Talkro was a village. Now, it’s turning into a town, which Draka was fairly proud of. Workers were flooding to Talkro with their families to work in the fisheries, to become apprentices, to live lives they never thought possible. Nearly two hundred had arrived since he was officially named the sovereign. He had some ideas as to what to do with all of them, but that’s what happens when you have an entire settlement to rebuild. People come and make it their home. Talkro Village was now the Town of Talkro.
Berone, as everyone in Talkro called it, by any definition, was no village. It was a city.
The smell of civilization was the first to assault Draka’s senses. He knew it well. To some, it smelled like hanging spices and vegetables, like fish and meat markets, like buckets of dyes being painted over textiles. For Draka, it smelled like pickpockets and scheming, like hunger and bullies, like orphaned children and roving soldiers. And as he was led through the streets by armored bullies under the guise of soldiers, he understood why Christophe had been so adamant and Gerard so opposing; this place can go by no other name than Strasbourg.
Ancient buildings were foundations for wooden houses and shops. Ancient streets were patches of mortared bricks and stones, some mismatched replacements. Walls of what must have been enormous structures were rebuilt into stacked homes and apartments. There were shops, of course, with little wooden signs engraved with pictures of what they sold hanging over their doors.
The soldiers parted the milling people for them to pass, like a blade slicing through grain, crowding them on the sidewalks against the windows. Beyond their many faces, windows were filled with a variety of wares that Draka hadn’t seen since he left the Holy Lands. Displays of dressed mannequins, or settings of pottery and glass, varieties of tools, could be seen beyond them.
It wasn’t the shops and their displays that truly held his attention. It was their faces. Some were awed, hopeful, while others looked suspicious and angry. Expectant. He watched the way they followed him. The way they followed all of his horsemen. Whispers in the air made him suddenly aware that his loose cotton shirt and thick hide trousers, the sword on his belt and saddle weighed down with bundles and bags, made him look less like their prince and more like the barbarian everyone thought he was. Even with the kite-shield strapped to his back, he knew didn’t look anything like what they expected or wanted.
In the distance, the cathedral rose to dominate the skyline. Draka had seen other cathedrals, as imposing as this, but there was something different about this one. With that single tower holding the cross upright above a thousand stained glass windows and etchings of saints, he knew how small he truly was. And how big he had become with only the serendipitous workings of God to carry him. This was the only cathedral in all of old France that had not been overtaken by the corruption of the Fallen. The only one whose tired bricks, gray with a thousand years of rain and ash, were still consecrated as they had been when it was built so long ago. The Cardinal who had resided there when the world split open was the very same who anointed the first Paladin, who blessed the sword God gave him.
This place was holy.
And it was his.
How did no one mention that the cathedral was within his lands? He thought the Abbey in Talkro was his most holy possession. He tried to think of what it was called, his head was swimming within what his eyes were digesting. How did he miss that this would be his as well? No, Draka bit his lip at the behemoth filling the horizon in front of him as if it were pushing the city itself apart, the Diocese kept that from him for a reason.
“My Prince?” Karl leaned into Draka’s vision.
The stained glass window was held by the same bars that lifted saints and angels to protect its stone features. Tall spires adorned every surface that faced him, adjoined to the flying buttresses held in place by cherubs. Draka couldn’t close his mouth, it would stop him from leaning his head back as far. He couldn’t close his eyes, for then he wouldn’t see such proof of the divine.
Draka stopped Vigora as they emerged into the wide courtyard. He could go no further. He may not know what the name was, but he knew it all the same. He recognized it the way only a Paladin of God could.
“The Baron is waiting for us through there, in the Palais Rohan,” Karl pointed.
Draka slid from the saddle and handed him Vigora’s reins.
How could he take his eyes from it? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Each step he took toward the great structure was a step on consecrated ground. A step on holy ground. Ground that resonated with the Holy Spirit. Uncorrupted. Untainted. Untouched. Not even man’s greatest evils could destroy this place. This seat of grace.
“Welcome,” A priest greeted him as he stepped through the tall wooden doors.
Holy Mary looked down at him from colorful stained glass as he took his first steps into her light. Sculptures of the Nativity and Heaven’s Legions surrounded him. He drew his sword as he landed his knee on the smooth marble floor. He bowed his head as he raised the sword by its blade in salute.
“In nomine Patri, per Fili, per Spirito Sancti,” the Priest sprinkled anointing oil over his bowed head. “I welcome thee, Paladin of the Holy Spirit.”
It had been a long time since Draka smiled as widely, as proudly, as he did in that moment. To be here, where the residual hum of the Holy Spirit surrounded everything and everyone within its ornate walls, made his heart sing.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” the Priest followed his upturned circles across the nave. “Are you on pilgrimage?”
No, but perhaps I should be, Draka beamed at the intricate paintings in the vaulted ceilings. The gilded columns and stained-glass windows, the statuary and friezes, Draka couldn’t open his eyes wide enough.
“Confession then? Or are you in need of oils or vials of blessed water?”
Draka stopped at the center of the crossing and turned to the apse. Marble steps rose under the stained-glass gaze of the Holy Mary to the stone altar draped with a red cloth and golden communion pieces. On either side of her were lines of painted Apostles and Saints sitting in council for her. Under her gaze, his smile faded and his sword was sheathed after he kissed the ruby encrusted to its pommel in salute to the grace God bestowed upon her as the mother of Christ.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
For some reason, Draka was certain she was looking in his eyes.
“Beautiful rendition, is it not?” Draka could smell the Cardinal’s perfume before he was near enough to speak. “Such reverence. Magnificent artistry.”
