by Shannon Page
The word made so little sound, she wasn’t sure she’d really said it until his smile widened with his eyes. “Ah! You are awake, Sian! How are you feeling?”
Sian. Yes. She knew that name too; reclaimed it, almost without effort. How was she feeling?
That was far too large a question. Much too hard to parse. She set it down again.
In a chair, well behind Het, by a table set with cups of … kava — that name made her smile inside — sat another man, much younger. Lean and, somehow sad, though he smiled too as he got up to come join Het. His robe was just as rough and plain, but if there was a name for his face too, she couldn’t find it.
“Welcome back, Our Lady,” said this younger face as it arrived beside her bed.
No. A bed. But not hers. She felt quite certain of this, though she could not recall her bed, exactly. If there’d ever been one. This bed was where the smell of lavender came from. There was … lavender inside it somewhere. And in … vases … set on tables at its sides. “Where is this?” Her voice seemed far less easily commanded than her fingers had been.
“You are in the summer house of Korlan Alkattha, the late Factor’s father,” Het said. “On the eastern shore of Home. Does that … make any sense to you?”
She gazed up at him, and shook her head, understanding summer, and house, and … father. But little of the rest. “What is a late factor?”
The smiles above her faltered slightly. Het drew a breath and sighed. “I have had to give you medicines that may dull your memory a bit, but it will all come back to you in time, my dear. You are safe, and loved here. Just relax and let us care for you. Do you want something to eat? Something light, yes? A bowl of fish broth?
Fish … She knew that name as well. The faint scents of curry and cooking onion recaptured her attention. “May I have …” There was a name. A delicious word. “Bouillabaisse?”
The smiles above her flared back into being.
“I suspect Korlan’s kitchen is equipped to supply that too,” said Het. “Though I must caution you to reconsider, yes? You have eaten nothing solid for four days now. Your stomach may not know quite what to do with bouillabaisse just yet.”
“Days?” Sian knew what the word meant. The number, though, seemed … strangely out of focus. What was four days? How long was that? “Four days?” she asked again.
“Yes, Sian,” said Het, no longer smiling. “You nearly died when you healed Konrad. The Factora summoned me, and had you brought here to recover.” Het paused, as if expecting some response, but his words were tugging at something still without names, deep inside her. Not very pleasantly. Her attention had all shifted there.
The kindly man glanced back at his younger companion, who leaned forward and asked, “Do you remember healing Konrad?”
Healing Konrad … These words meant … something … urgent. Healing Konrad.
HEALING KONRAD! Everything came back at once. She sat up — or tried to, but collapsed again immediately, exhausted, and sore. In so many places. She felt faint. She’d been in Arian’s bedchamber at the Factorate — only minutes earlier. How had she … “Four days?” she said again. “Did Konrad … Is he —”
“Quite alive, and recovering with unnatural speed, my lady,” Het informed her. “You are remembering, yes? I did not mean to shock you.”
“I remember. But …” Four days. She had missed four days. The summer house … of Viktor’s father. “Where is the Factora-Consort? Is she here as well?”
“She is. And Konrad too. This house is functioning as temporary quarters for her new government. She is the Factora now, by unanimous consent of all the other ruling families — even House Orlon — and confirmed by popular demand of Alizar’s electorate.”
“Factora?” Sian asked, astonished. She had never heard the term without its suffix.
Het nodded. “She was understandably reluctant, at first. Not just unimaginably weary, I am sure, of all this nation’s woes have already cost her, but worried too that no one would support a woman as Factor, much less a foreign-born one. But … there has never been so much support for any ruler here. Not since the rebellion, anyway. And I believe her connection to you may have something to do with that — though by no means all.”
“To me?”
“You are quite a hero now, Our Lady,” said the younger man, whom she knew as well now. The priest of the Butchered God. “Though you may have stretched even the god’s power a bit thin back at the Factorate.”
“House Alkattha is, of course, extremely grateful to you,” said Het. “For reviving their heir to the Factorate, and restoring their place in the nation’s political future. You may ask them — or a great many other people of importance here in Alizar — for nearly anything you wish now, and count on them to listen, I believe.”
“What of Arian’s brother?” Hero or not, the memory of what she’d done to him came back with a chill of shame. “Is he … recovered?”
“He is safely in our care at the temple,” Het replied. “Under lock and key, of course, though in far nicer quarters than you were accorded there. Due to his condition, it is still unclear whether he or the former Census Taker was more at fault for this national calamity. But we will help him find himself again, and doubtless have it sorted out in time.”
“Aros … was part of the conspiracy too?” Sian could hardly believe that Arian and Viktor had been betrayed by so many members of their own family.
“One of its architects, it seems,” said Het. “Hivat has uncovered a great deal of unpleasantness since their coup attempt disintegrated. But the Factora’s brother seems to have been under the impression that if the Factor’s sole heir died without hope of replacement, he would be next in line for ascension to the Factor’s seat, once Viktor and Arian were also dead.”
“But … that’s ridiculous,” said Sian. “The people would never have affirmed his claim. He’s not even Alizari. The other houses would just have installed some new Factor of their own. Can he have failed to understand that?”
