All the Hours in Between, part 2

[tamcranver]

Part 1



Saturday

The next day, Brendon and Spencer left without much fanfare into a cold, rainy morning. Gerard and Mikey would hardly meet Spencer’s eyes, and he for his part didn’t seem especially interested in talking to them, either. After a meager breakfast of porridge and milk, Spencer saddled his horse again and, Brendon seated behind him and the hawk on his shoulder, they set off through the woods again. Brendon thought he heard Gerard get up after them to close and bar the door, and he imagined that he and Mikey were making signs against evil. He couldn’t blame them; the events of last night were pretty far beyond his own understanding, too.

Spencer seemed moody this morning, not at all interested in being bothered, but Brendon couldn’t help himself. “So, where’d you go last night? You said you were going to make dinner.”

Spencer actually turned his upper body around in order to frown at him. “I laid out bread and cheese and dried meat in the barn. Didn’t you see it?”

He hadn’t, but then, he hadn’t spent much time in the barn. “No, I was a little too busy fighting off wolves and stopping us from getting robbed and meeting mysterious noblemen who just kind of popped out of nowhere.”

Spencer blinked at this, but didn’t seem to think Brendon was insane. Instead he slowed the horse’s pace to a walk and said, “Explain, with more words, and more slowly.”

Brendon relayed the events of the night to him as clearly as he could without getting too excited. When he came to the red-clad stranger, though, he couldn’t help himself. “It was like an angel or something just appeared,” he said. “Or maybe a devil. I don’t know. But he had these long fingers, and really nice eyes, and a sort of way about him, you know?”

He expected Spencer to roll his eyes and tell him to get on with the story, but instead the other man smiled dreamily—not an expression Brendon could have pictured, had he been asked to, but one that softened the lines of his face and made him look almost cherubic. “I know what you mean. I see a man like that every night in my dreams.” He must have noticed Brendon’s incredulous look, because he laughed. “What, you think I don’t dream?”

“No, sir,” said Brendon, taken aback. “I mean, I’m sure you do. You just don’t seem like the type who would think about your dreams that much.”

“You’d be surprised, Urie,” said Spencer. His hawk was sitting on his gloved wrist and he was stroking it as he spoke, gazing out into nothing. It gave Brendon a fierce look, as if daring to speak further. He didn’t, but he realized that Spencer had never answered his question as to where he was that night.

They didn’t make it very far that day, in whichever direction it was that Spencer wanted them to go. It rained all morning, and when it stopped around noon, the wind had picked up and the temperature dropped so precipitously that Spencer stopped their little party in the shelter of a rocky outcropping—probably more for the bird’s sake than Brendon’s. It was a strange autumn, Brendon reflected. Too cold, too soon. It had actually been a strange couple of years, weatherwise.

They dismounted and Brendon tied up the horse at Spencer’s request while Spencer found a relatively warm little cranny in the rock for the bird to sit. Brendon thought Spencer’s continued preoccupation with the hawk’s welfare a little strange, but then, there was a lot about Spencer that was a little strange. For instance, he had named his huge black horse “Goliath,” which, in Brendon’s opinion, was just asking to have it injured or killed by some little boy called David with a slingshot.

He was explaining this to Goliath in great detail, offering the horse sympathy with regards to its obvious doom, when Spencer straightened up with a determined expression on his face. “I’m going to look around and make sure we haven’t been followed by any of the Bishop’s men,” he said. “You should cut some firewood.”

Brendon stared at him. “Why do I always have to cut the firewood? Why don’t I go look around and you cut some firewood?” At the forbidding look Spencer was giving him, Brendon quickly added, “Besides, with all this rain, the wood’s bound to be wet.”

Spencer sighed, as if he were the long-suffering one. “Well, we can leave it in the alcove to dry a bit, and a little smoke won’t kill us. We need to build a fire,” he said. “It’s freezing, and your clothes aren’t nearly warm enough. No use in having you freeze to death.”

“What use am I to you if I don’t freeze to death?” Brendon asked. He had yet to understand what Spencer needed him for, unless it was really that he was just too lazy to gather his own damn firewood.

“We’ll get to that,” said Spencer in a low voice. He looked around. “Hmm. I should have asked if the Ways could spare an ax. There isn’t much loose wood about.” He sighed. “I suppose we’ll just have to make do with what you can find.”

“I could use your sword to cut some wood,” Brendon suggested. It was heavier than some axes Brendon had used, and sharper. In fact, now that he thought of it, he didn’t know why more people didn’t cut their wood with swords.

Spencer stared at him for a long moment, blue eyes wide and disbelieving. Finally, he said, “Are you mad?”

Brendon was actually a bit hurt. He’d thought it a fine idea.

Spencer, however, seemed indignant at the very thought. “This sword has been in my family for five generations! It was given to my great-great-grandfather by the king when he granted us the title of nobility! No Smith carrying this sword has ever been defeated in battle!”

“All right,” muttered Brendon. “Forget I said anything, Captain Smith.”

Spencer stopped his ranting and took several deep breaths. The hawk pecked at its shoulder and he scratched its head, frowning as if in deep thought. Finally, he said, “Listen, Urie. Brendon. I…I need to explain a few things to you.”

“Honest to God, sir, it was just an idea!” cried Brendon. “I just thought it’d be easier to cut wood with a sharp thing than without one! I meant no offense!”

Spencer actually laughed at that—sure, it was a dry laugh without a lot of amusement, but it was nonetheless a laugh—and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, and he drew his sword. “Come here.” With some reluctance, Brendon walked over towards him. To his relief, Spencer wasn’t holding out the sharp end of his sword but the hilt, revealing a trio of enormous jewels set in the metal.

