Ascendance

"BUT I KNEWyou would be here!" Jilseponie cried when she saw the couple enter the common room of Caer Tinella. She rushed across the room to Roger Lockless and wrapped him in a big hug, then moved to similarly embrace Dainsey.

Jilseponie's smile did not hold, though, when she glanced behind the pair to see that the third expected arrival was apparently not with them.

"Belster could not make the journey," Roger explained, for Jilseponie's distress was obvious.

"He is ill?" Jilseponie asked, her blue eyes wide. "I will go to him straightaway - "

"Not ill," Dainsey interjected to try and calm her.

"He hurt his leg," Roger explained. "He fares well and tried to make the journey, but we had to turn back, for the bouncing of the wagon was paining him greatly."

"I will go to him," Jilseponie said again and this time, instead of protesting, Roger looked at her warmly.

"I told him as much," Roger explained. His gaze went across the room to King Danube, sitting at the bar and chatting easily with another man, whom Roger recognized as Duke Bretherford of the Mirianic. "And perhaps it would do you well to visit Elbryan's grave this season."

Jilseponie narrowed her gaze as she continued to eye Roger.

"Has he asked you to wed him?" Roger bluntly asked.

"Ooo, me Queen," Dainsey teased with a little curtsey.

Jilseponie scowled at her, but it was feigned anger and Dainsey knew it. "He has not," Jilseponie answered.

"But neither has he left yet," Roger replied slyly.

Jilseponie glanced back over her shoulder at King Danube and merely shrugged, not denying the truth of that and revealing her belief that King Danube did indeed intend to propose before he returned to the southland.

"And if he does?" Roger asked, somewhat suspiciously. His tone more than anything else made Jilseponie turn back around to regard him.

"Will Pony agree to become the queen of Honce-the-Bear?" the straightforward Roger asked, using Jilseponie's long-discarded nickname, a name that only Roger could use without invoking her anger.

"No," Jilseponie answered without the slightest hesitation.

Roger and Dainsey, apparently struck by the sudden definitive answer, looked at each other with wide eyes.

" Ponywill never marry another," Jilseponie explained, putting heavy emphasis on the nickname. "For I fear that Pony died when Elbryan died, not to be seen again."

Roger swallowed hard, then blew a sigh. "Forgive me," he said, and he gently took Jilseponie's hand in his own. "But do tell me how Jilseponie will answer King Danube, should the proposal come. That is, if Jilseponie even knows."

She glanced over her shoulder again, studying the King as if she meant to make that decision then and there. "She does not know," she admitted, and she turned back. "But after yet another summer beside him, I remain convinced that King Danube is a fine and honorable man, a worthy king."

"But do ye love him?" Dainsey was quick to ask, cutting Roger's forthcoming statement short before it could even begin.

"I enjoy his company greatly," Jilseponie said. "I know that I feel better when he is beside me. So, yes, Dainsey, I believe that I do." She didn't miss Roger's slight scowl at that nor his sincere attempt to bite it back.

"Not as I loved Elbryan," she quickly added, because Roger Lockless, who so adored and admired Elbryan, had to hear her speak those words. "That love," she went on, and she pulled her hand free of Roger's light grasp and placed it on his arm, then put her other hand on Dainsey's arm, drawing them together, "the love that you two have found, I know that I will never find again. Nor, in truth, do I desire to find it again - unless it is in the existence beyond this mortal body with my Elbryan. But I suspect that I can be satisfied - nay, even more than that, I can be happy -with the type of love that I believe I have found with King Danube. Will I agree to his proposal, should it come? I know not, because I will not know the truth of my feelings until that moment is upon me."

Roger was nodding - satisfied, it seemed - and also smiling, as if he knew something that Jilseponie did not.

"Honce-the-Bear will thrive under the reign of Queen Jilseponie," he remarked dramatically, and Jilseponie narrowed her eyes again.

And then they all laughed, and this was exactly the way that Jilseponie had hoped her reunion with Roger and Dainsey would go, touching on the most serious of subjects with the intimate humor that only best friends might know. Asking the most important questions but doing so in friendship with complete trust.

How she had missed Roger's company for the last year!

