“Sadly he shook his head over her. ‘Her sin is as great as her innocence. I suspect that she has been cruelly misled. By God’s grace, however, her soul has been granted to my care. Guided by Heaven, I will win truth from her, purging her fault with pain.
“‘Then,’ he finished gently, ‘I will deal with you.’
“Still I did not understand. I failed to comprehend his doctrine, as I had failed to grasp Father Domsen’s. By nature I knew nothing of ‘forgiveness’ or ‘repentance.’ But Irradia’s cries had at last subsided to quiet sobbing while the Cardinal spoke with me, and I could not endure to think that he would torment her anew—that she would scream again.
“‘No,’ I protested. ‘Deal with me now.
“‘I will confess,’ I told him, gathering urgency as I went. ‘Release her. Stop this cruelty. I will confess’—I hardly knew what—‘everything. She was ignorant of me. I hid the truth. I tricked her—I will tell you how I practiced on her innocence, so that she learned to trust me. Whatever you wish—
“‘Only release her,’ I pleaded.
“The High Cardinal replied with laughter. ‘You will surely confess,’ he promised. ‘In your turn, you will reveal the depth and breadth of your foulness in every particular. But first I must redeem this maid.
“‘Without repentance she cannot hope for Heaven’s forgiveness. She must see her sin and turn from it. She must turn from you. In mercy and love, I will not spare her one item or instance of agony until she surrenders her fault by speaking your name.’
“Smiling, he retrieved his implements. A stroke of the sponge wiped her blood from his blade, refreshing its serrations. His hands were those of an adept, certain of their purpose, and made cunning by experience.
“Confronted by Irradia’s anguish, I lost all dignity, all restraint—all thought of myself. ‘No!’ I cried, wailed, shrieked, ‘she has no fault, the fault is mine, I confess it, you must stop!’
“But His Reverence Straylish Beatified was not swayed.
“‘Her fault is indeed yours,’ he pronounced, ‘and I will exact its penalty from you.’ His hands lingered over her pale flesh, although his gaze held mine. ‘Since you wish to confess, this will be your penance until I am ready for you—to witness the tortures which you will suffer eternally, and to be helpless against them.
“‘With every breath in your lungs and pulse in your veins, you will struggle to oppose God’s judgment in me, to resist the righteousness which damns you—and you will gain nothing. You are bound to my will, and to Hell. Your evil cannot prevail against Heaven. Inspired by Satan’s cunning, you seek to restore this maid’s life with your own, but it will not avail you. Rather you will bear her pain until I am ready for yours.’
“Then in charity and sorrow he turned with exquisite care to the labor of Irradia’s redemption.”
I knew not how I continued. My weakness itself, and the burden of Irradia’s anguish, seemed to uphold me, for without them I would surely have fallen prostrate. My eyes were open now, but I gazed only at Duke Obal. The rest of Mullior’s highborn had ceased to exist for me. Only his steady glower, angry and aggrieved—only his honesty or dishonor—retained any import that I could recognize.
“My lords,” I said hoarsely, “I will not speak of what was done to her.” When her eyes were burst from their sockets, I screamed myself until my throat was torn, and blood spewed from my mouth. “I will say only that under the High Cardinal’s hands she cried out until she could cry no more. Thereafter her limbs and sinews enacted a wailing to which she could no longer give voice. Mute, her excruciation was more terrible to me than any howl.”
I drew a long, shuddering breath. “But she did not surrender my name.
“By silence she believed that she might save me. Though His Reverence asked it and demanded it, prayed and pleaded for it, soothed and wracked her to obtain it, she held my name to herself. In that baptism of agony, she stood with me, as she had promised.”
Dry-eyed now, for my pain had grown too great for tears, and the hall’s brilliance no longer daunted me, I met the clenched attention of my audience.
“And at last,” I sighed, “the High Cardinal set aside his implements in vexation. Informing his ebon-clad servants that he would return after an hour’s rest to continue her redemption, he withdrew from the chamber.
