There were few places in the world as idyllic as the Spatalian countryside in spring.
Such lovely country, Hubert thought to himself.
The rolling hills were soft and lush. Up north winter would barely have left the land, but here the grass was green and early wildflowers already speckled the fields with bursts of color. The farms were full of black earth already being tilled for planting season.
The midday sun bathed the land in a warm glow, not yet beating down mercilessly as it would in a few months.
Perhaps I will find somewhere else to visit, once summer arrives, Hubert decided.
The road ahead stretched far across hill and field. The Cassaline roadways in Spatalia were not all well-maintained, but they were still the arteries of civilization. Wilberforce’s hooves clattered on old stones. The donkey dragged a cart behind him, its wheels rattling across the worn and sometimes uneven cobblestones.
“Are we almost there, Brother?” Camilla asked from the back of the cart.
Hubert glanced at her and smiled. Two young women sat in his cart—Camilla was shorter, thicker, and the bold one of the pair. Maria was tall, slender, and striking in appearance, but she tended towards the demure. At least until one got to know her.
“Oh, nearly so, my dear. Nearly so,” Hubert said.
He was happy to walk. His old feet had walked countless miles across many lands, and few were as delightful as Spatalia. Still, they had been long on the road. It would be a relief to stop and camp for the night.
Just one more day, I think, Hubert decided. Their destination was growing close. Soon, he and his traveling companions would part ways.
“Have you given any more thought to what we discussed?” Hubert asked. Camilla was sitting up, watching him, so he directed his attention at her. But he expected that Maria was still listening, though she had leaned back on a sack of rice and was staring up at the clouds.
“You mean, what we shall do when we arrive?” Camilla asked. “Yes, I have. A little.”
“You needn’t tell me,” Hubert said. “In the end, it’s between you and God.”
“That’s alright,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about it. You’ve given us so much to think about! Or at least, given me.”
“Me as well,” Maria said quietly. Her eyes moved from the sky to glance at Hubert, but she quickly averted them. Hubert thought he saw a blush darken her olive cheeks.
“See?” Camilla said. “Anyway, I would like to tell you. I’m not entirely sure yet, but—but I still think that I will serve. And since there is little chance I would be allowed into the priesthood, I feel I must take the vows. Your—your warnings are heard, Brother Hubert. Truly. I do feel like my eyes have been opened beyond what I could’ve imagined a few weeks ago. But I still feel His presence, whispering to me. Urging me on.”
“It’s important to follow your heart, of course,” Hubert said. “If you are ready to dedicate yourself to Torath, then by all means you should. But for a decision like this, it’s best if heart and mind are in accordance. To follow the heart without reason is folly—it leads to blind faith, zealotry, and all manner of unfortunate and ill-considered decisions.”
“So… I should not?” Camilla asked. “Should I ignore this feeling? Will it—will it go away?” She leaned against the edge of the slowly rolling cart, and Hubert saw sorrow and fear on her face.
“I’m not saying that, my dear!” he clarified quickly. “Definitely not. If heart without reason is folly, I think that reason without heart is twice as bad! Some of the worst men in history had the greatest minds. They were cunning, intelligent, competent… and utterly without conscience or empathy.”
It’s good that I’ve had so much practice speaking Spatalian these past few years, Hubert realized. Not so long ago, I don’t think I could have explained these concepts even half as clearly.
Hubert loved the Spatalian tongue nearly as much as he loved the land and its people. The tongue had such beautiful flow to it, compared to the messy dissonance of his own native Middish. All the variations of Cassaline—and Spatalian certainly counted as one—were among the most lyrical of languages. He never tired of speaking them.
He saw that Camilla was nodding at his words. “Yes, of course. Like the Iron Praetor. I should have realized.”
“The Iron—oh, I think I remember that story. Let me think,” Hubert recalled the history. It was before his time, but still recent enough. “What was his name? Octavian? The last time Torathia and the Empire faced each other in outright war, wasn’t it? Sixty years ago?”
“I don’t know,” Camilla said. “At the farm, mama just called him the Iron Praetor. He was a great man, but a devil too. He rebelled against God.”
