Salt, Sand, and Blood

by MarQuese Liddle

  Jael dropped her pondering to the wayside. This was her favorite homily, a recounting of the cleansing of the pagan city Babylon as recorded by late Saint Lucius and rewritten by Herbstfield’s very own acolyte. When Leonhardt was still a little girl, she used to make her father tell the tale over and over, and even that older version—despite missing much of Gareth’s flare—never grew dull, no matter how many times she heard it. Even now, Jael found herself leaning in with eyes shut and her imagination open, painting images to each and every word.

  Gavin began,

  Seventeen years ago, when Saint Lucius still ruled from the Valley Rock, lo, what a great revelation was handed down by God. By prophetic mouth the Lord made known that in a city to the south a bridge between our kingdoms rose. It was the Lost Bridge of Babylon by which our ancestors fled the Holy Father’s wrath and since hath abandoned for the promised land. Only those consumed by arrogance and hate remained, we knew from the Babylonian accounts, but it was then shewn that a demon had been born into that woeful place and rallied the sinners into a foul, pagan faith. So Saint Lucius, God bless his name, called seven holy warriors to vanquish this plague. They were heroes of their time, exalted by works and deeds: Brothers Marcus and Antony, clerics of Quiet Harbor; Iago, the Cardinal; Warrior-Priest Desmond, bearing the arms of Watcher’s Eye upon his shield; Messah Takayama, convert of the east; Noble Sacrifice Ezekiel; and the lady knight Camilla. Together they sailed south across the Pearl Sea, leading a great host against Babylon’s cursed Impii.

  For seven days they sailed without stop, through white-water and storm, devil waves tossing them, testing their faith, and scuttling their ships on the rocky fangs of that perilous shore. Yet even then God’s champions did not fret, nor did they balk upon arriving at the heathens’ den. Across the desert, they went to the vile hive where men lived like beasts, naked as sin with swollen lips, sunken eyes, and darkened skin. And when a parleyer was sent offering peace for the demon’s head, they struck him dead and bore their blasphemous arms: weapons of bronze, long known as the Devil’s gold, misshapen to mock the form of our holy cross.

  Howling with all the fury of Hell’s damned souls, the savages charged God’s valiant host, but against iron and steel and faith fully stoked, the beasts did little more than give up the ghost. For six days this battle raged till our army waded deep in the cursed city itself. Then, as the sun gave birth to the seventh morn, the trueborn evil was revealed. A fallen angel who called himself Light Bringer, who with a glib tongue sung enticing lies to tempt the Lord’s champions. Though the demon did sway some lesser men, God’s seven deafened their ears to his deception.

  Unable to shake the champions’ faith, the demon came with burning blade and breath of flame till only three of God’s remained. Yet together, Iago, Ezekiel, and Camilla struck as one through the heart of the demon, and it was done… or so they believed. For when they drew their swords from its flesh, the demon defied death, descended form into a great red serpent, and burned both men in a single breath.

  Camilla was left alone to slay the Devil’s beast, her men dead or fled; and of the seven, she knew her strength to be the least. But even in that darkest hour, our lady knight did not cower or plea. She instead cast down her sword in an act of purest faith and clasped her hands in prayer. Daring to face the demon flame, she claimed as loud as her voice could carry, ‘Lord, grant me strength! Enough to cast this fiend to his rightful place! To protect me from his claws and fangs and hellish flame! So that none may ever again praise his cursed name!’ And lo, God sewed onto her flesh a miracle to best the demon’s breath. From her back blossomed wings of purest white, and her skin became weaved with light so that no attack by the beast might do her harm. Then, armed with the mighty word of God, Camilla’s voice rang out like a trumpet’s blast and cast that demon back to the fires everlasting.

  And so the miracle had come to pass. Yet our Camilla, now crowned by a halo of holy brass, was not yet ready to pass God’s pearly gates. Instead, she lingered behind and pled on behalf of the Impii’s fate. And as we know, to this very day, the Lord was so moved as to forgive the Impii their sin. They would be saved, as was decreed by our saint, not by the sword, but by God’s holy word.

