“Dame Gwydre does not care why I fight,” Bransen answered him, holding stubbornly to his anger. “Why would you?”
“Dame Gwydre has bigger things to care about than a single man’s heart and soul, perhaps.”
“And Brother Jond does not?”
The monk shrugged. “My victories are smaller, no doubt, but no less consequential, and no less satisfying.”
Bransen started to snipe back, but held his tongue and just waved his free hand in defeat, then walked off to be alone.
Brother Jond watched him go with a knowing smile. Bransen’s anger was real, but so was his compassion.
And in the end, Jond held faith that the compassion would prevail, because he had seen more than Bransen the warrior, this Sworddancer or Highwayman, as he was alternately known. After the previous battles, Bransen had helped Brother Jond and the others in tending the wounded, and his prowess in such matters was no less than his fighting ability.
Indeed, later that very night, Bransen and Jond worked side by side on the wounded.
“You hate them,” Jond remarked.
“Them?”
“McKeege and Dame Gwydre, for a start,” Jond explained. “My brethren in the South, as well. You are a young man too full of anger.”
Bransen regarded him curiously, in no small part because this wizened monk wasn’t much his elder, and to hear Jond calling him a “young man” seemed a bit strange.
“I am not as angry as you believe.”
“It pleases me to hear that,” Jond said, sincerely.
“But I have seen more dishonesty and evil than I ever expected,” Bransen went on. He paused and bent low over a severely wounded woman, placing his hand on her belly and closing his eyes. He felt his hand grow warm, and the woman’s soft moan told him that his effort was having some effect-though he couldn’t begin to guess whether it would be sufficient balm to get her through the tearing and twisting a spear had caused in her bowels.
After a short while, Bransen opened his eyes and leaned back to see Brother Jond staring at him.
“What do you do?” Jond asked. “To heal them, I mean. You have no gemstones, and yet I cannot deny what my eyes show to me. Your work has a positive effect on their wounds, almost as much so as a skilled brother with a soul stone.”
“My mother was Jhesta Tu,” said Bransen, and Brother Jond crinkled his face. “Do you know what that means?”
The monk shook his head, and Bransen snickered and said, “I did not expect anything different.”
“Jhesta Tu is a… religion?”
“A way of life,” said Bransen. “A philosophy. A religion? Yes. And since it is one not of Honce, but of Behr, I would hope that the Abellican Order has no reason to hate it. But of course they do. Why control people’s lives only a bit of the way, after all?”
“There is no end to your sarcasm.”
“None that you’ll ever see,” Bransen promised, but he was smiling as he spoke, despite himself, and Brother Jond got a laugh out of that, too.
“I know that your journey here was the result of a lie,” Jond said a long while later, as the two finally neared the end of the line of wounded. “But I cannot deny that I am glad you have come. As are they,” he added, sweeping his arm and his gaze out over the injured.
Bransen wanted to offer a stinging retort, but in the face of the suffering laid out before him, he found that he could not.
“As am I,” came a voice from behind, and the pair turned to see Dame Gwydre, stepping into one of Brother Jond’s conversations for the second time that day.
Bransen stared at her and did not otherwise respond.
“Greetings again, Lady,” Brother Jond said. “Your presence will surely uplift the spirits of these poor wounded warriors.”
“Soon,” she promised. “For the moment, though, I would speak with your companion.”
She matched Bransen’s stare, and motioned for him to join her outside the tent.
“Your anger is understandable,” she said when he joined her outside. She led the way, walking across the encampment through a light rain that had come up.
“I will sleep easier knowing that you approve,” he said, taking some solace in being able to so casually and impudently address this imposing and powerful figure. He felt as if he had scored a little victory in that retort, though he quickly scolded himself silently for such a petulant and childish need, particularly when Gwydre took it all in stride, as if it was deserved or at least understandable.
“The wind has a bit of winter’s bite in it this evening,” she said. “The season is not so far away, I fear. Our enemies will not relent-glacial trolls feel the cold not at all. But my own forces will be more miserable by far.”
“A fact that little concerns you, I expect,” Bransen said, and this time he did elicit a glower from the Dame of Vanguard. “Other than how it might affect your holding, I mean.”
“Do you understand and accept why Dawson brought you here?” Gwydre asked quietly.
“I understand that I was deceived.”
“For your own good.”
“And for yours.” Bransen stopped as he spoke the accusation, and turned to face the lady as she similarly swung about to regard him.
“Yes, I admit it,” she said. “And though I knew not of Bransen Garibond, this Highwayman legend, when Dawson left Pireth Vanguard, and though I had no idea that he would so coerce you to come, I admit openly that I approve of his tactics and of the result.”
“You would say that standing out here alone with me?”
Gwydre laughed at him. “Openly,” she reiterated. “I know enough of Bransen to recognize that he is no murderer.”
“Yet my anger is justified.”
“Justified does not mean that it is not misplaced,” said Gwydre. “I see that you have forged a friendship with Brother Jond and some others.”
Bransen shrugged.
“If I granted you your freedom right now, with no recourse should you decide to leave, would you?” she asked. “Would you collect your wife and her mother and be gone from Vanguard?”
“Yes,” Bransen said without hesitation and with as much conviction as he could flood into his voice.
“Would you really?” Dame Gwydre pressed. “You would leave Brother Jond and the others? You would allow the troll hordes of the Samhaists to overrun Vanguard and slaughter innocent men, women, and children?”
“This is not my fight!” Bransen retorted, somewhat less convincingly.
“It is now.”
“By deception alone!”
Gwydre paused, and held up her hand to silence the agitated Bransen. “As you will,” she conceded.
“You will let me leave?”
“No, I cannot, though surely I would like to-for you and for all of the soldiers,” she said. “There is too much at stake, and so I insist that you remain.”
“Dawson McKeege would be proud of you,” Bransen replied, his sarcasm unrelenting.
“I do not wish to allow this war to go through the winter,” Dame Gwydre said and turned and started off yet again, Bransen in tow. “The cold favors my enemies.”
“Please, end it.”
“I am considering creating a select team of warriors to strike deep into our enemy’s ranks, perhaps to decapitate the beast. The hordes are held together by the sheer will and maliciousness of Ancient Badden, a most unpleasant Samhaist.”
“A redundant description, from what I have seen.”
“Indeed,” Dame Gwydre agreed. “Do you agree with my reasoning?”
“You’re asking me to join your attack force.”
“I am tasking you with exactly that.”
Bransen stopped, and Gwydre did as well, glancing back and allowing him all the time he needed to think it through.
“How far and how long?” he asked.