“What...how...” Jirella rose on her tip-toes to look closer at the woman’s broad features, not even sure how to phrase her question.
“Feathers, ma’am,” said the war nun, unable to meet Jirella’s inquisitive stare. Whether it was weakness or deference on the anathema’s part, it thrilled Jirella. “Through the grace of the Fallen Mother and her surgeons I have been saved from my monstrous birth.”
“Glory be,” Jirella breathed as the anathema leaned down so the girl could touch her scarred hide. It felt like running her fingers over a plucked chicken down in the convent kitchens. Looking at the woman’s full lips and patrician’s nose, she said, “Praise the Fallen Mother you weren’t born with a beak!”
“Praise the Fallen Mother,” agreed Sister Vaura. “Even if I had, His Grace’s barbers are most clever. I have known others with that affliction, and worse, yet all are made whole before being admitted to the Dens.”
“You mean the Dens are real?” Jirella jerked her hand away, scarcely able to believe the horrifying rumours were true.
“Not a mile beneath your feet, ma’am,” said the war nun as she tied her mask back into place. “It is where I came of age. His Holiness Pope Shanatu believes that even my benighted kind might serve the Burnished Chain, once we are remade in the likeness of the pure.”
“Will wonders never cease...” Jirella shook her head. She scarcely had an appetite anymore, but she certainly needed a hot mug of kaldi to settle her nerves. That was an indulgence the sisters had forbidden back at the convent, but from the extravagant feast her uncle had offered her last night she imagined nothing would be forbidden the future Black Pope. “Whether you join me or not, Sister Vaura, it is high time I broke my fast. Do I just tell you what I want brought in, or do I pull the rope for a servant the way my uncle did?”
“In the future you may tell me of anything you require and I will see that it is delivered, but at present we are already overdue.” The war nun pointed at a cloth-wrapped bundle on the otherwise barren table. “I did have a lunch prepared for you, but now you will have to take it with us.”
“Where are we going?” Jirella looked nervously at the outer door. “I assumed that I would just spend the week here, in seclusion? With all the perils facing me...”
“The assassins, you mean?” Jirella fancied the anathema was smiling under her mask again. “When you have enemies, ma’am, it is better to move around than stay in one place. His Grace commanded me to deliver you to Barber Norton before the Council adjourns, which means we must move swiftly indeed, else we shall be late.”
“A barber?” After the anathema’s talk of Chainite surgeons remaking the flesh of sinners, Jirella couldn’t imagine anyone she would like to meet less.
Yet her path was set by the hand of the holy, so she held her head high as she followed the war nun out, her only hesitation borne from indecision over whether or not to take the packed lunch. After a moment’s dallying she stuffed the bundle in the pocket-sleeve of her voluminous gown—she was not hungry, yet, but she owed it to her maker to seize every gift she was offered. Gluttony had never been her strongest virtue, but if she were to don the ebon mitre of the Black Pope she must strive to embody them all.
* * *
Half a dozen more papal guards waited outside Jirella’s chambers, though none of them seemed so fierce as Sister Vaura. The six split up to surround the two women, three taking the lead and the others bringing up the rear from a modest distance. They didn’t just make Jirella feel safe, they made her feel respected—a lord of the realm stepping out to survey her domain.
Castle Diadem was little different by day than it was by night. Whether a passageway was narrow as an alley or wide as a great hall there were no windows to offer a contrast to the spectral blue light of the guttering lamps that jutted out from the stone walls. These eternal flames were fed from ancient fumes beneath the mountain, Jirella’s guide informed her, so that the papal palace should never know darkness until the Day of Becoming. The cave air often carried the spicy tang of incense and once the smell of horses.
“Imperials!” Jirella gasped as they stepped out of a corridor and she found herself overlooking a several hundred-foot drop. Their path led them out across a stone bridge that that spanned a massive square, the parade ground far below teeming with countless soldiers in angry red tabards. She felt dizzy at being so high and exposed, even with the high carven railings.
“We are all Imperials, ma’am,” said Sister Vaura. “Or at least we shall be again, once the Council of Diadem is completed.”
