Tess of the Road

by Rachel Hartman

  Tess, who knew plenty, didn’t like his tone. “Why would you imagine that?”

  “Don’t be coy. One hears rumors, even this far south. We know the Queen and prince consort are all politics together. But the Queen and St. Seraphina? Hmm?” He made fingers on each hand into a V, locked them together, and waggled his blond brows suggestively.

  “I have no idea what you’re asking,” said Tess, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

  He shrugged it off and handed her a glass. Tess accepted it warily. Drink gave her a propensity for punching priests, and this one was almost begging for it already.

  “You seem like an adventurous soul,” said Father Erique, settling into his chair. “Have you considered traveling to the Archipelagos to convert the heathens?”

  “No,” said Tess. “I’ve lost my—”

  “Your vocation. I know,” he said, smiling wanly. “It’s not uncommon, Brother, believe me. Isn’t that the purpose of travel, to rediscover your convictions? It matters less where you go than that you keep moving.”

  Tess had often felt that. She swirled the amber liquid in her glass, wary but listening now.

  “I mentioned that southern expedition. There are many such, and each one needs a priest. If those islands are ever to be fully Ninysh—as Heaven clearly intends, because why are they so close to us, otherwise?—then we need to sow knowledge of the Saints among the people there. They must be made to understand that they’re part of a divine plan.”

  Tess must have looked unenthusiastic, because he added, “Ninysh expansion doesn’t appeal to a Goreddi, eh?”

  “I’m not sure spreading the scriptures, as such, appeals to me,” said Tess. She’d read scripture every day as a child; it had been her mother’s favorite stick to hit her with. She’d never seen any divine plan, unless the plan was to saddle her with guilt and self-loathing.

  Those voices had been unusually quiet since she’d seen Anathuthia, she suddenly realized, as if the serpent had given her permission to let go of all that.

  And now this priest thought she should take her mother’s stick to the Archipelagos and beat those people with it? No thank you.

  Father Erique poured himself a second cognac. “This is our time, Brother. Our faith is ascendant. Think how many new Saints were revealed during St. Jannoula’s War. St. Pandowdy is out there somewhere, head touching the clouds; St. Jannoula is a traveler like you. We’ll spread the word to all corners of the world. My bishop even speaks of converting the Porphyrians. What a coup that would be!”

  The whole scheme sounded revolting to Tess. Father Erique laughed at her expression and misinterpreted it. “You’re like I was at first. It sounds impossible. But you’ll see.”

  “I thought only the Samsamese aspired to convert everyone,” said Tess. “I thought you Ninysh were famously relaxed about these things.”

  Father Erique’s expression soured abruptly. “We’re nothing like the Samsamese! They revere strict, intolerant Abaster and Vitt, keep their women locked up until marriage, and don’t even drink. What sort of civilization is that? Ninys is enlightened and tolerant—which is why we need to win this race, don’t you see? The Samsamese fleet is restored; they’ll be sending out missionaries as fast as they can. Would you rather live in a Samsamese world?”

  Tess had lived in one, after a fashion, thanks to Mama’s devotion to St. Vitt. She’d be the first to call it restrictive, but the idea of converting “heathens” repelled her. Her own father, for all his faults, was an unbeliever. It was one of the nicer things about him.

  Father Erique apparently concluded that he’d won the argument, for he rose and stretched as if the conversation—or possibly conversion—were over. It probably was; Tess was too irked to argue further, and she doubted he’d listen. She set her untouched cognac under her chair.

  “I’ve had Angelica make up her room for you,” said Father Erique.

  “Oh,” said Tess, taken aback. “I thought you had a spare room.”

  “That is the spare room,” said Father Erique. “You can make her sleep on a blanket in the corner if you want to, of course, but I highly recommend keeping her in the bed with you. She’s nice and warm, my Angelica, and compliant as you please.”

  Tess’s understanding, which had been floating unmoored down the river of her mind, was suddenly firmly tied up at harbor. No wonder Angelica hated her on sight. Father Erique apparently lent her to guests for their personal use. Tess’s dinner came unsettled.