“This sword basically tells my family’s history. This jewel,” he said, pointing to a sapphire the size of a bird’s egg, “represents our ascension to the nobility for services to the Crown.” He moved his hand to indicate the biggest pearl Brendon had ever seen. “This one represents our alliance with the Holy Church in Rome. That’s why I was the captain of the Bishop’s Guard, by the way—it’s basically an inherited position.” He smiled, a mix of self-deprecation and pride, and moved to the final stone, a slightly smaller but incredibly well-cut diamond. “My father got this one in the Holy Land, fighting Saracens.” Finally, his hand hovered over what looked like a huge hole in the hilt, a place where a jewel was obviously supposed to go but which currently lay empty. “This…this is where you come in.”

“I don’t understand,” said Brendon with a frown. “Do you want me to steal something to go in there? Because honestly, I have no idea where I’d get a jewel that big, and besides, I’ve given up stealing.”

“No,” said Spencer. “It’s nothing like that. It’s my job to fill that space—every generation has its own mission that comes with its own responsibilities and rewards. I only meant that you’re a part of that. My mission, that is.”

Well, that wasn’t vague or anything. Brendon wasn’t sure if he felt hurt or vindicated, being told that he hadn’t been rescued for his own sake but for the sake of some service he could provide Spencer. He was also still unclear as to just what that service would be. “I don’t understand. What’s your mission?” he asked.

“I need to kill a man.” Spencer paused, as if waiting for a response from Brendon.

Brendon, who really was growing frustrated with Spencer’s dramatics, waved his hand in a gesture of impatience. “Which man?” he asked. “Obviously not just any man, because you probably already did that when you attacked the Bishop’s guard. Clearly this is a special man that needs killing.”

“It is indeed,” said Spencer with a grim smile. “It’s the Bishop of Aquila.”

There was a pause then, a shocked silence both in the air between the two men and in Brendon’s mind, before a flood of mixed desperation and irritation filled Brendon’s consciousness. It was his turn now to ask, “Are you mad? You wouldn’t be able to even get into Aquila without the Guard killing you.”

“Precisely why I need your help.” Spencer was damnably calm, as if he had no idea why Brendon might have any objections to going back to Aquila. “You’re the only man I’ve ever heard of to escape from the city without detection, and so I thought you would be the best man to get to help me enter Aquila under the Guard’s nose.”

“What? This is all because I got out of the dungeons?” Was he supposed to lead Spencer, horse and hawk and all, through the sewers? Crawl with them all through yet another sewage-filled drain? “That was luck! And possibly some divine help! I didn’t have a map or anything, I just crawled around the sewers in a direction I thought could conceivably be ‘out’ until I ended up in the middle of a river!”

Spencer’s face hardened and his blue eyes grew cold. “I have waited for two years for a chance, some sort of sign. As far as I’m concerned, this is it—you. You’re my sign from God.”

That would be a terribly cruel trick to play on me, God, leading me out of Aquila just to put me in the hands of someone who wants to drag me back there. Luckily for Brendon, he didn’t believe a word of it. In what world would God want to help a man kill one of his Bishops, even a particularly awful one? “Sir,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “I talk to God all the time, and he never mentioned you. There’s…” He wasn’t sure how to voice this without causing offense, but then again, that hadn’t ever stopped him before. “There’s something really strange about you, some sort of supernatural…thing, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. And….” Here his voice grew pleading, and he went with it; if Spencer understood how desperately he did not want to go back to Aquila, maybe he’d listen. “They’ll kill me if they catch me in Aquila. They will. And they’ll kill you, too. Going back would be a stupid, insane thing to do, and I’m not doing it.”

“No?” said Spencer, too casually, with one eyebrow raised.

“No,” Brendon said, more firmly. “I owe you. I know I do. You saved my life, and if you ever need anything else, I’d be glad to give it to you. Even if you need me to steal a stupid jewel for your sword. But I’m not going back to Aquila. I’m not.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and said, “You’ll have to kill me first.”

Spencer, looking as grim as Brendon had ever seen him, said, “That could be arranged.” He was still holding the sword; it would just be the work of a momentary flick of the wrist to send it stabbing into Brendon. Brendon took a step backwards, looking carefully at Spencer. His face, which had looked so sweet when he was talking about dreams, was almost demonically fierce-looking, and he didn’t look like a man who’d regret for a minute killing Brendon. After all, he’d only saved his life in order to serve as his guide, and if Brendon couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do that, what use was he to Spencer?

Brendon tried to muster up a smile. “Right then,” he said. “Firewood.” He walked quickly away to the tall trees surrounding their rocky shelter, looking anywhere but at Spencer. After all, he thought, he could always run away when night fell and Spencer fell asleep. It wouldn’t be hard. Even if Brendon wasn’t good at sneaking himself back into cathedrals for suicide missions, he was pretty damned good at making his escape.

***

Gabe was boiling over with anger. It had been a long time since he’d lost control of himself so entirely, but then, it’d been a long time since he’d seen Spencer Smith. Fucking Spencer Smith. Even when the other man had been his captain, he’d had this veiled disdain for Gabe, this condescending way of telling him that he would never be trusted, and his stupid catamite Ross was even worse. It made him angry, seeing Smith again, seeing a competent soldier like Stump demonstrate once again that while Gabe was a great fighter and a good commander and willing to do what needed to be done, regardless of the price, he still wasn’t the “legitimate” captain. Whatever the hell that meant.

It wasn’t ever a good idea to walk into Beckett’s luxurious quarters angry. Pretty much everything about the Bishop angered and frightened Gabe at times, and dealing with him tended to make Gabe’s temper even worse. The one thing about Beckett, though, was that he hated Smith as much as—maybe even more than—Gabe did. That had drawn them together in the beginning, and Gabe had the feeling that once again, it would be the thing that kept them from killing each other.

When he strode into the Bishop’s gardens, still bleeding from his cheek, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the Bishop indulging himself in a little carnal pleasure. Gabe stood back to admire the boy and girl currently fulfilling His Grace’s bodily needs, for once feeling more impressed than jealous. You had to hand it to Beckett; whatever his faults, he had exquisite taste in human flesh.

When Beckett saw Gabe waiting for him, he dismissed the boy and girl with an almost bored wave. They pouted, but left without further complaint, leaving a somewhat disappointed Gabe to gaze after them.

