Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

  That thought, at least, calmed him a little. And when one of the dishes on his tray slid perilously close to the edge, Ramiro refocused on holding the tray level.

  “Almost there,” Father Telo whispered.

  Ramiro hoped so. The priest had already taken them to the house of an old woman, where various herbs hung all around inside to dry. The place had made him sneeze. Father Telo now took them through what seemed like little-used alleys but that the people of Aveston probably considered thoroughfares, ending at the caretaker’s house at the rear of the cathedral. If they had one advantage, it was in exploiting what the priest knew about the city of his birth—and more important, who he knew.

  The caretaker’s house looked like a cottage transplanted from the country into the heart of the city and left to lean up against the rear wall of the greatest structure in Aveston. In other words, it looked like a slum beside a mansion.

  Ramiro recognized the church as the one from his dream in the gray world.

  “Father Ansuro is a humble man,” Telo said, “yet very proud of his home. He’s very protective of the cathedral.”

  “We’ll leave the talking to you,” Ramiro promised. “Just get us inside and off the street.”

  They crossed a small covered porch with rotting boards. Telo gave a soft knock on the peeling paint on the door. Ramiro shook his head. If the owner was proud of his home, he had a funny way of showing it—which didn’t include basic maintenance, or else his definition of home didn’t extend to the cottage where he actually lived.

  The door opened to reveal a wisp of a man, the brown of his coloring faded so pale, it appeared he never spent time in the sun. His skin had the fragile appearance of the paper surrounding an onion, but his face quickly widened into a beaming smile. He wore a dark robe of fine linen material like a man given high status in the church, but his rope belt was made of simple twine like any lesser priest. “Little Telo from the streets.”

  Ramiro eyed the wrestler-like shoulders of the man beside him in bemusement as Telo towered over the caretaker even while standing down a step on the porch, but Telo only grinned in return. “Father Ansuro. It’s good to see you again. These are my friends, Ramiro and Teresa.”

  The tiny priest shuffled into the one-room cottage. Small windows made the room dim and dusty, yet his enthusiasm was infectious. “Come in! Come in! What brings you to see me?”

  Father Telo waited until the door closed to say, “We need some help and more than that—information. Can you still get into Her Beauty?”

  The old man limped to a rocking chair and fell more than sat into the wooden seat. “Her Beauty. Oh, aye. I tend to my magnificent girl as I have for fifty years.” One brittle fist came up and shook at the air for a moment. “No matter who lives inside her, the Lord dwells there still. We fade and pass, but Her Beauty is the legacy we leave behind us.”

  “Amen,” Father Telo said gravely. “What’s happened inside since the Northerners came?”

  “Only ill, which I hesitate to speak about, but they need their chamber pots emptied the same as anyone else. But sit, sit. And we will have a long talk.” Father Ansuro gestured at the cramped room and to two chairs near the hearth. “I’ll tell you all I know. Little Telo.” He shook his head. “Of all the priests to return here during these dark times, to think it is little Telo, who used to brawl in the streets so his unrepentant friends could steal from the markets undetected. But my dreams said someone would be coming, and for Her Beauty and my dreams, I refused to go to our Lord yet, though my time is long due.”

  Ramiro paused in taking the three-legged stool from the corner. “Dreams? Have you dreams—about the Northerners?”

  “Dreams from our Lord. They’ve been coming to me all my life, young man. They come to you, too, I see.” Before Ramiro could answer, the thin voice went on, “You are only the second I’ve met to share the dreams.” The old man shook his head. “A soldier and a holy man. The Lord uses what He will.”

  “How did you know I’m—”

  “A soldier?” A gentle smile put a thousand laugh lines around the old man’s eyes. “You don’t have to be an observer of people to spot a soldier’s carriage.”

  “You do have a way of standing, cousin,” Teresa said.

  Ignoring her comment, he asked Ansuro: “Your dreams. What message do they send?”

