The Pariah

by Anthony Ryan

  “We needed a plan to escape the Pit,” I said after summoning some patience. “We’ll need one to escape Callintor too.”

  “I have one: we walk through the gate, then we’re free.”

  “No. The moment we walk through the gate some bastard greedy for a reward is certain to run off and tell Lord Eldurm. Then how far do you think we’ll get?”

  “Couravel’s less than a hundred miles from here. That’s five or six days’ travel, seven at most if we push hard. Even less if we can grab ourselves some horses. It’s an easy city to get lost in.”

  “And easy to never find your way out again, from what I heard. And since when do you know how to ride a horse? I surely don’t.”

  She gave a frustrated grimace. “Then we head for the coast, find a ship. There are other kingdoms than this.”

  “Ships require coin for passage. Do you happen to have any?”

  “There’s bound to be a cache here somewhere. Northern clerics always have money, despite their claims to poverty.”

  I paused at this, finding some truth in it, and the nugget of a plan. I had been pondering various ways to extricate us from this holy snare of a city and basic lack of coin had always been the stumbling block. “A notion worth thinking on,” I admitted. “There’s plenty of locked doors in the Shrine to Martyr Callin. Why lock a door if not to protect something of value?”

  A small grin appeared on her lips and she leaned a little closer, jabbing a fist against my shoulder. “And I worried you’d surrendered your soul to these fuckers—”

  She fell silent as someone pounded an urgent fist to the rickety planks that comprised our door. The shrines might have sturdy doors complete with locks but the houses of the sanctuary seekers did not, all the better for the custodians to kick them in.

  “Hide that,” I hissed at Toria, nodding to the knife still embedded in the beam as I gathered up the ink and parchment. “Have you got anything else?”

  She shook her head, working the knife loose before crouching to lift the flagstone where we hid our contraband. “Was going to trade Smythes some meat for a pinch of pipe-leaf,” she whispered. “Lucky I didn’t.”

  I waited until she’d replaced the stone and kicked some hay over it before opening the door. Instead of the expected trio of men in black tunics, I found myself regarding the wide eyes and narrow, moistened face of Nucklin, our neighbour. He was a fellow given to much fidgeting and even more sweating, which left him enshrouded by a rancid odour. While a wise man knows that a healthy miasma is needed to ward off the worst illnesses, Nucklin’s stench was something far beyond the norm. It made his company difficult to tolerate for long, although it did mean he had the house next to ours all to himself. I assumed it was basic loneliness that compelled him to call round with irksome frequency, but the brief but hungry glances he often shot at Toria indicated a deeper, firmly unreciprocated interest.

  “What do you want, stinkman?” she demanded, lips curled with habitual disdain.

  Nucklin shied from her curtness and instead addressed his answer to me, speaking in his dolorous Alundian accent of broad vowels and soft sibilants. “Your brother’s preaching again.”

  So as to discourage his interest Toria had told him that Brewer and I were her brothers, and possessed of aggressively protective instincts. It was a measure of the man’s lack of insight that he had accepted this despite the fact none of us looked remotely alike. It also failed to prevent him finding excuses to knock on our door, although at least today he had a good reason.

  “Where?” I asked with a sigh of mixed anger and annoyance.

  “Over by the graveyard. Custodians was already gathering when I came to tell you.”

  “My thanks.” I forced a smile and resisted the urge to pat his shoulder. “Stay here,” I instructed Toria as she made to follow me through the door. There was almost certain to be some form of altercation and her inherent aggression had a tendency to escalate tense moments into violence.

  I started off at a fast walk as running was sure to attract unwanted attention. Behind me Nucklin stuttered to Toria, “I-I got a jar of fresh tea today. Iffen you’d like some…”

  I heard the door slam as I rounded a corner, hurrying through a succession of narrow alleys towards the graveyard. I shortened the journey by vaulting a wall and picking a fast but careful path through the pig pens. I had to dodge the charge of a grumpy boar before climbing another wall which placed me at the western corner of the graveyard. I had little trouble finding Brewer’s tall form, standing atop a crate near the gate as he gave his sermon to a crowd consisting of a half-dozen townsfolk and the same number of custodians. The townsfolk seemed either puzzled or amused by his preaching, the custodians notably less so.

