*
I walked slowly out of the dark chamber of the sanctuary. The Saint of Mercy felt so fragile in my arms that I feared any sudden motion might cause her bones to break. Obladias and Quentis stood aside, casting their eyes down to the ground, perhaps out of respect, or maybe because they were religious men and it was too hard to see a Saint come to this. Ethalia didn’t look away but took Birgid’s hand and held her gaze every step of the way.
When we reached the top of the stairs I looked around the coloured walls of the sanctuary. I was oddly unsure of which door to choose, which God to follow. In the end, I went to the pale purple wall and the door that would be guarded outside, however poorly, by the statue of the Goddess of Love.
‘There are still things worth saving,’ Birgid said as we exited into the warm sun. A light breeze lifted the thin white strands of hair from her face. It was, I supposed, as close to a parting gift from the Gods as we were likely to get. Birgid looked pleased, though, wearing the big toothy grin of a card player who has just laid down her last hand to win the final round. Her Sainthood gave another little flash, a soft glow barely noticeable against the afternoon sunlight. Ethalia stood close by, smiling down at Birgid, trying to fill the old woman’s last vision of the world with love.
And in the midst of this, I felt a desperate desire for this to be over. Ethalia was breaking inside and it should have been my job to hold her, to help her grieve and mourn, and then to lead her on those first fumbling steps towards healing.
But I needed to hunt down the man who had brought this upon us and end him.
Birgid’s description of him came back to me: A great and terrible intellect. A mind that would see this world shaped to his liking.
I was so sick to death of those who kept wanting to twist and destroy what my King had tried so hard to build, what so many Greatcoats had died to protect.
Birgid shifted in my arms and I looked down. She reached up and placed a hand on my neck, pulling me closer to her.
‘Are you . . . ? Is there—? Can I do anything for you?’ I asked.
She didn’t answer, but I felt her take in a breath so deep I feared her ribs might shatter from the effort. She held it a long time, and then kissed me on the cheek and whispered, ‘Forgive me, Falcio. I would have spared you this if I could.’
Shame burned in my gut. While I stood there letting my frustrations roil, she was breathing her last. I put on my best wry grin and prepared something clever to say, something that might bring one last stutter of laughter to the Saint of Mercy, but when I looked down at her, the life had already fled her body. I waited, wondering if perhaps some last flash of light might come, or there’d be some great parting of the skies above us and thunder and rain would be unleashed to mark her passing. Even after Quentis approached and the old monk, Obladias, started muttering whatever useless prayer his Gods demanded be uttered at this moment, still I waited. Someone said my name, but I ignored them. Moments before I had wanted to be done with Birgid, and now I couldn’t let her go.
Only when I felt someone trying to take her from me did I finally kneel and ease her body down on the soft grass that lined the path. I gazed at her face, willing it to look peaceful or serene or whatever words we use when recounting such events to others, though it would have been a lie. I’ve seen a great many dead people in my life. They just look dead.
‘Falcio?’ Ethalia said. I didn’t think it was the first time she had spoken.
‘Why did she say that?’ I asked. ‘Why did she ask me to forgive her?’
When she didn’t answer, I tried to turn, and only then did I feel that heaviness upon me, that distinctive sluggishness. I couldn’t seem to get to my feet. For a moment I wondered if perhaps I’d been struck on the back of the head, or if Quentis had shot me in the back – sometimes it takes a few seconds to feel a wound when you’re hit. But I didn’t recall hearing pistol fire, or feeling anything hit me. I simply couldn’t rise.
The grass beneath me became brighter for a moment, as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds. That can’t be right. There weren’t any clouds in the sky. The answer came to me then, even before I drew on every ounce of will inside me to force my body to respond, to demand that my hands push me to my feet and my legs straighten themselves. And as I stood, before I turned, I understood why Birgid’s final words had been to beg my forgiveness. I knew what need had driven her to smash her head against the walls of her prison over and over until she could escape, and I knew that she had not, in fact, come to the Palace of Baern in search of me.
