“Dyfrig?” Ednoth asked. “Is that you?”
“Contrary to your plans,” Jusson said, “he survived.”
Gawell found his indignation. “You accuse us of attacking our church?”
“Yes,” Jusson said.
“How dare you,” Gawell said, his voice full of outrage. “Your witch called the revenant forth. Just as he killed Menck. Four murders in the space of two days, just as he returned from that godforsaken place—”
Rosea’s shocked gasp cut across Gawell’s accusations. “Rabbit a witch? Oh, no, no! This cannot be true! He is a good son of the Church.”
“Lord Rabbit is steeped in the dark arts, dear lady,” Helto said. He’d regained his suavity and he now again shook his head in sorrow. “He couldn’t even go into the church last night but was struck down in a fit as he neared its doors. And as he fell, the revenant came rushing out at its master’s cries.”
“The revenant came out to protect its master? Only to have the master destroy it? What a tragic figure, even in death!” Rosea mimicked the flourishing of a cape, her green gaze all of a sudden dark and knowing. “Poor Rodolfo. His greatest role and he wasn’t there.”
Our ad hoc army had remained quiet during the give and take between Jusson and those on the portico. But now a roar went up at Helto and Rosea’s words, townspeople shouting, the unnatural hush unable to mute their grief and anger. Many shouted at those who stood on the portico; however, others aimed their anger at me, and cries of “murderers” and “turncoats” mingled with those of “witch.” Jeff and Arlis drew closer to me, as did the King’s Own, their faces worried as they watched the crowd. However, I wasn’t paying attention to the muffled bellows and shaking fists. Instead I was once more staring up at Rosea, the hair rising up on the back of my neck as she smiled down at me with the dead master player’s eyes. Outside my ring of the Own, Laurel snarled and raised his paw, but nothing happened. The rune remained dark. Laurel stared at it, his ears flat against his skull.
“Oh, dear,” Helto said, raising his voice over the tumult.“What can the matter be, pussycat? No digging for the truth?”
Laurel, growling, lowered his paw. As he did, though, I brought my hand up in blessing, and Rosea rocked back a bit, blinking. Then her face quickly smoothed over and she smiled again. However, her eyes were once more icy green.
Not winter—
Dyfrig hit his Staff of Office against the ground, causing the bells to jangle, and the roaring diminished. “Did you send that abomination to the church, Ednoth, Gawell?” he asked.
Ednoth shook his head while Gawell drew himself up, his belly thrusting out. “Of course not!” the mayor declared. “It was the witch—”
Dyfrig’s mouth was suddenly bracketed by lines of pain—I supposed after knowing them all his life, he could tell when Gawell and Ednoth lied. Shaking his head slowly, the doyen held his staff out to me and, keeping an eye on Rosea, I slipped out from among the Own to join him at the altar. Shifting my own ashwood staff to my other hand, I took the Staff of Office from the doyen and felt the warmth of it through my glove. And Gawell and Ednoth’s protestations of innocence died, as did their plans to foist every thing on the hellmongering magicals.
“It’s a trick,” Gawell stuttered. “A false staff and an equally false doyen. Look at him! Unnaturally young—”
The lines deepened around Dyfrig’s mouth. “Rabbit didn’t stop the revenant.” He opened the chest of blessings. “I did. With that Staff of Office as I called on God.”
And with a little help from both Wyln and the air aspect. However, I wasn’t going to point that out.
Jusson, though, had no problem giving credit where credit was due. “Lord Wyln fought the revenant, Gawell, and His Reverence delivered the grace stroke. Which, apparently, your informants hadn’t passed on.” A wing brow rose. “Amazing. I wonder why?”
The last of the roar from our ad hoc army faded. It was replaced with a growl, low and full of the rage of betrayal.
“Ah,” Jusson said. “It seems that there is some doubt as to your goodwill.”
“Our goodwill, beautiful elf-king?” Rosea asked before Gawell could respond. “We have all the goodwill in the world.” She tilted her head to the side. “What about you, Priest? Do you?”
Dyfrig ignored the player as he set out the implements of blessing, gently placing them on the altar cloth. Those at the corral and on the portico watched him, their faces yearning. It seemed that it was one thing to be at odds with one’s sovereign and risk a hanging; it was another to align oneself with a creature from hell and thereby risk one’s soul. Still, I moved closer to the doyen, shifting both staves to one hand to leave my sword arm free, just in case any decided that their orthodoxy was a suitable sacrifice for keeping their neck out of the hangman’s noose.
“I’m sure the doyen is full of goodness and light,” Helto said to Rosea.
“Is he?” Rosea asked. “His hands too? Are they full of goodness? Or are they stained with blood?”
Dyfrig suddenly faltered, the bell slipping from his hand to hit the table with a clang.
“Your Reverence?” I asked, and the low, growling rumble around us changed, rising on a questioning note.
Rosea came down a step. “What about it, Priest? Are your hands clean?”
For a long moment Dyfrig didn’t move, then his shoulders slumped, and I reached out to him, taking his arm. Instead of the frail bones of yesterday morning, I could feel solid muscle and sinew, but he was tight, as if braced against a blow. The questioning rumble faded until there was nothing left but the stifling hush.
Rosea laughed and descended another step, her head turning to Wyln. “What do you think, Enchanter? Has the young-again priest soiled his hands?”
Wyln was standing with Thadro at Jusson’s back. And like Thadro he kept his attention on the player. “Did you kill someone, Elder Dyfrig?” he asked without turning around, sounding more intrigued than condemning.
Dyfrig shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice cracking. “My sin is one of omission—”
“Omission!” Rosea said. “Was it an omission to turn away from a hand stretched out in supplication?”
“You watched someone murdered and did nothing?” I asked, my concern turning to disbelief. I felt Dyfrig’s arm jerk as he flinched.
“Oh, yes, my little rabbit,” Rosea said. “But was it a ‘someone’? That’s the question, isn’t it?”
My fingers tightened, digging into Dyfrig’s arm. “One of the People was here? In the valley?”
“Up in the mountains,” Rosea said. “A holdover from when they roamed freely.” She did a dance step, spinning in a pirouette—and I could see that her feet were bare on the icy stone, a twist of pearls twined around one dead-white ankle. “Did it horrify you, dear priest? Or were you filled with joy as you watched the magical’s life drain into the ground?”
Dyfrig closed his eyes, his face so drawn that he nearly looked his age.
“Liked it, didn’t you, sweetling?” Rosea crooned. “But then, they should all die, shouldn’t they? Every single beastly one burned in the fire. After all, look what they did to your father.”
“Your father fought in the war, Elder Dyfrig?” Laurel asked. He had given up glaring at his blocked rune to focus on the doyen. However, the Faena’s regard was gentle.
Rosea descended another step. “Yes, he did,” she said. “He was a fine, upstanding man, answering his liege lord’s summons with no thought of himself. But that’s not the way he came back, did he, dear heart? Broken in so many places. And his nightmares.” She licked her lips again, her voice turning sibilant. “Nightmares that lasted into waking—”