Salt, Sand, and Blood

by MarQuese Liddle

  “Ricard Leonhardt,” answered Jael, “but I—”

  Suddenly, Paul’s whole countenance grew dark. “Leonhardt, you said? I did not think I would hear that name again.”

  “You know my father, Your Holiness?”

  The saint’s gaze panned across the high corners of the hall. “I knew of him. He served on Saint Lucius’s Temple Guard. For a time.” His eyes relaxed back to Jael. “Yes, I’m certain a special position can be made for you among the Scribes, or perhaps the Redeemers.”

  “What about the Cross?” Jael asked. She made her voice as serious as she could. This was her chance to serve in her father’s footsteps. She needed Saint Paul to believe her request was genuine.

  “The Knights of the Saint’s Cross?” Paul cocked an eyebrow as if he did not hear her quite right. “My lady, Pareo’s holy knights have no place for maidens in their ranks. Their service is not a game. Even if you were born a man, you would be wasting your God-given talents playing at knighthood.”

  “I wouldn’t be playing,” she snapped. Gasps and snickers swelled from behind, just as they always had.

  They were not the first to pressure Jael to conform; her mother had failed at that long before, as did her neighbors, and even Gavin till he recognized the fool’s errand for what it was. Only her father accepted her for who she knew she wished to be; and when others offered nothing but mockery, he told her that dreams were worth following.

  Dreams, that’s all they’ll ever be. He’ll never give me the chance to prove myself. Why would he? He’s never seen me pull a plow or thresh a harvest, or how I hold my own in practice. All he sees in me is some stupid farm girl too weak to—

  “Yes, you’re serious, I can see that now,” Saint Paul replied after a long, contemplative silence. Jael’s heart jumped in her chest so loudly she could hardly hear him. “Given the timing of our meeting,”

  Ba-Bum!

  “and the nobility of your blood,”

  Ba-Bum!

  “our Lord may have meant it to be. Yet to take such a drastic divergence from tradition… it is not my decision to make.”

  Ba—

  “I shall leave it to God to determine your fate, Leonhardt. You may return with us to the capital and join the aspirants in their Struggle. If it is His will, perhaps you may be permitted to swear the knights’ holy oaths. If not, then the Brothers Scribes might be graced by their first sister.” Paul reached toward the deacon again, this time seizing Æturnum’s scabbard by its brazed lace. “Now, though my visit here has been among the most pleasant of the pilgrimage, my duties demand me elsewhere. For those of you who have sworn your souls, I beseech you spend this night in prayer with your family, for we shall meet here tomorrow and depart come first light.” He rapped once on the chancel floor with the sheathed point of his sword. “In the name of the one true Lord, God almighty. May soon his Kingdom come.”

  Third Verse

  “It’s a miracle my son met you this morning,” said David, the Messaii pastor, smiling kindly, broad-jawed, tall, trim, and bright. “I still can’t believe it. Today of all days. This is a celebration for your people, after all.”

  Cain flung his hand toward the four banquet tables crowding the length of the parish nave. Every bench was full, every Impii and more than half the city’s Messah had gathered that evening for the holyday feast. “Don’t try to sweet talk me, old man. The Impii are your people, not mine.” His scowl never left the pastor’s face.

  A few feet away from the men, at the eastern end of his table, Adnihilo broke a chunk of stale bread from the trencher, crunching the crust to drown out their feud. He gnawed and chewed and glanced to Adam and Jezebel who occupied themselves doing much the same. They, however, had the sense to pace themselves. Their plates were half clean while his was twice emptied—a regret as he struggled to swallow the wad of bread softening in his mouth.

  Never in his life had the half-blood seen so much food in one place: trenchers of age-hardened barley overflowing with roasted mutton, mashed turnips mixed with butter and cream, and a medley of stewed beans and cabbage. All of it was covered in a dark-brown gravy so thick that not a drop stained the pearl-white tablecloths.

  Adnihilo sipped the bitter red from the bottom his cup then took another hunk from the trencher. Nausea hit as soon as it touched his lips, and he dropped it on his dish and listened. The sacrifice was speaking too loudly to ignore. “There’s never been peace between us, Messah. We remember the war. You’re murders and rapers. And the babe; hiding behind a newborn like cowards. If I knew the man it was, I’d kill him myself.”

