Fires of the Faithful

by Naomi Kritzer

  I’d expected more questions about Bella, but instead Lucia asked, “Who was Mira?”

  I pulled away, startled. “Why do you want to know?”

  Lucia looked at me steadily. “Something in your face when you mentioned her name.”

  I shrugged and lowered my eyes. “My roommate. I told you.”

  “All right, then.”

  I wanted to change the subject. “How did Beneto and Jesca end up here? Did someone up in Cuore not like them?”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Everyone likes Beneto and Jesca. For them, it was a choice between being third or fourth somewhere more comfortable, or being leaders here. They’re idealistic. They thought they could make a difference.”

  “Do they still?”

  “I think they do, yes.”

  I hugged my knees and rested my chin on my arms. “What do you mean by being third or fourth somewhere else? Like Giovanni is here?”

  “More or less. There are cells, you see. Each place. Each cell has a leader, and that leader has a second, and there might be a third, and fourth, and so on. Here it stops with Giovanni. They have a general, Beneto; his second-in-command, Jesca; and their lieutenant, Giovanni.”

  “What about you and Rafi?” I asked.

  “You can’t command among the reformers unless you were a student at the university. Rafi was a farmer, and I was never a student. I’m in the right class, so if I made a fuss, they’d probably make me a fourth, under Giovanni. But I’m not that desperate to be an official leader.”

  “Why would you need to go to the university for this?” I was astonished.

  “It was university scholars who realized the connection between magery and the famine. When the Circle tried to stifle that knowledge, it was students who started the reform movement.” She glanced at me. “It’s much more complex than I’ve made it sound.” She sketched in the dust. “There are twenty different ‘armies’ that basically consist of a bunch of officers and whomever they can round up and convince to follow them. They all report to a centralized committee. Beneto and Jesca aren’t supposed to do anything other than recruit unless they get orders, or at least permission, from the high committee.”

  “Lady’s tits,” I said. “They’ve organized the movement like the messenger service.”

  Lucia grinned. “In theory, anyway. In practice … well, like everyone else, the reformer leaders don’t like to come down here, and there’s no real good way to get messages back and forth. Sometimes Beneto sends Giovanni to sneak out and go to Pluma to send a message, but that’s risky and Giovanni’s not willing to do it that often. So in practice Beneto is pretty much on his own.”

  I shook my head. “How many of these other armies have any actual followers?”

  “Maybe a few.”

  “And somehow, they’re going to overthrow the Circle?”

  “That’s the idea,” Lucia said.

  I stared at her for a long moment. “Giovanni’s not the only one of you who’s crazy. What do you think of all this?”

  “I believe that God wants us to win, so we will.” She met my eyes and smiled slowly, and once again her eyes sparkled with light from within. “Somehow.”

  Lucia and I lined up early for dinner; once we were done, I picked up my violin and went to the keep to meet Mario. The piazza was almost deserted. “We’re all still eating dinner,” Mario said as I walked up. “I’ve arranged some for you, too. Come on.”

  The army barracks was a long narrow building next to Teleso’s keep. Inside, it was spare and crowded, just one long room lined with bunk beds. A narrow table ran the length of the room, and the soldiers sat on the benches, finishing their dinners. The room was brightly lit with torches, and noisy with conversation. Mario made one of the soldiers scoot down the bench, clearing a spot for me on the end, and set down a bowl of soup and a slice of bread, the first bread I’d had since leaving the conservatory. “You can eat before you play for us.”

  The soup smelled delicious, of meat and carrots and onions. I downed it in minutes, mopping up the last of the broth with the bread, and was left feeling vaguely guilty for not trying to find a way to take some home to Rafi and Lucia. “Done?” Mario asked. “Do you want any more?”

  “I’m full,” I said. I was.

  “Right, then,” he said, and stood up. “May I present,” he said, making a grand gesture, “Signora Eliana, Premier Concert Violinist of Ravenna.” Most of the soldiers applauded; some of the men sitting at the table moved over to their bunks and got comfortable to listen, pulling off their boots and flopping down. I spotted Niccolo on a bunk in the far corner; he watched me through half-lidded eyes.