  Gavin cleared the theatrics from his throat. “Bless you Gareth, for lending us your wonderful gift again this year. It is with your words at heart that we better remember Lady Camilla’s undying faith and benevolent mercy, that in our time we might overcome the temptation to condemn our wayward brothers. For we must recall that we are all sinners in this world, and until that judgement day comes, sinners we shall remain.

  “Praise the Lord and his yet begotten son. May soon his kingdom come.”

  “May soon his kingdom come,” Jael murmured with the rest of the assembly, nearly unaware of her spoken devotion amidst the daydreams dancing before her eyes. She was, in her mind, riding alongside God’s champions as if she were Camilla herself, braving the hell-scape and placing her faith in the miracle that was to unfold. She even envisioned Camilla’s heavenly ascent—the feeling of wings bursting from her back, the weight and warmth of a halo about her head—but then the clamor of a hundred feet tore Leonhardt from her flight of fancy. Man and maiden, mother and child, all stood with mouths agape and necks twisted for the vestibule door, and even the good deacon, whose expressions tended toward the underwhelming, poured his attention over the open portal. Standing a head smaller than the shortest man in her row, Jael climbed onto the pews and peeked over.

  Through the entryway of Herbstfield’s meager chapel strode a single man surrounded by four. The latter of them, it seemed, were knights of an older time, suited in crimson surcoats over shirts of maille, and armed at the hip with broad-bladed swords. They bore uniquely embossed helms as well, each shaped to match the sigil emblazoned on its owner’s chest, though not one of them went worn. Instead, the antiquated knights cradled their helmets underarm as to keep keener watch over their charge—a vested clergyman, Jael guessed him, from his sober scowl and naked jaw. By the white and gold of his regalia, she figured him for a bishop as well. What she did not understand is why a high priest of the capital city might visit a farm town chapel, especially one so far from Pareo. Then her conundrum doubled. She glimpsed the glimmer of gold in the crucifix rows of his seven-tier crown, the crosier in his hands, and in the watered-silk fringes of his burgundy mantel as it flowed behind him like the river Nihil.

  That can’t be right, Jael doubted her eyes till she recognized the bishop’s crosier for what it truly was. Æturnum, the sword Saint Constance released from the Rock: wide as a man’s hand and twice an arm’s length, hidden away in its scabbard, all brass and brazed lace to match its gilded hilt—a thing cruciform and immense, bobbing and swaying above their heads with every step. Yet the strange bishop’s grace seemed inhuman as he crossed the nave. He moved with feet like feathers, unencumbered by the relic, unfettered by his age. Jael could hardly believe it, but her lips were already tracing his name.

  “Pride,” started Saint Paul as he abandoned his Temple Guard at the foot of the chancel and climbed its few stairs where the deacon awaited him, “it is a sin against our humility, yet how can I not be proud of such a faithful and obedient flock?” He paused just long enough for Gavin to vacate his little lectern and genuflect.

  “Forgive me, Your Holiness. I am not worthy to serve his divine majesty.”

  “None are worthy of the Lord’s grace,” countered the saint, extending the gold-ringed knuckles of his right hand. “Avow your pride as if it were blessing, my son. The Lord shall wash you clean.”

  “His will be done,” Gavin ceded, and at once Herbstfield’s clergyman took Paul’s hand in his own and kissed in turn each of the saint’s eight rings. “Glory,” he muttered, “worthy,” “mercy,” and “praise.” After the deacon’s final devotion, made over a golden bas-relief of Saint Constance himself, did the archbishop offer his scabbard and raise Gavin up as a lord would his vassal.

  More like t
he old kings, Jael decided while watching Saint Paul drop Æturnum into the deacon’s feeble hands as he turned from the lectern and took to the chancel center. His arms rose, and the assembly fell to their knees.

  “I greet you, faithful of Herbstfield. Doubtless, you know who I am and from where I’ve come. Some of you may have even seen my predecessor at the summer tourney almost two decades ago, just as many of you must be speculating—wondering—why I am here now. In due time, you will know. But for now, your saint has his own question: how many are in attendance this holyday morning? Eighty? Ninety? A hundred? And certainly there would be more if only they would fit inside your splendid, little chapel. My priests in Pareo, even with the grace and grandeur of the Temple Rock, can claim only half so many.

