by J M D Reid
“What?” she asked, her cheeks growing bright red.
“Nothing,” he said. “That’s what I was talking to Fingers about. Nothing important.”
*
Avena tugged at her skirt for the tenth time since the carriage left Dualayn’s estate. The old man was reading the primer again, his eyes moving as he followed the lines. Her ankles were exposed. A proper woman shouldn’t show any of her legs. Only her shoes should be visible.
It’s just my ankles, she thought in annoyance at her embarrassment. This isn’t any worse than wearing pants.
She was glad Dajouth hadn’t noticed. He would start babbling about the beauty of her ankles, praising the curve of the bone, the shape rising up beneath her skirt. She snorted, her cheeks aflame. They’d been burning ever since Ōbhin had stared at her features with such intensity.
Strange people. Cover their faces, but not the rest of their bodies? What sort of backward modesty is that?
Trying to distract herself, she stared out the window as they trundled through the Breezy Hills Slums. Angry and sullen looks glanced at them. None of the children that usually swept around the carriage appeared. She clutched her purse in her lap, coins ready to give out to the urchins.
Her heart stung as she saw one boy peering out of an alley at her. She remembered his face shining with hope. Not today. Did he lose his father in the riots? A brother? Avena didn’t know how many had died, but the guards had put it down with a heavy hand. Blows to the head meant to disable could prove fatal. Others were arrested and filled the gaols awaiting trials.
The guard at the city gate had been doubled. They glared at everyone entering save their carriage. They bowed their heads as they passed, keeping back those on feet from flowing into the city. Avena heard the angry mutters.
She squirmed. She had always felt safe in Kash. Now . . .
Even in the carriage with Ōbhin and the other guards in their armor, she worried. She rubbed at her skirt, feeling the binder rod. She swallowed her nerves and stared out of the window. Laborers worked to repair damaged buildings. Fires had gutted some, soot staining the exterior. Workers carried out charred rubble and piled it in carts. Glaziers replaced broken windows and limners painted the exteriors of buildings with fresh browns or dark blues or russet reds. No one she saw wore green or white, just the blue or had their fingers smeared in gray ash.
Most didn’t show their allegiance.
Before they reached the Temple of the Seven Colours and St. Jettay’s Square, a large group of poor women gathered. Many held the hands of small children, cradled babes to their breasts, or carried toddlers on their hips. They were receiving food from a soup kitchen run by several fathers, the lowest level of priest, under the watch of a man Avena knew.
“Refractor Charlis?” she asked, peering out the window.
Dualayn looked up. “What was that? Something about Refractor Charlis?”
“He’s feeding the poor,” she said. “He’s running a soup kitchen.”
“Oh, indeed,” Dualayn said. “Have Miguil stop. I must have words with the refractor.”
“Oh?” Avena asked.
“Yes, yes, I had a few ideas about using jewelchines and he does hold a seat in the House of Clerics.” The House of Clerics was one of the three bodies that made up Parliament. They made the laws, sometimes at the behest of the king and other times in opposition to him. He could sign laws into effect or Parliament could force him to accept them with enough votes. They were a curb on the monarch’s power. The king still held great power in how the laws were administered as well as the instruments of state like the army and treasury. The three houses were made of the clergy, the nobility, and the commonfolk.
The carriage stopped and Avena opened the door, stepping out with her too-short skirt. They swirled about her calves. Her cheeks burned, hoping no one noticed. That embarrassment ended when she saw the hungry eyes of the children clutching to their mothers’ skirts. They peered at her, faces dirty.
She still had her purse.
“Dualayn,” said Refractor Charlis. The priest moved out from behind the counter where he was supervising, an apron, stained with brown soup, covering his finer robes. “This is a surprise.”
“Your eminence,” said Dualayn, nodding his head. “You’re running a soup kitchen?”
“Doing what I can in these black times.” He glanced at Avena. “And a pleasure to see you, Avena. I am glad to see you’ve survived the Troubles.”
“Troubles?” Avena asked. “The riots?”
