Unclean

by A. M. Manay

  “Have you had this one before?” Bluebell asked.

  “Yes,” Shiloh replied, “a couple of times.”

  “What did you do for it?” Bluebell inquired, resting her hand lightly upon Shiloh’s own.

  “Edmun chanted the countercurse, tossed me in an ice bath, and poured Comfort Potion down my throat,” Shiloh replied. “I don’t remember much of those nights, so there may have been other things he did. I don’t know.”

  Speaking was becoming more difficult. Her throat was beginning to burn. The supper bell rang.

  “Go,” she told them, trying to summon up her courage. “Eat. There’s nothing you can do for me without a wand or medicine. There’s no need for you to go hungry because I’m unwell.”

  “Perhaps she’s right,” Bluebell reluctantly concluded. “It’s going to be a long night for all three of us if we need to take care of her ourselves. It’ll be harder if we’re also hungry.”

  Shiloh listened to their footsteps as they joined the stream in the corridor. She clutched the prayer beads they had let her keep and concentrated on each breath, striving to keep them even, breathing out the heat that bloomed inside her. She heard heavier footsteps in the hall, and fear seized her.

  She forced herself to look and saw a guard’s trousers.

  “You sick or somethin’?” he asked, poking her with the stick they all wore on their belts.

  Oh, Gods I’m only in my linen. He’s seeing me only in my linen. Tears filled her eyes.

  “In a manner of speaking,” she hoarsely replied.

  “Rizoh, we got a sick one,” he called into the hallway. The noise cut through her head.

  “It’s not contagious,” she tried to assure him, hoping he would leave.

  “Prolly just lazy and don’t want to work tomorrow, Calen,” a voice called back.

  “Uh . . . I don’t think so, mate,” Calen answered. “She looks practically fit for the undertaker. It’s that hexborn one.”

  “That’s the one Brother Fenroh said to keep eyes on, yah?” Rizoh yelled.

  “Uh-huh,” Calen confirmed. He poked her again, almost curiously, as though she were a slug he’d found on the ground.

  “Best get her to the infirmary, then. He’ll be fit to be tied if she dies on us,” Calen said, finally appearing in the doorway.

  “Can ye walk?” Rizoh asked.

  “I very much doubt it,” Shiloh admitted. Another wave of embarrassment threatened to overwhelm her.

  “I’ll get the stretcher,” Rizoh sighed. “At least she looks to weigh next to nothing.”

  Shiloh closed her eyes and prayed for deliverance.

  “Child, I fear our little talk took something out of you.” Fenroh’s voice cut through the haze of pain, and Shiloh willed herself to look up at his blurry form. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have exerted such effort trying to hold out on me.”

  She tried to protest but could not produce the words with her bone-dry mouth. Fenroh smiled down at her sadly.

  “I imagine that Edmun did all he could to ease your suffering when this sort of thing would happen, when you were growing up in the Teeth,” Fenroh mused aloud. “Rumor has it that Hatch did the same for you back at the palace, as hard as that is to believe about the likes of him. But I’m afraid we have a rather different philosophy here, Miss Teethborn. Here, mercy is earned. If the Gods have chosen to impose this upon you, who am I to interfere? That is, at least, until you’ve shown genuine repentance, and proven your loyalty to the Patriarch and the Order.

  “Edmun eased your pain because you were all that was left of his sister. Hatch pretended to be kind to you in order to corrupt you, to use you for his evil purposes. I have a higher purpose in mind. I intend to save your soul.”

  Fenroh turned to the healer, whose name had escaped Shiloh. “Keep her alive, sister. Use an ice bath if it seems prudent. No Comfort Potion.”

  “But brother—” the healer began.

  “You heard me,” Fenroh ordered, voice cold. “Keep her all day tomorrow so she can recover, longer if need be. Then back to her cell and her duties once she can walk on her own.”

  He bent down until he could look right into Shiloh’s desperate eyes. “This is a gift from the Gods, Shiloh. They’re purging you of your sins. Making the Unclean clean again, as only they can. Preparing you to serve His Holiness and the Church. You will be so lovely when your pride and the influence of traitors and Reformers is burned away. Someday, you’ll thank me.” He held his hand just above her hair and murmured a blessing.

