The Divided Knight - Chapter Twelve

Garrold Hilstren, Duke of Telvany, could not believe what he had just finished reading. He looked up from the scroll he held in his hands and stared at the courier who had delivered it in disbelief. “Were you aware of what this said before delivering it to me?” he asked.

“Beyond it being a decree from the King, himself, no, Your Grace,” the courier said. When he spoke, it was in a voice that Garrold found curiously flat. “Do you have any response for His Majesty?”

Did he have a response? Garrold had responses aplenty, none of them flattering, and none he wanted delivered by the slack-featured, lifeless-eyed lackwit who stood before him. “None, sir,” he said, letting go of one end of the scroll and allowing it to roll back up.

“None, Your Grace?”

“None! Gods Above, man, are you deaf?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Then get out of my sight.”

The courier gave a slight bow, turned, and left the study. Once he was alone – aside from the guards, who stood to either side of the study's thick, oaken door, and who were always there whether Garrold wanted them to be or not – Garrold went over to the hearth and tossed the scroll into the fire, watching it blacken and burn as his disbelief at what he'd read turned slowly into outright anger. How could Lyrian order such a thing? Garrold pounded a fist against the mantelpiece. How?

There was a soft knock on the study's door. There was only one person Garrold knew who could knock that softly on the study door and still make his knock heard, and it didn't surprise him at all that the man had come calling as soon as the courier had gone. “Enter!” Garrold called, turning away from the hearth.

When Garrold said “enter”, it did not mean that the person wanting admittance could open the study door themselves and step inside. The only way the study door could be opened from the outside was with a battering ram, which meant that, when the Duke of Telvany said someone could come in, the guards had leave to open the door and allow the caller entry. It was a cumbersome system that Garrold despised – being in his study with the door closed reminded him, sometimes, of being a prisoner in a dungeon cell – but the only way he could have it changed was by summoning a mage who could undo the spell that prevented the door from being opened from the outside. Garrold didn't like mages, however – they frightened him, to be perfectly honest – and he wouldn't summon one unless he absolutely had to.

Since the guard on the left side of the door had been the one to open the door for the courier – both when he'd come in, and when he'd left – it was the one on the right side who opened it, now. It amused Garrold that they took turns like that, and he reminded himself to learn the guards' names at some point – just as he'd reminded himself every day for the last fifteen years.

“Still safe and sound in here, Garrold?” the brown-robed monk said as he stepped in through the open door, flashing a sardonic smile that, along with his familiar use of Garrold's name, was altogether inappropriate when addressing the Duke of Telvany.

“Safe from everything but pests,” Garrold said, unable to keep himself from smiling.

The monk raised his all but non-existent eyebrows. “Pests? I hope you don't count me among that lot.”

Garrold chuckled. “Hardly.” He grew more serious. “Wilem, I'm sure you're already aware of this, but we have a problem.”

Wilem's expression betrayed nothing as he moved to one of the two chairs before the hearth and sat down. He stared into the fire for a moment, then looked over at Garrold. “The news from the courier was that bad, eh?”

Garrold sat in the remaining chair. “Very. The King has issued a decree declaring the Order of Catharzen anathema throughout the realm. All monks and clerics are to be rounded up and brought to the palace to face the King's justice. And we both know what that means.”

Wilem nodded, looking again at the flames that flickered in the hearth. “Execution,” he said, voice quiet. “Just like the Conclave.”

Garrold frowned. “The Conclave? What do you mean?”

Wilem gave a mirthless laugh. “I'm not surprised you haven't heard. It's very hard for news to reach you when you're locked up in this impenetrable study of yours.” He looked at Garrold. “Garrold, all the members of the Conclave were executed more than a month ago. The King has tried to keep it quiet, but we monks have ways of learning things others want hidden.”

“Every one of the mages is dead? Lyrian did that?”

“Not Lyrian. The ones pulling Lyrian's strings. The Order of the Crimson Serpent.”

“But they've been gone four hundred years!”

“Not gone, Garrold. Sealed away. And now they've been let loose. There are dark suspicions amongst my brothers and sisters about who leads them.” Wilem paused, and Garrold saw the fear in his eyes. “We think it might be Atraxos the Black, himself.”

“That can't be,” Garrold said. “Wilem, he's been gone even longer than the Order of the Crimson Serpent. He's been gone for thousands of years.”

“We of the Order of Catharzen used to think the same, but we should have known better. Atraxos is the Order of the Crimson Serpent. It would never have survived without his influence. All this time, he's been at its head, leading them by possessing one vessel after another. Garrold, if it really is him leading it, if Atraxos the Black has found his way back into the world, he has already taken the first step in eliminating the forces that could have stood against him. And if he succeeds in destroying the Order of Catharzen, the world will be laid bare at his feet. We cannot and must not allow that to happen.”

For a long time, the only sound in the study was the snapping and popping of the fire. Garrold had never wanted to be Duke of Telvany, and he remembered his father telling him the same, once, cursing the Red Death and the political situation it had created in its aftermath which had led to the Hilstrens' accession of the title. The Hilstrens were supposed to be scholars and explorers. They were not meant to be leaders. And yet here I am, leader of the oldest, largest, and most powerful duchy in all of Voranar. And now I have to help save the world. “You know, Wilem,” Garrold said, at last, “it's a good thing you're my brother.”

Wilem smiled. “Why is that?”

“If you weren't, if you were just another monk, and I didn't have a personal stake in trying to keep you alive, I'd probably be packing my bags, right now. Us Hilstrens are not cut out for saving the world.”

“I'm not so sure about that, Garrold. We weren't supposed to be cut out for being dukes, either, and Father did a fine job of that for thirty years. Just as you have for the last fifteen.”

Garrold snorted. “I'm not that good. If I were, don't you think I'd actually remember to ask my guards their names?”

“Their names are Stevan and Robert,” Wilem said. “And they love their Duke.”

Garrold turned his head to look at the door. The guards were looking back at him, but they looked away the moment he noticed. Gods Above, are their cheeks flushing? Garrold looked back at Wilem. “Maybe I ought to raise their pay.”

“The Duke's personal guards are unpaid, Garrold.”

“What? How come Father never did anything about that?”

“The guards wouldn't let him. They found the offer insulting.”

“Stevan! Robert! Get over here!”

The guards were there so fast it was almost like they teleported across the room. Garrold looked from one to the other – their expressions were as unreadable as always, and they stared straight ahead, right at the wall above the mantelpiece – then said, “Would you two be terribly offended if I offered to pay you?”

They glanced at him, then looked back at the wall. Neither spoke.

“This is a decree from you Duke,” Garrold said. “You are each to accept a weekly stipend of twenty gold pieces, to paid out of my personal coffers. If you refuse, you will be dismissed from your services to me, and replacements will be found. Do you understand?”

“Twenty, Garrold?” Wilem said. “That's more than the regular soldiers even get.”

“Yes, but Stevan and Robert, here, aren't regular soldiers. So, men, what do you say? Will you obey the decree of your Duke?”

“Your Grace is too kind,” the guard standing nearest to Wilem said.

“But we will accept,” the guard standing nearest to Garrold added.

“Good. Now, return to your posts.”

“At once, Your Grace.”

Once the guards had gone back to standing on either side of the study door, Garrold looked at Wilem and smiled. “Father never thought to do that, did he?”

Wilem laughed. “No,” he said, “he didn't.”

“Now, how do we go about this saving the world thing?”