“I ended up sheltering in a spice monger’s basement. Almost sneezed myself to death when a bag of pepper spilled on my head.” The clergyman shook his head. The prism he wore sparkled in the sunlight peeping through a break in the gray clouds overhead. “A sad day. My secretary was not as fortunate as me.” The man let out a heavy sigh. “Well, that is why I am here. For the widows and orphans made that day. Elohm still shares His Colours even if some fear them.”
“Did they catch the villain who did it?”
Refractor Charlis’s face darkened. “No one knows. The city guard claims it wasn’t one of their numbers. It is chaos at the Temple. We haven’t had a high refractor murdered in two centuries. Normally, the transition is more . . . organized.”
“Are you going to be elected?” she asked.
“Me?” The man laughed, his apron shaking. “No, no, I expect it will be Refractor Haphen or Refractor Kexilon. Good men both. Either would make a fine man to refract the will of Elohm and share it with the rest of us. I need to stay in the House of Clerics and make sure the king’s taxes have some opposition.”
“More taxes?” Avena gasped.
The clergyman gave a helpless shrug. “I am only one man doing what I can for Elohm’s faithful.”
“On that note,” Dualayn said, “I must have a few words with you.” He took Refractor Charlis’s arms and the two men headed down a nearby alley to talk.
Avena watched, curious, then felt the eyes staring at her. The women were hard-faced, some with eyes red. A few looked about to collapse beneath an unseen weight while others stood tall against it, fiercely clutching their children as they waited.
Avena’s purse opened. She didn’t have much to spend her pay on. She was fed and clothed by Dualayn’s household. She tumbled out the coins in her hands—a collection of brass glimmers, nickel twinkles, and silver rays—and passed them out to the women.
“Elohm’s Orange fills you,” one woman said, tears beading as she carried a toddler on her hip, his upper lip crusted in snot running out of his red nose.
“And may His Green bless you,” Avena said. Green represented Elohm’s forgiveness. His mercy. Wasn’t God forgiving their inequities the greatest mercy imaginable? We are all diamonds stained with Black in need of His polishing.
Though the pain in the women’s eyes hurt, she felt a joyful beat in her heart as she returned to the carriage with Dualayn. Whatever he spoke with the clergyman had not taken long. Dualayn appeared satisfied and returned to his reading as the carriage lurched on.
Avena watched the widows, cheeks painted red or wearing scarlet ribbons, out of the window, hoping Ōbhin hadn’t made any of them.
It took another half-hour to reach the hospital. They passed St. Jettay’s Square. Many were there praying, the square decorated in bright flowers, all the Colours of Elohm on display. Those in mourning bedecked themselves in as many hues as they could, not letting the Black see them weakened.
Beyond, the city was much the same as they’d already passed. Soon they turned on to the side street and passed the outer wall surrounding the hospital. They reached the open loading yard at the back. Miguil guided the carriage inside and reined up.
Avena smiled. Daughter Deffona waited dressed in her robes of sunshine. Her wimple framed her bright face. The excitement in Deffona’s eyes, despite the dark bags beneath them, punctured through Avena’s own happiness. The truth she’d realized about herself swelled inside of her soul. She cli
mbed out of the carriage with a heavy heart.
“Avena!” Daughter Deffona said moments before sweeping Avena in an embrace. “I’m so glad you’re safe. It was so scary during the Troubles. We were afraid they would spill in here. Eldest Daughter Anglia had to bar the front door!”
“It was scary out there,” Avena said. “If we didn’t have Ōbhin . . .”
Her friend smiled at his name, her cheeks dimpling. “Did he do something heroic? Something dashing?”
Avena glanced back at the carriage. Ōbhin and Fingers were climbing down from their seats beside Miguil, their chainmail armor rattling. Ōbhin rested his black-gloved hand on his sword hilt, his eyes scanning.
“We have to talk,” Avena said. “Privately.”
“Something’s happened!” Daughter Deffona took her hand, excitement twinkling in her brown eyes. “I know the perfect spot. Hurry, before the eldest catches us.”
