The Martyr and the Prophet (The Lost Testament Book 1) Read online

  ‘All men are sinners,’ he muttered to himself as he passed through the open door and crossed the courtyard toward the stores. It was a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and thin claws of cloud grasping high above into nothingness. The air was crisp and dry and just right for the season – not to warm or chilly, though he was glad of the extra blanket in his chambers at nights. The knight sucked in a mouthful of autumn and exhaled slowly as he neared the door to the storehouse by the armory, set into the east wall of the keep. It was at least a good season to be traveling for he loved to travel in the reddening countryside, but he also had the thought that he’d like to be back before the winter set in. That now seemed unlikely.

  The quartermaster’s assistant took his orders and folded the small parchment into a pigeonhole behind the counter. Beland removed his wide belt and pulled the fine wool tunic over his head, folding it neatly on the bench and waiting for the young man to return. It was not long before Beland received a folded brown garment of rough wool. He held it up and let it unfurl. It was a plain sleeveless tunic like his white one, a smaller chalice embroidered in faded white over the left breast. He slipped it on over his mail and buckled his belt over it, nodded to the boy and stalked into the courtyard again, a new, old knight.

  Sinners of course must repent and the knight-penitent, though he would be marked as such for all to see, would still be respected as a man of the Faith and one who was known to be on a mission of penance. He did not yet know what his penance would be, for that he had to wait until he had reached Havenside, but by design it would be long, involve travel and there would likely be further atonement afterward for the penitent rarely wore the brown tunic for any less than a year. He would not be the same knight he had been that morning. Though pride was a sin, the Order of the Chalice was proud of its accomplishments, its history of over two hundred years’ service to the Chapel and the Realms, and of its discipline and piety. The brown tunic marked Beland as a man who had broken that discipline and besmirched that pride, though common folk and even other knights knew better than to ask what sin the penitent had actually committed. Once penance had been prescribed the nature of the error was not important. What he did from now on would be.

  Juniper Keep stood in the foothills a half-day’s ride north of Bastion, watching the roads and approaches in a region that had long since ceased to need such a sentinel. It had been left to the order some hundred years hence by a lord who had died without heirs and who had assured his place in the afterlife with generous gifts to the Order of estates, a vineyard; cattle, crops, beehives and the castle itself. It had been known in those days as Castle Cragfoot but the Order had renamed it Juniper Keep, because though it had never been found, the sacred Lifetree in the east was reputed to be a Juniper. The keep was a well appointed castle with a large hall and barracks and quarters for over a hundred men and officers, stabling for dozens of horses. The courtyard was wide and the walls high and thick. The kitchens were also large and the cellars came well-stocked, not that the Chapel or the Order had ever lacked for wine and ale, among other donations from the wealthy and powerful.

  Men said that the Order chapter in Bastion had been poor until it came into this inheritance, and became a bulwark in the midland shires. In the early days it had been much needed. The names of nearby towns and villages were testament to the necessity of a well-placed castle in generations past: Bastion, Havenside, Mowbry’s Refuge, Regent’s Sanctuary. The shire of Somersvale was indeed now as safe as its place names had aspired to, but had only become so after many years of unrest, civil wars and invasion.

  These days when the Order campaigned, it campaigned abroad: across the straights to the south against heretics, the warm waters east of that against the heathen and wherever the wild raiders of the icy northern seas landed their longships in search of plunder and slaves. Beland had distinguished himself on all these fronts but like other knights his age he was mostly called upon these days to guard Chapel caravans, escort clergy, carry important messages and to sit at local courts when the dispensation of justice needed learned and experienced men. He still trained with the younger knights and novices in courtyard drills and sword-sparring, but had not drawn his blade in anger for many years. He had hoped it would stay that way, but of late the roads had been restless, petty brigands were said to be afoot, and now he had been called upon to ride to Havenside, he wondered if perhaps the dry spell might be broken on this journey.

