“A love poem, eh?” Babba raised an eyebrow. “They confiscated that?”
“I compared her to several of Nihil’s dead wives.”
Silence fell over the crowd. His wife stared down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap, and said nothing. I felt pity for the man, but more for his wife as her eyes teared over. Whether she was as beautiful or memorable as any of those sacred women, only her husband could say. That he shouldn’t have committed it to parchment was only obvious if you ran a Temple that hanged people for lesser crimes than clumsily expressing your affection.
“I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.
“Me, too,” the merchant emptied his cup and set it on the table. His wife patted his hand and flashed a tight smile at no one in particular.
Babba’s cup also landed on the table with a decisive thud. His hand clamped down on my shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.
“If Hadara wants it, I’ll talk to them,” Babba said. “After the Sabbath. First thing. I pray it’s enough.”
“So be it,” the merchant said.
Others around the table murmured their assent. “So be it.”
They sounded so feeble, I wouldn’t know they were the city’s most powerful men outside the Ward.
Above us, Lunyo completed its nightly rise, the light from its lopsided, gibbous shape blotting out a corner of a nearby constellation. It was the Crippled Warrior, with his hunched form and broken spear, a sign of defeat, a lost cause, its scattered stars frail and twinkling.
7
I will descend on those who turn from me. Look at your fields and imagine them charred. Look at your homes and see empty space, for even their foundations I would uproot.
—from Oblations 16, The Book of Unease
I paced just outside the Ward gates, back and forth, furious with myself. It was First Workday, the day after the Sabbath, and I was at the appointed place at the appointed time. No Valeo.
He’d probably never meant to meet me. Maybe this was some sort of vengeful prank to repay me for not noticing him the times I’d walked right under his nose, thinking he was dead. Wasn’t he a little old to have hurt feelings?
Idiot. Woolass. Beetle-browed thug. Ugly, hairy thing.
At least I’d arrived early enough that no one at the sick ward would be looking for me just yet. Though that was small consolation. I could be enjoying a hot breakfast instead of the day-old flatbread I’d gobbled down in a rush.
“You wearing a hole in the cobblestones?” Valeo’s voice boomed behind me. “Or just lost?”
I wheeled around. “You’re late.”
“No, you’re early. They’re just getting started.”
“They? Who is they?”
He was carrying his helmet under his arm, rather than wearing it, so I could see the curious expression he wore. He studied my face as if decoding some message written in my frown. “You’re annoyed with me for having to wait a little. There are people who’ve run out of time altogether.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I was relieved to see him. I wanted him to not be angry with me, but realized I had to start by not being angry with him. I didn’t want to sink into all that painful sarcasm from the other day. It had left me exhausted and I wasn’t ready for another battle. I exhaled, long and sad.
“You said something the other day about me being shallow,” I said. “That hurt. I don’t know why you’d say that.”
“Take a walk with me.”
Since that’s why I’d met him there, I agreed, and followed him inside the Ward gates. It was only a quarter turn after Dawn Prayers, so most people were still at home. We’d only gotten halfway across the courtyard, however, when he motioned for me to sit on an ironwork bench with intricate scrolls. I hated those benches. My skirt flounces were always getting caught up in one of their spokes or curls. But I sat and rearranged my dress and waited for him to say something.
He sat next to me at a safe distance and leaned his elbow on his knee, giving me that studious look.
“What does the word power mean to you?” he said at last.
The question took me by surprise. I sensed, though, that if I gave my usual sarcastic reply, the conversation would go nowhere promptly.
“I suppose it means the ability to get people to do what you want,” I said.
“And who wields power? And how?”
Wasn’t it obvious? Maybe this was a trick question. The Temple was good at tripping people up with their own words. I had scars on my wrists from the times my old schoolmistress had whacked them for answers that didn’t satisfy her. I rubbed them as I thought of how to reply to Valeo.
“The Azwans, through their magic, I suppose. People like my father, through the law and tariffs and taxes and such. Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about power lately,” Valeo said. “What it is, exactly, and who wields it. Would you say I have power?”
I would’ve laughed, except for his sincerity. “You’re a soldier. A Temple Guard! You have the power to enforce the Azwan’s edicts, raid homes, terrify people. Kill them.”
“The power to kill people,” he repeated, his voice soft, almost regretful. “Yes, I suppose I do. I have killed.”
At this his gaze seemed far away. I shifted, but whether it was the bench or the conversation causing me to stiffen, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. I should be home, eating breakfast, not here.
Valeo noticed my discomfort. “Our conversation bothers you.”
I nodded. “I’m learning to heal people, not do … what you do.”
“What I do,” Valeo said, his voice still soft, sounding alien and small to his big body. He twisted his fingers together in his lap, leaning over those big knees, his head still cocked so he could look at me. I tugged at my skirt flounces and rearranged myself for the dozenth time.
“What I do,” he said, “is try to convey some sense of authority. I suppose that’s different from power.”
