Diamond Stained

by J M D Reid

  A growing tide of shouts built as they approached the Rainbow Belfry. The Greens and Whites flooded across a square. Anger quivered in the air. Outrage. Men and a few women were packed into the confines before a majestic building with soaring columns and friezes of religious events. Some of the pilgrims had children riding on shoulders, boys with their own slender armbands or girls with ribbons of green or white entwined in their braids.

  The size of the square reminded Ōbhin of the Sands of Truth in Gunya. A vast arena surrounded by walls of dull gray. The Rainbow Belfry thrust out of the heart of the Temple of the Seven Colours. The front of the church faced the crowd, its grand doors, painted all seven hues, sealed shut. Above thrust a balcony overlooking the square. The plaza narrowed like a funnel towards that overlook, the crowd aimed at where the high refractor would speak. On the walls above, members of the city guards, armed with bows, patrolled, a paltry force against the thousands upon thousands packing the square.

  “Your king’s policies do not appear popular,” noted Ōbhin.

  “It takes much to get High Refractor Joudaroi to denounce the actions of the Crown and Parliament,” Miguil said.

  “To calm or inflame?” Ōbhin asked. “The crowd’s like a nest of fulminator beetles. The wrong word, and fire will erupt.”

  “The high refractor is a man of peace,” said Miguil. “He follows the Seven Virtues. The king has to understand there are limits to his power. Hopefully, he’ll see reason.”

  Most have trouble seeing anything but their own ambition, Ōbhin thought, glancing down at his black-gloved hand.

  As they passed the square, the roars dwindled. The streets became almost abandoned. The carriage picked up speed, the hoofs drumming to a staccato trot as they preceded into the heart of the district. He was glad to leave it behind.

  “Is there another way to leave the city?” Ōbhin asked.

  Miguil gave a slow nod. “Longer.”

  “Safer.”

  *

  A stout wall surrounded the Hospital of the Prism’s Grace.

  A surge of excitement rushed through Avena as she peered out the coach’s window. The streets here were quieter than the flood of boisterous men plunging into St. Jettay’s Square. Avena had never been one to pay attention to local politics, more concerned on immediate importance: caring for Dualayn and his wife, helping the sick, and staying busy by focusing on the present.

  However, it wasn’t just caring for the sick that had her excited now. She hadn’t seen Daughter Deffona in weeks and weeks. It was sometime last year, she thought. Late winter.

  Deffona was her closest friend so it pained Avena to only see her so rarely. Though they both lived in Kash, if nominally for Avena, the hour trip into the city took too much time out of her already busy day. Deffona, too, had her duties, so Avena treasured these trips.

  She watched the wall of the hospital slide past. The structure rising above it was long, two stories. A warehouse donated a century past to the Daughters of Patience by a merchant concerned about the gleam of his soul. The hospital took in all the sick it could. They turned no one back. They couldn’t afford the best care but did what they could with their resources.

  Dualayn donated his skills to assist them.

  The rear gate of the hospital, located on the western side, loomed ahead. It was a loading dock where teamsters once upon a time had brought their wagons to haul goods across Stoytin Isle, the largest island of Arngelsh, or from its various cities, hamlets, villages, and towns. It must have bustled because it held space for up to five wagons at a time.

  Miguil turned the horses into the gate, the carriage wheels clattering over the cobblestones as it pulled into the loading yard. A daughter waited in her bright-yellow habit, a white wimple wrapped tight about her head and neck, leaving only her face exposed. A veil, matching her habit, draped down to her shoulders and spilled down her back.

  “Deffona!” Avena shouted with girlish delight.

  Dualayn let out a long-suffering sigh. “Decorum, Avena.”

  She ignored him as Deffona rushed forward, her prism flashing in the sunlight as it dangled from her belt. A smile dominated her round face. Though she had heavy bags beneath her eyes, she appeared bright and energetic.

  “Avena!” Deffona stopped before the carriage.

  Avena wrenched open the door and leaped down the moment the vehicle halted, not waiting for her promised to assist her. She landed on heeled boots, keeping her balance with skill. Since her daily practice with Ōbhin and the other guards, she’d become more aware of her feet. How she placed them, moved them. When she could do it without thought, Ōbhin would start to teach her how to really fight.