“So,” said Beckett without preamble, his dark eyes unusually focused. “Did you find Urie?”

“Well,” said Gabe. “We did.”

Beckett’s mouth tightened, and Gabe felt a twinge of fear in his stomach. “But?” he said. ‘There’s obviously a ‘but,’ because you aren’t handing me Urie’s head right now.”

“I would be, if our old friend hadn’t turned up.” Gabe took pleasure in the way that Beckett stiffened, the way the anger in his face paled to real fear and loathing. Gabe always liked people better when they were afraid, even if it wasn’t him causing the fear.

“Smith?” the Bishop asked shortly. “He’s back?”

“He’s back,” confirmed Gabe with a nod. “We had Urie in our grasp, but the dashing former captain jumped in, shot a few of my men, and ran away with our pickpocket on his horse.”

Beckett frowned. “But then he must…he must want Urie to sneak him into the city. What else would Smith want with a rat like Urie?” Without waiting for an answer to that question, he asked another one: “Saporta, did he have a hawk?”

“Who, Smith or Urie?” He couldn’t believe Beckett was asking about a stupid bird.

“Smith, you fool!” Beckett wasn’t often roused to passion, but when he was, it was quite a sight to see. Gabe had a feeling that if someone were to kindle true anger in him, he would be capable of far more than the petty tortures and tyrannies Gabe had witnessed.

It didn’t take long to think of what Beckett was referring to. Morris and Bryar, idiots that they were, had complained to Gabe of being attacked by a hawk that had later followed Urie and Smith. The bird was obviously Smith’s, because what pickpocket practiced falconry in his spare time? “There was a hawk,” said Gabe. “A vicious one.”

Beckett smiled at that. “He always did have…spirit.” His smile dissolving, he looked at Gabe with an expression of almost mad fervor. “You’re not to harm the hawk, do you understand? Not a feather on his wings. The day that hawk dies is the day I have a new Captain of the Guard hang your head in my gardens as a perch for my birds. Do you understand me?”

Gabe had no idea what had prompted this latest threat of Beckett’s, but he knew enough of the man and his cruelties to simply nod and say, “I understand.”

Beckett, apparently satisfied by this, stared at a point over Gabe’s head and said. “Smith. He needs to die. I know you wanted to do it before, and I held you back. I had greater tasks for you then. Now I don’t. Whatever you need, take it. Only kill him, and bring me back the hawk.”

“With pleasure, Your Grace,” Gabe said with a smile. Oh, God, to finally be given a free rein! It went against the grain with him to harbor feelings of affection for Beckett, but he couldn’t help the fierce gratitude he felt. It would almost be like the old days again, not worrying about maintaining order or pleasing an overbearing master, but just throwing his everything into the hunt.

As he left, the Bishop called out, almost casually, “Send the Butcher up to me.”

Gabe didn’t know what the fuck Beckett wanted with that freak, but he was too happy to care, and his response of, “Yes, of course, Your Grace,” was for once entirely sincere.


Sunday

Brendon had long since grown tired of trying to figure out where he was. It had been bad enough when he was with Spencer, but on his own, he had the uncomfortable feeling that the Guard or some supernatural monster lurked behind every tree and rock, as if he were Theseus simply muddling around in a labyrinth until the Minotaur jumped out to devour him. Of course, an uncertain death was better in Brendon’s book than a certain one, and so he kept up his trudging, hoping that whichever direction he was going, it wasn’t north to Aquila.

Spencer had vanished before sunset again, saying he was going hunting for something to eat. He’d actually tied Brendon to a tree before he left—“Just in case,” the smug bastard had said—but there wasn’t a knot tied yet that Brendon Urie couldn’t get himself out of, and as soon as Spencer was out of sight and earshot in the dense woods, Brendon had wriggled out of his bonds and stolen away into the cold night.

After a few hours, his energy had given out—after all, it wasn’t like the previous night had been especially restful, either—and he tucked himself into a patch of tall grass behind a boulder on the grassy plains beyond the woods. He stayed awake for a while, listening to a wolf howl somewhere in the distance and keeping an eye out for Spencer, but finally he decided that, since he had no idea where he was going, Spencer probably wouldn’t either. Besides at this point the Guard were probably more interested in Spencer than him, so he thought he’d be fairly safe going to sleep. It wasn’t the most comfortable resting place he’d ever slept in, but it beat the hell out of the dungeons of Aquila.

Unfortunately, when he awoke he had a horrible pinching cramp in his neck and the thin blonde from the Guard standing over him with a grim smile. Before he could muster the presence of mind to kick her or run away or something, she’d already captured his arm in an iron grip and was dragging him over to her friend, the large man in whose eye Brendon had spit his ale.

“Look who I found, Travis,” the woman said. “An old friend of yours.”

“Well, well, well,” said the man, stepping forward to loom over Brendon. “We meet again, and this time, the drinks are on me.” He paused with a mock-thoughtful expression, and said, “Oh, wait, it seems as if the drinks ended up on me last time, as well.”

Despite his fear, Brendon couldn’t help but giggle at that. Travis cracked a wry smile, but his voice was serious as he asked, “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, where’s Smith?”

“Smith?” Brendon asked, widening his eyes and putting on what he felt was his best expression of youthful innocence. No matter what crazy ideas Spencer had, he’d still saved Brendon’s life, and Brendon wasn’t about to throw him to the Guard even to save his own skin. “Who do you mean?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said the blonde woman flatly. “We saw him ride away from the inn with you on his horse, so you obviously know who we’re talking about.”

“Oh, that Smith—angry little man, nice hips, big black horse?” He kept his tone light and airy, hoping they would think he didn’t care enough about the answer to lie. Or else they’d think he was really stupid and thus incapable of helping them, which worked too, even if it was less healthy for Brendon’s ego. It wasn’t as if his ego mattered at all, now.

The woman raised her eyebrows, but said only, “Yes, that Smith.”

Brendon shrugged. “Not a clue. He chased me off pretty soon after he saved me.”

