Vespertine

by Margaret Rogerson

  “Nun,” the revenant snapped. “Nun! You’ve done enough. Let them help you.”

  I shook my head, both in denial and in a hopeless attempt to think. As though jostled loose, a terrible thought sprang into clarity. “Charles.” My fingers tightened on his back. “Where are Marguerite and Jean?”

  “They’re together,” he said into my ear. “They’re safe. I left them behind on the—” He broke off, perhaps realizing that that had been before the white vicar, before the wraiths. They might have been safe on the awning before, but they weren’t now. He stopped and scanned the people streaming past.

  “Charles,” shouted the other soldier, barely audible through the din. “We need to go! We have our orders.”

  Charles didn’t seem to hear. He had gone rigid. I followed his line of sight.

  A possessed soldier had backed a group of people against a building. I couldn’t tell whether they were city folk or refugees, or a mixture of both; soot streaked their faces and clothes from the flying embers. The light made everything strange, like a scene from a nightmare. I wouldn’t have recognized Marguerite and Jean if it weren’t for Jean’s distinctive size—even hunched over, he was the largest person in the square.

  Startlingly small in comparison, Marguerite had placed herself in front of him and the others, her arms spread as though trying to protect them from the thrall. I wondered what she thought she was going to accomplish. Even if she were armed, she wasn’t any good at fighting. The thrall would kill her more easily than a kitten.

  I was already moving, throwing off Charles’s slack arms. If the other soldier tried to intervene, I didn’t feel his touch. I didn’t feel the people who ran into me or shoved me or trod on my boots. I only grew aware of the revenant speaking at the very end.

  “Keep going,” it was urging sharply. “Don’t fall over, you horrid nun. You’re almost there.” And then it said, “Grab him.”

  When the thrall saw me coming, he started to bring up his sword, but his angle was poor. I seized his arm and wrenched it, and the sword went clanging to the ground. Before he could think of rushing me, I planted a hand on his face and drove him down. With the revenant’s strength, he went easily, and the spirit came boiling out from his mouth and nose and eyes, streaming between my fingers. I wasn’t sure if the revenant had exorcised it, or if it was so desperate to escape that it had abandoned its vessel on purpose.

  The revenant said viciously, “Don’t let go,” and I felt the spirit being drawn inward, into me, siphoned up like breath, until all that remained of it was a cold half-sated hunger numbing the pit of my stomach like frost. The revenant had devoured it.

  There was a pause in the square—a brief cessation of noise, in which I heard a strange gasping, sighing exhalation. Marguerite’s hands were on me, helping me to my feet, her astonished face lit silver, and then I saw it: across the square, the blight wraiths were abandoning their vessels en masse, pouring upward as pillars of light. I stared in confusion, wondering if the Lady had intervened with a miracle. Awe swept coldly over my body.

  Then I remembered what the revenant had said in the hayloft. Most spirits would rather leap into the Sevre than cross me.

  The spirits knew it was here. They were fleeing in terror—all of them at once.

  The white vicar still remained, its radiant form suspended above the square. But as soon as I looked, a thin, earsplitting scream rippled through the air: the debilitating wail of a fury. The sound grated in my ears like fingernails scratching down a pane of glass, but it didn’t freeze me the way it had in Naimes. This time, it hadn’t been aimed at me. Across the square, silhouetted by the conflagration, the Divine had finally raised her scepter. The vicar wore a look of deathly scorn, but the relic’s power had caught it fast, and already the soldiers were closing in.

  A face leaped out from the crowd nearby: Leander, illuminated by the ghost-light. He was gazing upward at the fleeing spirits. He looked young and almost vulnerable as he watched his plan collapse. Then his mouth twisted. He shoved forward, his hand wrapped around his ring. The first person to get in his way fell writhing to the cobbles. Then Captain Enguerrand’s armored figure stepped from the crowd to block his path.

  I didn’t see any more. The heat was smothering me; the smoke was filling my lungs. Distantly, I registered that the people Marguerite had been trying to protect were watching.

