"I'm sorry, though-" he said, still looking guilty. "I never meant to deprive you of your wedding."
"Our wedding. And I really don't care, my love-" It gave her such a thrill to be able to say the words "my love," that she beamed at him, and he relaxed a bit. "I told you before. Amber showed me a lot of things; one of them was that there are plenty of people who have the 'proper' appearance who aren't fit to clean a stable, and more who that fat Priest would pillory, who have the best, truest hearts in the world." She touched his hand, and he caught hers in his. A delightful shiver ran down her back. "I don't care. You love me, I love you, and if a ceremony means that much to you, we'll get one of your Gypsy friends to wed us. It will be just as valid and binding, and more meaningful than anything that fat lout could have done."
She looked up at his green, green eyes, now shadowed, and started to say something more-when a dark cloud behind his head, just at the tree line, caught her eye. And instead of continuing her reassurance, she said, "What's more, we have a bit more to worry about than one stupid Priest. Look there-"
She freed her hand to point, and he turned. And swore. The cloud crept a little more into view.
"How long have we got until that storm hits us?" she asked, motioning to him to turn his back to her so she could free his rain-cape from the back of his pack, then doing the same so he could get hers and stow the bread away so it wouldn't get soaked.
"As quickly as that blew up?" He handed her the cape with a shake of his head. "I don't know. A couple of hours, perhaps? Would you rather turn back?"
"Not for a moment," she declared. "I'd rather have rain. I'd rather be soaked than take shelter in a place that has people in it like that Priest. Let's see how far we can get before it hits us. If we spot a place to take shelter along the way-"
"No deserted farmhouses!" he exclaimed.
She laughed. After all, if it hadn't been for that farmhouse, he'd still be avoiding me like a skittish virgin mare! "No," she promised. "No deserted farmhouses. Only ones with farmers, wives, and a dozen children to plague us and make us wish we were back with the elves!"
Just as the storm was close enough for them to feel the cold breath of it on their backs, Talaysen spotted a wooden shrine by the roadside. Those shrines usually marked the dwelling of a hedge-Priest or a hermit; a member of one of the religious Orders that called for a great deal of solitary meditation and prayer. Rune had seen it too, but after Talaysen's earlier experience, she hadn't been certain she ought to mention it.
But Talaysen headed right up the tiny path from the shrine into the deeper woods, and she followed. This time, at least, the trees weren't reaching out to snag them. In fact, the path was quite neatly kept, if relatively untraveled. Thunder growled-to their right, now, rather than behind them-and lightning flickered above and to the right of them as the woods darkened and the clouds rolled in overhead.
She caught a glimpse of the black, rain-swollen bellies of the clouds, and a breath of cold wind snaked through the trees. This is going to be another bad one-
Talaysen had gotten a bit ahead of her, but abruptly stopped. She just about ran into him; she peeked around him to see what had made him halt, and stared straight into the face of one of the biggest mastiffs she had ever seen in her life. The dog was absolutely enormous; a huge brindle, with a black mask and ears-and more teeth than she really wanted to see at such a close range.
She froze. Talaysen had already gone absolutely still.
There was another dog behind the first, this one tawny-and-black; if anything, it looked even bigger. The first dog sniffed Talaysen over carefully while the second stood guard; when it got to his boots, Rune quietly slipped his knife from the sheathe and pressed it into his hand, then drew her own. Knives weren't much against a dog the size of a small pony, but if the creature took it into its head to attack, knives were better than bare hands.
The dog raised its head, turned, and barked three times, as its companion watched them to make certain they didn't move. It waited a moment, then barked again, the same pattern, but this time there was no denying the impatience in its voice.
"All right, all right, I'm coming!" a voice from the path beyond the dogs called, sounding a little out of breath. "What on Earth can you two have-oh."
A brown-robed man, gray-brown hair cut in the bowl-shaped style favored by some of the Orders, and a few years older than Talaysen, came around the turning in the path that had blocked him from their view. He stared at them for a moment, as if he hadn't expected to see anything like them, and stopped at the second dog's rump. "You great loon!" he scolded affectionately, and the first mastiff lowered its head and wagged his tail. "It's just a couple of musicians! I would have thought you'd cornered an entire pack of bandits from all the noise you were making!"
