Our Lady of the Islands

by Shannon Page

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Some of us still care about what the gods must think of us. The worst of us still have a conscience, even.” She realized that he was grinning. “Have I not also mentioned that I am something of a disappointment here?”

  Heart pounding, Sian managed to get the robe over her head and find its other sleeve with her left arm. “Will they not punish you for this?”

  “Perhaps. Though they may merely pity me when I stagger out of your cell later in my underclothes, and tell them how you used your heretical magic to rob me of both consciousness and robe before stealing away. That is my robe you’re wearing, by the way. Sorry it’s not cleaner. I’ve had no opportunity to visit the laundry since we last spoke.”

  “I have no such power,” she protested, pulling the oversized hood down as instructed. “My touch cannot hurt. It only heals.”

  “You know this? Have you tried it to find out, or do you simply leap to untested assumptions like everyone else?”

  “Of course I have not tried to hurt anyone,” she said, scandalized.

  “It doesn’t matter. The people I will answer to have less idea than you do what such power is capable of. All they know is that your power is real, and can affect the body in profound ways. That will be more than enough to make my story credible.”

  “It will be enough to make me seem a criminal — and dangerous.”

  He turned to her in the dimness. “Domina Kattë, let us be quite clear: you are already both of those things in the minds of many here. Of political necessity. You leave this temple a wanted fugitive — no matter what you’ve really done, or would do. Your life depends on understanding that, yes? If I were you, I would leave these islands as quickly as possible.”

  “Leave Alizar?”

  “It is but a suggestion, my lady. Alizar is a very small place to stay well hidden in for long, but what you do is yours to decide — or will be very soon. Right now, however, we must go.” He put one hand lightly on her shoulder, and gave her a gentle push toward the door.

  Her heart was in her throat. “I thank you, Father Het.”

  “Now we are even, yes?” He retrieved the meal tray from her bed. “My failure of your mother is forgiven?”

  “It was not your failure, Father Het. Were more priests like yourself, the Mishrah-Khote would not be languishing, I think.”

  “Vow of silence,” he said gruffly, handing her the tray. “Starting now.”

  Moments later, Sian stood just inside the guardroom doorway, clutching the now-empty dinner tray with both hands in breathless fear. Her cowled head remained bowed to hide her face as Het stood just before her, chatting amiably with her guard about the disappointing quality of temple food these days.

  “Ah well,” Het sighed. “Revenues are not what they were before the current economic troubles, are they? We must all make concessions until such things improve, I suppose.”

  “If by all you do not mean to include our illustrious leaders,” the guard corrected him with a sardonic grin. “The platters sent to our Father Superior’s chambers are as sumptuous as ever, I am told. If I’m not mistaken, he is dining at the Factorate House tonight. I doubt they are being served stale bread and boiled skate fin in such tasteless broth.”

  “Oh, cheer up, Motuque. I suspect your latest guest would not complain so much about the meal before you.”

  Motuque looked down uncomfortably at his wooden bowl and platter.

  “How long will they go on starving her like this, do you suppose?” Het asked casually.

  “It is the only way she can be hurt,” Motuque said, avoiding Het’s gaze. “More than temporarily, at least. You must have heard of her power to heal.”

  “Of course,” said Het. “And of her ties to House Alkattha too. Bad enough that she was tortured, yes? Why compound our troubles by starving her as well?”

  “They want her rendered more compliant.” Motuque shoved his meal aside as if he’d lost all appetite. “Het, you know very well I’m not the sort who likes inflicting pain — especially on a woman old enough to be my mother. Whoever her family might be. But what am I to do? This is my job. My orders are clear. She is still too defiant to be managed, and —”

  “I can scarce imagine why,” Het interrupted with a smirk.

  To Sian’s intense discomfort, the guard looked past Het then, to her. “Is this a conversation to be having in front of … Exactly who are you again?”

  “Brother Pavri,” Het quickly answered for her. “One of our newest acolytes. It seems he has been ordered by his mentor to assume a vow of silence until he learns greater wisdom — having already proven even more prone to question his superiors than I was at his age.”

