DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) by R.A. Salvatore Page B

Brother Braumin,” Je’howith remarked, turning the younger monk back around. “At last year’s College of Abbots, Abbot Agronguerre did not agree with Father Abbot Markwart’s damning decree against Master Jojonah. He even expressed his concerns to me that we might be too quick to condemn Brother Avelyn, given that we did not know the extent of the man’s actions in league with, or against, the demon dactyl.”
    Braumin nodded again and began to consider that the meeting with Je’howith had gone much better than he could have ever hoped possible.
    P ony saw the final exchange between Braumin and Je’howith, the latter surely no friend of hers! She had heard nothing of their discourse, though, and so she watched Brother Braumin closely as he turned and started away, noting the apparently satisfied spring in his stride, a gait that only increased when he spotted Pony and headed straight for her.
    “Jousting with the enemy?” she asked.
    “Trying to smooth the trail,” Braumin replied. “For surely it is filled with deep ruts since Jilseponie will not heed our call.”
    Pony laughed at the man’s unrelenting pressure. They simply could not hold any conversation without Brother Braumin pushing at her to ally formally and openly with the Church, with the new Abellican Church that he and his companions had determined to bring into being. “If you believe that the road would become smoother and easier if I accepted your invitation to bid to become mother abbess, then you are a fool, Brother Braumin,” she replied.
    “You have the deathbed blessing of a father abbot.”
    “A fallen father abbot,” Pony reminded, “a man I brought to that deathbed.”
    “One who found a moment of clarity and repentance in his last moments of life,” Braumin came back. “And that moment will be honored within a Church that espouses penitence.”
    Pony chuckled again at the brother’s unrelenting idealism. Could he not see the fallacy of his own prediction, that the College of Abbots would become so enmeshed in attempts at personal gain that Markwart’s last statement, and Francis’ interpretation of it, would be viewed with skepticism or even dismissed outright?
    But they had already been through this argument a dozen times at least, and Pony had no heart for it again. Nor the time, for a moment later, Duke Bretherford entered the room and announced the arrival of King Danube Brock Ursal.
    Danube swept into the room, Constance and Kalas flanking him and a line of Allheart knights in shining armor behind them.
    “My time is limited, for the tides will soon be favorable,” he said, motioning at the large oval table set for the gathering. As one, the monks and the nobles—andPony, who still wasn’t sure exactly how she fit in or where she was supposed to sit—headed for their seats, then waited patiently and deferentially as King Danube took his own.
    “Grace us with the blessing,” the King bade Abbot Je’howith, a slight against Braumin, Talumus, and particularly Francis that was not lost on Pony.
    Je’howith gladly complied, calling for God’s blessings in these troubled times, for His guidance that His Church might put itself into proper order to erase the errors of the past year.
    Pony listened carefully and marveled at how well the old man avoided specific judgments in his prayer, at how he gave no indication of who it was he thought had made those vague mistakes. Yes, Je’howith was a crafty one, she reminded herself. She—and, to her thinking, Braumin and the others would do well to follow her lead—didn’t trust him in the least.
    “What are your plans?” King Danube asked immediately after the prayer was ended. He looked to Braumin as he spoke, but his bluntness had obviously caught the monk by surprise, and Braumin quickly turned to Francis for support.
    “We will convene a College of Abbots as soon as it can be arranged, obviously,” Abbot Je’howith interjected, “perhaps in St. Precious rather