  I pulled one of the unoccupied benches over to the end of the room and hopped up on it, so that everyone would be able to see me. I started off with one of the folk songs I’d learned with Mira. Everyone recognized it, and joined in on the chorus. “Any requests?” I asked when I was done. Someone shouted out another folk tune, and I started off on that.

  I played for hours, with Mario filling a glass of wine for me when I got thirsty. “Lights out is at midnight,” he said finally. “We should call it a night.”

  “You’ll come play for us again, won’t you?” one of the younger soldiers asked.

  “Yes,” I said, returning his smile. “The food’s better here.” I stepped down off the bench and started to pack up my violin.

  “Wait,” Mario said. “Aren’t you going to pass your hat?” I looked at him blankly. “They didn’t teach you that at the conservatory? I suppose they expected you to join an ensemble. When you entertain, you should pass your hat. Here, I’ll lend you mine.” He handed me his helmet, then pounded on the table to get the attention of the audience. “This is Eliana’s hat,” he announced, “and she’s passing it.” He took it back, fished something out of his pocket to drop in, and passed it along. When it had made the rounds, he deposited the contents into a cloth sack and handed it to me, reclaiming his helmet. “Let me know the next time you want to come play,” he said as he escorted me out. “We’ll be waiting.”

  I was fairly certain I knew the way back to Rafi’s tent, but all the same, I was relieved to see Lucia waiting for me in the piazza. “They passed a hat,” I said, holding up the sack.

  “Let’s see,” she said. In the slight moonlight, I poked through. Several dozen ration chits. “Why do soldiers have ration chits?” I asked.

  Lucia shrugged. “Ration chits here are as good as money,” she said. “People steal them, trade them, forge them … the soldiers are issued a few to use as bribes and rewards, when necessary. But, you know, there’s a black market. How do you think we got the wine for Mass?”

  Two loaves of bread. A sachet of tea. A flask of wine.

  I felt rich. “Let’s go home,” I said. “I want to show Rafi.”

  Rafi met us at the entrance of the tent, in tears. “Thank God you weren’t here,” he said. “They’ve arrested Beneto and Jesca.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Daughter, why do you seek me in darkness? I am here, as I am everywhere, but why fight your way through darkness when I will come to dance with you in the light of the sunrise?

  —The Journey of Gèsu, chapter 8, verse 31.

  Arrested?” Lucia sucked in her breath. “Why?”

  “Disloyalty—conspiracy—everything.” Rafi was visibly upset. “They came here. To my tent!”

  “Did they take Giovanni, as well?”

  “Don’t you think I would have told you that? No. Just Jesca and Beneto. Giovanni was here, but they didn’t seem to want him. But I’m afraid they’ll come back. Lucia, Eliana, you need to hide somewhere. Not here; this is where they’ll come back to look. Isabella’s tent—go there. Hurry! I’ve sent Giovanni into hiding as well. It’s best you don’t know where.”

  “Here,” I said. “You should take this.” I thrust the sack at him. “There’s tea and ration chits. The soldiers passed the hat after I played.”

  Rafi paused in his panic to
take the sack and give me a hug. “You’re a good woman, Eliana. Now go!”

  Lucia dragged me back through the sea of tents. “Arrested!” In the starlight I could see that her face was streaked with tears. “Arrested.” Her voice dropped and I couldn’t understand what she was saying; after a moment I realized that she was praying in the Old Tongue.

  Isabella’s tent was on the opposite side of Ravenna from Rafi’s, and we had to go around the piazza rather than through it. “Isabella!” Lucia hissed, poking her hand in through the folds of the tent and waving. “Isabella, are you awake?”

  “Yeah,” a voice muttered. “I’m always awake in the middle of the night.”

  “Isabella, it’s Lucia and Eliana, and we need somewhere to stay!” There was a pause, and a rustle inside the tent. “Now!” Lucia hissed.

  “Come in, then.”