  “That bad?” Motuque sounded impressed.

  “Oh yes,” Het said cheerfully, turning to grin at Sian. “I think we must have recognized some kindred spirit in each other, for he was reckless enough to explain all this to me — despite his vow — almost as soon as I met him on his way here with your dinner.” Het turned back to the guard. “So you see, Motuque, I hold this disobedient pup’s fate in my hands now. He will not be telling any tales on us. You can be sure of that.”

  Motuque gave Sian a grim smile. “You are lucky it was this old reprobate you ran into, lad. Any other priest here would have marched you right back to your mentor after such an infraction, for far more unpleasant discipline, I’m sure. Repeat a word said here to anyone, however, and, as Het just said, we’ll make life very hard for you indeed. Do not doubt me.”

  Sian bowed her head more deeply, wondering again why this was necessary. Could they not just have left her cell and fled?

  “So, old friend,” Het said lightly, “you were about to enlighten me, I believe, as to why we are now in the business of torturing old women?”

  “Stop tormenting me, Het,” Motuque complained. “You know as well as I do what they’ll have to do now. But that will still involve a trial, at which she must be present — and cooperative. If she hasn’t learned to fear us, who knows what she’ll do or say there?”

  Het shook his head. “Tell me you are merely parroting your superiors, or I must fear for your very soul — oh healing priest.”

  “You were always a soft-hearted fool, Het. Ideals are well and good. The gods know I admire yours. But the world works as it does, not as we wish it to. I cannot have been here, doing this, for so many years without coming to accept that.” Motuque took up his spoon again, and stirred his bowl of thin broth idly. “I am sorry for her too. But the world is much too large for me — or you — to fix, old friend.”

  Het regarded Motuque sadly. “There could be little harm in offering her that bit of crust you’ve left there, surely,” he said at last. “I’ll do it. On my way out. Who will ever know?” Motuque opened his mouth, but Het rushed on before he could object. “If they do find out somehow, I’ll just tell them I said it was for myself, then decided to offer it to her on a whim as I was leaving. I have not been given any order to starve her, and you won’t have knowingly disobeyed the order you were given. Come, Motuque. For the sake of both our souls. It’s just a crust of bread — and stale, yes? You said so yourself.”

  Sian’s heart had climbed back into her mouth. Was Het mad? What if the man was persuaded to go down right now and give it to her himself?

  But Motuque just shook his head, gazing up at Het. “You really are … How have you remained such an innocent all these years? You set a terrible example for this boy, you know.” He looked past Het at Sian again. “Imitate nothing that you see this old fool do, lad,” he told her. “His life is just an endless cautionary tale.”

  She had no idea how to respond, except to cringe even further into her heavy robe.

  “There, Motuque,” Het said. “He is terrified of both of us. He’ll do very well here, yes?”

  The guard’s smile soured. “Fine.” He took the crust off of his plate and held it up to Het. “You take the risk then, Father Het. For both our souls.”


  “You see, Pavri?” Het asked Sian over his shoulder as he took the bread. “Motuque is almost as reckless as I. And a better man than he pretends.” Het shoved the crust into his pocket and bowed to the guard in thanks. “May I borrow your key?”

  “If a whisper of this ever surfaces, Het, I will contrive whatever lies are needed to protect myself — and make life hell for both of you,” said the guard, wrestling the key to Sian’s cell off of his ring. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, friend.”

  “I loathe misunderstandings,” Het agreed. “I’ll return this in a moment, and we’ll all forget this ever happened.” He turned to Sian. “Come, Pavri. Let’s dig you even further into trouble, yes?” As Het ushered Sian back out of the guardroom ahead of him, he turned back to Motuque, smiling. “And you should eat that soup before it gets even colder, friend. If not for its fine taste, then from respect for your starving prisoner.”

