Berylina swallowed hard, forcing herself to look at Father Siritalanu. Those days were past, she chided silently. She had grown beyond her childhood. She was a woman, now. She was not the child who had stumbled in front of her father, who had been forced to appear at his feasts and his convocations.
The familiar blush of shame began to steal up her neck, and Berylina knew that her skin would mottle. Her cheeks would flush with an unbecoming color, and her eyes would start to water. Without being conscious of any movement, Berylina started to clasp the fabric of her skirt—of Ranita Glasswright’s skirt—opening and closing her fists as if she were a cat kneading a lap.
The gesture brought her some shadow of comfort, some edge of familiarity. She could hear her nurse’s soothing voice, she could remember unfortunate public appearances as a child. She had survived those encounters. She had outlived the embarrassment and shame. She would do just fine here in Brianta. All would be well. She clenched the fabric again, barely noting the unsightly wrinkles that she caused. All would be well. All would be well.
“Stand forward,” the central priest commanded. Berylina complied with his command, stepping away from her guards. She dared a look at the chief inquisitor, and she realized that he wore a priest’s green robes. Those robes were shadowed, though, covered with a dull, brown overgarment. A quick glance confirmed that each member of the curia wore the same ominous combination—green declaration of faith overlaid with the earthy threat of punishment.
Berylina argued for her life before this panel. The ultimate punishment that the curia could assess was death. Death beneath the earth. Death apart from the purification of flame. Death eternal.
“I am Torio, prelate of this Curia. I will guide my brothers in their judgment of you today, in this grave matter where you are named witch. State your name, that our clerk may inscribe it in the book of this proceeding.”
Berylina swallowed hard. Torio, then. He would be her judge. He would decide whether her nightmare became reality. She had lived in Morenia for long enough that it seemed odd for a priest to have so short a name. Five syllables, she thought. His name should twist for at least five syllables.
She knew that she should not worry about such foolish concerns. She should look directly at the curia. She should face them down with the same grim acceptance that she had mastered in the Morenian court. She should conduct herself like a princess; like the poised young woman she had become.
But all of those lessons were cast out of her soul, squeezed from her body with the short, panting breaths that had taken over her lungs. She could not look directly at Torio; she was reduced to the sidelong glances that had filled her childhood. Her tongue was thick in her mouth, and her protruding teeth seemed to take so much space that she could never hope to push words around them. “Berylina Thunderspear,” she managed at last, forcing out the words as if they were poisoned fruits.
“You are called before this curia on the most serious charge that can be brought against a pilgrim, the most serious accusation in all of Brianta. You are called a witch, and you are asked to account for the purity of your body and your soul.”
No! Berylina wanted to cry. I am not a witch! That’s a lie!
She could say nothing, though. She could only look around the chamber, at Torio and his henchmen, at the guards ranged to either side, at the people who watched with eager curiosity. She could only look at Ranita Glasswright and Father Siritalanu, standing helpless at the front of the room.
Torio waited until she had returned her attention to him and his brethren. “How do you plead, Berylina Thunderspear? Are you a witch?”
Protests pounded through her head, arguments and scholarly rebuttals. Of course she was not a witch. Could a witch speak the names of the Thousand? Could a witch describe the appearance of each of the gods? Could a witch travel to every shrine in Brianta, making offerings, studying altars, dedicating her very soul to the Thousand Gods?
“Do not waste our time, Berylina Thunderspear! You must plead. Are you a witch?”
Her father had berated her like this. He had taken her before his court in Liantine and forced her to speak in front of his nobles. His face had twisted with shame of her, with hatred that her birth had cost him his beloved wife. Berylina had shrunk from those appearances, longed to disappear, to fade away before the court of Liantine.
“I ask you one last time, Berylina Thunderspear! Do you claim the name of witch?”
“No!” cried Father Siritalanu. “She is not a witch! She is the holiest pilgrim I have ever laid eyes upon, the most faithful woman I have ever met.”
“Silence, priest!”
