‘We have lot of problems, sweetheart. Which specific one are you talking about?’
She took in a breath and I realised I’d really irritated her. Before I could apologise, she said, ‘Falcio, what I’m about to say to you isn’t a request, it’s an order. We need something beyond a few brave souls with swords, so you, Kest and Brasti are going to take Ethalia to find a functioning sanctuary so that she can come into her power. We need that power, now.’
That’s simple enough, I thought. Just tell me to abandon you here as the snakes begin to slither around the nest. I don’t fucking think so. ‘I’m not sure if anyone’s told you this yet, but the Greatcoats don’t actually follow the orders of the monarch.’
‘You followed my father’s commands,’ she said, accusingly.
‘We liked to think of them more as strongly-worded suggestions.’ I raised my hands, not wanting to argue. ‘Look, it’s a big country, and we don’t even know if there is an undesecrated sanctuary left – I wouldn’t have the first idea where to look.’
A mocking voice answered, ‘When did a Trattari ever know where to go without a Bardatti sending him?’ Rhyleis, the musician I’d met at the tavern in Baern, was striding towards us. The cocky smile on her face was the perfect match to the swagger of her step.
‘I spoke to Rhyleis earlier,’ Aline told me, ‘and now I want you to listen to her.’
‘I do indeed have a tune for you, First Cantor.’ She stopped in front of me and reached up with her index finger to trace a line along my jaw. ‘Ah, but poor Falcio. You look lovelorn. Are you still chasing after the Saint of Mercy, calling down the moon itself in the hope that it will shine favour upon your desire? Perhaps you should find a companion better suited to your ardour.’ She punctuated the last word with a wink.
I was starting to get mildly annoyed with the way everyone felt so comfortable discussing my relationships. ‘Lady, did you come with information, or are you asking me out on a date?’
Rhyleis was suddenly downcast, her expression almost heartbreaking in its sincerity, as if, here and now, for the very first time, someone had shattered her heart. Seeing that I wasn’t entirely convinced, she seamlessly shifted to a haughtier and substantially more genuine stance. ‘You know, in days past when a Bardatti came bearing news, men and women greater than you would fall to their knees begging to hear it sung.’ She held out a slim hand as if examining it. ‘Rings and chains of gold and silver would have been thrust upon me, in those better days.’
‘And yet all you’re going to get from me is a thank you.’
She smiled, for the first time looking normal; a moment of her life that was not a performance. ‘That will have to suffice, then. Very well, listen as I play you my little tune.’
I looked back up the road at the Duchy that we had just abandoned to the Church, where the Inquisitors would soon be enforcing the new laws that Obladias and his tame clerics were no doubt busy writing. The Saints were dropping like flies, the Greatcoats were nowhere to be found and somewhere out there an opponent who’d planned all of this so carefully was outmatching us at every turn. Even from here I could hear the pilgrims united in song that sounded both exultant and whiny.
‘Please don’t tell me you’re really going to sing it for me,’ I said, turning back to Rhyleis, ‘because I think that might just be the thing that finally makes me slit my own throat.’
‘Silly magistrate,’ she chided me. ‘That’s the news, right there – you need to listen for it.’
‘Rhyleis, that’s enough,’ Aline said, apparently done with watching us fence. ‘Tell him.’
The musician gave a very impertinent rendition of a bow and said, ‘Alas, my Lady, the Bardatti do not do the bidding of Queens and Kings.’
Aline looked up at me. ‘Is there anyone in this country who does? Because I’m starting to wonder precisely what power a monarch is supposed to wield.’
Rhyleis gave a second bow, and this one was a lot more sincere. ‘That, my Lady, is an excellent question for an heir to the throne to ask.’ She gestured up the road to the palace, to the singing pilgrims. ‘Do you like the song, Falcio?’
As a general rule, I dislike hymns; they always sound a bit pretentious and you can’t dance to them. But I was noticing something odd about this one. Tristian hymns are sung in harmony, with each line a different plea to the Gods, but this one had a strange counter-melody; I hadn’t consciously noticed it at first, but now it really stuck out.