  Shiloh hid her face against her pillow and shook with the effort of swallowing her tears. He watched with no sign of distress before finally rising and striding out the door, his footfalls echoing through the infirmary.

  I’ll thank you, all right.

  Oh, I know exactly how I’ll thank you.

  I’ll smash this evil place to pieces.

  With you in it.

  Silas checked his mirror, as he did each night. He checked all the looking glasses he had strategically placed throughout the kingdom during the height of his power, when he had been the king’s right hand. Mirror magic was an obscure art, known to few in Bryn. He had been using that obscurity to his advantage for many years, and even in his time of trial, it still served him well. He had hidden this one in the seams of his clothes before his arrest.

  He took a peek at Kiven, sitting at his desk in Silas’s old study, looking as exhausted as Silas had ever seen him. Silas smirked. Lot harder than it looks to be Chief Minister, isn’t it, Kiven?

  The royal study was dark. Queen Esta had retired to bed, Silas supposed. She’d better rest up, with her wedding day fast approaching. Silas rolled his eyes.

  Northgate Castle looked quiet. He glimpsed his sister lying next to Gare in her bed. At least they’re safe. I do hope he’s planning to marry her before she falls pregnant.

  Finally, he turned his attention to the Citadel. There were no mirrors in the penitents’ cells. They didn’t wish to encourage the sin of vanity, after all. But when Rischar’s men had ransacked the place for valuables after driving the Patriarch to Gerne, Hatch had placed several ensorcered mirrors in strategic locations throughout the tower just in case the Elder’s Order ever returned.

  Silas’s mouth twisted in hatred at the sight of the Patriarch in bed with one of his Vestals. The Citadel library was quiet and dim, but lanterns burned in the Grand Purifier’s quarters. Silas’s eyes widened as he watched Fenroh whip his own back as he knelt before a gilded icon of the Elder.

  “That man is out of his gourd,” Silas whispered aloud.

  Shaking his head, he turned his attention to the infirmary, hoping to find it empty.

  “No,” he breathed. Shiloh lay in a bath of ice water, her face twisted in pain. A sister in gray knelt next to her, face distressed but hands empty.

  “Do something,” he hissed at the woman, eyes blazing. “For the Gods’ sakes, do something, please,” he begged, mouth trembling.

  Silas watched, helpless, until dawn came.

  “Oh, thank the Gods! We were afraid you had died!” Hana cried, seizing Shiloh in an embrace.

  Shiloh’s eyes flew open. “It’s good to see you, too, my lady,” she coughed.

  Hana stepped back stiffly, as though suddenly self-conscious about her unusual expression of affection. Bluebell had no such reservations, seizing Shiloh by the hand and leading her to their bed.

  “Are you well?” the girl asked, peering at her friend through sightless eyes.

  “Well enough,” Shiloh replied hoarsely.

  “You were gone three days!” Hana accused.

  “He told them to keep me until I could walk on my own, which I finally can,” Shiloh explained. “But I’ll need Lordsday tomorrow to give my hand a chance to stop shaking before I go back to work.”

  “Who told them to keep you?” Hana asked.

  “Brother Fenroh. The ‘Grand Purifier,’” Shiloh answered, eyes dark. “He had Sister Riah take care of me, but he
wouldn’t let her do anything for the pain.”

  “But why?” Hana asked.

  “He said the suffering is a gift from the Gods to cleanse me of my sin,” Shiloh spat.

  Bluebell shook her head. “There is nothing in this world more frightening than a true believer.”

  “That’s pretty funny coming from someone the Gods talk to,” Hana pointed out.

  “But unlike some, I don’t think hearing voices means that I should rule the world,” Bluebell replied.

  “After he questioned me the other day, he told me I was sentenced to five years light labor here,” Shiloh informed them. In all the excitement of her illness, she hadn’t had a chance to divulge the news sooner.

  “I got three,” Hana shared. “For pride and vanity along with heresy.” She made a sour face.

  “Eighteen months for me,” Bluebell added, “for violating the Cleanliness Laws.”

