“Three hours’ rest, cold rations, and then we’re marching through the night—just like the old days,” said Domingo, wishing he could crane his neck to catch Shea’s frown but wanting to save his strength for rarer game. “We won’t catch the Cobalt Company with snoring troopers, Captain. Now find Colonel Wheatley and have him join me on the command wagon. There’s a certain suicidally risky tactic I need to consult with him about.”
“Sir?”
“Slip of the Lark’s Tongue, Captain,” said Domingo, groaning as the wagon bounced and his entire body warred to see which bit could cause him the most discomfort. “Be a good officer and keep it to yourself, lest I find myself in need of volunteers. By the time Waits limps in from Thao we’re going to have every Cobalt head on a pike, save Zosia’s—that one’s going back to Azgaroth in a box. I’m going to mount it over my son’s tomb.”
“Zosia, sir?” Shea sounded as incredulous as she always did when he mentioned the Stricken Queen, like her old colonel was going soft in the helm. “You don’t think the rumors—”
“You don’t think at all, if you know what’s good for you,” said Domingo. “You’re a soldier, damn it, not a bloody philosopher. Now fetch Wheatley, and bring along Wan, too—when you’re bringing hell down on a pack of sinners, you can’t have too many devils to help deliver the goods.”
CHAPTER
16
The villagers Heretic impressed from the nearest hamlet brought a wagon with them. Portolés and the corpses of the other clerics all went into the bed, and then they were brought back downstream and taken over a rattley bridge. They passed through the hovels clustered on the riverside and then left the road, bouncing over a marshy field until they reached a great heap of wood the local children had gathered. The corpses went onto the pyre, and then oil went onto the corpes, and then the morning sky was obscured behind a wall of black smoke. Half-conscious in the back of the wagon, Portolés imagined she could see the Sunken Kingdom rising out of the mists of the Haunted Sea, but when a gust parted the smoke she saw it was just the thatched roof of a nearby hut on the far side of the pyre.
As her brethren burned, Heretic led the villagers in a bizarre dance around the blaze, the billowy cassock hanging off his lanky body making him resemble a living scarecrow. Portolés assumed it must be some pagan rite, but found out later that Heretic had successfully passed himself off as a brother of the Burnished Chain and told the ignorant villagers they were helping him in a funerary ritual for fallen clerics. He thought this a lot more amusing than she did. He explained all this in a hut set back on the willowed banks of the Heartvein, after the local mudhusband had tended to Portolés with a liberal mix of medicine, miracles, and mummery.
Heretic kept up his deception for the length of Portolés’s recovery, and lest she give the game away, he only removed her gag at mealtimes. He told the mudhusband she was the ringleader of a renegade band of heretics, and must be healed in order to stand trial in Diadem. Portolés’s former prisoner had quite the time of it, dining and gossiping with their elderly host and the man’s daughter, dozing his days away by the river with a bottle of their best plum brandy, explaining that he couldn’t offer any prayer services in the village as he was a war monk, better suited to acts of worship unfit for a friendly town. Portolés lay locked in the root cellar, alone with her prayers.
“Don’t think they believed me, mind,” said Heretic as they walked their horses around a frozen bog on the misty morning when they finally left. “Sure they saw right through me, but were happy enough to help the revolution, so long as they could honestly deny it after the fact.”
Even without the gag Portolés wouldn’t have spoken. Partly to deny Heretic the satisfaction, since he seemed of a mood to keep her as oblivious to his intentions as she had kept him to hers. Partly because riding a horse was agony, a perpetual stitch in her side and a tender throbbing in her guts and mangled hand. The stab wounds to her chest hurt like the worst kind of penance but had failed to puncture a lung, praise the Fallen Mother, and cinched as it was against a wooden brace, her broken arm only hurt when she moved. All told, she felt worse now than she had lying on the twilight butte, unsure if Heretic planned on returning.
“You know what he said, old Dafhaven back there? He said you were lucky he was also an animal mender, or he wouldn’t have known what to do with you. Said under the skin you were more beast than woman, and that’s what saved you—said a real person got worked over the way you did, their vitals would be too bad off to tend. Praise the Black Pope you were born a monster, yeah?”
