Fires of the Faithful

by Naomi Kritzer

  I slipped my arms around Mira, cradling her like a cat, but she refused to be comforted.

  “You haven’t ever seen someone die from fire, have you?” Mira asked after a little while.

  “No,” I said.

  “I have,” Mira said. She was quiet again, then added, “It’s a terrible way to die. People scream until the smoke chokes them. Flesh doesn’t burn easily—it takes a lot of wood. There’s a square in Cuore where the Fedeli execute unrepentant heretics; it smells like cooked rotten meat. I wandered there by accident once, and I had nightmares for weeks.”

  “Don’t think about it,” I said, stroking Mira’s hair. Mira smelled a little like smoke, because of her candles, but it was a delicate smoke, not like the smell of greasy meat that came from the kitchen on festival days. “Everything will be all right.”

  Mira nodded wordlessly.

  “Mira,” I said. “Whatever happens, I want to face it together. Promise that you won’t leave me.”

  “I can’t promise that,” she said. “And neither can you.”

  We didn’t talk after that, but stared into the cold darkness.

  We rose early for the chapel service. For once, no one was tempted to skip. Apparently even Bella had an understanding with her Old Way God, because she filed in to the chapel with the rest of us, sitting beside me with an impassive face.

  Like all chapel services, it started with drumming, to drive away the Maledori. This close to Midwinter’s Eve, there shouldn’t be many Maledori around anyway, but it was always good to be on the safe side. Then Mother Emilia and Father Claro processed down the aisle, with the black-robed Fedeli behind them. I thought that Mother Emilia looked oddly pale, though it was hard to tell.

  We went through the standard morning prayers. Celia, in front of me, spoke the prayers loudly and clearly—she knew every prayer by heart from attending chapel so often. Partway through the opening prayer, I began to worry that the Fedeli would notice my mumbling. When I ducked my head to listen, though, I thought there were probably enough enthusiastic show-offs like Celia to render my own stumbles inaudible.

  Mother Emilia delivered a sermon. I tried desperately to pay attention—fearful that we’d be quizzed on it later—but it was rambling and disjointed, and my thoughts kept wandering. Would Celia keep her word? I wanted to believe that she would, but part of me wondered. And Giula—what if she lost her nerve? What if she lost her nerve somewhere public, like the chapel service? She was sitting somewhere behind me and I couldn’t see her; I listened for hiccuping breaths that would tell me someone back there was on the edge of hysteria, but heard nothing.

  When Mother Emilia sat down, Galeria—the Fedele priestess—rose to deliver a second sermon.

  Galeria started by talking about the Lady’s limitless love for us. Nothing we could do, she assured us, would make the Lady love us any less. It was precisely for this reason that the Fedeli existed—to deepen understanding of the Lady’s love.

  I thought, You mean, to punish us because you don’t trust the Lady to do it, and wished I could whisper that to Mira.

  Then Galeria talked about the Maledori—the dark spirits that worked constantly to undo the good that the Lord and the Lady worked in the world. The Maledori would tempt us to evil; they would offer us their darkness in a pleasant guise, to deceive us. I remembered the song about the poisoned honey and wondered if the Fedeli had written it after all.

  Sometimes, Galeria told us, someone would fall under the influence of the Maledori and not even realize it.

  Beside me, Bella stared ahead, utterly impassive.

  “As Fedeli, we are taught to cast the darkness out of the Maledori’s victims, and to bring them back into the light of the Lady’s love. If the Maledori have control over someone, it’s not that person’s fault. We can help them. But sadly, it’s the people who most need our help who are least likely to ask for it.

  “Sometimes we can sense the darkness just by looking into someone’s eyes—but it is each of you who know best who needs our help. If you have seen a friend slip away from you into the darkness, you owe it to that friend to try to help them. You owe it to your friend to come to us. When someone is truly in darkness, they can’t save themselves, and you may not be able to save them—but we can.

  “If you suspect that a friend has fallen into the darkness of sin, blasphemy, heresy, or apostasy—if you care about that friend—you will come to us.”

