by Sharon Shinn
Drake worked steadily for the next several hours. At times the kitchen grew close and crowded as more volunteers came in, but then some of the early arrivals left and made room for the new penitents. Some of the volunteers merely paused in the kitchen before heading out to the gardens to work. Others, he guessed, never came to the kitchen at all, but went directly to some sewing room and mended and knitted and quilted. He was sure there were other tasks assigned of which he had no knowledge. Doubtless there were repairs to be made to the temple itself, and local handymen donated their time and materials to the cause. There was a certain air of bare subsistence to such a dependent lifestyle, but there was a kind of level serenity to it as well. Those who ask for nothing are rich when they are given anything, and it was the richness the Fideles seemed to feel, not the poverty.
At about midday, Kay and Deb came through to halt the workers, inviting them to join the sisters in a worship service. Drake wiped his hands on his apron, took it off, and followed the others down the echoing halls to a small chapel toward the back of the building. Like the rest of the temple, the chapel was austere but somehow beautiful. The stone ceiling sloped upward, and plain glass windows overlooked the small green garden. The wooden benches had been hard-carved and hand-burnished, and they shone like polished amber.
The single ornament in the modest structure was a gorgeous hand-worked tapestry that covered one wall at the front. It showed Ava feeding the birds, although Drake was willing to bet that many of these birds had never flown the sere skies of Semay. They were brilliant with jeweled plumage, and they spangled both the sky over the goddess’s head and the ground at her feet. Ava herself was arrayed in a simple white gown, very vivid against the emerald background. Her long black hair fell in coils at her feet and a dove had nested in a convenient braid. Grain and seeds dropped from her outspread, long-fingered hands; her feet were bare. She was smiling.
Drake studied the tapestry as the other workers jostled around him; then he took a seat at the back of the chapel. In a moment, however, he wished he had sat nearer the front, for Laura stepped up to the small wooden pulpit and began to lead the service. Ava lost all his attention; now he concentrated on Laura.
“Friends,” she said, and her familiar voice seemed sterner, more distant, here in this formal setting. “We are glad to have you here. The goodness of your actions has gone straight to Ava’s heart. You are blessed, and you will be rewarded. Pray with me.”
The ceremony was quiet, simple, soothing. Much of it consisted of responsive prayers, and the low rumble of the crowd was a comforting counterpoint to Laura’s melodic voice. Drake stood when the others stood, knelt when they knelt, and spoke when they did (since the litany was not hard to catch), but the sense of the words really did not penetrate his brain. He was engrossed instead in the instinctive reaction of his body, the strange sense of lassitude and peace that began to steal over him, the familiar and long-absent feeling of catharsis and absolution. Just so had he felt at those services so long ago, in the great cathedral on Ramindon, when the worshippers had prayed to such different gods with such different words but with an equal and zealous conviction. For a moment, his sight blurred. Instead of the plain stone walls, he saw the timbered cathedral decorated for the holidays with roped evergreens and blue lights and masses of white flowers. He heard his father’s sonorous voice intoning the sacred invocations and the crowd roaring back its pledge of devotion. He felt the same uprush of belief, assurance and euphoria. He was whole, he was clean, he was beloved; and all of those he cherished were still alive.
The illusion held for only a moment, then Laura spoke again, and the spell was broken. His eyes widened and his sight cleared, but his body was still uncertain, credible, willing to be convinced. He waited for the knowledge of reality to slam into him again—this was not the first time he had allowed himself to be so betrayed—but the memory seemed to seep back, more gently than it ever had before. His family was dead and a whole way of life was gone forever; and he was alive, and on Semay.
He fixed his eyes before him again, concentrating on the speaker and the embroidered goddess behind her. Laura had stretched out her hand to the congregation just as Ava held out her fingers to one of the alighting sparrows. Drake had to grasp the back of the pew before him to keep from flinging out his own hand in return. Laura seemed to beckon to him, and Ava’s hand, forever extended, seemed to reach for him. The goddess watched him; the priestess did not.
“Ava te ama,” Laura said, lowering her hand.
The congregation spoke with a single booming voice. “Tu tambien.” There was a moment of silence, as the priestess stood before them, her head bowed and her hands at her sides. Then she straightened, lifted her hands, palms upward, and smiled at the penitents. Drake felt again that sudden, primitive surge of forgiveness and freedom, and the whole crowd seemed to relax with an unvoiced sigh. People stirred, and rose, and spoke quietly to their neighbors, and the service was over.
* * *
* * *
Drake worked in the kitchen the rest of the afternoon, alternating the bread-making with a few rounds of cleanup duty. The fresh, wonderful aroma of new bread was everywhere; it clung to his hands and clothes like a perfume. The heat inside the kitchen was immeasurable, and he felt sweat soak first through his light shirt and then the apron. He washed his hands again and mixed up another vat of dough.
Laura came to him late in the afternoon, when the sun and the ovens had combined to make the heat almost unbearable. “You are indefatigable,” she said, watching him shape the last of the loaves on his wooden counter.
“Workhorse,” he said. “Always have been. Just point me at a task and let me go.”
“Most people only work an hour or so, and then leave. You’ve been here all day.”
