Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

As a Poisoned Saint, I’m used to being noticed. But it is not really me that people see when they look at me. Rather, I am like the moth whose true eyes are hidden while the false eyes on his wings draw attention. People see the cup on my tabard and their faces grow grim. They see my trembling hands and pale face and their expressions cloud with sympathy or calloused hardness. I am not the pain I drink for others, but I can never convince them of that. To them, the man is the role.

Oddly, Hefertus has never been affected by that. He ignores my pain like he ignores the cold, the wet ground, and the snow. He does not acknowledge it and thus, somehow, it has no power over him.

We arrive at the Aching Monastery in his usual flurry of good humor and delight for adventure and I must admit that I feel the same even though the lingering effects of the plague I took still ravage me. Through bouts of crippling cramps and bloody spew, I feel the roar of the unknown in my ears, lifting me up and brightening my eyes. This landscape, harsh and unforgiving, is enchanting. In a world where all feels known, this slice of it is brand new. And achingly ancient. And seductive as a warm fire on a cold night.

“Don’t know how you do it,” Hefertus says at one point as he peers up at a circling bird. “Doesn’t seem worth the trouble.”

“I take their pain and ills,” I say lightly. I’m no crusader. I don’t need to be understood or to see others conform to my path. “Is that not enough?”

Hefertus laughs. “No, Saints and Angels, it is not. I think you’ve made a raw deal.”

There’s no rancor in my response. “I was called by the God, just like you were called. He calls the poisoned as well as he calls princes.”

“Doesn’t he just? And I thank him every day for calling me to Princehood.” Hefertus picks his teeth irreverently as he studies the ruins above us. “A dread place, is it, this Aching Monastery?”

The Prince Paladins — as his aspect is affectionately monikered — disregard learning. He has never poured over old tomes in study or been made to memorize events from thousands of years before. When I was reciting the kings of the nations and their antecedents going back ten generations, he was being taught to tell good from bad wine and rubies from colored glass. I find this charming in the way that you can’t help but smile at a spoiled but adorable child.

“Not at all,” I reply, intrigued by the structure ahead of us. It’s a shame that it is so crumbled by time. I read that in the past, the soaring architecture drew people from other realms to simply marvel at the lines and curves that seemed beyond the ability of man to have created. I would have liked to see that. “The Aching Monastery is mentioned often and with reverence. The priest who lectured on it when I was a squire was certain that a path to Sainthood lay here.”

“I thought you lot were the ones called Saints,” Hefertus says, taking a moment to braid the nearest part of his horse’s mane.

He looks exactly like a prince when he does this, but there’s something haunted in his eyes. It makes me feel a little ill, and I wonder if that’s simply emotion or if I’m accidentally taking his pain from him. I do that sometimes and entirely by accident.

Prince Paladins do not age. There is no magic to it, nor does the power of the God preserve them more than other men. It’s simple enough. They trade sense for miracles. And eventually, they lose their minds and become children trapped in the bodies of men, or they die by their own foolishness. I do not relish the thought of my lighthearted friend losing himself before his golden hair turns silver. I have grown fond of Hefertus and his innocent view of the world.

“They also call you a prince, and yet here you are riding with me,” I reply and I think he might answer, but he sees a coney in a tuft of grass, and quick as gasping he has a sling out, places a deadly shot, and is all joy when — a moment later — he can present to me the fresh meat that can be our lunch.

I’m not sure I want to eat meat taken here. I can feel this place in my bones. The graveyard we passed through to get here will need a dozen of my brethren to walk the fields and soak the land in prayers and tears to clear it of the haunting feeling it gives off. It makes my skin itch on the inside.

“This place is a trap, then,” Hefertus says firmly. “A trap for the godly who want to be more.”

I grunt. I doubt this is a trap. But everything is an epic tale of deeds most valiant to Hefertus. Sometimes I see a look of longing mixed with ethereal joy on his face as he tells a tale of his doings and I know that in his mind he is a great hero sweeping across the landscape of this life. I am not quite so enamored by myself as to see the same.

Besides, if they call us Saints affectionately when we eat and drink suffering, what kind of tasks would a true Saint face? I am not sure I would want to know. My work seems enough of a calling for one man as it is.