  These were worries for the morning however. Tonight he must prepare his chambers, pack equipment, visit the kitchens for rations and sit at supper in the main hall in a brown tunic with his brother knights who wore the white. No doubt some had heard rumors too, though none would dare ask. Nor would he have asked if it were any of them donning the penitent’s vestments. But their eyes would inquire, even those who had served their own time in the brown, and his record would forever be stained. Perhaps that was small enough penance in the long run. After all, all men were sinners.

  Two

  A chilly breeze wafted into the hall from the open window and Father Haendric stood to close the shutters. It was late afternoon and the early autumn woods across the field shone a green-gold under a low-drooping sun. Brothers were carting hay and on the high pastures others led sheep to the pens. A pair of loft pigeons fluttered past and he heard a sap wren singing the last of the day. He passed over to the wood stove, took a thick branch from the basket and stacked it over the burning kindling. ‘Tell me again, why the Faith called on men to fight in the east.’

  Vanis sighed. He was not the most attentive of students but his memory was good when it came to history. The old cleric’s mistrust in the lad’s studiousness was misplaced at times, for he did love to read, but he was lazy when it came to numbers, almost combative when it came to catechism and ever unprepared for his music lessons, despite a natural talent for the harp and lute. Leave him alone with a book however, and he would read for hours.

  ‘To take the Holy City back from the heathens,’ the lad answered. ‘Once the temple is restored and the Chalice sits in its rightful place once more, the Prophet will return and usher in Heaven’s kingdom on Earth.’

  ‘And the Chalice?’ Father Haendric pressed.

  ‘Has never been found.’

  ‘Do you believe it exists?’

  ‘That’s what the Strictures says.’

  ‘It does, but what do you think?’

  ‘It has been more than a thousand years, Father,’ the novice answered, ‘it could be anywhere.’

  ‘And where do you think it might be?’

  ‘Strabius wrote that it was carried away to the west. Perhaps it even reached our shores and is hiding in some chapel vault. It could be in the undercroft below our own seats right now.’

  That earned him a frown from Haendric but he went on. ‘Renbar claims it was melted down in the fire when the heathens conquered the Holy City and destroyed the Old Temple. And Qadiri…’

  ‘Ah, a heathen scholar,’ the old cleric interjected. ‘Are we to trust the words of a black-faced liar and despoiler of kingdoms?’

  ‘The Fathers say we mustn’t,’ Vanis answered, ‘yet your library has half a dozen of his books.’

  Haendric chuckled and studied the boy’s face. He was tall, handsome and did not look much like his father, even when the man had been in his youth, for the old cleric had known the knight Beland for many years. He imagined the lad’s guileless eyes and straight nose had come from his mother, whom the priest had not met. That nose, though unrelated, reminded him of a face from his own past, one he’d vowed never to forget. Is that why he was so drawn to the youth? The chin was Beland’s though, as was the stubbornness. The open mind might also have come from the mother – either that or the cleric could take credit for educating the boy well. His father certainly was far too rigid and trusting of authority.

  ‘So what does Qadiri say?’

  ‘That there never was a Chalice in the first place.’

  ‘What does the
Strictures say?’

  Vanis closed his eyes theatrically and began to recite. ‘It says, “And Celimar called to them to see how he consumes the spirit of Heaven and how the spirit consumes him. He then drank from the cup under a juniper tree on the Mound of Sadeen. And he passed the cup to his Apostle who took it away to their temple” Which of the apostles it was and where the temple lay are not explained. But the Old Temple was built after that on the mound.’

  ‘So many questions,’ Haendric agreed. ‘And if the heathens destroyed the Chalice, why did they do so?’

  ‘Because they despise our ways and are servants of the Underworld. They want nothing more to sail east and destroy us. That’s what we’re taught in the classroom. If that’s what they want, then they’re taking their time.’

  ‘You’re being flippant again, my boy,’ the priest warned. ‘I hope you don’t talk back in class. So could the Heathens be hiding the Chalice from us?’

  ‘Not if they follow Qadiri’s words.’