He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and looked down at her. She appeared cool as marble even in this furnace. “I didn’t know you knew I was here.”
“I knew.”
“I enjoyed your service.”
She nodded, but clearly thought thanks were inappropriate. “Do you still wish to see la abada? She has a few minutes now she can give you.”
He glanced down at his damp shirt, only partially protected by the apron from flour and dough. “Can I clean up or something?”
He would have sworn there was a touch of malice in her voice, but it was so faint it was impossible to be sure. “The dirt and sweat of honest labor are never offensive to the goddess or her followers,” she said. “La abada will be pleased to receive you as you are.”
He nodded ironically, and untied the apron. “Very well, then. Please take me to her.”
The abada’s small office was in a wing that Drake had not been in before. Here the hallways were narrower and the ceilings lower, and the heat was a little more oppressive than in the open public areas. Not ones to waste much comfort on themselves, Drake thought, before Laura knocked on an unpainted door and ushered him inside the tiny room.
The small woman behind the large desk was old—the oldest person he had ever seen. Shrunken by age, she seemed dwarfed by the massive black desk which took up almost all the available space in the room. Her white hair was so thin and so finely spun that the spotted scalp was clearly visible beneath it. Her face was so wrinkled and seamed that the bone structure beneath the skin was completely indistinguishable. But the eyes were an incredible black, vivid and intelligent. In one comprehensive glance, they took Drake in and understood him; all his secrets were laid bare.
“Santissima, aqui esta el Hijo del Luna, Cowen Drake,” Laura said, introducing him. “Lieutenant, la abada. I will return for you shortly.” And she left the room.
Drake was unsure what sort of obeisance was required. More than ever he regretted his sweat-stained clothes and general dishabille. “Abada,” he murmured in halting Semayse, bowing at her from the other side of the desk. “Thank you for permitting me to see you.”
“N
onsense,” she said in an unexpectedly strong voice. “Why shouldn’t I want to see you? Sit down, please. Yes, there. Laura has told me very little about you.”
He sat, as much from surprise as anything. “You speak Standard Terran,” he said.
“Sometimes it has been useful to me.” She studied him with her black eyes. The power emanating from her very bones vibrated in the air. She reminded him suddenly of Alejandro Ruiso. “I am glad to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant,” she continued. “How does the investigation go?”
“Slowly,” he said. “I am still learning what I can, about the Fideles, about the Triumphantes, about Semay. I am trying to figure out why anyone would want to kill a priestess of either sect. But I have come to no conclusions yet.”
“You have been making bread with us today,” she said. “Research or true penitence?”
He couldn’t help but smile at her sharpness. “A little of both,” he said. “I find your way of worship attractive.”
“And familiar?”
“No, not entirely,” he said. “My parents worshipped multiple gods and believed in divine intervention. I cannot see that Ava’s followers ever expect her to intercede dramatically on their behalf.”
“No, she is a spiritual goddess as opposed to a physical one,” the abada agreed. “She dwells in one’s heart and makes one strong—strong enough to bear burdens or remove obstacles—but she does not herself remove those burdens or lift those obstacles from one’s path.”
“And I was taught that gods can perform miracles,” he added. “So at first I was not much impressed with a goddess who had no such skills.”
“And now?”
He considered. “I am impressed with the devotion she inspires,” he said at last. “And I am impressed at the goodness I have seen some of her followers display.”
“To touch a heart is a miracle, you might say.”
“I am beginning to think so.”
“And has your heart been touched?”
He spoke lightly. “How could it be otherwise?”
She made a small noise; from someone less frail, he would have described it as a snort. “You are a diplomat.”
He smiled again. “Others do not think so.”
“Then perhaps you will, without tact, tell me why you wish an audience with me.”
“I wanted to ask you directly why you have refused to allow the hombuenos to escort your priestesses when they take charity walks through the streets. Since I know the hombuenos have offered.”
She answered without a moment’s hesitation. “If hombuenos walked side by side with ermanas through the barrios, no one would approach the ermanas. They would be afraid. Whatever comfort the ermanas brought—whatever food, whatever benediction of the goddess—would not go to those who needed it most. The ermanas might be safe, but the people would be lost.”
He watched her closely. “A good answer,” he admitted, “although the reasoning is still unsound. But at least you did not say that Ava would protect her own.”
She was smiling. “I told you, we do not believe that Ava directly intercedes for her disciples,” she said. “And why is my reasoning unsound?”
“Because you are still refusing to acknowledge the central risk—your priestesses are in danger, they are being killed. That is a fact. You are ignoring the fact by sending them out at all.”
“And you are ignoring the fact that priestesses in the temple do no good at all. Or, they do a little good, when people can come to us. But our ministry is on the streets. And that is also a fact.”
“Then minister with a little more care,” he urged. “Send your sisters out by twos. Or by threes. You will serve fewer that way, perhaps, but you will still serve—and your women will not be in danger.”
“I agree,” she said. “And that is the suggestion I have made to the women of the temple. Very seldom do any go out alone since the killing started. Sometimes they do, during the day, but then they never go far, and I ask no one to go out alone at night.”
“But—” he said, and stopped abruptly.