“Not if he could count on their support,” Het interjected. “He made a lot of shockingly generous promises, it seems, to a lot of sadly ambitious and receptive people — some of them in my own temple. Which is how he came to the attention of the Census Taker. After that, it’s anybody’s guess, at this point, which of them was really in control.”
At his mention of the temple, she had gone cold inside. “I am a hero now?” she asked.
“To say the least,” said Het. “A national treasure, I would say.”
“Then … I have no further need to fear arrest?”
Het laughed, as did the young priest at his side. It was so strange, she realized, to see them standing there — together. “My dear!” Het beamed at her. “The world has changed a great deal since you left us. You would have no cause for worry now, even if the Mishrah-Khote’s new Father Superior were not so favorably disposed toward you.”
“Duon … is no longer in power?”
Het’s smile vanished. “He now enjoys the very same hospitality to which you were treated — though we have no intention of trying to starve him. If he can stomach skate fin soup.”
“Duon has been arrested?” Sian said, incredulous.
“And Lod, and all the other toadies who supported what he stood for. If their so-called leadership these many years had not been sufficient to condemn them, their conduct in response to our very civil request for changes most certainly proved the criminal nature of their characters. I am profoundly sorry that it cost the rest of Alizar so many lives. We didn’t know that someone was about to overthrow the Factorate as well, or we’d have delayed our own uprising for another week or two.”
“In just four days.” Sian shook her head. “I’ve … missed so much.”
“Ha!” Het looked more amused than ever. “My dear, you were at the very center of most of it. And hardly eager for any extra helpings, as I recall.”
“So who is the new Father Superior?”
“Well … I am.” H
et offered her a small, self-deprecating smile. “I too have benefitted from my now quite open connection to you.”
“That was hardly the only reason,” said the younger priest. “With all respect to you, Our Lady,” he added hastily.
“You … rule the Mishrah-Khote now?” she asked, beginning to wonder if she’d really woken yet at all. “You told me you were regarded as a disgrace there.”
“By all the right people,” Het answered. “Or the wrong ones, depending on the frame one chooses, yes? Let’s just say, their disapproval was another of my stronger qualifications. And, no. The Mishrah-Khote is done with rulers, I believe. If I have any say, at least. I guide the temple now. As they will doubtless guide me in our pursuit of truth. No one rules it but the gods.”
“So … no one at the temple minds now, that you’re here rubbing shoulders with a notorious spiritual fraud and the Butchered God’s fugitive priest?” she pressed.
“Sian,” Het said soberly. “Events have rather settled all those accusations in your favor. Yours, and this courageous young man’s. The temple clearly has much to learn from both of you, and many others on these islands, disregarded or suppressed by the previous regime. I don’t suppose you might be interested in … being anointed as a healer, would you?”
“You’re … offering to make me a priest?” She was almost certain she was meant to laugh. Even now. But he only nodded, without so much as a grin. “A female priest. The temple would stand for that?”
He nodded yet again. Quite soberly. “Now, at last, they would, I think.”
After gaping at him for a moment, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. But I really cannot see myself …” She trailed off, disturbed by some … half-formed fragment of a memory. Which vanished instantly upon pursuit. “I cannot imagine being happy as some temple mystic, Father Het. Though I am … honored — and utterly astonished — by the invitation.”
Het sighed. “I did not think so, but … I had to ask.”
“The world I left is gone indeed.” Sian looked up at the Butchered God’s young priest. “Will you join the Mishrah-Khote now?”
“Oh no,” he said, as if she must be teasing him. “I am hardly any kind of healer — as you would know better than most. Nor have I any real calling as a priest. I’ve just been a tool, however willing or unwilling in the moment.”
“What makes that different from a priest?” Het asked. “I could say the same of myself.”
“Well, it hardly matters now,” the young priest sighed. “This god I’ve served has come for just one reason I’m aware of: to make the world new. And now … it is. Or seems to be.” He shrugged, not so much at them as to himself. “I’m not sure he’ll stay now. I’m not sure he hasn’t left already.” He look up from his private reverie. “I may be in need of some whole new identity. But not as a priest. The Butchered God has no interest in religions, I don’t think.” He shook his head. “Not that he ever said as much to me. But I have … carried him inside me now for long enough; been shaped enough by the visions he dispensed, that I cannot imagine he’d be pleased by any temple, or any list of rules to which his followers were all coerced. His nature seems … entirely about movement. Change. Breaking and renewal. Even those would become rigid expectations once they were codified. How does one establish a religion around that?”
“Your followers will try,” said Het. “As all followers do.”
“You’re doubtless right,” the young man said. “But they will have no help from me. Or from the god they claim to worship, I don’t think. If I understand anything he’s compelled me to say or do these past few years, he only wants them awakened to what they were meant to be, and to start being it again. Not to settle on some clump of stone here and lord it over anybody.”
“But … why now?” Sian asked. “Why us? … After all these ages.”
The young man shrugged. “We were … sufficiently ready to break, perhaps? I’m convinced we called to him somehow — knowingly or not. Not the other way around. Every nuance of his presence I have ever known conveyed this.”