  Avena swept her friend up in a hug, her dark skirts pressing into the Daughter of Patience’s habit. For a moment, both girls were giggling and speaking together, their enthusiastic words blending like the noisy chirp of a flock of birds.

  They both broke off. “You first!” Deffona said.

  “No, no, you,” Avena chided.

  “You’re the one who left Kash.” Deffona’s eyes were wide. “You came back with a Tethyrian guard?”

  “Qothian,” said Avena quickly. “He’s no ‘depraved lowlander,’ as Ōbhin puts it.”

  “Ōbhin.” Deffona leaned in. “He’s a handsome man.”

  “Compared to my Miguil?”

  Deffona laughed in a manner wholly inappropriate for a young woman who’d sworn vows of chastity. “True, Miguil is a gorgeous man. How do you keep the other maids and cooks away from him?”

  “I’m learning to fight,” she said. Strapped beneath her skirt and petticoats she’d concealed a binder. She could feel the leather belt pinning it to her calf. “So they better not flash their jewels at my promised.”

  “Fighting?” gasped Deffona. “What happened on your trip?”

  Avena’s stomach squirmed as she remembered some of the more harrowing parts. “We were attacked by bandits.” She gave a sanitized version of events in hurried whispers as Dualayn dismounted and Smiles backed up the wagon to one of the loading docks where a large door could open. Dualayn always took a few of the sickest patients back to his lab. Cases beyond the Daughters to care for. “I decided I need to learn a few things,” Avena finished. “It’s dangerous beyond Kash.”

  “Daughter Deffona!” a voice snapped.

  Deffona stiffened, her face paling.

  Avena’s mood soured as Eldest Daughter Anglia marched over, Refractor Charlis at her side. The priest wore the rainbow robe marking him a high-ranking member of the Church. His stole draped over his neck and dangling almost to his feet was the pure snow of Honesty, the virtue he espoused over others. It was Eldest Daughter Anglia who ruined Avena’s joy. The older woman, dressed identically to Deffona, ran the hospital.

  “Why are you here gossiping in the yard when you have duties to attend?”

  “I am greeting our guests, Eldest,” Deffona said. She gave a stiff bow. “I had finished cleaning the surgery when I noticed their approach out the window.”

  “Yes, greeting,” said the eldest, eyes glancing at Avena. “I can see that.”

  “You should not be hard on the girl,” said Refractor Charlis. He governed the churches in Kash. “Friendship is a treasured thing. Elohm shines on such close bonds. And if the child has finished her chores, then what is the harm?”

  The eldest sighed. “As you wish, Refractor. I won’t assign her any penance.”

  The man shook his head. “Will you ever stop being uptight, Anglia?”

  “I am calcified, I’m afraid.” She gave him a nod. “Thank you for your visit. Elohm’s Colours polish bright the world before you.”

  “And yours.” He patted her arm with a friendly smile. “Master Dashvin, I had heard you returned from your expedition to the Heart of the Woods. I see you didn’t come back stained ruby.”

  Dualayn chuckled, his belly pressing at the front of his waistcoat. “No, no, though I found something remarkable.”

  �
�How blessed.” Charlis clasped both his hands around Dualayn’s and shook. “Now, I must be off. The high refractor is struggling to calm the furor of the mob over our king’s latest inspiration.”

  “And Parliament’s passage of it,” muttered the eldest.

  “Only in two of the three houses.” Charlis straightened. “The House of the Clergy opposed it. I still cannot believe the House of the Serfs voted in favor of more taxes. The House of Peerage, of course, I expected. Bribes, I fear, and lavish parties on King Anglon’s new pleasure barge have swayed lesser men from their duty to their counties.”

  Avena didn’t hide her disgust.

  Charlis winked at her.

  “Good day to you, Dualayn. May Elohm aid your healer’s touch.” With that, the refractor strode off at an ambling gait, his hands folded behind his back.

  The eldest shook her head. Hardness returned to the woman’s eyes. Something like disgust flickered in her expression. “Daughter Deffona, if you insist on ‘greeting’ our guests, you may be their escort. I have to see which patients are best for Master Dualayn to take with him.”