“No,” Berylina finally managed to answer, but her word was lost in the crowd’s uproar over Torio’s rebuke of a robed priest. “No,” she whispered into the melee.
Torio pointed a fleshy finger at Siritalanu. “You will stay silent, priest, or you will be cast out from these proceedings. We need not call you as a witness. We have enough to speak against your ward, and all here know that you are biased.”
Nevertheless, poor Siritalanu looked as if he would protest further, as if he would tell Torio that such rules were patently unfair. No, Berylina wanted to say to her protector. There was no use in argument. Torio had made up his mind already, without the difficulty of a curia. Without the need for his implements of torture.
Like Berylina, Ranita Glasswright seemed to understand the play that they were acting. The guildswoman shook her head slowly and stepped toward Siritalanu, laying one hand upon his arm. When the priest did not acknowledge her, she leaned toward him with greater urgency. Berylina could see that the gesture had two purposes—Ranita was pulling the priest closer to whisper in his ear, but she was also leaning heavily upon him.
Poor Ranita. Even across the room, Berylina could see that she was exhausted. She must have been so frightened when Berylina Spoke with her. She must have been terrified when Berylina unleashed the power of the gods within her. Even now, Berylina wondered how she had found that strength, how she had guided that force. She was no priest, after all—not even truly a caloya.
And yet the gods had come to her during the Speaking. She had felt them deep inside her mind, rank upon rank. She could see the ones with colors, smell the ones with scents. Flavors and sounds and sensations—all were laid out inside her mind like volumes on the shelves in King Halaravilli’s most treasured library.
She had known that if she touched Ranita just so, that she could pass on the secret of those ranks. Berylina had felt them flow out of her, surging across space like a flame jumping toward a fine beeswax candle. The moment of that connection had frozen Berylina, paralyzed her body and her mind. She had felt power leap out of her, but then circle back a hundredfold, burgeoning and blossoming. …
“I said, is it true that you stole a holy relic from the altar of First Pilgrim Jair?”
Berylina was shocked back to the curia, to the grand chamber, to Siritalanu and Ranita’s fearful gazes and Torio’s furious bellow. She blinked and clenched her hands in her robes, trying to remember what the priest had just asked her, what he wanted to know.
“Please,” she said, and the sound of the one word slipping past her jutting teeth was an embarrassment. “The ball came to me. It rolled into my hands. I was only counting the thousand relics, offering up my prayers.”
Berylina managed to raise her eyes from her clasped hands, and she was surprised to see an old woman standing on the dais, gripping the balustrade. That was the angry woman, the one who had taken such a dislike to Berylina in Jair’s house. The one who had called her witch at Mip’s temple.
Now, the creature was dressed in the darkest of pilgrim’s robes, and she seemed to have borrowed a larger, more ponderous Thousand Pointed Star. The old woman pointed a bony finger at Berylina and said, “She lies, that one does. She pretends to listen to the gods, to steal the attention of the priests. She acts as if the Thousand speak to her, as if they come to her, special that she is. She uses her power as a
n excuse. She touched the sacred relic of Jair. She laid her hand upon the First Pilgrim’s plaything, upon the ball that sat in the middle of his altar.”
The crowd gasped in horror, and Berylina was forced to cry out, “No! I did not reach out for it. It came to me! It rolled across the altar into my hands!”
“She’s a witch, I tell you,” the old woman shouted. “A witch! How else could the relic move? How else could it be summoned to roll across a perfectly flat altar? She claimed to speak for Jair, to criticize the priests who keep his temple!”
Torio thanked the woman for her testimony, and she was guided from the dais. When she walked past Berylina, she wove her fingers into a warding sign, and she spat at the princess’s feet.
Berylina tried to plot her rebuttal, but other witnesses were called. An attendant at Ile’s shrine, who had seen Berylina light a dozen tapers to the god of the moon, without visibly kindling the first one. A child who had walked behind Berylina in the streets, and who said that she cast no shadow. The sour man who served beer at the ale-house beneath their rooms, who said that he had never seen Berylina take a bite of bread or a sip of ale, nor her companions either.
