Unclean

by A. M. Manay

  “Is there anything I can do?” she whispered.

  Charls shook his head and smiled sadly. “I rather doubt it. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with me, Shiloh. Not only did I side with Rischar when he expelled the Patriarch, but I also presided over his marriage to Zina. Worst of all, I supported the Reforms in writing. I’m a dead man, Shiloh. Just pray for me, that I can face my death with dignity, that the Gods will welcome me home.”

  Tears filled Shiloh’s eyes.

  “You still have a chance to survive this,” he continued. “I heard some of what they were saying about you. It’s too late for me, but whatever you need to do to make it through, do it,” Charls advised her, eyes darting around to be sure they weren’t being overheard. “Testify against me if they want you to. Against Silas. It won’t matter. They’ve already made up their minds. You won’t be doing us any harm.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. Not you. Not him.”

  Charls took her by the shoulders, his shackles clanging.

  “Please, Shiloh. Please. I don’t want to see you kneeling beside me when they force my head under the water.”

  Worse than Mining in the Teeth

  “There’s a hanging today,” the young man told Silas. “Want to come?”

  Silas didn’t look up from his book. He had exams coming up, and the disruption the war had caused his studies made him feel like a perpetual imposter at the University of Estany.

  “I don’t enjoy executions, Rikel,” Silas finally replied. Left unsaid was the fact that he had seen too many of them during the war. They’d mostly been deserters, terrified men and boys who had bolted when they couldn’t take the strain anymore. He’d seen a few spies die as well, sneaks like him, deployed by their betters and snuffed out when they failed and got caught, and the occasional looter or marauder felled without trial. They regularly visited his dreams.

  “You’re no fun,” Rikel said, rolling his eyes. “You’re so serious all the time. I don’t know why you study so hard. Everyone knows you’re the smartest. You could get away with winging it.”

  “It’s not about being the smartest or what I can get by with,” Silas replied. “It’s about learning as much as humanly possible before I go home. Knowledge is power.”

  “Gods, man, you can take a break every so often!”

  Finally, Silas looked up at his roommate. “Ricky, we can’t all afford to be lazy. It’s only a matter of time before I wind up in a noose of my own. I’d like to stave that day off for as long as possible.”

  Silas opened his eyes. They fell upon the bricked-up window in his new quarters in the Dark Tower. Morning sun snuck through the gaps in the mortar. If he’d been a praying man, he would have prayed that the dawn’s light fell upon a free Shiloh, but he dared not hope it. Esta would not have made her move against him without first being sure Shiloh was firmly in the Patriarch’s grasp.

  Rather than locking him up in the official jail cells of the High Tower, Queen Esta had chosen to hold Silas in the very rooms her mother had occupied for five years after her father had discarded Mirin and chosen his second wife. Esta had shared her mother’s quarters for the final year of Mirin’s self-imposed exile of protest. Silas supposed the new queen’s revenge had a certain logic to it.

  The furniture was different. Mirin had taken everything of value with her when she had departed for the Southlands. The mirror Silas had used to spy on her was gone, as was her makeshift throne. The room was furnished with a mish-mash of odds and ends. There was a bed, a small table, and two chairs, along with a washbasin with a towel and a large jug of water. The adjoining room, he remembered, held the privy. There was no fire in the grate, which given the winter weather, was rather unpleasant. But there were plenty of blankets, and Silas was grateful for them.

  Carefully, he sat up and stretched his limbs. The guards hadn’t beaten him as badly as he’d feared they might when they had dragged him from his study the day before. After all, Silas had always treated them with consideration and respect when they had answered to him, and tipped them generously besides, so their queen’s ordered mistreatment of the former Chief Minister had been executed rather half-heartedly. Still, the bruises ached. At least I didn’t lose any teeth.

  He ran his hands over his clothes, feeling to see if his hidden treasures remained on his person. The guards had taken his wand, of course, and the knife he kept in his boot. One of the them had stolen Silas’s wedding ring. He made a mental note to exact vengeance for that at his earliest opportunity.