What Jilseponie had known for certain was that she would never have accepted King Danube's proposal without first speaking of it, should it come, with Roger and Dainsey. She glanced over her shoulder at the King again.

No, Pony could never marry him, could never love him; but Jilseponie?

Jilseponie, perhaps.

On a cold and windy autumn day, falling leaves filling the air with a dance that was both animated and somber, King Danube Brock Ursal, Baroness Jilseponie, Roger and Dainsey Lockless, Duke Bretherford, Abbot Braumin Herde, Master Fio Bou-raiy, and other dignitaries from Palmaris' secular and religious communities stood about the main room, the chapel, of the simple stone structure that had been erected in Caer Tinella, some hundred and fifty miles north of Palmaris.

The dedication of the Chapel of Avelyn Desbris was well attended, given the season and the locale, with all of the folk of Caer Tinella and her sister town of Landsdown, a small group that had come south from Dundalis and the other two towns of the Timberlands, and a smattering of common folk who had made the journey from Palmaris, clustered within and about the building. Still, for Jilseponie and for Braumin Herde, the number of people just didn't seem sufficient.

"All the world should be here," Roger whispered to Jilseponie when it was evident that no other caravans were on their way in. "How many thousands did he save?"

"Meself among them," said Dainsey. Roger's wife, indeed, had been the first to taste of the blood of Avelyn and enter the sacred, plague- defeating covenant. "Be sure that I'd have traveled all the way from the Weathered Isles to see this day!"

Jilseponie looked at the woman and smiled warmly, believing every word. She had known Dainsey for years, since the woman had been Dainsey Aucomb, a seemingly hapless serving girl in the Fellowship Way. What a transformation the change in name had seemed to bring to the young woman -that, and the trials of the rosy plague. No more was Dainsey a giddy young girl, wearing her heart like an open invitation for anyone to come along and wound. Now she was much more reserved and calm, thoughtful even. Life with Roger was suiting her very well.

As that union was obviously suiting Roger well, Jilseponie realized. She had known Roger since he had first taken what was now his proper last name, Lockless. Such a young man he had been, a braggart and a bit of a fool, but with enough talent and that other intangible quality, charisma, that had made him valuable to Elbryan and Jilseponie during the aftermath of the Demon War, and had truly endeared him to them. As he had grown, Roger had taken back his true surname, Billingsbury; but as he had grown more, in the years after Elbryan's death, he had again taken the name of Lockless, this time formally. How he had grown! And right before her eyes, Jilseponie realized. She could still remember the joy she had found on that day when she had first learned that Dainsey and Roger, two of her best friends in all the world, were to be wed. And how she had missed them over these last months. Many times over the course of the summer, she had wandered toward Roger's usual room in Chasewind Manor, hoping to speak with him about her adventures with Danube, only to remember that he was not there for her this time.

Indeed, Jilseponie was glad that they were with her now, in what might prove to be one of the most important seasons of her life.

It was a day of many speeches and many cheers, a day both solemn and somber, and yet, like the leaves blowing about on the autumn wind outside, a day full of the dance of life. Former abbot and now Parson Braumin led it off with a long recounting of his days at St.-Mere-Abelle, secretly following Master Jojonah, the one man at the parent abbey who had come to truly understand that Father Abbot Markwart had strayed from the path of righteousness, that Avelyn Desbris, branded a heretic, should be named a saint. Braumin's voice broke many times during his long retelling, since the road to victory for those who now followed the teachings of Brother Avelyn and Master Jojonah had not been without tragedy. Avelyn was dead, consumed by the blast he had used to take down the demon dactyl at Mount Aida, and Jojonah was dead, consumed by the fires lit by Father Abbot Markwart's fury.

And Elbryan was dead, killed by the beast within Marcalo De'Unnero and the tainted spirit of Markwart in the great final battle of the Demon War.

"How representative of the darkness that resided within the Church was the beast that resided within Marcalo De'Unnero," Parson Braumin said. "A power that Brother De'Unnero thought he could use for the gain of the Abellican Church, but which, along the errant path he and Father Abbot Markwart had taken, came to consume so much that was beautiful in the world."

He looked directly at Jilseponie as he spoke those words, and indeed there were tears in her blue eyes. But she steeled her jaw and sniffed away the tears, and even managed a slight smile and nod to Braumin, to show her approval of his treatment of the tale.