  “Listen, Cain. What happened—what we did—there is no justification for it. But you’re chasing ghosts. There’s not a man alive who’s the same since then. These people you hate, they’re gone, they’re in the past.”

  “The past?” He lunged an inch from the pastor’s face. “What part is in the past, Messah? The slums? The graves? Why don’t you go tell that to mothers of the boys you killed? To the wives of the dead men? To the orphans? See for yourself how much it’s in the past!”

  David didn’t budge, just glared down his nose with ice-blue eyes at the dark, naked face glowering up at him. Sweat hung from his hair and beard like dew on fields of straw at dawn; a drop slipped from the tip of his nose and landed on Cain’s glistening scalp. The pastor stepped forward; the sacrifice lurched back.

  “The Lord has forgiven our sins,” David said, “and he’ll forgive yours, too. Heaven knows they must weigh on you.” Cain chuckled, and the pastor stroked the stubble on his chin. “What’s so funny?”

  “Something like that coming from someone like you. Should have known soon as I saw your boy. A real killer. But I bet he doesn’t even know you’re hiding those scars, let alone how you got them. Damn well wasn’t by preaching.”

  David’s hand slipped from his chin. “Like I said, the Lord has forgiven my sins.” He looked to his son, to Adnihilo and Jezebel. “You know, Cain, there is a saying among the veterans in Pareo. ‘Every soldier has to come home someday.’ For your family’s sake, you’d do well to remember it.”

  The sacrifice stared, silent for a moment, started to speak—stopped—started then stopped again. His face turned a shade of ebon violet. “Say that again,” he said, colored with rage. “Say it again, brave Messah. Find out what happens.”

  David repeated the saying without a second’s hesitation. Cain hadn’t expected that, and now he was trapped. He’d made a threat, and now he’d follow through or prove himself a coward. He looked around the room. There were but a few watching him, little risk to his reputation if he chose to back down, though the calculation itself was a craven move. The pastor had no need to look, to see if his assembly would witness and approve whatever his decision. It was the first time the half-blood knew his mentor could lose.

  Adnihilo tore his attention from Cain to Jezebel, desperate that she was seeing something else. He needed to believe that his eyes were lying, that he was not witnessing this weakness—his hero backing down like a frightened bitch—and over what? But Jezebel wasn’t even looking at him, preferring instead to tend to her plate. It was then the half-blood saw for the first time the bruises on her arms and the shadow below her eyes, how thin she appeared seated amongst the assembly—seeming half as shapely as she did among the dwellers of the slum. He had never noticed it before, how hard she and Cain lived, and how coddled he had been; waking up in late morning to baskets of goods: clothes and fruit and millet, never needing to work, never wanting for anything because of the congregation’s gifts. “Tribute,” his mother called their charity, but as he watched his mentor trudge to the table, he finally recognized pity for what it was.

  “So,” started Jezebel, “are you two going to eat, or should we throw your supper to the hounds?”

  Cain slunk onto the bench next to his singer and tore himself a hunk of gravy-sodden bread. “Trying to fattening up the dogs? I never took you for someone who’d eat hound, but I guess anything’s bette
r than goat again, right?” Adam forced a chuckle, though none of the others laughed. They could see the jab for what it was, and could see the retaliation perspiring on Jezebel’s tongue as the sacrifice cut her off. To Adam, he said, “Smile all you want, boy, but if your king thinks he can keep us suckling at his teat, you’re the one who’s going to be to his throat in slum dogs when his holy milk finally runs dry.”

  “Then good thing Babylon’s got no dearth of goats,” said David. His son laughed, sincerely this time, and the singer joined him. “Truly though, there is no need to worry. It’s rare that the clergy would approve something like this.”

  “It was a special reward,” Adam added, “for ‘keeping the Lord’s peace,’ and ‘cultivating the faith.’ That’s what Bishop Ba’al said in his letter. We’re the biggest parish outside the country. Father thinks we might even get enough tithes next year that we can start building chapels around the city.”