“You’re full of shit,” said the woman, but Travis shook his head.

“Now, now, Maja, it’s not very polite to call our guest a liar, is it?” He leveled a calm gaze at Brendon, who involuntarily gulped. “I’m sure our young friend here will be perfectly willing to tell us which way Captain Smith went when the two of them parted ways.”

“Of course,” said Brendon, his mind working furiously. Travis was clearly looking for something specific here. A direction, a final destination, a purpose? Think fast, think fast-- he was obviously already farther north than he’d been the last time he’d met these guards, and why would he head back to Aquila on his own? Maybe…if Spencer was going south, and Brendon was going north to get away from him…but why on earth would they believe that? Why on earth would they believe anything that came out of Brendon’s mouth? Aha! That’s it! “North,” Brendon found himself saying. “He was riding north.”

“Lying son-of-a-bitch,” said Maja scornfully, giving Brendon’s arm a painful shake. “You want my opinion, we wait here, for Gabe. Wasn’t he supposed to come with reinforcements and scouts within the day?”

“Yeah, but knowing Gabe, he might have gotten sidetracked. I don’t like sitting out in the open like this.” Travis gazed at Brendon with a contemplative expression and finally said. “Let’s take the Aquila road north. Worst comes to worst, we meet up with Gabe a little earlier than we planned.”

“I don’t like it,” Maja said crossly, but Travis smiled at her.

“Have a little faith, huh?” He put a hand on her shoulder. It seemed less like a show of camaraderie and encouragement than a caress.

She sighed. “All right. To Aquila, then.”

Damn it! Why couldn’t Travis have listened to Maja, instead of the other way around? So much for outwitting the pair of them. Travis motioned to another man who took Brendon from Maja and bound his hands tightly together. Brendon didn’t even bother to struggle. He was tired and sore and it seemed like no matter what he did, somebody wanted to kill him.

At least they weren’t executing him immediately this time. Travis stuffed a gag in his mouth and hoisted him up on a horse behind the man who’d tied his hands. It wasn’t especially comfortable, but it beat the hell out of being dead. Spencer, though…Brendon hoped fervently that the other man had slept in, or had kept on going north without doubling back to look for Brendon, or was just staying away from the main roads. He didn’t know what he’d do if Spencer died because he, Brendon, had betrayed him. Probably go back to the monastery for the rest of his life or something, somewhere where he couldn’t hurt anyone else.

It took more effort than Brendon had realized to stay on horseback with his hands tied, and for a long while he tried to forget about Spencer as he concentrated on balancing on the horse’s jerkily-moving backside. He wasn’t accustomed to the amount of riding he’d been doing over the last few days, and his thighs were so stiff that a couple of times he couldn’t convince them to grip the horse. He wondered, if he just slid right off, if anyone would notice. The Guard, having secured him, seemed to sink into a kind of grim, determined focus on the road ahead of them. Undoubtedly, Brendon thought, a former captain of the Guard would be a much bigger feather in their caps than a relatively anonymous pickpocket. The thought made him a little sick.

A harsh scream tore the air. Brendon (and, he noticed, a few of the Guard) shuddered, and Travis made a sign against evil. Maja, however, frowned and pointed to the sky. “Look,” she said. “A hawk. Smith’s?”

“Good eye, Maja!” Travis said, shedding the solemn expression he had worn for most of their trip for one of excited anticipation. “Weapons at the ready, and let’s keep the noise down.” He peered over the horizon and said firmly, “That patch of brush on the northeast. He must be hiding behind it.” A cluster of men took out crossbows, and Maja drew her sword, smiling fiercely.

Brendon felt every muscle in his body tighten. Spencer…. He had to warn him, he had to help him, he had to do something! He felt around the gag, which until now he had ignored, with his tongue. They hadn’t tied it around his face or anything, just shoved it in his mouth. Spitting it out wouldn’t be much trouble. The problem was when to yell. The man sitting in front of Brendon wouldn’t have any trouble killing him if he shouted out, nor, really, would any of the other men of the Guard. Oh, unless—as subtly as he could, Brendon started bringing his arms, which had been tied behind his back, over his head, and he took the gag out with slightly numb fingers. Taking a deep breath, he yelled, “Spencer, it’s an ambush!” At the same time, he threw his bound hands over his riding companion’s head and threw himself to one side, knocking them both off of the horse.

It was immediate chaos. The hawk screamed again, and as a couple of crossbow bolts found their way in Brendon’s direction—over the horse’s back, he thought smugly, nowhere near his position on the ground—one of the Guard bellowed in pain, and Brendon thought maybe Spencer had gotten off a bolt of his own. Brendon kneeled on his guard’s chest and pounded on his face with his bound fists until he thought the man had probably lost conciousness. (He didn’t want to look at the other man’s battered face, though, lest he lose what little food he had left in his stomach.)

Horses whinnied, and a guardsman fell off his horse near Brendon, a crossbow bolt in his stomach. Brendon felt a rumbling in the ground, and raised his head to see Goliath charging towards the rapidly disentegrating cluster of Guard. He grinned, satisfied. Now that Spencer saw the attack coming, the Bishop’s lackeys didn’t stand a chance.

“Regroup, regroup!” shouted Maja angrily, and Travis thundered off towards Spencer brandishing a huge broadsword. Their swords clashed as they passed each other, but it didn’t look like either had wounded the other, so Brendon, who wanted to take advantage of his current state of being ignored, looked around for another place in the battle he could be useful and settled on a couple of archers who were aiming their bows in Spencer’s direction. Brendon scrabbled around until he found a huge rock, and, his hands still tied together, he hurled it overhead at them. It hit one of the archers in the back just as he was letting a bolt fly; he jerked back in pain and his arrow flew into the sky, hitting the hawk.

Shit, thought Brendon. He’d only known Spencer a few days and he already knew that he loved that hawk more than he loved most people. Still, it was only a hawk, and so Spencer’s guttural cry of despair at the hawk’s pained shriek came as a surprise even to Brendon. He didn’t even seem to notice when the second archer’s bolt found its way into his left shoulder, his absorption in the hawk’s descent was so complete.

