Sir Aldric Graves's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Sir Aldric Graves came back to the ruined chapel to rebuild it. He found strangers living in the nave. Smoke rose from a fire pit where the altar had once stood. This was the chapel he had sworn to guard, then abandoned the night a child died. He had come to earn the ground back. Someone else had claimed it first. A dog met him at the broken doorway. Its coat was patchy, a chain hanging loose at its neck. It growled low and did not move. Aldric raised both hands and stood still. He had killed men. He would not kick this animal. "Call him off," Aldric said. "I mean no harm." A man rose from beside the fire. He wore a wide hat and a black patch over one eye. He walked with the ease of someone used to being obeyed. "You knock quiet for a man in armor," he said. "I am Ragnar. These walls are mine now. Finders keep." "These walls belong to God," Aldric said. "I came to raise them again." Ragnar laughed. He pulled something from a sack at his feet. It was a shrine of carved stone and gold, cracked but whole, set with dull jewels. A relic taken from some holy place. "God pays well," Ragnar said. "We took plenty like this. We move on soon. Or you make us." Aldric looked at the stolen relic. Anger rose in him. He pushed it down. Ten men sat around the fire. He had one sword and no cause worth their blood. Killing them would stain the ground he wanted clean. An old man near the wall spoke up. Gray beard, stone dust on his hands, a mason's tools at his belt. "There is a farmhouse west of here," he said. "Empty. Roof mostly holds. Better than this cold heap." He looked at Aldric, not Ragnar. "You truly mean to fix this place?" "I do," Aldric said. Ragnar weighed the choice. A dry roof cost him nothing. He had already stripped the chapel bare. "The farmhouse for the shrine," he said. "You carry it. We do not." Aldric took the stolen relic in his arms. It was heavier than it looked. He led them west and stood at the sagging farmhouse until the last man went inside. The dog stayed at the door, watching him go. The old mason did not follow. He walked back to the chapel beside Aldric. "Name is Gareth," he said. "I lay stone. I have no work and no god, but I know these walls want mending." He set a hand on the broken arch. "You cannot lift this alone." Aldric stood in the empty nave. The squatters were gone. The ground was his to clear. In his arms sat a relic torn from another church. He had traded a shelter for a sin, and now he held it.