  ‘Of course not,’ and Haendric continued for him. ‘They believe that Celimar was just a mortal man and renounce any of his relics as idolatry. It doesn’t interest them at all. Do you think the Chalice will ever be found?’

  ‘I’m not going looking for it if that’s what you mean,’ Vanis quipped.

  ‘All I ask then is that you bring me my blanket, ’Haendric smiled, revealing worn and crooked teeth between the white wisps of his beard. Vanis stood from his chair and leaned over to the foot of the bed where a dull grey woolen blanket the color of the priest’s robes lay folded. He opened it and draped it over the old cleric’s lap.

  ‘Thank you, my boy.’ Haendric coughed slightly. His chest hurt these days. ‘Now I believe you have work in the kitchens before supper.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the table then,’ the novice said, excusing himself.

  ‘I may yet eat in my room,’ the cleric responded. ‘I have letters to finish tonight. And Vanis, be careful what you say in class. The rest of the priory prefers rote learning to asking questions.’

  Vanis closed the door behind him and hurried up the cloistered corridor and across the atrium. He stopped to sip from the fountain that bubbled up from an underground spring. There was a small group of novices struggling at flute practice under the gaze of stern Father Caddock beside a young birch that was already turning to gold. Caddock liked Vanis, for he had become adept at music and nodded to the youth as he passed.

  Vanis liked Caddock too. He loved Haendric. He liked Beland, the knight of the order who had visited on occasion the past few years, and who was an old friend to Haendric. He did not like the stern, gaunt Prior, the priory or many of the other monks and novices. He did not much like Brother Cellim, the schoolmaster who was named for the Prophet Celimar and who was always quick with a quote from the Strictures. Though it was home, he disliked the residents of the priory in general. He was a bastard and in their eyes he was tainted. Most of them were the younger sons of lords and knights with lands and estates. They had long careers in the Chapel ahead of them or when they returned to administer family lands.

  Of course, he had no inheritance and would only ever be a cloistered brother. In fact, he realized that was his inheritance: his mother had paid for him to be taken in and educated and the eventual result of that was that he would always belong to the Chapel. He might just as well be a bondsman. Apart from being able to read and play the lute and harp, he was destined for a life much like any peasant: long years of churning butter, raising sheep and threshing grain; digging ditches, building fences and chopping firewood. At least he could read and he read of faraway lands in Haendric’s books, journeys by sea and magnificent creatures.

  He wished he could see the ocean, perhaps even take to a ship one day and travel to the continent and perhaps even the distant east. It was sometimes the luck of a monk to do such things, but he suspected, not a bastard monk who would remain forever at the bottom of the clergy. He stopped outside for a moment and looked at the sinking sun over the distant hills to the west. The sky was a deep autumn blue and the few clouds, long gilded fingers that stretched high above the stand of knobbed and bent greybark pines that towered over the hilltop monastery. Their clusters of green needles also blushed orange under the sun’s last kiss. Vanis had always loved to watch the sky and to dream of the distant realms he would someday sail to on that deep blue horizon.

  He shook his head.

  He would not even be allowed to marry or to sire children and at least a peasant could do that. And the other brothers would always see in his brown eyes the taint of sin and the offspring of base human lust. However much the clergy claimed otherwise, a bastard monk was still a bastard, and those who came from good, landed families would always advance further. They would someday sail to distant horizons if they wished, not he.

  Which was why he had lied about the kitchens, or so he reasoned. He did not like lying to Father Haendric and always wondered if the old cleric knew it when he did so. He crossed in front of the priory chapel, past the novice dormitories and the main hall where the kitchens were attached, stopped in a minute or two, and then followed the cobbled road around the cluster of buildings, toward the village proper as a pair of greentails fussed about a clump of tall grass, rummaging for their meal. As he disturbed them the small birds flew to the nearest whistlethorn bush and disappeared inside. About half way to the houses, he turned off onto a dirt path that led through a small copse of trees to one of the farming plots, where a small barn stood by several strips that were kept and tended by the people of Havenside.