Rhyleis had been watching my face. ‘I see you have something of an ear,’ she said approvingly, as if that suddenly made me more attractive. ‘Do you know what it’s saying?’
Aline interrupted the show again. ‘You know he doesn’t, so stop showing off and tell us.’
‘The first pair of notes are the Bardatti word for “found”,’ Rhyleis replied, relenting. ‘Nehra sent us searching for undescecrated sanctuaries, so that means one of us has found one. Listen: that descending fourth, up a fifth, then down a sixth? That’s the Condate of Verderen.’
I struggled to hear what she was talking about. ‘You can name every March and Condate in the country from a sequence of notes?’
‘More the sequence of intervals between the notes, actually, but yes. We can specify all the way down to an individual estate if we want to, but it’s hard to bury that inside a song without using instrumental lines.’
Aline was tilting her head as she too, listened for the hidden message in the middle harmony line. ‘So are you saying there are Bardatti singing amongst the pilgrims?’
Rhyleis laughed at that. ‘Of course not! How would we ever get anything done if we had to go around masquerading as pilgrims? No, my Lady, it’s much simpler than that: one of us constructs the melody, then sings it a few times here or there, wherever the pilgrims are to be found. They hear it and without even realising, pick up the tune. It spreads quickly when we compose it properly – I could tell you which tavern a drunk was patronising by the way he honks along to “The Horse and the Straw”.’
‘You can really do that?’ Aline asked. ‘You can change a few notes in a song and others will pick it up and sing it without even realising it?’
‘I’m a Bardatti,’ Rhyleis replied, as if that answered everything. ‘But if you want to hear something really impressive, get Nehra to show you how she can make redlarks spread a tune through the skies.’
It bothered me no end that orders like the Bardatti and the Cogneri had managed to preserve so much of their lore, while we Trattari had to pretty much make it up as we went along. And I still don’t like the name, even though I now know it’s not the insult people believe it to be.
‘How do we know the information is correct?’ I asked. ‘You want me to race off to the middle of Domaris on the basis of a few notes in a hymn to the Gods?’
‘Our new Prelate is an impressive figure, don’t you think?’ Rhyleis replied, ignoring my question. ‘Such a strong voice. I find the deep roll of his consonants particularly fascinating.’
It took me a moment to figure out what she was getting at. ‘He’s from Domaris?’
‘Anyone who isn’t deaf could tell you he’s from Domaris, Falcio. I’m telling you he’s from Verderen. The rise in his vowels might be subtle, but it’s a dead giveaway.’
Back when he was pretending to be a humble monk, Obladias had told me some inane story about a man from his estates losing faith in the Gods after the death of his family. If he really was from Verderen, that might well be where this started – and where they kept the one remaining sanctuary. It’s thin evidence, I thought. Nothing but speculation, rumour, conjecture.
Aline could see the look on my face. ‘Falcio, you’re going to take Kest and Brasti and the three of you are going to find a way to get Lady Ethalia into the Condate of Verderen. You’re going to find a way to get her into that sanctuary and help her find the strength of her Sainthood. If she can stop the madness that’s holding Valiana, then we might have a chance.’
‘But—’
She gave Rhyleis a meaningful look and the Bardatti took the hint and sauntered down the road for a bit. ‘It has to be now, Falcio,’ Aline said, looking back at the crowds outside the Palace of Luth. ‘It’s our only hope: that there’s a reason why the enemy fears her so much.’
‘I’m not leaving you alone and defenceless,’ I said, with as much finality as I could muster. ‘Who’s going to watch out for you and Valiana the next time—’
‘I will,’ Darriana said, stepping out from the trees lining the sides the road.
Aline looked annoyed. ‘I specifically asked you not to spy on us, Darriana,’
‘And I ignored that request.’ She locked eyes with me. ‘Understand?’ The message was as clear as it was simple: Darriana wasn’t afraid to ignore royal commands. She’d do whatever it took to keep Aline and Valiana safe. I nodded once by way of reply, and Darri left us.
