And the Traitor, he wanted to ask. “And Ranita Glasswright?”
Larinda’s lips pursed, as if she had bitten an unripe plum. “She is good, Master.”
“Are you better?”
Larinda met his eyes, and he read her fierce determination, as grim as his own when he had spoken with the Fellow. “She is better, when she is permitted to use her rogue tools and her outland ways. But if you test her guild knowledge, Master, if you test what we have taught her, she is not better. She is prideful of her methods, but those methods are flawed. They cheapen our work, Master. They sell us to her players’ troop, like a bolt of silk or a leather strap.”
There. Parion had his answer.
He would let the Traitor work her own demise. He would let her use her diamond knife and her other players’ tricks. He would let her bring her eastern toys into the guild’s workshop. And if the other masters chose to elevate her, if the Fellowship approved her advancement, fine. Parion would wait. He would ruin her in the future, casting aspersions on her skill. He would note that she had only entered the guild with cheap imitations of true workmanship, that she had only succeeded because she had been permitted to use her players’ ploys.
Parion had waited for vengeance all this time, he could spend another few years crafting the Traitor’s fall, even if the Fellowship decreed otherwise. If he practiced patience, he could do as he desired. He could reap the harvest he had sown with his glazed bowl and goblet.
And if the other guildmasters decided wisely, if the Fellowship decided she must be cast out from the guild immediately, better.
Larinda brushed her hair back from her face, using her Hand with accomplished nonchalance. “Are you well, Master? Does your wrist pain you?”
Parion glanced from the whitewashed table to her fretful face, and for just a moment, he thought that he saw a streak of white in her hair. Morada. … his heart whispered, but then she took a step closer, and the light shifted. “I am well, Larinda Glasswright. Your words have eased my heart.”
She might have said something more then. She might have taken a step closer to him. She might have raised her cool fingertips to his wound, brushed against it with the spidersilk and metal of her Hand.
Before anything could change, though, the door to the chamber crashed back against the wall. An apprentice stumbled into the room, gasping for breath, even as he glanced, wild-eyed, for the prayer bell. Jamming his fingers against the metal trappings, the boy stumbled toward Parion and Larinda. “Come quick, Guildmaster! To the Middens! The Morenian princess is called out as a witch! And Ranita Glasswright stands as her defender!”
Chapter 11
Berylina sighed, lost in the haze between wakefulness and sleep. She had been dreaming again. She’d seen herself condemned to dig her own grave, sentenced to hollow out a pit in the earth where her body would be cast, to rot for eternity. Her punishment was even crueler because she could see a purifying funeral pyre as she dug. She could see the iron crossbars, the bracing that should have been prepared to received her wrapped body. She could smell the ladanum that should have sanctified her corpse. She could feel Nim whipping up the flames that waited to receive others, taste the peach essence of the god of wind who waited to gather in the wandering souls of the pure.
As she labored, she felt her flesh pierced again and again, shattered by her father’s spear. He tested her faith, tested her devotion. He challenged her with thrust after bloody thrust.
She was pure, wasn’t she? She had opened up her heart and her mind and her soul to all the Thousand Gods. Why should her father condemn her? Shouldn’t she be blessed with a pyre? Why should she be forced into a filthy grave?
Berylina forced her eyes open, relieved to find that she was still in her cell. With shaking fingers, she lifted her gown—Ranita’s gown. She could make out the bloody image of the spear, the jagged measurement of her faith. The wound was already closed, though, already converted to an angry crimson scar.
She had only dreamed her condemnation. She had only dreamed that she was brought before the tribunal, that she had been sentenced to death.
Soon, though. Soon, she would be asked to prove her faith.
The notion frightened her more than she was willing to admit. If only Siritalanu had come to pray with her. Then, she would be more comforted. Then, she would feel more hope. But the priest had only come back to the Midden one time. He had still been angry with her for Speaking with Ranita. His lips had been stretched tight in an odd white line, as if he were being forced to cross a rope bridge over a chasm.
Poor Siritalanu. He did not understand her. He was wholly devoted to her—of that she was certain. But he did not begin to comprehend how the gods spoke to her, how they manifested themselves inside her mind. If he did learn, if he did come to believe her, would the Briantans even let him stay at her side? Wouldn’t he be forced to denounce her for her strangeness? Wouldn’t he be forced to declare her a witch?
The thought made Berylina’s heart beat faster, and the skin beside her roving eye started to twitch. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to find the calm place inside herself, where the gods came to her. The place that Ranita had opened by guiding her in the Speaking.
She was not a witch.
Of that she was certain. The gods spoke to her in mysterious ways. They carried messages that she could barely comprehend, but she did not use her godly powers for evil. She did not corrupt herself or others.
Even as Berylina completed the calming litany in her mind, she heard the guard clank down the hallway. This was the leader of the day watch, the one who breathed heavily and whose body always stank. She imagined him sitting at the entrance to the prison cells, carving off hunks of bread and swallowing them whole, with blocks of cheese and wedges of onion to complete his constant meal.