Of course, Hubert thought. A rural Spatalian farmstead, devout Torathi faithfuls. None of them have read a textual account of history, they just spread tales. And there is no love lost between her kin and the governing bodies of the Cassaline Empire.
“Yes, I think that’s a fine summary,” Hubert agreed. “So you understand my meaning, then. It would be best if you found a path that spoke to your deepest heart and reasoning mind both at once. That, I think, would be true wisdom. You know I think you would make a fine priestess. But we both know that may be an idle dream.”
It still bothered Hubert. For all that Spatalia was beautiful country, and for all that he did not miss his homeland, the state of the Torathi Faith in Spatalia was… troublesome. Hubert still had some love for the best parts of the Faith, but in the Spatalian churches women were almost never admitted. Even the men were expected to come to the church already well versed in letters and scripture. The ecclesiastical schools common in Torathia were unheard of here.
Camilla nodded. She knew what Hubert spoke of. They had discussed her options at length, for many days and nights. If she wished to join the Faith, her only option was to join a nunnery.
“So then,” Hubert said. “Do the vows of a nun fit both heart and mind?”
Camilla frowned. “I—I don’t know. I think so.”
“No.”
The voice was quiet, but firm. Maria. Hubert was not surprised. That one has too much fire inside her, now that I’ve thrown on a little kindling. She will not settle for silence and service in a nunnery.
“No?” asked Hubert. “You will not go through with your plan, then?”
Maria sat fully up in the cart, off the bag of rice. She shook her head. “I won’t.”
“What will you do instead?”
The question gave Maria pause. She began to stammer a reply, then stopped. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
“Go home, perhaps?” Hubert asked.
She shook her head. “There is no more for me there now than when I left.”
“The city is large, and full of life. I’m sure you will be able to find work,” Hubert said.
Maria seemed to appreciate the thought. She nodded, some of the uncertainty draining from her expression.
“On the other hand,” Hubert said. “A city is not a very forgiving place, for a woman alone with no wealth. It can be difficult. Unkind. Dangerous, even.”
Maria frowned, and Hubert watched as her doubts rushed back into her. She glared at him. “You are mocking me.”
“Not at all, my dear!” Hubert said. “Not at all. Just observing the situation. It’s one thing to abandon a plan when it no longer fits your desires, and it’s quite another thing to decide on an alternative. And… you should have an alternative, Maria.”
She nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”
Hubert grinned. “For my part, I should be happy to stay with you as you get your bearings in the city, if you like. Or: the nunnery does not require you take vows immediately—perhaps you might accept their hospitality for a few days, so that you will not lack food or shelter.”
Camilla’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t that dishonest?”
Hubert shrugged. “The Church is prosperous, and can afford to shelter a young woman in need of it. God would not want for Maria to sleep in the street.”
“No,” Maria said. “I will not go to the nunnery. I—” she hesitated, searching for words. “If I did, I’m afraid I would give in to the pressure of the other nuns.”
“Ah,” Hubert said. She is wise, for all that she doubts herself. “Then I stand by my first promise. I will stay with you until you find yourself settled in.”
Maria smiled. “Thank you, Brother,” she said. “I— oh!” Maria’s eyes darted from Hubert to his side, towards the road.
Hubert turned from looking at the cart to looking ahead, and immediately felt his gut clench. Sloppy, he told himself. He had been so enthralled with their conversation that he had stopped paying any attention at all to the road.
Three men stood in their path, less than thirty feet up the road. They had not been there a short while earlier, when Hubert had last looked, but he thought he could guess why.
There was a tall elm growing just off the road, along with a tangled and unkept hedgerow of shrubs near it. Ample coverage for the men to have been hidden from sight until they wished to be seen, and the sort of obvious potential ambush Hubert should not have missed.
The men were dressed in threadbare, dirty clothes. They looked to have been sleeping rough for quite some time. More concerning, all three were armed—one had a short blade sheathed at his side, one held a thick oak cudgel, and the third was holding an axe in both hands. It looked to be a woodcutting axe, not a weapon, but there was no doubting that it would cleave flesh as easily as trees.