The abada nodded. “Yes, of course,” she said. “Laura.”
He regarded the abada a moment, wondering how much she would tell him if he asked, and knew without asking that she would tell him nothing. “Can’t you stop her from endangering herself?” he said at last.
“It is how she chooses to serve. I would not stand between an ermana and Ava’s will.”
“If it is indeed Ava’s will,” he said sharply.
The abada spread her hands. They were so thin and delicate they were nearly transparent; the blood made blue patterns against the fragile skin. “Laura has a very personal commitment to the goddess,” she said. “She has given herself completely to the goddess’s care. To make her doubt her union with Ava—to tear her from Ava’s love by a demand that she protect herself with more than divinity—that would damage Laura almost more than death itself. You do not understand, perhaps, but I cannot explain it any better than that. I will not be the one to tell Laura to distrust her goddess and put her faith instead in men.”
Drake was silent a moment. He had looked away during this gentle speech, and fell to studying the caked flour on the crease of his trousers. He wanted to leap to his feet, take this tiny woman by the shoulders and shake some rough sense into her, but he knew the one he really wanted to shake was Laura.
“I hope Ava does protect her, then,” he said, looking up at last and giving the abada the ghost of a smile. “For if you will not and I cannot and she will take no measures herself, then she really has no defender except the goddess.”
“Ava se ama Laura,” the abbess said with quiet certainty. “Ava really does love Laura. I am convinced that she will be safe.”
Drake stood. He was not sure how he was supposed to summon Laura back when this interview was over. “Well, I will do what I can to supplement the goddess’s care,” he said.
The abada nodded and reached for a plain bellpull behind her desk. “Perhaps you are part of Ava’s plan,” she said. “I have seen the goddess work in ways more deliberate and strange.”
She held her hand out across the desk. She was so small, and the desk was so large, that Drake had to lean far forward to take her fingers in his. “In any case, I wish you the best of luck,” she added. “May Ava smile upon your endeavors, here and elsewhere.”
“Gratze,” he said, amused. She returned the pressure of his hand with very real pressure of her own, then bent her head over his hand and kissed it. “Ava te ama,” she said, and released him.
The door opened and Laura stepped inside. “Tu tambien,” he replied, and followed Laura back out into the cramped hallway.
* * *
* * *
He spent the next two days searching for Diadeloro. Jovieve had, by courier, sent him a map of the city marked with the locations of five chapels serviced by the Triumphantes. Three of them were close enough to city parks to allow someone living nearby to hear the chime of the worship bells. Two of those parks were also in heavily settled residential districts, and in these areas he began his search.
He had narrowed the time frame somewhat as well, by looking through the old hombueno records for information about the murder of Diadeloro’s lover. He knew the neighborhood, the year and the season, and so the information had not been hard to find. Maria’s calculations had been vague at best: The lover had been killed three weeks after Franco de Vayo had met his violent end. And five weeks after that, Diadeloro had disappeared from the Triumphante temple. It was not much to go on, but it was the best lead he had.
Both of Drake’s primary target neighborhoods were in areas that could only be described as middle-class, surrounded by modest homes and multiple-apartment dwellings that were shabby-genteel or better. The possibilities for boarding houses appeared endless. Drake parked the borrowed car on a side street that boasted a row of roomy old houses, and began going
from door to door with questions.
It took him one full day just to cover the few blocks nearest the park at the first chapel he tried, and he had no success whatsoever. Once the proprietors and landladies understood what information he was seeking, they were generally obliging. Jovieve had thoughtfully sent him a letter of introduction, and this piece of paper opened every single door to him. But there was little they could do to help him, willing or not. He had no photographs of Diadeloro to show them; he was not sure what name she had used when she fled the temple; and he could not say exactly when she had moved to her new residence. Those landlords who kept records allowed him to look through the musty old contracts and receipts, checking signatures against Maria’s letter, but not all of them had even such rudimentary papers to share with him.
And the day was hot and the boarding houses were stifling, and the task before him looked endless.
At dinner that night he joined Lise and Leo and Raeburn, but Raeburn was still angry with him and the other two were quiet. It was not a convivial meal. Back in his room, Drake read more hombueno reports, made more marks on his city maps. By now, both these tasks were by rote; he had almost given up expecting to learn anything. But all detective work suffered these spells of weary frustration, he knew. He must work steadily on, going over old details, sifting through useless piles of information, waiting for the odd note to jar him out of torpor or the strange moment of enlightenment to juggle the pieces into place.
The second day seemed, at the beginning, even more inconclusive than the first. Although he was tempted to skip from the first chapel neighborhood to the second, he knew better; that was sloppy. There were still a dozen or so dwellings to check out, and if he did not go to them now, he might never get around to them. But the answer at each house was the same, whether he asked only a few questions or stayed two hours to pore over old records: No one who matched what he knew of Diadeloro had taken refuge here.
At high noon, he drove to the second neighborhood almost gingerly. The sun overhead was blinding, and it hurt his eyes to try and focus on the road before him. At the base of his skull a nagging headache was building, compounded by heat, sunlight and irritation. He stopped for a light lunch, but that neither cheered him up nor erased his headache.