“Yes, well, you know what I mean,” said Jirella, resolving to better act her part: stoic and world-weary, not excitable and naïve. Putting her hands on the railing and looking out over the assembled army, she stifled the puerile impulse to spit—back at the convent spitting at gargoyles from the dormitory window had been a high art. In what she hoped was her most impressively portentous tone, she said, “If Queen Indsorith thinks she has the run of our castle just because she’s returned to Samoth she will find herself dearly mistaken.”
“May the Fallen Mother show all who err the true path before it is too late,” agreed Sister Vaura. Resuming her brisk pace over the bridge, she looked back at Jirella and said, “You have seen the skulls, ma’am? Over the Crimson Throne Room?”
“I have not yet made the time,” Jirella said airily, suspecting the anathema of toying with her inexperience.
“Dozens of assassins came for Queen Indsorith during her first year on the Crimson Throne, and she dispatched each one herself, mounting their skulls over the entrance to the throne room.”
“No wonder she declared the Serpent’s Circle the new capital and fled down there with her court!” Jirella was pleased with herself for remembering what amounted to ancient history. “She must have realized her reign would be brief indeed if she stayed in Samoth, where faith is stronger than fear.”
A great tolling rang out, startling Jirella. Looking up she saw a bell the size of a country church suspended high above the immense square.
“The Council of Diadem adjourns.” Jirella could barely make out Sister Vaura’s soft voice over the echoing peals, the anathema looking to the same heavens as her pureborn companion. “The war is ended. Samoth is again capital province of the Crimson Empire, and Queen Indsorith again rules from Diadem.”
“Alongside the Black Pope,” said Jirella. “My unc—His Grace told me the Black Pope would reign beside the Crimson Queen.”
“And His Grace told me to make sure you preceded him to the barber’s theatre,” said Sister Vaura, looking down at her. “Should you prefer to run, ma’am, or shall I carry you?”
* * *
The Fallen Mother wished her pureborn children every happiness they could eke from their harsh lives, and so Jirella would have chosen to run even if her pride hadn’t balked at being carried like a babe. Running was strictly forbidden at the convent, which of course meant all the girls did it every chance they could. All the girls save Jirella.
Now, however, she fairly skated over the polished floors in her soft new turnshoes, her dark hair flying like a pennant as they rushed to make up for lost time. Clergy and guards alike scattered to get out of their way, though Jirella imagined that had more to do with the huge war nun leading the charge than anything else. What would those robed fuddy-duddies and lazy soldiers think if they knew the girl holding up her skirts as she dashed past them would be standing at the Onyx Pulpit in a week’s time?
It was mad, liberating fun. As she chased Sister Vaura out from a corridor and across a wide chapel where nuns prayed before an enormous idol of Saint Megg, Jirella gave thanks that she would never again be like one of them. Up ahead a wimple turned, and a familiar face broke into a wide smile as the kneeling novice recognized Jirella, too, and scrambled up to meet her.
Yekteniya had been Jirella’s only true friend at the convent, and it swelled her heart with joy to see the Fallen Mother had reunited them
so quickly. The girl must have left the convent immediately after Jirella, the same day even, to be here now, which didn’t make any sense...but then what did, these days? Jirella slowed her mad dash as Yekteniya opened her arms to embrace her friend, and—
Sister Vaura loomed up behind Yekteniya, and before Jirella could shout a warning the anathema neatly decapitated the girl. Jirella stumbled, staring agog as Yekteniya’s lovely blonde hair swirled around her falling head, so close warm blood spattered Jirella cheeks. Someone grabbed her from behind before she could fall into her murdered friend, and a pair of her bodyguards darted in and seized Yekteniya by the arms, holding her up.
Except it wasn’t Yekteniya anymore, just her limp body. Her head was on the floor of the chapel, lying on its cheek beside her broken rosary, blood oozing from her smiling lips, her eyes fixed on nothing. All the other nuns were screaming. Jirella was relieved they were summoning help, because she was too shocked to make any noise at all, or even struggle away from the strong arms holding her back from Yekteniya.