  “Yes, Eldest,” Deffona answered, her voice a tight squeak.

  The eldest whirled and marched with an imperious stride into the hospital.

  “I see she still finds fault in everything you do,” Avena muttered.

  Deffona winced. “She’s not that terrible. I mean . . . it builds character. Elohm never allows a stain too thick to hide his Colours.” She glanced at Avena then whispered, “How did Miguil react to your return? Did he shower you in kisses?”

  Avena’s cheeks tinged as she leaned in, “He is properly chaste, as you well know. He’s not like some men.”

  “Ōbhin?”

  The memory of their near kiss simmered in her mind. “He’s one of the bandits who attacked us.”

  “No,” Deffona gasped, grasping her arm. “Is it love that caused him to change sides? Did your beauty inspire him?”

  Avena’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been sneaking romance novels into your cell?”

  Deffona answered with an innocent smile.

  “Why take a vow of chastity if you are so interested in that?”

  “Who isn’t interested in what they can’t have?” Deffona asked with a straight face. “Didn’t you almost join the Daughters of Compassion?”

  “It wasn’t for me,” Avena said. “Too much silence.” Too much time alone . . .

  “Avena, child, let us begin,” Dualayn called. “You have your healer with you.”

  “Yes, Father,” Avena answered. She hurried after Dualayn as he was almost to the entrance. Deffona rushed at her side. From her skirt’s pocket, she produced the valuable topaz wrapped in gold.

  Inside the hospital, the beds stretched out to the right and left, each surrounded by their own curtain held up by a frame of cheap wooden dowels. The scent of sickness, sour sweat, coppery blood, and moldy cheese filled the air.

  “Who has the worst infection?” asked Avena. The healers worked well on those.

  *

  Twice, the Rainbow Belfry had chimed the hour—a deep, sonorous reverberation that echoed through the streets—as Ōbhin appeared to lounge before the entrance to the loading yard. He, instead, watched the slow traffic moving up the street. Most were craftsmen who looked askance at him. One, a squat-faced Lothonian with a red rash across his pale cheek, paused, a blackroot cigar clenched between his teeth. Then he grunted and strode on, muttering, “Damn mudskins.”

  Ōbhin ignored the slur. He was often mistaken for a degenerate Tethyrian. A people given to lounging in the warm, fertile plains of their lands. They hardly had to work to grow their crops, sparing hectares of land to cultivating their various drugs, especially the brown soothe that the locals here in Kash called Tethyrian weed. In Qoth, a man could be condemned to go gloveless even in the coldest day of winter and a woman stripped of her mask like she held no virtue for using Tethyrian vices.

  Still, he knew the subtler narcotics, like white dream or feathered ash, from Tethyr had been traded beneath the noses of the guards in the royal palace, indulged by indolent noblemen and women who’d forgotten the hardships their ancestors had suffered eking out a life in the Vobreth Mountains.

  Did Foonauri ever indulge? he wondered. When last he’d seen her, she’d been seated on an Onderian merchant’s lap, plying him with wine and brown soothe. She’d found someone who gave her the wealth and comforts she craved.

  His mood soured. A scowl formed. Behind him, he heard Fingers and Miguil loading the first of the patients in the window as darkness settled on him. He glanced down at his black-gloved fingers. He’d killed for that woman.

  You died for her, Taim, he thought. Does your soul resonate with rage instead of merging with the Great Harmony?

  Bleak thoughts blanched his mind. The roar of the distant crowd at St. Jettay’s Square became a background buzz as his thoughts flicked up and down the street from the woman strolling along in her dark dress, a padded bustle adorned with a large bow enhancing the curve of her figure. His eyes didn’t linger on her as he drifted towards the next corner where—

  “Dark Tones,” he spat.

  Ust lounged in truth against the corner, not the fake pose he’d maintained to try to look less conspicuous. A blue rag was tied about his upper arm, pinching tight the sleeve of the stained tunic he wore. A chill rippled over Ōbhin’s skin as he straightened. His hand drifted down to the pommel of his resonance blade.

