Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [40]
“No!” Robyn crossed her arms.
“I must insist,” replied the cleric, looking straight into her angry green eyes.
“Come on,” said the prince, gently taking Robyn’s arm. “We’ll wait right outside the door.”
She pulled her arm from his grasp and stared unblinking at the cleric for several seconds. He just calmly stared back, and finally she turned and stomped from the room, with the prince springing after her.
“It can’t do any harm,” he said, quietly closing the door. “And it might even help Daryth.”
Robyn just scowled and turned away to pace anxiously back and forth in the hall. After several minutes, the door to Daryth’s room opened, and the cleric emerged.
“Shhh. He sleeps,” announced Friar Nolan in a whisper. “He needs rest if he is to recover. You may see him, briefly.”
The pair silently entered the room. With astonishment, they saw that Daryth did indeed sleep peacefully, with no sign of the tortured thrashing, nor high fever, that he had displayed throughout the long journey home. His shattered arm looked whole again and rested comfortably upon his chest.
Robyn, her eyes wide with amazement, looked at Friar Nolan with fresh respect as they emerged from the room. The man was obviously more than a sanctimonious busy body.
“Thank you. How did you…?” the prince began to ask, but the cleric silenced him with a gesture.
“Not me,” he responded humbly. “Such is the power of the new gods. I am merely one of their agents, trying to bring knowledge of them to these islands. It would not hurt you to learn more of them, you know.”
“You seek to undermine the power of the Mother!”
“No, my child.” The cleric’s tone was patronizing. “There is room in the realms – even on the Moonshaes – for all of the gods. I simply seek to spread the words of the gods I worship.”
“At what cost to the goddess? And to the Ffolk?”
“Perhaps someday you’ll understand. I’m sure your friend will,” the cleric added, with a nod toward Daryth.
The bustling cleric left to return to the village, and Robyn, both angry and bewildered, stalked to her room to change. The prince stood for a moment outside Daryth’s door, wondering at the miraculous recovery, and then he went to his own chambers to prepare for the funeral.
They had completed changing into fresh, dry clothes just as the preparations were completed, and they joined the procession that emerged from the castle in late afternoon. An honor guard of the king’s warriors carried upon their shoulders a bier bearing the body. The king, Tristan, and Robyn followed, and, because the word had spread rapidly, hundreds of residents of the castle and town fell into a column behind. The procession marched down the road from the castle gate, across the commons meadows, and arrived at the great barrows hall that sat upon the moor, a half mile from the castle.
King Kendrick stepped to the forefront of the assembly, where Arlen’s body lay upon a raised mound of earth. For a moment, he looked down at the man who had served him all his adult life.
“A brave man, and a mighty warrior has died. Yet, he died as he would have wished – in battle, protecting the family of his king.” Did Tristan hear, or imagine, an element of scorn in his father’s voice – scorn for his son, who had caused the warrior’s death?
“May the goddess take him to her bosom in the earth, and may his spirit fare well.” With these few words, the king stepped aside, and the bearers carried the body into the barrow. Keren, who had been standing near the back of the crowd, strummed a chord, and then gave them the Song of the Earthmother – the ballad that had so lulled the sad companions on the journey back.
Tristan and Robyn stood before the barrow as the rest of the Ffolk filed back to the castle. Robyn sobbed once, and the prince placed an arm around her shoulders. She started to pull away, but then leaned against him as if, for the first time in her life, she needed his strength.
The prince’s own vision grew blurry. As they