“This, apparently, signaled that their turn had come. When he had closed the door, they advanced at once, jesting with each other. One approached Irradia’s table. His hands fumbled at the ties of his breeches as he moved. The other began with me.
“Drawing near, he struck me a full-armed blow, and laughed as he swung. My head recoiled against the iron of my seat. Moments of darkness gnawed at my vision, so that sight itself appeared to mortify within me, announcing the corruption of the grave.
“In glee and malice, he thrust his visage close to mine. ‘You are a great fool,’ he informed me. His breath stank of garlic and stale wine, rotting teeth and unrestricted appetites— ‘You thought yourself safe, didn’t you?’ he jeered. ‘Hiding in a sanctuary. Sneaking into the skirts of a pretty maid. You thought—’
“His taunts died with him. Beyond him, I saw his companion climb open-breeched onto the table and Irradia. Leaning forward suddenly, I sank my teeth into the flesh of his lower lip.
“My bite drew blood. And blood drew life. Without pause or hesitation, he folded to the stone at my feet as though Heaven itself had stricken him.
“Immediately I received the benefit of his many lusts. His vitality became mine. His strength suffused my limbs. On the instant I ceased to be the weak and starving creature whom the Cardinal’s ruffians had captured. Although I remained bound, I was no longer helpless.
“Shouting wordless threats to distract Irradia’s assailant, I struggled to win free of my ropes.
“Curses answered me, guttural and dismayed. The man rolled from the table to his feet. Clutching at his breeches with one hand, he snatched a dirk from its sheath with the other, then lumbered furiously forward to stab at me before my bonds loosened.
“He succeeded well enough. His dirk he pounded into my shoulder with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer. But it did not suffice. Irradia’s tortures had driven me to madness. And I possessed all his companion’s great strength.
“While his dirk thudded deeply into me, I turned my head enough to nip at his wrist.
“It was a small wound, no more—a drop of blood. I required nothing greater. He toppled, lifeless, onto the corpse of his companion, and I used what he had given me to snap my ropes.
“The dirk I must have plucked out, but I do not recall doing so. I kept it, hardly thinking that it might be of use to me.
“Then I was at Irradia’s side.”
Perhaps it was not weakness which upheld me. Perhaps wrath and sin had struck so deeply into my bones that they became a form of strength.
“I had no garment with which to cover her. But she was clad in blood, and did not need one. Yet for that very reason I dared not touch her, although I burned to lift her into my embrace. I did not wish to slay her.
“Blinded, she could not return my gaze. For a moment, however, she seemed to know me. Her lips shaped my name, and she strove to speak. Lowering my ear to her, I heard a word which may have been, ‘Forgive—’ But I could not ask whom she wished me to forgive—or why. Or how. When she had breathed her prayer, she succumbed to unconsciousness.”
At last the end was near, and I hastened to meet it. I had forgotten my fear. For the moment, at least, the prospect of my death had lost its power to appall me.
“Then there came upon me a time of darkness—a time I have no courage to describe. I might have restored Irradia, as I restored Lord Numis. I might have given her the life which I had torn from the Cardinal’s servants, and raised her whole from her ordeal.
“But what then, my lords? What then? We
would be prisoners still—and I would be weak again, as I am now. What hope did we have of flight? In darkness and despair, I saw that we had none. And when we had been secured anew, His Reverence would return her to torment. The screams which had brought me to madness would be no more than a foretaste of those which would surely follow.
“I had learned to love Mother Church, as I loved Irradia. Under her sweet influence, and Father Domsen’s teachings, I had dreamed that I had a soul. But in the High Cardinal’s oubliette I abandoned it.”
That pain—that sin—was mine. Mere revulsion and death could not bereave me of it.
“With a caress of my hand, I took her life, so that His Reverence Beatified would never harm her again. Her small scrap of vitality I added to the strength I had already harvested. Then I made my escape by ascending the walls until I came to the mouth of the oubliette, and so to the open night of the city.