  We crawled into the tent. Isabella’s tent was made from sewn-together grain sacks; it was smaller and lower than Rafi’s, and very crowded. In addition to Isabella, there were four other people asleep in the tent already. They rolled out of the way and pulled the edges of their cloaks over their faces with half-asleep surliness. Isabella flipped her cloak back from her face and propped herself up on one elbow to light a candle. “What’s going on that you’re waking me up in the middle of the night?” Isabella was an older woman, perhaps my mother’s age; she wore her gray-streaked hair in long braids. As she lit the candle, I noticed that she had broad peasant hands, tanned and callused, with the scattering of small scars that came from being careless with the kitchen knife.

  “Beneto and Jesca have been arrested,” Lucia said. “We weren’t there. Rafi was afraid they’d come for us next.”

  “If they want you, they’ll find you,” Isabella said. “You can’t hide for long in Ravenna.” Lucia started crying again and Isabella patted her shoulder. “There, now. This means they aren’t interested in arresting you, doesn’t it?”

  “But Beneto and Jesca—what will they do to them?”

  “Get some sleep, Lucia. You too, Eliana. You’re up far too late for clear thought.” Isabella moved over to make room for us to lie down. I wrapped up in my cloak and squeezed in between Lucia and Isabella.

  The tent emptied out quickly in the morning. Lucia and I each gave Isabella a ration chit, and she brought us back bowls of gruel. “You’re the musician, aren’t you?” she asked me. “I’ve heard you play. You’re good.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And don’t think I don’t know what I’m talking about, like the rest of your audience.” Isabella gestured toward the tent flap. “My own mother was quite a musician, though she never played in an ensemble. I can’t play a note, but I know what to listen for.”

  “Did your mother go to a conservatory?” I asked.

  “Never,” Isabella said. “Stayed at home her whole life. But she played beautifully. Taught all my children to play, too.”

  “Did any of them go?”

  Isabella shook her head again. “One of my daughters showed promise. But she died, during the war.” She sighed, and brushed some of the dust from her dress. “I should go see Rafi. He’s probably more upset about the arrests than anyone, and with you two gone, he’s got no one to distract him. You stay here. Keep each other company. I’ll be back before sundown.” Isabella ducked out of the tent.

  Lucia and I were left alone. I leaned back against my rolled-up cloak. “Is Isabella a reformer?” I asked Lucia.

  “Not exactly,” Lucia said with a flash of a smile. “She sympathizes, but she won’t take orders from Beneto. She kind of has her own faction of old-guard troublemakers. Sometimes she comes by to tell Beneto that he’s just a child who doesn’t know what he’s doing. They’ve had some disagreements. We can trust her, though.”

  “How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lucia said. “Giovanni got detained once, but it was just so Teleso could put a scare into him.” She lowered her eyes, looking worried again.

  “Are you and Giovanni really cousins?” I asked. If I could change the subject, maybe Lucia would feel better.

  “Yes.” She sighed. “Our fathers are brothers. And we’re both from Varena, even though Giovanni likes to style himself ‘of Cuore’ because that’s where he studied at the university.”

  I didn’t understand this obsession that the university students had with being university students. Before Ravenna, I had met one person who’d been to the university: the physician at the conservatory. In lectures at the conservatory they’d explained that university scholars staffed the civil service, keeping things running smoothly so that the Circle could concentrate on keeping us safe and the Emperor could concentrate on ruling. Peasants didn’t go to the university; it cost too much and it just wasn’t done. Bright peasant children might go to the seminary; talented ones went to the conservatory.

  “Is your father a government official?” I asked.

  “No,” Lucia said. She rolled onto her side and held out her hand. “Give me your sash for a moment.”

  I untied the strip of red cloth and handed it to Lucia. She stroked the wool gently, then rubbed it against her fingers and checked for a stain. She closed her eyes and smelled it, breathing deeply. She folded the cloth tightly and creased it, then allowed it to unfold. “The wool is from Verdia,” she said. “The cloth is of average quality; the wool was probably spun in one cottage and woven in another. The red is quite a high-quality dye, imported from the East.” She gave me back the sash and winked. “That’s the sort of vastly useful information you learn as the daughter of a textiles merchant and importer.”