  He found, to his pleasure, that the search had not been sufficiently careful to remove what he needed most. I’d better wait to rip out the seams, he cautioned himself. I think I hear footsteps on the stairs.

  A guard named Cane opened the door. “Breakfast,” the man gruffly announced, then dropped the tray onto the table.

  “My heartfelt thanks,” Silas replied. “I don’t suppose I could have some books.”

  Cane shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “Would you mind inquiring on my behalf?” Silas asked, taking his seat at the table.

  “I guess.” And with that, Cane lumbered out and clomped down the stairs.

  The prisoner heaved a sigh and looked down at his plate. They hadn’t been stingy, but the fare was dull and bland: a large hunk of brown bread, a wedge of cheese, an apple, and some rapidly congealing porridge. The tea looked like dishwater, but at least it was warm. He could imagine Queen Esta dining on pastries and chocolate, with berries from the greenhouse.

  He forced himself to eat every bite, knowing that she might well try to starve him at some point, remembering how thin poor Daved had gotten when his appetite had failed him in prison.

  I wonder what Shiloh is eating this morning. Is she locked in the Citadel? Still on the road? Did she escape?

  His hope for the latter dimmed when an agitated Daved, Lord Redwood, appeared at Silas’s door. One look at the poor boy’s face was all Silas needed to know what rumors were swirling in the palace.

  “Is it true?” Daved demanded, his pubescent voice cracking. “They’ve taken her to the Citadel?”

  “You would know better than I,” Silas replied heavily, “but very likely.”

  “But how could anyone think Shiloh is a heretic? She loves the Gods. I’ve never met anyone who loves them more.”

  “Her innocence isn’t relevant,” Silas said. “And you must take care not to express your sympathy in public, lest you suffer a similar fate.”

  Daved collapsed into the second chair, face bleak. “I know. But I can’t do nothing. She’s my dearest friend,” he protested. “She stood by me when no one else did.”

  “I know that,” Silas replied. “And I am glad for it. The best thing you can do for her is to rise in the queen’s estimation and trust. Then you will be positioned to act for Shiloh when it will count for something. Come see me regularly, and I can advise you how best to do so. Let people think you’re coming here to gloat over my fall. The other noblemen will applaud such an impulse, I am sure.”

  Daved swallowed heavily and nodded. “Very well.” He laughed a bitter laugh. “I suppose I could bring you some books.”

  Silas smiled weakly, remembering how faithfully Shiloh had brought books to Daved when the boy had been imprisoned under Silas’s own orders. “I would very much appreciate that.”

  Daved glanced down at the remnants of Silas’s meal. “You fed me better than that.”

  “I fed Mirin better than this, too. I suppose no teenaged girl is immune from a touch of pettiness, our queen included,” Silas replied with a sigh.

  “If Shiloh had married me instead of you, this wouldn’t be happening to her. Her Grace hates you,” Daved accused, flushing red with sudden temper.

  Silas felt his chest constrict, but then shook his head. “If she’d married you, the queen would have to kill her,” he said softly, “instead of merely locking her up out of sight.”

  “What? Why?” Daved demanded.

&
nbsp; Is it time to let Daved in on the secret? Or do I only make things worse? Perhaps Silas was swayed by his sense of isolation when he admitted, “The Usurper was Shiloh’s mother. A marriage with you would have strengthened her claim to the throne.”

  Daved leaned back in his chair and let out a forceful breath. “Holy Mother above . . . That explains a lot.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “You killed the Usurper,” Daved pointed out.

  “Aye.”

  “You made her marry her own mother’s killer,” Daved accused, eyes again ablaze.

  “Aye. I am, indeed, rather a monster,” Silas confessed. “In my defense, that particular murder saved Shiloh’s life. Not that I, at the time, expected it to last very long.”

