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When Lady Elisha, the oldest daughter of the Duke of Sprucevale, was eleven, she decided she wanted to go riding. It was a spur of the moment decision, she simply walked down to the stables to see if someone could saddle up a horse for her to ride. When she got to the stables however, she found there was no one there. All the grooms were out by the creek in the woods, helping a hunting party who had gotten one of the horses stuck in the mud.
Well, she figured, she was a big girl, nearly a woman grown. She could saddle her own horse if she had too. Since all of the horses she usually rode were out with the hunting party, she had to choose a horse from the ones still available. If even one of the grooms had still been there, they would have tried to keep her as far as possible from the ones she did choose. The half-emaciated, scared, and vicious looking horse in the broken stall at the end of the stable block was the last thing anyone would have thought would appeal to a young lady. Nonetheless, that was the first horse she headed for.
The horse in the broken stall at the end of the stable block didn’t have a name. It didn’t need one. You just had to mention “The Horse” and everyone knew what you were talking about.
According to castle gossip, the Horse had been a “gift” to Elisha’s grandfather from a pair of sorcerers who lived out in the thorn woods in a house built on chicken feet. Whatever the true story was, the Horse had been a part of the ducal stables ever since Elisha’s father had been a little boy. No one rode it. No one even got near it if they could help it. The grooms fed it only out of a sense of fear. Horse thieves had slipped into the stables in the dead of night and never come out again. With the common consensus being that the Horse had eaten them.
If anyone with any sense had been in the stables, they would have stopped Elisha before she got anywhere near the Horse. As it was, there was no one in the stable except her.
The groom, sent back to fetch a block and tackle, nearly had a heart attack when he opened the door to the stables and had to make way for Lady Elisha, sitting proudly atop the Horse.
From that moment on, the Horse was indisputably Lady Elisha’s horse. Not that anyone had any intention of challenging her for the claim.
---
Thomas Strange had lived a fairly uneventful life, and that was kind of the way he liked it. His parents had were successful bakers in Skarendale, and when it had become apparent that their eldest son was both brilliant and had no passion for baking, they had saved the significant profits from their business and sent him off to the capital city to study theology and demonology at the college there. His younger brother had the better head for banking and business, they consoled themselves. Besides, with a college education, he could enter the upper ranks of the clergy, maybe even make a bishop of himself.
While many of the other boys at the college had looked down on Thomas for being a baker’s son, Thomas found himself enjoying his studies immensely. He made his own friend among those who either came from humble backgrounds like himself or simply didn’t care who his parents were. Everyone learned more or less the same things at the university, with the curriculum focusing mainly on theology and demonology. But they also covered history, literature, Latin and geography. But it was the demonology that Thomas most excelled in. He was the second brightest student in his demonology classes.
The only reason he wasn’t the best, was because that honor belong to Thomas’s friend Tyrone Evergreen. Thomas was no slouch, and neither was the rest of their little circle of friends. But Tyrone was on a whole other level. He knew things not even the professors knew.
At first the professors had been resentful of some young pup thinking they knew more then them, learned masters who had studied the subject all their lives. But the more they checked his answers, and the more often they found him to have been right on the money, the more their views changed from hostility to something akin to awe. One of their teachers had even admitted to Thomas that he thought Tyrone was actually a holy saint with divine powers.
Thomas could see why they would believe that. They had been called to witness an exorcism once, and the demon had shrank from Tyrone’s presence in utter terror. He didn’t believe it himself, no matter how he stretched his imagination, he could never quite fit Tyrone into the ranks of the exalted men and women he had learned about in church and history class.
Then one day he discovered that their professors had been right about Tyrone having power, and horribly, horribly wrong about everything else.
---
As a duke’s daughter, Elisha knew that marriage was an inevitable part of her future. Her mother had also sat her down and explained in plain terms that who she married wasn’t going to be just her decision. Others would be affected by her marriage, and she had to consider what was good for her family and dutchy, and not just what was good for herself. She understood that. Enough cautionary tales had been drilled into her head that she knew she couldn’t just run off with some boy just because she loved him.
Still, there was a large part of her that wanted to find love, and a larger part that was convinced that even if she limited herself to the selection of potential husbands, whom marrying would be good for her family, she would find it.
Her father, for his part, didn’t have any grand ambitions or needs requiring his daughter to marry into a particular family. He basically told Elisha she could marry whomever she pleased on two conditions. One that, that any suitor received his approval first, and two, Elisha was to wait a year to get to know the person before committing to any decisions. The first, was to make sure that Elisha did not marry someone who might dishonor or embarrass their family, and the second to give him time to assess his prospective son-in-law.
Elisha threw herself into courtship with a gusto, and soon found herself swamped with potential suitors. So many so, that she found herself being overwhelmed by a wave of flattery and terrible poetry. The selection wouldn’t have been so bad, if these suitors didn’t press themselves on her, pressuring her to make a decision in spite of her father’s decree that she wait a year. So, she came up with a challenge. Only the person who could ride her horse from the courtyard of her father’s castle, down into town, make one loop around the statue of Saint Herbert, and return to the castle would be allowed to marry her.
The Horse took one look at the first contestant, and delivered a kick that crushed the man’s codpiece and sent him to the ground in pain. After that, the crowd of suitors thinned to a more manageable level.
However, even with this new selection of suitors, Elisha’s luck didn’t exactly improve. The first man that caught her fancy, she also caught in the royal kitchens with one of the scullery maids on her knees in front of him. As her mother had said, a lord was entitled to his indiscretions. However, as far as Elisha was concerned, a lord should at least try to keep them discrete. That suitor was thrown off the Horse and straight onto a wild rosebush with a wasp-nest inside.