They all wore similar cocky smiles, the kind Hubert knew all too well. The one with the sword especially eyed the women in the cart, and then seemed to size up Hubert. Hubert knew what he was thinking. Two women and a fat monk alone on the road, with a cart full of food and other goodies. It was obvious from his smirk that he felt quite pleased with himself at such a good find.
“Greetings, gentlemen,” Hubert called out. “Pardon us, but you appear to be in our path.”
The man with the sword laughed. “Yes, that’s the idea,” he said. “Fat old Middish cur. I’m in a merciful mood, so you may run.”
Hubert did not run. He frowned, eyes scanning the three men and looking for signs of more in the brush. It’s just the three of them, he decided. Even so, this was not ideal. His crossbow was inside the cart, covered by a few layers of blankets. There was little chance of him rushing to uncover it before the men could reach him. That left him only a few options, and none of them were what he would have wished for.
Camilla moved, going to climb from the cart.
“Don’t move, wench, or this’ll go much worse for you!” Called out the man with the blade. Camilla did as he commanded. He glanced back to Hubert. “Last chance old man. You can leave. The spoils stay.”
Hubert probably wouldn’t have left regardless. Wilberforce was a good donkey, and they’d been through much together. But these men were counting Camilla and Maria amongst the spoils, which meant the decision was made for him.
“I do not think that I will,” Hubert said. He sighed, and took a couple steps forward. It put him a yard ahead of Wilberforce. A bit more between the bandits and the cart, though at an angle so the women were still visible in the corner of his eye.
The bandits exchanged amused looks with each other. The one with the blade seemed most amused of all. “You think we’ll spare you because you’re a monk?” He laughed. “Do we look like we go to church, old man? I’ll gut you and leave you for the crows.”
I’m not that old, Hubert thought indignantly.
Still, he knew the robes he wore marked him as one of the meek. The robes, as well as the portly frame caused by his indulgences over the years, both contributed to these men seeing him as irrelevant. Not a threat. Most of the time, such an impression was to his benefit. But occasionally, it did irritate.
He reached up to the bandolier he kept strapped across his chest, partially concealed by the mantle of his robe. It was a thick leather belt, holding a row of six fist-sized leather satchels. He unfastened the clasp on the third pouch from the bottom, and opened the flap. The leather was stiff, its interior lined with wood and layers of cloth.
Hubert’s fingers brushed the edge of the small clay pot within. Don’t make me do this, he told the men silently. So senseless. Please, listen to reason.
“I would caution you against that,” Hubert said aloud. “Here it is my turn to warn you in kind. I have a little coin and a goodly amount of food. Ask your two friends to stand well back, lay down that blade, and come to me in peace. I will happily share all that we have.”
The three bandits laughed. They looked between one another then back to Hubert, incredulous.
“Let me take him, Diego” said the man with the cudgel. “I’ll dash his brains on the cobblestone.”
“No, I say we cut his hamstrings and let him watch while we take the women,” growled the one with the axe.
He took some comfort that the men wore their despicable nature so openly. It would make things easier, in a way.
Diego—bandit with the blade—just smirked. “Which do you prefer, old man?” he called out. “Leave you crippled and in shame, or kill you cleanly first?”
Hubert sighed. This will not end well.
“Neither.” The words were spoken in a loud voice, but Hubert heard a tremor in it nonetheless. He turned and saw Maria standing up in the cart. She held Hubert’s crossbow, and she was pointing it at the bandits.
Hubert hadn’t realized the women had even noticed the weapon. You still underestimate them, he chided himself.
The bandits looked momentarily surprised, but then Diego snickered. The other two joined in quickly.
“You are bold!” Diego said. “I like a spirited woman. It will make the next part more fun.”
“It will not,” Maria said coldly. “Take a step forward and I will kill you.”
Hubert heard the tension in her voice. He saw how nervous she was. How her hands shook. He feared they saw it too.
“Maybe,” Diego said. He sounded calm. Unconcerned. “Maybe not. You know how to use that, girl?”
“Test her and find out,” Camilla interjected. She sounded much more confident than Maria did.
“Even if you can,” Diego said. “You have but one quarrel in that weapon. We will be upon you before you can load another. You will still be ravished. The monk will still die.”