  “Don’t we get trials or something?” Shiloh protested.

  “Oh, they tried us. Without us in the room. In the church courts, there is no right to a defense,” Bluebell explained with a sigh. “Fenroh makes the final call on the punishments. Of course, the Patriarch can override, but he doesn’t make a habit of it. Fenroh isn’t exactly known for being lenient, and the Patriarch prefers to do as little work as possible.”

  Shiloh snorted. “Evidently.”

  “But what was your supposed crime?” Hana asked.

  Shiloh sighed. “Mostly the marriage with Hatch and healing the Deadlands.”

  Bluebell shook her head. “Healing the Deadlands doesn’t go against any Scripture or Canon Law. They just decided it was bad because you did it and they couldn’t take credit for it.”

  “Probably,” Shiloh agreed, downcast.

  “There are executions scheduled for tomorrow, during Worship,” Hana warned Shiloh. “They told us after morning prayers.”

  “Brother Charls?” Shiloh asked softly, brow drawn.

  Bluebell shook her head. “I don’t know. They didn’t share a list. But probably. I hear they usually clean the Pit out twice a year. They just kill them all at once and start over with a new batch of unfortunate souls. Of course, a lot die down there and don’t make it to the execution.”

  “A girl disappeared from the candle shop,” Hana confessed. “She’s a Feral they kidnapped from somewhere. They convicted her of atheism. She can’t be more than ten years old. Sister Dina made a joke about drowning the rats when someone asked where she was this morning.”

  “Gods preserve us. You know things are bad when I find myself feeling sorry for a Feral,” Shiloh replied. Something struck her. “Hana, why are you in the candle shop instead of the Script Shop? You have beautiful handwriting.”

  A cloud passed over Hana’s face, and Bluebell winced.

  “Oh, no, did something . . .” Shiloh began to ask, hand flying to her mouth in horror. “Did Master Rikkoh?”

  Hana nodded and sat down heavily on her bed. “Right after I got here, before you came. One day, he told me to stay late . . . The first time he did it, I was so surprised, I didn’t know what to do. I just let him. The second time, I just went mad . . . I fought like a Feral. Wound up biting his hand and stabbing him in the arm with my pen. He beat the tar out of me and got me reassigned to the candle shop. I guess he didn’t do anything worse to me because then he might get in trouble with the Purifier for breaking his vow of celibacy. This novice boy, though, he saw me after, trying to crawl back here with a broken arm and a concussion . . . he got Sister Riah to take care of me. He even gave me a piece of candy, if you can believe it,” she added, wiping away a tear. “He still slips me things. Fruit, or salve. Little things like that.”

  “Was it Brother Jivan?” Shiloh asked.

  Hana nodded.

  “He was driving the cart when Fenroh brought me here. One of Redwood’s bastards, he said. He seems too kind for this place.” Shiloh shook her head.

  “Perhaps he is a sign that even here, the Gods find a way to send a little mercy,” Bluebell offered.

  Shiloh smiled crookedly. “It’s not mercy that this place needs . . .

  “It’s a reckoning.”

  Leave it to the Patriarch to ruin the joys of worship, Shiloh muttered inwardly. She couldn’t see him very clearly, standing as she was in the crowd of penitents in the back of the Temple, but his nasal, sanctimonious voice carried well enough. In the front, the members of the Elder’s Order had padded pews and kneelers. The prisoners stood in close ranks behind them, men in front of the women, save those condemned to the Pit. They knelt in chains on a raised platform between the high altar and the pews, so that all the assembled could see them.

  Shiloh could barely recognize Charls, filthy and disheveled as he was. She peered around those in front of her, trying to catch his eye, but her friend kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling, his mouth moving over a ceaseless stream of prayers.

  As the chanting droned on, Shiloh grew tired. Only a few days since her attack, she lacked the strength to stand for so long. Hana and Bluebell took turns supporting her. Without them, she feared she’d be unable to remain upright. She did not want to find out what the punishment would be should she sink to the floor.

  At last, the closing sentences ran out, and they began the final hymn. Normally, the singing would have warmed her heart. Today, it filled her with a strange mixture of relief and dread.