  “Don’t test my patience further, Father Better Than Most,” Motuque retorted. But as Het closed the door behind them, Sian heard the scrape of his spoon against the wooden bowl.

  A moment later, they were back outside the door to her cell, where, to her astonishment, Het used the key he’d borrowed from Motuque to open up the door and usher her back inside it.

  “What now?” Sian whispered in frustration when he had followed her inside and closed the door behind them. “You said we were leaving!”

  “Why, we must feed Domina Kattë her crust of bread.”

  Sian suppressed an urge to pull her hair and scream. “What are you talking about? I don’t want his crust. I want to leave!”

  “Patience, Pavri,” Het said quietly, listening at the closed door. “Our timing here is somewhat delicate. We must not return with Motuque’s key too quickly.”

  “Why return to him at all?” she hissed as softly as her mounting panic would allow. “With all respect, Father Het, if you have really come to help me escape, should we not actually try fleeing at some point?”

  Het took his ear from the door, then reached beneath his robes again, this time pulling out a burlap sack which he held out to Sian. “Eat this as quickly as you can, Domina. We must not wait here too long either.”

  Sure he must be mad, she took the sack and opened it to find a large chunk of pale cheese, three slices of parrot fruit wrapped in cotton, and a handful of fatty candlenuts.

  “Just to keep your strength up,” Het said, returning to listen at the door. “There will be more food later.”

  She still had no idea what Het was up to, but her hunger now eclipsed all else. She sat down on her mattress in the all-but-darkness and started tearing chunks off of the cheese, which she stuffed into her mouth and swallowed almost whole. The parrot fruit and candlenuts followed quickly after.

  “How did you get in here before?” She licked traces of the fruit juice from her fingers when everything was gone.

  “What?” he asked, still focused on whatever he was listening for.

  “You borrowed Motuque’s key just now to open my cell door, but you’d just been in here to get me without it.”

  “I have acquired copies of most of his keys,” said Het. “Not that he can ever be allowed to know that, of course. I’ve collected quite an assortment of keys from all around the temple, in fact. They prove very useful on occasion, as you see.” He took his ear from the door again, and turned to her. “I think sufficient time has passed. Bring the sack, and follow me, but remain as silent as before — no matter what may happen, yes?”

  She shrugged helplessly, pulling her cowl down again as Het opened her cell door and beckoned her outside.

  At the guardroom door, Het knocked lightly. When no reply was given, he called softly, “Motuque? We’re back with your key.” Still no reply. Nodding to himself, Het pushed the door open and walked in.

  Sian just managed not to gasp aloud as she followed him to find Motuque lying face down beside his overturned soup bowl.

  “Excellent,” Het said. “It was truly such poor soup, I feared he might not eat it.”

  “What happened to him?” Sian asked, forgetting her vow of silence.

  “A healer’s knowledge and skill may be applied in many ways, for many purposes.” Het took the empty sack from her and stuffed it into his pocket. “On this occasion, I applied it to his meal.”

  “You poisoned him?”

  “No, no. Of course not. He is among my closest friends. I’ve just encouraged him to sleep a while. He will be fine in very little time. Physically, at least. We’d best be on our way now.”

  “But, why do any of this?” she asked as he led her back into the hallway. “Why did we not just flee? Won’t you be in far more trouble now — for what you’ve done to Motuque?”

  “I?” Het said without slowing or turning to face her. “I did not bring Motuque that meal. Pavri did. I but met him on his way here.”

  “But … there is no Pavri. Motuque will learn that as soon as he tells anyone what happened.”

  “Oh, yes,” Het said. “And I will be as shocked as Motuque to learn that harmless, frightened young Pavri was a wicked imposter.”

  Sian shook her head in confusion. “I do not —”

  “Might not a heretic with such power, in league with the Butchered God’s cleverly elusive priest, have confederates? It will go far easier for poor Motuque to have been overwhelmed by means of poison than to have allowed your escape while he sat eating his dinner down the hall. My own position and credibility will be strengthened too, if I was not the only one taken in by you and your accomplice. Everyone is better off now, yes?”

