He stopped and broke down as Ashe pulled him into his arms.
“No one lies on purpose,” Gwydion Navarne choked, his face buried in his guardian’s shoulder. “My mother didn’t know she would never come home when she told me she would. My father didn’t know that he couldn’t bring her back, except in—pieces. Rhapsody didn’t know that she would not return to watch me shoot the albatross arrows she brought me from Yarim in an archery tournament. And you can’t make any promises, either. Everyone leaves. And no one ever comes back. So don’t tell me you know. You know nothing.”
Ashe squeezed his shoulders, then pulled back and looked down into the youth’s tearstained face.
“I know your grandmother,” he said, smiling slightly. “I know that she will fight with everything she has to come back to us. I know she has an even better reason now, a child to protect, to live for. But I understand why you don’t want to hear the words again. So instead of making you a promise you won’t believe, I will ask you to make one for me, that I will.”
Gwydion Navarne nodded slightly.
“Stand to serve Anborn,” Ashe said, noting that the quartermaster was almost done outfitting the horses. “Stay with him, and keep his spirits up. Aid him in whatever he needs to keep order while I am gone. His task is critical; help him in it.”
“I will.”
For the first time since returning home, Ashe mustered a melancholy smile.
“He likes you a great deal, Gwydion, and I know you have a fondness for him too.”
“Yes,” the boy said. “I do.”
“Cherish that bond,” the Lord Cymrian said. “It is a precious thing, one that I always longed for in my heart, but that never came to pass. I am at least happy to see that he has found the ability to share it with you. He is a great man.” He dropped his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “A colossal pain in the privates, but a great man.”
Gwydion Navarne did not smile in return.
“What I am asking of you is a man’s task,” Ashe said, signaling his readiness to Grunthor, who was standing beside the quartermaster, ready to mount up. “But you are up to it. You have been a man for a long time, even if you haven’t the beard yet to prove it.” He patted Gwydion’s arm, then turned and jogged down the stairs.
Gwydion watched until the two men had ridden out of sight, east into the ascending sun, before breaking into sour, hidden tears that burned like acid.
36
The journey to Sepulvarta, under most conditions, took six days from Haguefort on horseback, assuming a minimal encampment and watch. Ashe and Grunthor, determining that to be too long, forwent any troop accompaniment, preferring to rely on their natural or ingrained abilities to go without sleep for extended periods and the well-supplied mail route along the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare, where fresh horses could be had every eighty leagues.
Grunthor had been unwilling to part with Rockslide. The flexibility of the horse trade meant individual mounts were lost, rotated out as need be, so he settled for the heaviest war horse in Haguefort’s stable, a battle mare with dray bloodlines, apologizing to the animal as the quartermaster packed it.
“Poor old girl,” he said, eyeing the heavy hocks and strong gaskins. “Gonna be putting you an’ all the rest like you through your paces. You’ll be glad Oi’m offa ya by day’s end.” He patted the animal’s shoulder and neck. “Hmmm. Used ta say the same thing to of Brenda back at the Pleasure Palace.”
The holy city, sometimes called the Citadel of the Star, lay to the southeast, a tiny, landlocked independent nation-state bordering Roland, Sorbold, and Tyrian. The religion of the Patriarch, known generally as the Patrician faith of Sepulvarta, had adherents in all three of its neighbors, but, while Roland was overwhelmingly Patrician, and most of Sorbold could be counted among the faithful, the vast majority of the Lirin citizens of Tyrian were followers of the Invoker and the practice of the Filids, the nature priests of Gwynwood.
Two days out from Sepulvarta, Grunthor and Ashe caught sight of the towering minaret known as the Spire, a slender campanile that was one of the greatest architectural achievements in the Cymrian era, designed and built by an ancestor of Stephen Navarne. Broad as an entire city street at the base, it tapered up into a needle-like point a thousand feet in the air, crowned at the top with a silver star, the symbol of the Patriarchy. It was said that the pinnacle contained a piece of pure elemental ether, part of a fallen star that now glowed at the top of the Spire, sanctifying the basilica beneath it with the most powerful of the five elements, and lighting the way to the city.
It glowed in the clear air of the summer night, like a star that was tethered to the Earth.
Midmorning on the fifth day of travel, the two men arrived at the outskirts of the holy city. They had gone overland for much of the journey, but now caught up with the north-south roadway that led to the only entrance into the walled city. Grunthor dismounted reluctantly as they prepared to join the thoroughfare, shaking his head at the sight of the mass of humanity that was traveling the roadway, pilgrims and merchants, beggars and clergy, all wending their way to and from Sepulvarta.
“All the time we saved is gonna be lost if we don’t get around this,” he grumbled to Ashe, who was feeding the two pack horses they had brought with them, one of which carried the bowman’s body.
The Lord Cymrian’s appearance and demeanor had deteriorated in the intervening days. Worry was etched in the lines around his eyes, and his hair and face, unkempt and unshaven, were now hidden beneath the cloak of mist he had worn for so many years when he was a hunted man.
“What do you suggest?” he asked bitterly, his voice terse with shared frustration.
The Sergeant contemplated the question for a moment. Then he nodded to the horses.
“Hitch ’em to the next post we come to,” the giant said.
Another half a league up the road they came to the barracks of the mail caravan, where the convoy quartered, picked up messages and supplies, and changed guard. Ashe nodded at the heavy metal posts outside of the barracks.
“Will those do?”
“Yep.”
The two men secured the animals. Ashe nodded toward the well.
Til get water.”
“All right,” Grunthor said, shading his eyes while watching the thickening crowds of travelers clog the road to the holy city.
Once the horses and the men were refreshed, Ashe went to untie the pack animals.
“Wait,” Grunthor instructed.
“Why?” Ashe asked.
“Ya wanted to get there faster?”
“Yes.”
“Then cover yer ears, sonny.”
Ashe opened his mouth to ask what Grunthor had planned, but before he could the giant Bolg threw his head back and screamed. It was an earsplitting, gut-tingling sound that struck panic in the hearts of men and horse alike; Ashe had forgotten Rhapsody’s description of it, and Grunthor’s tendency to employ it when need be.
The swirling crowd of travelers panicked, the horses among them rearing in fright, clearing the roadway or dashing off into the surrounding fields.
“Now we can go,” Grunthor said, untying the reins.
They made their way quickly to the city gates, past the staring throng of unsettled pilgrims, into the teeming streets of Sepulvarta.
The Patriarch’s manse was not difficult to find; they had both been to the basilica, the enormous cathedral that was the center of the Patrician faith. The manse where the head of the church resided was attached to the basilica, high on a hill near the city wall. It was a beautiful marble building, its engraved brass doors guarded by soldiers in bright uniforms.