The second one fared little better, for much the same reasons.
The fifth suitor made the mistake of telling Elisha exactly what his opinions on women’s’ horsemanship were, and how he thought that horseback riding made ladies utterly foolish and intolerable. He had the Horse roll over on top of him, before being dragged halfway across a field with his foot caught in one of his stirrups.
At least by the time the seventh suitor rolled around, Elisha had wised up the dirty underbelly of court romance. She learned to use the rumor mill to her ends, and to make sure she had friends in a wide variety of places keeping an eye and an ear out for things that might concern her. It was nonetheless a nasty surprise when one of her friends wrote to inform her that not only did her current suitor have a mistress, he had five of them.
He ended up clinging onto his saddle for dear life as the Horse scaled the castle walls and dived into the moat.
And then came Lord Charlie. He was everything Elisha had dreamed of in a suitor. He was charming, gallant, good looking, and to top it off he was the eldest son of a wealthy and powerful duke. Her friends wrote back to her telling of a distinct lack of mistresses, concubines, or bastard children. It seemed like the perfect match, extremely beneficial to her family and exactly what she had dreamed of in a husband. When the required year had passed, she had no trouble agreeing to a betrothal announcement. Her father and mother agreed readily, both duchies celebrated, and something changed between her and Charlie.
It was subtle, something she didn’t notice at first. How his behavior became less loving and more possessive. But soon that revelation became unavoidable. She wasn’t sure quite when she made the connection, but soon the sweet things whispered in her ear became warnings, and then threats, as to what would happen to her if that “stupid beast” of hers threw him off when it came time for him to take the challenge. He would get angry at her sometimes too, and while he never actually struck her, it wasn’t a great leap of thinking to believe he might once they were married.
It was a husband’s right to discipline his wife. Elisha had never really thought about that fact until now. Once they were married, Charlie would have a lot of power over her. A proper lord never struck a lady, but a husband and wife were something different.
She didn’t dare tell her father. Yes, he would break off the betrothal in an instant if she told him about Lord Charlie’s behavior. But a betrothal was almost as good as a marriage. Once it had been announced, you didn’t break it without a damn good reason. There would be questions asked, and not everyone would believe the truth even if they were told. Not to mention it would anger Charlie’s father. He would be angry about it, even if just as a matter of form. Just as having Charlie’s father as an ally was a tempting prospect, having him as their enemy could be deadly to her family.
Who else could she go to for help? Her mother? Her uncle? Both had the same pitfall as her father, and none of her other allies had the capacity to help her, at least when put up against the power of a duke. Charlie had told her what he would do to her if she every told anyone what he had said, and she believed he meant every word of it. She couldn’t tell anyone what was going on.
So she told her horse instead.
None of the stable hands were the least surprised when they let the horses out to graze in the pasture, and the Horse immediately took off. As far as they were concerned that beast could do whatever the hell it liked and it wasn’t worth their sweat and blood trying to stop it. They watched with relative disinterest as is jumped the fence and took off across the countryside. It really wasn’t worth the effort to try and catch it. All Lady Elisha would have to do was whistle and it would come galloping. So instead they concentrated on watching all the other horses and put the Horse out of their minds.
Lord Charlie had gone out hunting with several of his friends that morning. It was the cause of much worry when the hunting party returned that evening without him. According to everyone, Lord Charlie had set off in pursuit of a deer and had gotten separated from the main party. They had looked for him till the sun started to go down, without finding any sign of him, and had returned hoping he was simply waiting for them back at the castle.
Worry turned into alarm when his horse returned to the castle the next morning without him. A search party went out into the woods and searched until dusk with no sign of the missing lord.
The bludgeoned and broken body of Lord Charlie washed up in the river near the village of Heronstead the next evening. It was fairly obvious what had happened. Brigands, it had to be. A lord wandering on his own through the forest must have simply been too tempting a target for such villains.
Action of course had to be taken. The local knights were called to arms, and they scoured the forest in order to clear it of bandits once and for all. They actually managed to even find some bandits. A particularly dim group who hadn’t the sense to go to ground when they heard to news of a duke’s son being murdered in the forest.
Well, it would have had to be a pretty dim bunch to try and rob a dukes son in the first place, everyone agreed. Lord Charlie didn’t even have that much valuables on him. He obviously didn’t go hunting in his finery. The most valuable thing he had was his horse, and they had obviously lost that pretty quickly. Even the lucky coin Lord Charlie had kept in the inner pocket of his vest had escaped their notice. They did take his sword though. His scabbard had been found empty. Still it meant that Lord Charlie had obviously had the chance to draw steel against those villains before they had overwhelmed him.
The Horse returned five days later, covered in mud, sticks, and burs. In the general hysteria surrounding Lord Charlie’s death, hardly anyone noticed.
In any case, arrangements were made for the funeral. Lord Charlie’s body was packed in salt, and sent back to his father’s castle. As his betrothed, Elisha was chosen to accompany the body and attend his funeral.
And if her tears weren’t born of grief and loss, only God knew.
---
Everyone was staring. Thomas hunched down in his saddle, horrible conscious of how much he stood out. It was very unusual to find a priest riding a warhorse. A big, heavily muscled charger like the one Thomas was currently riding would have cost even a noble family a pretty penny, and was certainly beyond the budget of an initiate priest like him. But it wasn’t the fact that it was a warhorse he was riding that was attracting attention, it was rather the horse’s coloring.
No one had ever seen a horse with a bright red blaze up it’s face, nor such a canary yellow coat which turned slowly into a deep green around it’s shoulders and belly, which in turn turned blue around its legs, which complimented the violet socks and the dark purple hooves. Nevermind the tail and mane which shone in an entire rainbow of colors.