“Pardon,” Hubert said. “I’m standing right here. You may be right, Diego, but the ladies make a good point. Which of your men wishes to die, for the good of you and the other?” Hubert looked at the one with the cudgel. “You?” He glanced to the axeman. “Or you? You love these other two men so, that you will die so that they might enjoy some spoils, do you?”
The two lackeys looked uneasy. They stared at the crossbow. The iron tip of the crossbow bolt gleamed in the sun.
“Neither of you will die,” Diego insisted to his men. “Look at her! She quivers! She won’t hit any of us.”
“Let me make this easier for you, then,” Hubert said.
He took hold of the contents of the bandolier pouch and drew it out. A small clay pot, it fit comfortably in his hand. The neck was tightly sealed with wax, and the pot was nondescript save for a symbol that had been etched into its face. Hubert felt the symbol in his palm—reassuring him of its contents, and that he had remembered correctly when he went for the third satchel from the bottom.
The bandits looked at the flask, and then at him, their expressions quizzical. Finally, Diego laughed again. “You wish to buy us off with liquor?” he asked. “No, fat goat, I don’t think so.”
“I’m asking you not to do this,” Hubert said, though he knew they would not heed him. “Leave. Please.”
Diego was still chuckling when he drew his sword. “The monk is amusing,” he told his men. “Keep him alive if you can. We can take all three back to camp, to entertain us.”
He took a step forward. A thrumming report filled the air, and Diego staggered. A bolt flashed by his side, tearing his sleeve and opening a gash along his sword arm. Crimson blood spilled forth. He froze for a moment, looking down at the wound in surprise. His men, too, stared at him, then at the cart.
Maria seemed as shocked as any of them. Had she hit him a foot to the right, she’d have put it through his chest. Instead, it was nothing more than a flesh wound. And now the crossbow was empty. It was a cumbersome thing to reload, and Hubert doubted Maria even knew how.
“Break her arms,” Diego snarled. “She won’t need them.”
As Diego’s men approached, Hubert shifted his grip on the small clay pot. He shifted his stance as he judged the distance. They had not taken more than five steps before his arm snapped forward, letting the pot fly the twenty or so paces between him and them.
It hit the man with the cudgel square in the face. The crockery shattered in an explosion of fragments. That alone might have given him pause.
But the pot’s contents were what Hubert cared about. Liquid naphtha mixed with several alchemical ores suspended in a choleric base. The resulting reaction happened so fast that the eye could scarcely follow what happened next, but Hubert had spent over a decade perfecting the recipe.
He knew exactly what would happen next.
First, the liquid doused the bandit’s face and ran down his body. A goodly amount of it splashed onto the fellow beside him. The liquid would thicken to gel almost instantly. And the moment the grains of pale metal within it were exposed to air, they would spark to life. A dozen or more tiny blooms of heat, more than enough to ignite the naphtha in the gel.
The gel would burn white, hotter than a bonfire. Hot enough to melt or warp metal. It would burn itself out in no less than thirty seconds, perhaps as long as a minute or three. But Hubert knew from his own tests that water would not douse it, and even stifling it with earth was difficult. Thirty seconds was plenty long enough, with such heat.
There was a reason the recipe was called dragonfire.
The man with the cudgel died screaming, his upper body engulfed in white and yellow flames. The man with the axe only had his right arm and shoulder—and a small portion of his face—splashed by the dragonfire. He dropped his axe and fell to the ground, thrashing and trying to stifle the flames with his left hand.
It was a common impulse, and a bad one. The liquid fire stuck to his left hand, then, and he continued screaming and flailing wildly. After a time, the dragonfire burned itself out, and the man fell silent. Whether he was dead or—more likely—just driven senseless by pain was anyone’s guess.
While the men screamed and fell, Hubert moved quickly to the cart and took the crossbow from Maria’s hands. Like Camilla, she was too dumbfounded to react. Hubert planted his foot in the stirrup, cranked back the string, grabbed a spare bolt, and seated it.
Diego stared in horror as his companions fell, his eyes wide and mouth agape. By the time he seemed to come to his senses, Hubert was stepping in front of the cart again, crossbow in hand.
