Fires of the Faithful

by Naomi Kritzer

  She motioned for me to kneel and took a cup of water from the well. “This will give you God’s seal upon your soul,” she said, as if this explained everything. She muttered briefly in the Old Tongue, finishing off with the familiar Arka, v’bara, v’nehora kadosha. With the water, she drew a cross on my forehead, each eyelid, my lips, my hands, my stomach, and my feet. “May your soul be filled with the glory of God. May your eyes be opened to see the world of God,” she murmured, “May your lips be opened to speak the word of God. May your hands be strengthened to do the work of God. May your womb be opened to have children for God. And may your feet carry you along the path God has laid out for you.” She poured a little water into her cupped hand, then splashed it over my head. It dripped down the back of my neck as she kissed me on the forehead with a loud smack. “Welcome, daughter,” she said, and then sniffled, her eyes filling.

  Herennia and Metello were smiling happily as they helped me to my feet. “There,” Herennia said. “Now God will definitely be looking after you, wherever you go.”

  I was baffled, but I was afraid that if I asked for an explanation, it would be lengthy, so I thanked all of them and took my leave.

  My eyes, opened by God or not, didn’t see anything different as I continued south and west. I cringed a little, thinking back over the ritual. “May your womb be opened”? Maybe if I’d stayed home and gotten married I would want children. All my sisters-in-law seemed happy enough to have baby after baby, even if they discreetly tried to space the pregnancies a bit. I was certainly old enough for a husband and children, but when I tried to imagine a husband, I blushed and found myself wanting to think of something else.

  In late afternoon, I stopped to rest under a tree for a little while. My feet were blistered, and I tried not to think about how much worse I was making them by pushing myself. I took off my boots for a few minutes, just to give my feet a little air, and shrugged off my pack and violin case.

  I needed something to occupy my mind for a time, to keep me from fretting about my lack of progress while I waited. As I set down the pack, I heard a bump that reminded me that I still had the box of Mira’s letters. I opened my bundle; the box was near the bottom.

  I suspected that the letters at the top were the most recent, so I tipped them out into my hand and read from the bottom up. Dear Miriamne, read the first letter. We miss you so much. It read much like a letter from my own mother. Mira had been taken away from her parents; this was unusual for a child with mage ability. Normally, promising children stayed with their parents until they were twelve. They attended academies close to home, where their parents could visit, for four years after that. Mage-talented children might be taken from their homes, though, if their parents were troublemakers—which Mira’s parents were, that was clear from the letters. You stupid fools. I remembered this letter. We don’t want your money. We want our daughter back. Isabella and Marino of Tafano, Verdia.

  I should have realized when I read this—parents of mage-talented children were paid a stipend when their children left home. Parents of seminarians received a stipend as well—my parents had been supportive of my brother’s decision when he left the seminary, but mildly depressed at the loss of income. Parents of conservatory students received nothing, although most professional musicians sent some of their money home, so the investment was generally considered worth it.

  Mira—Miriamne—was exceptionally talented. Liemo had called her a focus, and reading the letters, it became clear what he meant. Any mage could raise a great deal of power and unleash it; mages working in concert could raise enough power to rain fire down on an entire army. A focus, though, could direct that power with the precision of a seamstress’s needle. Burning, for instance, a crossbow bolt even as it sped toward its target. Miriamne was so skilled that as a test of her abilities when she demanded admittance to the full Circle, just before her sixteenth birthday, she had burned her name into the side of a flying bolt. And sent the bolt to her mother, apparently, as a gift, because Isabella thanked her for it and complimented her skill, though she sounded a bit like my mother the time two of my brothers had presented her with the biggest frog they’d ever found.

  During the war, the tone of Isabella’s letters grew both fearful and reproachful. Miriamne served on the front lines during the war, and Isabella was clearly very worried about her. At the same time, she pointed out repeatedly how close Miriamne was to her home; surely, during a break in the fighting, she could visit? Then the fighting intensified, and Isabella was simply worried. Please, my daughter, remember that as skilled as you are, there may be one just like you on the other side of the battlefield. Please try to stay out of that person’s sight.

