Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

The dog cursed in my brain so intensely that one curse rolled over another. I gritted my teeth against the mental maelstrom, shifting my weight from knee to knee. All my senses prickled, demanding my attention, insisting a blow was coming quickly, that they could feel the rush of the air, smell the sweat of the attacker. I shook myself free from the onslaught and forced my brain to focus. There was no attack yet, though even if there was, what could I do about it? I couldn’t even draw my sword properly from this position.

How could Sir Kodelai think I was guilty of such a grisly crime on the scant evidence of a knife found here? Was I to have sawn off her head with my belt knife? Not that I couldn’t, exactly. I’d seen pigs butchered with a knife no longer than my palm and I could only assume people were the same. But I had never engaged in such mad butchery, nor would I, God forfend. Besides, what motive could I possibly have to kill the Seer? I did not know the woman.

And now what? I wasn’t even sure what happened next. I’d never seen a Hand of Justice perform his duties before.

Adalbrand preemptively challenged. For you. What have you done to this man? Sir Branson sounded panicked, and it infected me, making my heart race. I didn’t even know what that meant. No one does that. Not many men would give their lives for an innocent person — never mind one who might be guilty.

But I wasn’t guilty. This was all a misunderstanding. They had to realize that.

They don’t. They don’t realize and they won’t until you’re dead. His panic was spiraling, making his voice higher and higher.

But I was a paladin. A servant of the God!

Remember when I told you that I hadn’t quite had time to tell you everything? I might have forgotten about this part.

No, he’d told me. I knew about the right to challenge. If someone thought Sir Kodelai had judged wrong, they could challenge him. But only after he’d carried out justice.

I was going to die no matter what and for no reason.

Unless it’s done preemptively. Sir Branson cursed, seemed to shatter apart in my mind, and then gathered himself again. Saints and Angels! Adalbrand must really believe you’re innocent, my girl.

His voice trembled a second time and was blotted out by more cursing before it returned as my two specters fought for control of the dog. When he resurfaced, he was yelling, as if trying to drown out the demon.

To preemptively challenge like that means that he will share your fate. If he is wrong and you killed the Seer, he’ll die with you.

This was all out of control. My heart was in my throat, pulse racing like I was in the heat of battle. The last time I felt like this, a band of highwaymen had set on us in the night while we slept, taking even Brindle unaware. I’d woken to fishy-breathed laughter in my face, the stark white light of the moon, and a sticky blade at my throat. I remembered thinking that they could have at least kept the blade clean.

We’d survived that. With cool heads and decisive action.

I could survive this, too. I took a long, measured breath and refused to join the tenants in my head in their loss of control even though the grey smoke choked and pulled at my throat like a noose and the scent of it — a cloying bergamot — made my stomach twist.

I scanned the faces surrounding me, my heart bobbing a little — like a child’s toy boat pushed under the water and then popping up again. I saw no challenge in anyone else’s expression. Hefertus, Sir Owalan, and the Inquisitor looked worried. The High Saint and the Majester looked eager. The Engineers watched with riveted gazes, as if they were being taught a new technique.

They agreed with Sir Kodelai, then. They thought I was guilty. Or they didn’t care. And they would punish another innocent person along with me. They stood around the broken body of the Seer as though surveying a breakfast table and deciding what they would eat first.

“Any judgment I bear must be borne alone,” I said firmly, loudly enough to carry. Let them chew on that. I could go to my death bravely. I was no craven. “It’s mine alone to prove I am innocent or accept my fate.”

This is madness, sweetmeat. Bravery means nothing when your sweet, hot blood is flowing over the crisp white marble. You’ll not be able to snatch it back again. Once spilled, twice regretted, as we say in the depths.

“The challenge has been offered. It is not for you to speak to it, Beggar,” Sir Kodelai said with a chopping motion of his hand.

He was every inch the king he had once been, tall, straight, noble of brow and jaw, beautiful and finely dressed, and superior to me in every way. He would not be out of place right now in a throne room or before an assembly of bishops. He held himself even now with grave dignity, his face a mask of duty.

I had never liked kings. They were too blind to see they were no greater than beggars, no more secure, no more inured to the whimsy of fate allowed by the sovereignty of the God.

Speaking of which.

Rejected God, I beg your aid. Deliver me from evil and false accusation.

There. A respectful prayer. I may not be truly called by the God, but I could honor him with the proper sort of request — not reaching above myself, not asking for anything it wasn’t in his nature already to grant. If I died with this prayer in my heart, I’d hold no shame walking through the bright gates of heaven.

If the God planned to honor my prayer, he didn’t do it immediately. I had not thought he would. I was not the beautiful golden-haired type who was instantly rescued by princelings and the God to be spared and lauded.

I twisted, trying to see better as Sir Adalbrand stepped forward. The man worried me.