  The barn was empty of livestock and tools, for the old yeoman who had kept it had died some months before, and nobody yet had put it to further use. In his small bag Vanis carried some of the excellent reddish smoked cheese the priory produced, a corked flask of sweet wine and a soft slab of spiced flatbread. He dropped it from his shoulder as he entered the barn, and Alysen was there sitting on the steps to the hayloft waiting for him in the brown bodice and skirts she usually wore.

  ‘I brought something to eat,’ he said sheepishly, hopefully. She was a couple of years older than he, had flaming red locks and a splash of freckles across each cheek; bright green eyes and full lips under a button of a nose.

  ‘Maybe there’s no time,’ she smiled, pulling herself up by the railing. ‘Elbry will be back from the mill by dark.’

  Vanis followed her up into the loft.

  Three

  The prow of Wolf Wave heaved up over another swell and crashed into the white spray again. Thick grey clouds with ragged edges flaming orange from the sinking sun behind cut the hilly coastline ahead into two worlds, the nearer dark and a blazing autumn brilliance beyond. The air was sharp, bitten by a cold northwester, but the rowers kept their beat and Wolf Wave’s sister ships kept their pace; three long, sleek vessels with thirty rowers each. Algas stood at the prow and clutched the wooden neck of the beast-head while his other hand rested on his sword. The workmanship of the prow was exquisite: a snarling wolf, with bared fangs. It was intricate, familiar and strong. The port town lay ahead, chapel spire piercing the sky through the smudge of hearth-smoke. He’d been told it was a prosperous place. It was a good day for a raid.

  His brother Gormir led their sister ship in the middle, Dragon Wing, and to the far right was his cousin Gerwulf aboard Wyvern Claw. Three Normar longships and over four score spear-throwers, swordsmen and axe-warriors in the longships and they had chosen their target well. The town of Breglyn was a small fishing and trading port along the coast of Wesgard. Some four summers earlier, his brother’s band of warriors, of which Algas was considered second in command, had made a base in Shorhan islands to the northwest of the kingdom and watched and waited for weeks, building a fort with a palisade and even beginning to till the thin and rocky soil, while they planned their first attacks in the northern islands around them. The islands had been a target and haven for the Northmen for many years and Gormir was only the latest of the sea-jarls to carve hims
elf a petty jarldom, but so far it had been a successful one, thriving on fishing, trade, raiding and grazing the land. Traders and fishermen, some of them their own people from across the eastern sea, shared stories and information and that had led them to plunder coastal settlements ever further down the coast in recent months. The town of Breglyn, only a couple of days’ hard rowing to the south of their island fastness, was said to have a rich chapel, a weak guard and comely women.

  Not that his men were starved of concubines or silver, but faithful Normar warriors always needed more plunder. Women and children they had aplenty back at the fort, for they had brought their own families and captives along. And though the silver and gold and precious stones that were usually housed in temples of the southlanders’ religion were an attractive target, it was the fair-haired slaves that could be sold to southern warlords, fat merchants and desert princes across the sea that fetched the best coin. Algas and his brother had done well from the trade, capturing hundreds over the past few seasons’ raids and transporting them southwards. With that wealth, they had built their own seat of power on the rocky isle they had fortified.

  It was on such profits that their ancestors had built kingdoms in the north and east – great chieftains who had subjugated tribes far and wide and whose fleets had owned the seas from these shores to the warm waters of the far south. That had all changed in recent times, as one jarl after another then even kings fell sway to the faith of the Southlanders. Algas’ brother Gormir despised the soft southern faith. All the pious bleating and wailing, groveling before altars, the shunning of pleasures, fasting, celibacy - even flagellation and other self-inflicted tortures that some priests were fond of - had not saved the weak southlanders from enslavement. But men of his breed were fewer these days; no longer welcome in their homeland on pain of thralldom or death, and Gormir had been forced to take their clan to the seas to continue the old ways far from the newfound piety of their own chieftains.