"I intend to do just that," the ranger assured her. "Now that I have tasted the blood."
"And all the brothers of St. Belfour will go with you, if you desire," Dellman said, "to offer healing along the road, as the brothers of St. Precious are doing along the road south."
"We shall see," was all that Andacanavar would concede.
The procession from Vanguard left the next day. The next after that, to Jilseponie's absolute delight, the brethren of St.-Mere-Abelle began to show up. Nearly half the brothers of that greatest of abbeys arrived, some three hundred, led by Agronguerre himself. They went to the plateau and they learned the beautiful truth. And as they set out again for the south, that very night-for Agronguerre understood that any delay would mean more suffering to many people-the Father Abbot promised that the rest of the abbey would arrive within a couple of weeks.
Jilseponie slept well that night, knowing that her vision, the vision given to her by the spirits of Elbryan and Avelyn at Oracle, would indeed come to fruition.
A few weeks later, Jilseponie and Bradwarden watched from a distant mountainside the seemingly endless procession snaking along the road from the south, some heading for the mountainous ring and Mount Aida, others already rushing back to the southland in the hopes that some of the crop might be brought in before the onset of winter.
Now that the seven hundred monks from St.-Mere-Abelle had joined in the healing line, and soldiers from Ursal had come in support of Tetrafel's Palmaris garrison, the road was swift and secure.
"They're sayin' that King Danube's on his way," Bradwarden remarked.
Jilseponie nodded, for she had heard the same rumors, claims that his royal entourage, including a couple of sons, would arrive at the entrance to the Barbacan by nightfall.
"He's bringin' all o' his court," Bradwarden remarked, and he eyed her curiously as he finished. "Includin' a pair o' sons, by the tales I'm hearin'."
Jilseponie merely nodded, and did well to hide her smile. Bradwarden was testing her, she knew, trying to find out if she harbored some feelings for the King of Honce-the-Bear. In truth, it was nothing that Jilseponie had even thought about much before and nothing that she was in any hurry to examine more deeply.
They met with King Danube that very night, and it was obvious to all in attendance, particularly to Constance Pemblebury, that the years had done nothing to diminish the man's feelings for this heroic woman of the northland.
"My work is here," Jilseponie explained against his insistence that she reconsider accepting the position of baroness of Palmaris.
"It seems to me that the work here will continue with or without you," Danube argued.
Jilseponie conceded that fact-to a point. "The northern walls of the Barbacan teem with goblins and giants," she explained. "And thus I have become the self-appointed ranger of the Barbacan, for now at least."
"A title she should no' be wearin'," Bradwarden cut in with a chuckle. "But she's got meself to keep her out o' trouble!"
They all shared a good laugh at that.
"Palmaris awaits your change of mind," Danube said to her in all seriousness. "Whether today, tomorrow, or years hence, the city will be yours with but a word."
Jilseponie started to reply, but changed her mind. The man had just paid her such a great compliment that she could not deny it, whatever might then be in her heart. She bowed her head respectfully and let it go at that.
When she looked up, though, she didn't-couldn't-miss the look of jealousy that Constance Pemblebury had put over her, nor the narrow-eyed warning gaze of Duke Targon Bree Kalas.
Yes, indeed, she thought, the wonderful world of politics!
"He means to make her his next queen," Duke Kalas said to Constance as they trotted their horses along the road back to the south. "You know that, of course." Constance didn't reply, but her silence spoke volumes to Kalas. Of course, she knew. How could she not? All Danube had spoken of in the five days since they had left the Barbacan was Jilseponie Wyndon, the savior of the world. He had promised her Palmaris, and sincerely; and Kalas knew that the invitation would be extended, at but a word from her, to include Castle Ursal and the city itself, to include all the kingdom.
Yes, Kalas knew it and so did Constance: King Danube was stricken with love for Jilseponie Wyndon. He had to bide his time for now, because she would not be moved from the Barbacan, but Danube was a patient man and one who knew how to get what he most desired.
"Queen Jilseponie," Kalas muttered quietly.
Constance Pemblebury fixed him with a perfectly awful stare.
They came in droves, the sick and the healthy, marching north from every corner of Honce-the-Bear, from Vanguard and from the Mantis Arm, from southern Yorkey, people living in the shadow of the Belt-and-Buckle mountain range, and from distant Entel.
Even from Behren, they came in small numbers, frightened people defying their yatol priests, daring to stow away on trading ships going around the mountain range's easternmost spurs, sailing up the coast all the way to the Gulf of Corona and to the mouth of the Masur Delaval, where they disembarked and began the land journey, desperate for healing.
The line of pilgrims thinned considerably, of course, with the onset of winter, but Jilseponie and Bradwarden and Braumin held their posts atop the plateau-an area sheltered by the magic of Avelyn from winter's coldest blows.
Few came as the year turned, and rumors filtered up the line to the sentinels of the covenant that many had died along the road, caught by storms or by exhaustion.
Jilseponie and the others held their faith, though. Yes, the plague would continue to claim victims, but hundreds and hundreds were now immune to its devastating bite.
And hundreds more would come to the Barbacan in the spring, they knew, for other rumors told of a great swelling of folk in the city of Palmaris, waiting for the word that the trails were clear.
One pleasant surprise came to them in the early part of the second month of the year, when a familiar form, bundled in layers of skins, scaled the rim of the plateau to stand towering above them.
Jilseponie's smile only widened and widened as more and more Alpinadorans followed Andacanavar up to that plateau.
"You did not believe that I could lead them here in the winter?" the ranger asked with a chuckle. "What feeble ranger do you take me for, woman-ranger-in-training? "
Jilseponie could only laugh and shake her head. Andacanavar introduced them to Bruinhelde, then; and the man, to Jilseponie's eyes, didn't seem overthrilled to be there.
But, she noted, he was thick with plague.
A few tense moments followed, with Jilseponie and Andacanavar offering their reassurances that partaking of Avelyn's blood would not be an admission of any change of faith, that the covenant would hold for them without any promises of that. "You can return to your homeland, safe from the plague, and go back to your ways and your God," Jilseponie said, but she was looking more to Braumin than to the Alpinadorans as she spoke.
"You know the Father Abbot of my Church, good Bruinhelde," Braumin said, surprising both Jilseponie and Bradwarden. But Braumin had spoken at length with Agronguerre about the possibility of this very meeting. "You know the value of the alliance that you entered into with him and with Prince Midalis. Well, consider this an extension of that alliance, a furthering of the bond of friendship between our peoples."
They all waited as Andacanavar translated the words into the Alpinadoran tongue, making certain that Bruinhelde understood not only the literal meaning of them but the manner in which they had been offered.
Bruinhelde then said something to the ranger, and Andacanavar turned to the trio. "He fears that his actions here will offend his gods," the ranger explained.
Jilseponie turned to her companions, then looked back to the Alpinadorans. "Then you do it, alone," she said to Bruinhelde. "Act as vanguard for your people, the first to try."