Draka turned from her gaze to the Cardinal with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes.
“Paladin Dietrich Luminis, Grande Prince of Alcalia, I presume?” The Cardinal had one brow raised above the other. Feathery white hair surrounded his red skullcap, matching the thin white beard that framed his wide face. “I am Cardinal Peter Olivier and this,” he made a theatrical spin with his hands held outward, “is Our Lady of Strasbourg Cathedral. Of course, you probably know it as Paladin’s Reach, where the Archangel Michael descended to give the first Paladin his flaming sword.” Cardinal Olivier flicked his eyebrows. “Want to see it?”
Draka took one last gaze back at Holy Mary before following Cardinal Olivier to the chapel doorway.
“I was told you took a vow of silence,” Cardinal Olivier led him into a narrow passage of steep steps winding into torchlight. “Quite telling for one of your renown. To be lifted into a divinely ordained Princedom without a voice—now that is a true testament of faith.”
He brought Draka into a small sanctum lit by small lamps hanging from wall hooks. Two armored knights clicked their heels and straightened. Draka didn’t have to look at the polished steel suits of armor they wore, or the ornate swords sheathed on their hips, or the tall two-handed swords they raised in salute, to know that they were paladins. Between them, within a glass cage, was a plain katana with a blade decorated by scorch marks. Draka raised a brow at it. Not what he imagined.
The Cardinal pointed, “This is Paladin Tilly Vitred,” cuirass with a painted red cross over a rippling white ribbon, “And Paladin Portis Melyonais,” gold cross in a cloud bursting with blue streams to represent holy light. He turned back to Draka, “Allow me to introduce…”
“Paladin Dietrich of the Seven Points,” Tilly tore his helmet off with excitement. He was younger than Draka with eyes dark as the night and skin nearly to match. His smile was wide and welcoming. He rested the six-foot-long blade on his shoulder as he stretched out his other hand. “It is an honor.”
Portis nearly chucked his helmet across the sanctum to get it off. He was brimming with excitement, like a child on the verge of soiling himself. Draka tried not to look too deeply into his one drooping eye and crooked jaw. The man had taken quite a wound to an otherwise flawless Alpine complexion. “A true honor to be in your presence.”
Draka shook their hands with curt nods. Then he leaned to get another look at the sword. A katana? Really? He pointed with a questioning frown at it.
“Oh, yeah, I felt the same way when I saw it,” Tilly chuckled while trying to strap his helmet back on with one hand. Draka gladly helped him.
“The awe at something so holy is to be expected,” Cardinal Olivier ran his fingers along the golden frame of the glass case. “I am often speechless at the sight.”
All three paladins turned wincing faces to the Cardinal. Then they laughed at him.
“What?” Cardinal Olivier blinked at them.
“Dial down the pretention, lobster,” Portis said as Draka finished buckling his helmet in place. “That is not a combat sword and any warrior who has fought the Legions knows it.”
“You blaspheme the greatest weapon to ever—”
The three exchanged glances and laughed again. This time, Tilly pointed at the Cardinal.
“The greatest, he says,” Tilly doubled over trying to breathe through his laughter. “Did you read the scriptures?”
“It wasn’t in the Liturgy,” Portis answered.
Their laughter became thunderous. Even Draka was having trouble catching his breath.
“And you call me pretentious,” Cardinal Olivier growled to himself.
They only nodded in agreement, falling into each other.
“No, really, though,” Tilly wiped his face and pointed, “You have the Lord’s True Sight, like they say? Look at it with that and you’ll see.”
Draka closed his eyes and mouthed his prayer for the Lord to open them. And when he did, the sword was no longer a thin metal katana that would barely cut bread without breaking, but a thick saber of writhing blue flames that glowed with the power of the Holy Spirit. Draka nodded approvingly.
“So, now you approve?” Cardinal Olivier frowned at him. “What is it that your True Sight can see and mine doesn’t? Proof that this is a holy weapon, bestowed by the—”
“Shall I tell him?” Tilly waited until Draka nodded. To the Cardinal, he said, “It isn’t in First Paladinate, but we all know when we see it. This is not a sword that a warrior would carry into battle by itself. Without the Holy Spirit anointing it, it’s brittle and weak.”
“The very definition of unimposing,” Portis shrugged.
“And you thought that was funny, why? Sounds like each of you should confess your vanity, to me.”
Draka crossed his arms with a crooked brow. He shook his head.
“No?” Cardinal Olivier eyed him. “Does that not constitute blasphemy?”
Draka rolled his eyes. Tilly brought down his helmet’s face shield.
Portis winked, “No. It is admittance to something you Diocese never will understand.”
“And what is that, pray tell?”
“That it doesn’t have to be covered in gold and furs for God to make it holy. And, that the Paladin’s personal weapon wasn’t given to him by the Archangel,” Portis slid his own helmet’s face shield into place, “It was blessed.”
Draka patted Cardinal Olivier’s shoulder as they both regarded the weapon. What Draka saw was a testament to what made him a paladin. Unimposing, unimportant, and weak but when used as the Lord commands, it becomes strong, important, and imposing.
What the Cardinal saw was something he was told was important, was strong, and was imposing, therefore he had faith in that and saw it no other way. Blindly following what another told him was true.
As they made their way up the steep steps back into the chapel, Draka wondered how different the Cardinal would have acted if no one told him what the weapon was. If he had seen it without knowing it was holy, would he have still treated it the same? Would he have treated Draka the way he did if Draka didn’t make himself known?
Weak, unimportant, and unimposing. That’s how he preferred to be seen, anyway.