As if she were spurred by the unclean guard’s habits, Berylina sat up straighter. She ran her fingers through her wiry hair, hoping that she was taming it rather than making it stand out even more. She pushed her hands against her skirts, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. Only three days had passed since the glasswright had visited, but the dress seemed to fit Berylina better than it had before. Perhaps she had lost weight on the miserable prison rations. Or maybe the fabric had stretched.
Or maybe the Gods had provided for her. Berylina cast a quick word of thanks toward Jol, the god of cloth. He might have added to the garment. He might have kept an eye on her, in her solitude. Jol responded with his expected sound of a cow lowing. Berylina smiled. How could she be condemned for her familiarity with the gods? How could it be wrong to let a deity speak to her?
“On your feet!”
Berylina had nearly forgotten about the guard. She truly must focus. Today was likely to be her test, her trial. If she failed, her nightmares might spin into reality. If she failed, she might die.
“May all the Thousand bless you,” she said to the guard.
“And you as well,” he said, automatically completing the familiar greeting and weaving his fingers into the appropriate gesture. Then he seemed to remember that she was a corrupt prisoner. “On your feet!” he repeated.
She stood, taking a deep breath against the sudden wave of dizziness that swept over her. She was light-headed, as if she had a fever. She’d been seriously ill only once, when she was still a child. Then, her Amanthian nurse had stood over her, laying cold compresses on her brow. The woman had called on all sorts of gods—Zake, the god of chirurgeons, and Nome, and others whom Berylina could not remember through the fog of her illness.
She still associated her occasional light-headedness with the gods the nurse had invoked. Nome’s piping always left Berylina feeling like a silk banner drifting in an easy wind. Zake’s astringent mint flavor on her tongue always summoned the feel of cool, damp cloths, of a nurse’s compassionate hands.
“Let’s go,” the guard said, clearly unaware of Berylina’s thoughts.
“Where are you taking me?” Her voice sounded strange in he
r ears, too high, too breathy.
“To the Gods’ Court. The curia is called to judge you today.”
“The curia?” She knew the term of course, but she had no idea how such bodies worked in Brianta. She had no idea of the forces that would be arrayed against her.
“Aye. And they’ll only be more disposed against you if you keep them waiting.” The guard’s lips twisted into a frown that might have been tinged with pity. “No reason to start off any worse than you already are.”
Nevertheless, Berylina took the time to pause on the threshold of her cell. She looked back at the narrow window, and she whispered a quick prayer of gratitude to Par, the god of the sun. He had kept her company when everyone else seemed to have abandoned her. He had visited through the tiny, unglazed slash. As if in reply to her grateful words, she felt the warm wash of water that was Par’s signature.
The guard caught his breath in an impatient sigh as Berylina bowed her head. She took special care in phrasing her prayer. She wanted the gods to know that she did not bear them any ill will. After all, they were not responsible for how the Briantan priests interpreted—or misinterpreted—their words. To the contrary, the gods suffered when humans failed, suffered even more than Berylina might at the hands of the curia.
“Please,” she said, just before leaving the cell. “I’d like my Thousand Pointed Star.”
“You are to have no weapon before the curia.”
“It’s a Star!” Her voice broke, surprising her. She had not realized how desperately she missed the outward trappings of her faith.
“It’s a brooch, with a spike of metal as long as your thumb. You’re a prisoner, and you’ll be treated like the criminal you’re accused of being, especially when you stand before your betters.”
Berylina wanted to argue. She wanted to say that she had offered no resistance so far. She had done nothing to make the guards suspect her. With her wandering eye, she was scarcely able to focus on another person, how was she supposed to threaten great lords? Especially when there were eager soldiers standing nearby, anxious protectors who would sacrifice her as soon as help her toward a greater faith.
But then, Berylina realized that she did not need her Star. She was secure without it. The gods understood her faith. They knew that she honored them, that she saluted their power in all her daily life. She settled for making another holy sign across her chest, and then she followed the guard down the hallway.
He signaled to seven of his fellows as they approached the Midden’s double door. The men fell in beside her, their armor bristling like the plates on an octolaris’s legs. She had only a moment to wonder at the symbolism, to question whether the soldiers had purposely numbered themselves to honor her past, her homeland, the land of the great silk spiders.
And then the lead guard cast open the door, and she realized that the men meant no honor. They merely hoped to spare her life.
A crowd had gathered in the courtyard in front of the Midden. Men, women, children—hundreds of pilgrims filled the square. Sunlight flashed off of Thousand Pointed Stars, glinting as if fires burned on every breast.
A rotten cabbage sailed over the first of the guards and caught Berylina squarely on the chest. The impact was strong enough that to knock the air from her lungs. She made a squeaking sound as she tried to pull back, but the guards forced her forward, four of them grabbing her arms, two poking her from behind with their short swords. Two of the men began to cut their way through the throng.
The cabbage was only the first of many missiles. Berylina soon found herself pelted by all variety of filth. It seemed as if every rotten vegetable, every stinking fish-head, every chamberpot in the city had been saved for her disgrace. The guards carried rectangular shields which they used to keep the worst of the offal from themselves, but Berylina was left exposed to all the crowd had to throw.