  “Daanite?” said Father Erique pityingly, as if this were the only reason he could imagine for Tess’s nauseated expression.

  Tess couldn’t speak; she felt too much. Her heart pounded, and she teetered between the urge to smash his face and to run. Flight won. She snatched up her pack and rushed blindly into the night, toward the sanctuary.

  “The key is under the statue of St. Munn’s terrier,” Father Erique called after. “See you at breakfast! My Angelica makes the best—”

  Tess slammed the church door on his description and staggered toward the altar, where a wooden statue of St. Munn loomed in darkness like a solid shadow. Tess bent double, hands upon the Saint’s oaken feet, and wrestled the urge to vomit.

  Here she’d been walking around feeling light and free, marveling that the world was different than she’d thought it was, while it was the same as it ever was: a world where Julissima Rossa died for shame and Dozerius sailed on; where a woman walking alone had to fear every shepherd, whether he meant her harm or not; where Roger Ivy spied on her from behind a screen and gave student-priests permission to call her whore; where she might be ruined, while Will, who took without asking, ran off without consequence.

  Where Angelica could suffer…Tess could barely complete the thought. It crushed her.

  She collapsed before the altar and was insensible to the world for a long time, maybe hours. She awoke stiff and cold, with clammy cheeks, and gazed up at the statue, knowing she’d find no comfort there. St. Munn’s eyeballs, painted eerie white, were visible in the darkness, as was a corsage of frail mushrooms growing from his shoulder. She didn’t know this Saint well, only that Aunt Jenny had been married in his church and that the Ninysh side of the family revered him.

  “My mother must’ve rejected you,” Tess whispered, rising. She touched his robe, and paint flaked off; the frail wood crumbled like gingerbread under her fingernails. “That makes me inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, but what do you tell Angelica, to reassure her that the world is more than she can see from under a monstrous priest?”

  Is it, though? the statue seemed to answer. You’ve gotten awfully arrogant. One glimpse of a big pagan worm, and you think there’s a way out of all this. Get on with you, mooning about, wallowing in gooey sentiment. It doesn’t change anything.

  “It does, though,” said Tess, a blaze igniting in her heart, a blue flame. “Maybe the world isn’t really different, but I am different, and I am in the world.”

  Not just in it. She was it.

  Tess knew what to do. She was called to do it.

  She thought about pushing St. Munn over—there would have been some satisfaction in that—but those mushrooms meant he was already rotting from the inside. They glowed faintly at his shoulder, like an afterimage.

  Tess returned to the vicarage; the door opened readily. She didn’t bother taking her boots off, and skipped checking the priest’s bedroom. He wouldn’t be there.

  She threw open Angelica’s door and there was Father Erique, who’d apparently just shed his nightshirt, climbing into the bed, and there was Angelica, squeezed against the wall, as if she might have slipped into the crack and disappeared.

  Her expression cut Tess—that was a blankness she knew, that she’d lived. Angelica had absented herself, but Tess was here, uncurled, heart fully breaking.

  Tess pulled the priest by the arm, pract
ically lifting him out of the bed. He was scrawny, and Tess was strong enough, after months of road work, to have beaten him within an inch of his life. She was angry enough to have made it half an inch or less.

  “Changed your mind?” said Father Erique hastily. “Take her with my blessing, Brother.”

  Tess twisted his arm behind his back.

  Angelica rolled toward the wall, wrapping her arms around her head. Tess knew how shamed she must feel, but she had to deal with the priest first.

  “You’re a boor, rushing in here so violently,” said Father Erique. “And you’ve got it all wrong. St. Munn’s is not a celibate order, and we Ninysh have more enlightened attitudes toward these things than you Goreddis do.”

  Tess stomped his bare foot with her boot. He howled.

  She could have killed him, broken his naked body into a thousand pieces. She writhed with the urge to do him violence, but…no. She was more than just a priest-puncher, and there was always one more trick to try.

