“Very well, Sister Vera. I am Brother Percival.”
“No brother of ours! We have suffered you to draw this close only to tell you, once again, that you and the other Livonians are not welcome in our city,” said Vera. “If your friends draw near enough for us to form an opinion of their beauty, they will get arrows in the face just like the one you saw.”
“Then it is well that you stayed your hand and held back your flights of arrows until I drew near enough to speak with you and to disabuse you of a grievous but understandable misconception,” Percival said. And he stripped his surcoat off over his head, then shed his coat of mail—not easily done, as it weighed as much as some of the women who were aiming arrows at him from above. This occasioned much more bawdy commentary from the Shield-Maidens, which he pretended not to hear. Having dropped his mail on the ground, he unbuttoned his gambeson and stripped off that thick padded garment to reveal a linen shirt beneath, tired and sweat-stained but, given what they had been through, surprisingly clean.
“If your face did not convince us,” said the lady above, “then, rest assured, neither will your…”
But then she stopped. And over the course of the next few moments, all of the other catcalls died down as well. For Percival had reached across his body with his left hand, grasped the cuff of his right shirtsleeve, and drawn it back to expose the arm as high as the elbow. In the same gesture he extended his right arm up and outward from his body, rotating his palm up to face the sky, and thus exposing to the Shield-Maidens’ view the brawn of his forearm.
Standing behind, Raphael could not see what Percival was showing them, but he hardly needed to, given that the same sigil was marked on his own flesh.
Having seized the Shield-Maidens’ attention and silenced them, Percival now let his left hand drop away. The eyes of the women on the battlements tracked the movement carefully. The left hand was curled into a loose fist. He extended it toward them, then straightened his fingers while turning his hand over to display the palm.
There was nothing remarkable about this. And that, to them, was the remarkable thing. For some moments now he remained posed thus, letting them all inspect the marked forearm and the unmarked palm. A change passed through the women on the walls above, like a gust of wind moving over a sea of grass. No order was issued by Vera. But bows creaked as strings were relaxed. Arrows snicked back into their quivers and swords into their scabbards.
“Brother Percival,” said Vera, her voice suddenly husky, “we have done you an injustice. You and the other Skjaldbr?eur are welcome—more than welcome—inside our citadel.”
Their plan of inquiring after provisions forgotten, the party fell into loose formation: Istvan and Finn (back on his horse) in front, Eleázar bringing up the rear, with Feronantus and Cnán and Yasper and R?dwulf riding in pairs. Once, Cnán would have felt naked and exposed riding in the open, especially without some sort of helm or mail of her own—not that she had ever worn either—but surrounded now by the readied and alert knights of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, she felt…protected.
The sensation was not unlike the one she had felt many weeks ago when she had first entered the Shield-Brethren chapter house for their Kinyen. At that time, such a sensation—while new—was not unexpected for being surrounded by the many knights and the stone walls, but she felt both awkward and elated to feel a glimmering of that sensation again when in the company of fewer knights. She tried to not dwell overlong on the source of her emotions.
They rode up the narrow road that ran alongside the river, keeping the winding track of water on their right flank. The gentle slope of the small hill rose on their left, and ahead the road diverged from following the river, dipping down to hug the base of the slope.
The smell of dead flesh was getting stronger. Either that, Cnán realized, or Yasper’s mint oil was starting to wear off.
They could see the back side of the hill now. On the crown of the smaller hill stood a dilapidated series of low buildings, hidden by a rough wall of hewn timbers. A narrow path—barely wide enough for a horse, much less a cart—wound precipitously down the slope, where it connected with the larger road not far ahead of them.