I knew all of this even before I found myself staring at the source of the light coming from the new Saint of Mercy.
His desires cannot abide Mercy. He will destroy it, unless you stop him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Saint of Mercy
I reached out to her, of course. It’s what you do when the woman you love is scared and in pain. It’s what you do when she has just become the next target of a man who murders with impunity those whom others revere.
Move, I thought. Ethalia needs you.
She was standing six feet away from me, illuminated by the soft glow of the Sainthood that had once belonged to Birgid-who-weeps-rivers. She stood with her arms at her sides, staring down at the ground as though it was very far away, as if she had awakened to find herself standing at the edge of a cliff, hundreds of feet up, looking down at the village where she’d grown up, trying without success to find her family home because everything had suddenly become too small.
I’m not normally very poetic, so I suppose the whole thing with the cliff and the village was my first piece of evidence that something was very wrong.
Come on, I commanded my mind and body, go to Ethalia.
We’re working on it, they replied in unison.
The glow faded from her and I was able to take a first slow step towards her. I could hear the sound of wind passing through the trees, of insects clicking and people off in the distance shouting, so I knew time hadn’t actually stopped. It was just me. Just a couple more feet, I told myself, and then you hold her in your arms, you tell her this is going to be all right, that you’re going to solve this problem together. You promise to keep her safe. Then, if she doesn’t look like she thinks you’re an idiot, you ask her to marry you.
I heard the sounds of Kest and Brasti running towards me, shouting at me, neither realising I couldn’t possibly hear what they were saying over the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
I took my second step. Close enough, I thought, and reached out my hand, my fingers stretching to touch her, to pull her close to me. That would solve everything. We would talk, I would joke, she would pretend I was funny. We would figure it all out. Together.
My fingertips felt the first, light brush of the skin of her arm and the smile I’d started seconds ago finally reached my face. Then she turned and saw me reaching for her.
Everything about Ethalia is in the eyes.
Fear. Confusion. Loathing.
‘Get away from me!’ she screamed.
‘Ethalia, it’s me . . . It’s—’
‘Do not touch me with those hands,’ she said, her voice full of sorrow and yet utterly unyielding. ‘Those hands of violence – hands meant only for holding swords and for shedding blood . . .’
And as she ran away from me, through the door and into the cathedral, an old duelling phrase came to mind.
Deato mendea valus febletta.
The Gods give every man a weakness.
*
‘We have a problem,’ Kest said, running towards me, Brasti hot on his heels.
‘We have a problem’. Really? Is it a big problem or a small problem? Is it something on the order of finding even more dead Saints lying about, or something simpler, like the woman I love fleeing from me in utter disgust?
‘Give me a minute,’ I said.
Kest grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. He hardly ever does that without a good reason. ‘Minutes are all we have, Falcio. Listen, ca
n you hear them? The pilgrims are rushing the gates.’
‘Duke Jillard’s already left,’ Brasti said. ‘He took one look at the mob and rode out of here, closely followed by his personal guards.’
The first shouts reached us from off in the distance and Kest renewed shaking my shoulder. ‘The gates won’t hold long, Falcio. Allister’s found a back exit out of the martyrium but if the pilgrims find it before we leave we’ll be trapped.’
That certainly sounded serious. Pilgrims. Gates. Trapped. All very serious words, said in a serious voice by a very serious man. So why can’t I make sense of any of it? I needed to clear my head somehow. I felt a profound urge to stab someone with my rapier. No, that hasn’t been working out lately.
‘What in the name of Saint Laina’s left tit is wrong with him?’ Brasti asked.
‘I believe he’s suffering the after-effects of the Saint’s Awe,’ Quentin Maren replied. ‘It’s the spiritual influence they wield over us – each Saint’s Awe is different, attuned to their nature.’
The ‘Saint’s Awe’. That sounded like a perfectly sensible explanation. On the other hand, he might be making it up. Stop. Focus. What’s happening right now?