  A smile spread on Ust’s lips.

  Ōbhin marched forward, the darkness singing in his soul. Boots rang on the cobblestones as Ust maintained his lounge, though his posture shifted. His left hand moved down to his waist and out of sight. For a dagger?

  Not that he worried about Ust alone.

  “I thought I smelled your unwashed stink,” Ōbhin said as he stopped two paces away.

  Ust lifted his right arm, sniffed. Then he shrugged. His bearded face had healed from the bruises Ōbhin had delivered. The bandit spat to the ground, phlegm a deep brown. He chewed Tethyrian weed, the slight glaze to his eyes apparent. It left his teeth stained as brackish as a mire.

  “Ruvine was complaining about that just the other day.”

  “How much do you pay her to put up with it?”

  Ust laughed. “Oh, Ruvine never charges me a glimmer. She gets to ride my stallion, after all.”

  “Lucky her.” Ruvine was Ust’s favorite whore. “So, sending children to harass my new employer? Never knew you were that pathetic. Too scared to trespass yourself?”

  “Oh?” Ust said with too casual an ease. “Got problems with thieves?” He shook his head. “Things are tense. I’m a good king man, you know.” He raised his little finger, the tip tattooed gray. Ōbhin had never noticed the little detail before. It was faded. Old. Ust snorted, “Right, right, you’re not from here.” He nodded to the Pillar rising over the city to the northwest then touched the blue cloth tied about his arm. “Before the blue, you put ash on your finger to show support for the king. It inspired some of my friends in my youth. Why, how could the king hang us if we tattooed our fingers?” He laughed, a wicked sound. “‘Course, didn’t stop the king’s justice. Still, I’m a loyal man so it pains me that so many have grown so discontent. The guard is having a hard time with petty crime. Good thing Dualayn has you.”

  “So you were just happening to gossip where thieves could hear.”

  “Why not.” Ust shrugged. “That big gem Dualayn found, well, ain’t never seen its like. Just tellin’ stories while relaxing. Can’t help what some idiot boys do. Though, I hear you promised to skin the next ones.” He flashed muddy teeth as he grinned.

  “Cuts down on thieves,” Ōbhin said. “Why are you lurking here?”

  “I told you, loyal to the king. Some of us have to show our support.”

  Ōbhin snorted. He took a step closer. “What did you do with Carstin’s body?”

  “Nothing.” His eyes narrowed. “Why, did you lose it? How tragic.�
�

  “Tell me!” Ōbhin growled, his hand tightening on his hilt.

  “Why would I do anything with his body?” His grin spread. “So he died after all? All for naught, eh?”

  “Do I need to add more bruises to your face to remind you to keep away from those I’m protecting?” The darkness sang louder. He had to find a way to silence it. He’d failed Taim, his prince. He wouldn’t again.

  “Is that your solution to everything?” Ust asked. “Violence?”

  “It’s direct. I know how much you love it.”

  The bandit chief burst into deep laughter. “Oh, that I do. It’s why I believe you’ll do it. We’re the same, me and you.”

  Ōbhin snarled, baring his teeth as the offense stung his soul.

  “Oh, I admit you’re more . . . elegant than me. Not as rough, even if you did throw yourself into the pigsty with us. You’re a man who thrusts his blade into the heart of things.” A smile played on Ust’s lips.

  A weight settled in Ōbhin’s stomach. This wasn’t like Ust. No bravado. No shouting and bluster. He didn’t try to dominate. Is it because we’re alone? Has his ego healed this much that it no longer pains him that I trounced him with ease?

  “When that slut you loved cuckolded you back home, you dealt with her lover.” Ust’s grin grew vicious. “Plunged a knife right into the heart of the crown prince of Qoth.”

  The pit yawned into an abyss. “How do you know about that?”

  “I hear things.” Ust glanced to the south. “Like how she’s spread her legs for half of Guirreu’s rich.”

  “That’s her business,” Ōbhin said, embracing the chill calm. Humiliation and shame twisted hot through him, wanting to fuel a harmony of rage.

  “What about Avena?” Ust asked. “Saucy one. The way she stood beside you. Fire like that can keep a man wa—”