“Sestle I fled as quickly as I could manage.” I had explained enough. My tale required little more of me. “When I learned of my lord Duke’s opposition to the High Cardinal’s doctrine, I made my way to Mullior. After a time, I gained an opportunity to offer him my service.”
It was finished.
“In his service, my lords, I carry out my penance. My sin is plain to me, and I expiate as Straylish Beatified instructed me. I bear Irradia’s pain. I seek to restore life. I resist the righteousness which damns me. And I obey Father Domsen. I take no life which has not already been claimed by God.
“Do with me what you will. I am done. Perhaps it is true that I have no soul. Irradia whom I loved asked me to ‘Forgive,’ and I cannot.”
Bowing my head, I fell silent.
_______
The distress in the hall echoed my own. So much I had gained, if no more. Lords and ladies wrestled with emotions which they must have abhorred. Priests murmured over their beads, telling prayers I did not choose to hear.
The Duke’s heir gripped my arm convulsively. “Fear nothing, Scriven,” he whispered. His voice caught. “Fear—nothing.”
I did not heed him. Drained of fear and strength and supplication, I regarded only Duke Obal. Above his jaw’s grim thrust, a gleam of moisture or regret pierced his gaze. His expression I was unable to read. But I would not have been surprised to hear him say that I had shown myself no fit ally of Mullior—that my sin and my nature justified the High Cardinal’s enmity—that a man who had slain his only friend, his only love, could not claim clemency here.
Doubtless His Reverence the Bishop would assert as much, when he recovered his wits.
Slowly Duke Obal turned away. His features were hidden from me as he addressed the hall. In a voice husky with fervor, he announced, “There is one aspect of Scriven’s tale which he did not mention—because he does not know it. He has already been given a sign of Heaven’s acceptance.
“Before your eyes,” he told the gathering, “he has been tested by holy water. Pure water blessed and sanctified by my confessor was mingled with Scriven’s wine. You have seen that he drank of it—twice—and took no hurt.
“It is not baptism,” he acknowledged. “But it will suffice for me.”
Abruptly he raised his fists, and his voice lifted to a shout like the cry of an eagle. “Who speaks against him now?” he called fiercely. “Who dares?”
Bishop Heraldic cleared his throat. Shamefaced, he mumbled, “Not I, my lord.”
Around him, lords and ladies added, “Not I.” Merchants and guards, officials and priests, did the same, swelling a chorus of assent. Lord Numis might have protested, but two of the Bishop’s confessors stilled him.
Lowering his arms, Duke Obal returned to me. With a few strides, he crossed the rugs between us until he stood near enough to place his hands like an embrace upon my shoulders.
“Then, Scriven,” he proclaimed so that none would mistake him, “I say to you before all these witnesses that you are my trusted friend, and I am honored by your service. Be welcome in Mullior. Be at home. As you keep your vows, so will I keep mine. The House of Obal stands by you. While I live, you are safe among us.”
In the grip of his strong hands, I straightened my back and met his gaze as best I could.
“Thank you, my lord. I will keep my vows.”
He deserved better gratitude, but I had come to the end of what I could do. I had begun to weep, and had no heart to stanch it.
He was more than a good son of Mother Church. He was a man of faith.
Together the Duke’s Commander and the Master of Mullior’s Purse offered me escort in their lord’s name, showing openly that they, too, honored me. With their support, I left the hall and the palace, and made my way accepted into the night.
The Woman Who Loved Pigs
Fern loved pigs, but in all the village of Sarendel-on-Gentle she may have been the only woman who did not own one.
The Gentle’s Rift down which the river ran was at once fertile and isolated. The wains of the merchanters came through in season, trading salt by the pound and fabric by the bolt for wheat and barley by the ton; there were no other visitors. And the good people along the river wanted none—especially after they had listened to the merchanters’ tales of the larger world, tales of wars and warlocks, princes and intrigues. Their lives in the Rift were like the Gentle itself, steady and untroubled. Whether poor or comfortable, solitary or gregarious, the villages and hamlets had only four essential activities—their children, their farms, their animals, and their ale. Pleasure produced their children, work in the fields and with the animals produced their food, and ale was their reward.