She wanted to explain. She wanted to tell them that they were exaggerating, they were making up stories. They were missing the truth in their haste to find a path to the Thousand Gods.
Torio glowered and called one last witness, Thurda of Zarithia. Berylina did not recognize the name, but she knew the face—the mother of the boy who had nearly drowned in Mip’s fountain. Berylina started to relax. Here, at least, was a good tale. Here was a truthful story, of how the gods had watched out for the princess, of how they had enabled her to save a child.
“She took my son, she did.” Thurda stood on the dais, as tall as her rotund body would let her. She peered over the balustrade, leaning urgently toward the curia. Setting her hands on her hips, she jutted her chin forward as if she would battle the entire room with such a weapon. “He’s a good boy, my son. He wanted to see Mip’s temple. He’d heard about the fountains, heard about them all the way back in Zarithia. It was a hot day, and we told the poor bairn that he could cool himself there. He could praise Mip and cool his feet all in the same day.”
Torio frowned, clearly displeased that Mip’s temple was considered little more than a child’s bath. Thurda obviously sensed the curia’s disapproval. She drew herself up even straighter, and she pointed a quavering finger toward Berylina. “And then that one got involved! She wanted to prove her faith. She wanted to prove her worship. She took my poor boy and held him under the water, held him there until he started to drown. And then, when she knew that we were desperate, she pretended to rescue him. She pretended to bring him up. She pretended to call on the Thousand to save him. She lied and used our little boy in her filthy games!”
Berylina wanted to laugh. She wanted to point out the folly of the woman’s words. If Berylina were a witch, why would she have staged a miracle with a child? Why would she introduce another person into her rituals? Why would she call attention to her dark means of worship?
Torio shook his head, his jowls quivering. He glared at Berylina. “And you? What defense do you have to this charge of witchcraft?”
Before Berylina could speak, Siritalanu interrupted. “That woman made no charge of witchcraft!”
The curia exploded into competing bursts of agreement and disagreement, and Torio had to fight to be heard above his fellows. “What say you?” he berated Thurda, who still stood on the dais. “Do you accuse Berylina Thunderspear of witchcraft? Or of mere chicanery?”
Gol, the god of liars, came to stand beside Berylina, bathing her flesh in the sensation of summer sun. She has listened well to all my lessons. She wants their attention; she’s a lonely one. She’ll do anything to keep their gaze on her.
Berylina nodded, wanting to turn her face to Gol’s rays. Suddenly, she understood. With a handful of words, the god of liars had shown her the truth. There was nothing she could do before the curia, nothing that would change her path. She would be found a witch; the gods planned it so. There were patterns, designs, reasons that she could not hope to understand. The gods meant for her to be a martyr. They meant for her to die.
All of a sudden, Berylina understood the meaning of her pilgrimage. She had embraced gods of change; she had dedicated her cavalcade to shifting deities. She’d had the time to make her offerings to Ile and Nim, to the moon and the wind; she had thought to dedicate herself to Mip.
But she had not had a chance to honor Zil, the god of gambling. This curia was the final stage of her worship. She was casting dice, with her life in the balance. She was playing out her final game. And even as she realized that Zil was watching over her, she knew that her luck was spent. Change. It happened too slowly at some times, to fast at others.
“She’s a witch, sure enough,” Thurda said. “I heard her call upon the gods as she bent over my son. She spoke Mip’s name backwards. She reversed her prayers to work her magic.”
Berylina felt Gol’s rays flicker hotter; he was feeding off the woman’s lying tales. The crowd in the chamber exclaimed, and many made holy signs to protect themselves.
“May I be heard, Your Honor?” Ranita Glasswright’s voice cut through the room.
Torio ignored her, asking instead, “Are there others who would speak against Berylina Thunderspear?”
