by Carol Berg
Our boots crunched in the frozen muck. On this, the tenth day of my punishment, our route led to the Stonemasons’ District, a familiar haunt from my days working on the cathedral. There I was to spend the hours until sunset exhibited on a public platform, my foot shackled to a loop of iron.
Ten days, ten districts. Two more days to complete the round of the twelve districts of Palinur, and two additional days in the Council District after that. I had reaped the two extra days for a breach of discipline—attempting to throttle my guards the first time they approached me with the silver mask. Since then, I had been a model of submission; the consideration of wearing the silver mask for one extra turn of the glass made me physically ill.
The frost bit at my exposed skin, and I hunched my shoulders, trying to induce the folds of the ugly yellow cape to cover my hands. The cold would be wicked on my immobilized fingers this morning. If only the wind would die down, my layers of fine clothes would keep the rest of me warm enough. Better than most of the poor devils in the streets.
My daily excursions through Palinur—the city I knew best in all the kingdom, a city of culture, beauty, and friendly, expansive people—had shocked me. Filth piled up in the streets. The residents’ faces gaunt and frightened. Diseased. Once-prosperous avenues were scarcely more than rubble, wooden houses burnt, stone ones picked apart. At least half of the great statues of the Hundred Heroes that ringed the palace precincts had been toppled and no one had bothered to set them upright. So many stones had been stolen from the low wall that joined the statues that it had the look of a snaggle-toothed jawbone. The richest city in the kingdom was no longer any different from the rest of Navronne.
As we hurried across the expanse of the central market, it seemed even smaller than yesterday. Seedy and grim, the pocardon or “little city” of shops and carts took up less than a quarter the area it had when I had first left home. Though a piper’s mournful tunes still quickened the air, the denizens of the market, who long ago would snatch an awestruck runaway from the street and lead him in a merry reel through the market stalls for the sheer joy of it, had vanished. And on this morning, the shoppers who had once laughed and made way for those dancers snarled at each other over blighted turnips and tufts of mud-caked wool—or glared at a tall freakish sorcerer in an ermine-lined cloak and silver half mask being herded through the lanes by two pureblood guards, and cursed him for squandering privileges they could never aspire to.
On this tenth morning the gaunt face of the royal city had taken on a more immediate tension—beyond the matter of starvation and hopelessness and unseasonable winter. From the moment we left the Registry tower, I had the same eerie sense as in the hours before a battle—the uneasy quiet, the fingers of fear reaching through skin and bone to grip the soul, the blurring of boundaries between earth and sky, between past and future. I could not shake the sense that Palinur, hitherto untouched by the war, was soon to bleed as well as starve.
Above the citadel that crowned the hilltop, Prince Perryn’s gold and purple pennant whipped and snapped in the sharp breeze alongside the white trilliot of Navronne. But Max was here on his contracted master’s business—the business of our prince’s mortal enemy.
The earth itself will not end, only the life we know—cities and towns and villages, plowing and planting. I had not believed in the lighthouse cabal and their talk of end times. But my days in the royal city had given me pause. We were not yet to the solstice—only days past the equinox—and ever-temperate Palinur was buried in snow and ice. The arrow of war was aimed at the heart of Navronne, which was the Heart of the World. What if Luviar was right?
Though it was an ordinary day for working, hardly anyone was abroad amid the mills and tool shops of the Stonemasons’ District. Small groups of men huddled together in alleyways, halting their conversations to stare as we passed. Grinding wheels and grimsaws stood idle in the workyards, winches and chains snared in unbroken ice beside piles of old scaffolding, rotted and tangled with dead weeds. Even the crowd of ragged boys who capered alongside us each morning, hurling taunts and frozen mud clots, numbered but twenty or so, less than half the size of the previous days. Only the pigeons seemed lighthearted, making free of the stoops, benches, and rooftops, fluttering upward in great swarms as our little procession marched through the gray morning.
We turned a corner into an open square, where all the streets of the Stonemasons’ District came together. Here, as in every district square, Aurellian pipes and conduits fed the district well—this one topped by a pyramid of rose marble. And here, as in every district square, a pillory and flogging post stood on a raised platform. In front of the empty pillory, the Registry had installed a stone block and surrounded it with a ring of iron stanchions linked by silken ropes.