When he had first received the commission, to act as an exorcist for the dutchy of Sprucevale, Thomas had not given too much thought as to how he was going to get there. That was until he had packed his heavy trunk, filled with even heavier books on demonology and exorcism, down two flights of stairs. It was then he had come to the painful realization that he would need a horse and cart if he was going to get anywhere with the books and tools he needed to do his job.
When he had gone to the horse merchants to see about buying a horse, he had nearly choked at the figures they had named. Every one far beyond his meager travel allowance. He had nearly gone crazy trying to think of a solution that didn’t involve him dragging his trunk all the way Sprucevale, when Tyrone had offered to lend him a horse.
It wasn’t that Rainbow Basher, as the horse was apparently named, was a bad horse. In fact she was a great horse, easy for a novice like him to ride, strong, steady, and apparently was utterly limitless when it came to stamina. She had been pulling the small cart with his supplies and belongs behind her for three whole days and had shown no signs of tiring. He just wished that she didn’t make him stand out like a peacock among pheasants.
The only mercy was that if you asked someone what a demonic horse looked like, they would have named such traits as eyes that glowed like coals, and a mane and tail of fire. Not a coat that glittered like diamonds in the sun. Rainbow Basher may have been one of the creations of the infamous Alcor the Dreambender, but she was not one whose connection to the demon was well known.
A crowd had gathered to follow him by the time he made his way to the cathedral, dismounted, and knocked on the door to the rectory.
“Yes?” The aging bishop opened the door and stared in bewilderment at the crowd gathered outside.
“Father Hicks,” Thomas asked. “I’m Brother Thomas. I was told you needed an exorcist here in Sprucevale?”
---
If there was one thing Thomas learned in his first year in Sprucevale, it was that everyone in the dutchy was apparently an expert in identifying cursed and possessed objects, except him. In that first year, he was called out nearly a hundred times to investigate alleged cases of demonic possession and cursed items. In that time, Thomas had not encountered a single demon. Yet, every single person insisted that the object in question had to be cursed because their neighbour, the baker, and the beggar on the street had told them so. Ten years of education meant absolutely zilch to them. They knew the object was cursed, and it was Thomas’s job to fix it.
The first time Thomas faked an exorcism, it had been at a farmhouse at the edge of the dutchy. A group of farmers moving a millstone had had a rope break, and the stone slide off the back of the wagon and nearly crush someone. It had to be the work of black magic, so one of their number had gone to the cathedral and asked for the exorcist.
Thomas had done a dozen tests on the stone and determined it was nothing more than a regular millstone. The farmers hadn’t taken kindly to the news. They knew the stone was cursed, and now the priest was refusing to help them. Tempers started to flare.
Suddenly feeling that his life was in danger. Thomas had panicked and announced that there was one more test he could try. Acting quickly, he had scribbled a gibberish incantation on the stone in chalk, muttered an obscure bible passage in Latin, and then announced that the famers had been right. The stone was cursed. It was an extremely subtle curse, which was why his first tests had not found it, but it was also one that could be lifted easily. He took some magnesium powder out of his bag, mixed it with some kindling, lit it on fire, and muttered another obscure Latin bible passage. The farmers had all gasped in awe when the flame had lit up with the bright light and crossed themselves.
Thomas left in a flurry of thanks, congratulations, and apologies for doubting him.
He had of course, confessed what had happened to Father Hicks when he got back to the cathedral. Hicks was just as taken aback by the situation as Thomas was. While he didn’t exactly encourage Thomas to go about deceiving people, he supposed there was no harm in doing so if they pushed the issue. At the very least, Hicks supplied, it would at least remove one worry from their shoulders.
It was too bad that the next case he went to, involved a man who was steadfastly convinced that someone had put a curse on one of his cows.
In over a hundred cases, Thomas had not once set eyes on an actual demon or curse. While the entire dutchy thought he was a some kind of genius. With word of his supposed “skill” being passed around the dutchy, Thomas supposed it had only been a matter of time until her received to the summons to come to the duke’s castle to investigate several cursed objects.
The first item had been a small mirror in a golden frame. Thomas did his usual checks and tests and hesitantly announced that there seemed to be nothing wrong with it. To his surprise, instead of protesting, the Duke immediately had the mirror snatched away from him and a brass statuette was passed to him instead. Once again, Thomas inspected the statuette and hesitantly announced that that item wasn’t cursed either. Again, the statuette was taken from him and a new item presented. A painted box this time. Confused, and a little worried, Thomas had once again did his tests and once again proclaimed the item to be perfectly harmless. The box was, once again, snatched from his hands.
“He’s legit,” Lady Elisha declared. “Come with me.”
Now, even more confused, Thomas followed her to the castle’s stable.
---
Someone had cursed her horse, and Lady Elisha had a pretty good idea who. Lord Creston was one of her more insistent suitors despite the fact she was currently in mourning. He had just purchased a very beautiful bay mare. A perfect gift for a lady. All he needed was to get her current horse out of the way.
As it was, her horse had been unusually lethargic for the past week, slow and unenthusiastic about anything. The curse was probably meant to kill or cripple her horse, but evidently hadn’t been strong enough for it. Lord Creston would pay for this eventually, but for now Elisha’s main concern was getting her horse back to health.
The solution, call an exorcist. Popular gossip suggested that Brother Thomas, the new exorcist in the dutchy was nothing less than a genius. Well, either that or he was a particularly good charlatan. Still, he had passed her little test, so he at least wasn’t the type of charlatan that jumped at the first chance to make a good impression with a potentially rich mark.