  “It’s her,” one of them said. “It’s Saint Artemisia.”

  I often wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Just this once, I received my wish. The world turned sideways, and everything went dark.

  TWENTY

  I awoke on a bed in an unfamiliar room, full of unfamiliar people staring at me. They drew back when I yanked myself against the headboard, exchanging glances and whispering. Most of them signed themselves; an old woman even got down and prostrated herself on the floor.

  My heart slammed dizzily against my ribs. The first thing I noticed was that I could still faintly smell smoke. Perhaps it was coming in from outside, or it was clinging to everyone’s hair and clothes. The second thing I noticed was that I wasn’t wearing my gloves.

  “Where are my gloves?” I asked.

  “Calm down, nun,” said the revenant, as Charles hurried into the room.

  “You’re awake,” he said, his expression relieved until he saw my face. He dropped to his knees beside the bed. “Artemisia, it’s all right.”

  Artemisia. He was calling me Artemisia in front of these people. But it didn’t matter; they already knew. “Where are my gloves?” I repeated. For some reason, it hurt my throat to speak.

  He reached for my shoulder, then seemed to think better of it. “Elaine’s washing them, along with the rest of your clothes. You don’t remember? The smoke—you told us about the smoke. How the smell bothers you.”

  I didn’t remember saying that, but I wasn’t about to admit that in front of a roomful of people who were likely well on their way to being convinced that I was mad. Strangely, a small prick of guilt came from the revenant.

  “Where are we?” I asked instead, trying to make my voice sound less harsh. There was a little boy clinging to the skirts of a woman who I thought might be Elaine, and I didn’t want to frighten him.

  The woman stepped forward; the little boy shyly hid behind her legs. “This is my house,” she said softly, her gaze lowered. “We brought you here after you saved us.”

  “They’re helping hide you,” Charles added, turning back to me, his gaze earnest. “The Clerisy doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “Yet,” the revenant put in darkly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about humans, it’s that your kind loves to gossip. Nuns are no exception, by the way. The ancient and terrible knowledge I harbor about Sister Prunelle’s bunions would make even you beg for mercy.”

  A thousand questions crowded my mind. I wanted to ask everyone to leave, but I was their guest. I assumed that this room, with its multiple cots and cushion-covered chests, functioned as the sleeping chambers for the entire household. It looked like everyone I had rescued from the thrall had returned here, not just Elaine’s family. There were perhaps a dozen people in the room, about half of them seated, the others standing as though they had forgotten how to sit. I didn’t recognize any of them except for Jean, crouched in the corner with his big hands wedged between his knees. The old woman was still prostrated on the floor, mumbling prayers.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

  Elaine bent and murmured something to her, gently drawing her up, leading her over to a seat on one of the chests. Then she hesitated, wringing her hands. “Is there anything you can tell us?” she asked in her soft voice, still keeping her gaze averted, as though I might blind her. “About what happened? About why the Lady—”

  Suddenly, a jumble of voices filled the room, all asking questions simultaneously. “How did the spirits get into the city?” “Why didn’t the Lady send Her ravens?” “Has She forsaken us?” “Are we—” �
��My father was in—” “Can you—”

  My pulse began hammering. Some of the people who had been sitting were starting to stand up. The little boy hid his face, frightened by the adults yelling.

  If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have been able to speak. But I focused on him and forced out the words. “I think it was a warning.” I wasn’t certain whether anyone would be able to hear me through the noise, but silence fell as soon as I began to talk. “She was trying to warn us of the danger. She didn’t forsake us. She never does.”

  Not even when you wanted Her to.

  “You speak to Her,” Elaine said, her eyes filling with tears. From across the bedspread, Charles was looking at me with something approaching awe.

  “No,” I said quickly, roughly. “About the effigy, that was only a guess. I’ve never…” There were some who heard the Lady’s voice—Sister Julienne had, certainly. Mother Katherine, I suspected. And probably Mother Dolours as well. “I’m not a saint. It isn’t like that.”