He was as calm as always, a slightly wry smile ghosting around the edges of his mouth. He flicked a single, assessing glance at me but he looked away almost immediately before he could even see my violent denial of his fool sacrifice. Other than the flutter of his pulse in his throat, there was no outward sign of nerves in how he moved or how he held himself. Was he truly that confident in me?

Chivalry. I told you it ruled this man. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

I didn’t think so. This wasn’t because I was a woman. This was something else.

Fine, then it is attraction. He’s besotted with you.

It was more than that. It was something deeper. I knew the man well enough by now to recognize he was self-controlled.

Usually. But remember when we were down here before, how his tight control was blown away by the winds of this place like seeds from a dandelion? He’s not to be trusted, sweetmeat.

Yes, I’d definitely trust a devil’s judgment on that over the paladin currently trying to save my skin.

It’s toothsome skin.

Adalbrand looked at the Seer as he stepped up to join Sir Kodelai. Just one glance, but his nostrils flared when he passed her, as if he hated that her corpse was being used for show instead of being respectfully carried away. The tiny dimple in his chin grew deeper when he clenched his jaw with determination. When he ripped his eyes back, I saw in their depths the edges of pain and bitterness. He was calm and immovable as a rock on the outside while a well of guilt and ripping sadness tormented him on the inside.

And I wanted both. I wanted to be near the calm and I wanted to assuage the guilt. But I’d never forgive myself if both ended here with me. I’d walk the halls of heaven as guilty as he trod the ground of the earth.

“I won’t allow it,” I said, my words garbled by how dry my mouth suddenly had become.

“And what will you do to prevent matters from progressing, Beggar?” Sir Kodelai asked as he flicked open the bottom of his wooden case. It had telescoping legs. He shook it and gravity lowered them, so that all he had to do was twist a knob on each one and his box was now a very small table. “Will you murder me, too?”

“I’m not a murderer,” I gasped. But I knew it was a lie. I had killed Sir Branson. My best friend in this world.

Killed is a relative term. I’m still mostly alive. Although I do miss my tea.

“We are all murderers here, or we would not have come through the door,” Sir Kodelai said gravely. “Or have you not yet realized what this place is for?”

“Is it not a monastery?” I asked as he drew his ceremonial cups from their velvet-lined slots, drew out the vial of blessed holy water, and then set them up very precisely on his small table.

“It was a monastery in the parts that were above the earth,” he said, meeting my gaze with his glacial one for but a moment before unstoppering his vial and pouring out a mouthful into each pewter cup with a measured eye. They were carved all over with skeletons, and each of the skeletons covered its eyes with ragged phalanges. “That part has long passed away, as I am certain you noticed. I took my time yesterday while the rest of you were busy with your treasure hunt. I studied this place with care — as I told Sir Coriand last night when he asked me — and I ferreted out the purpose of this great vault below. It does not store records, to the sorrow of the Engineers, nor does it store a cache of weaponry for the Majester, or a storehouse of holy relics for the High Saint, but rather, this vault is a carefully wrought tool. It will indeed make you a Saint by drawing out your sins one by one, feeding them into that trapped demon in the ceiling, and washing what’s left of the sinner until he is either clean or dead.”

“No man can be clean by his own effort,” the High Saint intoned.

“Indeed,” Sir Kodelai said, still looking at me. “Which is why — I suspect — so many have died in the attempt. I was once a king. I sent men to their deaths. And then I became a judge of all the world, and I send more men to their deaths than ever before. I rend and tear. I strip and expose. But their blood is not on my hands. Their blood is on their own hands. I am only the vehicle that makes them clean and offers them up to the God.”

I shivered. He sounded wrong. Insane. Dangerous. The Aspect of the God I knew was violent against evil but he comforted the victims of it. I did not know this murderous God of Sir Kodelai.

“Shall we make you a Saint, Beggar?”

“No,” I whispered, shuddering.

“And what about your valiant benefactor?” he asked, looking over at Sir Adalbrand. “Shall we make him a Saint?”

“No,” I pled.

“Are you going to stop playing with your food, Kodelai Lei Shan Tora?” Adalbrand asked coolly. He’d adopted a casual stance and again, I was impressed by his nerve. His eyes were sharp and his jaw tight, as if he were even now calculating and calculating again and coming up with options for how to fix this situation. I wished I could appear so in control of my own actions and destiny. I felt as out of control as a ship on a stormy sea.

“I am gracing the murderess with a lesson. It is a sign of my mercy. I have forsworn all power.” The smile barely flickering around the edges of his mouth suggested a lie there. “But not in this one matter, in the taking of the God’s vengeance. For, in that, I am his Hand.”

“Why are there only two cups?” I asked as the bonds around me tightened.

And at that, Kodelai’s smile deepened and the look in his eye sent spikes of fear through me.

