Salt, Sand, and Blood

by MarQuese Liddle

  “Good effort, swindler, but it’s just a stained rag.”

  “I thought the same, Sir. Look closer. It will show you.”

  God save you, thought Gildmane as he unfolded the length of aged cloth. He hadn’t expected to have to make an example of anyone, nor had he foresaw the images which appeared in the red-umber splotches. There was a bronze man pierced through the heart, withered and weary, then thick and strong leaning on a long spear—then the image was gone, replaced by the face and mane of a lion. “I am Messiah,” it seemed to say, though no voice could be heard, no roar emanating from the bright light assailing the captain’s eyes. He winced, blinked until the world came back and it was the stranger and children and fairground revelry. At once, he asked, “Who knows about this?”

  “No one,” the northerner answered.

  “Good. Now fetch me my axe.”

  †

  Where are you, Ba’al? pondered Trey to the soft clopping of his destrier’s trot. He was nearly done making his rounds; only Blackheart and Jael were left to check on, and he had half a heart to retire early. None of the other squires had encountered trouble so far, and he doubted that a thief would dare test a member of the Cross. More pressing was the ivory box stuffed inside his saddle bag. He had no notion of what to do with the old linen folds nor with the vision it had given him—if he was not mad, that is. God damn it, is this thing even real? Ba’al would know, but the bishop was on the other side of the world by then. The captain was on his own.

  “Quickly! Oh Quickly” came a sickly sweet cry a short distance ahead. It was Maiden Roywynn, and there was Jael chasing at her heels. “Next is Dancing Bear Bazuso! We have to hurry or—oh, why did I eat all those prune cakes!”

  “Here, my lady. This one doesn’t seem so awful,” said Leonhardt, leading Charlotte toward the cleanest of the privies. Trey did not envy the girl. Unlike those built for the lodge, these were no better than oversized coffins with chamber pots.

  Praise the Lord for aqueducts, mused Gildmane just as the lynching tree sigil caught the corner of his eye. Harold Blackheart was waiting outside the privies for his ward as well. He had yet to spot either Trey or Jael, but the captain was curious what would happen when he did. Trey had heard the banter in the yard and Leonhardt’s complaints, but nothing so far proved an actionable offense. So Gildmane climbed quietly from atop his horse and led it behind a crowded sweets stall. From there he watched.

  Harold’s head swiveled slowly, yawning like a pig, his fat cheeks squeezing his droopy eyes scanning the fairgrounds. Half a minute passed. He glanced at Jael, spat at his boots, glanced toward the privies, then at Jael again before he finally made a move. Chin held high, looking sideways down his rotund nose, he called her to. “Oi, Leonhardt!”

  She ignored him.

  “Leonhardt!” he said, discomfort plain on his face. “Oi, listen! I’ve got something to say to you!”

  Still, Jael refused to acknowledge her fellow squire. She was looking nervous herself, fingers rapping her scabbard as Blackheart approached with a face of agitation.

  Thumbs in his belt, he confronted her. “Look here, you sour lass. I know you don’t got so much wax in your ears that you can’t hear me speaking to you. I ran into some of the invalid aspirants who’ve been hanging around for the fair. We got to talking and you came up, and I thought I ought to tell you what they thought of you getting in where they failed.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” was the first thing out of Jael’s mouth. Second was spit on Blackheart’s boots. A few fair-goers saw and formed into a loose circle, not that the squires noticed. They were too caught in their bickering to see anything aside from the worst in the other. Leonhardt continued, “Why don’t you go find your aberrant friends and tell them? That’s how you three get off, right? You pretend one of you is me and the other two mock, taking turns using the third like a woman.”

  Gildmane winced from his hiding place. Clever, though you could use a little more tact than that, he thought, then thought again. Or mayhap a bludgeon is the right tool for the job.

  “Will you listen to me, you stupid lass?” Blackheart spat, his temper rising. “I’m trying to tell you—” He stopped himself short, “No, you what? Fuck what they said about you. If this is the way it’s going to be, you can forget it. Sir Godfrey was right. You’re nothing but an up jumped, entitled slut.”

  “Lady Leonhardt!” cried Charlotte from inside the privy. “is everything alright?”