She glared daggers at me for a moment, then sighed. ‘As you can see, there’s not much danger of me being left unprotected. I’ll have the Tailor and Mateo, too.’
‘Don’t forget Tommer,’ I said. ‘He’s probably slipped his father’s leash by now. I’ll bet he’s already heading back this way.’
I’d meant it sarcastically, but Aline gave a smile. ‘He loves me, or at any rate he thinks he does.’ She sounded like a woman of twenty speaking about an eight-year-old’s first crush, not as a girl of fourteen, barely older.
‘What happened to the half-crazed girl who pulled out her hair and couldn’t last another day?’ I wondered aloud.
Aline reached out and took my hand, then pressed it against her cheek. ‘That girl is hanging on by a thread, Falcio, trying to pretend she can hold the country together, though we both know it isn’t true.’
I didn’t know what to do or say; Aline had just given voice to my deepest fears.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I need you to know the truth. I have to keep up the act for the others – they need someone to believe in right now, but you . . .’
Now it was me reassuring her. ‘You’ve come a long way, Aline, you just need time for the Dukes to see that you—’
‘I’ll never get the time I need. There’s only one person who can save this country and she’s trapped behind a mask of iron. You need to find a way to save Valiana before we’re all brought to ruin.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The Whipping Boy
I was the last one let in on the plan, which made sense, since I never would have agreed to it if I’d known about it first. It didn’t help that my damned Inquisitor’s coat itched like it was lined with tiny little devils scratching at my skin.
‘Do you suppose it’s intentional?’ Kest asked, tugging at the stiff collar and noting the way I kept scratching the back of my wrist where the cuff was rubbing against it.
‘How so?’
‘Perhaps the irritation is a form of privation, to make the Cogneri resistant to secular temptations.’
Brasti snorted. ‘Those sons of bitches we got the coats from seemed distinctly unsaintly to me.’
We hadn’t set out to confront the Inquisitors – in fact, we’d spent a good deal of time discussing how we might sneak into Domaris without having to deal with them at all – then we came across four of them outside a small church brutalising a congregation of worshippers of the Goddess of Love. The Inquisitors had chosen a particularly demeaning form of punishment to inflict upon them.
‘I still don’t understand why I have to parade around with this useless device,’ Brasti went on, spinning the wheellock around his finger by its trigger guard.
‘Inquisitors don’t carry bows,’ I said. ‘And stop playing with the damned thing. If you shoot yourself in the foot you might drop the pistol and break it. We’re going to need it soon enough.’
‘Have I mentioned how much I hate your plan, by the way? Why couldn’t we—?’ He stopped, looking down the road. ‘Saint Zaghev’s balls—’
We halted our horses before the oncoming horde of weary travellers. The shuffling of their feet along the dusty road kicked up such a cloud that it was hard to make out their numbers.
‘How many?’ I asked, trying to wipe the dust from my eyes.
‘Must be a hundred of the poor bastards.’
Kest stood up in the stirrups and surveyed the mass. ‘Closer to a hundred and forty.’
Neither number made me comfortable. Today was our sixth day riding the northern roads, the second since we’d crossed from Aramor into Domaris. Every day we encountered pilgrims, a few here, a few there, sometimes as many as a dozen together: little flocks of determined men and women, their bellies empty, extending shaking hands towards us as we rode by, hoping we might drop some morsels of food. We gave what we could for the first few days, but after that, necessity reined in our charity. Those we encountered never complained or cajoled or threatened; more often, seeing our grey Inquisitors’ garb, they praised us as we past.
‘They’re afraid,’ Ethalia said, tired eyes staring into the cloud of dust and dirt. ‘They’re drowning in fear.’ Now that we’d left the Palace of Luth the fever was worse than ever. The paleness of her skin accentuated how tightly it was stretched against the bones of her face. She shivered during the day, even under the noon sun; at night I watched the sweat drip down her face and dampen her blankets. Always I sought for something to say or do that might ease her suffering, but the kindest thing I could do was to keep my distance.