Caphur, one of the pureblood attendants appointed by the Registry to oversee my punishment, jerked his head for me to climb the platform and mount the block. Though a youngish man of modest size, he had inordinately heavy jowls that grew prodigious crops of hair. When I was in place, he attached the shackle about my ankle to the iron loop affixed to the block. Then he and his partner, whose name I didn’t know, took their places outside the circle of stanchions.
The two purebloods would prevent curious ordinaries from touching me. As my Registry judges had emphasized so tediously, the purpose of this exercise was not physical harm, but “education by way of unseemly exposure to the common population.” That is, a reminder that the “simple” demand of submission to my family and the Registry protected me from such filth, ignorance, and drudgery as existed among ordinaries. That is, shame and humiliation. They had neither understood nor appreciated my laughter at this pomposity.
All in all, this aspect of my punishment could have been far worse. To stand outdoors was cold and uncomfortable, but far less painful than a lashing and, for one with my peculiarities, infinitely preferable to close confinement. A smirking Caphur had told me that the Sinduria had particularly recommended this exhibition as the best way to teach me the lessons I required. I needed to consider that. My sister knew very well of my particular terrors.
Across the square a pyramid-shaped block of granite marked a frowzy lane. Allowing my eyelid to sag, I imagined I could hear Frop the Fiddler sawing on his vielle at the Plug and Feathers, situated halfway down that lane, and feel the music that always set my feet dancing as I downed the taverner’s strong mead. A little farther down the lane and around the corner, squeezed between a tool grinder’s shed and a smithy, a man could indulge in a hot bath and a friendly whore at the Bucket Knot, my favorite sop-house, a warm and welcoming place.
Smiling to myself, I installed Elene’s face and lush figure in my imagining, whirling her to Frop’s music and hearing her laugh as she had on that morning at Caedmon’s Bridge. Ah, gods, what pleasure to touch her…to feel her naked warmth beneath me, her heart racing from the dance…
A stinging blow to my frozen flesh shattered my vision. The wind had whipped the hem of my heavy cape into my face. Elene had betrayed me. So no warmth to be had in visions either.
Unlike the first nine days, it took an hour for more than urchins and beggars to gather. But the chance to gape at a pureblood eventually overcame even the mysterious anxieties of the day. The yellow cape announced my offense. Scarred laborers hefting buckets or tool satchels, hollow-cheeked matrons clutching ragged children with haunted eyes, and shopkeepers wearing dirty aprons and furrowed brows drifted into the square like autumn leaves collecting under a maple, speculating aloud as to my identity, my history, my magical talents, and my future, knowing they would never be told such mysteries. They were likely wondering if the silent guards were going to do anything more with me. Likely hoping for something interesting, such as a nice flogging or maiming.
I kept my back straight and my unblocked eye open and focused forward as was required of me. My exposed right cheek stung with the cold. Though the mask shielded the left cheek from the wind, the silver chilled quickly, cooling the sweat that
had formed beneath it as we walked. Soon the masked half of my face grew colder than the other, as if encased in ice that penetrated my flesh and froze my bones, as if knives mounted on the inside of the metal half face lacerated my cheek and brow.
As the ragamuffins spat and lobbed mud balls at my back without interference from the masked guards, the people grew bold with their comments: Soul-dead…demon-cursed…real silver…Has he flesh under the metal, Mam? That fur’s no sheep’s coat nor rabbit’s…Don’t have to work…Don’t even have to fight, they don’t…Everything’s given…god-given…while we starve. Never saw one of ’em so tall. He vomited his gift right back at the Sky Lord’s feet…their cocks metal, too? Cover a pureblood female and their Registry’ll cut off your cock. Spat on the Gehoum…Should burn all them as betray the Powers…Throw ’im in the river with that mask and he’ll sink…meet the gods he’s cursed… recondeur…traitor… As if I could not hear them. As if I stood somewhere far distant behind a barricade of silver.