Parson Braumin finished by introducing the next speaker, Master Fio Bou- raiy of St.-Mere-Abelle.

Surely, to perceptive Jilseponie, the man seemed less at ease in this forum than did his predecessor. He spoke quickly, and though his words concerning those days back at St.-Mere-Abelle when Dalebert Markwart ruled the Church were much the same as those of Parson Braumin, to Jilseponie they seemed far less convincing.

Master Bou-raiy's heart was not in this, she understood. Was not in this ceremony, in this chapel, in the canonization of Avelyn, or in anything else that was now happening within and about the Abellican Church. He was a survivor, not a believer - an opportunist and a man too full of ambition.

Jilseponie toned back her internal criticism, reminding herself that Bou-raiy, whatever his motivations might be, seemed to be working on the same side as Braumin. Perhaps his heart was less noble, but did that really matter if his actions were for the betterment of the Church and the world?

Bou-raiy didn't speak for long and ended by bringing Parson Braumin back to the podium, a somewhat surprising move, one that had Jilseponie nodding with approval. The next speaker, she knew, was to be King Danube, and by allowing Braumin to introduce the King, Fio Bou-raiy was fully conceding this entire forum to the man who would preside over the Chapel of Avelyn.

Parson Braumin seemed quite pleased by Master Bou-raiy's decision, and though he only moved to the pulpit long enough to call for the King to come and say some words, he was thoroughly and obviously energized.

King Danube moved to the forefront with just the sort of casual confidence that Jilseponie found so admirable. His was a confidence rooted in conviction, an ability to try and to risk failure or foolishness. Such was the way of his relationship with Jilseponie, and she knew it.With a snap of his fingers, King Danube could catch a wife from among virtually every unmarried woman in the kingdom, including a fair number of the talented and beautiful women in Ursal. Why, then, would he risk the embarrassment of so obviously pursuing a woman who was honestly hesitant about a relationship with him or with any other man?

In some men, the motivation would have been simple pride, the desire to conquer the unconquerable, the challenge of the hunt. But that was not the case with Danube, Jilseponie was fairly certain. When she pushed him away, he did not respond with the telling urgency that less substantial men, men like Duke Targon Bree Kalas, would have displayed: the sudden push to strengthen the relationship and, failing that, the abrupt anger and dismissal reflective of wounded pride. No, in the years of his gradual courtship, King Danube had accepted every rebuff in the spirit in which it had been given, had tried hard to accept Jilseponie's viewpoint and understand her feelings.

Casual confidence was the way Jilseponie viewed that, King Danube's willingness to do his best and accept the outcome.

"It was when I first came to know Elbryan and Jilseponie," King Danube was saying. Hearing her name spoken brought her back to the moment at hand, and she was surprised to realize that she had missed a good deal of Danube's speech while she was lost in thought.

"As my prisoners," King Danube went on, and he shook his head and chuckled helplessly. "Misguided by the twisted words of a twisted man, we thought them outlaws."

Jilseponie noted that Master Bou-raiy flinched a bit at Danube's description of Markwart as a "twisted man." Among the churchmen, Braumin had confided to her, it had been decided that the memory of Father Abbot Dalebert Markwart would be handled delicately and without judgment, at least for the foreseeable future, yet here was King Danube making such a bold statement.

"We learned the truth soon after that imprisonment," King Danube told the gathering. "The truth of Elbryan the Nightbird, the truth of Avelyn Desbris, and the truth of Jilseponie; and that truth was only bolstered and strengthened and made obvious to even the greatest skeptics when again this trio - Baroness Jilseponie guided by the spirit of Nightbird to the site of Avelyn's second miracle - rescued all of us from the rosy plague.

"It is with great joy, then, that I am able to attend this ceremony dedicating a chapel to a man more deserving, perhaps, than any other in history, save St. Abelle himself. And that joy is only heightened when I look out and see that Baroness Jilseponie is here in attendance, and I beseech her now to come forward, to tell us of her days with Avelyn, of the battle with the cursed demon dactyl, of the first and second miracles at Mount Aida." He held his hand out toward her as he finished, motioning for her to come up beside him.

