God, but I could honor him with the proper sort of request — not reaching above myself, not asking for anything it wasn’t in his nature already to grant.
If I died with this prayer in my heart, I’d hold no shame walking through the bright gates of heaven.
If the God planned to honor my prayer, he didn’t do it immediately. I had not thought he would. I was not the beautiful golden-haired type who was instantly rescued by princelings and the God to be spared and lauded.
I twisted, trying to see better as Sir Adalbrand stepped forward. The man worried me.
He was as calm as always, a slightly wry smile ghosting around the edges of his mouth.
He flicked a single, assessing glance at me but he looked away almost immediately before he could even see my violent denial of his fool sacrifice.
Other than the flutter of his pulse in his throat, there was no outward sign of nerves in how he moved or how he held himself. Was he truly that confident in me?
Chivalry. I told you it ruled this man. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.
I didn’t think so. This wasn’t because I was a woman. This was something else.
Fine, then it is attraction. He’s besotted with you.
It was more than that. It was something deeper. I knew the man well enough by now to recognize he was self-controlled.
Usually. But remember when we were down here before, how his tight control was blown away by the winds of this place like seeds from a dandelion? He’s not to be trusted, sweetmeat.
Yes, I’d definitely trust a devil’s judgment on that over the paladin currently trying to save my skin.
It’s toothsome skin.
Adalbrand looked at the Seer as he stepped up to join Sir Kodelai.
Just one glance, but his nostrils flared when he passed her, as if he hated that her corpse was being used for show instead of being respectfully carried away.
The tiny dimple in his chin grew deeper when he clenched his jaw with determination.
When he ripped his eyes back, I saw in their depths the edges of pain and bitterness.
He was calm and immovable as a rock on the outside while a well of guilt and ripping sadness tormented him on the inside.
And I wanted both. I wanted to be near the calm and I wanted to assuage the guilt. But I’d never forgive myself if both ended here with me. I’d walk the halls of heaven as guilty as he trod the ground of the earth.
“I won’t allow it,” I said, my words garbled by how dry my mouth suddenly had become.
“And what will you do to prevent matters from progressing, Beggar?” Sir Kodelai asked as he flicked open the bottom of his wooden case.
It had telescoping legs. He shook it and gravity lowered them, so that all he had to do was twist a knob on each one and his box was now a very small table. “Will you murder me, too?”
“I’m not a murderer,” I gasped. But I knew it was a lie. I had killed Sir Branson. My best friend in this world.
Killed is a relative term. I’m still mostly alive. Although I do miss my tea.
“We are all murderers here, or we would not have come through the door,” Sir Kodelai said gravely. “Or have you not yet realized what this place is for?”
“Is it not a monastery?” I asked as he drew his ceremonial cups from their velvet-lined slots, drew out the vial of blessed holy water, and then set them up very precisely on his small table.
“It was a monastery in the parts that were above the earth,” he said, meeting my gaze with his glacial one for but a moment before unstoppering his vial and pouring out a mouthful into each pewter cup with a measured eye.
They were carved all over with skeletons, and each of the skeletons covered its eyes with ragged phalanges.
“That part has long passed away, as I am certain you noticed. I took my time yesterday while the rest of you were busy with your treasure hunt. I studied this place with care — as I told Sir Coriand last night when he asked me — and I ferreted out the purpose of this great vault below. It does not store records, to the sorrow of the Engineers, nor does it store a cache of weaponry for the Majester, or a storehouse of holy relics for the High Saint, but rather, this vault is a carefully wrought tool. It will indeed make you a Saint by drawing out your sins one by one, feeding them into that trapped demon in the ceiling, and washing what’s left of the sinner until he is either clean or dead. ”
“No man can be clean by his own effort,” the High Saint intoned.