“My horse has been cursed,” she explained as she and her retinue Thomas to the stables. “It has been acting strange this past week, and the horse doctor could find nothing wrong with it.” The horse doctor hadn’t been willing to go near it, but Brother Thomas didn’t need to know that.
“Well, I’ll see what I can do Milady,” Thomas replied as he reached in his bag and removed his detection instruments.
Elisha watched with interest as every one of those instruments went nuts the moment Thomas got them near the Horse. She had no idea what that meant. Magic had never been one of her strengths. But from the look on Thomas’s face, he didn’t know either.
“I have never seen or heard of anything like this,” he admitted as the dial on his brass divinometer jumped around like a cricket. “There’s something definitely wrong with your horse though. I don’t know what, but it’s definitely something. He put the divinometer back in his bag. “What I’m going to do is to cast a basic disenchantment. Best case scenario it removes the curse. Worse case it shouldn’t do anything to your horse and I’ll at least have a better idea what I am dealing with here.”
“Very well,” Elisha nodded, “Do it.”
Thomas removed a small bottle of holy water and an iron cross from his bag, and very carefully approached the Horse. It glared balefully at him, but otherwise didn’t stop him from marking a small cross on its forehead with holy water. He stepped back, held up the cross, and recited the disenchantment invocation.
He came back to consciousness just as the purple tinge started to disappear from the sky.
Lady Elisha’s face hovered above him. “What just happened?”
Thomas blinked stupidly for a few minutes. “I don’t know. What did happen? All I remember is this bright burst of green light.”
“There was that,” Elisha agreed. “There was also this huge gust of wind, and this green bolt of lightning which shot up in the heavens and turned the sky purple.”
It was hailing, Thomas noted absently. “That… that sounds like a backlash… a big one… I…” A horrible thought occurred to him. “I didn’t just kill your horse did I!?”
“My horse is fine. Better than ever actually,” Elisha replied. “Whatever you did seems to have worked.” There was a loud equine scream from the courtyard and someone yelling that they needed stronger chains. “And what’s a backlash?”
“It’s…” Thomas took a few moments to get his thoughts back in order. “When you have something enchanted, and try to add more enchantments onto it, you sometimes get what’s called a backlash. Basically all the energy you’re trying to put into the spell rebounds back to you. I guess I must have triggered one when I tried to disenchant your horse. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a very strong disenchantment or I might have been fried like an egg.”
“What about that green bolt of lightning? It blew the roof right off the stable.”
“That’s probably the backlash from the curse going back to whomever is trying to curse your horse,” Thomas replied. “They must have been…” It was then that he suddenly became aware of the fact he was still in the stables, even though he could see the sky clearing through the now naked ceiling beams. It was also when he realized that it was not hailing. It was instead raining tiny bits of stone. The pulverized pieces of the slates which had covered the stable roof.
---
Thomas considering it a minor miracle that either Lady Elisha or her father didn’t have him immediately thrown in the dungeon, and that he was able to escape back to the cathedral and lock the door to his room behind him.
Within hours the story about how he had lifted a curse off Lady Elisha’s horse was all over the dutchy. No one could have possibly missed the gigantic bolt of green lightening or the way the sky had turned purple. Half the story was just about how he was able to get close to the “damned vicious beast.” Though, Thomas noted, there was no mention of the part where he knocked himself unconscious trying to do a basic disenchantment.
Eventually, he got up the courage to unlock his door and start being seen outside again. When he didn’t get arrested by the duke’s soldiers for blowing the roof off the duke’s stables, he tentatively assumed he was in the clear. When, three days later, the story reached Sprucevale about how Duke Creston had one of the towers of his castle blown to smithereens by a bolt of green lightning from the heavens, Thomas stayed silent.
He nearly had a heart attack a couple of days later when there was a knock at the rectory door, and he answered to find one of the duke’s soldiers waiting there. Thankfully they weren’t there to throw him in a cell in the castle dungeons. They were however, there to inform him that the Lady Elisha was going riding and had requested he accompany her.
Since there was no refusing a “request” from a noble of Elisha’s standing, Thomas dutifully saddled up Rainbow Basher and rode out to meet Elisha’s riding party.
---
Elisha’s eyebrows went up the moment Thomas came into view. “I’ll admit, I’ve never seen a horse of that coloring before. What breed is it?”
“I have no idea,” Thomas admitted. “A friend kindly offered to lend me a horse and this is what I got. She’s a good horse though. Got me and my trunks all the way here.”
“A very fine horse,” Lady Elisha agreed, giving Rainbow a look over. “Your friend must think highly of you to lend you such a fine animal.”
Rainbow Basher preened at the praise, throwing her head up and walking a little prouder.
Thomas cleared his throat. “You requested I accompany you Milady?”
“Yes,” Elsiha gave a motion and the entire riding party set off. “I wanted to thank you Brother Thomas. I was very pleased with the way to handled the situation with my horse. After your exorcism, my horse has been better than ever.”
Thomas thought the Horse looked even more starving and battered, but wisely chose not to comment on it.
“And I am especially please with the way your solution took care of the perpetrator of the curse.” She smiled viciously. “Lord Creston will think twice before he tries something like that again. Not the mention the fact he had one of his towers blasted off the side of his castle should send a strong message to others as to the inadvisability of trying something like that for themselves. I am pleased with how this situation was resolved Brother Thomas. Very pleased.”
Thomas blinked. “I knocked myself unconscious and blew the roof off your stable.”
Elisha made a dismissive gesture. “The stable has needed a new roof for years and my father has been dithering on it. Now that there is no roof over the stables he has to replace it. Either that or he will have to face the wrath of myself and all the grooms, which I assure you he definitely does not want to do.”