  “To know the scrolls by heart is a good thing,” Brewer intoned as I drew closer, casting wary glances at the stern-faced custodians. Brewer spoke in a loud but mostly flat monotone, his shoulders hunched and face flushed, the words forced out rather than proclaimed. It was strange that a man with seemingly no fear of physical danger should be reduced to such a state by the mere act of speaking in public. Nevertheless, here he was, facing his fears as Sihlda had taught us despite the indifference or scorn of his audience.

  “But to speak them without knowledge is not,” he went on after pausing to swallow, the sweat beading his skin catching the late-evening sun. “The scrolls are not mere incantations. They are not prayers to the Seraphile like the meaningless odes northern heathens gabble to their false gods. Just repeating words set down on a page is meaningless. To truly be part of the Covenant you must know their meaning; you must read them for yourself.”

  “Shit,” I muttered, seeing several custodians bridle at this. More concerning, however, was the surprising fact that one among the sparse group of onlookers seemed to have actually been listening.

  “Liar!” a spindly woman of advanced years stepped forward, shaking a bony fist. Despite her slight form, her voice held much of the stridency that Brewer’s lacked. “That’s the southern creed!”

  “No, sister,” Brewer said. He attempted to mould his features into a semblance of Sihlda’s honest solicitation, the raised eyebrows and open smile that captured so many. On his face, however, it looked more like a leering grimace. “This creed is for everyone. All must read the scrolls, not just the nobles. Not just the clerics—”

  “And those of us that can’t?” the old woman broke in. “What’re we s’posed to do?”

  “Learn of course.” Brewer’s face took on a faintly mocking cast that told of a man engaged in an argument rather than a sermon. Sihlda never argued; she only persuaded. “Stop allowing yourself to be mired in ignorance—”

  “Who you calling ignorant?” another onlooker shouted, a beefy fellow I recognised as one of the labourers from the smithy. To my dismay, I saw several more people drift closer at the sound of raised voices. What had been a small cluster of bemused spectators was about to become a crowd, and an angry one at that.

  “The Supplicants teach me the scrolls and I’m grateful for it,” the labourer went on, face reddening and voice heated. The brief sideways glance he cast towards the custodians made me doubt the veracity of his outrage. In Callintor it always paid to curry favour with orthodox authority.

  “As a beggar is grateful for the scraps he receives?” Brewer shot back, his anger suddenly making his voice considerably more compelling. “Are you an adherent or a slave?”

  “Heretic!” the old woman yelled, a cry that I have learned is almost certain to be taken up by at least a few others in any crowd of sufficient size. “Heresy will bring the Second Scourge down upon us!”

  The resultant chorus of denunciation was loud and possessed of sufficient genuine anger to finally stir the custodians into action. Seeing them begin to push their way through the crowd, I hurried towards Brewer as he vainly attempted to shout above the clamour of faithful anger.

  “Had enough?” I asked, moving into his eyeline and casting a glance over my should
er at the fast-approaching custodians.

  The sight of me brought some reason back to Brewer’s gaze, shoulders slumping and fervour diminishing into dismay. He made no move to step down from the crate, however.

  “Come on,” I said, moving to grab his sleeve. “We have to go.”

  “You, seeker!” the lead custodian said, pointing an imperious finger at Brewer as he and his companions pushed the nearest onlookers aside. “Who gave you leave to preach?”

  Seeing a defiant glower blossom in Brewer’s eye, I turned to the custodians, attempting a tone of neutral persuasion. “There’s no stricture against preaching in Callintor.”

  I took a small mite of comfort in recognising the foremost custodian as a fellow servant at the Shrine to Martyr Callin, although he had to squint at my face for a moment before consenting to recall our association. “But there’s plenty of strictures against heresy,” he growled. “I would’ve thought a scribe would know that.”

  “I do. I also know my brother has spoken nothing that transgresses the strictures or the scrolls. He only speaks the sermons taught to us by Ascendant Sihlda, she whom Ascendant Hilbert himself has named among the redeemed.”