  Everyone just stared. I was speaking the words, but they weren’t hearing me. I had lost them. I remembered the shed, where there had been nowhere to hide, and I started to feel as though the air were vanishing from the room, that there were too many bodies inside breathing it in, that I was going to suffocate.

  Charles glanced at me in dismay. An idea crossed his face. “Artemisia needs to pray,” he blurted out.

  “Of course,” Elaine said quickly, looking relieved. This, she understood. “Of course. Come along, everyone.”

  “Put your head between your knees,” the revenant ordered, in such a curt, unsympathetic tone that I obeyed without thinking. “Good,” it said. “Now breathe. There’s plenty of air in here for your disgusting flesh lungs. Whoever made this building had the architectural skill of a village drunkard. There are drafts coming in through every nook and cranny.”

  Bizarrely, that helped. My pulse began to slow. I couldn’t begin to guess what Charles thought; he was staying perfectly silent and still. Eventually, after my breathing returned to normal, I heard him stand, his boots scuffing against the rug.

  “Marguerite’s at the market finding out what she can,” he said as though nothing had happened. “What the Clerisy’s doing about last night, and things like that. She should be back soon.” I glanced up at him and saw that his brow was knit with worry. To gather this information, she was putting herself in danger.

  I felt a pang, remembering what she had said to me in the graveyard. It isn’t just gossip, you know.

  He moved to leave, then hesitated. He took in my face, seeing something there—I had no idea what. Then he came back and knelt again.

  “Lady vespertine,” he said.

  “Stand up.” My voice sounded awful.

  He didn’t listen, just squared his shoulders in determination and bowed his head more deeply against the coverlet. A lump formed in my throat. I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t Saint Artemisia; I wasn’t who he thought I was. He should have realized that by now.

  “You said I was the fairest maiden you’d ever seen,” I reminded him.

  He lifted his head. “You were,” he said. “You are. You saved us—me, Jean, the captain, everyone. I saw it happen. I’ll never forget it. You can’t live through something like that and not remember it every day for the rest of your life.” In his eyes, I could almost see a reflection of the revenant’s silver fire. The light that had saved him, and nearly killed him.

  I swallowed. Of the two of us, Charles was braver. He had fought on the same battlefield, and he had done it even though he had believed he was going to die. He had faced his own possessed friends to keep others safe. Charging into battle with the power of a Fifth Order relic wasn’t nearly as difficult. If power were a measure of worth, Charles wouldn’t have needed me at all.

  I wished I were better at speaking. All those thoughts were in my head, but I didn’t know how to get them out.

  Seemingly unperturbed by my silence, he stood. “Thank you, lady vespertine,” he said kindly. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

  * * *

  The wait for Marguerite’s return tensely dragged on. A little while after Charles had left the room, Elaine’s family hauled in a wooden tub so I could scrub the last of the smoke’s lingering stink from my body before I put my clean clothes back on. Elaine handled them reverently, as though they were spun from gold, even though the cloak had holes in it and still smelled of damp wool. They weren’t finished drying, but I was grateful to be dressed; I could hear hushed voices in other parts of the house that the revenant identified as belonging to new arrivals. They were entering in a steady stream through a back door that opened out into an alley. It wasn’t difficult to guess what they had come to see.

  Before long there were faces peeking in at me from around the door, despite Elaine’s audible efforts to herd them away. I had the sense that she had shared the news of my presence with a few close friends, only for word to spread through the neighborhood. The revenant was annoyed to be proven right about this particular aspect of human nature.

  “They say it’s her hands,” someone whispered. “That’s where the scars are.”

  “How old is she?” whispered someone else. “What happened?”

  “I could devour their souls for you,” the revenant proposed. “It would be fun. Don’t pretend you aren’t tempted.”