The gag was so tight it hurt to smile, the straps cutting into the corners of Portolés’s lips. For a time the only sound was of hooves cracking through hoarfrost and ice-capped puddles, frozen reeds snapping off against their flanks. On the far side of the fen they rejoined the road, but only long enough to cross it before plunging back into the cold, damp woodland on the far side. Heretic knew enough to keep them off the highways, after what had happened on the butte, and lest they encounter more agents of the Chain, he had them both change out of their robes and into plain linen and wool garments. Portolés had never felt so naked and vulnerable as she did in the heavy peasant’s frock Heretic gave her, but it also brought the familiar tickle of the profane to her breast. She had no idea what gear remained on the pack mule, if her writs were safe, but she noticed he had salvaged her maul. A fine omen of his intent, that. Maybe.
“You know, when we first set out I wondered if you were one of us,” he said when they’d made camp for the night on a soggy knoll jutting up from another expanse of miserable marshland. “There’s a bigger concentration of support in the Dens than anywhere else in Diadem, you know that? Might seem odd to a pious maid like yourself, but a lot of your kind aren’t happy with being called anathemas, treated worse than devils, by the same church that expects them to die in the name of the Savior. To sacrifice your whole life, serving an institution built to oppress you… Hey, are you asleep?”
Sitting with her back against the stump he’d chained her to, Portolés opened her eyes and gestured at the gag with her manacled hands. When he frowned across the small fire but did not rise to remove it she closed her eyes again. He could talk, but he couldn’t make her listen—something he’d taught her, early in their acquaintance. Then she heard him squelching toward her, and held in a word of thanks as his grimy fingers pried the gag out of her mouth.
“I’m right curious, as you said back on the hill,” said Heretic, holding a waterskin to her lips. She took it, and didn’t spit it out when she tasted the sweet and flat barleywine of the Heartvein provinces. No sin there, so long as she didn’t ask for it. “Denied it at first, so’s not to give you the satisfaction. Wasn’t planning on coming back for you, neither, not at first, but when I hit that river town a couple leagues out I couldn’t help myself. Wasn’t just that you saved me from the Office of Answers, or just that you’d fight your own kind without so much as squeezing out a fart by way of parley… But both together, well, that’d raise the interest of anyone. I can’t read the hightalk on those documents you flash around whenever someone gives you lip, but I recognize the Royal Crimson Seal from the warrants they waved when they arrested me. So what is it you’re after, Sister Portolés? What’s your mission, up in the Isles, and now taking us all over the Empire? Why’d you bust me out, and keep me with you this whole time, instead of bringing along Imperial loyals, or Chain folk? You really one of us?”
“Cut this gag off for good and I’ll tell you,” said Portolés. Heretic considered this, then shrugged and sawed it off with the same knife that had punctured Portolés’s bosom. He tossed the hated thing on the fire, her saliva popping and hissing as the gag twisted in the flames like a serpent. “All right, Heretic. You have many questions, but I’ll do my best to answer some of them.”
“My name’s Boris, damn your tongue,” said Heretic. “Boris. After all we’ve been through you could do me that courtesy, calling me by the name my mother gave
me.”
“I took you with me because the Fallen Mother put you in my path,” said Portolés. “I fought my brethren alongside you because the Deceiver turned them against me. What I am after, my mission, as you say, is to do the will of the Savior, be it in the Isles, the Empire, or in hell itself. And as for whether I am, as you say, one of you, well, only the Fallen Mother or the Deceiver can say for sure—we are all mortal wretches born to die, Heretic, so in that respect, yes: I am one of you.”
Heretic shook his head, frustrated as she’d yet seen him. “You… you’ve either got a better sense of humor than I expected, or you’re even crazier than the rest of your kind.”
“My kind meaning anathemas? I told you, Heretic, I am one of you.”
“Your kind meaning Chainite crazies. It’ll go better for you if you’re up-front with me, Portolés, here and now, before anyone else gets involved.”