He waved one hand around vaguely, his eyes taking in the Ward grounds. “Here, I have no real power. A first guardsman is low in the ranks. But Nihil’s guards are all Feroxi, and they look to me, their prince, even though they’re not supposed to. The Commander knows that. The Azwans know that. They use it to their advantage. And so long as I follow orders and do as I’m told, the men look to me and think it’s all as it should be.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said, suddenly fascinated. He was giving me some sort of glimpse inside his head, and it wasn’t full of rocks, as I’d sometimes supposed. Funny, how my feelings about him darted like shore birds, depending on how deep his tides were running. But what was I fishing for? “You get some benefit from the men looking to you as prince, but you don’t outrank them, and everybody’s happy?”
He nodded.
“And what,” I asked, “does this have to do with power?”
“What if everything isn’t as it should be, Hadara? What if my role as some sort of leader-in-training of a nation runs up against my duties as a humble servant of our god?”
“Then you choose Nihil,” I said. “That is the obvious answer. That is the one that keeps you and your men safe.”
Our eyes connected and locked, an electric moment, as though the same static coursed through us both. I could feel it in the relief that welled up in his face, the way he nodded quickly, rapidly, his gaze still reaching deeply into mine. I knew. I understood. The Valeo in front of me was two separate men, and they were at war with one another. Maybe, while he was here, he could never be the prince he wanted to be, but he also couldn’t hide his desire to serve our god and be good at it.
I took a deep breath. He had confided something heartfelt. “I’m sorry if you thought I was being shallow the other day. I’m sure you’re in a difficult position.”
He leaned in. “And what power would you say you have?”
The shift in conversation took me by surprise and annoyed me. We’d been doing so well, me learning all about his inner battles, only to have
him turn the tables. I pursed my lips, folded my hands into my lap, and looked him straight in the eye. “You and I both know that no woman has any power that her father or husband doesn’t allow her to have.”
“Then you need to learn that you’re wrong.”
I shook my head. “I don’t see how. Whether we’re talking about power or authority or however you define it, I supposedly have none. I had a birthday party and a blessing and now I change soiled sheets for a living.”
“The Azwan of Uncertainty says you’re the most powerful person on this island, but you don’t see it. I’d like to show you.” He got up and offered me his hand. I took it and let him help me up. His hand was warm, unlike the last time I’d held it, when it had been clammy with fever.
I wasn’t about to refuse. I couldn’t imagine why an Azwan of all people would say something so disturbing. Why was an Azwan talking about me? S’ami knew about my ability to understand tongues, but did Valeo? How much would S’ami have shared with one of his guards? I squeezed Valeo’s hand, and he squeezed back, and it was almost as if he were courting me, which only unsettled me further.
We didn’t walk very far, only to the sanctuary’s wide doors. Shouting reverberated from within, and I could make out Reyhim’s distinct rasp mingling with S’ami’s booming baritone. The two Azwans were at it again, unable to keep themselves from their furious and shockingly public rivalry.
Valeo pulled open the door for me. I began to remove my slippers in the vestibule.
“No need,” he whispered.
I wondered if Nihil made an exception for his guards to the rule about being barefoot in the Great Numen’s presence. That felt odd to me. Surely, I was still required to remove them? But Valeo shook his head and held a finger to his lips. The Azwans voices were moving farther away.
I should’ve turned myself around and gone toward the gates and home, refusing to follow Valeo, but my feet had brought me here and my ears were tempting me onward. Valeo held the double doors open and we tiptoed into the sanctuary proper.
The Azwans and a group of priests were ahead of us, leaving by a side door that led onto a stonework patio overlooking the bay. S’ami whirled around and shouted at Reyhim. “I cannot believe he just agreed to this. You talked to him without me. You didn’t tell him what you intended, though, did you? If you’d gone through me first, he’d never have—”
Reyhim raised his voice above S’ami’s. “I don’t need the permission of Nihil’s Ear to speak to him myself. Go shopping for more purple silk if you can’t stomach doing your duty.”
“What duty calls for killing old women and cripples? This was supposed to be a few examples to get the point across, not—”
They vanished onto the patio amid a throng of priests, taking S’ami’s words with them as the distant doors clicked closed. I gave up tiptoeing—it was too slow—and followed Valeo’s giant strides across the sanctuary, aware my slippers were thwacking against the tile floor. I shot a nervous glance toward the mirror but it simply glimmered back at me. If Nihil was scrying, he wasn’t shouting at me to stop right there. So I kept going.
The side doors were thinner and less impressive than the main doors, and I could hear something that sounded like the wind moaning above the surf. Valeo and I pressed our ears to the crack between the two doors. What I thought was the moaning of wind against the breakers became more like weeping. Was I imagining it?
No, there it was again. Someone was sobbing. Or several people, men and women alike. Valeo cracked open the doors. The weeping and moaning grew louder and more distinct. I peered through and nearly dropped to my knees.
On the patio, the Temple had built a gallows.
I braced myself against Valeo’s arm, hanging on, terrified, feeling my knees giving out beneath me. I steadied and looked out again.