  “I have come here today as part of a pilgrimage, like that of Saint Lucius who served the Lord before me, to transform our burgeoningly secular—worldly—laity into loyal religious souls. But while I hold my predecessor’s efforts in greatest regard, I must also acknowledge that the epoch has changed. The time of salvation by the sword is over, its end marked by our victory in the Southern Crusade seventeen years prior, and buried by the peace achieved at all our borders.

  “Now our battles are to be fought with word and pen, and not just against the foreign sinners, but also those prolific temptations which have crept into our homes and onto the tongues of our kin—our own kind, in other words, are being taken by the Devil. For the Great Deceiver will not rest merely because we have bested his earthly cohorts. No. Like the damnable serpent he is, the Devil has slithered his way into our sciences, impregnated the pages of our philosophies, and corrupted the consciences of our youth—he is turning our divine revelations against us. Rumors tell of secluded pastors beguiled into breeding God’s truth with local pagan beliefs—faith breeding—and even I have seen with my own eyes the rise of Mephistine disbelief in the arts and treatises.

  “That is why I stand before you, to bolster our ecclesiastic hosts—our scribes, sisters, hands, and redeemers—with souls emboldened by faith. I am here to act as God’s right hand, to forever raise you from mere laity to the dizzying heights of religious servitude.” The Saint’s cadence slowed; his inflection redoubled. “With the wisdom bestowed upon me by Him most high, and with strength granted by you who stand below, I swear to spread and safekeep the purity of Messai, even in the face of the most devious, pagan influence.

  “With the blessing of my forebearer, my Lord, and his yet begotten son, I offer my praise above. May—”

  “May soon his kingdom come!” shouted a young voice from the back, followed by a lingering, uncertain silence. Not a single member knew whether to chide the youth or to beg his pardon. Looking to Gavin gave them little guidance. The deacon’s face was just as lost as theirs, and likewise, the saint’s rooted stare could have meant anything.

  Then suddenly Paul grinned. “I’ve heard tell of kindled spirits in the Summerlands, but it is another thing to witness it myself. Rise, young man, and tell me your name.”

  The entire assembly twisted their necks to see the brave soul, but he was just boy, eleven or twelve, trembling before the saint and his peers and the crowd.

  He sputtered like a drunk on church-day morning, “Your Holiness, I’m—I mean, my name—my name is— it’s—”

  “Gotthilf, Your Holiness,” Gavin answered for the boy. “He’s the apothecaries’ son. Helps me tend to the sick during the winter months. Bright and kind as his mother and sire.”

  Paul’s grin split wider as he stroked his naked jaw. “That’s quite an auspicious name God has gifted you, Gotthilf, yet I know it is only the first of His blessings. Many more await you, my son; all you must do is join me here in the light of the Lord and swear his four ecclesiastical oaths.”

  “The oaths, my lord—my grace—I mean, Your Holiness? I don’t know—”

  “Worry not, my child,” the saint cut him off, “There is no need for fear. I will guide you through the words. All that is required is that you say them with a genuine heart.”

  “Y-yes, Your Holiness,” stuttered the youth who, too terrified to protest, crept along the aisle, eyes fixed to the floor. Jael thought he might bolt, the way his fidgety fingers plucked at his hose and the skirt of his jerkin, but the boy marched on passed the Temple Guard to where the saint awaited.

  His head was still hanging when Paul instructed him, “Repeat after me, my child.” He pressed Gotthilf’s hands between his own, and the boy fell to his knees where his trembling voice echoed the saint’s.

  But Leonhardt could not focus on their oaths, not when such an unbelievable scene was manifesting only a few rows ahead. Angry curses and panicked breaths hardly audible under the saint’s devotions—it was the boy’s father fuming toward a fit of rage and his wife beside him, desperately trying and failing to contain his fury.

  “Damned snake,” Jael overheard. “He’s still just a child—let go of me, I have to—”

  “Quiet. If they hear you—” the mother lamented half-and-again as loud as her husband. The Saint had yet to notice, however, or so he and his guard pretended, but when the apothecaries’ son vowed a chaste end to his family line, the outbursts became too loud to ignore.

  “Gotthard, No!” the mother warned.

  Headless, the father jumped to his feet. “You don’t have to do this, son! Don’t let this devil take you from me!”