  The first letter after the war ended was openly angry and reproachful; Miriamne had not come. I would have thought that you would have liked to see your grandmother, at least, Isabella wrote. You and she were so close once, and she is an old woman now. And she is not getting any younger.

  I wished I could see Mira’s letters; I wondered if I would recognize my friend in them. Some of the early letters sounded as if Mira’s mother was trying to take her down a peg. Don’t think this makes you better than your parents, Isabella had said in one letter. And in another, They’re telling you that you’re better, you’re theirs, and you’re alone. They’re lying on all three counts. Mira’s father had never written to her; I assumed that this was because he couldn’t read or write. Most of my brothers couldn’t.

  The letter that started with “you stupid fools” had not been written to Mira; I wondered how she had come into possession of it. I could imagine someone like Liemo flinging it down before the child-Mira, taunting her with her mother’s impotent anger. I imagined the child-Mira picking it up when he was gone, keeping it secretly with her other letters. I could see her reading it over as tangible proof of her mother’s love, that Isabella would risk the wrath of the Circle by raging at them for taking away her daughter. That was the letter I had knocked off her desk at the conservatory. She must have taken it out sometimes to read it. Maybe she was trying to draw strength from her mother’s anger.

  My own mother was not a firebrand like Isabella. Still, I remembered one time that I had been unjustly blamed for something by a neighbor—she had cursed at me for picking her roses, when it was actually the squirrels eating them. My mother had overheard, and had come to my rescue, her face flushed and her fists clenched. I had been relieved that my mother didn’t believe I was guilty, but also frightened by her anger. She seldom got really angry.

  I had missed her terribly my first year at the conservatory.

  Dear Miriamne. We have terrible news for you. Your grandmother has died. This was the final, most recent letter. We are all doing poorly from the famine. Not even weeds grow in our fields these days, and any reserves we had before are gone. The money from the Circle helps, as much as I hate to admit it, but we have to share with the rest of the village. Even if they do not expect it, we feel an obligation.

  Your grandmother grew ill from a fever. It was not a terrible sickness, and she was once a strong woman, but weakened by hunger, she died. She asked for you in her delirium. We told her you’d come if you could.

  We don’t know how much longer we can stay here, but we don’t know where else we can go. There are rumors that we won’t be allowed to leave, that the Circle will do whatever it takes to keep us here. Do you know if that’s true? They would starve us to death willfully?

  Do you know if they will let you come for a visit soon? You said that once the war was over, you’d be able to visit again. We’d love to see you, Miriamne. Please. You can’t truly have turned your back on us. Take care of yourself and don’t let them frighten you. God bless you. Love, your mother.

  I folded the letter. This must have been the letter that arrived in Cuore, with Mira’s grandmother’s violin—this must have been the letter that convinced her to run away. I tried to imagine Mira in Cuore, weeping over the letter and saying to herself, No more. It occur
red to me that she could not have left immediately; to make good her escape, she would have had to do some planning. Maybe she told the Circle that she intended to visit her family, headed to Verdia, and never returned. It occurred to me that the Circle had probably sent people to visit Isabella, looking for Mira. I found myself hoping that Isabella hadn’t gotten herself in trouble when the Circle came. Reading over the letters, I’d started to like her.

  “Signora.”

  I jumped up, still barefoot, and turned to stare at the person speaking; the letter fluttered from my hand. It took me a moment to realize that it was the madman who had accosted Giula and me outside of Pluma. “Go away,” I said. Had he followed me? How had he known where I was going?

  Instead of leaving, he fell to his knees. “Pray for me,” he said in a husky voice.

  “Pray for you? Why?”

  “Anointed of God,” he said. “Pray for me!” I came over to stand beside him and he pulled me down to kneel, facing him. “In the name of the Mother and Her Son and the Light,” he said, and looked at me expectantly.

