The Cart of Gifts - An Interlude

  Baron Matheller shifted in his saddle for the tenth time in just as many minutes. His arse was sore. It was still sore once he had shifted, just sore somewhere else. Two bloody weeks riding on the back of Gast, and he hadn’t adjusted. What he would give to be a younger man again, what he would give to lose his belly. The Baron sighed, turned his attention away from the steadily trotting white charger to the road before him. The Beorgens were finally visible, the snow steadily retreating back into the range towards the mountain peaks. They were close now.

  A horse trotting at his left. It was Marshal Rudola. He had a smile surrounded by bristly stubble. “Looks fine in Spring, doesn’t it, Sire?”

  “A sight and a half, Marshal,” the Baron said. “It almost makes me forgive myself for offering Philippe aid.”

  “We could have always given him more men,” Rudola said.

  “He’s got men. If I can take a side without committing more sods to death in battle, I will. Better to keep them working the fields.” Baron Matheller ran his hand over his white bread. “What he needs is a medicus.”

  “Or rather, something with the same holy or unholy power,” the marshal said it out of the corner of his mouth, but it was no secret in their travelling party.

  “Yes, or that.” Matheller shivered in his saddle, drew his red cloak tight about him. He hadn’t thought much about their quest, or perhaps it was better to say that he’d thought a lot about not thinking about it. It unnerved him, this substitute for a medicus. It bordered on blasphemous, but the Order of Sanatus had refused Philippe a medicus, growing just enough balls to softly take a side. Pious pricks. Now, Herik gathering an army, Phillippe fighting for the south, and Matheller off hunting for stories. He shivered again.

  “How are the others?” Matheller asked.

  “Fine.” Rudola shrugged. “The men think it’s a waste of time, which is probably for the best. Mostly, I have to impress the importance of not making advances towards Sister Joan.”

  “By the saints,” Matheller chuckled. “To be that young and horny.” Then the Baron hardened his eyes. “If anything happens, you will be chopping their cocks off, and we will be offering them to the abbot as an apology.”

  “They are aware, Sire.”

  The Baron looked back. Four of Rudola’s men-at-arms rode a good few yards behind them, just in front of the carriage. The Baron’s groom, Louis, was guiding the carriage, idly holding the reins in his hands. He still looked pale from that night they had spent camped on the western side of Vannarbar, from his sighting of a spirit on the walls, but he had recovered well. Good to put the place behind them. Then there was Sister Joan, bright in her sandy robes. She was, the Baron had to admit, quite fetching. But she was the only one in the small company that wasn’t enjoying the pleasant weather.

  The nun had a scroll spread across her lap. Her forehead was furrowed in concentration. It was a copy of the torn pages from the old scriptorium that had started Matheller following this path. Sister Joan had been reluctant to let anyone except the Baron see the scroll, but after realising that only Matheller and Rudola could read, and even they could hardly decipher the old tongue, she had become more blasé about it.

  The oath of old the Oldest. The oath of old Eot. The Baron translated it in his head to, How to buy the help of old Eot. There were fragments missing, but the offering required was clear, though that didn’t stop the nun from flicking back and forth through her scrolls. She caught his eye, and the Baron nodded, then looked to the cart behind her. It was stacked with their provisions, and at the back, one of the largest burlap sacks the Baron had ever seen, bound tight to keep out the pests. It was their gift for old Eot.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Rudola, take the lead,” Baron Matheller said.

  “Sire.” The marshal nodded.

  Matheller eased Gast to the side of the tracks, and the white charger huffed in annoyance at being slowed further. As the men-at-arms passed him, Danner broke from a crass conversation with the men about a brothel in Bris.

  “Everything alright, my lord?” He asked.

  “Yes, carry on.” Matheller let them pass, then came alongside the cart. “Are you fit to ride, Louis?”

  Louis squinted up at him, brushing some sweat off the thinning hair on his forehead. “Yes, what do you…”

  “Good,” the Baron said. “Take Gast, and ride him alongside Rudola. Try to stretch his legs. He’s restless.”

  The cart stopped, and Baron Matheller swapped places with the confused groom, who kicked the horse into motion and cantered off towards Rudola. The Baron took his red cloak off, folded it and put it on the bench as a cushion.

  “I’ve had too many years of good eating,” Matheller said to Sister Joan. “Saints know how much my arse was hurting in that saddle.” Then, “Oh, I apologise for the rudeness, sister.”

  “I forgive you, lord.” The nun turned her attention back to the parchment on her lap.

  Matheller cleared his throat, flicked the reins to get the horse into motion. “You’ve been reading a lot of the old scroll. Is there anything that I need to be aware of?”

  For the first time since he had sat down, the nun looked the Baron in his eyes. “The document is incomplete, my lord. I think there is plenty that we need to be aware of, but aren’t.”

  “We were aware of that before we left. Be specific.” The Baron eased off on the horse, let the riders ahead get even further. “Is it about the spirit, Eot?”

  “No,” she said. “The nature is Eot and the offering is the most specific part of the Diod’s account. In fact, I don’t even think Eot is a…” She cut herself off at that last sentence, looked away at the passing grassland.

  “You’d better finish that bloody sentence, girl,” the Baron said. “Secrets of your order be damned. Without my support, your abbey would be ruined. So, there are no secrets. I bought them all. Speak.”

  “Lord Matheller,” she whispered, though they were all already out of earshot. “Eot was not always a spirit. I believe that he was a man once, hundreds of years ago. He anointed and blessed with the same power of the Old Father that the medicus do now. In doing so, he extended his own life.”

  “I’d heard rumours about how the medicus and their miracles work,” Matheller said. “I didn’t know they could live forever.”

  “They can’t,” Joan said. “The old Father never bestowed that gift. Altering the Balance of Life affects them in ways that are too unpredictable. But if Eot was able to survive this long with his humanity intact, he must be powerful indeed. But that is not my concern. It’s the offering, Sire.”

  “We put a great deal of effort into acquiring that offering, given the season. Now would be a very bad time to tell me that it’s wrong.”

  “The offering isn’t wrong.” Sister Joan said. “But the account ends by introducing a stipulation before Diod’s writings are torn off. It’s been bothering me. I’ve been checking my other sources, and I can’t find any reasons why Eot would want a different offering.”

  “It won’t cause us any problems?” Matheller said.

  “All the stories say that Eot is peaceful,” Joan said. “I think at worst, he’d turn us down. It’s just that it’s an unknown. That’s why it’s been bothering me.”

  “An unknown? Welcome to war.” Baron Matheller sighed. “There are no sure things. If that’s all it is, I am not too worried. That being said, not a word of this to the others. If they ask what we were talking about, tell them that it was simply a fat, old sod taking the opportunity to flirt with a beautiful young woman.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  Joan blushed, and it spread across her cheeks like a giant rosy butterfly. It made the Baron grin, that did. Nice to know that with his age and unruly white hair, he hadn’t become so repulsive.

  “Tell me, sister,” the Baron said. “Do you know how to drive a cart?”

  “Uh…” she said.

  “What am I talking about?” the Baron said. “Damn horse does all the work anyway.” He handed her the reins, and she gripped them awkwardly above the parchment in her lap. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me if anything happens.” And the Baron closed his eyes, leant his head back and dozed off in the warm sun.