“Hold!” Carden commanded.
Red Paladins were already converging on the scene.
The Weeping Monk’s hands twitched to kill as he had been taught.
Carden brushed the mud from his shoulder. “Alive is better. Soon he will feel the full warmth of God’s light. Bring them down and strip off their clothes.”
Red Paladins pulled the Tusks from the mare’s saddle and tore their shirts down, exposing their bare chests to the cold wind. The father had a clean puncture on the left side of his ribs that had gone straight through his back. He coughed wetly and his complexion was gray.
Father Carden poked the wound and the Tusk father winced. “This one doesn’t have very long,” Carden chided the Weeping Monk. “Your aim is true to a fault, my child.” The priest turned to the stables and his eyes brightened. “Well, no matter, this pig will squeal. Here comes Brother Salt now.”
Two Red Paladins led Brother Salt from the stables to the well. He dipped his hands in a full bucket, rubbed the water over his shaved head, and poured another handful over his stitched-closed eyes. He dried his hands on his red robe, tightened his belt, and allowed his acolytes to lead him across the muddy pasture to Father Carden. One of the acolytes carried objects in a leather bundle under one arm.
“I heard the hoofbeats on the cold dirt,” Brother Salt said with a smile, taking the Weeping Monk’s hand and patting it softly. Salt reeked of the sour smoke of his trade. “And I knew it was my brother.”
The Weeping Monk removed his hand from Salt’s clasp.
“The eyes are weak. We cannot trust what they see, they give away our hearts and they are soft to the touch. That is why I save the eyes for last in my work. A man always cries like a baby when you touch his eyes. This is why I had no use for mine. It makes me a better soldier for God.”
The Weeping Monk’s hands balled into fists as Carden gently took Salt’s arm and led him to the prisoners. “Brother Salt, the monk has brought us gifts.”
Brother Salt’s hands eagerly sought out the Tusks’ exposed skin. His fingers crept into their armpits and around the soft parts of their necks, behind their ears, and around their backs. He found the father’s injury and grunted with displeasure. “This one is useless. We’ll have to start with the boy. The father will talk when I work on the boy. Do you know me, boy?” Salt asked the Tusk, who the Weeping Monk guessed could not be a day past fourteen. The boy shook from cold and terror but held his grimace. “Have you heard my name? Have you heard of Brother Salt and his kitchen? Let me introduce you to my friends.”
Salt’s acolytes unrolled the leather bundle, revealing seven iron tools in leather pockets.
“God’s Fingers, I call them. Each is named for one of His archangels.” Salt pulled out one of the implements, about as long as his arm and tipped with a corkscrew brand. “This is Michael. When I put Michael in the fire, he glows a beautiful white. A white light. The light of truth. For Michael is truth. You can only speak truth to Michael.” Salt put the brand back into its leather sheath. He pinched the boy by the nose. “Don’t worry, you will meet them all tonight.”
“No!” The father lunged for his son, but the Red Paladins easily wrestled him down. “I’ll tell all I can! He doesn’t know anything!” The father sputtered these words with his face pressed into the mud. At Carden’s nod, the paladins dragged the Tusks across the field toward the stables. The boy kept mute the whole time, head hung low as he stumbled along.
Another cold gust rattled the Weeping Monk’s robes as he swayed with indecision. Carden noted this with displeasure. He came up close to the monk so they could not be overheard. “You need prayer. We have raised the crosses in the burning field behind the barn. Take the time you need.”
The Weeping Monk half nodded, as though embarrassed, and swung up onto his courser, wheeling her around and riding toward the pasture of empty crosses as ordered.
He knelt there for three solid hours, not moving, as his fellow paladins sawed and chopped the wood for several more crosses. They were raised in a crooked line and resembled a skeleton forest around the monk. The temperature continued to drop. The wind lashed at him. The rest of the paladins sought shelter by the fires in the house. The Weeping Monk remained, still as a statue.
When the moon was directly overhead, Father Carden walked into the pasture and knelt beside him. After a few prayerful moments, he turned to the monk, whose cheeks were wet with real tears.
“I’m proud of you, my son. Your gifts bore fruit. They were spies as I suspected, scouts for a secret trail through the woods away from the King’s Road, smuggling the Fey Kind who escaped us. The conspiracy leads south into the Minotaurs near Cinder’s Gate. There could be hundreds or more crawling around in those caves. This must be where the witch is heading. We can pull this weed from the roots.”
The Weeping Monk shook his head. “I failed you.”
“How have you failed me, my child?”
“His Grace, I can’t feel it. I call to Him, but I reach out and there is only darkness. And I feel . . .” The monk hesitated.
Father Carden rubbed the monk’s back. “Tell me.”
The monk struggled with his words. “There is a serpent in my stomach. It twists and writhes. It’s poisoning me.”
“Does it speak to you?”
The monk nodded.
“And what does it say?”
“I fear to give it a voice.”
“You have nothing to fear from me, my son. You are the sword of avenging light in pitched battle with the Lord of Darkness. Did you think you could escape his touch? His corruption? The Beast does not tear flesh. It tears souls.”
The monk shuddered as he fought off a wave of emotion.
Father Carden’s voice was soft. “Speak this poison and expel it before it sickens you further.”
“It tells me I am the dark angel.”
“Of course it does,” Carden chuckled, pulling the monk’s hooded face to his chest, “for that is what you are to our enemies. God’s cleansing blade. My dear, dear sweet boy.” The Weeping Monk wrapped his arms around the only father he knew, balling his robes in his fists. Carden rocked him gently as the wind gusted around them. “I fear I’ve put too much on you. This work will blacken our hearts, but we must persevere. Channel your strength into that sword and bring me that witch’s head and her Devil’s Tooth. My dear child,” Carden soothed, “my Lancelot.”
TWENTY-FIVE
KING UTHER DREADED THE LONG, winding walk up to his mother’s tower. The moment the smell of her pastries hit his nostrils, goose flesh would rise on his arms and his stomach would lurch. He looked down at her slender goblet on the tray he was forced to carry and mused briefly about spitting into the hot water, yet decided against it. Lady Lunette, the Queen Regent, was far too savvy in the dark arts of poison for him to toy with her on that same battlefield.
Still, he resented the summons and knew the cause: three nights before, he had lost three ports and twice as many ships to the Red Spear, a Viking warlord notable for an iron lance, like a great horn, on the bow of his ship, painted with pitch and set ablaze to inspire fear in his victims. The Red Spear was a loyalist to Cumber, the self-proclaimed “Ice King” and an audacious claimant to the bloodline of Pendragon. This was sure to reignite the murmurings of Uther’s illegitimacy to the throne, the type of unjust drivel monarchs were subjected to, Uther could only assume.