For a moment, Berylina thought that someone would step onto the dais, that another spectator would take the opportunity to claim fame before the court. There were no others to speak against her, though. No other liars to build their own accounts. Torio shook his head as if he were disappointed, and then he turned to Ranita. He licked his fleshy lips before he said, “Aye. You may speak.”
Ranita crossed the room, staring directly at Berylina. There was pride in that look, but fear as well. Berylina remembered Ranita’s calm voice, the way that the glasswright had guided her in the Speaking. She remembered how she had followed those words, how she had moved deeper into her heart, her thoughts, her memories, her soul. She remembered how the gods had gathered around her, how they had nurtured her and lifted her, as if they were an ocean, and she a cradled ship.
And yet, Ranita did not seem to have that strength within her now. She gripped the balustrade with shaking hands. Her face was pale and drawn, pinched as if she had not eaten in many days. There were hollows beneath her eyes, grim circles that called to mind the ashes of long-extinguished fires. She looked about the room as if she counted allies, as if she sought out friends. Berylina could have told her not to waste her time, not to squander her breath.
Torio knew his decision already. He knew the curia’s judgment, and nothing would change his mind. He knew what Brianta desired, what the city needed. What the gods decreed.
“The princess of Liantine is a good woman,” Ranita began. Clain, the glasswrights’ god, came to the surface of Berylina’s mind, conveying disappointment in his protege, even as his cobalt light flashed brighter. Berylina wanted to explain that the god should not judge his guildsman harshly. Ranita was fighting a battle that could not be won. She was arguing a case that was already decided. Berylina closed her eyes and took comfort from the cool brilliance of Clain’s cobalt core. She contemplated the beauty and the purity of his essence, ignoring the string of words that Ranita laid out before the curia.
“And so,” the glasswright concluded, “Berylina might seem different, but her faith is strong. Pure. She has a power that the rest of us can only dream of. She has a connection to the gods, a link to them. She is no witch. In fact, she is the farthest thing from a witch that any of us can imagine. She is a new type of worshiper, she brings a new type of faith.”
“A new faith?” Torio asked his question, and Berylina could hear the rolling thunder of Shad, the god of truth. It seemed that the god arose to contest Gol’s supremacy, to carve away the power of the god of lies. Alas, Shad came too late to save Berylina.
“Yes!” Ranita was eager to continue, pleas
ed that she had finally evoked a response from the curia.
“What sort of faith? How does Berylina differ from the other pilgrims in Brianta?” Berylina heard Shad roll nearer.
“The gods come to her, Your Honor. They present themselves to her without the intermediary of priests. She sees the gods, and she hears them. She can reach out and touch them, smell them, taste them!”
A crack of thunder echoed inside Berylina’s skull as Torio bellowed, “I will not listen to this blasphemy!” At the same time, Siritalanu leaped toward the dais, stretching out his fingers as if he would strangle Ranita Glasswright.
“I speak the truth!” Ranita cried, and Berylina wondered if she protested against Torio or against Siritalanu. “Ask the princess, if you do not believe me. She is closer to the gods than any of us in this room. She knows them better than we can ever hope to do.”
Berylina felt the moment that Torio fully hated her, felt it as if a ray of light leaped forth from a shuttered lantern. His voice shook with fury as he said, “Is this true, then? Do you claim this nonsense to be the truth?”
Once again, thunder crashed in Berylina’s ears. She tried to hold herself a little taller, tried to make her spine a little straighter. She brought her good eye to bear on her prosecutor. “Aye, Your Grace. The gods come to me in many forms. I’ve come to know them through my eyes and through my ears, through my nose and tongue and skin.”
Men cried out as if Berylina were an enemy on a battlefield. Women shrieked as if she had admitted torturing small children. Ranita’s face paled, and Berylina knew that she only now recognized the wrongness of her defense. Siritalanu moaned softly, a faint sound somehow audible across the room.
Berylina wanted to speak to them all. She wanted to tell them that she would be safe, that the gods would watch over her. She wanted to say that she understood, she knew, she believed.
Glasswrights' Test Page 25