Paladins Read online

  PALADINS

  Joel Rosenberg

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004 by Joel Rosenberg

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 0-7434-8851-2

  Cover art by Gary Ruddell

  First printing, September 2004

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

  Printed in the United States of America

  Baen Books by Joel Rosenberg

  Guardians of the Flame

  Guardians of the Flame: Legacy

  Paladins

  DEDICATION

  This one's for Lydy. Which is only fair.

  Boys throw stones at frogs in sport, but the frogs do not die in sport.

  They die in earnest.

  —Plutarch

  Chapter 1: Into the Fire

  I'll begin at the beginning, because with Cully, the beginning is always the same: a man standing between the sharp and the soft.

  "Not while I breathe," he's saying.

  I've always thought that's a better oath than "service, honor, faith, and obedience," and not just because I've been the soft more often than the sharp.

  That's the beginning.

  Knowing Cully, it'll likely be the end.

  —Gray

  "Leave the child alone," Cully said quietly, barely above a whisper.

  Cully didn't sound like he had been looking for a fight. He never did—although he had certainly found more than enough.

  Gray hadn't been looking for a fight, either. Gray was looking for Cully; he had been doing just that for weeks, all up and down the Pironesian coast, and far enough up into the hills to come down on the other side of more than one of the bigger islands.

  Given that they were looking for Cully in the city of Pironesia itself, and particularly given Cully's background, there was no need to try any of the estates nestled high in the hills, so they had made the obvious split: Bear wandered through the markets and the warehouses, while Gray took the taverns. There were advantages to rank, and, besides, Bear didn't seem to mind.

  Gray had quickly made his way through the various dockside sections that catered to Shqiperese, Boyaliri, Italians, and the local trade, on the grounds that Cully would likely prefer to hear English spoken while he was drinking, but also that likelihood was not a certainty, and diligence a virtue.

  Still, eventually, Gray had found himself on English Row, where the readable letters on hanging placards, the drunken sea chanties that would have been comprehensible if they hadn't been quite so drunken, and above all the ever-pervasive smell of roast mutton felt almost homey. With the narrow, twisty streets and the tall, three-story buildings concealing the hills that rose beyond the city, he could have squinted and almost have fooled himself that he was back in Londinium, if it wasn't for the pleasant smell of fish oil emanating from the too-dim lanterns, rather than the bitter reek of black whale oil that would have filled the air at home. But this wasn't Londinium, and he didn't try to fool himself. Gray prided himself on very few things, but a lack self-deception was one of them.

  The Dangling Sacerdote was the fifth of those dockside taverns that Gray had checked out as afternoon was already giving way to evening.

  Gray had been on his way in through the mudroom when he had heard the quiet sound of the blow and the loud cry of pain, and quickened his pace, making his way through the men streaming for the exit without more pushing than necessary. More than a few pairs of eyes widened at the sight of his two swords, but none of the men stopped to ask about that, not knowing—or, more likely more interested in getting away than finding out—if the two swords and his distinctive clothing meant what they should have meant.

  It hadn't quite started yet, not quite.

  Cully stood between the three sailors and boy; a fourth sailor lay on the floor in a disgusting puddle of something that was probably his own vomit, trying to breathe.

  Cully himself was dressed in a loose woven sailor's tunic over calf-length breeches and sandals, the tunic belted with a length of rope, but other than that, he was about the same as he had been the last time Gray had seen him.

  Oh, there were a few more lines in his face, but the collection was already large enough that a few additions didn't much matter. His dull gray hair might have been a little thinner, although what with it being tied back in a sailor's ponytail, it was hard to tell. His hooked nose hadn't any new breaks, and the deep-set eyes still seemed to see everything without moving. When Gray had been in first form, the novices used to say that Father Cully could see more out of the corner of an eye than most priests could during a focused meditation.

  It figured that Gray would find Cully standing between the wolves and their prey. He should be used to it by now. Jenn certainly would have been, but Jenn wasn't at Cully's waist—where she belonged, no matter what the Council said.

  The boy-child was about what you would expect in a waterfront tavern: barefoot, bare-chested, and skinny; bruised and scabbed; clad only in a kirtle that had once been a burlap sack, and almost certainly was his only clothing.

  One hand was clamped to where blood dripped from the right side of his face, and the blocky man looming over him told the rest of the story. The wars and the Occupation had left a plentiful harvest of orphans behind them, and many of them gravitated to the waterfront, eking out what miserable existence they could while trying to avoid the impressment gangs—and worse.

  Some lucky ones would manage to get themselves jobs as cabin boys on merchantmen and avoid the Press that way, and a few would find work in the olive groves and vineyards outside the city, but most just got by as best they could.

  Gray knew something of that himself, although not from recent experience.

  "I told him to leave the boy alone," Cully said, again, quietly, to the sailors. Cully prided himself on his patience; he never seemed to mind repeating himself. And: "I've told you three, as well."