The dog wagged its tail and panted, grinning. Talaysen relaxed, marginally.
"Oh, come off, you louts!" the robed man said, hauling at the second dog's tail until it turned around, and repeating the process with the first one. "Go on, be off with you! Back home! Idiots!"
The dogs whuffed and licked his hands, then obediently padded up the path out of sight. The robed man turned to them, and held out his hand (after first wiping it on his robe) to Talaysen. "I'm Father Bened," he said, shaking the hand that Talaysen offered in turn vigorously. "We'll save other introductions for the cottage-" He looked up as a particularly spectacular bolt of lightning arced over their heads. "If you'll just follow me, I think we might just out-race the rain!" Without any further ado, he picked up the skirts of his robes and ran in the same direction the dogs had taken without any regard for dignity. Talaysen wasn't far behind him, and Rune was right at Talaysen's heels. They all made the shelter of the cottage barely in time; just as they reached the door, the first, fat drops began falling. By the time Rune got inside and got her pack and gear off, the storm was sending down sheets of water and thumb-sized hailstones into the bargain. She pushed forward into the room so that the Priest could get at the door, but things seemed to be a confusion of firelight, shadows, and human and canine bodies.
"There!" Father Bened slammed the door shut on the storm outside and took Rune's pack away from her, stowing it in a little closet next to the door, beside Talaysen's. "Now, do come in, push those ill-mannered hounds over, and find yourself a bit of room. I'm afraid they take up most of the space until they lie down. Down, you overgrown curs!" The last was to the dogs, who paid no attention to him whatsoever, being much too interested in sniffing the newcomers over for a second time, in case they had missed some nuance on the first round of sniffs.
After a great deal of tugging on the dogs' collars and exasperated commands which the beasts largely ignored, Father Bened got the mastiffs lying down in what was evidently their proper place; curled up in the chimney corner on one side of the hearth. Together they took up about as much space as a bed, so it wasn't too surprising that the Father didn't have much in the way of furniture, at least in this room. Just three chairs and a table, and cupboards built into the wall.
Father Bened busied himself at one of those cupboards, bringing out a large cheese, half a loaf of bread, and a knife. He followed that with three plates and knives, and a basket of pears. Very plainly he was setting out supper for all three of them.
Talaysen coughed, and Father Bened looked over at him, startled. "Excuse, Father," the Bard said, "but you don't-"
"But I do, son," the Priest said, with a look of reproach. "Indeed I do! You've arrived on my doorstep, on the wings of a storm-what am I to do, sit here and eat my dinner and offer you nothing? I am not so poor a son of the Church as all that! Or so niggardly a host, either!"
While he was speaking, he was still bringing things down out of the cupboards; a couple of bottles of good cider, three mugs, and in a bowl, a beautiful comb of honey that was so rich and golden it made Rune's mouth water just to look at it.
"There!" he said in satisfaction. "Not at all bad, I don't think. The bread and honey are mine, the cheese is local-I trade honey for it. I can trade the honey for nearly everything that my local friends don't give me. Here, let me toast you some cheese-there is only one toasting-fork. I fear. I'm not much used to getting visitors-"
There didn't seem to be anything they could do to stop him, so Rune made herself useful by pouring cider, while Talaysen cut the bread and cheese. The dogs looked up hopefully at the proceedings, and Rune finally asked if they needed to be fed as well.
"The greedy louts would gladly eat anything that hits the floor, and look for more," Father Bened said, as he laid a second slab of toasted cheese, just beginning to melt, on a slice of bread. "I've fed them, but they'll try to convince you otherwise. I could feed them a dozen times a day, until their eyes were popping out, and they'd still try to tell you they were starving."
"What on Earth do you feed them?" Talaysen asked, staring at the dogs as if fascinated. "And where did you get them? They're stag-hounds, aren't they? I thought only Sires raised stag-hounds."
