The Priest's Suspicions

They didn't need to go far to find Cador. He sat atop a mighty stone overlooking the eastern beaches with Goscled cradled between his legs. The man could've been a chief of the savage clans that had ruled this isle in the years before the ancients had staked their claim to it. But then he would have been only a man, untouched by the gods that the ancients brought along with them unknowingly. Having been born in this present age he could be beautiful, powerful, and transcendent all in one lifetime, thought Rachel. And it gave him the chance to destroy men like Lefwith.

"Have you been waiting long?" asked Lefwith, ignoring titles.

Cador looked over at him like a heron surveying its swamp, slow and phlegmatic. "I wasn't waiting for you, priest," he said. He didn't come down from his perch, turning back toward the sea.

Lefwith glanced at Rachel as if pleading with her to intervene. She neither moved nor spoke, pretending she was waiting for his word. Though she played her part in this farce she wouldn't lead his lines for him. "Rumors spread throughout the kingdom about the depravities of the Red Prince of Ughelor. Normally I do not put stock in the fears of oafish villeins, but it remains true that Ughelor has a history of blasphemy. It's heresy to think that appealing to devils, or monsters, or whatever one calls them, might grant powers beyond human reach, but that has never dissuaded the abominable from appealing to them. Lady Rachel comes from a good family. Her father is a friend of the church, and Marhaw, Lord Bishop of Losk, was recommended to me by my superiors when I joined myself to this mission. But children have fallen far before, no matter how good their upbringing was."

Was it good of my father to tan my brothers' hides when they spoke out of turn at dinner? Rachel thought. _Or to think that any boy within a mile of Cobny was out for my virginity? _Her father's strictness had turned her brothers into lawless layabouts, and then into corpses when she had come into her power. But Fulke of Losk wasn't on trial today, and she didn't care to see him on trial in the future, either. When she destroyed him it would be slower and more brutal.

The priest wasn't finished with his tirade. "But I also know that girls are intemperate, seductresses through stupidity most of all. And it is also possible that, if she is virtuous as she says, that the same is not true of you, Lord Cador."

"Prince," Cador said.

Lefwith acknowledged the correction with a nod. "So I must have a full account of the goings on here, to decide whether Ughelor should be admonished, as I fear it must be."

Cador's bearish smile might have terrified Rachel if it didn't so arouse her. "What question could satisfy you? You've heard it from her own mouth, I've been the perfect host. You saw my chapel. What compels you?"

"You know what compels me!" said Lefwith. "Now, milord, you promised to answer me! Or will you renege?"

"Why would I? I've got nothing to hide."

"Then why this obscuration? Let's begin with the simplest. Have you ever worshipped anything but the gods?"

"I worship nothing but the true and benevolent gods," said Cador.

Lefwith was nearly champing at the bit to contradict him, or to find what loophole he might have made, but the priest was somehow too stupid to see it. "And you, Lady Rachel? Have you?"

She pressed her hand to her chest. "If Lord Cador has only ever been faithful, how could I have been any different? It's just the same with me. His gods are my gods. We cleave to the gods of this world."

"Fine," spat Lefwith. "Next: have you committed any mortal sin or defilement counter to the laws of the gods? Both of you."

"I have killed, and I've taken pleasure from it," said Cador. "But so has every man in your camp, and the church understands that it's the occasional duty of men to do battle. Aside from this I've committed no mortal sin. My deeds are sanctioned."

"All the same for me, every word of it," said Rachel.

Lefwith searched them. A vein bulged in his neck. It would be so easy for her to slit his throat with a quick blow. His body would tumble down the sands and stain them red, a painting to honor Ughelor and to rebuke his masters. Easy, and gratifying.