  Jezebel leaned in and stuffed a cut of mutton into her lover’s open mouth. “What was it like, living in Pareo?”

  “You’d have to ask Father. I was too little to remember.”

  “He was still a babe when we left,” the pastor explained, “and we were only in the capital for a few months. We lived in the heartlands north before that.”

  “It must be cold there.” She pointed to his clothes: ink-black boots, black woolen trousers, and an embroidered black half-cloak over a shirt scarlet red. “I’d be sweating under all that. Why don’t we strip you down some, let you cool off?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know if you’d would appreciate the view. It’s been years since I looked anything like your husband. As for my clothes, they’re meant to be travelling garments, but they’re all the vestments I have aside from my blacks.”

  Jezebel leaned her elbows on the table. “They’re certainly more lively than your normal robes. I never understood why the church colors are so bleak.”

  “It’s to symbolize humanity,” Adam answered, hardly able to contain his mirth. He glanced toward his father to be sure he had his attention. “We just talked about this in Catechism. The cassock represents the color of mankind’s soul, and the vestments get lighter as the spirit sheds its sin. A white sash for priesthood, and bishops get gold fringe.”

  “Are you teaching the lessons now?” asked Jezebel. “I might have attended more often had my tutor been as handsome.”

  Adam’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Handsome? I, I don’t know about that. I—wait! So you were a member once?”

  “She used to go to the sermons with her mother,” Cain divulged.

  Jezebel seethed, a single breath: short and deep and heavy as she sighed to the pastor’s son, “That was a long time ago. The parish hadn’t even been finished yet.”

  “But what about your mother? What’s her name? Does she still come?” pressed Adam.

  “Who knows,” Adnihilo hissed a little too loudly, “the bitch won’t talk to ‘dirty pagans’ like us.” He had hardly murmured the words when he saw the sacrifice rise out of the corner of his eye. He dared not look, sure punishment was coming. He clenched his teeth and his fingers and his eyes, yet seconds went by—and nothing. Warily, the half-blood loosened his eyelids. Cain stood with his armed raised, frozen—David glaring—half the assembly staring at them until the sacrifice returned to his place on the bench. Then silence. The pastor waved for his flock to carry on, but Adnihilo could feel the scorn, Cain’s anger, Jezebel’s disappointment.

  He wished he were gone—as far away as he could imagine, south of Eemah and the Golden Sea, beyond the mountain passes where the savages still lived and breathed and died. They did not have to be a sacrifice or a Messah or an Impii. He rose without a word, ignoring Adam and Jezebel’s calls as he drifted toward the great portal: two huge slabs of foreign oak, banded and fitted with repurposed bronze for a massive crossbar that loomed in the corner. He took the door ring in hand and wrenched; it swung, faster than he counted on; and the half-blood bumped into a strange man who had been pushing from the other side. Ink-black boots, black woolen trousers, and an embroidered black half-cloak over a shirt scarlet red. Like David, only he wore a sash—white silk and golden fringe. Adnihilo examined the Messah’s amber eyes and his spiny black hair and his contemptuous scowl, then the half-blood’s glare sunk as he skulked outside, hate hunching his shoulders.

  †

  Adnihilo reclined on the worn corners of the parish stairs. It was cold and quiet in the evening air, and the last traces of warmth had faded from the sandstone as he searched the sky for stars. There were none, and even the light of the moon could not part the clouds that blotted out the night. So he looked to the west where the sun had set and wondered what might lie over the horizon. Just desert and death, his mother’s lessons reminded him. Kill the boy.

  Footsteps crept from behind.

  “Lord, it feels like winter already,” exclaimed Adam. He plopped beside his friend and sat quiet for a while, gazing into the clouds. Minutes passed in silence. The steps grew cold, and still not a star shone in the sky. The pastor’s son sighed, “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Lead the flock like Father does.”

  Adnihilo sat up. “Why are you worried about that? You’ve got years before then.”

  “Not if we get those chapels. I know he’ll want me to do the services.”

  “And you’ll do great.”