‘Whatever the cause,’ Kest said, ‘we need to get Ethalia out of here before this place is overrun.’
The sounds of shouting grew louder. ‘You can run off any time you like,’ Obladias said, ‘but the Saint of Mercy stays with us. Only the church can guide and protect her as she comes into her Sainthood. This is a matter far outside your understanding and even further outside your jurisdiction.’
‘Very logical,’ I said. ‘Sensible, practical thinking, Venerati.’ I had no intention of following it. I turned to Kest. ‘Go and get Ethalia from the cathedral. She’ll . . . I think she’ll be more comfortable if you talk to her.’
‘Assuming I can get the new Saint of the Mercy to listen to me, then what?’ Kest asked.
‘Take her to Allister and the horses. Brasti and I will meet you there in a minute and then we’ll go to Aramor.’
‘Falcio, you realise that’s not what Obladias is suggesting?’
‘Yes, I’m aware of the distinction. He has laid out his very clear, sensible thoughts on the matter and now we’re going to do the exact opposite.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind, Trattari,’ Obladias said.
‘Go on,’ I told Kest. ‘Brasti and I will meet you when we’re done.’
‘Done what?’
Obladias had had enough of me by then. ‘Inquisitor Maren, by order of the Church and under the command of the Gods, draw your weapon and fire on this man.’
I wasn’t looking for a fight. At least part of me recognised that making an enemy of the Church could cost us, later on. That part of me was very, very small.
‘Falcio . . .’ Quentis warned. He hadn’t yet reached for his pistol, which told me several very important things.
‘Quentis, if you think I’m letting you take the woman I love into custody so that you and your fellow Inquisitors can turn her into your own personal pet Saint, then you’re even crazier than your friend here. And judging from the sneer on his lips, I’d say he’s so crazy that he’s about to say something he’ll regret.’
Come on, you arsehole. Just give me an excuse.
The monk – and now I definitely knew there was no way in any hell he was simply a monk – practically growled, ‘Listen to me, Trattari. I don’t give a damn what relationship you think you had with this woman before, but she’s a Saint now and is the property of the Church.’
Property of the Church. Okay, that’ll do.
The slight whisper of steel sliding across leather filled the air as my rapier fairly flew from its sheath. Its point floated an inch from Quentis Maren’s neck before his hand had even reached his weapon.
‘I warned you I was fast when I set my mind to it.’
‘You’re taking quite a gamble,’ he said. ‘How do you know I don’t have my men ready to fire on you?’
‘Oh, I’m pretty sure you had several of them ready to take me once we’d left the cathedral. But I’m hearing two hundred crazed zealots trying to knock down the front gates and I’m thinking that those men went to help the others.’ I locked eyes with him to see what reaction he’d have to what I said next. ‘Those pilgrims out there didn’t just up and decide to storm the martyrium. Someone told them that the body of Saint Anlas was here. Someone whipped them up into a frenzy. Who do you suppose gave them that little nugget of information? Because I think you have a spy amongst your men.’
To his credit, Quentis Maren didn’t so much as blink. ‘If there is someone disloyal among my Inquisitors, I’ll soon find them. In the meantime—’
‘In the meantime,’ Brasti said, an arrow nocked and ready, ‘I’d say you should probably get ready to give a truly inspiring speech to those pilgrims, because that gate is coming down now and Kest and I took care of a little business just before we came here.’
‘And what business was that?’ the Inquisitor asked.
‘We set all your horses free. Judging from how fast they ran, I’m guessing they don’t much care for crowds of slightly insane, screaming people.’
‘You know I could kiss you right now, don’t you?’ I said to Brasti.
‘Always the sentimental one.’
Brasti kept his arrow aimed at Quentis as the two of us started backing away, heading for the path leading towards escape. Obladias began cursing me – the Tristian religion has some very nasty curses that doom a man to every kind of hellish torment imaginable.