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” I burst out.

  “Not like that!” he said. “How will you ever reach your destination if you say such stupid prayers?”

  “You’re crazy,” I said.

  “Of course I am!” he said. “That’s why I want you to pray for me.”

  I sighed in frustration, but he had a good grip on my sleeves, and showed no inclination to let me back up. Finally, I sketched a cross on his forehead. “B’shem Arka, v’barah, v’nehora kadosha,” I said. “Rachamin, Arka. Rachamin, Gèsu. Refuya, Arka. Refuya, Gèsu.” I had come to the end of what I knew, so I drew another cross on his forehead.

  “Thank you,” he said. He now wore a beatific smile. “God opened my eyes. She opened my eyes. But what I see isn’t always what everyone else sees.” He stood up slowly, dragging me after him. I stood barefoot in the road, wondering if he were ever going to let go of me.

  “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I see the soldier,” he said. “I see the fires. I see—” He released me abruptly and I stumbled back a step. “You don’t need me, Eliana,” he said. “You can see clearly enough for yourself.” He turned and headed down the road, back the way I had come, humming to himself.

  How had he known my name? I stared after him, terribly shaken, and eventually concluded that he must have listened to Giula and me talking, back when he first harassed us in the woods. I watched until he was out of sight—I really didn’t want him following me again. Then I gathered up Mira’s letters, put them back in the box, and pulled on my boots. I continued down the road as fast as I could go. I didn’t want to have to sleep outside that night. Tonight I didn’t even have Giula to watch over me.

  To my distress, I found no occupied farms before night fell. I finally pried a shutter off one of the abandoned houses and lit a fire in the hearth, so at least I’d be inside and have walls between me and the old man. The house was dark and empty, and the leaping fire cast eerie shadows on the walls. There was no furniture. I leaned against the wall by the fire, wrapped in my cloak.

  Back when I was just twelve or thirteen, Bella used to tell Giula and me ghost stories, preferably when we slipped out of our rooms late at night and met in the grove behind the chapel. Bella was a superb storyteller, and even though I wasn’t as gullible as Giula, she had been able to make my hair stand on end. Snatches of Bella’s stories came back to me now, watching the shadows on the walls. If I’d ever been somewhere that might be haunted, this was it.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I thought. Herennia and Metello set up house in an abandoned cottage just like this one and they don’t spend their nights sitting up, staring at shadows. I broke out my provisions and bit into a piece of cheese. Suddenly I was absolutely certain that the people who had lived here were dead. And then I was certain they were watching me, just like the girl Bella talked about who’d hanged herself from the last bough of the apple tree …

  A log in the fire split with a snap and I nearly jumped out of my skin. This was ridiculous. I was not the sort of person who got jumpy. Still, I crossed myself like a granny, muttering the Old Tongue words under my breath, to keep away the evil eye. The ritual made me feel a bit better. Finishing my cheese, I banked the fire and curled up to go to sleep, staring into the darkness.

  • • •

  I stood in the doorway of the farmhouse. To the west, on the hill, I could see five figures silhouetted in the last of the afternoon light. Fear stabbed me through like a spear and I started to shout warning, but it was too late. Fire was falling from the sky. I could hear screams around me and I realized some of them were mine—

  • • •

  I woke with a gasp. Lady protect me. No, that wasn’t right. God protect me. The fire had gone out and I could see nothing in the darkness. I was trapped and dying—no, my cloak was wrapped around me, that was all—the house was haunted—

  I pulled one hand free of my cloak and cupped it to summon witchlight. I needed light to banish the spirits; what had my village priest and priestess taught me, when I was just a child? Light will banish the Maledori. Now that you can make witchlight, you can always chase the Maledori away. I concentrated, focused—

  Darkness.

  I concentrated.

  Darkness.

  My hands were shaking. Witchlight finally gleamed through my fingers, dim and greenish. Shadows leapt along the walls. I saw a woman, as tall and narrow as a spear, holding a violin, dancing in a circle of flame—I cupped my witchlight against my chest, willing it not to go out.