  Tess called to Angelica, “Get dressed and find me some rope. Please.”

  Tess turned her back to give the girl some privacy. Wrangling Father Erique took all her concentration; he was a slippery wriggler. She wrestled him into the main room, into his armchair, and waited for Angelica. It took several minutes for the serving girl to slouch in from the kitchen and hand Tess the rope.

  “Thank you, Angelica,” said Tess gently, trying to reassure the serving girl, who looked sick. She would still think Tess was a man, and who knew what he intended to do with her?

  “You’re safe now,” said Tess, who didn’t dare reveal her identity to this priest.

  Angelica looked away, pushing tangled blond hair out of her face.

  Tess bound Father Erique hand and foot, feeling that she ought to preach while she worked. The scriptures must’ve addressed the monstrosity he’d committed—how could they not?—but she hadn’t been taught those lines. St. Vitt had scoldings aplenty for the woman who led a priest toward sin, though. Tess recited these, turning them inside out for Angelica’s sake.

  “ ‘Woman, do not submit,’ ” Tess misquoted. “ ‘If a man be tempted by thee, thou art not a temptress. If a man be led to sin, his sin is not added to your tally.’ ”

  “That’s backward,” said Father Erique.

  “Shut up,” said Tess. She held the rope against his mouth, considering whether to gag him, but decided against it. “Angelica, please find me ink and quill and parchment.”

  Angelica sullenly searched the cabinet. Tess wrote a sign in a plain ecclesiastic hand: I, Father Erique, forced myself upon my serving girl and offered her body to houseguests. I am a terrible priest. Take me to the local lord and subject me to the harshest justice the law allows.

  Tess laid the parchment between his feet so as not to blunt the full impact of his nudity. He’d feel humiliated to be found this way; no more justice than that was guaranteed, alas. Who knew what the lord would say, or what lies Erique would tell. Slippery wriggler.

  “I never used force,” he said, reading upside down.

  Tess needed to get gone before she punched him. She gathered her things. “I will find you, Brother Jacomo,” cried the priest, struggling against his bonds. “I will have my revenge.”

  “I doubt it,” said Tess, shouldering her pack. She glanced around, but Angelica had evaporated. “Angelica?” Tess called. Quiet sounds at the back of the house grew quieter. Tess looked into the girl’s room; Angelica froze like a hare scenting hounds. She’d thrown a homespun woolen gown over her chemise and taken up a bundle of belongings.

  “Oh, good,” said Tess, surprised to see her ready to go. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Angelica glanced at her open window, then put her head down and followed Tess out past Father Erique, who shouted, “Don’t you dare, Angelica! Your name will be blackened in this village. I’ll see your family suffer. Untie me, and all will be forgiven. We’ll live as if nothing had happened.”

  Angelica turned back and kicked him so viciously that his chair fell backward. Tess, shocked despite her sympathy, scrambled to set him upright and then rushed into the frigid predawn after Angelica.

  She wasn’t on the road. Tess listened until she heard what sounded like a clumsy deer picking its way through the wooded glade behind the vicarage. Tess plunged into the brush after her, but the closer she got, the faster Angelica went, until they were both running flat out, as fast as the tangled thicket would let them.

  They burst into a field of unharvested oilseed, desiccated seedpods rattling and bursting as they passed. Tess rapidly gained on Angelica now, but she didn’t want to tackle the girl and terrify her even more. Tess tried speaking: “Wait, please, Angelica….You can’t just go running off by yourself. We’ve got to get you someplace safe.”

  Angelica wheeled to face Tess, murder in her eyes. “I’ll go…nowhere…with you…,” she panted.

  “I won’t hurt you,” said Tess, holding up her hands. “I’m not like him—”

  “The devil you aren’t,” snarled Angelica, breaking off a thick oilseed stalk and slashing the air in front of her. It sounded like a whip.

  “I’m not a man. I’m only dressed like one. My name is Tess.” Her name felt strange in her mouth. “I’ve run away from home. Just like you.”

