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8
Fox and Church Mouse
Charlie
They fell into their old rhythm easily. It felt like turning onto a familiar path, his own footsteps already worn in the dirt. Sometimes, when Charlie’s brain buzzed with the heat of the campfire and the closeness of Garion’s body, he could pretend it was the old days.
Charlie was still a priest when he first met Garion. It was summer in Partepalas, and Prince Orleon had just come of age. The King of Madrence ordered barrels of wine opened at every square throughout the city and Madrentines raised their cups to the heir to the throne. Various knights and country lords entered the city for the celebrations, many stopping at the city churches to pay respects to their god. Most went to Montascelain, the great cathedral dedicated to Pryan. The god of art and music was Madrence’s patron, and its priests sang in the streets as forms of worship.
One of the many reasons Charlie chose to worship Tiber instead.
The god of commerce, coin, and trade was not so popular in a city like Partepalas, where they valued beauty above all things. Charlie’s dedicant order maintained a smaller church near the port, in the shadow of the city’s iconic lighthouse. Workmen crewed the lighthouse in great shifts to keep the flames high, and the light turning on oiled gears. The great beampassed over the stained-glass windows at night, flashing through the pews and altars like a beam of sunlight.
After squinting at scripture all day, illuminating the tales of Tiber with painstaking care, Charlie had trouble seeing at night. He was glad for the lighthouse as he walked the length of the church, extinguishing candles as he went. Smoke trailed to the lofty ceiling, painted with Tiber’s face and his usual mouth of jewels and gold coins.
If not for the sweep of the lighthouse’s beam Charlie never would have seen Garion beneath a pew, huddled in the shadows. His was bone-white, drained of blood. If Charlie believed in ghosts, he would have run screaming from the church hall, all the way back to the priest dormitories.
And Garion would have died of his wounds on the cold stone of Tiber’s sanctuary.
Instead, Charlie dragged him out into the dim light of the last few candles. He was a priest of Tiber, not Lasreen or even Syrek, whose orders knew some medicine. But Charlie was the orphaned son of farmers. He could dress a wound at the very least.
It was enough to stabilize Garion and set him upright. Charlie figured he was another country knight come to the city for the prince’s birthday, who got more than he bargained for in a back alley.
The priest soon realized how wrong he was.
The wounded man was not a country fool but a blooded Amhara, cunning and vicious as an assassin upon the Ward. Vulnerable only for an instant.
But the instant was enough.
They talked through the night, Garion on the edge of death, and Charlie on the edge of panic. With every passing second, the priest wanted to run and fetch his superior, or simply leave the Amhara to hishealing. The man was a deadly assassin, who might kill him as soon as his strength returned.
Instead, something kept Charlie rooted, an instinct that he did not understand then. He watched the color slowly return to the assassin’s face, his white cheeks gaining a little more warmth with every passing hour. In the meantime, Garion spoke to stay awake, and Charlie listened with a priest’s inviting ear.
The assassin regaled him with stories of the greater world, beyond Madrence, beyond even the Long Sea. To lands barely dreamed, of deeds both astounding and awful.
“You are quiet, even for a church mouse,” Garion mumbled sometime before dawn, his eyes dancing with the light of one last candle. One of his hands brushed Charlie’s own, only for a moment.
“You are gentle, even for a fox,” Charlie answered back, surprising them both.
Over the following years, the names stuck.
Fox. Church mouse. Called out in the street, laughed in gardens, whispered in bedchambers. Wept in a basement in Adira, with no one to listen but the quills and ink.
Now the names echoed through the cold air of the Castlewood.
The trees protected them from the harsh winter wind, but also from the sun. Charlie found himself drawn to pockets of light every few hours. Sometimes he wished they’d kept the horse. But in his heart, he knew she would only slow them down as they headed east.
Garion shook his head at him for not the first time that week, or even that day. He watched Charlie from the edge of the clearing and cut a crooked smile.
“How in Lasreen’s name did you survive up in Vodin?” he muttered,laughing. “The Castlewood is high summer compared to the Treckish wilderness.”
“In Trec, I slept in a king’s castle and feasted in front of roaring hearths,” Charlie answered. He watched his feet as they walked, careful not to trip on an errant root. “Your hospitality leaves much to be desired.”
“I’d be offended if I didn’t know your sense of humor.” Garion wove through the tree trunks with Amhara grace, swinging himself over a little stream. Charlie followed with a grumble, icy water splashing against his boots. “Besides, that’s a fine jacket I stole for you yesterday.”
Indeed, Charlie was glad for the rabbit-lined jacket. Together with his fur cloak from Trec, it kept him from freezing over entirely.
“The woodcutter will certainly be missing it,” Charlie muttered. It was as good as a thank-you. “But you didn’t have to rob his cabin. I have a few coins left.”