  Shiloh could smell the rabbit roasting over the fire. Fat dripped from it and sputtered in the flames. She knew that she would not taste it. After all, to share a meal with someone Unclean was against church law. She had packed dried meat, cheese, fruit, and nuts. Not certain how long the journey would take, she was anxious to ration her provisions as carefully as possible. Nonetheless, she hoped that she would find some way to sneak another handful to Charls. She feared they would let him starve altogether if she didn't.

  She took out her portable prayer alter. Clad in worn red leather, it had seen Edmun through the Siblings’ War. She prayed it would see her safely through her current battle. Carefully, she placed a single almond before the fading icon of the mother. She fingered her prayer beads, thinking back to the day Silas Hatch had shown up in Smoke Valley to spirit her away to the Academy. She had prayed that night as well, and had been nearly as frightened. Hatch had turned out to be more ally than enemy, most days. She rather doubted she would be so fortunate this time.

  Oh, Mother in Heaven, Father of All, Children on High, and Elder Most Wise, protect me from your followers.

  “A show of piety will not save you,” Serben hissed from behind her back.

  “If it were for show, honored brother, I would be doing it a lot louder,” she replied without turning around. She felt something light hit the back of her hood. It took her a moment to realize what he had done.

  He spit on me. That worm spit on me—while I was at prayer.

  I will live to make you regret that, you pathetic excuse for a priest.

  Shaking with suppressed fury, she turned her attention back to her Gods.

  Shiloh sat on a rock, eating her almonds, listening to them bicker in Gernish about the route.

  “Is it true that you stopped the Red Fever up at Northgate?” came a timid voice behind her.

  Shiloh turned to find Jivan, the young driver of the prison cart. She nodded.

  “Did a woman named Siah die?”

  Shiloh shook her head. “Siah survived, though it was a near thing. And the three girls were spared as well,” she told him. She studied his face. “Is she your mother? Are they your sisters?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  She studied him some more, eyes running over familiar lines in his face. “Old Redwood’s bastard, are you, honored brother?”

  “Yes,” he admitted again.

  Well, that explains how he ended up in the Patriarch’s service. Old Lord Redwood had been His Holiness’s most trusted ally in Bryn, before Silas had sliced off his head.

  “Did you really heal the Deadlands?” Jivan asked.

  “Just a few hundred acres,” she replied with a sigh. “That’s as far as I got.”

  His eyes widened.

  “That is what they will accuse you of, in time,” he warned her. “They are saying that it is a sacrilege, that the Gods destroyed that land as a condemnation of the Usurper, that to heal them is an affront to the Lords of Heaven.”

  Her brows drew close together. “Thank you for letting me know,” she finally replied.

  He smiled crookedly. “Thank you for saving my mother.”

  The Citadel rose before Shiloh, taller and more forbidding than she had even imagined. The spire cut into the sky, glass and metal glinting in the sunshine. The tower widened gradually as it neared the ground, it's base surrounded by several concentric walls of dark stone.

  She knew from her reading that the Patriarch resided in the top few levels in a gilded nest perched higher than the birds’ own, from which, it was said, on a clear day, you could see all the way to Gerne. She knew, too, that the Citadel held even more dangers below ground than above. The subterranean portion of the complex held the most unfortunate souls in the Patriarch's service, those condemned to labor in the Pit, most of them facing eventual execution, if they survived long enough.

  Factories in the compound produced cloth, soap, pottery, metalwork, candles, all sold to increase the wealth of the church. The resulting smoke belched through chimneys at the surface, surrounding the lower levels in a perpetual cloud of bitterness. Save on Lordsday, of course, when all shut down for worship—whether the devotion focused more on the Gods or on the Patriarch, who could say?

  Shiloh swallowed her fear. It can't possibly be worse than mining duty in the Teeth, she repeated to herself. She must have failed to hide all her trepidation, for Brother Fenroh rode up alongside her to speak for the first time all day.

  “You will not be in the Pit. You will be among the penitents above. Simply follow all directions you are given without question, and no harm will come to you,” he said in his impeccable Brynish.