  Jael glared at Harold. “No need to worry yourself, my lady. It’s only an ass making a lot of noise.”

  “Mouthy bitch,” uttered Blackheart, reaching passed his sword for the cane tucked into his belt, drawing out three feet of knobbed blackthorn wood. “One day that tongue of yours is going to get someone killed. If I was back home, I’d crack some sense into you. But that wouldn’t work, would it?” He snorted, spat to side, and continued, “No, it wouldn’t. So I’m just going to prove it to you. Let’s see what you think after your lass takes a tumble.” He stole for the privies.

  Jael lunged in front of him, hand on her hilt as she dared him to test her.

  Gildmane crept closer.

  Harold swung from the roof. Leonhardt brought her own weapon to bear—a rising cut crossing between them, parrying the cane so her point lay level with the Black Brother’s heart. That’s when Trey noticed the surrounding crowd thickening. Some were jeering, some applauding, others gawking like they were players; but this had become a serious game. Another swing, another parry, and again she had him at sword point—this time at the neck.

  There were cheers as Jael smiled to the crowd. “Careful, Blackheart. My father taught me how to kill a man in maille.”

  “What happening? Lady Leonhardt?” cried Charlotte, and Jael glanced toward her ward. The Harold, red with rage, grabbed the tip of her sword and bared his own. Not until the captain spoke did he realize it was over.

  Gildmane burst through the crowd and roared, “Harold Blackheart!”

  The raged squire froze like a ghost possessed him. Everything pink went white, and he shivered, trembled, looked at the naked steel in his hand and dropped it in the mud. “Sir. I didn’t mean—”

  “Quiet!” Trey boomed. “I saw the whole thing: you attacked your fellow squire, broke your orders, and broke your oath in front of half a hundred witnesses.” The captain paused for the crowd to assimilate his suggestion, allow it to alter what they saw as if it had exactly happened then way he described. Only once Trey heard their murmurs of confirmation did he continue, “We of the Holy Order of the Saint’s Cross have no room for wanton murderers the likes of you.”

  Blackheart swallowed hard and called Trey’s bluff. He stuttered, “Nice try, Gildmane, but Sir Godfrey warned me about your stunts. You can’t just throw me out of your own authority, not after I’ve been confirmed.”

  “That’s right,” the captain smiled, snatching his axe from his hip. “Any last words?”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” gasped Harold.

  Charlotte opened the door.

  Jael screamed. The axe fell.

  Eleventh Verse

  They were a month on the water when at last Adnihilo caught a glimpse of the lush Gautaman coast. At first, he didn’t believe it. He’d been watching the horizon a long time without sign of anything but ocean, so long that he thought he’d die on that boat. Yet he kept on watching; there was little else he could do. His left arm was dead below the shoulder—immobile, numb—and his skin littered with wormy scars. he tried not to look at them. His spirits were low enough without revisiting old wounds. Yet he did that, too—gaze into the waves and reflect on his failings: Jezebel in the church and outside with the pale knight, Adam with the smuggler and again with the pirates. I couldn’t even protect myself, he thought as a tingling needled his useless arm. Then he gazed again over the grand horizon. But I made a promise. Kill the boy.

  Squeezing the hilt of his stolen sabre, he felt his blood rush to the rhythm of the waves.
They beat the bow like a drum. He was coming into a new land, one of gaunt, twisted hills and broad forest lowlands where villages stood like fortresses above tiered moats of wetland—rice fields, if the bishop was to be believed, separated by frail thatch screens. But these were mere farms and homesteads. Where he and Adam and Magdalynn were going was something else, something out of a dream, the great city.

  It rose one evening out of the sea. They were rounding the cape of Gautama, Adnihilo watching from atop the crow’s nest, when an islet appeared not far in the distance. And as their shipped turned north, he saw another, then another. There were more than twenty visible before the half-blood realized they were not islets at all but ships anchored together and docked along a floating pier. It was another hour before land appeared, and by then, they were in the thick of the cobweb harbor. Adnihilo never put down his sword, for there was no shortage of Gautaman spiders. Everywhere he looked were the black flags and sails of slavers and pirates. A few were merchant vessels, but these too put a fear in the half-blood. They were monstrous, dwarfing the carrack as they passed like a lion passes a mouse.