We pick our way up through mist pale and whimsical as a bridal veil around jagged rocks like the ridges of a dead dragon’s spine. Something in the stones stings me inside, like biting into an arrowhead chip while eating your evening meat. But it is sweet to the taste despite the pain. Sweet and beguiling.

“Kind of pulls you in,” Hefertus admits as he leads me forward, tossing his wave of blond hair back over his shoulder. He is wearing two strings of pearls around his throat today — one pale as milky blind eyes and the other pink as the blush of a maiden. He fiddles with them constantly. Perhaps they are a charm he’s made against an unknown foe. If so, I wish he’d give one to me.

I grunt again, but I am watching everything. I don’t know what it is I’m feeling, only that it’s familiar and yet foreign, far, far too powerful, and it’s everywhere.

“Think the others will be there yet?” Hefertus asks when we finally get close enough that the road begins to swoop upward. “Pretty important task, looking for the Cup of Tears. We all need to be there before the search begins.”

“Do we?” I ask.

I’m not certain of that. The Poisoned Saints don’t jockey for position the way some of the other aspects do. No one wants to take our place. I could see other aspects wanting to make use of this kind of advantage, though. Some of them play politics in the same way that they eat bread.

“Of course. Can’t have that kind of power going to just one aspect. It needs to be shared,” Hefertus says. “Have you seen what the High Saints are doing in Estavia?”

I have not, but to my surprise, Hefertus has noticed and is able to give me a brief primer on the shifting politics of the region. I watch him as I chew a mint leaf.

My friend always surprises me. Who would have thought he knew which kings the church had pulled into power and which they’d subtly chopped at the roots and why? But as he speaks, it becomes clear that he knows better than I do what is happening.

“I’m surprised you don’t know this,” Hefertus says as we finally crest the peak of the hill, passing between the stones of a crumbled, broken arch. I make the sign of the Aspect of the Sorrowful God as if to ward off the curse of it. An arch is made with wholeness in mind and a crumbled arch is a terrible omen. “Your lot was there to clean up afterward, I thought.”

“We don’t clean up political messes,” I say absently. “Unless there was a battle.”

“Oh, there was. Killed a dozen men there myself. Nasty business. The king there had a predilection that shouldn’t be named. We smoked him and his men out like skunks under a foundation. Didn’t realize they had innocents with them. I’ve said a hundred prayers for the poor souls, and it still feels like not enough.”

I shiver at his confession. Subtly. No need to offend. But the sidelong glance I send my friend is instinctual and I can’t quite help that.

He’s surprised me again. He has a tendency to do that. Never think a book is finished being written while the pages are still turning.

Even if the story appears a simple one.

“Going back to the point, the Cup would help nail that situation down. Subtle reminder not to mess with the decisions of the church. And especially the Benevolent Aspect.”

He levels his gaze at me then, and I’m suddenly reminded that he’s a head taller than me, his reach is at least ten inches longer, and he’s double my bulk in muscle. I’d need to be fast as an eagle choking a snake to get the better of him if he drew on me. I could possibly manage to kill him, but I would certainly lose my horse in the process. I like this horse.

There’s steel in his voice when he says, “We don’t expect difficulties from the Poisoned Saints.”

I huff a laugh, watching him, picking my words carefully.

“I think we should stay friends, Hefertus. Why break up a good thing? Especially when we don’t know the others.”

He claps me on the shoulder and grins. “Exactly my thoughts. And that’s what I told my arch-general when he sent me out. ‘Tell those dark mourners to send Adalbrand with me,’ I said. ‘He’ll know how the tide shifts,’ I said.”

“Mmm.” I don’t commit either way. He’s not wrong that we of the Sorrowful Aspect rarely involve ourselves in politics. But he’s been a fool to show his hand this clearly.

I pause.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he’s clever enough to know that I’m more likely to back a play I understand than to put my trust in good faith. Maybe he’s betting on me to not only walk away from glory myself but also to take it from others so he might possess it.

In our calling as Poisoned Saints, the motives of man are important. They shade everything. And on this particular quest, the motivations of man could mean life or death. I would prefer that we all walk away alive. There’s no need to shed blood here.

I say that part out loud and he laughs.

“Indeed. Glad to have you at my back, Poisoned Saint.”