Avena nodded as Deffona led her not towards the open doors that led to the hospital proper, but up the warehouse towards the north side of the building. They hurried fast, an illicit thrill rushing through Avena. She felt like a child sneaking around the family farm with Evane, the pair of them giggling as they attempted to surprise their father taking a rest from laboring in the fields.
Deffona, her yellow veil fluttering behind her and threatening to fall off her head, led them around the corner. About halfway down the building, a few steps led to a wooden door. To her right, the northern wall encircling the hospital lay within arm’s reach. Dried leaves and piles of dirt lay against the outer wall, blown there by the wind.
Deffona hiked her habit as she climbed the stairs, her light-brown shoes flashing. They weren’t heeled like Avena’s. Deffona shouldered open the door. It led to a small office, a desk piled in papers. Deffona grinned as she whirled around. “The eldest’s office. She’ll be escorting Master Dualayn and will never think we’re in here.”
“Clever,” Avena said.
Deffona smiled, her round cheeks dimpling. She almost glowed despite the dark bags beneath her eyes. “I have my moments.” Her hands seized Avena’s. “So, what is it?”
“I caught Miguil with . . . someone else.” Avena spilled out the words, Deffona nodding in support. Avena reached the end, her stomach twisting as she had to tell her friend one last thing. “I didn’t love him. I mean . . .”
“You had carnal lusts of the wicked and impure kind for him,” Deffona said.
Her words brought heat to Avena’s ears and cheeks. “Yes, but you don’t have to say it like that.”
“He is a ravishing man.” Deffona fanned her face. “He sorely stresses my vows. If he swept me up in his arms, why, I would swoon.” Then she gasped. “I mean, if he wasn’t an unfaithful cad!”
“I wouldn’t expect him to do that,” Avena muttered. “I wonder if I can even love.”
Deffona’s smile fell. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Do you ever feel an emptiness?”
Deffona furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Like that there’s something missing in you. Something that you need to fill and fill, but no matter what you pour into it, it’s never enough. It’s bottomless, like a well of darkness or something.”
“What do you try to fill it with?”
“Anything!” Avena whirled around, her skirts swirling, cloth rustling. Her braid swung down her back. “Healing, sparring, Miguil. When I’m alone, I just feel so broken inside. I want to fill it so desperately, but I can’t. That’s why I can’t love because that’s the part of me that’s missing. It has to be.”
Deffona burst into laughter.
Avena’s spine stiffened. “It’s not funny! I’m telling you I’m broken, and you burst into a fit of hysterics?”
“Well, it’s you. Who has a heart bigger than yours?” Deffona’s hands seized Avena’s shoulders and whirled her around. “What did you do when Chames fell ill with the spring fever?”
“I spent days pacing the entrance hall, waiting to find out if he would recover. I slept on a chair. Kaylin brought me meals.” That was back before grief had broken the cook.
“And what did you do after that?” Deffona arched an eyebrow. “Why, you become Dualayn’s assistant. You have a touch with patients, Avena. You care for them. How many times have you lost sleep keeping one alive?”
Avena shifted.
“And didn’t you step up beside Ōbhin to fight that despicable bandit to protect one?”
“I was just angry,” Avena muttered.
“See. And you think you can’t love.” Deffona shook her head. “You have a heart overflowing with love.”
“My mother had something missing in her,” Avena whispered. “Most days she was bright, but some days she was dark.”
Deffona furrowed her brow. “Dark, how?”
“She would get quiet. She would sit down and stare. She would be moody. Yell for no reason, or she would speak like Elohm talked to her.”
“He does, in sunlight and torchlight and even candlelight.” Deffona lifted the small prison dangling about her neck. “We just need our souls to break it apart and see which Colour He is sending us. Which Colour is coming to light our way. You brim with Forgiveness and Mercy. Compassion beats in your heart and pumps through your veins. That is love, Avena.”
“Then why did I . . . ?” Her mouth closed. She couldn’t tell Deffona that. Ōbhin could understand, but not innocent Deffona. “Why didn’t I love Miguil? I only had . . .”