  “What don’t they say would be a better question. As I grew in years, so, too, did the dreams become more numerous. Now they haunt me constantly. Sometimes I can feel them pressing behind my eyes even when I’m awake. But they always told me my place was with Her Beauty and someday the reason for it would be clear. Lately, they’ve said that I wasn’t alone. And here you are . . .”

  “Aye,” Ramiro said. Wonder rose in his breast. This frail old man had been visited by the dreams all his life, while he’d been struggling with the weight of it only a handful of weeks. No wonder Ansuro looked as if a stiff breeze could blow him over. “They told me the same. They promised me help.”

  “‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.’ There are many fighting in the cause, whether they recognize as much or not. Alone we can do little; together we can do much. Help comes from all directions and in surprising forms. Have you not succeeded where you expected to fail—and lately? Good souls will recognize one another.”

  A shiver rode up Ramiro’s spine, and Teresa wiped hastily at her eyes. “We have had unexpected help. But, to be clear, I’ve never been particularly religious,” she said. “It just seemed like common decency to me.”

  “Call it what you will.” Ansuro looked at them with a calm expression, not in the least put out at the skepticism. “Names have no meaning. Our Lord. The saints. The swamp women’s goddess. The universe. Justice. The spark of humanity. It is all one and the same. Such has the wisdom of age taught me.”

  Father Telo cleared his throat. “I’m the last one to stop a discussion such as this, but Her Beauty. What goes on inside the cathedral? How fares the bishop?”

  “Dead.” Father Ansuro touched heart, liver, and spleen. “God forgive my anger. Most of the souls who lived inside Her Beauty are gone. The occupiers have tarnished her purity. The bishop, good man that he was, tried to reason with the enemy. They were only interested if we would forswear our own oaths and pledge ourselves to their god. As each refused to take this Dal into their heart—”

  Teresa winced. “We were instructed not to say their god’s name aloud. A warning for our safety.”

  Father Ansuro showed a frail smile. “An old man with little time calls out evil when he sees it. When they refused to take Dal into their hearts, they were murdered with a white staff. I never saw anything like it.”

  “A Diviner,” Telo said, touching his body’s centers of emotion as well. “So they are called in our language. God, take their good souls to your side—they might be the lucky ones to go quickly. Usually the Northerners are not so kind.” He tucked the stub of his arm close to his side.

  Saddened as he was by the cruel murders, it was something else Ansuro said that struck Ramiro. “The Northern priests spoke to you?” he asked, feeling excitement rise. “How many of them could understand our language? What did they look like? Where are they now?”

  “Slow down, young man. Soldiers have ever been so hasty.” Ramiro quieted, though the chastening did little to quiet his mind as Ansuro continued. He could be speaking of Santabe—we could be so close! “Three or four of the occupiers could speak to us. One more than the others.”

  “A strong woman?” Teresa interrupted, as eager as Ramiro felt. “A hand taller than Father Telo and about thirty winters old. With short hair. She is called Santabe.”

  “Aye. That is she. A cold soul for one so young.”

  “Where is she now?” Ramiro asked again, his heart beating harder with sudden anticipation.

  “Here, in Her Beauty, with all the others in white robes. It was she who interrogated me and she who let m
e live.” He pointed to a small door set beside the hearth. “I told her I served only this glorious house and she saw that someone must light the fires and bring in the coal. I suppose they could have ordered their soldiers to serve them, but she was quick to see leaving some few alive who knew how to run things would make all go smoother. So I remain. Directing the few servants who haven’t fled, such as they are, and putting these old hands to tasks long given over to others with more physical strength. Doing what I can to mend the tarnish they inflicted on Her Beauty. Me and mine are allowed to come and go inside as we will, and are mostly left alone.”

  Ramiro tensed, feeling the time had come to enter the lion’s den. “Father Ansuro, you’ve found three more servants to add to your cleaning crew.”