“Oh.” Thomas digested the news in silence. At the very least he apparently wasn’t going to be arrested and left to rot in the castle dungeon. “I… um… Thank you Milady.”
The riding party cross the river at the bridge and made their way across a fallow field to a ridge of cliffs overlooking a town.
“The routes gets a bit rough here,” Elisha turned towards Thomas and smiled. “Keep up if you can.”
Most people unaware of the Horse’s reputation took one look at the animal and suggested that the only thing it could possible be good for was glue and dog food. They would hardly guess that the half-starved appearance of the horse actually hid an animal that was one of the strongest and fastest in the kingdom. Not only that, but the Horse regarded almost any kind of terrain to be passable. It had no problems navigating brambles, swimming lakes, or climbing sheer cliff faces.
As a result, this gave Elisha a number of unique trails to go riding on. Trails on which no one else could follow her. While she was careful never to get completely out of sight of her guards (propriety had to be observed after all,) there was something satisfying in knowing there was something she could do that they couldn’t.
Elisha didn’t even flinch as the Horse scrabbled up pile of scree stones at the base of the cliff and began making its way up the sheer cliff face as if it were a mountain goat. It didn’t have the grace of a mountain goat of course. Instead of carefully navigating the narrow ledges on the cliff face, it charged straight up the rock. It’s hooves stuck into the smallest hold, and there were even times when it’s steel horseshoes seemed to grip the bare stone with nothing more than the horse’s sheer willpower keeping them both from plunging to their deaths.
Eventually they reached the top, and Elisha gazed out over the valley with a sense of satisfaction. This was one of her favorite trails. Yes, there was an easier way to get up to the top of the cliffs. But that involved circling around twenty miles and coming up the back. This was much quicker and much more satisfying in Elisha’s mind. She then looked down at the rest of her riding party, making their own way along the base of the cliffs. She expected to see Thomas there, looking up at her with the rest of them.
She did not expect to see a pair of dark purple hooves planted on the rock in front of her, or for Thomas’s mare to haul herself up to the top of the cliff right after her. Rainbow Basher gave a dismissive snort and tossed her head in the direction of the Horse, clearly saying that she could do that too, and she was not at all impressed. Thomas, for his part, was clinging to his saddle with a white knuckled grip and eyes wide open in disbelief.
“I did not know she could do that,” he gasped. He caught the look of disbelief on Elisha’s face. “You said keep up if I could Milady.”
Elisha stared at him for a few moments, then a laugh started to bubble up from within her. “That I did. Excellent work Brother Thomas. Very well, since you’ve kept up so far, let’s see if you can keep at it.”
The ride today was a bit longer and twisting than was Elisha’s usual custom. After following the cliffs for a while, Elisha cut down into a gully, scaled down nearly five meters of sheer rockface, and then navigated a twisted field of boulders and loose stones. All before dropping down into a boggy marsh filled with thorns and low branches.
Thomas was clearly no great equestrian. His nervousness was plain to see, and he mostly held tightly onto his saddle while leaving his mare entirely free reign. Rainbow Basher, for her part, didn’t seem to be the least bothered by her ridder’s nerves and gracefully kept pace with Elisha and the Horse, occasionally tossing her head to say, “See, I’m still better than you.”
All in all, Elisha found that she enjoyed this ride immensely. Despite everything, Thomas kept pace with her right up until the moment they rejoined the main body of the riding party.
“I enjoyed your company Brother Thomas,” Elisha declared as they approached the town, and Thomas made to split off from the part to return to his own home. “I plan to go riding again in a couple days time, and I would like you to come with us again.”
---
Thomas soon became a regular fixture in Elisha’s riding parties. If anyone asked, Elisha replied that Thomas was there to help instruct her in her spiritual development. While it was a bullshit excuse for the most part, Thomas did prove to be a learned theologian. Admittedly most of the deeper theology Thomas liked to talk about went largely over Elisha’s head. Still at least Thomas was not the type of priest to who got snotty and talked like everyone should be listening to their words like they came from God himself. While admittedly he did have a tendency to ramble on when he got on a topic that particularly interested him, he tended to be more embarrassed about it than anything.
It was kind of cute, Elisha thought.
In all honesty she had though his ability to follow her to places where previously only she could reach would have been annoying and frustrating. Instead, she found she enjoyed showing Thomas some of the previously secret places she had found while riding. She of course made sure that at least one person in her retinue could always see them. Propriety had to be upheld after all.
Not that anything happened that was really worth gossiping about. Mostly they just talked. Thomas about demonology and magical theory, and Elisha about court politics, fashion, and what the latest fashions revealed about court politics. Not to mention their shared stories about what it meant to ride a horse that was not like your average steed.
Elisha found she enjoyed talking with Thomas, even if there were times when most of what he was saying made absolutely no sense to her. Eventually, she finally put her finger on what exactly it was. Thomas actually listened to her. She knew of course, that many lords regarded “ladies talk” as being nothing more than frivolous gossip and usually tuned out everything a lady said unless it involved them, or something that interested them. Thomas didn’t do that. Sure, a lot of what she said about fashion and politics in the court went right over his head the same way theology and demonology went over hers. But he at least tried to listen and understand what she was saying. Even if she was sure that he would never figure out the subtle clues implied by wearing indigo instead of carmine, or why wearing purple was such a big deal.
There was also the rather sudden realization as to how long it had been since she had talked to a man her own age who wasn’t trying to court her. Marriage was a critically important part of a young lady’s life and Elisha had of course given it the consideration and attention it was due. But she had never quite realized how much it had come to dominate her social life. It was a rather stark insight when she realized that Thomas had been one of the first men she had met, that she didn’t immediately start assessing as a potential husband.