  She nodded. “Thank you, honored brother. I shall do my best.” She couldn't help shooting a glance in the direction of Charls’s cart.

  Fenroh shook his head. “He is lost to the Pit, and it is well-deserved. There is nothing you can do for him in this life. Pray that his earthly suffering speeds his way to heaven.”

  Shiloh pressed her lips together to hold in her ire. She turned her face away from the Patriarch's man and silently prayed for deliverance for every soul condemned to that vile place.

  “In a few days time, you and I will have a little chat about the reasons you are here, Miss Teethborn,” Fenroh continued. “Fear not. I will help you prepare to serve the purpose for which the Gods created you.”

  Shiloh shivered.

  All his assurances sound like threats.

  Her ears flushed as pink as her hair as the two priestesses at the table pawed through her bags. The older woman shot Shiloh an appraising look when she saw the charms sewn into her spare linen tunic. Shiloh’s heart fell when the sister snatched up her medicine kit, and she watched in despair as it disappeared into her gray robes.

  What will I do when the pain comes?

  The sister then took out a finely carved hairbrush and tossed it into a barrel, where it joined Shiloh’s fur-lined cloak. Shiloh missed the cloak already. It was cold here in the Patriarch’s domain.

  “Won't be needing that brush, will she?” the old nun cackled.

  The younger one studied a list. “Shiloh Teethborn, Knight of the Order of St. Stex? How could she possibly? That must be an error. Anyhow . . . here she is. They've put her upstairs with the gentle penitents instead of with the commoners. Lucky her. Cell thirty-seven.”

  The older one snorted. “With the other freak and the crybaby. Good luck to her.”

  Shiloh burned in silence. She despised being spoken of as though she weren’t there.

  “Your labor of penance is in the Script Shop,” the young one informed Shiloh. “You are fortunate. Do not give His Holiness or the Grand Purifier a reason to revoke their mercy. I hope your hand is fair, or the master will make you regret it.”

  “Yes, honored sister,” Shiloh managed to murmur.

  “You will change your clothes in the next room. Not that anyone will want the purple garments of the Unclean,” the older one declared, “even if they weren't styled for Teethtrash.” She eyed Shiloh again. “What's that made of?” she asked, nodding toward Shiloh’s hook. It had been a gift from Silas after he had confiscated her steel one.

  “Bone, I think, honored sister,” she lied with what she hoped was an air o
f innocence. Ivory is a kind of bone, right? So, I'm only lying a little.

  For a long moment, Shiloh feared the woman would take it, valuable as she knew it must be, but the old woman finally shrugged, dumped the remaining contents of Shiloh’s saddlebags into a burlap sack, and waved Shiloh into the next room.

  Here Shiloh saw the reason for the nun’s crack about the hairbrush. Other women, who had arrived just before Shiloh, stood weeping while nuns clipped their hair close to the scalp, tossing their braids into barrels sorted by color. To be sold for wigs, Shiloh surmised. The greed of the Order is endless. They also appeared to be checking the new arrivals for lice.

  Shiloh took her own turn dry-eyed. She had lost her locks to fever many times. Hair always grew back. Hers they set to the side, holding the braids gingerly between tongs as though they were dead rats. Can't have them contaminating the rest, I suppose. Nobody is going to want pink hexborn hair anyway.

  They pointed her to the next table, where she was issued two simple dresses of un-dyed muslin with large purple patches on the chest. They ordered her to change, and she flushed with embarrassment. At least they let me keep my own linen.

  From there, she was grabbed by a guard and marched up several flights of stairs. They came to a hallway blocked by a locked door made of iron rails. Into a sack, the guard dumped a dented bowl, a spoon, a metal cup, and a towel.

  “Cell number thirty-seven. Follow the others to learn what to do. Don't make trouble,” he told her gruffly.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, her voice small.

  He opened the door, shoved her in, and closed it with a clang behind her.