“Mmm.” If I must ride into danger with Hefertus, then I’d rather be at his back, too. Far better than being in front of his blade.

We turn a last corner and there they are — the rest of the valor of the nine kingdoms, banners flapping, tents set, fire smoking damply. The wood must still be wet.

I count them. Eight others. I have not met any of them before.

There are no servants, squires, pages, clerks, or retainers. Only the paladins themselves. That alone is shocking in a world where most paladins have retinues of dozens.

I look the others over. I don’t have a sixth sense — though some attribute that to us. What I do have is a lifetime of dealing with people’s hurts. I catalog everyone through that prism.

I see the Seer first and I immediately shutter my expression. Her senses are nearly entirely gone. She cannot see any longer — her eyes are a dreadful grub-white. She holds her head in a way that tells me she is struggling to hear. Her fingers fumble senselessly over her wooden cup. Hers are infirmities I cannot take. A gift to the God that her aspect requires. I neither understand it nor like it, but it isn’t my place to speak on what obeisances another aspect performs, or how the God calls them.

I don’t look at her for long. I do not enjoy watching the misery of others. Usually, I have the right to draw it out from them. It feels like spittle on my cheek that I cannot take hers.

She’s the only female paladin sent so far. The others are men. And we are missing one. Ten aspects. Ten paladins required. There are ten here, but two are Holy Engineers. I can see the aches in their elderly joints by how they hold their bodies brittlely.

Don’t misunderstand. They can still fight. Even against a trained soldier in his youth, they’ll likely win, just as the Seer would, even though she can hardly hold her sword. We are paladins. We may age. We may molder. We never fail.

The others are more what one would expect as representatives of their aspects.

The High Saint of the Aspect of the Sovereign God hurries to greet us with a blessing. He’s healthy and bright-eyed, his hair perfectly trimmed, face perfectly shaven. He’s so homely he could be a priest, but I know plenty of simple-looking men who are masters of blade and war. His perfectly oiled and polished kit doesn’t impress me, but it does speak to a mind ordered and disciplined. He bears no signs of pain or illness. A blank slate ready to be drawn upon.

“The Aspect of the Sorrowful God and the Aspect of the Benevolent God,” he says, pleased. The High Saints rarely use our slang names for one another. They find it beneath them. Crass.

Personally, I don’t like High Saints. I find their rigidity frustrating and their careful observance a bit convicting. After all, were I a better paladin, my observance would be more like theirs, wouldn’t it? But it is not, nor will it be. And I am guilty of so much more than a few missed prayers or broken creeds.

“We welcome you here,” he says, spine straight, looking down his long nose at us. He has no chin, but the collar over his chestpiece digs into the flesh in a way that constructs one for him. It must be terribly uncomfortable.

“There doesn’t seem to be much of this Aching Monastery left,” Hefertus says, looking around while I make the holy sign of greeting to the High Saint and then peer past him at the others.

There’s a Holy Inquisitor who has resumed training exercises. His long hair is stark white and the front is tied back in a silver clasp. He works his sword forms with speed and accuracy, careful to keep his blade facing the west, as is fitting. He’s narrow as a whip and his muscles are long and lean. This exercise is designed to make him fast and accurate — but not bulky, never bulky, for physical strength is forbidden to the Aspect of the All-Seeing God. I watch him for a moment. He has an injury somewhere in his ribs — a strain, I think. Old and recurring. I could help him with it if he wants that. He may not. Not everyone wants help.

I know Kodelai Lei Shan Tora by reputation. He’s the Hand of Justice here. I recognize him at once by the red horsetail in his helm. Not many Hands of Justice wear ornamentation, and everyone has heard of Kodelai. He’s a legend. Called out of a kingship, called from majesty to service, strong as an ox and twice as charming as he ought to be, there are stories of him in every town and city. Hands of Justice are not called before they are at least forty and he’s closer to the end of his fifties, I would think. I heard he was challenged on a judgment just last year — challenged and won, obviously, since he’s still alive. If I get the chance to ask him about it, I will. He has something wrong in his guts. Age, perhaps. It plays nasty tricks on everyone from peasant to king to … ahem … paladin.