  Recent weeks had seen Hilbert make liberal use of Sihlda’s testament in his sermons, sometimes crediting her for the many insights, but not always. The increasing frequency with which he quoted her, and the popularity his sermons were garnering, put me in mind of one of Deckin’s favourite aphorisms: Only a fool risks his neck to steal something of no value.

  Mention of Ascendant Hilbert’s name had more of an effect than did Sihlda’s, the custodian falling silent while his companions dithered. Fortunately, their intervention had served to quell the crowd’s discontent, most of whom looked on in lively curiosity rather than anger. Entertainment was always hard to come by in Callintor.

  “He’s your brother, is he?” the custodian asked, gaze switching doubtfully between Brewer and myself

  “My brother in devotion to the Covenant,” I said, turning to give Brewer an insistent jerk of my head, concealing a sigh of relief as he climbed down from his perch without further protest.

  “Then teach him the true nature of devotion,” the custodian said. “Obedience to the Covenant will be blessed by the Seraphile’s grace above all virtues.”

  “Quite so,” I agreed cheerfully, clamping a hand on Brewer’s arm and tugging him away before he could bridle. Luckily, his sense of defeat outweighed any urge to argument, at least for now. He allowed me to lead him towards the main thoroughfare, not even turning when the custodian called after us.

  “Best keep him muzzled,” he shouted, drawing some laughter from the thinning crowd. “Not all dogs are bred to bark.”

  Brewer was silent for much of the journey to our house, head bowed and face set in a frown of both defeat and bafflement.

  “Do this again and I’ll leave you to custodians,” I told him, which only succeeded in bringing a small shift to his shoulders. “I mean it,” I added. “Get yourself expelled if you want, but we’re not ready to leave. Not yet.”

  Brewer barely seemed to hear, maintaining his silence for a few steps before muttering, “Her words. Her truth. Why won’t they hear it?”

  “Because it’s not her saying it,” I said. I softened my voice a little, trying to match Sihlda’s persuasive tones as I went on. “It was never just her words; it was her voice too. It was her…” I trailed off, unable to properly articulate Sihlda’s gift for capturing hearts. “It was just her. And she’s gone. Now it’s just us.”

  “She’s a Martyr,” Brewer stated, recovering some of his previous passion. “And should be proclaimed as such.”

  “And will be.” My voice held more conviction than I felt on this particular issue, but Brewer was not a man who responded well to uncertainty. “One day. We’ve planted the seed here. In time it’ll grow. Ascendant Hilbert speaks her truth in almost every sermon now.”

  A dark, resentful shadow passed over Brewer’s face at the mention of the plagiaristic Ascendant. “As if it were his own,” he said in an aggrieved mutter.

  “They’re still her words from her testament. We’re her witnesses. It’s up to us to keep her story alive, but we can’t do that if we end up dragged back to the Pit for Lord Eldurm to string up.”

  I had more lecturing to impart but my voice died abruptly as we rounded the corner where the thoroughfare joined with the gate road. A fresh group of sanctuary seekers were thronging the wooden arch that formed Callintor’s main gate. They were about a dozen strong, an unusually large group at most times but increasingly common in recent weeks. Rumour had it the Pretender had once again gathered an army of sufficient size to menace the middle duchies, inevitably stirring King Tomas to raise his standard and muster a force to meet the threat. So many armed men marching about had a tendency to flush outlaws from their dens like rabbits fleeing a ferret.

  But it wasn’t the size of the group that stilled my tongue and brought me to a sudden halt; it was the sight of one of their number. Their bedraggled appearance was typical, all torn, threadbare clothes and most lacking shoes. Three women and nine men, one of whom captured my attention with all the force of a bear trap snapping shut. He stood taller than the others, but was just as thin as ever, cheeks and eyes hollowed from privation, but still possessed of a predatory danger if you were attuned to such things.

  Brewer gave a puzzled grunt as I sidestepped into the shadowed alley between the bakery and the chandlers. I was pretty sure the tall newcomer hadn’t seen me but daren’t risk the smallest glimpse. The sight of him had lit an ugly fire in me that banished all other concerns in an instant.