“That sounds awfully familiar,” said Portolés, enjoying herself for the first time since the Battle of the Butte. For all his high and mighty posturing, as soon as he had the chance he’d treated her even worse than she’d treated him. “I wonder where I’ve heard that sort of talk before. Oh yes, it was in the Office of Answers—the Askers said something similar to your friends. How many of them confessed, I wonder. And how much of a difference do you think it made in the end?”
“Try to be nice…” Heretic shook his head. “Just to show you I’m not the same as Imperials, or war nuns, for that matter, I’ll keep my word where the gag’s concerned. But when I turn you over you’ll wish you’d leveled with me.”
“I don’t doubt you, Asker Boris,” said Portolés, denying him the satisfaction of her asking whom he intended to turn her over to, and in the process giving herself a faint and fleeting thrill. “And I thank you for your mercy. Now, shall I take first watch, or did you have more questions for the accused?”
Heretic didn’t have much else to say, either that night or the ones that followed, and as they broke away from the river and moved west Portolés contemplated the best way to escape. Outside the city of Black Moth she almost managed it, when he left her chained around the trunk of a cypress in the surrounding woodland before riding into town. By the time he got back, laden with supplies, she had sawn partway through the tree with her chain, her wrist dripping black in the light of his lantern. He sighed theatrically and moved her to a bigger tree before settling in for the night. She’d assumed he’d be meeting with other traitors, tracking down underworld sorts who would have a standing bounty on Imperial or Chain officers, but he’d come back far too quick… meaning he’d just been restocking on food and beer, as he’d said.
“You’re a naughty nun, no mistake,” said Heretic. “You know they call this place the Haunted Forest? I hurried back on account I was worried for your safety, leaving you tied up in such a place.”
“My savior,” said Portolés.
“Only one you’ll find in these woods. Here, thought you’d find this interesting.” He passed over a torn flyer, and by the light of their fire she saw two familiar words blackening its surface. Even now they made her throb with something approaching awe. She looked Heretic in the eye. “You believe, do you?”
“I believe in what she stands for,” said Heretic, setting their camp cauldron on its tripod. “Got you some bean mush and weeds, since I know how much you hate the saltpork we’ve been living off, pious girl like you.”
“And what does Zosia stand for, then?” Portolés thought she had a fair understanding already, but it never hurt to ask for more details. “Freedom from the yoke of the oppressor? For your comrades, anyway?”
“Freedom for all,” said Heretic. “No gods, devils, nor other scapegoats. No queens, popes, nor other vampires. Just people, helping each other.”
“And if you have to kill a few hundred thousand people who disagree with you, well, that’s not a bad cost, is it?” Portolés rather enjoyed playing his part, could see the sport he’d found in baiting her. “Open your eyes, Heretic; she was just another despot, peddling the same old story under a new name. Nothing more.”
“Nothing less, either,” said Heretic, looking up to where the paltry light of their fire faded into a darkness that was all the deeper for their having kindled a flame. As if he saw the answer there, in the night, he said, “Thing is, sister, I’m beginning to wonder if some of the crackpots in our party weren’t on to something. The ones who say she’s still alive. People really believe it out here in the Empire, too, you can tell they do—maybe she’s rotting in some Diadem dungeon. Maybe death was too good for her, by Indsorith’s thinking. When the overlords start reading your tracts instead of just burning them, you have to wonder…”
Portolés did wonder, as she had most every day since setting out, how Heretic would react if she told him the simple truth: Zosia lived. This knowledge she so easily carried within her sullied, bestial body was a weapon so powerful it might change the fate of the Empire, the fate of the Star. She had stumbled on a secret, the secret, and through the trust of her queen, an anonymous anathema had become transformed into a force of unspeakable influence. Like all weapons, she could be destroyed or cast aside, but if she could reach Zosia in time and convince her that the queen hadn’t ordered Hjortt to attack Kypyk, she could win a war before it was even fought. Not bad for a chained-up witchborn who still had nightmares of screaming peasants dying under her orders.