Of course, Thomas was not the kind of man she would have gone for if she was looking for a husband. His background and wealth aside, he wasn’t gallant, he wasn’t charming, he didn’t walk with the same confidence as her other suitors had. Awkward and stumbling over his words, he was a far cry from the lords who had sought her hand. But as Elisha recalled the dire threats Lord Charlie whispered in her ears, she tentatively concluded that that may not have been such a bad thing.
Thomas may not have been trying to court her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t attracted to her. She didn’t miss the way he would glance at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. Nor the way he had flushed red when she had talked about some of the more daring alterations to her dress’s neckline that her seamstress wanted to make. But, he also knew his place. He had no business chasing after a duke’s daughter, and so he didn’t even try.
A penniless priest was definitely not a suitable husband for a lady of her standing, and whenever Elisha thought about this, she felt an unfamiliar flare of anger. It wasn’t like any of Thomas’s vows prevented him from getting married. When the King brought the kingdom out from under the corrupt hand of the Pope, the priests in the land started swearing vows of chastity, not celibacy. Still, a priest was simply not a suitable husband for her.
Except, that wasn’t quite true. Elisha cast a glance back at Thomas as a new idea came to her. The bishops of the kingdom were powerful people in their own right. While Father Hick’s frugal lifestyle didn’t suggest much wealth or power, every tithed coin in Sprucevale passed through his hands, and a significant share of those tithes stayed with him, even after he had paid for the upkeep of the cathedral and the orphanage he ran in town. Father Hicks had a significant amount of influence too, even if he rarely had to use it. He was a lord in all but name, and Elisha realized that her parents wouldn’t object to such a connection to the church.
Father Hicks was also getting up there in age. He would eventually retire. Elisha cast another glance back at Thomas. How were bishops appointed anyway? She resolved to find out.
---
Thomas was starting to get used to receiving letters from the castle. Every the proper lady, Elisha always made sure to send him a formal invitation to go riding with her. So when he finally got around to cracking the seal and actually reading the missive, he was not expecting anything particularly earthshaking.
That expectation disappeared when he realized that it wasn’t Lady Elisha’s handwriting on the letter.
“What does it say?” Father Hicks asked upon seeing the look on Thomas’s face.
“It’s from the Duke,” Thomas replied, his staring in disbelief at the letter. “He wants to offer me a position in his court to advise him on all matters uncanny and supernatural.”
“Congratulations Thomas,” Hicks smiled. “You’ve been doing good work here and it looks like the Duke recognizes it.”
Thomas just blinked at him and slowly lowered the letter. His face was a look of utter confusion.
“But I blew the roof off his stables…”
---
Being the advisor for the duke didn’t turn out to be as radical a change as he was expecting. For one, the Duke of Sprucevale rarely had any business that involved the uncanny and supernatural to any degree. In fact, most of his duties seemed to involve Lady Elisha introducing him to various members of the nobility. Often with an emphasis on all his supposed good works all over the dutchy.
Still it gave him plenty of time to visit Hicks at the cathedral and continue on his regular exorcism duties.
Which was why he found himself called to one of the smaller hamlets along Sprucevales borders in order to deal with what the famer assured him was a possessed pig.
Thomas was especially surprised to discover that the pig was actually possessed by a demon. The glowing yellow eyes and the stream of confident insults it directed at him made that diagnosis pretty obvious.
A binding seal on the pig at least got it to shut up, but driving the demon from the animal proved difficult. Thomas was just about to ride back to the cathedral to get some holy relics, when he realized that the demon had actually made a poor decision in its choice of hosts.
The pig may have been a very large and fearsome animal, with a impressive set of teeth. But it had also spent all fall being fattened up for winter before it had encountered the demon.
Thomas had no trouble at all convincing the farmer and the rest of the hamlet that the best solution was to hold a pork feast in honor of Saint Jerome.
---
Elisha’s uncle, the Count of Redriver, lived his life under the simple precept that if you did right to others, they would do right by you.
Folks who had heard this about Count Bartholomew often thought that this was part of an elaborate act by the man to throw potential enemies off guard, and that there was no way a lord of the land could be that naïve. Folks who knew him personally were quick to assure others that it wasn’t an act. He really was that naïve.
Count Bartholomew steadfastly believed that the world was a fair place and that as long as you did your duties honorably everything would work out for you. God was just and fair, and looked out for everyone.
God had never had the heart to break him of those illusions.
Every year he set out from his castle, towing a wooden chest containing his yearly tribute to the King. He never brought with him more than two guards, and sometimes not even that. Every year without fail, he arrived at the capital after a long but uneventful journey, completely unmolested, and with every single piece of gold accounted for.
He was actually a legend in the court. The man who could ride the full length of the Red Road, the single most bandit infested stretch of highway in the kingdom, with no guard, and an unlocked chest filled to the brim with gold, and not lose so much as a single piece.
Count Bartholomew actually thought the Red Road was perfectly safe to travel, and considered his own two guards to be quite unnecessary. In nearly forty years, he had not been attacked by thieves even once, and the only bandits he even saw were the ones who had fallen asleep on watch.
His county was actually one of the safest and most prosperous in the whole kingdom, and it wasn’t because of any particular care or skill on his part. He appointed all his officials based on nepotistic recommendations by his advisers, and somehow only got the most honest, diligent, and conscientious of men. Misfortune seemed to slide past the county without its lord being any the wiser. Plagues, uprisings, famine, pestilence, banditry and civil strife all seemed to avoid Redriver like a dead horse.