  There was no way I could stay in here. Could it possibly be almost dawn? Still cupping my witchlight in my shaking hands, I grabbed all my belongings into my arms and scrambled out the broken shutter.

  As soon as I was out of the house, I felt calmer. The sky was just turning violet in the east; the morning star gleamed like a candle against mist. The air was frosty and it was still too dark to travel. I wrapped my cloak around me and sat down on the low wall around the abandoned farm to wait for dawn.

  I was almost home now. Starting as early as I did, I could cover the final distance by late afternoon. My feet and shoulders were raw, but that wouldn’t matter if I were back with my family. Besides, as I walked, I traveled back into more fertile lands. Seeing lush fields again, I almost felt that I could draw my own strength from the renewed land. It was a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and sunshine that warmed as the day went on. The light of the day almost dispelled the shadows of the night.

  Doratura was a small village, just a cluster of houses and farms on the other side of a low hill. I recognized the hill as I drew close, in the deep shadows of afternoon. The trees on the ridge were stark against the blue sky.

  Climbing the hill, I smelled something—ash, and old cooked meat. I suddenly remembered Mira’s description of the square in Cuore where the Fedeli executed heretics at the stake. It smells like cooked rotten meat. I shuddered—had the Fedeli been here? Executed someone in Doratura? I broke into a run, scrambling up the hill until I could see down into the village.

  “Lady—” I whispered.

  My village was gone.

  I shook my head, unable to believe what I saw. The houses were charred foundations, the fields black, the trees twisted. Magefire. Mages had done this. This had to be somebody else’s village, I thought. I had forgotten my way and wandered here by mistake. This had happened during the war, except that the ash was still fresh, the stench still potent.

  “No,” I heard myself saying. “Lord and Lady …” I started running, stumbling and nearly falling on the damp grass of the hillside. There were charred bones in the streets, bones in the doorways and courtyards of the houses, child-sized bones that had uselessly sought shelter behind trees, behind houses, in their mothers’ arms. I fixed my eyes on the ground under my feet, unwilling to look up. My family could not be—they co
uldn’t.

  My house was on the far edge of the village. I could see it from the hill, but somehow I could refuse to believe until I stood among the charred ruins of my home, stared at the empty skeleton of the barn, the blackened fields. The stone foundations of my parents’ house still stood, and I stepped slowly over the threshold.

  “Mother?” I whispered.

  Doratura’s dead had been left where they fell; some had been blasted to ash by magefire, others had been picked over by scavengers. There were bones scattered through the house and yard, and as I stared around me, unable to believe what I saw, I realized that I didn’t even know whose bones were whose, where one body stopped and another started.

  A breeze ruffled my hair and stirred the ashes around me like sand. I need to bury them, I thought. If I couldn’t be here to warn them—to die with them—I could at least bury their bodies. I let my violin and pack slip from my raw shoulders onto the stone doorstep. Tools were kept in the barn; if there was a shovel to find, it would be in there.

  The animals had met the same fate as the people. As I sorted through the wreckage, I found a small skull that had probably belonged to a cat. It had hidden itself under a low shelf, uselessly seeking safety. I wondered if there were mouse skeletons in there as well, or if they’d managed to get away. Near the shelf, I found the scoop of a shovel. The wooden handle had burned away, but with effort, I could use the scoop to dig a grave.

  I had to kneel to use it, in the yard outside the house. I decided to dig where the herb garden had been, because the soil would be softer there. It bruised the heels of my hands as I worked; I settled for scraping out a single shallow grave, then went to gather up the bones.

  Since I could hold only a few fragments in my hands, I used my spare robe to gather up what was left. The task would have been easier with a broom, the fragments were so small and so scattered; what I scooped up with my hands was as much dust and ash as bone, but then, the ash was probably my family, too. I piled everything onto the robe and carried it to the grave.