“You’ve got that look again, Portolés,” said Heretic, watching her closely. “That look like maybe you know something of what I speak? Like maybe that’s why you wanted a rebel to ride with you, and not just because you could rely on me to fight any Imperials or Chainites that came after you. You wanted an expert on all things Cobalt.”
“Now what would make you say such a thing, Heretic?”
“You’re the worst damned bluffer I’ve ever seen. Here’s a confession for you, sister, and it’s been a long time coming…” Portolés perked up, couldn’t help herself. “That book you’ve been reading down to the fibers, the one you took from the Office…”
“The one you wrote, Heretic?” Portolés hungered for his revelation the way she still hungered for Brother Wan. “That book?”
“That’s the one,” said Heretic, and like many who offer a confession, he looked half gleeful, half disgusted. “I didn’t write it. Haven’t even read it. Was an old bird in our party, Eluveitie, was working on it. She was in the Asking Chamber, too, though I didn’t see where.”
“Confession sets us free to see the Fallen Mother,” said Portolés soberly, liking Heretic more than ever. “Did you take the credit to spare her especial attention from the Askers, or to gamble on finding yourself a way out?”
“I…” Heretic spit, which gave her answer enough. He didn’t know himself. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll both hear some answers right quick, sister. Some lasses I met in town said they’d been hunting along the front of the Kutumbans, but beat it across the plains because the Cobalt Company’s pitched a camp right in front of some mountain they call Bird Tongue.”
Portolés felt the darkness at the edge of their firelight contract, as though the night itself had held its breath. She’d prayed, of course, prayed hard and long that Heretic would take this road. He was curious enough that it seemed possible, but she hadn’t let herself believe, not until she heard the words from his own lips, but now that he’d said it she knew there had never been a question. What Queen Indsorith had planted inside Portolés could only be released when she met Zosia, and recognized her for the old mayoress. Then and only then would Portolés ascend from too-faithful servant and admittedly lousy messenger to savior of incalculable lives. Or destroyer, it was all a matter of perspective—once Zosia heard that the Black Pope had probably sent Hjortt to murder her husband and raze her town, would she seek an alliance with Queen Indsorith to go after the true perpetrator? Would the information Portolés delivered prevent the coming war between the Cobalt Company and the Crimson Empire but bring about a final, fatal ci
vil war between the Empire and the Burnished Chain, with Zosia’s army marching alongside Imperial regiments? Would she prevent an imminent massacre, only to cause a greater one? The seed cannot predict if it will become wheat or snakeroot, or what use its crop will be put to…
“You all right, sister?” Heretic looked concerned, but not concerned enough to leave his steaming stew pot.
“Never better,” said Portolés, wiping tears from her cheeks. “You mentioned… the Cobalt Company?”
“Aye, I’m sure you’ve heard enough to know the stories behind them. A flesh-and-blood army led by a blue-haired ghost. If you believe the legends, which I’m not so sure I do. Whoever truly leads them, though, they’ll be happy to have a war nun delivered to their door, especially one on a secret mission for Diadem. Seems like my people back in the capital have the same enemy and the same strategy, so why not throw in with these Cobalts?” Heretic watched her intently. “Nothing to say to that?”
Portolés fought to keep the relief off her face. She should have just freed Heretic from the onset and followed him after her quarry, trusting that higher powers had set him in her path as a human bloodhound. The uncertainty of what would happen when she finally caught Zosia filled her with unspeakable raptures, uncertainty about whether she brought miraculous peace or delivered infernal war, and she shuddered against her bonds. “I say you were dead right from the first, Asker Boris: we’ll both have some answers before much longer. Now what do you say you loosen these chains enough so we can play some cards?”
CHAPTER
17
Maroto’s wounds hadn’t festered and none of his bones were broken, but other than the barber’s welcome report he didn’t have much to feel good about. Of all the hells he’d waded through, of all the nightmares he’d lived, he’d never imagined one as dread as this. Zosia, beautiful, brilliant Zosia, alive… and she hated him.
A Crown for Cold Silver Page 48