Briefly, Brother Candle wondered what kind of noble Raymone would have made had he lived in a peaceful age.
News from farther east became the subject of so much speculation that time just flew. There were no adventures other than a brush with a band of Society brothers fleeing retribution. They lacked the courage of their convictions that morning.
Brother Candle saved their lives. He talked Gaitor into letting them go. “Ye reap what ye sow.”
Kedle responded, “What we’ll reap is rats bred up a hundredfold. Remember those faces, old man. See if they aren’t in the mob that ties you to the stake someday.”
“Blood drinker, that one,” Geis whispered.
Brother Candle nodded. And could not shake the truth underlying what Kedle said. Someone would pay for his kindness.
A patrol from Antieux found them ten miles west of the city. The soldiers had heard of Brother Candle. They formed an escort and sent a rider ahead to report the coming of an important messenger.
Count Raymone was away harassing stragglers from the Patriarchal force, Society fugitives, and brigands. His prey often fit multiple categories. Socia, though, was in the city, busy being pregnant. She came out to meet Brother Candle. She was as effusive and excited as if he were her own father. Her pregnancy had begun to show. She was sensitive about that. She had dressed to make it less obvious.
She asked, “You’re carrying communications from the Queen?”
“I am,” Brother Candle replied.
“We’ve been hearing a lot from her. I expect your message won’t be anything new. But she says you speak for her. She thinks we’ll trust you to do what’s best for the End of Connec.”
“Oh, no. Socia… Countess… no! I was born on the third day after Creation. I’m old. I need to rest. It’s a miracle the Good God hasn’t called me during this journey.”
“He left you in place because He knows you have work to do.”
Kedle chuckled.
Brother Candle said, “These people saw me through. They’re good people, mostly. Though that girl with the baby needs some rough corners knocked off.”
Socia grinned at Kedle. Kedle grinned back. Socia’s chief lifeguard whispered to her. She said, “I know who she is. We spent a winter in the Altai together. Kedle. Two babies now. So either Soames turned up or you found out that he didn’t have the only one.”
Storm clouds crossed Kedle’s face. But she nodded. “He turned up. Got me another baby, then got himself killed. By the very King of Arnhand. Six kinds of poetic and ironic justice there.”
“Ha! They’re calling you the Kingslayer. You know that? So I like you even better. But I’m jealous. I wish it’d been me. Well, maybe someday. The Arnhanders won’t stop coming till we’re shut of Anne of Menand.”
Brother Candle eyed Socia narrowly. Was there a sinister inflexion there?
He said only, “Some of these people are almost as old as I am, Countess. And we’re all exhausted. And it’s going to rain. Again.” Wet weather had been common the past ten days. It was not coming up off the Mother Sea, which was the norm, but was sweeping down from the northwest, often accompanied by thunder and occasionally by hail and savage winds. More signs that the world was changing.
Socia gave orders. “You. You. You. Stay with me.” She indicated Gaitor, Kedle, and Brother Candle. “We need to talk. Martin, Jocelyn, take the rest to the quarters I had prepared.”
Brother Candle said, “Kedle has children to…”
“Bring them along.” Socia eyed the band. “Every one a heretic.” Most she would remember from the Altai. “I know you from our time in the mountains. You, though. I don’t remember you.”
“Escamerole, and it please Your Grace. I didn’t go into the Altai. My parents wouldn’t leave Khaurene.”
“Relative? Cousin? Yes? I see. Come. Help Kedle manage the children.” She considered little Raulet. “He’s come on fine, considering the rough start.”
Brother Candle thought Escamerole might melt. She was Kedle’s mirror image. He told her, “Be brave. The Countess only eats Arnhanders and churchmen.” A remark that did not leave Socia best pleased.
Socia took it out on her lifeguards. They jumped to.
It was obvious they worshipped their Countess.
In hours it was clear that Socia had, in Brother Candle’s absence, become the object of a cult of personality amongst Antieux’s young soldiers. It was equally clear that Antieux itself now existed for one purpose: war. Continuous war against the enemies of Count Raymone and the Connec had become the city industry. Man, woman, and child, Antieux subscribed to an apocalyptic vision. It would be obliterated by evil but the fight it fought would render it immortal. For a thousand years wherever righteous men and women strove against the darkness Antieux’s memory would be invoked.
Near as Brother Candle ever determined, no one preached that doctrine. It came into being as a shared civic nightmare.
He muttered, “The Night created humanity and humanity creates the Night.” He feared he was present at the birth of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the populace imagined it, so it should be.
Socia’s destination was the same comfortable room where he had conferred with her during previous visits. Food and drink were brought. Kedle and Escamerole focused on the littles while Brother Candle and Socia caught up. Then Socia surprised the old man. “Being pregnant has given me a new perspective. A deeper appreciation of what you tried to teach me, all those years. I still don’t agree but now I understand what you were saying.”
“Glory in the highest.”
“I smell rampant sarcasm.”
“Possibly. I may have lost my faith. I may have lost any ability I ever had to enjoy a faith.”
“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself because the real world won’t leave you alone. Every time you start to crawl back into the comfort of your faith somebody like me smacks you with a cold, dead, rotten fish of reality.”
“What?”
“I’ve been rehearsing that for months. It didn’t work when I said it out loud.”
“It worked, child. I think, no matter our root faith-and you’re welcome to name any one you want-this is one of those times when despair is the only sane philosophy.”
“Bah. Crap. My family were Seekers After Light. My brothers-may the Good God bless and illuminate them-never lost faith. But they never laid down their arms, either. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, Master. Maybe I should’ve been born a thousand years ago, when defeat was inevitable and your greatness was measured by how fierce a fight you put up before the inevitable got you.”
“Surrender to the Will of the Night.”
“Master?”
“What you’re saying is an iteration of the attitude of most people before Aaron of Chaldar. It doesn’t matter what the individual thinks, feels, or does. The gods do as they please. So yield and be less damaged.”
She disagreed. “Defiance, Master. Not acquiescence. Struggle till the end, then fight on.”
Kedle said, “I’m sure this is all fun for you two. But there’d better be a reason for dragging the rest of us around.”
Brother Candle considered Kedle and Escamerole, each with a child in her lap. “It’s a good point, Socia.”
“Yeah. Yes. All right, old man. Tell me about your journey. Tell me what the Queen wants. And what you think about that. You girls feel free to interrupt because, much as I love him, the Master wears a big pair of blinders.”
Brother Candle spent an hour telling his story. Kedle interrupted twice. Escamerole never said a word. She kept Raulet entertained till exhaustion overcame him.
Socia said, “I don’t know when Raymone will be back. Maybe when all the invaders are dead. More likely, in time to see his first son born. Meantime, he trusts me to handle things. So be frank, Master. Why did Isabeth send you? What does she want?”
Brother Candle presented his documents. He said what he had been told to say. Socia did not respond. Finished talking, in danger of an exhausted collapse, he begged to be released. The Countess said, “Thank you, Master. You’ll be in your usual cell. Go.” She began to talk to Kedle about mundanities like nursing and labor.