“One is for me — the mortal judge. The other is for the challenger. We will both drink a draught of holy water. Nothing else. There is no poison in the cup or the water. There is no magic here. No curses set ahead of time or blessings asked. We drink down the attention of the God and turn his eye to our case. We beg his eye upon us. When we are finished, the God himself will judge. He who is right will be spared, and if it is Sir Adalbrand, then you, too, shall live, Beggar. And if it is me, then you shall die.”

There was a satisfied exhale from the circle. I ground my teeth at the sound of it. So, they found it fitting, did they? They thought I was getting what I deserved? I would not forget this.

“You don’t need to do this, Aspect of the Vengeful God. None of us will like this outcome.” I was not given to threats, and this was not a threat. Just a statement of the facts. I didn’t kill the Seer.

“Until this is decided, you will not speak.”

He flicked a hand and the ghostly bonds surrounding me sprouted another woolen thread. It spun up around my throat and then threaded through my lips, cinching tightly like a gag.

I dug in hard on my training to clamp down on the panic clawing up my throat. The worst enemy was the one you could not see or feel. It snatched the last control I had, ripping it away.

You’ve put yourself entirely into their hands! You should have fought!

And what? Renounced my paladincy and my life?

And not died!

“Shall we drink then, honored paladin?” Sir Adalbrand asked, his voice cutting through that of my accuser.

“Choose your cup.” Sir Kodelai’s words rang like a funeral bell.

Adalbrand reached for the closest one and then Kodelai reached for the remaining vessel.

They lifted them and Adalbrand examined his, tilting it around so he could look at every side and edge, peering into it, and then looking at the bottom.

I felt a bead of sweat forming on my brow. One could hardly blame me for it. They were about to drink to my health — or lack of it.

I’ll admit to some curiosity. I’ve never been present for a judgment like this and certainly never one preemptively challenged. I’ve heard so many rumors but I could hardly credit most of them. It will be fascinating to finally see …

Oh yes, wildly exciting to offer my life for a scrap of knowledge.

But you know you are not guilty.

But did the God know that? Was it even he who judged or was there really poison in that cup?

Maybe they’ll poison your saint after all.

Look, it’s not easy to be blasé in the face of possible death. Especially not when one is trussed up like a feast-day goat. And particularly not when the God failed to show up the first time you asked. Just like he had failed to come in his glory to call me to the paladincy. I was not his favored worshipper.

Adalbrand finished examining the cup and cleared his throat. Sir Kodelai laughed.

“It’s not a trick. It’s not a ruse. This is how the God will judge.”

There was a shuffling sound. The others were — unconsciously — leaning in closer. The High Saint, so terrified yesterday by the corpse of the Seer, leaned so far forward now that he had stepped in the edge of her puddle of blood. I swallowed down my gorge at the sight of it. He hardly seemed to notice. Was this the penalty then, for confessing murder to the door? Were we inured to horror, fascinated by death, coldhearted in the face of pain?

You don’t seem to be.

Adalbrand took in a long breath.

“Do you wish to take back your challenge?” Sir Kodelai asked gently. “There is still time. Two need not die today.” He gestured toward me, though his eyes did not meet mine. He already saw me as disposable. “She’s clearly guilty. That crow of a woman. That mongrel of a paladin.” His voice was so kind I almost missed how deeply he was insulting me. “Their whole aspect is as valuable as leaves in the autumn. They tumble in the wind, they drift from place to place. They bring nothing but portents with them and leave nothing behind them. They beg and borrow and never repay. What have they ever built? Where are they when they’re needed? They cannot stick in one place. They’re a blemish on the name of holy paladin. If they cast out a demon, perhaps that is of some utility, but who is to say they’ve even done that? It’s only their own lips that confirm it. And this one is younger than she should be. I do not believe she is a paladin at all. See how her sword is too large for her, though she wields it well? See how she does not offer prayers unless compelled, how she scowls when we sing, how she drew on me — me — when I challenged you? These are the things revealed to me last night as I knelt in prayer. We have among us an imposter. We have among us a doppelganger. She is not who she says she is, and even if she were, it is her knife that I found here, and surely she is most likely to have killed the Seer.”

I like this one. I’ll possess him next if I get the chance. This is a heart that can be twisted as you so stubbornly refuse to be, little treat. Imagine what I could set loose in the name of the God if I held the reins of this man?

Was he sure the man wasn’t already possessed?

Oh, it doesn’t take the demonic to make a heart glory in evil … but it helps.

“Why would she want to kill our sister paladin?” Adalbrand asked calmly. He didn’t even seem upset; he spun the cup between his fingers as if toying with it. His eyes were no longer on the cup, though. They flicked from paladin to paladin, weighing, assessing.

“She saw how you went into the Seer’s tent that first night. We all did. And then she went into your tent after the Seer was killed. She has designs on you, paladin. You’re a well set-up man. I’m sure you’ve had offers before.”

