Free The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars (The DemonWars Saga) by R.A. Salvatore

She was dressed in a long white gown, her heavy crimson cape flying about her shoulders as she moved and played a beautiful morin khuur of burnished, shining wood, her fingers gracefully working the bow across the four strings.
    The light in the hallway, dying as the sun set in the west, was not favorable at that time of day, but Pagonel remained, transfixed, until darkness filled the hall, and then some more.
    A young brother entered the far end of the hall, a small man and exceptionally thin, given the way his robe seemed to flop about him with every step. Pagonel watched him closely as he lifted his hand and placed a tiny, glowing diamond upon a platter lined with crystal. He chanted quietly and moved along, placing a second enchanted diamond near to the middle of the room.
    Again he moved down the hall, chanting, but his prayer was surely interrupted when he noted Pagonel standing before the one of the paintings.
    “Master Pagonel,” he said with a seemingly polite bow, though the perceptive mystic caught a bit on unease accompanying the dip, for it was not offered sincerely and more out of necessity. “I am sorry if I have disturbed you.”
    “Far from it,” the mystic replied. “I welcome the light, that I might continue to stare at this most lovely figure.”
    The young brother, his narrow features seeming sharper in the diamond light, stared at the image before the man. “St. Gwendolyn,” he explained.
    “I have heard this name.”
    “A great warrior, so the legend claims,” the brother explained, moving near to the mystic.
    “Legend? Is she not sainted, and does such an action not declare the legend as fact?”
    The small man shrugged as if it did not matter.
    “She has an interesting choice of weapon,” Pagonel said, motioning back to the picture and the woman. “One might expect a bow of a different sort on a battlefield.”
    “St. Gwendolyn was known as a fine musician,” the monk explained.
    “The morin khuur,” Pagonel replied. “A most difficult instrument to master.”
    “Morin khuur?”
    Pagonel pointed to the instrument, then turned his fingers to match the pose of Gwendolyn as she handled the bow.
    “It is a violin,” the young monk explained.
    “Ah,” said the mystic. “In To’gai, they have such an instrument and name it morin khuur.”
    The monk nodded, and again, to perceptive Pagonel, he seemed as annoyed as enlightened by the news. The furrow in this one’s brow came quite easily, Pagonel noted, as if he was not a content man, by any means. He was young, quite young, perhaps in his early twenties and surely no aged master of the abbey, and yet he was handling the magical gemstones with ease and proficiency, as the lighted diamonds clearly reminded.
    “Tell me of St. Gwendolyn,” Pagonel bade him. “A warrior, you say.”
    “With her violin,” the monk explained. “So says the legend that when a band of powries gained the beach along the Mantis Arm and came at the brothers and sisters of her chapel, Gwendolyn took up her instrument and boldly ran to the front of the line. And so she played, and so she danced.”
    “Danced?” There was more intrigue than surprise in Pagonel’s voice, as if he suspected where this might be going.
    “Danced all about her line, all about the powrie line,” the monk went on. “They could not turn their attention from her, mesmerized by her movements and the beauty of her song, so it is said. But neither could they catch up to her with their knives and spiked clubs, no matter how furiously they turned in pursuit.”
    “And thus they were not prepared when Gwendolyn’s allies struck them dead,” Pagonel finished, smiling and nodding at the monk.
    “The powries were chased back to their boats,” said the monk. “The town was saved. It is considered a miracle in the Church, indeed, the miracle which allowed for the canonization of St. Gwendolyn.”
    “You do not agree.”
    The monk shrugged. “It is a fine tale, and one catered to