“God around us! Bloody fangs!” Diego cursed. He looked up from his scorched friends, staring at Hubert in horror. “Witch! Sorcerer! What have you done!”
“I asked you to leave,” Hubert said softly. He raised the crossbow.
Diego opened his mouth to shout, then closed it. He swallowed. After a moment, he nodded. He dropped his sword, and it clattered on the stone of the Cassaline road. “Mercy, wizard,” he said. “I—I am sorry. Ple—”
Diego coughed, a sudden exhale as the crossbow bolt caught him in his left lung. He took a breath, and puffed it out in dismay. He looked down at the bolt protruding from his chest, then back up to Hubert. He crumpled to the ground, each breath coming in heavy gasps. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
Hubert stepped forward, to the scorched bodies halfway between him and where Diego knelt. He drew a small dagger from a hidden sheath within his robes, and he crouched beside the men. Both had collapsed face-first on the road. Hubert carefully placed the tip of the dagger against one of them, on his back just above the heart.
It took so little pressure to press the blade down, all the way to the hilt. Then he slid the dagger out and did the same to the other. He expected the dragonfire had killed at least one of them, but it was better to be sure before either of them woke. Dying to such wounds over days would be an agony, and on the slim chance either might regain his strength Hubert could not afford to leave an enemy behind them.
He wiped the blood from his dagger on one of the corpse’s clothes. He sheathed it as he stood. Diego was still kneeling in the road, his hands weakly exploring where the bolt had impaled him. Blood streamed down his chin, more bubbling up with each gasping breath. Hubert did not approach him with the dagger.
There was no need. He’ll lose consciousness in less than a minute, Hubert knew. And he won’t wake.
Hubert turned around and walked back to the cart. He put the crossbow back inside, next to the women, and then he took Wilberforce by the lead on his bridle. The donkey had not been perturbed by the screams or the violence. The fire was far enough that he had not felt its heat, and the old animal was half deaf and unconcerned by the noises men made.
The women were staring at him.
“Come along,” Hubert said quietly. “Let’s away from this place.”
He led them past the corpses in silence.
“Was that a miracle, Brother?”
The question made Hubert exceedingly uncomfortable.
Maria and Camilla had been silent for a long while. Over an hour, the entire remainder of their time on the Cassaline road. They didn’t begin speaking again until Hubert led them a few hundred feet off the road and they stopped at an old campsite. It was a good spot, which some cover from the wind, an old pit for a cookfire, and a spring running close by.
Even then, they spoke both quietly and sparingly at first. Simple words, as they all worked together to pitch a small tent, light a fire, and begin preparing a meal. Hubert opted to cook naught but rice—well flavored with a small onion, a handful of herbs, and a scoop of lard.
He had plenty of salt pork, but he worried that the smell of cooking meat might make the women uncomfortable.
It certainly used to put you off, he thought. Back when the scent of scorched men was still new, and its similarity to any other cooked meat a novel and upsetting realization.
It was only once they had settled around the fire and begun to eat that the women seemed to look Hubert in the eye again. Unsurprisingly, it was Camilla that spoke first. Her question hung in the air.
“No, my dear,” Hubert said. “Definitely not.”
Camilla took a bite of rice, chewed it slowly, and swallowed. She watched Hubert nervously, fear in her eyes. “Then—was it witchery? Some black spell?”
“Not that either,” Hubert said. He sighed. “It was… a tool, like the crossbow. An alchemical concoction. Not so different from throwing a flask of lamp oil on them and then lighting it. Only… all of the essential ingredients were combined in a single vessel.”
He could tell from Camilla’s expression that she did not believe him. Maria was eating in pensive silence—Hubert found her harder to read. All three of them ate, speaking no more for several long moments.
“Thank you.” The words were spoken quietly, barely audible over the crackle of the fire. Hubert looked up and met Maria’s eyes. She spoke again, louder this time. “You saved us. Whatever it was—Camilla was right. It was a miracle. I thought—they would have…” She trailed off.
Hubert nodded. “I don’t know that it was miraculous, but—I do not regret my actions, certainly. They made their intentions quite clear. It was the only tool I had to ensure your safety. I do apologize that it was so gruesome.”