  Dead silence hung over the assembly like flecks of black soot floating in the stained-glass light, turned the splendid colors harsh as the dread in their hearts and in the faces of the Temple Guard—aloof, despite their thumbs rubbing the ends of their pummels and their sideways glances toward the saint.

  Immediately, the deacon went to whispering in the archbishop’s ear, but all that resulted was a single gesture, an open hand that could only mean one thing. Death. It was clear as the braziers’ inscriptions, as the glistening tears on Gotthilf’s pale cheeks, as the deacon’s reluctant tilt of Æturnum into Saint Paul’s hands—the white steel singing as the blade crossed brass.

  Jael bolted upright like lightning, so fast the backs of her knees crashed against the pews. “What is wrong with you!” she shouted, pointing out the blasphemers. “Don’t you know what a blessing this is? How long I’ve waited for—how long we’ve waited for something like this? You should be thanking the Lord! You… should… be…”

  They were all staring at her, waiting for her next words, for the apothecary’s retort, or for the saint’s judgement; but it was the boy who spoke first. His nose leaking and knees teetering, he slurred some closing prayers—ones unfit for the ecclesiastical oaths—then stood looking to his toes as Æturnum bore gently on his shoulder.

  “You knelt before me a boy, the son of an apothecary, and layman of the town of Herbstfield,” Saint Paul announced without so much as acknowledging the outcry; and in turn for the subtle act of mercy, no one questioned why such a knightly gesture as a sword on the shoulder was performed during an ecclesiastic rite. “Now rise before God a man, a servant of His church, and a friar of His great Temple of Pareo.” Arcing Æturnum’s silver-white blade overhead, he called for more faithful souls to offer themselves to the Lord.

  Jael watched, amazed and disturbed as devotees rose one after the other, none deterred by the apothecaries weeping into one another’s shirts. It was a queer mix of emotions, relief and unease, made all the stranger by Saint Paul’s glances which seemed to fall on her more than the soon-to-be scribes and missionaries. Each glare lasted longer than the last, and with every one came an unshakable guilt, like she was standing before a lord’s court; the saint, her judge; the new adherents, her jurors. Five had been recruited by the end, all lettered young men, including Acolyte Gareth, though none seemed to pay her any mind—save for the saint.

  His eyes rested on her as he addressed the assembly. “May the seven choirs sing the praises of these young men, and of their families, and of the deacon devoted to this arduous, pious road. For their suffering and sacrifi
ce, Herbstfield chapel and each of their families shall be pardoned five years’ tithes to the Temple Rock—a small mercy for the gifts your wonderous village has bestowed. Indeed, it is my sorrow to quit such a good and amiable place, yet my pilgrimage must return me south to my proper seat… But before we depart, is there not another in this assembly whose place is truly with the Lord?”

  Jael’s back stiffened, and in the spasm, the sounds escaped her mouth, “I, uh, I—”

  “There she is,” the archbishop seized his opportunity. “Our very own Camilla. Rise, my lady. Tell us your name.”

  “Jael,” she uttered, hardly able to overcome the moths roiling her stomach.

  Paul glanced toward Gavin and made a private jest while putting Æturnum to rest in its crosier-scabbard. “It seems the children of Herbstfield all bare blessed names. Yes, I believe there is a place for you among the Sisterhood, Jael, if you wish to learn the source of your namesake.”

  “Oh, I already know that. She was King Asher’s wife. I’ve read that story a hundred times,” blurted Leonhardt. “She slew the Dissident King Joseph in his sleep after he defeated her husband’s army and took her for his wife. After that, she…” Jael ceased, remembering too late to whom she was speaking, as if he didn’t know the story himself. To her shock, however, the saint did not take offense.

  “You truly have read the scriptures. Perhaps I ought take pilgrimage more often. I was under the impression that it was rare for the laity to teach their girls to read and write. Might your mother be in attendance that I may praise your education?”

  Leonhardt shook her head. “No, Your Holiness, it’s only me. But, it was my father who taught me to read.”

  “Was it now? Blessings to him as well. You’ll be of great use to the Lord. And with devotion enough to study the scriptures—at your age, of your own volition—perhaps special arrangements can be made with the Brothers Scribes. I’d hate to see such a bright mind waste away with the Sisterhood. Tell me your father’s name so I may summon him to explain the matter before taking you with us.”