See? I keep telling you …

The cup stopped moving. Adalbrand’s voice was like chipped ice.

“We’re a celibate order, Hand. Do you accuse me of breaking my vows?”

Sir Kodelai smirked. “Has anyone told her that? Jealousy is a powerful motivator.”

“The Vagabond and I had only just met when the Seer was killed. How quickly do you think she formed this supposed attachment? How quickly do you think I succumbed, first to the elderly Seer and then to this young paladin? These are vile claims.”

“Who else had a motive? None of us. It was only her. Of course she wants you. She’s a beggar. A woman destitute. And you fed her on kindness. You feed her still.”

He’s only half-wrong. Oh, my sweet treat, my delicious morsel, he has the truth half-right, like a man grasps the tail of an adder.

At this exact moment, the gag felt enormously unfair. I would have liked the chance to defend myself.

“So your accusation is that she is a woman, and therefore she is weak where the rest of us are not?” Adalbrand asked, returning his cup to the slow swirl as if he had not a care in the world. “And therefore she must be a murderess? It seems rather arbitrary.”

“We’ve all confessed to murder,” Hefertus muttered from the sidelines. “Maybe you should be accusing all of us.”

He was ignored.

“I had a concubine much the same as this callow girl when I was a king,” Sir Kodelai said with a condescending glance at those watching. His gaze perused them, weighing, and finally landing on me before he said, “In fact, I had several.”

I shuddered. Lord forfend I was ever alone with this man. I did not trust him. I did not believe — now that I had watched him in action — that he had ever been called by the God at all. Perhaps he really did poison those cups to prove he was right. Perhaps he did any number of terrible things.

“Your taste in companionship is truly singular,” Adalbrand said dryly. “That being said, throwing her sex in her face is hardly enough to prove her a murderess. Nor is a stolen knife. Anyone could take her knife in the night and plant it here. We did not guard against each other.”

“It was used to kill the Seer.”

“Can you be so sure? Should you not examine all our blades and knives?”

Sir Kodelai’s lips thinned and he slammed his cup on the top of his wooden box-turned-table.

“Last night I knelt in vigil under the moon and the sky and the gaze of the God and I came away with an answer. It is not for you to tell me how to serve the God. It is not for you to judge. That is my right.”

Adalbrand cleared his throat and Sir Kodelai’s eyes burned with the insolence of it.

“I thought it was the God who judged. The God who demanded vengeance. Are you not merely his Hand?”

Sir Kodelai’s mouth twisted, but he made a quick shake of the head as if trying to control a flapping line of temper, and then he managed to bark, “Yes.” He drew in a long breath through his flared nostrils and tried again. “I am the Hand of the God and he will judge today. I give to him this contest between us.”

Adalbrand lifted his cup. “It’s still not too late, Sir Kodelai. No one needs to die here today.”

“I think someone does,” Sir Kodelai said grimly.

He snatched up his cup, shot back the water, and smacked it down so hard on the case that the whole thing shuddered.

With a shrug, Adalbrand lifted his cup, too.

“The will of the God,” he said grimly, and then he drank it down and delicately set his cup next to Sir Kodelai’s.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

We remained still in holy silence in this white hall of pale stone and crystalline light, we tiny few in the great echoing vault. For one delicate moment, everything hung in the balance.

Sir Adalbrand moved first, leaning heavily onto the folding table with one hand. A leg cracked, split, and the whole structure collapsed with a clatter, one of the cups rolling and bouncing to careen off my knee and over to a wall. The other landed perfectly on its base, spinning round and round with a rattle before it finally wobbled to stillness.

My heart seized in my chest. Oh no.

Adalbrand reeled, caught himself, turned, and was violently ill to one side, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, his breath heaving.

“I’m sorry,” he said while the cups were still spinning, his face green, his eyes wide. “By the God, I am sorry.”

My head spun. My heart hammered. Was this it, then? Was I to die, too? Was he dying on my behalf?

Sir Kodelai hadn’t moved. Not even a hair. He collapsed so suddenly it was like watching someone step on rotten ice in spring. One moment he was upright. The next he was a heap of bones and dust with his helmet and armor tumbling wildly in every direction, clanging against each other like garish wind chimes.

So the rumors were true.

The bonds let go of me without warning and I caught myself with one hand, gasping for breath at the same moment that Brindle smacked the mosaic floor with a doggy squeal.

I forced myself to my feet on shaky legs.

“The God forfend,” the High Saint gasped, clawing at his hair. “What has he done? What have we done?”

We all gasped in a breath at once, sharing looks of mutual surprise and horror, but before we could let it out there was a loud click and the ground beneath us shuddered.

“I may have made a mistake just now,” Sir Owalan whispered, and then the floor beneath us began to move.