Sister Vaura stepped around the guards holding up the headless body, blood gouting down the front of its habit. The war nun had sheathed her sword but held a cruel black dagger. It looked so small in her bulky fist.
Jirella stopped struggling, a cold numbness flushing through her. If this was the Fallen Mother’s plan for Jirella, she would face it with dignity. In the darkest hour of the night she had asked the Allmother to spare her the burden of all this responsibility, to choose anyone else to be Her Voice, and now her prayers were to be answered.
Jirella had brought this on herself.
Except instead of stepping forward and stabbing Jirella through the heart, Sister Vaura turned to Yekteniya’s body. The two bodyguards were still ghoulishly holding it up, and the war nun gingerly slit open the front of the corpse’s bloody habit. Peeling back the cut cloth, she revealed neither a shift not the budding breasts that Yekteniya had once invited Jirella to touch. A strange bloated mass covered her chest. Over the screams of the fleeing nuns Jirella couldn’t hear what Sister Vaura was telling the guards who held up the body, but their stern faces lost all their color and their narrowed eyes widened in alarm.
“She should see this.” Jirella did hear that, and as the guard who had restrained Jirella let her go she staggered forward for a better look. The curious bulge was not tied to Yekteniya’s chest, she saw, but growing around it. This close she could hear it humming, too, even over the retreating shrieks of the nuns. Then she laughed, an ugly bark of a sound, because she recognized it for what it was. A wasp’s nest of some kind, its bloodstained walls as thin as parchment... Jirella found herself sinking into that hive, the droning of screaming nuns all around her, and as if from a great distance she heard Sister Vaura say,
“And now, ma’am, I shall be obliged to carry you.”
* * *
Jirella jerked upright, coughing at whatever foul draught had revived her. Her mouth stung from the tannic brew. The man who had administered it stepped back, giving her room to breathe the fetid air of this cave.
Every other quarter of the castle she had seen was pristinely carved from the living rock of the mountain, though the architecture varied from baroque Samothan to subdued Geminidean and a hundred other styles besides. This place, though, looked more like a hermit’s lair than a civilized chamber, with smoky candles mounted on tall stalagmites that jutted from the floor, and bottles and beakers set out to collect drippings from thick, mineral-striped stalactites. The uneven walls of the vast room sparkled with glass panels, hundreds upon hundreds of them winking at her in the candlelight. Jirella sat in the middle of it all on a moss-covered table. There was but one door that she could see, and it was bolted from within.
The room was warm and damp and stinking with some acrid smell she couldn’t place. Jirella looked around for Sister Vaura, but found she was alone in this place...save for the man who watched her take in her surroundings with no small amusement. His pristine red operating gown and sparkling chainsilk gloves were an odd contrast to the squalid setting, and his smile was even warmer than her uncle’s.
“You’re the barber,” croaked Jirella. Her throat felt raw from crying, though she couldn’t remember anything after Yekteniya... “Where’s Sister Vaura?”
“I am C. Elbert Norton. The Third, as luck would have it.” The barber took a slight bow. “Your bodyguards are not needed here. In point of fact, they are forbidden, along with every other mortal on the Star. Only those who receive the highest calling may enter, and what is spoken in this sanctified office will never be repeated. Do you understand?”
Jirella nodded, though she didn’t, not really. Everything still felt like a dream. “You’re a barber and a priest, then, one of those who cure the witchborn?”
“I am nothing of the sort!” Barber Norton gave her a withering scowl. “I am not an officer of the church, nor do I approve of your uncle’s ecclesiastic surgeons—perhaps it’s better than burning those monsters like King Kaldruut used to do, but I believe Queen Indsorith had the right idea when she ordered the Chain to stop mutilating them.”
“The queen did what?” Jirella had only just found out that reformed anathemas were real, but apparently this was old news to everyone not banished to a convent.