Three nooses swung violently in the sea breeze. Beside the platform stood several guards in a rigid row, their backs to me. Between each of them, I could make out three people. One was a woman with a sack over her head and her shoulders stooped. Hers was the sobbing I’d heard. I could barely hear it above the crashing of waves on the breakers beneath the patio, but now that I knew what it was, I couldn’t block it out. Nearby were two men with their heads similarly covered and their hands bound. One was missing a foot and a soldier was propping him up by his arm. The three condemned were waiting their turn to be led up some steps to the scaffolding, moaning, their words indistinct, swallowed up by the commotion around them.
The Ward never executed anyone like this that I could remember. The magistrate hanged murderers, but that was done far north of town where no one would see. This execution would be visible to ships out in the bay. Nihil never wanted to call attention to any soul he’d failed to redeem, or so the priests had always said. But there the clerics stood, in flapping sapphire-blue robes and long faces, like a flock of regretful birds. Some had their heads bowed or turned, unable to even look at the condemned.
So what was this spectacle, then? Not public enough for a crowd, but not hidden? I glanced around to see if the audience held a few clues. Only a few soldiers, the contingent of priests, and the three condemned.
And Babba.
He stood to one side, nervously fingering his beard, as upset as I’d ever seen him. He hunched his shoulders in a way he never did, as though to make himself small or invisible, as though he could shrink from the scene.
He had failed. I knew it. I could see it. I had counted on him. He’d promised. He was supposed to fix this, to fix everything. He was Lord Portreeve, the highest secular post, and he was going to say something and put an end to the funeral pyres. But he hadn’t, that much was obvious. He’d let me down. He’d let everyone down.
My fury landed, silent and clouded, on Babba’s cringing form. How dare he? Hate crept across my face and into my skull until I clamped a hand over my mouth as though I could stuff the screams back down, took a few ragged breaths, and watched, unable to break away.
“Old women and cripples,” S’ami said again. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at Reyhim.
The woman next to the platform was indeed old. I could see her bending from age and not just fear. Her dark skirt and thick sandals looked familiar. Could that be Widow Reezen, our old neighbor? Her tiny, birdlike frame shuddered with sobs. What could Widow Reezen have done? She must be eighty. She never missed a dawn prayer even at her age. She went to the Ward every day. If she wasn’t pious, no one was. Was the whole world going mad?
I sank back into the sanctuary’s darkness, barely a hand-width from Valeo, as if his armor offered some protection to me as well. I was at a loss to understand what I was witnessing but unable to break away. The darkness hid me, and no one would see me as long as I could keep from shouting my fury.
I shuddered and closed the door. I’d seen enough.
8
It took only a day to reclaim the rebel city and behead the heretics who’d seized it. But the villages and towns outside the capital were harder to reclaim. That required more time and skill and patience than even my guards possessed, and some of those felled by the guards were likely blameless. A warning to all who would rebel against me: that there is none truly innocent so long as untruths rest unchallenged.
—from Verisimilitudes 14, The Book of Unease
“Why did you bring me here?” I whispered. I was alone in the dark with Valeo, too angry to know what to do, but too frustrated to stand around and do nothing.
“To see for yourself,” he said.
I shoved him into the corner, my fist pummeling uselessly against his leather corselet. He backed away from me and took my feeble pounding with a few grunts but no sign of remorse.
“This … this is your idea of power?” I asked hoarsely.
He grabbed both my arms and held me still until I stopped writhing and beating at him. I sank into him, my cheek against the clammy leather, panting. “I don’t understand. Why would you bring me here? What is it you want from me?”
>
“Watch with me. Just watch. For now.”
“And then what?”
“I think you’ll know. The right thing always comes. It’s what my own babba would say. The right thing comes to those who are prepared to do it.”
Valeo had a father, too. Of course he did. A human father at that. Somehow that thought reassured me and I peered again through the doors at my own father. I waited for Babba to act or speak. Something. Maybe he was waiting for his chance. Maybe there’d be an opportunity for him still.
S’ami had begun pacing before the gallows, visibly angry. I hadn’t thought he’d be the one to defend my poor city. What had we done?
“Give them another chance,” S’ami said. “A chance to repent.”
Reyhim folded his arms across his chest and said nothing.
The high priest stepped forward but I had to cup my ears to hear him. “Most Magical and Worthy Azwan, please reconsider. The items the guards collected were so trivial. Straw totems and brass charms and beads to ward off evil eyes and nonsense. Superstitious diversions, that’s all.”
Reyhim snorted. “Would they have such superstitions if you’d continued my work purging them? So everything I did here was forgotten in less than a generation?”
“Then execute me, Reyhim. Spare these people and punish me.”
“This is your punishment.”
A loud moan went up from the woman. “Please. Oh, please.”
I recognized Widow Reezen’s voice after all. I hugged my arms to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut. I could run out there and try to stop Reyhim, give up my sudden good graces with the Temple or appeal to him as my maybe-possible grandfather to stop this.
But he’d once killed the woman he loved, hadn’t he? That woman had been my grandmother, his paramour. So what would ever warm his cold soul ever again? Anything? I cracked open my eyes as if I could slow the pace at which I was seeing this horror unfold.
S’ami cut in. “What’s your hurry? Are you suddenly worried this tiny speck of a city is overpopulated? How many do you intend to round up, exactly? Have you discussed that with Nihil?”
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