  They were now alone in the common room; Gray assumed that the innkeeper had already made his way up on the roof, and was at this moment signaling manically for the Watch. From the way the smell of scorched fish was starting to fill the air, the pot of some oily fish stew burbling on its hook in the fireplace badly needed stirring, but apparently not as much as whoever had the responsibility for the stirring of it needed to be elsewhere.

  Understandably so. Fights weren't uncommon along the waterfront, although the separation of nationalities seemed to keep them to a minimum, but drunken sailors would fight, and fighting would upon more than rare occasion turn to killing, and as far as the Crown could reach, murder would be punished. Many satrapal governors preferred to open their monthly reports to Londinium with dry statistics of hangings—and Halloran, the Pironesian governor, was famous for it, even going to far as to, upon occasion, send ropes as mementos home to England. Government wasn't for the squeamish.

  Neither was what Gray did, for that matter.

  One of the sailors looked over at Gray, then nudged the nearest of the others.

  "This isn't any of your concern, Sir . . . ?

  "My name is Grayling," Gray said. "Joshua Grayling. Grayling, like the fish."

  "He meant to say that this doesn't need to be any of your concern, Sir Joshua," anothe
r put in. He ducked his head quickly, then straightened it—he didn't like taking his eyes off of Cully.

  Cully still didn't look at Gray; he just smiled at the sailor, in a way that reminded Gray, not for the first time, that what looks like a smile is the way a wolf bares his teeth to rip and rend and tear.

  "Don't look to Sir Joshua to interfere," Cully said, quietly. "He's unlikely to. 'Sides, I gave up taking orders from priests some years ago."

  Gray smiled. That was pure Cully. To most people, a Knight of the Order was first, foremost, and always, a knight; to Cully, an Order Knight was first and always a priest. Granted, both were dedicated to service, and if the service Cully chose hadn't always made sense to the Council, to the Abbot General, or to Gray, that probably didn't bother Cully any more than it would bother—had bothered—Jenn.

  Cully knelt over the man he had downed, and snatched the purse from his belt—snapping the thong with no apparent effort—and tossed the purse to the boy. The sailor made some vague batting movements with his hands, but Cully just brushed his arms aside, more gently than Gray would have expected. Gray would have hurt the sailor. A lot.

  "You should leave," Cully said gently, turning to the boy, one sandaled foot pinning the sailor's nearest hand to the floor, the other resting lightly on the sailor's throat. "Just walk. There is no need to run from the likes of these."

  The boy had snatched the purse out of the air, and dashed past Gray, ducking to one side, as though to avoid a blow, and was through the beaded curtain and gone in a heartbeat, leaving nothing behind but the clicking of the beads.

  "Sir . . . Joshua?" one of the sailors asked, turning to Gray. "You haven't said anything." His singsong accent spoke of a Brigstow origin—there had been that telltale el-sound at end of his vowels.

  Gray nodded. "True enough. There's little point in me saying much of anything, since I'm not here, after all," he said, throwing a hip over the edge of a table.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. Let them work it out themselves. There were arguments that it was his duty to intervene, but Gray had once been enough like that barefoot, bruised boy to be his twin, and he would save arguing with Cully over matters that he cared about; the fate of a bunch of bullies wasn't among those.

  But perhaps it was his duty to say something. It was possible that they'd listen, after all.

  "If I was here, mind you," he said, "I'd suggest running away—I've known Father Cully for some years—but since I'm not here, I'm not saying anything, and, besides, I don't think he'd let you leave now, anyway." The boy was probably long-gone by now, and the sailors would be unlikely to find him quickly, if at all—but that was the sort of risk on the boy's part that Cully would be unlikely to permit.

  "True enough." Cully had finally turned to him, and a thin smile creased his face. "Gray," he said, "it's been a long—"

  That was when the nearest sailor made his move. The fool. Laying hands on a knight of the Order?

  You could take away the robes, the sword, and the honors, but taking away the training was another matter entirely, and Cully had been in training since around the time that Gray was born. It was possible, of course, despite the legends, to take a knight of the Order by stealth, surprise, or overwhelming force.

  But Cully had—also of course—been watching carefully for just this sort of foolishness.

  And there were only three of them, after all, and he was, after all, still Cully.

  He blurred into motion, and when he stopped, just moments later, there were now four sailors groaning on the floor amid the wreckage.

  Gray counted three broken arms, and from the gasping sounds that the biggest of them was making, one possibly broken trachea. All of them had broken noses, of course; Cully was one of those who had taught Gray how a painful, distracting blow set the opponent up for the real attack.

  If they'd actually laid a hand on Cully, Gray would have drawn his own sword and been on them, but—but, no.

  The sailors had had no chance at all. They were tough and brutal, of course, but they hadn't spent decades studying and practicing how to damage and kill at close range the way that knights of the Order did. A knight would use his sword if he could—his mundane sword by preference, even if he was Red or White—but there were only some times that you could walk about with a sword, live or mundane, naked in your hands, and as fast as you could get the sword into your hands, there was no guarantee that that would be fast enough.