Oh, God, had he blundered again? Brendon scrambled across the ground as the hawk fell, hoping at least to protect it from being trampled. The thing fell in a small clump of feathers on a grassy patch of heather, deadly silent. Probably dead.

The loss of the hawk enraged Spencer more than anything Brendon had seen. All the blood drained from him, making his eyes stand out like glittering metal in his bone-white face. With a cry of undiluted fury, he charged Goliath towards Travis and, in front of Brendon and Maja’s horrified eyes, ran him through.

The huge man wheeled his horse around, as if to attack again, but though the spirit may have been willing, the flesh was failing. Still grasping his sword, Travis slumped in his saddle. Even from a distance, Brendon could see his eyes close.

Maja, who’d been furiously dragging a couple of deserters back into the fray, froze. As her captives slid from her grasp and started dashing across the fields, Maja stared at Travis’s limp body with an expression of horror, her mouth opening and closing as if she were struggling to speak. Finally, she mounted her horse again and gave Spencer a look of such utter hatred that it made Brendon’s skin crawl. “Damn you to hell, Spencer Smith!” she shrieked, and to Brendon’s shock, he heard tears in her voice. With a few more harsh commands, she gathered the troops who hadn’t deserted or died and rode off—still north, Brendon noted, but not on the main road anymore. Travis’s horse followed behind, its master sagging on its back.

In the ensuing silence, Brendon decidedly didn’t think about the pain in his side and back from where he had hit the ground when falling from the horse, and concentrated on cutting the chafing ropes around his wrists with a knife someone had let fall during the confusion. Having freed himself, he went quietly over to Spencer, who was kneeling on the ground, cradling the hawk in his arms. As Brendon drew closer, he could see the anguish in Spencer’s face, and it made his heart throb with guilt. He’d meant to save Spencer’s life, diverting the arrow, but the way Spencer looked now, he’d probably rather have died.

“He—he’s badly hurt,” said Spencer hoarsely. Brendon nodded mutely. The hawk was still alive, its blood-mussed chest rising and falling against Spencer’s body, but one of its wings dangled useless, the bolt having severed the muscle and tendon where wing met body. Even its eyes seemed to have less fight in them than usual.

His voice unsteady, Spencer said, “He needs help. A healer.”

“You need help too, sir,” said Brendon quietly. Blood didn’t show much on Spencer’s black clothes, but there was a crossbow sticking out of his shoulder and the area around it was wet, which, as far as Brendon was concerned, was a bad sign.

Spencer stared for a moment at the sun, which had started its descent in the west, and then shook his head. “I’ll be fine for now,” he said. “But I can’t ride. You’ll have to ride Goliath and get a healer. Take the hawk.”

“But….” Brendon looked around. There was no sign of habitation as far as the eye could see, only trees and meadows and rocky crags, all turning a gentle gold color in the early evening. “Where?”

“Listen carefully to me,” said Spencer, his voice as grim as it had been when he’d threatened to kill Brendon. “Take the smaller road to the left. You’ll find a ruined castle. There’s a priest there named Jon Walker. Give him the hawk. He’ll know what to do.” He took a deep breath and said, “You’ll be all right.” It wasn’t addressed to Brendon, that last part, but the hawk in Spencer’s arms. He took off his black wool cloak and wrapped the hawk in it, stroking its head soothingly.

“All right,” said Brendon. After all that had happened, he didn’t see how he could deny any request of Spencer’s, no matter how strange. He mounted Goliath with some difficulty, and the huge horse jerked his head around as if to say, “Who the hell is this on my back?” but he didn’t bite, and after a moment his restless stamping calmed.

Spencer gingerly handed the hawk to Brendon. “Be careful!” he hissed as Brendon took the bird. “Listen,” he said again. “If you fail—if you run off, if that hawk dies—I’ll give up trying to kill the Bishop and spend the rest of my life trying to kill you.”

Brendon nodded solemnly. At this point, he felt he was probably getting off lucky with just a threat. Spencer slapped Goliath’s rump, setting the horse off towards the left. With some difficulty, Brendon untangled the reins and guided Goliath towards the overgrown path Spencer had indicated, watching over his shoulder as the former captain grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

Once Goliath got going, he really got going, and it was all Brendon could do to hold onto the hawk and stay on Goliath’s back at the same time. He felt every jolt and bump on the road in his sore muscles, but stopping for a rest wasn’t even an option, not with the hawk bleeding out in his arms and Spencer’s threat still echoing in his hears. “Dear God,” he said, gritting his teeth, “please, please, once I get to this castle, let me rest for a while. I know I’ve asked a lot of you, but really, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think a full night of sleep in a comfortable bed is such an unreasonable request.” The hawk made a weak noise that sounded almost like agreement.

Brendon lost track of time, galloping over apparently endless rolling hills and grassy plains to the mountains in the west. The sun was setting behind them when he saw it: silhouetted against the blood-red sky, a misshappen structure on one of the mountains’ foothills, its crumbling towers leaning pathetically forward.

Brendon couldn’t imagine that anyone actually lived there. The place looked like a wreck. Still, Spencer had said he’d find help there, and if nothing else, it would be a place out of the cold wind to spend the night. Hesitantly, he urged Goliath forward. He wasn’t at all sure about his ability to steer a horse up the rocky trail to the ruin, but Goliath seemed to know what he was doing, so Brendon concentrated on keeping himself and the hawk on Goliath’s back while he picked his way around boulders and sharp turns up the hill.

When they got within earshot of the place, Brendon yelled, “Hello?” The solid stone of the castle swallowed his voice, and he heard no signs of life within. Let there be someone here, please, he thought, and tried again. “Hello? For pity’s sake, if someone’s there, please answer me!”

“Hello!” A short man appeared on one of the walls over the gate, peering down at him curiously. “What are you shouting about down there? You need something?”

