An owl had hooted in response and the small things that fled from it in terror made the grasses rustle. My horse huffed an annoyed breath from where he slept standing. Perhaps, as the horse of a soon-to-be-paladin he was doing vigil, too, but on his hooves rather than on his knees. They were likely better suited to it.
The wind had picked up, making the trees creak and groan their annoyance and whispering so intently that I heard a thousand possible voices with a thousand possible messages, but since all were echoes of my internal monologue, I didn’t credit them. If the God called to me, I doubted he’d use my own voice.
“This is madness,” they had whispered through the trees.
Perhaps you are not called at all. Your prayers are feeble, the demon in Brindle had suggested. If I were a god, I’d reject you, too.
Not everyone is called, dear girl, the paladin in the dog had said later. And when they are, sometimes it’s hard to hear. Or it’s not in the way they might think.
Which was a solid point, because how was I supposed to hear anything at all when I would not stop speaking? In conversation, one didn’t natter on and on and expect that the other would speak over them. If the God had remained silent, mayhap he was merely tired of waiting for his opportunity.
“Lady? Lady?” The third man’s voice burst into my memories. I was swaying on my feet, my mind wandering sinfully.
“I am no lady,” I told him. I wasn’t nobility, that was certain. And I may not be a paladin either.
“Would you grant us your name, then?” he asked. He was the youngest of the three. He looked almost like a royal messenger. Or a church messenger. But they didn’t come so far into the wilds.
“I am Victoriana Greenmantle, Squire Supplicant —”
Cough, Brindle said.
I cleared my own throat. “Paladin of the Aspect of the Rejected God.”
It was my first time saying it aloud. It felt like a lie, and that twisted something deep in my gut like a festering wound.
We demons know more about religion than you’ll learn in your short mortal lifetime, delicious morsel, the demon had told me last night, when it seemed I could no more hear the God than I could ignore the terrible pain in my knees. And I can tell you with certainty that you are not called to anything other than a swift death and perhaps my amusement.
Demons knew nothing about faith. Which meant this one knew nothing about the God’s call.
Perhaps the calling was within, a firm certainty of spirit that this was the right course. Perhaps the light from heaven and the voice were just … symbols … of what was occurring, like how a lover might offer his beloved his heart. He did not mean to cut it beating from his breast. It was merely a metaphor.
That’s an adorable loophole you’ve found. Now, find one for me. Excuse the God’s silence to me the same way, the demon had snickered. Tell me all is forgiven and I am free to follow my heart.
I had hoped it was the demon snickering and not Sir Branson. If my mentor was so bereft of belief, it would throw an uncomfortable light upon our shared history.
My prayers stuttered again and went out like a guttering candle.
“I offer up this well body and this quick mind, honed by faith and service, and presented for your use,” I had said aloud.
And is this a bargain, then? You give the God something and he gives you something? You’re closer to demon than Saint. We’re the ones who do everything by transaction.
“It’s not a transaction,” I’d said aloud, considering. “Perhaps I must open myself up to receive the blessing.”
Just listen. It will come if it will come. You can’t make demands of the God like you’re negotiating with a stingy fishwife.
And what if he didn’t call me?
I explained that part, didn’t I? I’m pretty sure that I did. Do you remember Sir Lysander? We stayed in his father’s loft once just outside Saint Hermake’s Rim?
I did remember him. A rough man, hard and cold, but he softened when Sir Branson started talking horses and breeding lines, and the pair of them had been up all night debating which sire had got a foal who had grown up to win a race in some city I’d never heard of.
Yes, that’s the one. He didn’t hear the call. Pity, really, he was such a nice fellow. But I suppose it makes sense that the God didn’t require him. He didn’t have much compassion, and it’s hard to be a good Beggar Paladin without compassion.
I wished he wouldn’t call us that. It was a slur.
It’s not a slur if you say it yourself. Or something. I’ve always thought it had a nice ring to it. Anyway. When the God didn’t call him, he left his full kit behind, walked to the nearest town, and submitted himself to the magistrate to be assigned where he could be useful. The magistrate had him fed and shod and sent to the nearest keep, where he was kitted up and made a knight to serve the local lord. That’s the way for those the God passes on. They’re far too valuable to just be left drifting in the wind. But they can’t keep anything from the old life.
Nothing at all? Not even their underbritches? Quite the audacity there, ghost knight, to claim your underthings are holy.