‘They’re getting close,’ Kest said, his voice soft, as if that might somehow lessen the insult of what had to come next.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to Ethalia. ‘You need to put the hood back on, and the bonds.’
She nodded and reached down to the grey linen hood tied to the front of her saddle. She slipped it over her head and then placed her other hand back in the iron handcuffs dangling from one wrist. Now she looked every bit the heretic being brought to trial by three Inquisitors. I reached back and took her reins so that I could lead her past the crowds, all the while hating myself, and the world along with me.
We kept the horses to a walk, not wanting to look too eager to get by, but the crowds parted easily for us, bowing their heads as we went by, holding out their hands in case we had anything to give them.
‘Falcio,’ Brasti said. His voice was low and even, immediately catching my attention, as he pointed to a bend further down the road. Several men were standing around a tree.
‘What’s going on up there?’ I asked, my vision not being as good as his.
The crack of a whip filled the air, followed by a scream, and I was leaning forward in the saddle, trying to see what was happening, when a moan from behind me made me turn to see Ethalia leaning heavily to one side. She was barely keeping herself in the saddle.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her.
‘They’re beating the hells out of some boy tied to a tree, from what I can see,’ Brasti said, but my attention was still on Ethalia, who was getting worse the closer we got.
‘Is it the boy’s pain?’ I asked urgently. ‘Is it—?’
‘That,’ she said, her words muffled by the grey hood, ‘but more the enjoyment of the men hurting him. The emptiness in them, the lack of—’
‘The lack of mercy,’ I said, remembering my first encounter with Saint Birgid. I’ve called out to you, she’d said. Always when the victory was won but before the final blow was struck. Was that what repelled Ethalia – not the necessity of violence in my life, but my inability to stop when the fight was done?
Whether from my words or my thoughts, Ethalia nodded.
‘Here,’ I said to Kest, handing him her reins. ‘Stay with Ethalia; we’ll go ahead.’
‘Falcio, if you interfere . . .’
‘If I don’t interfere, Ethalia’s going to be screaming by the time we get there and that’s going to raise even more questions.’
He held my gaze for a moment, then said, ‘I know, but I would urge you to be a little . . .’
‘Subtle?’ I asked, and he nodded, his forehead furrowing and making him look a nervous mother about to send her child into the city alone for the first time. I found it oddly funny.
‘I can be subtle,’ I said, kicking my horse into a slow trot through the crowds of pilgrims. ‘I’m the very Saint of Subtlety.’
*
The big man’s head snapped back as my fist collided with his mouth and the whip fell out of his hand as he stumbled back into his friends. The one who caught him saw the look on my face and promptly let go of him, watching helplessly as he slid to the ground.
‘This is subtle?’ Brasti whispered from just behind me, but I didn’t bother replying. This was as subtle as the situation allowed. Three men had been taking turns whipping the boy, whose back was now as bloody as if he wore a scarlet cloak. I’d told the man to stop what he was doing and he told me to go and bugger myself – I’d been about to give him a second chance when I remembered that we were disguised as Inquisitors. I’d never heard of an Inquisitor taking kindly to an insult, so I hit him.
A sharp pain in my right hand caught my attention and I held it up and saw something small and yellow protruding from the skin of my index finger. It was one of the whipmaster’s teeth.
Okay, so maybe I didn’t need to hit him quite that hard.
The man was struggling to get up without any noticeable help from his friends. Once he’d got his feet back under him, the first thing he did was run his fingers through his long, unkempt black hair. I thought it an odd gesture, but felt it would be impolite to comment.
‘You lousy son of a bitch,’ he said.
I sighed, then punched him in the face again.
To his credit he stayed on his feet this time, shaking his head like a bull preparing to charge.
‘Thank me,’ I said, my voice cold and made colder by the imperious accent I’d taken on. Inquisitors, from what I understood, were drawn mostly from noble families.
Saint's Blood: The Greatcoats Book 3 Page 34