Father Bened ducked his head a little, and looked guilty. "Well-the truth is, they aren't mine, really. They belong to a-ah-a friend. I-ah-keep them for him. He comes by every few days with meat and bones for them; the rest of the time I feed them fish or whatever rabbits I can-ah-that happen to die."
Rune began to get a glimmering of what was going on. It was a good thing no one had ever questioned the good Father; he was a terrible liar. "And if the meat your friend brings them is deer, it's just really lucky that he found the dead carcass before it was too gone to be of use, hmm?" she said. Father Bened flushed even redder.
"Father Bened," she said with amusement, "I do believe that you're a poacher! And so is this 'friend' of yours!"
"A poacher? Well, now I wouldn't go that far-" he said indignantly. "Sire Thessalay claims more forest land hereabouts than he has any right to! I've petitioned the Sires and the barons through the Church I don't know how many times to have someone come out and have a look, but no one ever seems to read my letters. My friend and I are simply-doing the work of the Church. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked-"
"With venison, cony, and buckskin and fur," Talaysen supplied. "I take it that a lot of the small-holders out here go hungry in the winter, else?"
The Father nodded soberly. "When the Sire claimed the forest lands, he also laid claim to lands that had been used for grazing and for pig-herding. Many of the small-holders lost half their means of support. You're Free Bards, aren't you?" At Talaysen's nod, he continued. "I thought you might be. A year ago last winter one of your lot stayed with me for a bit. A good man; called himself 'Starling' if I mind me right. I told him a little about our problem; he went out with my friend a few times to augment food supplies."
"I know him," Talaysen replied. "From a small-holder family himself."
"I thought as much." Father Bened shrugged, and laid out the third slice of cheese, then wasted no time in digging into his portion. Rune picked up the bread and nibbled gingerly; the cheese was still quite hot, and would burn her mouth if she wasn't careful. It tasted like goat-cheese; it was easier to raise goats on marginal land than cattle, especially if your grazing lands had been taken from you.
"I'm city-bred, myself," the Father continued. "When I was a youngster, the Church was very special to me, and I grew up with this vision of what it must be like-full of men and women who'd gotten rid of what was bad in them, and had their hearts set on God. Always felt as if the Church was calling me; went straight into Orders as soon as I could."
He sighed. Talaysen nodded sympathetically. "I think the same thing happened to you that happened to my cousin Ardis."
"If she had a crisis of conscience, yes," Father Bened replied sadly. "That was when I found out that the Church was just like anyplace else; just as many bad folk as good, and plenty that were indifferent. Since I hadn't declared for an Order yet, I traveled a little to see if it was simply that I'd encountered an unusual situation. I came to the conclusion that I hadn't, and I almost left the Church."
"Ardis decided to fight from within," Talaysen told him. "She got assigned to the Justiciars."
"I decided the same, but to work from below, not above," Father Bened replied. "There were more of the bad and indifferent kind when you were in the city, in the big cloisters attached to the cathedrals, or so it seemed to me. So I got myself assigned to the Order of Saint Clive; it's a mendicant order that tends to wayside shrines. I thought that once I was out in the country, I'd be able to do more good."
"Why?" Rune asked. "It seems to me if you were city-bred you'd have a hard time of it out in the wilds. You must have spent all your time trying to keep yourself fed and out of the weather-"
"I didn't think of that," he admitted, and laughed. "And it was a good thing for me that God takes care of innocent fools. My Prior took pity on me and assigned me here; this cottage was already built, and my predecessor had been well taken care of by the locals. I simply settled in and took up where he'd left off."
"What do you think of the Priest in Brughten?" Talaysen asked carefully. Father Bened's face darkened.
"Father Bened can only say that his Brother in the Church could be a little more charitable," he replied carefully. "But I am told that there is a poacher of rabbits who roams these woods that has called him a thief who preys on widows and orphans, a liar, and a toady to anyone with a title or a fat purse. And the poacher has heard that he goes so far as to deny the sacraments to those he feels are too lowly to afford much of an offering."
"I'd say the poacher is very perceptive," Talaysen replied, then described his encounter with the Brughten Priest, though not the part where he revealed himself to be Gwydain. Father Bened listened sympathetically, and shook his head at the end.