Brendon frowned. Was this the priest Spencer had mentioned? He looked much younger than most of the priests Brendon had ever known, with an unruly thatch of brown hair and a shaggy beard, and (if Brendon didn’t miss his guess) he sounded a little drunk. “Are you Father Jon Walker?” he asked.

“Who wants to know?” asked the man.

Brendon took that to mean that he was—he certainly didn’t have time to stand here and argue about it all night. “Please!” he called again. “I have this bird, and it’s wounded!”

“All right,” said Father Walker, baffled. “Did you want me to help you clean and cook it or something?”

Brendon made an involuntary noise of frustration, feeling as if every second he wasted here would end up being another reason for Spencer to kill him. “No!” he shouted. “This isn’t an ordinary hawk! It belongs to Captain Spencer Smith, and he told me to take it to you for healing!”

There was a silence then, and Brendon squinted in the fading light at the wall, hoping the priest hadn’t left.

He hadn’t. He muttered, “Mother of God!” and started fiddling with something that made a loud cranking noise, and the gate started to slowly creak open. “Bring him in, bring him in!” he shouted, and Brendon nudged Goliath towards the gate.

When they reached the overgrown courtyard, Father Walker was already there. “You can let Goliath relax in the courtyard,” he said tensely. “But first hand me the hawk.” Brendon obeyed, strangely reassured by the fact that Walker knew the horse’s name, and dismounted. Goliath, to his surprise, gently lipped his shoulder before ambling off through the grass to a small pond in the corner of the courtyard.

Brendon followed Father Walker up the curve of the hill to a garden across from the main hold of the castle. What a strange place for a priest to live, he thought. Maybe he had become a monk—or a hermit, really, because no monastic order in their right minds would set up a monastery here.

A drawbridge on the upper level led to the hold. Walker led the way again, saying to Brendon over his shoulder, “Careful here. Walk on the left side.” Brendon looked dubiously at the drawbridge. Parts of it seemed almost rotted through and the whole thing was drooping in a fairly alarming way. Walker seemed to pick up on Brendon’s nervousness and said, “Don’t be afraid. I know it looks bad, but if you keep to the left side, you have nothing to worry about.” With that, he began to stride across himself. It couldn’t possibly be that dangerous if he was walking on it, Brendon decided, and he hurried to follow the priest across to the hold.

The inside of the hold was, if possible, even more dilapidated than it appeared from the outside. Gaps in the roof let in the last fading bits of sunlight and the cold air. A rat scurried across a corridor as Brendon and Walker strode down it. The whole place was dank and smelled of rotting things, and Brendon couldn’t imagine why anyone, even a hermit, would choose to live there.

The room into which Walker led Brendon, however, was considerably better. A warm fire burned at the far side of the room. A shelf by the door was filled with more books than Brendon had ever seen, even in the copying room at the monastery, and a candle-lit desk beside the shelf held another book in the process of being copied from a pile of shabby scraps of parchment. One corner held a small but clean-looking bed, and Brendon guessed that here was where Walker did most of his living.

“All right,” said Walker, indicating the bed. “Lay the hawk here. Gently!”

The hawk made a weak noise as Brendon lay it down. It was surely done for, Brendon thought sadly. This Father Walker would have to be some kind of miracle worker to save it now—it couldn’t possibly have much blood left, at the rate its small body had been bleeding all evening.

“All right,” said Walker. “Go clean yourself up. I’ve got work to do.”

“Can I help?” Brendon asked.

Walker seemed to consider it seriously for a moment, but finally he shook his head. “Thank you, but the room isn’t big enough for two of us to work, and I don’t have time to teach you what to do. Go have a wash in the pond. You’re all bloody.”

As Brendon left, he could hear Walker murmuring to the bird. “Don’t be frightened. You’ll be all right. Just a little longer now….”

Brendon didn’t see the priest again for hours. He passed the time lying in the soft, tall grass by the pond, listening to Goliath graze, gazing at the stars burning clearly in the midnight-blue sky, and letting the tension seep out of his weary muscles. The moon was high when Walker finally emerged.

Bored and eager for a chance to find out how things were going with the hawk, Brendon held himself perfectly still and pretended to be asleep while Walker, muttering what sounded like a list of herbs under his breath, rumbled around the garden to the far side of the hold. When he was out of sight of the bridge, Brendon scrambled up and across it and back to the little room inside.

He stopped on the threshold, unable to really believe what he was seeing. The hawk was gone. In its place was was the handsome young man from the night of the wolf attack, sprawled across the bed with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. His dark hair was matted with sweat to his forehead and he was breathing shallowly, but he lifted his head as Brendon entered.

“Who the hell are you?” he breathed, barely audible. “Where’s Spencer?”

“Spencer….” What could he say? Spencer was wounded somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, without his horse and with a wolf howling in the distance? “Spencer’s fine, sir,” he finally said. “I mean, he will be. We had a fight with the Bishop’s Guard, and he got shot, but I don’t think it’s bad. The hawk was wounded, so he sent me away to get help.” He frowned at the man, feeling strangely reckless. In a night when the impossible was lying right before his eyes, were manners really so important? “I guess I don’t have to tell you about the hawk’s being wounded, though, right?”

“What do you think?” asked the young man, lying his head back down with a sigh.

“I don’t know what to think. Are you a man, or…some sort of a spirit?” The proper word should have been “devil,” or “demon,” but neither of those seemed right to apply to the thin, oddly graceful-looking man before him.

“Neither, really,” said the man, his voice devoid of emotion. “I’m cursed. Or perhaps I’m a curse. One or the other.” He frowned at something, or someone, over Brendon’s shoulder. “Well. Didn’t expect to see you again. Alive, anyway.”

Brendon turned around to see Father Walker behind him, holding a basket full of herbs. He stared between Brendon and the young man in the bed, and then he said, “Maybe I was unclear before. When I told you to go clean yourself up, what I meant was that I have a lot of work to do tonight and I don’t want to have to worry about you the whole time.”