Oh well. I’ve been cursed plenty of times in my life and nothing too bad’s happened yet, right?
‘Tell me how this ends, Falcio,’ Quentis said as he watched us backing away. ‘Saints are dying, the people are terrified and soon they will all know that their lives are even less safe than they thought. Whatever force is behind this is more deadly than any of us have seen, deadlier than anything that has existed since the Gods themselves walked the earth. What exactly is it you think you can do, you with your bare handful of Greatcoats?’
‘That’s simple,’ I said. ‘We’re going to find the son of a bitch who killed Birgid, and then I’m going to arrest him.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Shattered Stones
It’s remarkably hard to sustain the image one has of oneself when riding into danger, sword held aloft, sitting astride a fine black warhorse, when it’s pissing rain down on your head. First of all, riding about with a rapier extended just gets you funny looks to go with your sore arm and rusted blade. Second, if you push a horse to run great distances at speed in a downpour you generally just end up with a dead horse. By the sixth day since our departure from the Martyrium, however, I was no longer entirely opposed to that outcome.
‘Stop leaping over everything, you damned fool,’ I said to my horse for the hundredth time, but the damn thing ignored me. As usual.
I’ve never had a very good relationship with horses. It’s not that I dislike them – I mean, who doesn’t like horses? They just don’t reciprocate the sentiment in my case.
My current mount, a copper-coloured Tivanieze, was bred for travelling through rough, mountainous terrains and insisted on staying in practise by jumping wildly across every puddle, bump or pothole on our otherwise smooth road. I was slowly, mile by mile, being driven mad by his choppy, stuttering gait. It didn’t help that I was spending most of that time watching Ethalia riding a few dozen yards ahead, slowly succumbing to the Saint’s Fever. So much faster than it had taken Kest, I thought.
I’d tried to stay close to her, to reassure the woman I loved, but my proximity only made matters worse.
‘Maybe you should try talking,’ Brasti suggested.
‘I’ve tried,’ I said. ‘All she says back to me is, “I can abide”.’
‘No, no, I meant talk to the horse. Be nice to the poor fellow – maybe give him a name.’
The sight of a broken tree branch lying in our path –
no, not even a branch, a twig, no more than two inches high, sent the Tivanieze leaping several feet in the air and I was very nearly jolted from the saddle. ‘Stop it, you arsehole!’ I shouted.
‘“Arsehole” is a terrible name for any beast,’ Brasti chided.
Kest looked back from a few yards ahead. ‘He did call the last one “Monster”.’
‘She had fangs,’ I countered. ‘It was a perfectly reasonable name.’
A few seconds later a squirrel skittered across the road in front of us and my damned horse veered playfully towards it as if he were contemplating chasing after it. I pulled hard on his reins to get him going in the right direction again. ‘I’m definitely sticking with “Arsehole”,’ I informed him.
‘Church up ahead,’ Allister called out.
‘Joy of joys,’ Brasti said, standing in his stirrups to look down the road. ‘Maybe the seventh time’s the charm.’
It was going to have to be. We’d stopped at every roadside church and backwoods shrine on the road from Baern in hopes of finding a working sanctuary. We weren’t quite sure what we were looking for, but we were quite sure we hadn’t found it.
‘I can abide,’ Ethalia said each time we failed to find a place with whatever invisible spiritual characteristics were required to ease her suffering, and each time I’d wait until she’d ridden ahead, out of earshot, before I turned to Kest and asked, ‘How long until it overcomes her?’
Not that he ever gave me an answer that was any use. It had taken him longer to feel the effects of the Saint’s Fever during his brief tenure as the Saint of Swords, but that might have simply been because Kest is so damned disciplined that he forgets to acknowledge agony, even when he has a pistol bullet lodged in his shoulder. Or even a hand severed from his arm by his best friend’s blade, I reminded myself.
‘This one’s no good, either,’ Allister called back. He and Ethalia were already off their horses and had made it into the church grounds ahead of us. Kest, Brasti and I followed.
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