The people of Redriver considered him to be powerful good luck, and since Count Bartholomew was a fair and just lord, they actually rather liked their “Lucky Count.” Half of it was a sort of lingering fear that if they did anything to break their lord of his illusions, then the good times would vanish instantly to be replaced by the most savage of bad luck. Either way, the peasantry went out of its way to avoid causing trouble for their lord, and even the most greedy of merchants made extra sure to keep their prices fair. It was after all, a small price to pay for the continued run of good harvests, bandit free countryside, and fair weather. Not to mention that openly causing trouble in one of Redriver’s towns was a sure-fire way to find yourself at the wrong end of an angry mob that wanted to quietly lynch you. (They didn’t want to bother their lord after all.)
Even the most conniving of courtly intrigue past Bartholomew by without him ever being aware of it. Attempts to use him as a dupe always seemed to backfire on the perpetrators, and half the court was convinced that attempting to draw him into one of their plots brought the certainty of disaster. Where other lords had to plot like the devil just to stay out of it all, conspiracy and intrigue alike passed Count Bartholomew by without him even noticing.
He lived a charmed life, and while he never had the strikes of outrageous fortune that others experienced, it was more than made up for in the myriad of disasters that passed him and his subjects by. He was not the richest or most powerful of lords, but he was certainly the luckiest.
No one knew how the demon had been able to posses him.
---
When the breathless courier arrived at the castle with the news that Count Bartholomew had been possessed by a demon, Elisha sprung into action. Count Bartholomew was her favorite uncle, and she had always had fond memories of visiting him. She immediately sent for Thomas, who was out in the dutchy investigating allegations of a cursed cauldron. It wasn’t hard to track him down, all they needed to do was to ask if anyone had seen a rainbow horse.
Within a day the entire party was ready to ride out. The ride to Redriver went fairly well all things considered. The contingent of soldiers that accompanied the party was enough to discourage any bandits from taking them on, and the only delay they happened to encounter was one of the horses throwing a shoe.
They arrived in Redriver to a sense of overwhelming worry, eminent despair, and barely contained hysteria which only seemed to lift a little when Elisha announced that she had brought an exorcist with her. The story, at least as far as the castle staff knew was that Count Bartholomew had retreated to his study after the midday luncheon, as was his custom. When one of the servants had come to fetch him for dinner, they had found him with eyes glowing gold, stabbing a pen-knife into his arm.
It had taken the combined strength of the castle blacksmith, a visiting mason, and the castle baker to restrain the Count without hurting him further. Upon seeing the look on Elisha’s face, the servant telling the story had hastily added that it had been necessary in order to stop the demon from being able to do more harm to the Count.
When they saw Count Bartholomew, Thomas found he couldn’t blame them. A clean bandage on one arm showed where the demon had stabbed the Count with the penknife. And numerous red stains showed where he had bitten and scratched himself, before his servants had been able to tie his limbs to the posts of his bed.
Thomas tried everything. Rites, invocations, holy water, blessed incense, and holy icons. The demon laughed in his face, mocking him with every failed attempt. He send a runner back to Sprucevale to retrieve some of the holy relics kept there. They did nothing. He poured over every scrap of lore he could find to no avail.
Then, an idea occurred to him.
“There is one more thing I can try,” he announced to the gathered crowd. “But I must ask everyone to leave the room. The rite I am about to attempt is secret and potentially dangerous to bystanders.”
A murmur of protest went through the crowd, but at Thomas’s grim look, they began to file out the door.
“I’m not leaving,” Elisha declared. “I don’t care what the risks are. He’s my uncle and I am not leaving his side until that vile creature is out of him.”
Thomas opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, seemed to struggle on what to say, before finally managing to speak. “Alright, but you must swear not to speak of what you see to anyone or anything.”
“I swear,” Elisha replied.
Thomas nodded, and bolted the door shut. He tend reached into his bag and removed a simple piece of charcoal, which he began using to draw on the floor.
“Sooo,” the demon drawled. “What’s it going to be this time? Hot irons? Got to remember that I’m not the one that’s going to be…” the smug smirk dropped off it’s face as it saw what Thomas was drawing. “Y-you fool! Do you have any idea what you are doing!?”
Elisha didn’t know what he was doing, that was for sure. But the symbols he was etching on the floor in chalk didn’t look like any holy invocation she had ever seen.
The demon began thrashing against the restraints. “STOP IT! STOP IT YOU FOOL! HE WILL DESTORY US BOTH!”
A shooting star, a pair of glasses, a five point star with tiny wings and a great eye in its center.
“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF POWERS YOU ARE MESSING WITH PRIEST! NONE!”
Elisha watched carefully as Thomas finished the last line in the circle, before reaching into his bag and removing a small folding knife.
“What are you doing?”
Thomas smiled grimly. “I’m asking a friend for some help.”
---
No one in Redriver knew exactly what Thomas did. But everyone in the castle saw the bright burst of golden light that shone out from under the door and lit up the tower windows. Everyone heard the great eldritch scream of terror as the demon was ripped out of Count Bartholomew. Then silence. When one of the servants finally got up the courage to knock on the door, it was answered by Lady Elisha.
“It’s over,” she said. “The demon’s gone. My lord uncle is alright.”
The news spread like a grassfire all over the county, so that by the time Thomas emerged from the room, exhausted and drained, he was greeted by a crowd cheering as if he had single-handedly save the county from utter ruin.
Which, as far as they were concerned, was exactly what he had done.
---
Thomas had to admit, Count Bartholomew looked much better now that he was free of the demon. His various minor injuries had been treated and bandaged, the golden glow was gone from his eyes, and his face showed an easy smile instead of the demon’s arrogant sneer.
