clouds.
That afternoon, the dead began to arrive. Old folk, mostly, for whom the cold was simply one trial too much to bear. Found by neighbours, brought by family on sleds or carried through the snow. Even when all commerce had ceased, everybody knew how important it was that the dead be brought to the goddess. The funeral pyres could not be lit for their final journey, not when the courtyard was smothered, but the bodies could be prepared and the rites spoken for them. There were twenty, that first day. The next day, seventy. The day after, two hundred.
An incense-laden brazier smoked in each corner of the laying-out chamber. Brother Imemi led four other brothers in the rites; Caitria had become his pale shadow over these last days. There was no longer any space for idle hands at the Temple of Arandarta – even a fledging healer must be put to work at something more useful than polishing silver.
Imemi had walked her round the chamber that morning, pointing out each jar of oil and explaining its use. This one for cleansing, this one for purification, this one must always be used straight after that one, and always before this other one. Only Imemi must use this one, and that is the jar for wastage. She inhaled the scent of each one deeply, committing it to memory.
‘Can you do this, little Cait?’ His dark eyes were sharp, looking for her uncertainty.
‘I can do it,’ she said.
‘Then light the candles.’
And the first body was brought in. Caitria concentrated as she never had before, not when she learned history and mathematics at school, not when her mother taught her the art of healing. Imemi’s rich voice underpinned the entire rite, each phrase of the chant prompting her for what was required next. This jar of oil to the brother at the foot of the table now, then this one to Imemi, then take this jar from the brother at the left hand and pour the wastage out. The ritual was only a few minutes long, but that first one seemed to last hours for Caitria. Finally she heard the end words of the chant, and unfolded the winding sheet, passing it between the brothers so it could be stretched out, ready for the wrapping of the wrinkled corpse.
Normally the body would be left on the laying-out table until the funeral pyre was prepared, but they had run out of space. Benches lined the walls, some of them already filled with bodies, and the shrouded corpse was lifted reverently on to one of these.
Another body was brought in, and another, and another. Caitria became not just capable of her role in the ritual, but superb. Imemi nodded at her as she curtseyed her respect to the statue of Arandarta set into the wall. Before each rite she lined up the jars neatly, already in the order in which they would be required. She could snap the shrouds out with a flick of her wrist, turning them so they settled straight and uncreased across the bodies. They worked all day and into the evening. A brief, quiet meal was followed by a few hours sleep, and then it began again.
They stood, and they waited. Four brothers, and Caitria. Waiting for Brother Imemi. It was growing late; the sun had set, and there were still a dozen rites to be spoken before the end of the day.
‘I’m going to find him,’ announced Caitria when her patience ran out. Leaving the room, she traced the quickest route she knew through the maze of stone to the storeroom where the sacred oils were kept. Imemi was one of the few brothers who held the key; he had gone for more jars.
She smelled something wrong before she could see it. A heady scent of lavender fragrance, underpinned with a whiff of something much more unpleasant. Caitria ran down the last corridor.
‘He’ll live.’ Brother Renard wiped his hands with a damp towel as he stood beside Imemi’s bedside. ‘Just a little food poisoning.’
Caitria had found Imemi on the floor of the storeroom, lying in a pool of vomit and oil spilled from a broken jar. Her shouts had brought other brothers running, and she had followed them as they carried him to his cell. She hovered in the doorway now, moving from foot to foot uncertainly. ‘He’ll be alright?’
‘He will. But we must let him rest.’
‘What about the rites?’
‘The rites will have to wait. There are no other senior brothers. Tomorrow will have to be good enough.’
‘No!’
Renard looked sternly at her and opened his mouth with a ready rebuke, but she cut him off.
‘The Book of Nine says that the rites must be said within a day. They must be said, or the souls won’t find their way to the otherworld!’
‘Arandarta is merciful, our Caitria. She will understand.’
‘What if she doesn’t?’ Caitria pushed past Renard, to stand beside Imemi. ‘So.’ She reached out a hand, but Renard was just as quick to grab her wrist.
‘No! You will not heal him. The Book of Nine forbids it.’
Caitria glared up at him. ‘The Book of Nine forbids a servant of Arandarta to use magic to prolong life. I am not a sworn servant of Arandarta, and you said yourself he will not die from this. I am not averting death.’
Renard stared back at her.
‘My mother has shown me how to do this, Renard. There are rites that need to be said.’
Slowly, he released her hand. ‘Arandarta forgive me.’
‘You said yourself, she is merciful.’ Caitria turned back to Imemi, reaching inside herself for her flowering magic. The illness was easy to find; a shadow sitting in his stomach. She burned it away in a single flash that showed as silver to an inner sense she didn’t know how to name. ‘There.’
Imemi’s eyes fluttered open. His face was still sheened with sweat, but already his breathing was steady again.
‘Stop malingering,’ said Caitria. ‘There’s work to be done.’
He met her level gaze for a long pause, then smiled. ‘Little Cait. You are quite the determined one, aren’t you?’
The snow stopped. The sun shone, melting the top layer of snow, then set, and the meltwater froze. On the third day of this, Imemi declared that it was time for Caitria to go home. The constant intake of the dead had dried up, and she had been working in the kitchens, helping to keep the brothers fed as they cleared the inner courtyard of snow in preparation for the funeral pyres.
Brother Renard produced a set of spikes for Caitria to strap to her boots. With them, she could walk on the ice without slipping.
Be-furred and be-spiked together, Caitria and Imemi left the temple. There was a quiet in the crisp air that Caitria had never witnessed in Arraven. The sun sparkled silver off the ice-covered snow on the rooftops, icicles several feet long hanging from the eaves, while inside folk huddled round braziers and fireglasses and prayed to Morrigan for spring to come.
‘They fear Arandarta because she is death,’ said Imemi, a slight flash of white teeth showing. ‘But she is also fire, just as the sun is. She is also life. Do you understand, little Cait?’
She nodded, ice crunching beneath her spikes.
‘So babes in the cradle are taught to fear Arandarta, but you and I know that is wrong.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And young novices are taught that healers may not serve Arandarta. I wonder, little Cait. I wonder.’
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