Berengur drew back.
“I urge you with everything in my power to let him recover. When he is ready, he will return to you on his own.”
Silence fell. I drank my tea.
“You truly believe he will take his own life?”
“Yes. He’s already thought about it. He hasn’t done it because it would be selfish, and he doesn’t want to hurt you or your mother.”
In the book, Berengur found his brother, and his mother begged Pelegrin to return to their castle. He did. He ate, he bathed, he seemed to be functioning, but he rarely spoke, and then there was a scene where he stared at the beam of the great hall for way too long. Then, in the chaos after the crown prince’s assassination, Arvel, the head of the Defender Order, wished that he had Berengur by his side, but the earl was gone to “tend to his family in mourning.”
Pelegrin had hanged himself. I was absolutely sure.
My father hadn’t come unscathed out of his service. I knew a lot about PTSD and the damage it brought, but convincing Berengur that I was right without modern psychology and veteran suicide statistics on my side was tricky. I had to put it in a framework he would understand.
“We place such a crushing burden on knights,” I said. “We tell them they’re supposed to be heroes, defenders of the realm, people of superior character. Then we send them into a slaughter and force them to butcher. They experience fear. They exist in constant vigilance, always ready to fight for their lives. It exhausts their body and soul. They watch their friends bleed out and die, and they have no time to grieve. Nobody warns them about this. Nobody sings songs about a young man trying to push his guts back into his stomach, or being so scared that the world turns dark, or being knocked off your horse and drowning in a muddy field in heavy armor while riders stomp on your back.”
The two men in front of me were very still.
“We do this to them and then we expect them to return to a peaceful life as if nothing happened. Some of them get a taste for the killing and can’t let it go. Some of them learn to distance themselves from their war selves. Others, like Pelegrin, need help and time.”
“What did he do?” Berengur asked.
“He was put in charge of a border village that was a vital point in the supply chain for the front line of the Halaros conflict. The village sympathized with the Crimson Empire. The Emperor’s agents promised them ten years free of taxation if the region raised the Crimson Banner.”
Come to our side, everything will be great, we have cookies. Of course we won’t tax you. What are you even talking about? By the way, we’d love to sell you an ocean property in Nebraska . . .
“The village didn’t resist openly, but the first night there, Pelegrin lost two of his soldiers. He found them in the morning with their throats slit. The next night he lost another to poison, then two more to hunting arrows. The Empire’s forces were nowhere near the village. This was a homegrown rebellion. Pelegrin gathered everyone in the town square and told them that the next time one of his soldiers was killed or harmed, he would take the life of a villager. A life for a life. He hoped it would stop.”
“It didn’t,” Berengur guessed.
“They didn’t believe him,” I said. “They thought he was young and soft. Another soldier died in his sleep, and Pelegrin picked an old man, the village head, marched him to the center of the village square, and ran him through. The man’s daughter, a young woman about my maid’s age, drew a knife, and stabbed the battle chaplain in the back. He was the only unarmored member of Pelegrin’s command, and he died on the spot. Pelegrin dragged her to the body of her father and cut her throat. The killings stopped.
“The villagers thought that not being soldiers would protect them,” Berengur said. “Once he executed an old man and a young woman, he communicated his willingness to retaliate, and they realized they were not immune. His actions prevented further deaths, both soldier and civilian. He has nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing he has done would damage his standing as a knight. Those are the realities of war.
“And that is precisely the problem. In his eyes, he is a monster, and yet he was hailed as a hero when the conflict ended. To Pelegrin, either nobody understood that he was a monster and when they found out, the whole world would turn on him, or everyone knew what he had done and they cheered him for his evil deeds, which was even worse. How could he ever measure up to his father’s legacy, the man who in his place would have brought the villagers to his side by his authority and the sheer force of his will alone?”
Berengur choked on air. “Our father did things far, far worse . . .”
“You didn’t tell Pelegrin any of that.”
“Of course not. Pelegrin was only seven years old when Father died. He was a child!”
I drank my tea. “You were trying to protect him then and I’m trying to protect him now.”
“Why?” Berengur asked.
“Because I understand his burden, and his story moves me. My father has also seen war, and his soul took years to heal. My heart goes out to your brother, and I feel the weight of everything he has endured.”
He stared at me.
“I can tell you the name of the monastery.”
I’d given him enough to find it anyway.
“In return, I want two things.”
“Name them.”