  The chapel was silent. Ahead of me, I could see Celia’s shoulders, but not her face; at least she wasn’t nodding in enthusiastic agreement, but I stared at her chestnut curls and shivered. Beside me, Bella was still impassive. She probably still believed that she was in God’s hands, and that God would protect her or not, as She chose. I stared at Celia’s back, wishing that I had Bella’s certainty, and wondering if I should have suggested that we all flee.

  Galeria finished exhorting us to turn in our friends, and began to list the heresies that our friends might have foolishly been taken in by. The belief that the Lady’s love was conditional. The belief that the Lord was not the equal of the Lady. The belief that magery was not truly the Lady’s gift. Then Galeria reached the Old Way.

  “The so-called Old Way is perhaps the greatest darkness threatening to swallow the faithful today,” Galeria said. “The Old Way apostates hold that the Lord and the Lady are not true Gods, and that in fact a dark and cruel God rules the world. A God who rejected Her children for disobedience; a God who once condemned the world to darkness and famine.”

  Famine? I refrained from stealing a glance at Bella.

  “Even the practices that you may think of as harmless open the door to the Maledori. We’re not here to find everyone who has ever sworn an oath over crossed twigs, but it’s important that if you’ve done such things, you turn away from them now. This service will include the rite of purification, and minor sins will be forgiven. If you’ve done something, and you aren’t sure if this service has purified you, come and talk to us. We’re here to help.”

  For the purification, Mother Emilia and Father Claro burned rose-petal incense; I fought back the urge to sneeze, afraid that this might constitute a heresy of some kind. There was more drumming, and water was sprinkled over the crowd. Then we filed back out of the chapel and went to lunch.

  During the midday meal, I could tell that Celia wanted to say something; when we were done, she followed me back to my room. “I think the Maledori have Bella under their influence,” she hissed as soon as the door had closed.

  I raised one eyebrow. “Just Bella? Not me, or Mira, or—”

  “I think playing Old Way music falls into the category of a minor sin. At the conservatory, anyway. But Bella! You know perfectly well she’s gone a lot further than that.”

  “So what are you going to do?” I stepped closer to Celia, so that she had to look up at me. “Are you planning to turn her in to the Fedeli?”

  “Well, don’t you think we should? After what they said—they can help her.”

  I grasped Celia’s wrist and yanked her over to the window. Below, we could see the Fedeli’s black wagon. “The Fedeli will ‘help’ her by torturing her until she renounces her faith. I know you haven’t always gotten along with Bella, Celia, but would you wish that on anybody?”

  Celia jerked her wrist away. “Is it better to leave her in the hands of the Maledori?”

  “Are you joking? Do you think Bella would give in easily? They burn unrepentant heretics.” I picked up one of Mira’s candles and lit it with a flick of my fingers. Then I grabbed Celia’s hand again and held it over the candle flame, so she could feel the rising heat. “Imagine Bella burning, Celia. Imagine hearing her screams—”

  “Let me go!” Celia shrieked, jerking away from me and the candle.

  “Did that hurt? Imagine the pain Bella would feel, with flames devouring her body and no way to escape. Imagine the stench of the smoke, the way it would hang in the courtyard for weeks. I’ve heard that burning human flesh smell
s like cooked meat. Imagine how it would turn your stomach, every time there was mutton in the stew—”

  Celia turned away, her face pale. “Fine,” she said. “Have it your way.”

  “You gave your word, Celia. I want you to give me your word, again, that you will not go to the Fedeli.”

  “Fine,” Celia said again. “You have my word.” But she wouldn’t meet my eyes as she slipped out of the room.

  Mira came in a moment later. “I don’t think Celia’s going to want meat for weeks,” she said.

  “Do you think she’s going to tell the Fedeli about us?”

  “Not today,” Mira said. “I think you’ve convinced her for today.”

  “Maybe we should have all run when we had the chance,” I said.

  “No,” Mira said. “I think by myself I could probably have gotten away. As a group, we’d have been caught within hours.”

  “Why would you have been able to get away?” I asked.

  Mira shrugged. “I’d have stolen a horse.”

  “You know how to ride?” I said.