  Then darkness fell, and the lights of the city outshone the sky. A thousand, thousand lanterns burned so bright that he could make out the short houses with their gabled, sweeping roofs, green as the mountain wilderness. The whole place seemed a palace to Adnihilo. Everywhere he looked were arched gates and clay statues of lions and hounds guarding multi-winged houses, gardens and courtyards, ponds and wells. And at the city’s center, wooden castles towered, their tiered, tiled roofs glowing golden, their walls bright red.

  “We’re here!” gasped Adnihilo, breathless after dashing below deck and waking Adam and Magdalynn from their sleep.

  At dawn, they finally departed the ship, abandoned it to the few remaining mutineers as payment for double crossing their captain. It felt odd having firm ground beneath them. The half-blood nearly tripped half a dozen times, as did his friends, and they smiled and japed about it together. The bishop, however, found less humor in it. He’d been that way since the night of the raid—weary, dark eyed, and pale—and his mood worsened after he exhausted his opium. That was days ago. Now, even a wrong look could raise Hell in him, and they were walking through a city more crowded than an ant mound.

  “Come on. Can’t you walk any faster?” Ba’al spat at Adam. “I’m sick of looking at these slant-eyed pagans. The chapel is just up ahead. We unload there.”

  The pastor’s son leaned a little longer on his crutch. It was a makeshift thing Magdalynn fashioned for him out of spare rope and barrel slats the day after the attack. Even after a month, he couldn’t walk without it, but the Messah didn’t whinge—said he considered himself lucky that with a wound so deep he didn’t lose his leg. Nothing, it seemed, could break Adam’s spirit. He took Ba’al’s heckling in stride and asked, “How long have we had a chapel in Gautama, Your Grace? Father always said it was too dangerous to send missionaries so far east.”

  “A little less than a decade. Lucius sent one missionary before, but he never returned. Once Paul was anointed, we thought we might try again. My idea, truly. All of it: the expansion of the ecclesiastics, the peace with King Solomon, the Gautaman outreach. Cornelius hasn’t done a damned thing without my counsel.”

  Adam hobbled alongside the bishop, eyes bright with curiosity. “How did you get so much influence over the saint? Is that what it’s like, being a bishop?”

  Ba’al grinned, a razor smile that sent a chill down Adnihilo’s spine. “The saint doesn’t listen a damn to his clergymen. I’m a prophet, boy, and Paul damn well knows it.” The conversation paused, no one willing to contest the claim nor to believe it. Meanwhile, they arrived at the chapel, an unadorned structure of wood and whitewash, narrow, long, and taller than the surrounding Gautaman shopfronts, the Messaii cross looming atop its roof. Inside was almost barren: no pews, no transept, no altar, no chancel; just a rectangular room with cushions and a lectern, and a single flight of stairs leading up to a locked door.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Adam.

  The bishop dropped his pack. “Last I heard from my contact, it’s only a small assembly that meets on midday. But I don’t want you around for that. These Gauts are fickle, and we need their tithes to afford provision for the journey.”

  “What journey?” asked Adnihilo.

  Ba’al pulled a key from inside his pack, ignoring him. “Speaking of which, the assembly should be here soon. Leave the bags and go find something useful to do until evening.”

  The half-blood pressed. “What about food? And what’s behind that door?”

  “Fend for yourself, Imp. We need to save for supplies: food, clothes, tents.”

  Opium, wine, that black powder, thought Adnihilo. “What’s up the stairs?”

  “You stay away from there.”

  “Why?”

  Adam laid a hand on his friend’s deadened shoulder—a thousand, dull needles, prickling, cold. “Let’s go. Mags is getting hungry, and I could eat a horse.” They were walking along the dock when Adam spoke again, Magdalynn clinging to his free arm, his other leaning on his crutch. “Do you think one of these merchants would give us something? I don’t want to beg, but what else can we do?”

  “We could run,” Adnihilo answered. “There’s nothing stopping us. We could steal onto a ship and try to get back home, or to Pareo.”

  “You still don’t trust him? Even after he saved us?”

  “We saved us.”

  Magdalynn broke in, “He promised! He said he would take us home! And he said you wouldn’t believe it.” She pointed at Adnihilo. Then, with eyes shimmering, to Adam she said, “I want to stay, and I want you to stay with me. Please don’t go.”