  I braced myself when a cloaked figure barged inside, thinking this was the dreaded moment at which someone was going to throw themselves at my feet and beg for a miracle—only to relax when the intruder shook a hood back from her hair, her cheeks flushed from the morning chill. Marguerite had returned.

  “Artemisia!” she exclaimed in surprise. “You’re clean.” She wrinkled her nose at everyone’s horrified stares. “Don’t worry, we grew up together. Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.”

  I never could have predicted how grateful I would be to see Marguerite. She cheerfully took charge of the household in a whirlwind of activity, somehow managing to transport me to the kitchen in a shuffle that placed me between her, Charles, and Jean, to the disappointment of everyone craning their necks for a look. At the table, she ushered me to the least visible corner in the back. Meanwhile Jean sat nearest the door, blocking everyone’s view from the hallway. He was drawing his own share of looks, but not for the reason I thought. I learned from Marguerite that he had carried me in his arms all the way here. People had seen, and were treating him as though he were part saint himself.

  The little boy, whose name was Thomas, helped set the table. It was too early for the midday meal, but Elaine brought out a haddock and fig pie she appeared to have baked specially for the occasion, presenting a slice to me nervously, as though the Lady might smite her for offering me such lowly fare. When I tried to thank her, she fled.

  We ate in a huddle, speaking in low voices. I couldn’t block out the awareness of being watched—the feeling that everyone in the house was committing every detail of this scene to memory, and a dozen different versions of it would be spread across the city by nightfall.

  “There are all kinds of rumors,” Marguerite was saying. “Everyone thinks you were in the square, but as far as I can tell, there isn’t any proof. I heard too many different stories about what happened for any of them to be useful to the Clerisy. Some of them were really ridiculous—they got your hair color wrong in most of them, and in one you even brought somebody back from the dead. It’s obvious the soldiers who saw you kept their mouths shut.”

  “Of course they did,” Charles said, offended.

  She flashed him a quick smile, a dimple appearing on her cheek, before she turned back to me. “So the Clerisy isn’t officially searching for you yet, but there’s too much confusion to know for sure. They could be looking in secret.”

  “They won’t want to arrest her during a holy festival. People would riot. I mean, they would anyway,” he added, shooting me a meaningful glance, “but having it happen around Saint Agnes’s day wo
uld make it worse.”

  “You’re right—I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “What about Captain Enguerrand? Did you hear anything?”

  “Oh!” She gave him a sympathetic look, her heart in her eyes. “He’s been detained. They put him in the garrison’s dungeon. Someone else is leading the guard.”

  Jean hadn’t given any indication of listening before. Now his hand clenched around his knife. Charles asked quickly, “Did you hear the name of the acting captain?”

  “I think it was something like Henry. Hubert?”

  “Halbert.” Charles swore. “He’s a bootlicker,” he explained. “He’ll do anything he’s told to do. What are the charges against the captain?”

  Marguerite didn’t know. “Defying the will of the Clerisy,” I guessed. It was the first time I had spoken. The sound of my voice inspired a renewed flurry of whispers from the hallway outside, though I doubted they could hear what I was saying. “After Leander’s plan failed, I saw him trying to find me in the crowd. Captain Enguerrand stopped him. Leander probably claimed he was there to fight the white vicar, but Enguerrand knew the truth.”

  Quiet fell around the table. Then Charles said, “Wait. Leander’s plan? The confessor?” and we had to explain about Leander and the Old Magic, watching him grow progressively more shocked.

  “The altar?” he asked loudly once I’d finished, and Marguerite quickly hushed him. He lowered his voice, leaning over the table. “Then you think Confessor Leander was the one who summoned the white vicar?”

  Marguerite glanced at me. “It follows the pattern,” I said carefully. So far, we’d managed to skirt around the revenant’s role in uncovering the Old Magic.

  “We think he might have been planning to do something during the ceremony,” Marguerite added, “but when he realized Artemisia was there, he had to change tactics.”

  “Or the vicar was his plan all along,” I said. “We don’t know.”

  “But where did it come from?”