  “Good. Good. I trust you seek this Santabe for the benefit of all. I’ll ask no more.” The old priest shuffled to the door beside the hearth. A map of the cathedral showing all its levels hung on the wall above a chest. From the chest, he pulled out three sets of soft-soled slippers such as he wore. “Then let’s waste no time. We tolerate no boots or sandals inside Her Beauty, though I have little control over protecting her anymore. Still, I do what I can. You’ll have to change. Young man, let your shoulders slump and your spine bow some. Cleaners display more humility, or to put it plainly, they display their fear more openly. Pretend you are tiptoeing around your mother.”

  Ramiro tried to follow the directive, but only succeeded in feeling ill at ease. “Tiptoeing around my mother would be a sure way to get her attention.”

  “Our Ramiro is no great actor,” Teresa said with a tolerant smile. “He made but an indifferent bridegroom as well. Transparent as glass, but solid as the foundations of this great church, right, cousin? It’s a trade-off we are forced to accept.”

  Ramiro frowned as he balanced on one leg to remove a boot. “You should not mock someone who tries. But I am a solider no longer—something my mind never forgets, though my body refuses to heed.”

  “Circumstances change,” Telo said, fumbling one-handed with his sandals. “They don’t necessarily change the man. Some are born to be soldiers, my son, and such you will be until the day you die. Circumstance cannot undo what is in the heart. Just as even in my lawless early days, I was still a priest on the inside. It simply took a little longer for my brain to recognize myself as such.”

  Father Ansuro turned from a shelf with a pile of polishing cloths in his arms. “As I recall, your vocation was certainly buried deep twenty years ago. No one would have guessed you were headed here—to the church.”

  “I think you guessed.” Father Telo looked up from sliding on his shoes. “You, and others like you, wouldn’t give up on me. You brought me back from my criminal ways.”

  “Those are some stories I must hear,” Teresa said. “Father Telo as a most unsaintly youth.”

  “And I’d be happy to share them. But what is this?” Father Ansuro squinted in the dim light as Ramiro retrieved what he’d brought. “You’ll have to leave your tray, young man. The occupiers don’t trust us to prepare their”—his words cut off and the cloths fell from his arms as his gaze shifted to Telo for agreement—“little Telo! Your hand. I don’t see as well as I used to, but I see something is missing.”

  Telo held out his stub. “A gift from the woman we seek, though not the reason we seek her. Over and done now. As I said, a man’s circumstances change, but what’s inside remains the same. Do not fret, Father—I have made my peace.”

  “We all bear our scars,” Father Ansuro recited at rout, but the smile had gone from his eyes. “We are all touched by the evil that has come upon us. Lord, hear our prayer. Be with us in our need.” He subsided into silence, though his lips moved in an unheard communication, until suddenly he said, “Little Telo, remember you are not that person anymore. Don’t let anger or despair drive you back to old habits.”

  “It’s been difficult—so much killing—but I strive to remember.”

  “Don’t let them tarnish your soul as they have tarnished Her Beauty.”

  Ramiro bowed his head for a moment, stricken by their words. The Northerners had put a tarnish on everyone—or had they made the tarnish themselves in their rush to react to the Northern army? A sick feeling rushed over him, and he quickly slid the dishes from the tray with a clatter and took the polishing cloths from the floor to arrange them on the wooden surface, feeling much too uneasy. If the Lord wanted to truly help them, He could have sent them five or ten fighting men, instead of two priests—one who could be knocked over by a gust of wind and the other disabled—and a scholar. “This goes where we go, Father. It’s proved useful before. What else do we need? Time speeds. We should get moving.”

  Ramiro had to repeat his question twice more before the elderly man came out of his supplication with the Almighty and pulled some grayish smocks from a basket. “All my workers wear these. They should allow us safe passage inside Her Beauty.” Father Ansuro waited the few seconds it took them to pull on the rough clothing, then opened the door.