  And Cully had no sword at all—he had, for some reason, left it at his table.

  Cully, despite his age, wasn't even breathing heavily as he walked over to the table where he had been sitting, and retrieved his sheathed sword, a mundane weapon—of course—made up to look like a simple, straight walking stick. Gray had a sheath like that for the Khan, for those rare occasions that he both wanted to and was able to appear in public in something other than the robes of the Order. There were few places that a commoner not in uniform but carrying a sword would not draw unwanted attention. He had left that scabbard, along with the rest of his gear, aboard the Wellesley; he didn't mind drawing attention in the city.

  At Gray's knowing nod, Cully shook his head and rapped the sword against the table. "No, it's just a stick, Father," he said, without a trace of hesitation or mockery in his use of the title. "I've long since given up the sword. All kinds of swords."

  Gray made a face. "That's unfortunate. Swords are what I was sent to find you about."

  "Swords?" Cully didn't like that. Neither did Gray, for that matter. Life was like that. What you liked or didn't like rarely mattered.

  Gray nodded. "Yes."

  "She sent you?"

  "Of course. The Abbot General, as well." Well, he hadn't been sent to find Cully, not specifically—but She, at least, had known that was likely, if this had turned out to be anything, and it had.

  No, it was more than that. She knew that Gray would turn to Cully if there was any possible way to justify it, just as Bear knew that, and just as Gray himself did. Cully would know that, too.

  Still, Cully made a face. There was little love lost between Cully and the Abbot General, for good reason and ill. She was a different matter, although all of the Order knights always fell in love with Her, at least for a time. Gray had, in his own way, but there was little of love in Gray, after all, and it had long since ceased being an obsession or a burden. Gray and Cully were, of course, very different.

  "For what purpose?" Cully finally asked.

  "For purpose enough. More than that, you'll have to accompany me to the Governor's palace to discover," he said, as he had planned to.

  Cully grinned. "Ah. Curiosity has always been my downfall, and you think that it shall trap me again, eh?"

  It was not curiosity that had been Cully's downfall, but Gray didn't rise to the bait. Cully was just trying to distract him.

  "It's not an invitation, but a command," Gray said. "I'm not trying to tease your curiousity." That was almost true; he wasn't just trying to do that.

  "Not with more powerful means at your disposal."

  "Yes. If I have to use the words, Father Cully—"

  " 'Cully.' Not 'Sir Cully,' not 'Brother Cully,' and most certainly not 'Father Cully.' Just 'Cully,' if you please."

  It would have been easier to concede the point, if only for the moment, but with Cully, the easy way had rarely been the best way.

  So Gray shook his head, slowly. "No. You were released from active service in the Order, true; and you surrendered your sword and rank—but you were not relieved of your vows, Sir Cully of Cully's Woode," he said, as though daring Cully to contradict him.

  "Vows." Cully didn't respond to the dare, not directly. " 'Service, honor, faith, obedience. Justice tempered only by mercy; mercy tempered only by justice.' " He shrugged. "My honor is a sad joke, and I long ago lost my faith—and, well, obedience was never one of my virtues; and neither was I ever much for mercy."

  Gray could have argued with that latter, but Cully went on: "J
ustice? You might have me there, but then you'd have to persuade me that She has much of anything to do with justice, and that would be . . . difficult, although not as difficult as persuading me that the Abbot has anything to do with it, except by coincidence."

  Gray could have argued with him about that, too, but . . .

  There was no point in wasting his time trying, even absent Cully's stubbornness—not when Gray had a simpler alternative. He raised his hand in the Sign: thumb folded in tightly against the palm; all four fingers spread widely, symbolizing service, honor, faith, and obedience.

  "In the name of the Order of Crown, Shield, and Dragon," Gray said, "by the power vested in me by the Abbot General of that Order, I do call you into service, Sir, Brother, and Father Cully of Cully's Woode, upon your oath, Sir Cully; upon peril of your soul."

  Cully's face went blank. "You—you speak of souls, Joshua?"

  Gray would have liked to have taken offense at that, but there was no offense to be found in the truth, no matter how brutal that truth was.

  "Yes, I do—just as a thirsty man speaks of water: hoarsely."

  Cully laughed. "You've not persuaded me, Father." He carefully toed a knife away from the outstretched hand of one of the sailors before turning toward Gray. "But I'll walk with you to the Governor's palace, I'll wish you a good evening, and then I'll let my soul take care of itself."

  Well, that would do for the moment—as long as Gray didn't commit himself to leaving it at that. "The governor's palace it is."

  "Let's be off, then, shall we?" Cully raised his stick as though to slide it under his belt, but caught himself, smiled, and set it down on the table next to him. He folded his hands over his waist, bowing deeply—like a peasant, not a knight!—then picked up his stick and followed Gray out into the street, leaving the sailors behind.