“No, I got it,” Brendon said, standing up. Cursed. “I just wanted to see--”

“Well, you’ve seen now,” said Walker, steering him towards the door. “Please. Go now, and stay out.” He shut the door with Brendon on the other side and locked the door behind him. Brendon could have picked the lock if he’d wanted to. But now…now he just wanted to think.

He settled himself in the herb garden and reveled in the fresh, clean smell that pervaded it. How? he thought. Why? What kind of curse turned a man into a hawk—when the sun rose? Spencer knew—of course he knew. Why? Why did they travel together, Spencer and the mysterious hawk-man, and who was he?

A horrible scream from Walker’s room rent the air, and Brendon shuddered. Surely the man would live. Surely someone who had been exempt from the normal laws of nature like this mysterious stranger had would also be exempt from death. In the distance, a wolf howled, as if in sympathy with the screaming man, and Brendon thought of Spencer, of the way he disappeared in the night, and his strange closeness to the hawk….

He hadn’t even realized he was sleepy, but Walker was kneeling by his side, putting his warm hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said quietly, “but it’s cold out, so I thought you might like to come inside. My bed’s taken, but at least it’s warm in my room.”

“The wolf,” Brendon blurted out. “It’s Spencer. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but somehow, Spencer turns into a wolf at night and the hawk turns into a man—or, you know, the other way around.”

Walker gave him a considering look, his dark eyes solemn. Then he said, “Do you want something to eat? You must be hungry, what with all the riding and fighting you’ve seen today.”

He hadn’t thought about it actually, but he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since the day he and Spencer left the Ways’ cottage, and a lot had happened since then. His stomach growled and Walker grinned at him, the kind of amused expression he had never seen from a priest before. “Come on,” he said, pulling Brendon to his feet. “What’s mine is yours.”

There was a little alcove against the wall on one side of the garden with a fire pit, out of the way of the wind. They ate bread and salted rabbit and apples, and Walker poured Brendon a glass of wine. “By the way,” he said as he poured, “I don’t really know your part in all this. What’s your name?”

“Brendon. Brendon Urie,” said Brendon in between mouthfuls of bread. It wasn’t anything special, a little tough and stale, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Thanks for the food, Father,” he said. It was probably rude to talk with your mouth full, wasn’t it? Oh, well.

“Not a problem, Brendon,” Walker said with some amusement. Then, with a somewhat uncomfortable shrug, he added, “You can just call me Jon, if you want.”

“All right,” said Brendon when he’d finished swallowing. Jon seemed to be a pretty odd priest. Not in a bad way, though, and really, what about this situation wasn’t odd?

“How’d you come to be travelling with Spencer Smith?” Jon’s tone was casual, but there was a thread of deeper interest in his voice, and Brendon found his own curiosity aroused.

“He saved me from the Bishop’s Guard. Twice.” He saw no particular reason to tell Jon just why he had needed to be saved in the first place; it wasn’t something even the strangest priest was likely to understand. Besides, Brendon had questions of his own that needed answering. “Who’s the man in your room?” he asked. “The hawk, I mean.”

“I was afraid we would get to that eventually,” Jon muttered. He downed his wine in one long gulp and poured himself another, and Brendon thought that if he always drank this much, his original impression of the man as drunk was probably an accurate one. “His name is Ryan Ross,” he said, and he took another sip of wine. “His father was the Count of Ross. I guess you would call him an intemperate man—prone to violence, fond of his drink.” Brendon wasn’t sure that Jon had any room to talk there, but he kept his silence, hoping for more of the story. “He died in the Holy Land, slaughtering Saracens. Ryan came back from Antioch and inherited his family lands, but he didn’t want to stay there with his father dead, and so he went to Aquila to stay with a cousin, Zack.” Jon sighed deeply, rubbing his fingers along the stem of his glasss. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. Nobody in Aquila had ever seen anything like him.

“We all loved him, I think. He’d traveled to the Holy Land and the East, he’d visited the King’s Court. He dressed and spoke and acted like…like nothing we had ever seen. Bill—His Grace the Bishop, that is—loved him, too.”

“What do you mean, loved?” asked Brendon. He had never heard of anything or anyone the hated Bishop of Aquila loved, and the way that Jon had said the word made Brendon think that he wasn’t talking about brotherly love. That maybe he was talking about something else, something Brendon had always (in roundabout, unspecific warnings) been told was forbidden.

Jon leveled a steady look at him. “I mean, the bishop had a passion for Ryan. A passion that was eating him from the inside out. He was like a man possessed.

“Ryan wanted none of him, though. He ignored his advances. But it wasn’t that Ryan didn’t share Beckett’s…ah, predilections. The so-called “Greek Vice,” if you will. By some twist of fate, he’d lost his own heart to the Captain of the Guard.” At this point Jon gave Brendon a questioning look, as if to test his response to this tale.

Brendon, who hadn’t ever really understood the laws that governed sexual morality and didn’t really care about them, was more interested who the object of Ryan’s illicit affections was. “Spencer Smith!” he exclaimed. So the hawk-man Spencer cared for so much was, in fact, his lover. It wasn’t what Brendon would have guessed, had he been asked a day ago, but it made sense, now, and he watched with rapt attention as Jon continued, apparently satisfied by this response.

“Yes,” he said with a sad smile. “Spencer was the captain of the Guard, then, and from the moment Ryan had arrived in Aquila, the two of them had been as close as two men could be. They rode together, they dined together, they went on trips together, and somewhere along the way, they just….” He shrugged, his expression helpless but not disgusted or tragic. Brendon wished the monks who had raised him had been more like Jon. He might never have left the monastery and gotten into this whole mess.

“The Bishop knew they were friends, of course, everyone did, but he didn’t know about the rest of it, and they weren’t about to tell him. They lived quite happily, I think, until….” Jon’s voice grew low, and he gulped down the rest of his second wine.

“Until what?” Brendon knew the story could only go downhill from here, but he wanted—he needed to know what had happened.