Among the fields and meadows, cows were precious for their milk, as well as for their strength at the plow. And pigs made better meat. For that reason, sows and porkers were common.
It may have been because they were raised for meat—because they were such solid creatures, and so doomed—that Fern loved them, although they were not hers.
In Sarendel she knew them all by their size and coloring, their personalities and parentage. Recognizing her love, they came to her whenever they could. And she adored their coming to her, as though she were a great lady visited by royalty.
Yet she took nothing which was not granted to her, and so she returned them. Before she returned them, however, she pampered them as best she could in the brief time her honesty allowed her, tending their small sores and abrasions, offering them the comfits and comforts she was occasionally able to scavenge for them, scratching their ears when she had no treats to offer. She wept for the porkers and flattered the sows. Since she had no language of her own, their throaty voices were articulate enough for her; she knew how to warm her heart with their snorts and grunts of affection.
When they strayed among the hills, she could divine where they were, and so she was able to recover them. When they misplaced their piglets, she found the young and brought them home—her ear for the thin squeals of the lost was unerring. When the sows suffered farrowing, she came to them from wherever her scavenging took her, bringing poultices and caresses which eased the piglets out.
The good people of Sarendel could not comprehend the sounds which came from her mouth, but they understood the importance of gratitude and kindliness in a small village. When Fern had performed her small services for the creatures she loved, the farmwives and alemaids to whom they belonged thanked her with gifts of food, which did more to keep breath in her body than the sustenance she scavenged.
Indeed, in gratitude one of her fellow villagers would almost certainly have given her a pig, had she been capable of raising it. Alas, that steady nurturance would have been beyond her. In a village where poverty was common but active want was rare, Fern was destitute. If Yoel the aleman had not allowed her a disused storeshed to serve as her hovel, she would have had no place to live. If the farmwives had not given her scraps of weaving and discarded dresses, she would have had no clothes. If Sarendel-on-Gentle had not g
ranted her the freedom of its refuse, she would have lacked food more often than she had it. Her parents had been poor—her father a farm laborer, her mother a scrubwoman—able to feed and clothe and shelter her, but little more; and they were long dead. From dawn to dusk she was friendless as only those to whom words meant nothing could be, comforted only by the affection of the sows and porkers.
If she owned a pig—so the village believed—she would have fed it before she fed herself; and so she would have died.
Even with only herself to keep alive, no one would have been surprised to find her dead one morning among the fields or beside the river. Her life was a small thing, even by the ordinary standards of Sarendel-on-Gentle. The village in turn was a small thing along the verdant Rift. And the Gentle’s Rift itself was a small thing within the wide world of Andovale, where princes and warlocks had their glory.
No one took note—or had cause to take note—when Fern of Sarendel-on-Gentle was adopted by a pig.
He was not a handsome pig, or a large one. Indeed, she saw as soon as she looked at him that he was dying of hunger. His brindled skin showed splotches of disease, as well as of scruffy parentage. Stains and gashes marked his grizzled snout. One eye appeared to be nearly blind; the other was flawed by a strange sliver of argent like a silver cut. In the early dew of dawn, he shouldered his way into her hovel as though he had traveled all night for many nights to reach her, lay himself down at her feet, rolled his miscolored eyes at her weakly, and began at once to sleep like the dead.
Fern had only seen that sleep once before—a sleep without the twitches and snuffles, the unconscious rootings of a pig’s dreams. She had no measure of time, and so she did not know when it was, but on some prior occasion she had found a lost sow far from the village. The sow had broken her leg crossing a streambed. The disturbance of the rocks and mud showed that she had struggled for hours, perhaps for days; then she had lost heart. She was asleep when Fern found her, and Fern could not rouse her; she slept until she died.
Reave the Just and Other Tales Page 25