  For the merest moment Angelica froze in astonishment, her blue eyes wide, her hair a wild, bright corona in the morning sun. Then with a shriek, Angelica launched herself at Tess, nails, fists, stalk, and teeth. Tess was strong enough to fend her off, but slow to understand she was being attacked. She got a stinging scratch along her cheekbone.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Tess cried, growing angry. It had cost her considerable courage and effort to confront Father Erique, and while she hadn’t done it merely for gratitude, she hadn’t expected this.

  “You ruined everything!” Angelica cried. “D’you think I couldn’t take care of myself? I was stealing coppers from the offering plates, saving up.” She pulled a purse out of her bodice and jingled it. “I had a plan, you meddling bitch. I was going to escape—me, myself. I’d’ve poisoned his nasty—”

  “So I saved you from becoming a murderer, too,” Tess burst in hotly. “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re not!” shouted Angelica, whipping the stalk. Tess had to duck to keep from getting it in the eye. “I don’t have enough saved up to make a decent go of it, thanks to you, and I didn’t even get my revenge. I owe you nothing, and you can just piss off!”

  Tess had a momentary, terrible impulse to throw the ungrateful girl over her shoulder, run her back to the village, and dump her there. Her better nature prevailed, however. She felt in her pouch for a large coin and held it out between two fingers. Angelica eyed her suspiciously but darted in and snatched the money. Then she took off running again.

  Tess did not follow, but she couldn’t help calling after: “You’re not safe traveling by yourself!”

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Tess realized she sounded like Will, who’d escorted her across town a hundred times to keep her safe. What a fantastic job he’d done, too. She felt dizzy and disconcerted.

  Angelica turned and made an obscene gesture. “Devils take you!” she cried. “I will burn the earth!” And then she was across the field, disappearing into a hedgerow.

  Tess watched her go, feeling hollow and miserable, but wondering what she might have done if things had been reversed. She wasn’t sure that she’d have been any more gracious to a knight in shining armor.

  In fact, now that she thought about it, she’d been every bit as hostile. Countess Margarethe probably still hated her for it.

  The world was littered with all the babies she’d thrown out with their bathwater. She’d burned bridges while standing on them. She, of all people, knew what that was like.

  She kissed her
knuckle and turned her face south, back to her own road, blinking hard against the stinging wind.

  Tess reached Segosh upon a crystalline autumn morning that had left a chill in her bones upon waking. It was time to get indoors, though she felt reluctant to leave the Road behind.

  The Road, however, was not so easily abandoned. It led straight through the gates of the city, whereupon it divided itself, strands interweaving between buildings. Here it was called Streets and Boulevards and Alleyways, but it was the same entity, and she was still its progeny.

  She’d grown up in a city, and never appreciated this until now.

  This felt like a triumphant homecoming, back to civilization, and Tess entered like a hero, even if no one noticed. If she’d been Dozerius, this would have been the part of the story where all her trials were rewarded, where she finally got the recognition she deserved. She’d take her discovery to the Ninysh Academy and become the famous explorer she’d always dreamed of being.

  It felt not just possible but inevitable. She’d done something truly astonishing, and had beaten a certain naturalist of her acquaintance to it. He could kiss her mud-spattered boot. She grinned impishly at the lone cloud in the sky, which was not particularly Will-shaped, and thought, Eat your heart out, scholar.

  (The thought of Will gave her pause. The Ninysh Academy was an obvious, logical place he might have gone when he left. Heaven forfend that she’d run into him, but even if she did, wasn’t she strong and capable? She’d accomplished things Will could only dream of. He didn’t scare her. A whole Academy full of Wills couldn’t scare her.)

  Conquering the Academy would not be accomplished in a single afternoon; more urgent was securing a place to sleep tonight, and paying work. City streets had no comfy green verge for her to bed down upon. The alleys were full of rats and rubbish and elderly gents who made Old Griss look clean and polished.