  “It’s not all that hard,” she said. “But it’s a skill that’s best learned before your life depends on it. Besides, there weren’t enough fast horses for all of us.”

  I shook my head and gave her a grin. “You’re full of surprises, Mira.”

  The whole conservatory was on edge that evening. If anything, Bella was the calmest person at the table. Giula’s eyes were red; Celia’s jaw was so tense that her neck muscles stood out like tree roots. Before the meal, Father Claro and Mother Emilia came in to lead us in the traditional offering of a portion of food to the Lady. I wondered if they were trying to pretend to the Fedeli that we always did this.

  As I picked at the last of my food, the Dean came in with Galeria and Cassio—and my teacher, Domenico. Domenico was chatting easily with Cassio. I felt my eyes go wide and my face go slack; I’d always liked Domenico, and the idea that he would be on the side of the Fedeli had never crossed my mind. Domenico glanced in my direction and gestured for me to turn my face away. I looked down and carefully rearranged my features. Domenico had lived in Cuore; it was a big city, but it was possible that he’d known Cassio.

  “I have an announcement,” the Dean said. “Under the guidance of Mother Galeria and Father Cassio, I have decided to expand our Mascherata Festivities, to better honor the Lord and the Lady. In addition to the chapel observance, there will be dancing in the courtyard all night.” He paused, and cleared his throat. “I would like to remind everyone present that other rules still stand.” He turned and strode brusquely out of the meal hall.

  Other rules. We looked at each other, baffled. “Do you suppose he means that the boys will be at the same dance?” Flavia said.

  Celia’s eyes went wide. “That must have been what he meant,” she said. “Where else would the boys go to dance, if we were in the courtyard?”

  Bella wanted to say something snide to Celia, I could tell, and I kicked her shin under the table. Making Celia mad at Bella right now was not a good idea. With any luck, she’d be so distracted by the idea of getting to dance with her boyfriend—openly—we wouldn’t have to worry about her reporting us to the Fedeli at least until she’d slept off her hangover.

  Mascherata honored the Lord’s victory over the Maledori. Because of the Lord’s victory, Midwinter’s Night was considered safe from all supernatural threats, and the Lord and Lady’s faithful could pass the night in wild revelry. Except for conservatory students, who normally attended a chapel service and then danced in the hallways of the dormitories while the Dean turned a blind eye. It was customary to wear a costume—a mask—to the Mascherata festivities, but I hadn’t had the chance to do that since I had last celebrated the holiday in my village as a child.

  Conservatory students all wore the same gray robes. We had nothing we could wear as costumes, and no way to make masks. But in the morning, we discovered that the Dean—or the Fedeli—had bought yards and yards of black wool from the village seamstress. We were each issued a rectangle of black fabric from which to cut a simple mask. Mira helped me with mine. The wool made my cheeks itch, and I imagined I looked pretty silly. Mira certainly looked silly in hers.

  “The point is to look like everyone else,” Mira said. “The point is to not stand out.”

  As I tied Mira’s mask to her face, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find an irate Domenico, violin case in hand.

  “Were you going to skip my lesson today?” Domenico said, his voice a high querulous whine. “Don’t you care about my progress on my instrument?” He stomped into the room and started laying out his music.

  On Mascherata, students and their teachers traded places for the day—but I had completely forgotten about our lesson. Mira caught my eye and grinned. “The room’s all yours,” she said, and slipped out.

  “Did you want to go back to the rehearsal hall?” I asked tentatively.

  “No! You’ve wasted enough of our time already,” Domenico said. “I’ll take my lesson in here.” He unpacked his violin and went through an elaborate show of tuning it up with great difficulty. He was going to be a difficult student, I could tell. I wished I could remember some of those cutting remarks I’d started to think up. I pulled out my own violin and tuned up myself. Domenico looked at me expectantly.

  “Let’s hear the concerto,” I said.

  Domenico launched into a piece I’d never heard before, stumbling midway through the tenth measure. “I forget how it goes,” he said, and looked at me expectantly.

  “Well,” I said. “You don’t have a recital coming up, so it’s all right if you don’t have it memorized yet. Why don’t you get out the music?”