  Adam stood and mussed his blonde hair. “No I won’t. You saw me in there. I made myself into a fool.” He sat back on the stairs and stared toward the sky. “God help me.”

  “You want to change places?”

  “What, you the pastor and me the sacrifice? I wouldn’t last a day.”

  Adnihilo rubbed his bruised leg. “You’d do better than you think. Have you had the chance to ask about it yet?”

  “About what?”

  “The sword.”

  Adam shook his head. “I was hoping I could ask him tonight if the feast went well, but I probably just spoiled the whole thing. I’m such an idiot… but what about you? Heard anything about the Pit?”

  “I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? It’s not your fault.”

  Adam jumped up again. “Yes it is. I should have talked with father about what to say, and then I made everything worse with my stupid questions, and—”

  “Adam,” The Messah paused, “It’s not your fault. I promise. I just…” He looked to the sky, saw the moon peeking through. “I don’t know.”

  “Only God knows,” The pastor’s son replied. The clouds were parting, and they scanned their surroundings in the dull light. “So, did you see that new girl at Amsah’s today?”

  “New girl? No, dammit, what’d I miss?”

  Adam glanced over his shoulders. “She was in the alley right before Cain and Jezebel came around. Mixed-blood girl, sandy blonde hair and this thin silk dress—I swear to the Lord of lords—you could see everything right through—I mean everything.”

  “You going to tell me what everything looked like?” The half-blood stood up and punched his friend in the arm.

  “Alright, alright,” Adam chuckled, but then his eyes flitted toward the lighted horizon. “Those aren’t rain clouds, are they?” he asked, gaping at the smoky tide rolling over the northern sky. “Or, you don’t think… a dust storm?”

  “This time of year?”

  The Messah squinted but seemed no more certain. “Come on, we should tell Father.”

  †

  Inside the parish, Messah and Impii were uprooted from their seats, limbs gesturing in gossip like branches in the wind. Cain and Jezebel were on their feet as well when the half-blood and pastor’s son spotted them. They had not migrated far from the end of their table, but the pastor himself was nowhere to be found.

  Adam asked after his father as soon as they reached the couple. The sacrifice neither answered nor even seemed to hear. He sa
t facing outward on the bench, goblet in hand filled to the brim with wine, neck hanging and shoulders rounded.

  The singer shook her head. “He walked off to talk with the other pastor right after you left.” She glanced around the hall, arms crossed and nails digging into her skin—feeding Adnihilo’s nervousness. She asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Father should have started the closing prayers by now,” the Messah murmured to himself, Then to Jezebel, “I think a dust storm is blowing this way. You said there was another pastor?”

  Adnihilo interjected. “I saw him come in.”

  “They’ll be in the office, then. We should let everyone know before somebody—”

  “Don’t waste your breath, boy. There are no dust storms during the rain-season.” His cup empty, Cain got up and grabbed Jezebel by the arm. “Come Adnihilo. We’re leaving.”

  “Already? But what about—”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” the sacrifice warned, and any time before that would’ve been enough. But not today, not after what Adnihilo saw between him and the pastor. It stoked something defiant inside of him, some spirit of rebellion.

  The half-blood steeled himself to face his mentor, nearly daring enough to look him in the eye—nearly, but not quite as he asserted, “We saw the clouds ourselves. They looked too low to be—” He felt the sting of a fist against his ear. Jezebel gasped, but the sacrifice spoke louder.

  “It’s just rain, boy. I didn’t teach you to be a coward.” He grabbed the half-blood’s chin, ripping invisible hairs with his calloused fingers as he forced him upright. “Didn’t teach you to talk like one, either. Stand up straight. Don’t let them see you leave hunched like a cripple.”

  “Get off me,” Adnihilo murmured. His voice was water and his nostrils driveled, but he refused to acknowledge it dripping onto his lips. “I said get off!” He bore his teeth, wound his arm, and swung hard as he could for the sacrifice’s abdomen. But when the half-blood’s fist hit the wall of muscle, the only thing hurt was his wrist. Then tears poured on top his shame and his anger. He broke from Cain, calling, “Come on, Adam. Let’s go.”