“Carnal lusts for him of the wicked and impure kind?”
Avena nodded.
“Our desires are not something we should fear, Avena, so long as we channel them properly. If we keep them in the light. Elohm gave them to us so we could find our spouse and create a new family. We are all Elohm’s light broken apart by His prism, and children are their parents’ light combined and then split apart into their souls. Love would have come, blossoming out of the desire you had for Miguil. It’s not a bolt of lightning, but something that you grow and tend. Just like any relationship. Did our friendship just happen? Or did we talk here and there, sharing a bit more of ourselves until we had nurtured a strong and vibrant blackberry bush between us?”
“A blackberry bush? You think our friendship is a blackberry bush?”
“Well, I like blackberries,” Deffona huffed, folding her arms. “They’re sweet, like you.”
“They have thorns.”
“That’s your passion protecting us from those who’d want to eat us,” Deffona said.
“Your metaphor is slipping.”
Deffona lifted her chin. “My metaphor is a thing of beauty. It is sublime and not an idea spoke in haste.”
Avena burst into sparkling laughter. “It is a thing of beauty. We are a blackberry bush, sweet and thorny.”
Deffona nodded. “I am glad you agree.”
They both giggled that time. Avena trailed off first. “Love didn’t grow between Miguil and me. He was just using me.”
“Oh?”
“I was the perfect disguise while I didn’t care about him at all, I just wanted something to fill my emptiness. I settled for him.”
“Well, how can love grow in such rocky soil? You just need to find fertile depths.” Deffona stroked Avena’s arms through her dress’s sleeve. “Just remember that your heart brims with love. Maybe what you’re feeling is just dissatisfaction.”
“In what?”
“Not sure. Maybe you haven’t found what you were truly meant to do. Maybe you need more than being an assistant to Dualayn. Maybe you need to be free of Chames’s shadow.”
Avena blinked.
“He haunts you,” Deffona said. “You didn’t kill him. It was an accident. You don’t control the weather or when people get sick.” She looked behind her. “Now, the eldest is probably ripping her wimple to pieces wondering where I am. So, what are you?”
“A blackberry bush full of love,” Avena said.
Deffona smiled, p
ure and radiant. “Yes, you are. Do not forget it.”
Avena wanted to hold onto it as she slipped out of the office door and back outside. She ached to, but that emptiness still lurked, swallowing her up whole. She drifted towards the corner, puzzling over that numbness in her.
When had it formed? When Chames died? Evane? Before? Was Deffona right? Avena wanted that desperately. She wanted to be whole, to believe that she’d loved Chames. She closed her eyes, remembering the way he’d laughed, how his lips had curled back to flash his teeth. How he’d bitten the fingernail of his thumb when thinking and denied it when confronted.
I begged him to take me on that picnic. Did he even want to go? Would I have cared if he hadn’t? Did I love him, or the fact he was the son of a rich man? She leaned against the wall and found her eyes drifting to Ōbhin. Was I like that woman he loved who found something better in a prince?
She didn’t want to think that. She wanted to believe she’d loved Chames as much as he’d loved her. If he hadn’t died, they could have grown a mighty oak that would have spread branches wide to shade their family.
Ōbhin moved towards the gate. She frowned as he walked out of it, leaving Fingers and the other guards lounging by the wagon. Dualayn had gone inside. She should be with him, but . . .
What was Ōbhin up to?
The man baffled her. Friends with a crime lord. A bandit with a heart. Had he spotted Ust lurking about? Was that bandit causing problems, or was it something else? The way he’d spoken to Fingers, how he’d deflected her question, hung a worrying weight from her heart.
She found herself following, wiping sweaty palms on her stomach.
*
The panic in Whiner Creg’s face brought a smile to Ōbhin’s lips. The skinny guy backed away from the building corner from where he watched the hospital. He cast a gaze around, scared. Creg was good in a fight, but not the bravest of men when the odds weren’t in his favor.