  Domenico began to root through the papers he’d brought to my room. “I must have left it in the practice room,” he said.

  “You left it in the practice room?” I rolled my eyes elaborately. “Domenico, this is becoming an unhealthy pattern. Last week it was the music for the étude, and the week before, it was your bow. When are you going to learn to keep track of your belongings? Or is it just that you haven’t practiced it and don’t want me to know?”

  “Of course I practiced it,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve lost the music.”

  “Well, you can go copy the score out again,” I said. “In fact, after our lesson is over, I think you should go copy the score twice. You can leave the extra copy with me, for the next time you lose it.”

  “So what do you want me to play?” Domenico asked.

  “Let’s hear you drill on your arpeggios,” I said.

  Domenico started an arpeggio drill; I half listened to his intentionally clumsy arpeggio, trying to think of an appropriately scathing remark, or—failing that—something to make him play next. After a moment I realized that he’d segued from the arpeggio into something else. He’d segued into the Old Way healing song.

  I snatched his bow out of his hand. “Are you completely out of your mind?” I hissed.

  “What’s wrong, teacher? I heard someone playing that song and thought it was pretty.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t play it,” I said. “It’s an Old Way song. It’s wrong to play it.”

  “So you’ve never played it?” he asked.

  “Never,” I said.

  “Then how come you recognized it, teacher?” Domenico tipped his head to look at me and gave me a half-wit grin.

  “Everyone has heard them played,” I said. “But no one plays them. It’s forbidden.”

  “Ah,” Domenico said. “I think I understand now.” He took the bow back and played an arpeggio. Still playing, he said, very softly, “Teacher, some strangers came to the conservatory this week. Who are they?”

  “The Fedeli,” I said.

  “Why are they here?”

  “To make sure that we’re good,” I said. “So long as you’re good, there’s no reason to be afraid.”

  “I’ve noticed that whenever someone tells me there’s nothing to be afraid of,
it’s usually because there is,” Domenico said. “And they’ve told us an awful lot of times now not to be afraid of them.” Domenico switched to a different key. “One of those strangers says he knows an old friend of mine. Did you know that I used to live in Cuore, teacher?”

  “I’d heard,” I said.

  “You make all sorts of strange friends in Cuore.” He stopped playing arpeggios and started playing scales, up and down, up and down. “You learn all sorts of strange tricks there, too. Like if you try to listen in on someone talking, and there’s music in the room, you can’t hear what the people in the room are saying.”

  “Is that so,” I said. I picked up my own violin and joined him in the scales.

  “Eliana,” Domenico said, and the half-wit student was gone. “Be careful tonight. The Fedeli want to make an example of somebody. I’d really rather that it not be you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Mira’s avoidance of magery will put her under suspicion. As her roommate, you’ll also be under suspicion. It wouldn’t take much more than that to convince them that you have something to hide.”

  “What should I be careful of?” I asked.

  “Don’t give them that look of horror you gave me at the evening meal yesterday. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t make eye contact.” Domenico sighed. “I’ll keep you out of trouble if I can, but my friendship with the Fedele priest in Cuore will get me only so far. So watch your step.”

  When the lesson was over, Domenico packed up his violin and left, complaining that my demands were unreasonable, my teaching was uninspiring, and my breath stank. As he hoisted his violin to his shoulder, he winked at me and said, “Actually, you aren’t a half-bad teacher. You should consider going to work at a conservatory, once you’re done here.”

  We ate the evening meal early that night, so that we could start the festivities as soon as the sun went down. Mira and I tied on our masks and wrapped our cloaks around us, because a bitter wind blew across the courtyard. From our room, I could hear the drums beginning—a slow, deep rhythm like the earth’s heartbeat. I wondered if Flavia was one of the drummers. Down in the courtyard, Mira and I found a bonfire; people were already dancing to the drumming, their bodies jerking in unison. There were boys in the courtyard, though few actually seemed to be dancing with girls. Mostly the boys were on one side and the girls were on the other. I didn’t see Celia, and I wondered if maybe she was over on the boy’s side.