  Only then did Sian realize how skillfully Het had just arranged his answers to at least half a dozen inevitable questions later on, including what he had been doing in her cell to start with. No fool after all, she thought with chagrin.

  “Now,” Het said, turning back to her as they approached a stairwell at the hallway’s end, “it is time that you recall your vow of silence, Pavri, and exert some real discipline. Stay right behind me at all times. Keep your head down, and, please, make no sound of any kind — no matter who or what we should encounter, yes?”

  Sian nodded meekly inside her cowl, tucking her chin down against her chest as they began to climb the stairs.

  Het’s evident cleverness was still dreadfully little comfort as she followed him through the temple’s crowded hallways with their empty tray. Even less comfort as they pressed together through the refectory’s dinner lines, shoulder to shoulder with other priests. Het bantered with those around them as if there were nothing in the world to worry him, occasionally making dismissive references to the troublesome acolyte with whom he had been saddled for the evening. Not until Het had gathered a tray of food for himself and his ostensible charge, then managed to steer them inconspicuously even farther back into the currently deserted renovation site that Het had mentioned to her earlier, did Sian find herself truly able to breathe again.

  “There, you see?” Het uttered brightly after making certain they were finally alone. “The best place to hide things is in plain sight.”

  “You’ve taken a lot of horrifying gambles tonight,” she replied, still trembling.

  “As any living person does.” He took the burlap sack she’d eaten from before out of his pocket and quickly refilled it with the items on his own newly filled dinner tray. “Take this with you. For after your escape.”

  “We’re leaving now?” Sian asked.

  “You are leaving now. I must go get out of this robe, and back into your cell before Motuque awakens.”

  Her gaze darted in renewed alarm around the still half-dismantled chamber. “You’re leaving me? Here? I have no idea where we are, or how to —”

  “I will show you,” he said. “Do not panic, and you will be fine.” He guided her even further from the refectory, through another doorway into a second chamber, where they walked around behind a tall, precariously stacked pile of lumber, tools and containers to a ragged hole that seemed recently bashed
through the plastered wall.

  “This is where I acquired my bruise. The falling timbers opened this wall.” He offered her a wry shrug. “Being the excessively inquisitive fellow I am, I have since explored the passages beyond it some. They will lead you safely to an exit well beyond the temple grounds, by a fairly simple route which I’ll explain. From there, Domina, you will have to proceed as best you can alone.”

  She gazed through the hole into an inky darkness. Before she could protest again, Het rummaged beneath his robe once more, pulling out a small leather purse, from which he drew a blown glass globe of clear liquid. Het shook it vigorously before handing it to her.

  “What is this?” she asked, marveling at the dim light it now emitted.

  “Have you never seen the surf glow blue and green on warmer nights?”

  “Of course. But how —”

  “The water on those evenings is filled with tiny creatures — much too small to see — that do the glowing when they are disturbed.”

  “Is that so?” She had never known, or even wondered, really. She had just taken the ocean’s occasional glow at night for granted, as she did so many other things about the vast and omnipresent sea.

  “This float is filled with them. We make them here to use when we must work or travel in the dark. And to awe our patients with at times,” he added somewhat sheepishly. “Shake it periodically, and it should last you more than long enough. Its light is dim, but your eyes will adjust.” He handed her the leather purse as well. “Sadly, I have no power to retrieve any of the possessions taken from you when you were imprisoned here. But what money I have is in this purse, to see you through at least a day or two if you are frugal. I wish it were more, but I am not a wealthy man, I fear. Even for a priest.”

  “I owe you too much already,” Sian said. “I cannot take your money.”

  “You must. You will have to eat. And it may be difficult to access your own funds in whatever ways are usual.” He pressed the purse further toward her. “They will be looking for you everywhere, my lady. And having been so careless once, they will know where to look this time. You must trust no one, Domina Kattë. Not even those you care about, if you would spare them danger. Please take the purse — and use it sparingly.”