Chapter 21: Not confederate

 

Changing the world usually requires two things: patience and subtlety.

-Naresh

 

Wrend found the old man hunched atop his wagon seat, not really gripping the reins, but letting them rest in his hands. His entire manner seemed much the same: inattentive, just a little sloppy, as if the weight of years piled on his shoulders had worn him out. His red mantle, covering shoulders, chest, and arms, had golden praises to the Master embroidered down the arms. It was rumpled, as if he’d pulled it out of the bottom of a drawer. His white robes looked the same, and his left shoe had a hole in the toe. Other priests attended to their clothing with prideful exactitude. They shaved every day and kept their hair cropped short. Naresh probably hadn’t shaved in two days. His hair had started to cover his ears and collar.

The reins rested in his open palms, and the nag pulling the wagon moved with resignation up the gradual slope, following the wagon directly ahead. Behind Naresh’s wagon, another followed, and the line stretched down the long ridge and then back up another, all the way to the top at least a mile away. Far away to the right, and only a few miles to the left, foothills bubbled up into mountains, which rose level upon level like stairways to the sky. Some still bore snow in their tallest peaks, though a warm breeze touched Wrend in the valley floor.

Naresh looked at Wrend with an empty expression, as if neither caring about nor knowing Wrend’s identity. This was how Wrend had known him his whole life: the doddering old man who experienced flashes of lucidity. For some reason, those moments had affected Wrend, influenced how he viewed the world—enough so that in a critical moment the night before he’d made a mistake.

He couldn’t remove from his mind the expression of disappointment on the Master’s face when he’d given the wrong answer at the table. Of all the things he’d seen the previous day, that look of sadness had most haunted his dreams the night before. How he hated to let down the Master. What a mistake. He needed to bring his will in alignment with the Master’s.

“I’m in a mess because of you,” he said. It came out harsher than he’d intended.

Naresh raised his eyebrows and looked down at Wrend with tired eyes, as if rousing from sleep. No other wagons or horses traveled down the road next to him; the road’s width did not allow two carts to drive side-by-side.

“Because of me?” Naresh said.

Wrend thought of how Naresh had broken the ropes and freed him.

“What I meant was ‘thank you for freeing me.’”

The priest nodded and shrugged. “You’re welcome. Although I understand the dinner didn’t go so well. I guess you’re alive though, which counts for something. A little something, anyway.”

“You know about what happened at the dinner?”

“Which part? The poisoning? Or the part where you didn’t know how to answer a simple question from your father?”

“You know about that?”

“Everyone knows about it. There were serving girls and other demigods nearby. The entire Seraglio knew by morning. Everyone’s talking about it. They all know you think Athanaric should turn soft.”

“I don’t think he should turn soft.”

Naresh closed his eyes and tipped his head back to laugh.

“You don’t even know your father, do you? It’s his way to demand compliance with his will—bless his powers and generosity.”

He ran one hand down the sleeve of his mantle, invoking the powers of the prayers embroidered in gold from shoulder to wrist. The motion made the nag pulling the wagon look back, but she didn’t change her pace.

“I’d suggest that you be careful and do everything he wants you to do—think like he wants you to.”

“My answer is your fault, you know.”

Wrend said it with a grin and a teasing tone, but Naresh gave him a look of sincere horror, as if one couldn’t accuse him of anything more terrible.

“My fault? I’ve never once told you to defy your father. I’m not suicidal.” He leaned toward the nag and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. “Unlike some people, eh, Missy?”

“Do you remember about four years ago when you taught me to look at others’ points of view?”

The old man worked his jaw as if chewing on his gums. He looked out over the valley; they’d nearly reached the crest of the ridge, where the road turned directly south.

“I merely suggested that the demigod might have appreciated a little empathy. In what way does that indicate you should do anything that might upset your father?”

“It doesn’t, but—“

“But nothing.” He grew serious and alert and gave Wrend a piercing glare. “I said something. You interpreted it. That’s the end of it. If you want to keep that silly idea about letting people decide things for themselves, bury it deep. Don’t let it show. In all ways, you need to demonstrate obedience and alignment with your father. It’s that simple. You don’t know what you’re up against, boy, and even if you did, it wouldn’t be easy for you to live through it.”

Wrend didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t even know how to take the warning. Clearly, Naresh meant the last part of what he said, about burying the point of view, but concealing it was not the same as eliminating it, and having an opinion contrary to the Master’s probably wasn’t what the Master had in mind when he’d told Wrend that he had a lot to learn.

Was Naresh one of the rebels?

The thought came in a flash, and he immediately doubted it while recognizing its possibility. If his demigod siblings could join or establish the cult, an old priest could certainly join it. The Master should probably know about that.

Yet, Naresh had only encouraged obedience, and tattling would almost certainly condemn the priest to death.

Much to Wrend’s surprise, he couldn’t picture himself doing anything that would harm the old man. He felt too connected to him, and far too indebted to him. He was, in a way, Wrend’s friend. The casual, periodic connections they’d shared over the years had affected Wrend, made him view the old man as a mentor to trust and look to. Besides, Naresh had untied him, helped him get to the banquet.

“How did you do it, last night?” Wrend said.

During Wrend’s lengthy pause, Naresh had seemed to drift off, again. He opened one eye half way.

“Can’t you see I’m sleeping?”

“Last night—how did you break those ropes?”

He shrugged and snapped the reigns against the nag’s back. “I didn’t break them. I untied them.”

“You did not.”

“You were weak and nearly incoherent from the blow to your head. How can you say with any certainty that you remember what you saw?”

“I remember it distinctly. I was awake for several minutes before you came to me. I tried to free myself for a few minutes.”

He’d tried with Ichor, and only half an hour later had learned how to use the power. Did that mean he could use it at will—as much as or whenever he wanted? He itched to use it again, to practice applying it in different ways. He would have to talk more with Teirn about that—they’d talked about it briefly the night before, when returning to their houses with a substantially increased paladin guard. They could work through things together, figure out different ways to use the power.

“You pulled the rope apart like it was weak thread. And you kept me from falling into the river.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You can’t fool me. You were strong and alert last night.”

“Boy, I haven’t been strong and alert since the night I sired my last daughter.”

“You have children?” Priests never married, which meant that Naresh had either sired children out of wedlock—a serious crime—or hidden his past when taking the sacred vows. Either way, he’d sinned grievously.

Naresh gave him another sharp look. “I was being facetious. Now go away. You’re interrupting my sleep.”

He settled back on his seat, shifted away from Wrend, and closed his eyes.

Wrend stayed there for several seconds, riding alongside Naresh and thinking. But finding no answers, he decided to find Teirn and practice using Ichor.

Together, later that day, they witnessed something they’d never seen before.