Afternoon brought more snow and new waves of muted gossip that rippled through the assembly. Forbidden to turn my head so my exposed ear might hear better, I heard naught of the reports.
As evening approached, my neck and shoulders ached miserably. My fingers felt dead. My nose ran unceasingly, stimulating a subtle panic that I would soon be unable to breathe. Despite my layers, I could not control my shivering. My exposed eye welled with tears from the bitter wind, and no amount of blinking could clear it, threatening my sole occupation. I derived some amusement from observing the odd folk who came to gawk at me, those like the tall, slender man in a sky-blue tunic who stood apart at the back of the crowd, his long hair plaited with green ribbons. He must enjoy spectacles; he had come every day.
A small, purposeful shift in the increasingly restive crowd signaled a new arrival making his way to the front. He soon stood immediately in front of me, a small person cloaked in black. Holy mother…I blinked rapidly and risked a reprimand by swiping my upper arm across my eye. The man wore a cowl! He lifted his hood just enough that he could see as high as my face, allowing me to glimpse his own odd features that looked as if they were ready to slide off his chin. Brother Victor.
Great merciful Iero, they’d come to rescue me! Somewhere under his scapular would be an ax to hack the chains away. I strained to see through the flurries and gloom. Perhaps Gildas was here…or Stearc. The Evanori warrior could take on Caphur and his friend. Surely…My hands trembled in their unyielding wrappings. My blind eye leaked tears unrelated to the cold. Buck up, you great ox! Why just now at the verge of freedom did the loathsome horror of this captivity threaten to undo me?
After only a moment, the chancellor dropped his hood and raised his palm, five fingers spread wide in Iero’s blessing. But as he lowered his hand, he briefly held it vertically, fingertips heavenward, at his breast—the brothers’ signing language for the abbot—and then clenched his fist and pressed it to his heart. Obedience. And then…nothing. Gods. Nothing.
Anger flooded from my hollow breast to my frost-nipped cheek. How dare they lay their pious obligations on me?
Discipline forbade communication with an onlooker, but surely the little monk must see the flush of fury heating my face. He stood there for a while longer, his small hands folded piously. The milling crowd gradually swallowed him, and I could not judge when it was he left the square.
Gildas had said Luviar would not release me from his tether as long as he had use for me. What did he think I could do for him, trussed up like a string doll forced to perform for laughing children? Damnable holy men! I hated them all.
Chapter 23
On the eleventh morning of my exhibition, as we marched into the Temple District, we passed no more than ten people. Though I remained maddeningly unenlightened about events in Palinur, I judged the situation had gotten worse. Five temples faced the great circle—those of Kemen, Samele, Erdru, Deunor, and Arrosa. Throughout the day, liveried servants bore every size and shape of burden up the broad steps of the brightly painted buildings: calyxes and caskets small and large, crates of statuary and rare fruit, wine casks, grain sacks, urns, and caged birds. Someone even led a matched pair of white oxen into Kemen’s gold-columned temple. Offerings to placate the gods. The wealthy people of the city were worried. I imagined I could smell the nivat. Some of the boxes surely contained that most favored offering.
Though I tried to banish the thought of nivat as soon as it arose, my mind would not let go of it, and I found myself plotting ridiculous ventures to slough off my bonds and snatch the most likely containers. Whatever would I do when I needed it again?
I had used my last supply on the journey to Palinur. After three days on the road, Thalassa had accepted my word that I would attempt no magic and allowed me to travel with unbound hands—my salvation two nights later when my disease struck and I was forced to pay the price of my incomplete doulon. That her aide Silos—he of the cheap scent and well-aimed firebolts—had eventually detected my spellworking, and that she had angrily bound my hands and shackled my feet for the rest of the journey, did not matter. Neither of them had found the mirror or the needle or discovered the truth. I owned one secret for a while longer, from all but Brother Gildas. The worst part of this whole disgusting mess was that these unpredictable intervals between attacks of my disease had fueled a subtle anxiety that never left me.