  “Now what happens?” Shiloh whispered in Bluebell’s ear.

  “Outside for the execution,” Bluebell mouthed.

  They followed the crowd, and the guards guided them back into their ranks out in the yard. The primary feature of the open space was a reflecting pool filled with holy water. The pool was surrounded by Deadlands, polished smooth enough to shine like black marble.

  On most days, this was a place of pilgrimage. The religious would come to fill a bottle with water blessed by the Patriarch himself and carry it carefully back home, a priceless relic that would be passed through the generations. When the wind was still, the surface would reflect the image of the tower, the monument to the Patriarch’s power.

  Today, the water had a more sinister role to play.

  One of the guards grabbed Shiloh by the arm. She stiffened with alarm.

  “He wants you up front,” the man explained gruffly. Shiloh didn’t need to ask who.

  The guard half-dragged her to the front of the crowd of penitents. On the other side of the pool stood the priests and His Holiness, a sea of gray punctuated by the red of the Vestals and the sky blue of the Patriarch. A group of the condemned had already been forced to kneel in the shallow water, which, near the edge of the pool, came up to just beneath their chests. They seemed strangely calm to Shiloh. Only the little Feral girl wept as the priests began to chant the prayers for the dead.

  Gods help them. Gods help me.

  Charls looked up and caught her gaze. To her shock, he smiled warmly at her, and looked almost like himself for an instant. Then the moment was gone, and a dozen priests stepped forward to dispatch the first twelve of their victims.

  Shiloh swayed and felt a hand reach out to steady her from behind. She risked a glance over her shoulder to find Master Jonn’s kind eyes filled with sorrow that matched her own. Her heart fell even further to see her tutor in prisoners’ garb. My fault. It’s my fault he is here. She turned her head, desperately seeking one last connection with Charls, but he had already closed his eyes, his lips moving in prayer.

  The priests in gray knelt behind the condemned, their robes swirling and darkening in the water, then seized the heads of the doomed and forced them beneath the surface.

  Shiloh’s lips disappeared into a thin line as she watched them thrash, willing herself not to reveal her pain and horror. Dimly, she heard cries rise behind her from those who could not contain their dismay.

  Fenroh locked eyes with her as he planted his knee more firmly on Charls’ back, forcing the air from his lungs until at last, Shiloh’s friend lay still beneath th
e water. Shiloh would never forget the look on Fenroh’s face, a burning flame that chilled her to the bone.

  Three more sets of prisoners were drowned in quick succession, their bodies dragged from the water and tossed into carts to be taken to the pyre they’d been forced to build the previous day. But Shiloh didn’t see them. All she could see as she stood there shaking was Charls thrashing in the water.

  When the proceedings had at last concluded, the penitents processed back into the tower and dragged their weary bodies up the stairs to their cells. Fenroh stood by the door and blessed them as they passed by. The prisoners cringed beneath his prayers. As Shiloh came before him, he bent to whisper in her ear.

  “There now, child. You can repent properly now that it is done.”

  She forced herself to keep on walking. She began to weep as the Purifier’s voice faded behind her.

  Oh, no.

  It’s not done.

  It’s not nearly done.

  Crown Jewel

  Young Silas stood in the foyer of the Patriarch’s mansion in the Claw, trying not to twitch as he awaited a response to Alissa’s letter. At least it’s warm in here, he thought. He’d spent twenty hours straight in the saddle, and the weather had been none too pleasant. His stomach growled.

  A boy a few years his senior pushed open heavy doors and strode toward him. His gray robes hung pristine from his lanky frame, and Silas was acutely conscious of the mud on his own boots.

  “His Holiness requires more time to compose a reply,” the boy said importantly. “You may take a meal in the kitchen and bunk with the guards.”

  “May I, honored brother?” Silas replied drily.

  The boy glared at him. “You ought to be grateful for the Patriarch’s kindness.”

  “Oh, I am, I assure you,” Silas told him. It was a challenge to hide his disdain. “If you would direct me toward the kitchen, honored brother?”

  “I’ll show you. I don’t intend to have you traipsing all over this holy residence unescorted,” the boy replied.