“Brother Thomas, from what my niece has told me, I owe you a great debt,” the Count said, making a half bow in Thomas’s direction. “I shudder to think what that creature would have done if it had been allowed to continue inhabiting my body.”
“It was nothing really,” Thomas replied, holding up his hands in protest. “I couldn’t just stand by while an innocent person had their bodies stolen by an unholy creature like that.”
“Regardless, you did a great thing today,” the Count replied. “A great deed that deserves a reward. I have been thinking long and hard about what I could possibly offer you. How would you like to become a Count?”
Thomas’s brain stalled. Elisha snapped her head around to stare at her uncle in disbelief.
“I have no heir,” he continued. “I always figured I would find a wife I could love one day, but it simply never happened. But, it seems like that was merely part of God’s plan. You’re a good man Brother Thomas, and I have a feeling you would make a good Count one day. What do you say?”
The earnestly hopeful look on Count Bartholomew’s face, somehow was even more frightening then the calculating glint which had entered Elisha’s eyes.
“Bu… tha… I… I’m not noble! My parents are bakers!” Thomas blurted out. His eyes darted around expecting someone to jump out and reveal the jest. Tyrone maybe, this sounded like something he’d pull.
“And my ancestors were blacksmiths once,” Count Bartholomew retorted instead. “Nobility isn’t just blood my boy. It’s a duty that must be taken up by those who are capable. This land needed a lord once, so my ancestors changed anvils for castles. Besides, it is my right as Count to pick who will succeed me. I’m sure no one will object when I tell them why I am appointing you as my heir.”
Elisha could think of several people who would object very vehemently. But she could also think of several people, the King among them, who would back a wanted thief as Bartholomew’s heir, so long as it meant blocking his other potential heirs from inheriting the county.
“But.. but… I know nothing of lordship!” Thomas said, looking more and more like a man being threatened with a hot poker than anything. “I studied theology and demonology, not statecraft!”
Count Bartholomew just let out a rueful chuckle. “It’s not as hard as you would think. While I am not a young man anymore, I am not old just yet, and I am still in good health. I am not dying anytime soon. You will have time to learn what you need to be a count. All you really need to have when you start out is steady virtue, a just temper, and a willingness to put the needs of your county first. God will take care of the rest.”
Thomas’s eyes darted over to Elisha who was giving her uncle a silent headshake that was as exasperated as it was fond.
“Uncle,” she interrupted. “Brother Thomas is a very humble man. It’s quite big thing you are asking of him. You’ve given him quite a shock with your offer.”
“Oh!” Count Bartholomew blinked as he digested what his niece had told him. “Of course. How rude of me. Take as much time as you like to consider my offer. In the meantime I would like to invite you to stay here as my guest. I’ve had a servant set aside rooms for you, and there will be feast tonight in your honor. I really cannot thank you enough for what you have done.”
“I… Thank you Milord,” Thomas blurted out. “I am honored.”
“I will show Brother Thomas to his room,” Elisha spoke up. “The one in the west wing with the large window?”
“Naturally,” he uncle replied. “Thank you Elisha.”
---
“You should take my uncle’s offer.”
Thomas had been expecting Elisha to say that. The only surprise was that she waited until the afternoon after the feast to do so.
“Milady, I’m an exorcist,” he sighed. “I know nothing about lordship. I can bake bread and drive demons out of pigs.”
Elisha snorted. “My uncle may be naïve, but he was right about one thing. You don’t need much to be a successful lord, at least when compared to some others I can name. You’re no fool Brother Thomas, and that means a lot. You can bake? The entire kingdom runs on bread. From the grains paid to the lords in taxes to the loaves that feed its armies. And I know for a fact that none of the lords in this kingdom can drive a demon out of anything.”
“But…”
“You’re actually better off than many other lords in this kingdom. You’ve already won the love of the people of Redriver. My uncle is considered the good luck charm of the county, and every peasant believes that he alone is responsible for every good harvest and every disaster averted. As far as they are concerned, you’ve saved them from the brink of disaster.”
“But...” Thomas dropped his voice to a whisper. “I didn’t actually do anything.”
Elisha shrugged. “You have formidable friends to call upon. Any lord of the kingdom will tell you that alone can be the key to success or failure. There are many dukes who would give their entire duchies to be in the situation you are now.” She suddenly turned to look him in the eyes. “This is an opportunity of a lifetime. You say your parents are bakers? Well, you have the chance to become not just a noble, but a count with prosperous lands to call your own. Don’t throw it away because you think you’re not worthy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”
“I…” Thomas ran his hands through his hair. “You really think I could do this?”
“Absolutely. All my uncle has to do is adopt you into his family and declare you his heir.” And knowing her uncle’s luck, that would really be all he would have to do. She cast a Thomas a warm smile. “My uncle may only be a count, but his lands are prosperous and rich in more than just fields. There’s gold in the streams, good fishing in the lakes, and excellent pastureland in the hills. There are dukes who envy his holdings. My family would not object if I were to marry his heir.”
Thomas turned to her in confusion. Then his mouth dropped open as the meaning of Elisha’s words hit him.
---
A crowd had gathered in the market square. They craned their necks to peer down the street, hoping to get a glimpse of what they came to see. Then a low murmur of excitement rippled through them as they caught sight of Thomas riding into town.
He was hunched down in his saddle, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, yet acutely aware of every set of eyes on him. It was rather similar to the day he first arrived in Sprucevale, only this time he wasn’t riding Rainbow Basher.
His steed didn’t have a name. It didn’t need one. There was no mistaking that scarred and battered animal for any other horse.
A cheer of excitement and disbelief burst from the crowd as looped around the statue of Saint Herbert and began making his way back to the duke’s castle.