“The monastery was always mostly underground,” Sir Kodelai says easily. His voice is like gravel. “It’s why everyone is so excited. Down there, most of it should be intact, though the outer facade fell into the sea.”

He gestures around at the tumbled masonry and chunks of riven stone that had once been buttresses and beautifully worked doorways. They look now as if a giant child lost his temper and flung the last bits of it about.

There’s a single statue left whole, a woman with an innocent expression still obvious on her white, marble face. I almost find it unsettling that she remains while the rest is devastated.

“And you haven’t gone to look?” Hefertus asks. “Not even a single step?”

“Not one step until all are assembled,” another voice orders. It’s deep and thick. A voice for commanding others. That’s a Majester General or I’m a stuffed owl. My lip curls before I can prevent it.

This one is arrayed like a general, sitting in a camp chair, and eating a roasted pheasant. He must have made it himself, as there are no servants here. Impressive. The best I can do over a fire is fresh fish.

He sees me looking. “Pheasant? Might make you less pale.”

“I thank you,” I say coldly. Nothing will make me less pale except time or the expulsion of the magic the pain is generating within me. “But none for me. Hefertus?”

My friend waves it away. “Who are we waiting for? Let’s see.” He points at us as he speaks — or rather, he points at the medallion each one wears. “Engineers, General, High Saint” — the Saint in question flinches — “Inquisitor.” He gets a salute for that. “Seer, Hand, Penitent.” He waves at the last fellow, a man cloaked head to foot in a cassock that disguises all but his beardless chin. He’s kneeling on the rock in prayer. I can feel the ache in his knees from here but if you’re going to pray like that, there’s little I can do for you. The hunch in his shoulders is worse. He’s disguising old pains and new. So many that I can almost feel the constant buzz of them. “Poisoned,” Hefertus says, flicking a finger at me, “and Prince.” He lays a hand across his chest. “Missing the Beggars, then?”

The High Saint clears his throat. “The Aspect of the Rejected God,” he corrects, “has yet to send a representative.”

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers,” Hefertus says lightly.

“Generals can,” the Majester General says calmly. “And I say we wait.”

At his words, I feel it again. That terrible draw to dive deeper into the ruins here. It pulls me almost like the call of the God. It pulls me so hard, in fact, that I lift my head and ask.

“Has Terce been said yet?”

“It has not,” the High Saint says with grim enthusiasm. “We heard your hooves on the rocks and determined we would wait.”

“Hooves,” the Majester agrees through another mouthful. I’m certain he would gladly postpone prayers well past Vespers. Most of us are not so observant as the Aspect of the Sovereign God.

“Let us gather,” the High Saint says, making chivvying motions with his hands.

Hefertus shoots an accusatory look at me, annoyed that I’ve stirred this up. He may be good-natured, but he’s not as easily entertained as I am by the quirks of others.

“At least let us tend our horses first, brother,” he says.

The others give us brief directions and I follow him to where the horses are tethered a little ways from the camp.

Which is where we find the golems.

There are two of them. I am well acquainted with the shambling creatures that the Holy Engineers pour the gift of the God’s own life into. In cities across the earth, they are commonplace enough, but somehow out here on the very edge of man, these seem more than unnatural. They seem as though they loom.

“Oh, don’t mind Cleft and Suture,” the less ugly Engineer says, hopping up from behind us as quickly as a man can when one of his knees is no longer functioning well. His longish white curls tumble in the breeze as he hops and skips to join us. The top of his head is bald, but he’s making up for it with the bottom. He bears a friendly grin.

I am not feeling quite as friendly.

I disapprove of golems on principle. I do not think the God ought to let men breathe life into stone. Especially not when they are then allowed to command that stone to fetch and carry and do it all mutely. It feels too close to slavery to me.

The church allows the kings of the east to keep slaves. I find the practice appalling.

“What does it matter,” they say. “We are all slaves of one thing or another. Slaves of the God, slaves of our appetites, slaves of our circumstances. Who is to say it is worse to be slave to our betters?”

“Who is to say who the betters are?” I’d countered, and been cuffed across the face for it. Not by my paladin superior. He was not given to violence, but he turned his head when a Majester General cuffed me and he offered no healing for the wound.

I still feel my lip curl a little whenever I see one of those red-tabarded devils.