The woman who was Pony did not want to go up there, did not want to share her memories of Nightbird or of Avelyn. The woman who was Jilseponie knew she had to go up there, had to tell the world the truth and reinforce the path of the present-day Church and State.

And so she did. She stood beside King Danube and told the story of her first meeting with Avelyn, when he was known as the Mad Friar, little more than a drunken brawler to the unobservant, but in truth a man who had learned to see clearly the errant course of the Abellican Church and was trying, in any way he could find, to illuminate the people of the world. She told of the fighting in the wild Timberlands against the demon's minions and of the arduous journey to Aida, to the lair of the beast. Then, careful not to offend the churchmen in attendance - though she knew that most of them agreed with her on this particular point - she told of the aftermath of the Demon War, of Markwart's errant path, and finally of her journey back to Aida with Dainsey, to the mummified arm of Avelyn Desbris, the site of the covenant and the miracle that had cured so many of the rosy plague.

When she finished, she found that she was looking directly at Parson Braumin, and that he was smiling widely and nodding his approval.

King Danube moved close beside her then and put his hand on her shoulder, which surprised her.

"It is obvious to me now what must be done," he announced loudly. "With the dedication of this Chapel of Avelyn and the acknowledgment of Braumin Herde as parson, it would seem that St. Precious Abbey and the city of Palmaris are without their abbot. Thus, with the blessings of St.-Mere- Abelle, offered by Master Fio Bou-Raiy, and of St. Precious, offered by the former Abbot Braumin, I hereby decree that Jilseponie Wyndon will abandon her title of baroness of Palmaris and will undertake the duties of bishop."

The cheering was immediate and overwhelming, but Jilseponie merely turned her stunned expression toward King Danube.

"I am the king," he said to her with a mischievous grin. "You cannot refuse."

"And what else might King Danube propose that Jilseponie cannot refuse?" she whispered without hesitation.

Jilseponie turned back to the gathering and worked hard to keep her face devoid of any revealing emotions. Most of all at that moment she wanted to laugh aloud, for she felt as if she had surely won the little sparring match with King Danube at that time - a battle of surprises that she enjoyed!

At the feast after the ceremony, Jilseponie found herself inundated with quiet questions from Braumin and Roger and Dainsey, all wanting to know what she had said to King Danube immediately after his pronouncement.

To all of them, Jilseponie only smiled in response.

"I want you to return to Ursal with me," King Danube announced unexpectedly on the rainy morning that heralded the beginning of Calember. With the turn of that month, the eleventh of the year, Duke Bretherford had informed the King that the time was coming when River Palace should begin her southward sail.

"Have I something to attend at court?" Jilseponie asked with a frown. "It would not do for me to leave the city so soon after my appointment as bishop. What faith might the people hold in security and constancy if I am to run out even as I only begin my new duties?"

Danube sat back and looked around him at the woman's new daytime quarters. Jilseponie had gone to St. Precious upon their return from Caer Tinella, believing that her new position would be better served if she utilized both the traditional seats of Church and State power. Since she would have been the only woman living at St. Precious, she had chosen to keep her bedchamber and private suite at Chasewind Manor, but by day, she made the journey across Palmaris, pointedly without escort, to attend her duties at the abbey.

Danube knew that she was right. Though the people of Palmaris would no doubt cheer wildly at the prospect of Danube taking Jilseponie as his queen, after the celebration, the city would be left in a shaky position. But still, the man simply did not wish to wait any longer. He had to board River Palace within a couple of days and make his journey to Ursal, and what a long and empty journey it would be, what a long and empty winter it would be, if Jilseponie was not at his side.

"Nothing at court," he honestly replied. "My reasons for asking you to come to Ursal are personal."

"The truth of my situation here remains the same," Jilseponie answered innocently - too innocently, Danube noted. That, in addition to the wisp of a smile at the edges of her mouth, told him she was purposely not making this easy for him.

He chuckled and brought his hands up to rub his face, and after a moment's reflection, both seemed out of place for him.

"This is not one of my undeniable commands," he said, steadying himself and looking right into Jilseponie's blue eyes. He put on a serious expression then. "You were bound by duty to the people to accept my appointment of you as bishop of Palmaris," he went on seriously. "This is very different." He hesitated then, feeling vulnerable and excited and alive all at once, and tried hard to hold her stare, but found himself glancing to one side of the room and then the other.