  “What is it?” Brewer asked, as I flattened myself against the bakery wall.

  “The new lot at the gate,” I said. “Watch and tell me how many are let in.”

  Brewer’s heavy brow creased in suspicion but he consented to spend a moment observing the sanctuary-seeking ritual play out. “Sent two of the men off pretty quickly,” he reported. “Rough-looking types, as you’d expect, stupid with it. Probably couldn’t recall a line of scripture between them.” He watched for a little longer. “The rest they’re leading off to the Shrine to Martyr Athil. I heard their Ascendant complaining about a lack of workers in their turnip field last week.”

  “The tallest,” I said. “A skinny bastard who looks like he might know how to handle himself.”

  “They let him in.” Brewer’s eye formed a squint as it slid towards me. “Friend of yours?”

  I didn’t answer, head filling with all manner of calculations as I poked it out for a cautious glance. The group had mostly disappeared from view so I stepped from the shadows, intending to follow until Brewer moved into my path. “Someone we need to worry about?” he asked in tones that told me he required an answer.

  “He was part of Deckin’s band,” I said. “Witness to some things it’s better the clerics don’t know.”

  Brewer’s frown deepened. “That’s not a worried look I see on your face.” He angled his head in scrutiny, looming closer. “It’s the look you used to get when there was hard work to do.”

  Back in the Pit, “hard work” had been our shared euphemism for those occasions when a troublesome inmate would mysteriously find themselves atop the pile of bodies by the gate. We employed it as a sop to Sihlda’s sensibilities although I had little doubt she understood the meaning full well.

  “Heresy might get us expelled,” Brewer said. “Murder’ll get us hung.”

  “Me and Toria happened upon a scheme to get us out of here today,” I told him, deciding a little subterfuge was in order. “With pockets full enough to take us to all corners of this land. Places where the word of Martyr Sihlda might find more receptive ears. But it won’t work if I have to keep a constant watch on my back.”

  He relaxed a little, mollified by the prospect of fertile ground for Sihlda’s teachings. “If it needs doing I can do it,” he said. However transformed his soul might have been through long ass
ociation with a newly minted Martyr, Brewer would always remain an outlaw at heart. Besides, the scrolls held many allusions to the rightness of killing done in a good cause, and what better cause was there than this?

  “No offence,” I said, edging round him, “but you’re not the quietest hand when it comes to hard work. I’ll see you at the house.”

  I hastened on my way before he could protest, making for the southern quarter where the Shrine to Martyr Athil lay among a surrounding patchwork of enclosed fields. Each shrine in Callintor was responsible for meeting a different aspect of the city’s needs. Martyr Callin’s shrine was the principal centre of administration by dint of the fact that it was the only one with a scriptorium. The Shrine to Martyr Melliah oversaw the workshops of wrights, potters and smiths. The seekers who found themselves allotted to Martyr Ihlander’s shrine spent their time tending livestock in the pigpens or chicken coops. However, sanctuary seekers foolish enough to proclaim their souls attuned to the example of Martyr Athil would face months of back-breaking labour in the fields.

  Callintor was not a place where one simply wandered without reason, so I moved with a purposeful stride that didn’t invite questions from prowling custodians. Lingering in the vicinity of the fields presented more of a problem but I was fortunate in finding an unpruned bramble bush to hide in. I had to suffer the chirping protests of a nesting goldfinch as I crouched and waited, my gaze fixed on the shrine’s rear entrance. It took a gratingly long time for the new arrivals to appear, all bearing hoes or spades as one of the shrine’s Supplicants hectored them to their first day of work. The tall, hollow-cheeked figure stood out easily and, as he drew marginally closer, I felt my heart take on a heavy thud as it became apparent my first glimpse hadn’t been mistaken.

  It was the way he moved rather than his face that clinched it: the half-slumped shoulders, the way his gaze slithered about constantly, lingering most, I noted, on the younger labourers. Seeing the way he stared at one in particular – a lissome girl of bright manners but little brain known to all as Smiling Ayin – I deduced his inclinations had worsened with age.