Which brings us back to golems. They have no mouths. No way to protest how they are treated. They have glowing bright eyes, as if demons reside within them churning out the fires of hell in inner furnaces. If looks could kill, they would level cities. But their bodies are massive and crudely formed. They’re made of metal and rock and bone — whatever the engineer fancied.

These two are very different from one another. One is entirely constructed of animal bones — Saints and Angels, I hope they are animal — and its joints are made of ball-and-sockets formed of metal and screwed into the bone. Someone has whimsically laced ragged strips of cloth between the bones of the rib cage to offer a bit more of a feeling of a body. I can only hope it was an Engineer who did it and not the poor creature itself.

“Wonderful construct, my Suture!” the Engineer says, gesturing at the poor devil. “So much better than a horse. No need to feed it, no end to how far he’ll go, and three times as strong as your strongest draft horse.”

It’s not shaped like a horse. It’s shaped like a man. I think that if I watch it being ridden, I might be ill.

“Cleft is twice as strong because I wasn’t the bloody daft fool who chose bone,” the other Engineer announces, striding over to us to lay a meaty palm on the haunch of the second golem.

I channel my rage into efficiently removing tack from my stallion and tethering him where the grass grows in wide tufts. The other paladins weren’t fools. They found a place where runoff is draining down in a steady, if thin, stream and they’ve tethered the horses there. If, for whatever reason, we are delayed in the ruins below, our horses will have water and food close by. I appreciate the common sense in that.

“Cleft is made of rock,” the first Engineer objects. “He’s too heavy to be efficient. You lose adaptability with that weight and it causes more wear and tear. That’s why you have to bring all those extra ball joints with you. You don’t see me hauling around spare ball joints, now do you?”

“Cleft” is indeed made of stone. Someone has carved a grim face and suspicious eyebrows around his glowing eyes. He looks an awful lot like the High Saint.

So much so that I ask, “When did you carve the face?”

The second Engineer smiles. “I put the finishing touches on it this morning.”

His gaze meets mine. He knows I know. I know he knows.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s a strong look,” I say. Not an answer. He wouldn’t like the answer I have to give.

I am still on the fence about whether such golems experience sorrow or pain. If they do, I have an obligation to relieve it. If they do not, it’s possible that a Vagabond Paladin has the obligation to end them, as they must then be demonic apparati.

“Don’t keep them next to the horses,” Hefertus orders. “They’ll spook, and then it will be up to you to round them up.”

I expect the Engineers to object. Paladins are, by nature, bull-headed. We are used to ordering ourselves, to making judgments in the field. To leading forces. We don’t take kindly to being ordered by others. But these two don’t object; they merely smile, make chirping sounds to their golems, and then amble back toward camp, their golems shambling behind them.

Hefertus leans in close. “I don’t like this place and I don’t like the company.”

I tilt my head in question. I have been acquainted with Hefertus for most of my adult life. He is not naturally a suspicious man. Rather, I’ve found him too open and affable. Seeing this dark cloud settling over him leaves me edgy.

“We can’t all look amazing in pearls,” I say, trying to turn the barb.

It doesn’t work. He grimaces and heads for camp, packs on his back, still clearly troubled, his fingers spinning down and around his double pearl string as if he is counting out rosary beads.

Perhaps he is. Perhaps this is some new, decadent Prince Paladin rosary.

“You’ll camp with me,” he says over his shoulder when we’re almost back. “Won’t hear of anything else.”

Ah. He does not fully trust me. But he trusts me not to kill him in the night. And he does not trust the rest of them even that much. How very interesting.

By the time we’ve finished setting up Hefertus’s tent, the High Saint is practically jumping from foot to foot.

“Please, we must observe Terce, brothers.”

The Engineers are making tea and refuse to be budged. They seem put out that their golems are here with them instead of with the horses.

“Just start the prayer and we’ll join in for the important bits,” Sir Sorken, the uglier Engineer, says.

We form a ragged circle and begin the prayer.

“We confess our deepest weaknesses, we bring them to your door,” the High Saint begins. “Let the Lord of Order set them right and make them be no —”

But his words are interrupted by the sound of hooves on stone and then a distinct barking sound.

Our last paladin has arrived.