“Death is always unpleasant,” Maria said. “I have seen it before.”
Camilla nodded softly. “Yes. On the farm. Though this was—sudden. Frightening. But I suppose Maria’s right.”
“It was different, I’m sure. It’s alright to be unsettled, ladies,” Hubert said. “Or indeed, frightened. There’s no shame in that. I understand completely.”
Maria frowned. “Where did you learn such things?” She asked.
Hubert put down his bowl. He rubbed his neck, feeling the beginnings of stubble starting to come in, and he tugged at the flabby skin that had begun to hang below his chin some years past. Long ago he had grown out a beard to try to hide it, but he found the itchiness intolerable.
Diego’s words may have rankled, but you are getting old and fat, Hubert told himself. Rude, but not false.
“From a friend. Long ago. And more from other people and places, over the years,” he said. “Alchemy is a complex art.”
“You did not learn it at the monastery?” Maria asked.
Hubert blinked, momentarily confused. “No,” he said. “No monastery or nunnery teaches such things, as far as I’m aware.”
Maria nodded, as if she had expected that answer. But she looked dissatisfied. Hubert wondered if maybe he misunderstood her questions. She is not afraid of me, he decided. Quite the opposite.
He finished his meal. The sun was setting by the time Hubert had tended to Wilberforce, cleaned up the dishes from their supper, and hauled some fresh water for tomorrow’s ablutions.
Camilla and Maria prepared for bed. Hubert sat alone by the dying fire, watching the sun fall beyond the horizon. He tried to summon Diego’s face to his mind, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t really picture any of the three men.
There have been so many. What are three more? The thought came immediately, both regret and reprimand at once. They deserved it more than some who have died at your hand.
Hubert searched his thoughts, trying to see if there was more biting truth to those fleeting thoughts. In the end, he did not regret killing the three bandits. His internal reprimand held no sting. He gave them as many chances as he could afford, and likely more than they deserved. He felt no guilt. The lives of the young women in his care were near infinitely greater value to him.
If anything, the only pang of regret that still seemed to settle upon him was that they had to see such things. He had enjoyed traveling with them. They spoke together of faith, philosophy, love, and romance. Of life and death. He had challenged them with arguments, amused them with jokes, and enchanted them with stories. They had challenged him in turn, and amused him, and enchanted him.
The idea that they would see him differently now—look upon him with fear, or even with cautious respect—made him sad.
“Brother Hubert?” Camilla called out. “Are you coming to bed?”
He blinked out of his thoughts. The fire was naught but embers. He looked up, and saw Camilla leaning out of the tent. She was naked, at least what he could see from the waist up. And she was smiling at him, the kind of open and unguarded smile he had grown used to these few weeks of travel.
You’re a fool, he thought to himself. A melodramatic old fool.
His hesitance made her smile falter. “If—if you need time, we understand. Today was difficult, for you most of all. But we thought… we will reach the city soon, yes? We only have a few more nights together. And you have taught us so much…”
Hubert smiled. “Of course, my dear,” he said. “I’m just fine, don’t worry on my account. Let me douse the fire, and I’ll be right there.”
Camilla grinned, and withdrew back into the tent. Hubert heard whispered chatter from within the tent. Their silence had been the result of the harrowing experience, of course. A brush with bloodthirsty bandits was, in effect, a brush with death.
They weren’t afraid of me. What an arrogant and self-absorbed thought. He chided himself as he swept dust and earth onto the coals. Then he stood and headed for the tent, to enjoy one of his last nights with these delightful women that he had promised to make into nuns.
He knew that many would find what they were about to do scandalous. It was sort of funny, in a way—or it would be, if it weren’t such a pernicious belief. The idea that it would be right and proper for the women to take their vows without any real sense of what they were giving up. A vow of chastity from one who had never made love was like a vow of poverty from a beggar, or a vow of silence from a mute.
Any God that wants ignorant obedience is not a God worth honoring, Hubert thought. If Torath is worth any prayers at all, he’ll respect Camilla’s vows all the more since she knows what she’s abstaining from.
He lifted the flap and climbed into the small tent. Camilla and Maria were waiting for him.