Thoughts of Gildas led inevitably to thoughts of Brother Victor and what he could be doing in Palinur. I scanned today’s crowd. He wasn’t here. Surely he would not have come all this way to deliver one more warning to keep me mute. If the cabal no longer needed my help, then how, in Magrog’s fancy, were they planning to contact the Danae? Bah, I thought, let the pious pricks flounder.
Reminded of the wonders I had seen at Caedmon’s Bridge, I let my imagination stray. I imagined the Dané woman dancing in the moonlit fields beyond the abbey, joined by the man with the dragon sigils. The Danae twined the lives of trees and lakes, rocks and stream into their dances, so stories said, joining the elements of the world in a great pattern, so that a vine in Ardra and a river of Morian and a rocky pinnacle of Evanore became part of one great whole. What magic, what vigor, would enliven such a dance. Under my breath I hummed the harper’s song I’d heard on the road to Elanus; the Danae would dance to such music as that. I could almost feel them leaping and whirling…caught up in the moment as I had been in the Elanus tavern…stretching, driving, pounding their feet—
“Attention, plebeiu,” snapped the voice in my ear. Caphur’s fingers dug into my arm and jostled me. “Open your eye and look upon the ugliness of the ordinary world. You are forbidden to escape your punishment in sleep.”
The squalor of Temple Square and the gawking crowd scrubbed away the glorious image, and the howling wind deafened me to the music of memory, leaving only a starved ache in my chest. Legends and stories…the Danae might live, but no pattern existed in this ugly world. In all my years of running, I had never felt so alone.
As the day waned, the torments of flesh obscured those of spirit. The snow turned to sleet. My face felt stripped raw from peppering ice and the abrasion of freezing metal. The wind drove ice-bladed knives through clothing and flesh and bone. Every part and portion of me was frozen. I could scarcely see, and my clogged nose forced me to breathe through my mouth—the pinched half of it outside the mask. I struggled to remain calm. Only the approach of evening held off despair.
“Harrow! Purify!” A scuffle broke out in the back of the twenty or thirty remaining gawkers—a mix of elaborately gowned temple aides, beggars, and idle drovers, and the tall, odd man in the sky-blue tunic.
I pressed my snow-crusted arm across my eyes, trying to blot the tears and drips. A bony youth, wearing a Harrower’s orange rag tied around his head, had pushed to the front ranks, supporting himself on a crutch. Half of one of his legs was missing. He waved a clenched fist at me. “Them as flout the gods cause these evil days. Them as serve the Snake of Ardra or the Bastard of Evan
ore, them as worship in corrupted temples or Karish halls…they bring forth the pestilence. Only Prince Bayard sees the truth. But the drums ye hear be not the valiant Smith’s drums but the drums of doom. The Gehoum howl on the wind! The earth cries out for harrowing! Make it level. Make it smooth! Purify!”
He raised his hand…
His missile glanced off the silver mask just over my cheekbone. Pain lanced through my skull. Eyes watering, I staggered backward.
Caphur jumped down from the platform and briskly kicked the offender’s crutch out from under him. The youth crashed to the pavement, and the masked guard touched his bronze staff to the fallen lad’s back. The tip of the staff glowed red. Smoke curled upward from the ragged cloak and burst into flame. The boy wailed…
Great Iero’s hand! Though the mask trapped my bellowing curses in my throat, I lunged at Caphur, swinging my bound fists at his bristly jowl like a bludgeon. But my shackled ankle brought me up short, and I crashed into an awkward heap, one foot on the platform, the other foot and knee twisted behind me, still on the block. The Registry man dodged my blow without a glance.
The Harrower youth flailed and screamed. A few onlookers rolled him in the snow and beat at him with hands and cloaks to smother the fire. Others ran away. Caphur stepped back and waved his staff, pointing at one and then another of the murmuring crowd until they backed away from the platform.
Caphur’s partner dragged me to my feet and motioned me back on the block. I wrenched my shoulders from his grasp. He raised one finger in warning and motioned again.
There’s nothing to be done, I thought. Not today. You’ll only make things worse. Grinding my teeth, I stepped up and dropped my arms, straightening my back and head as was required. My overseers faced the crowd, staves gripped firmly in their hands, prepared to defend me. I could not stop shaking.