Ranita Glasswright’s dress would be ruined, she thought to herself. The sturdy gown had served Berylina well inside her cell. It was a shame to destroy it here, in the open air, in the middle of a courtyard filled with pilgrims.
The garbage was bad. The words the crowd threw were worse, though.
“Witch!”
“Filthy whore!”
“Lying strumpet!”
Berylina’s eyes filled at the shouts. She was none of those things. She had never given anyone reason to believe that she was evil, that she was less than chaste. One phrase was repeated the most often, and it grew to a chant throughout the crowd. “Bury the witch! Bury the witch!”
Berylina slipped in a patch of slime, and her guards barely kept her from crashing to her knees. Their fingers dug sharply into her flesh, and she imagined the bruises she would have the next morning. When she regained her footing, she found herself face to face with a furious woman, a wrinkled old alewife who thrust something toward her.
She thought that she was being offered a present, a gift, something to comfort her in the midst of the horror. She could see that the item in the old woman’s hand was long and thin—it appeared to be a walking staff that Berylina might use to keep her balance across the filthy square. Even as the princess reached for it, though, she recognized the thing, and she pulled back in revulsion.
A leg bone. A human leg bone. Long and lean and mealy white. The hideous thing had been dug up from the earth; clearly, it belonged to a body that had not been consigned to purifying, blackening flames.
Berylina was grateful that she had eaten nothing of her prison meal that morning, for she knew that she would have emptied her belly on the stones before her.
And yet, that filth would have been cleaner than much that was hurled at her. The guards were swearing at the crowd now, cursing them roundly, and the angry words heightened the mob’s anger. Berylina saw children shouting so loudly that spittle flew from their mouths. One man raised an earth-crusted spade high above his head, shaking it at her as if it were a weapon itself. “Bury the witch, bury the witch! Bury the witch, bury the witch!”
The man looked familiar; Berylina knew she had seen his face before. Where? Where? And then she knew—he was one of the burly soldiers who had supported her as she began her pilgrimage; he had forced the stubborn priest to initiate her cavalcade.
The guards wrestled open a door on the far end of the courtyard, pushing Berylina, pulling her, dragging her into quiet darkness. She heard the iron-clad wood slam shut, but the crowd’s rage did not diminish. The chanters battered the door, stomping their feet, clapping their hands.
One of the guards hawked and spat at Berlyina’s feet, as if he were clearing the evil experience from the depths of his lungs. Another cursed her openly, and two made a great show of wiping their hands clean on their filthy garments. The first guard, the one who had come to her cell, said, “This way. Things will go worse for you, if you keep the curia waiting.”
Berylina started to argue that she had not intended to keep anyone waiting, but she gave up the protest. After all, these men did not care to hear her. They did not care to listen to what she had to say. She could share with them everything she knew about the gods; she could tell them about how each of the Thousand came to her, and they would ignore her. Some people were not prepared for the reality of the Thousand. Some people wanted to insist on the comfortable and the familiar; they supposed they knew the truth.
The guards made short work of bustling Berylina into an audience chamber. A part of her mind analyzed her surroundings with a princess’s critical eye. There. The woodwork was quite fine on that door. Servants had oiled the hinges. The room had been constructed by a master; air currents kept it from becoming too hot, even on this scorching summer day.
Berylina gave free rein to those analytical whispers; they kept her from focusing on other things, more dangerous things. She could pretend that she did not see the five judges who sat before her or the throng that filled the room. She could pretend that she did not see the raised dais, the balustrade stained dark with the grip of nervous witnesses’ hands, or the holy
altar in the very center of the chamber. She could pretend that she did not see the brazier that glowed in the corner of the room, or the stones that nestled in the coals, or the heavy iron sheet that leaned against them.
She could pretend that Ranita Glasswright was not standing at the front of the chamber, pale and grim, anger fighting with fear across the battleground of her face.
But Berylina could not pretend that she did not see Father Siritalanu. She had spent too many years attuned to messages on his broad, placid face. The priest had been her guide, after all. He had led her from the dark places of her father’s court; she was accustomed to following him, accustomed to turning herself over to his capable hands for safekeeping.
Those hands were trembling now. Every line of Father Siritalanu’s body was drawn tight, as if he were the one being tortured with the curia’s strange implements.
Berylina smiled gently as she approached her mentor. “Father,” she said, as if she might comfort him.
“Silence!” The priest in the center of the curia thundered the command. He was a young man, given over to fat. His lips pursed as if he were forced to drink sour wine, and a sheen of sweat stood out on his brow. His dark hair had begun to recede, even though he could not have seen more than thirty summers. When he spoke again, his voice trembled with authority. His words were oddly pitched—too high for a man of his girth. “You will not speak until the curia has spoken to you!”
Berylina started to agree, but she caught her words against the roof of her mouth. Suddenly, she was not a princess surrounded by the power and the beauty and the glory of all the Thousand Gods. Instead, she was a child, a lost and wandering soul attempting to find her way in her father’s court. She was standing in the Great Hall of Liantine, surrounded by dead wooden tokens of the false goddess, the Horned Hind. She was ungainly and awkward and her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth.
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