“He hasn’t told you much, has he?” Barber Norton clucked his tongue. “Your uncle’s obstinate refusal to abandon the practice has only gone and lost him the Onyx Pulpit—that’s what the war grew out of, you know. A perfect bloody mess, with precious time squandered, and for what? Nothing. The church gets to keep manufacturing their Chainwitches, yes, but the Queen returns to Diadem, which will complicate things terribly. If he’d listened to me from the beginning—”
“Who are you?” demanded Jirella. “To speak so outrageously of His Grace?”
“I am the personal barber to the Black Pope, which means I will speak outrageously of anyone I wish,” he said smugly. “The office you are poised to inherit is beset on all sides by toads and serpents, and a sage ruler may find value in a cat’s-paw of my sharpness. I would have thought you learned that lesson on your way to my office—if your little friend’s nestvest had been disturbed, you and half the people in that chapel would have been stung to death.”
“Yekteniya...” Jirella pulled her knees in and wrapped her arms around herself to stop shaking. This wasn’t a bad dream. She closed her eyes, refusing the weakness of the Deceiver. Yekteniya wasn’t her friend. She never had been. She was the enemy, an assassin, and the Fallen Mother had intervened to protect her chosen emissary. Looking back up at Barber Norton, she asked, “If you’re so savvy to what’s going on, who sent her after me? They must have been spying on me even back at the convent, before His Grace summoned me... And they must have known why he called me back, to have Yekteniya follow me to Diadem.”
“Your uncle’s agents are surely investigating the matter even as we speak, but I doubt they will uncover anything conclusive.” Barber Norton shrugged. “Better to gird you in the armour that will protect you through your coronation than waste time worrying over who wants you dead—they all do. But once you ascend to power they will abandon that course and try more subtle means of currying favour. This is the way of things.”
“If they’re going to give up once I become the new Black Pope why wait a whole week for the coronation?” asked Jirella, filled with righteous fury at the cowardice of the Deceiver’s agents. She would respect them more if they continued in their assassination attempts throughout her reign rather than playing politics!
“It is not mere bureaucracy, I assure you,” said Barber Norton, leaning against the mossy table where Jirella sat. “Technically, your coronation began the moment you entered this room. Late, I should mention, but you arrived safely, and now the worst danger is past. Assuming you spoke true of your purity, that is.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jirella bristled at the suggestion she might have lied to His Grace.
“It is f
or your sake I seek confirmation,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “If there are any indiscretions in your past, we can make...alternate arrangements. But if you are indeed untouched by carnal experience we can keep with tradition and administer the Ordeal of the Ebon Ghost—it is the ultimate trial of one’s purity, a test only those fit to become pontiff can bear.”
“I eagerly accept any trials you might present,” Jirella said haughtily. “The Fallen Mother has chosen me and I have naught to fear.”
“Yes, well, we’ll see about that,” he said with a queer little smile. “You must not undertake this ordeal lightly, Jirella. It will change you from a simple girl to...something else. A temple for the divine, as the Chain would have it.”
“I am ready.”
“It does not appear to be pleasant experience,” said Barber Norton, “and if you survive you will no longer be quite human. You shall be immune to any poison known to mortalkind, but your every drop of blood or bile, saliva or urine will be as deadly venom. Your body shall brook no lovers—you shall remain a virgin for the rest of your days.”
“I told you, I am ready,” said Jirella, remembering how she had longed to touch Yekteniya in her bunk that night last summer, how the girl had teased her with reminders that lust was a sacred virtue...and how she had fled to her own bed, driven by some sudden impulse to remain pure. Now she knew from where that instinct had sprung, and thanked the Fallen Mother for her wisdom. Who could know and embody lust more than one who was never able to consummate their desire?
“Very well then, Jirella,” said the barber, winding away between the stalagmites to one of the glass windows set in the wall. Looking back at her, he sounded almost sad. “We shall have much to discuss in the future, I hope, but for now the Ordeal begins. Godspeed, Your Grace.”
Jirella flushed with pride at his use of the honorific. He fiddled with a latch on the recessed glass panel, and then it sprung open on a hinge. As it did the barber flattened himself against the wall beside the small opening, a curious gesture that made the hairs on the back of Jirella’s neck stand up.
Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists Page 8