“They had the same priest, Spencer and Ryan,” said Jon. There was a curious tightness to his tone, and his hands shook slightly. He put down his empty glass and put his hands in his lap. “Not just a confessor, but a friend. At least,” he muttered, “they thought he was a friend. But he’d also grown up with the Bishop. He’d cleaned out the stables at the same church where the Bishop had been a young priest, and he owed a lot to him. And he also liked his drink a bit much. One day, in conversation with the Bishop, he happened to reveal the true nature of Spencer and Ryan’s relationship. He didn’t….” He looked at Brendon, his eyes almost pleading. “He didn’t realize. He didn’t see how power-hungry and jealous the Bishop was getting, he just saw his friend.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Jon was talking about himself. Which explained, perhaps, why he was living in this ruin in the middle of nowhere—if Brendon had betrayed Spencer Smith like that, he’d be hiding out, too. Of course, he thought uncomfortably, he sort of had, by giving Spencer’s location away to Travis and Maja, getting Ryan and Spencer wounded. Maybe he should ask if Jon needed any help around the castle.

Jon gazed into the fire for a long moment before resuming his tale. “His Grace the Bishop seemed to go mad. He—he lost any sense of reason or decency he’d ever had. He started making long proclamations declaring Spencer and Ryan abominations and offering rewards to bring them in to face the Church’s justice. I—they got out of the city, with some help from their stupid priest and a few soldiers who stayed loyal to Spencer. Beckett excommunicated them.” Again he fell silent, and Brendon thought that if this was any ordinary tale, it would end here. A normal bishop couldn’t do anything more than that. Clearly, though, something further, something darker, had happened next.

“The Bishop couldn’t find them,” said Jon. “He followed, but Spencer knew the land too well, and Ryan was good at finding people who would harbor them. So the Bishop, he sold--” Jon’s voice broke, and Brendon thought that if he hadn’t believed Jon’s story of being friends with the Bishop as a boy, he’d believe it now. “He sold his soul to the Devil for the power to curse them. And the Evil One delivered. Every day, Ryan changes into a hawk, and every night—well,” he said with a gesture over the walls, to the wide stretch of land where the wolf could still be heard howling every so often. “You hear Spencer. He turns into a wolf. And every sunrise or sunset, just in those few moments when it’s neither day nor night, they can watch each other change but they can’t—it’s never long enough for them to touch.”

“So they’re always together and never together all at the same time,” said Brendon, horrified. He’d never had someone about whom he cared so much that he’d risk his life to be with them, but even he could guess what a horrible fate this agonizing, fruitless closeness would be.

Jon nodded. “As long as there’s a day and a night, and as long as they both live.” He seemed to pull his straying thoughts out of the past and brushed off the knees of his habit. “Aren’t you glad you stumbled into this mess?” he asked with forced-sounding levity.

Brendon took a deep breath and exhaled again, trying to clear the haze of disbelief from his mind. “There’s nothing that can be done? To break the curse?”

Jon shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past two years. You’d be amazed how many books there are about curses, if you just know where to look for them.” He picked up the flagon of wine, peered at it with a vaguely disgusted expression, and said, “Want another drink?”

Brendon nodded, holding out his glass. Jon poured with unsteady hands and frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. “What’s that?” he asked.

“What’s what?” asked Brendon, taking a long swig of his wine and setting his glass down.

“Your wrists.” Jon grabbed one of Brendon’s hands and held it close to his face, examining it in the flickering firelight. “What happened?”

Brendon had forgotten about the rope burns and splinters from his time riding with the Guard, but the memory of those—and, indeed, all the other pains he had received over the last week—returned in a flash and his whole body, which had begun to relax, tensed and ached. “I told you,” he said. “Spencer rescued me from the Guard. They’re not that concerned with their prisoners’ comfort.”

“I guess not,” said Jon. He carefully turned Brendon’s wrist around to see it from all angles and said, “Anything else I should look at?”

Brendon was caught off-guard. “What?” He’d never had a healer look at his wounds before, and none of them, not the bruises or the splinters or the still-stinging scrapes from his adventures in the sewers, were serious enough to threaten his life or hinder his movement, so it had never occurred to him that someone might actually consider it worth his time to try to fix them.

“I’d be a pretty terrible healer if I saw such a clear risk for infection and didn’t do anything about it,” Jon said with a small smile. “I’ve been preoccupied with Ryan tonight, but he’s stable now, and resting, so if you have any complaints….”

Brendon never needed more than one invitation to start speaking. He listed his various injuries, and Jon peered at them, occasionally probing one with his warm, work-roughened fingers. He winced in sympathy at the scrapes from the sewers, which had begun to ooze bloody pus, and when he had finished his examination, he said, “Wait here. I have some ointments for the infections, and something for the pain.”

He dashed quickly back to his small room, and returned a minute or so later with a cool, moist substance that felt good on his bruises and scrapes, a sticky one that stung in open wounds, and some clean bandages. His hands were quick and gentle, despite the calluses, and Brendon felt a warmth in the pit of his stomach at the tenderness. It was probably the most consideration anyone had ever had for him, and he reveled in it.

When Jon was finished, he looked blearily at the sky and said, “Only a few more hours until dawn. We might as well get some sleep while we can.” Together, they stumbled back to Jon’s small room and curled up in front of the fire. Jon fell asleep almost immediately, his habit twisted around him and his face resting on his forearm, but Brendon, despite his bone-deep exhaustion, found himself distracted by thoughts.

Is it wrong to be glad about Ryan getting hurt, God? Brendon wondered, staring at the steady rise and fall of Jon’s chest. I feel like maybe it’s done me some spiritual good, meeting a priest who actually tries to do Your work instead of turning people into animals and stuff. And also, isn’t it good that I learned the truth about Spencer and Ryan? The truth’s always a good thing, right? Only please don’t let Ryan die, because then it would all be for nothing, and I know Spencer can take care of himself, but let him be okay, too. And let the curse be broken. If you let Ryan and Spencer be human again and happy together, I won’t just give up stealing, I’ll….

But he didn’t get the chance to think of what he would do, because at that point he fell asleep.

Part 3