But then he was caught, suddenly and unexpectedly, by Jilseponie's gentle but strong hands, one on either side of his face, holding him steady and forcing him to look at her.

King Danube berated himself for acting so foolishly. He was the king, after all! A man who determined life and death with his every word. Why then was he so uncomfortable now?

He knew the answer to that, of course, but that didn't make this any easier.

"You will never know the answer until you ask the question," Jilseponie said quietly.

"Marry me," King Danube proposed before he hardly considered how he might phrase his all-important question.

Jilseponie let go of him and backed away, though she did not break her intent stare over him.

"Become the queen of Honce-the-Bear," Danube went on, stuttering and improvising. "What service might you give to the people - "

Jilseponie stopped him by bringing a finger over his lips. "That is not why a woman should marry," she said. "One does not become the queen of Honce-the-Bear out of responsibility." She gave a helpless chuckle as Danube settled back in his chair, interlocking his fingers and bringing both index fingers up to tap against his chin and bottom lip.

"Would you really wish for me to become your wife because of the opportunities it would offer me to better serve?" she asked bluntly.

King Danube didn't answer, for he knew that he didn't have to. He just kept staring at her, kept tapping his fingers against his chin.

"Or would you have me become your wife because you are a good and honorable and handsome man? A man I do love?"

"If you have any faith in me at all, then the questions are rhetorical," Danube did remark then.

Jilseponie came forward in her seat, moved Danube's hands down from his face with one hand, while her other went behind his head, pulling him to her for a gentle kiss. "Your proposal was not unexpected," she admitted. "And so my answer is no impulse and nothing which I will later regret. I will become your wife first, the queen of Honce-the-Bear second."

King Danube fell over her in a great hug and put his head on her shoulder, mostly because he did not wish her to see the moisture that was suddenly rimming his eyes. Never had he known such joy! And never had Danube Brock Ursal felt better about who he really was. All of his life had been a movement from privilege to greater privilege, surrounded by people who never dared refuse him anything. Not so this time, he knew without doubt. Jilseponie was no tamed woman, was bound by duty only in matters extraneous to her heart. She could have refused him - and given his understanding of the man who had once been her husband, he had expected her to, despite their obviously genuine friendship. How could he, how could anyone, stand up to scrutiny next to Elbryan Wyndon, the Nightbird, the man who had saved the world twice, Elbryan the hero, the warrior, worshiped by the folk of Palmaris and all the northland?

Even Danube could not begrudge Elbryan that love, for even Danube honestly admired the man, a respect that had only grown as he had learned more and more of Nightbird's exploits over the years of turmoil and battle.

"I will not forsake the people of Palmaris at this time," Jilseponie said a moment later, moving back to arm's length. "I cannot journey to Ursal with you.

"In the spring then," King Danube said. "I will begin the preparations for the wedding - such a wedding as Honce-the-Bear has never known!"

Jilseponie smiled and nodded, a host of possibilities evident on her fair face.

"I will dread every day of the winter," Danube said to her, and he came forward and hugged her tightly again. "And will watch every hour as the season turns for the approach of your ship."

Sometime later, Jilseponie sat alone in her room at Chasewind Manor. Roger and Dainsey had come calling, but she had begged that they wait for her downstairs, that she be given some time alone.

For she had to digest the turns that fate had placed in her life's road this day, and had to think hard on her own responses in negotiating those turns. She had been generous to King Danube, she realized. Yes, she did on many levels love him, but his last words to her that day, his proclamation that he would dread every day of winter, resonated within her. Could she honestly say the same about her own feelings? Would she dread the long winter and, more important, would it seem all the longer to her because Danube would not be at her side?

There were varying levels of love, Jilseponie supposed, and with a sigh she admitted to herself that she did not know the specific points of their boundaries. Did she love King Danube enough to be his wife? Enough to share his bed, to love him and make love to him as she had done with Elbryan? She had given herself wholly to Elbryan, in body and soul, had let him see her completely naked, physically and emotionally. She had trusted him at her most vulnerable, implicitly, joyously.

Could she be that same wife to King Danube?

Did she have to be?