  The space inside led, not to a tiny bedroom as one might expect in a normal cottage, but to white marble floors and polished columns the diameter of a thick man, which climbed well above the roof of the simple house of the priest. The massive columns had been painted in blues, golds, and reds. A single oil lamp revealed a fresco of San Pedro, who, scripture claimed, chased the snakes from Aveston. In a niche, a reliquary of gold sat on a marble plinth beside a font. A few steps took them from rude poverty to palatial wonders. Ramiro carried the tray of polishing cloths and Teresa her bucket. Father Telo closed the door behind them, and Ramiro tried to drop his shoulders and stoop, though there was no one to see. He fingered his medallion.

  “There are many saintly artifacts kept here. Rumor says, they include the armor of San Martin. He is my patron.” Of all the saints, only San Martin had been a soldier at one time. Oh, others had fought, like San Jorge or even Santiago, but none had war as their profession until San Martin—he who divided his cloak with a beggar.

  Father Ansuro smiled. “That’s one rumor I’m sad to say is untrue. The Armor that Glows Like the Moon vanished so long ago it is only legend—if it existed at all. I can show you the preserved body of San Pedro or the robe of Santiago himself, but no armor.”

  Not far from the door the light faded, leaving them almost in the dark until they reached the glow of the next lantern.

  “We’ve had to manage with less since the invasion,” Father Ansuro whispered with a gesture at the oil lamp. “Less than a tenth of Her Beauty is now lit.”

  “That will only aid us,” Father Telo answered in the same whisper. “Where do the Northerners stay?”

  “And what use do they make of the cathedral?” Teresa added.

  “Little use, though vile,” came the answer with a sigh. “They treat Her Beauty like a hostel or a tavern. Their lesser priests and soldiers sleep in her transept and the nave. They bed down in her chapels and the choir lofts. Their more important members have taken the bishop’s quarters—God rest his soul—and the other living quarters as well. That’s where I take you.”

  Teresa switched her bucket to her other hand. “Where do they practice their worship if not the nave?”

  Father Ansuro stopped. “I don’t know about worshipping, but they do their killing in the inner atrium that was our reflection garden.”

  “It is unroofed?” Teresa asked. “Open to the sky?”

  “Aye. They have spread a great carpet upon the stones among the rosebushes.” Father Ansuro resumed his walk and they clustered around him. “They gather everywhere, even in the kitchens, but it is there they seem to have their formal conclaves. The entrances to the garden are kept guarded and there they store their white weapons—what did you call them?”

  “Diviners,” Telo supplied. “Such did I witness before—that they worship outside.”

  “You must tell us of anything like religious practice you have seen,” Teresa said. “We need to shift through it for
clues about their god.”

  Ramiro gave the conversation only half his attention. His eyes kept sliding around to inspect every dark corner, automatically checking behind a massive statue of Santiago hefting the staff with which he split the rock where Aveston was built. He left it to experts to hash out the inner workings of the Northerners. His job was the protection of their small group—a job at which he felt inadequately prepared without his sword or his armor.

  Well did he remember that the only defense against the Diviners was to be encased in metal. And even then the protection preserved the wearer’s life only. The Diviner’s touch still incapacitated, rendering flesh numb.

  How do I protect my friends from weapons such as that?

  No longer did he have to pretend to stoop. His shoulders drooped on their own. Paranoia had him trying to look in all directions at once, as twitchy as a pack rat under the open sky, despite the cathedral being as empty as a tomb thus far. He gripped the tray tightly and tried not to panic over his responsibility for four fragile lives.

  Glamorous trappings began to give way to more homey touches. A carpet runner now softened the marble floor of the much narrower hallway that Father Ansuro took them down. The lanterns grew closer together. They passed a few other souls also wearing the grayish smocks and received silent nods. Wooden doors often had some memento pinned to them to differentiate them: the faded prayer scarf of a woman, a paper with verse scrawled on it, a wilted flower.

  Once they saw a man in the white sleeveless robe of a Northern priest down a cross corridor. He went on his way with barely a flicker of the eyes in their direction. Ramiro hoped the rest of the Northern priests slept like normal creatures and wouldn’t be roaming the halls at late hours.