“So … you think it’s done, then,” Sian said, feeling the tug again. Of something half-forgotten. She flexed her back, her arms and legs, and felt them complain. Yes, of course she’d lain in bed for four days now. Some stiffness in her joints and muscles was to be expected. Except that she’d been spared precisely this ever since the gift’s arrival. Normal aches and pains. Now back, it seemed.
The niggling tug increased. For just an instant, she recalled … a choice. Made somewhere. At some time … “Were you hurt in any way during this revolt inside the temple, Father Het?”
“Fortunately no.” He held up a bandaged finger, grinning. “Unless you count this little scratch I gave myself, shutting a tunnel grating on my own hand as I was smuggling documents to safety from the library.”
“May I touch that hand, please?” Sian asked.
“Oh, my dear, no. You’ve just awakened. You don’t need to start dispensing —”
“I would like to, Father Het. If you don’t mind? I owe you quite a bit, as I recall. It would make me feel much better to make some small installment on repayment.”
He rolled his eyes with an indulgent smile, and unwound the narrow bandage to reveal a finger darkly bruised from nail to knuckle.
“A scratch?” she asked. “You do tend to exaggerate the insignificance of your wounds. Reach down, please. I’m still a bit too stiff to sit.”
He stretched his hand down, and she took it gently in her fingers.
No pain.
No ginger.
His bruise remained. She waited for a moment to be sure, but she had known. Before she’d even asked if he was injured.
She nodded, and let go, looking up at the Butchered God’s ex-priest. “I too sometimes wondered if the gift would vanish once I’d healed Konrad. Whether all of this is done or not, it seems my part is finished.” She gave them both a wistful smile, still unsure of how she felt about it. Was this loss, or liberation? “Am I still a hero, do you think?”
“Oh, yes! Of course,” said Het. “You have done what you have done.” But he gazed in perplexed surprise between Sian and his unhealed finger, obviously dismayed.
The younger priest nodded his agreement, though he too looked troubled.
You have choice, the god had told her. Sian felt certain she had made a choice of some kind here. She could not remember when, exactly. But it was there, inside her. Still tugging, very softly. For the most part, though, she felt relieved. She would be able to go walking in the streets now without being some kind of traveling sideshow. She could just throw her hands up again, like everybody else, and say, The world’s pain is endless, but what can I do? She could safely buy a chicken at the market.
Still, she could not help wondering who she’d overlooked while there was time. Who she would wish later she could heal.
“Oh!” She tried to sit again, and fared no better than before. “Where is Pino?”
The two men nearly glanced at one another, aborting even that response almost in time. “My dear, all this conversation will exhaust you,” Het said gently. “You’ve too much to absorb already. Why don’t we —”
“No. Tell me. Have they found him?”
“I’m sorry, dear,” said Het, stone-faced. “They did.”
“Oh no,” she whispered. “How bad …” She felt her face begin to crumple. “Is he …” Her eyes grew hot. If he were alive, they’d have said so first. She knew this. “Where?” she asked, already weeping.
“His body washed ashore amidst the wreckage of his boat,” said Het.
She turned away and pressed her face into the pillows, crying harder. Oh, Pino … Pino … I did not want this … I did not ask this of you …
They had the grace to let her cry undisturbed by words of shallow comfort. They didn’t leave her, though. Their simple presence helped as much as anything was likely to.
When she had no more crying left in her — for the moment, anyway
— she rolled onto her back, and stared up at the ceiling. “Have they already burned him?”
Het shook his head. “He is not to be burned. The Factora has commanded that he have a full state funeral, and be interred beside her husband’s body in the Factorate Hall of Ancestors. I am to officiate. We have begun the preparation of his body for preservation, but although the Factor’s funeral was two days ago, she ordered that Pino’s be postponed until you were sufficiently recovered to attend.”
“I don’t want him buried with the Factor,” Sian said. It was a great honor. She understood that. But she didn’t want him to be … that alone. He had never known the Factor. Or any of the kind of people buried there. “I want his shrine on Little Loom Eyot. There is a hilltop there … where he belongs.”
“I cannot see why the Factora would refuse you,” said Het. “I will speak with her, unless you’d rather do so.”
“Thank you. She must be very busy now. I won’t ask her to come here. I would be grateful if you’d convey my congratulations, and my condolences, along with my request.”
“I will do so. In the meantime, I know of someone else who will want to know you are awake. With your permission, dear, I will go let him know?”
“Who?” Though she knew. She hoped, at least.
His smile returned. “Would you rather not just be surprised?” The smile faded. “Pleasantly, this time.”
“Well. You’d better go then.” She dredged up a smile from somewhere too, and waved him toward the door. When he’d gone, she turned to look up at the young man whose given name she still had never learned. “If I’m not even supposed to call you the Butchered God’s priest now, what name should I use?”
He looked surprised. Nonplussed, in fact. As if he didn’t know, himself.
“What do your guards call you?” she asked.
“Sir,” he said, sheepishly.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You must have a name.”
He shook his head, slowly, as if just realizing now how strange it was. “I left my name behind when I was taken by the god.”
“Well then, what name was that?” she asked impatiently.