  He caressed the girl’s strawberry blonde hair, “I made you a promise, remember? We’ll stay together no matter what. I’m going to make certain you get home.” He looked toward Adnihilo. “You too. I want us to stick together.”

  “I don’t trust him,” spat the half-blood, turning toward a side street packed with foot traffic. “He’s using us. Using you. You can’t even walk. My arm is fucked and…” He thought of the dozens of dead pirates scattered about the deck—their rash, bloated faces. It gave him tremors. “And what in Hell killed all those men? He won’t tell us, and you trust that?”

  “Adnihilo.”

  The half-blood would not hear it. He was angry. He was afraid. It might have been necessary to play along while imprisoned on the ocean, but this bishop, whatever he truly was, would turn on them soon enough. He needed to be ready. He needed to escape. He touched the hilt of his sabre to make sure it was there, then he vanished in a stream of pedestrians flowing into the heart of the city.

  “Adnihilo!” Adam called after him, but he was gone.

  †

  The witch’s son walked for hours amongst a thousand pairs of narrow eyes, yet none seemed to notice him. They hardly noticed one another, and Adnihilo wondered if they could tell each other apart. Everywhere he looked was the same flaxen face, the same round chin and black, silken hair. He couldn’t tell a man from a women, so similar were their frames under long robes of cotton and silk. The same held true for the homes and the roads. They were perfectly symmetrical, as was the flow of traffic uninterrupted as people entered and exited from an endless web of interconnected alleys.

  Before he knew it, Adnihilo lost his way. Kill the boy, he thought, his only answer to everything. But wasn’t yet a child himself? What could he do now, a coward and a cripple? A slave, an animal, he mused as a Gautaman child, perhaps eight years old, broke from the flow of the crowd to approach him. The boy’s face was at once amazed and terrified, his thin eyes stretched wide and his little hands reaching. “What do you want?” asked Adnihilo, and the boy answered in unintelligible words, touched his own hair then reached for the half-blood’s. “You want to touch my hair?” What’s wrong with these Gauts, Adnihilo thought to himself, yet he knelt, and the boy grabbed a knotted rust-brown lock and gasped as i
f a dog had snapped at him. Then his tongue began running, and it did not stop as he poked and prodded at the foreigner, gasping and laughing and chatting away on his own. The witch’s son didn’t know what to think till he took a stiff finger to the stomach. “Hey!” escaped his mouth, and he jabbed the boy back. “How do you like it!” The child answered by stabbing Adnihilo a few more times with his stubby fingers, all the while contagious with laughter. Soon, their game became a full-scale duel. Fingers flashed, giggling ensued, and passersby scowled at the disturbance of two fools play-fighting underfoot. And for the few minutes this went on, Adnihilo forgot his scuffle with Adam, the uselessness of his left arm, the home he lost in the Purge of Babylon; But then a woman’s voice wailed over the crowd. The Gautaman boy frowned, called back to his mother, turned without a word, scampered off, and vanished. In an instant, the witch’s son was alone again. Alone, lost, and broken.

  Adnihilo turned into the nearest alley, his right hand over his eyes hiding his tears. He didn’t understand why he was crying, only that he was glad no one was around to see it—no one he cared about, anyway. Cain was dead, as was Jezebel and his mother. What did it matter if the Gautamans saw? But then why the tears at all? He thought again, of Adam and Magdalynn, realized how much he envied his friend. The pastor’s son had not turned craven in the heat of danger. He hadn’t failed to take revenge and rescue Magdalynn, nor did his faith relent even in the face of his injuries. What could the half-blood claim in comparison but failure? What made them so different?

  “Kill the boy,” Adnihilo repeated aloud, looking up at the sun climbing above as it scoured the alley of its shade. He rubbed his cheeks dry—he’d done enough crying for one life time—and readied himself to leave. The alley? The city? Gautama? His friends and captor? He had no idea, but he knew he’d forever remain a child waiting teary-eyed for the answer to find him. Yet he stopped just as he was about to depart. Someone was watching him, he could feel it, like a pair of eyes gleaming at the edge of his vision. He glanced over his shoulder.