  I gave her a skeptical look as I retied the sash. “You could have made all that up and I’d never know.”

  Lucia smiled, tipping her head to look at me sideways. “You could show your sash to Giovanni. He ought to be able to tell you the same thing. It’s the family business—my father does the imports, his father does the sales.”

  I took her hand, flipped it over. It was small and delicate, but deeply tanned and heavily callused. “You don’t look like a city girl.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What happened in Varena? You said it was a long story. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  Lucia leaned back, resting against her own rolled-up cloak. “When I was fourteen, I decided I had a vocation; I wanted to become a priestess of the Lord and the Lady.”

  “Why?”

  “I felt …” she gestured, then dropped her hands back into her lap. “I felt an emptiness inside that wanted to be filled. I thought that the Church would fill it. I thought that was what a vocation meant.”

  “How long did you stay at the seminary?”

  “Three years.” She sighed heavily. “Three years of porridge and living in a bunk room with fifty other girls and owning no more than would fit into the pockets of my robe.”

  “As opposed to now?”

  A smile lit her face. “As opposed to now, when I have all I could ever need.” She looked at her tanned hands and her smile faded slowly to a wistful gaze. “The emptiness grew worse and worse, those three years. I thought if I believed enough, if I prayed and worked hard enough, I would feel the joy of the Lady and the peace of the Lord that my teachers spoke of. I used to—” her hands began to twist her skirt. “It got so that I rarely slept, but I could barely rouse myself from bed, even so. I felt like I was being walled inside a room with no door—” She took a deep breath, let it out again. “The end came when I spent four solid days and nights in vigil, praying in the chapel. It was this cold stone building, and I spent my vigil in this tiny room in the cellar, in almost complete darkness. Truth was, my teachers were tired of my sad eyes and bad attitude. They sent me down there and told me that if it turned out I didn’t have a vocation, I should just say so.”

  Lucia’s eyes were closed now. “The first day and night I spent on my knees. The next I spent pacing. Oh, I was fasting, too—water but no food—so then the th
ird day I was too weak to pace or to kneel. I lay in front of the altar and tried to pray. The fourth day I couldn’t even do that. I lay on the floor in the darkness, because I was also too weak to summon witchlight.”

  “No one even came to see if you were all right?”

  Lucia shook her head. “That wasn’t how it was done.” She paused and collected her thoughts for a moment. “While I was lying there, I felt a burst of light, like sunlight breaking through a cloud. I felt the darkness inside me recede, although the emptiness was still there. And I heard a voice say, ‘Daughter, why do you seek me in darkness? I am here, as I am everywhere, but why fight your way through darkness when I will come to dance with you in the light of the sunrise?’ ”

  “You weren’t dreaming?”

  “No,” she said. “I wasn’t dreaming.” Lucia opened her eyes to meet mine. “I wasn’t dreaming. And I said to the voice, ‘Why do you leave me alone?’ And I heard, ‘You are never alone. But if you come into the light, I will dance with you.’

  “So somehow I found the strength to stand up and stumble out of the chapel. It was dawn, the sun was rising, and no one was in sight. And when I came into the sunlight, it was as if my mind exploded into light. The emptiness was filled. And I knew this was what I had been seeking all my life. I shouted, ‘Dance with me, dance with me!’ There aren’t words to describe how this felt. But for the first time, God was truly with me.

  “The ironic thing is, I thought it was the Lord and the Lady, finally showing up to tell me that I truly had a vocation. But when I shouted, the teachers came running and saw me dancing. I was singing this tune that came into my head—” she hummed a few notes, and I recognized the music from the Mass. “And they grabbed me and hustled me inside and started shouting that I had lost my mind, that only someone as twisted and evil as me would sing that inside a seminary of the Lady. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong at first, but finally I realized that I was singing an Old Way song and dancing the dance that goes with it. But the problem was, I wasn’t sorry.” Once again, a smile lit her face.