“This will be madness,” he mutters, pushing past me to rush after the others as if he can chivvy them back under his wing.
I wish him well with that, though I smirk at his back. After all, what is a general without his army?
My father had generals. They were not his, but they pretended to be and he pretended with them. I recall them distinctly. They did not make lists. They did not try to manage those who did not salute them. They lazed about like fat cats, eating, drinking, and then studying a map for an hour, ordering the deaths of thousands, and going off for a nap. This Majester is as much a general as I am a Saint.
I draw in a deep breath, forget the Majester, and instead, try to look as if I am not waiting as I study my surroundings. This monastery — or the foundation of one, I suppose — has all the welcome of an open tomb, and while the door back remains open, who knows how exacting the price to return might be? It would be best for all if we did what we came to do and then left without returning. One trip. One risk.
My eyes flick over the stark polished stone. The faint light that seeps through the door is all the light in this place but it is enough to see dimly. It may seem bare, but where there is one trap there will be others.
The snuffle of a dog makes me turn, and there’s the brindled hound and his mistress. Through the door behind them, the world looks as if I am peering through water. I faintly see the gleam of a golem eye and then nothing but ripples and shadows.
The Vagabond Paladin carries all her worldly possessions in a sack over her shoulder, her hair wild and falling from the braid she wove to crown her head. She has cleaned it since yesterday. I barely swallow down the desire that swells up within me at the sight of that mass of clean hair. I’ve always had a fondness for long, tumbling locks but this is beyond the usual temptation.
It’s my payment. I felt it the moment I went through the door and confessed my inability to keep my heart’s longing to myself, and now here it is laughing at me as it twists my heart and body against my best interests.
“Lust,” I told the door, and the ability to control it is what has been stripped from me.
And now, when I should be looking away, instead, I let my eyes feast. Now, when I should be moving away, my feet are rooted in place. Now, when I should keep my tongue silent and my thoughts on pure things, my tongue speaks in greeting and my thoughts tangle round and round, feeding me a steady stream of possibilities.
If I had any sense, I’d run faster than the Majester General to escape this woman.
Be still, I warn myself. Be wary.
But wariness is a citizen of another land.
“Walk with me?” my traitor tongue asks on my behalf.
“That might be best,” the Vagabond says, gripping her tattered sack in an arm so laced with feminine muscle that I see little glimmers of it under her wristguard and the threadbare fabric that swaths her shoulder.
Unbidden, my mind reminds me of what an arm like that would feel like slipping through the caressing grip of my palm and fingers. I bite my lip so hard that it bleeds, and that is enough to put my mind back on the task.
I have counseled others on how to remain steadfast. Surely, my temptation is no worse than theirs have been. I remember one brother dolefully telling me he had been assigned as an advisor to the Princess Surina, who had already killed five lovers and still had more lined up merely on the rumor of her charms and great beauty.
“Just don’t think of it,” I had told him. “Discipline your mind.”
I wonder if he found that advice as impossible as I do now.
“There will be other traps,” I say calmly, beginning my descent. The bite in my leg twinges with every step. “We must be vigilant.”
The dog slides by me, nose close to the steps. I breathe in his wet-dog scent with gratitude. It’s hard to be too taken up with love when you’re smelling wet dog and feeling the pain of his bite in your flesh.
“Of course,” she says.
Her eyes are everywhere, noting our surroundings, keeping track of things. If you travel from place to place all your life you must be good at that — quick judgments, lightning assessments. She’s a good choice for an ally. Or so I try to convince myself.
“With two of us, perhaps one can help free the other.”
I know that I mock myself with such weak arguments. Were I truly in need of a partner, I could have asked Hefertus to stay with me.
We descend into the darkness through a precisely cut cavern. The ceiling and walls — hewn from white rock any church would envy — are thickly embossed with cunning images of animals, beasts, and angels with five tongues. I find that troubling. Why five tongues? Why not two — or one?
This is not like any monastery I’ve ever seen. But then, again, this is ancient. Perhaps ancient monks did not yet embrace the clean lines of the holy. Perhaps they found holiness in the wild and untamed things.
A few steps down and the ceiling vanishes upward, the stairs widen to three times their expanse, and a hall opens up below us. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth.
Even within Saint Rauche’s Citadel, I have not seen grandeur to this scale. Nor will I, I think.
We’ll be walking a hundred more stairs to descend to the shining floor below. And when we do, we’ll be in a room bathed in white light from several dozen long, narrow windows, cut like massive arrow slits in the rock on one side of the hall. Between them, at the very center, is a larger triptych window of stained glass. It is tall and narrow, too, and sections are missing, shattered on the ground like fallen leaves in autumn. I can almost make out what the depicted scene the window once bore might have been, but the missing pieces make it too difficult to be definitive. Through the windows — both the slit windows and the triptych — I can easily see the sea as she reflects the face of the sun back to him. She is a dark pewter laced with my favorite color — rich marigold, like my Marigold’s eyes.
