by Dora Machado
He didn’t speak again until they were back trekking within the relative safety of the trees on the other side of the clearing. “There’s no rule that says that every woman in the world has to have issue,” he said.
“I don’t know I ever wanted to have what you so formally call issue,” she said. “But I might have liked raising a brood in my home. By the way, I’ve answered your question, so it’s my turn to ask a question. Do you have a family back in Laonia?”
“My mother died in childbirth,” he said. “My father died almost ten years ago. I had three brothers. They’re gone too. Why didn’t you want to bear children?”
“I was afraid for them.”
Bren scratched his head. “You were afraid for children you didn’t have?”
“No child under Aponte’s roof would’ve been safe. A baby would’ve become another possession to him, an object, like I was, existing as his property and for his use. I wasn’t willing to do that to a child.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Perhaps I’m just not suited for marriage. Aponte used to say it all the time. I was too willful, too proud, defective really, for being somebody’s wife.”
“Aponte Rummins is a beast,” Bren said. “You shouldn’t have married him in the first place and you should’ve left him at the first practicable opportunity.”
“And if you hadn’t been a high and mighty ruler, could you have done any better?”
Probably not, but he didn’t say that aloud.
The splash of hooves on water echoed through the bog. The sound was coming from the direction ahead of them. Damn Orell. He was being thorough.
“Let’s wait here until they move out of the way.”
Lusielle nodded, sitting next to him on a dry ledge tucked behind a pile of moss covered rocks. Her challenge came after a little while, first in the form of a stare, then in a whisper. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?” he whispered back.
“That you hunt a birthmark for sport.”
“What do you know of highborn matters?”
“Nothing,” she said, “but I know you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I think I do.”
Her certainty frightened him.
“I wonder,” she said. “What kind of crime turns a good man into an outlaw?”
“You’re assuming I’m a good man.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “That part I know.”
“You’re bound to be disappointed.”
“You’ve met me at the bottom of all disappointments.”
He stared at her, baffled. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“No offense, my lord. You handle your weapon deftly. I don’t question your abilities, but I can’t doubt your character either.”
“How by the piss of the gods would you know anything about me or my character?”
“You oppose Orell, a man who I know enjoys torture and death.”
“I don’t hear the horses anymore—”
“You see right and wrong in the world.”
“I think we’re clear to go—”
“You don’t condone injustice, thus your dislike for Riva and Aponte. You take the orphans in Laonia under your protection and make sure they earn a livelihood.”
He stood up, unable to keep still anymore, ready to take on Orell’s thugs over the fallacy of his virtuous character.
“You came after me,” she said. “Three times. And you haven’t killed me yet. Can’t you see? You can’t be a sport-driven, cold-blooded murderer.”
If her logic impressed him, her candor shocked him. Deceit he knew. Intrigue he could handle. Betrayal he counted on. He just wasn’t used to straightforward honesty. Perhaps he should have said something reassuring, but he refused to stoop down into the ranks of cheats and liars.
A flash of movement alerted him to the danger. He motioned for Lusielle to stay still and waded through the bog as silently as possible. An eddy broke the water’s tranquil surface. A subtle grating came from a wooded cluster. Bren crouched amidst a growth of swamp brackens, and waited. A creak. A snap. He lifted his blade in the air, expecting one of Orell’s men to crash out of the woods.
An inquisitive creature slithered out into the dark water instead, sniffing the air and wrinkling its nose as if it had caught a vile whiff.
“It’s only a beaver.”
Lusielle’s voice, so near to his ear, startled Bren. He almost cleaved her in half. The fear he spotted in her face made him cringe. “Don’t do that again!”
“What?”
“Sneak up like that. I could’ve killed you!”
“And how’s that news?”
“No more questions.” She had a gift for poking all his sore spots. “I’m done with your game.”
He tramped ahead, retreating into the safety of his sullen silence, rebuilding the necessary distance between them.
Lusielle’s wits were sharp enough to note details most people wouldn’t notice. She possessed the kind of sound reasoning he would have cherished in any other person, the even rational approach to problems he would have favored under any other circumstances. But there was nothing rational about his curse, nothing logical about his duty.
The fallacy wasn’t in Lusielle’s reasoning. She was right: He didn’t want to kill her. The fallacy was in the sheer, incomprehensible horror of his cursed existence. He had to kill her by means that would defy even the foulest of imaginations. And even though her actions had earned her a reprieve, there was no way around her murder.
Chapter Fifteen
THE THIRTEENTH TEMPLE OF THE LESSER Gods was more of a fortress than a temple. A tall whitewashed wall rose from the grassy meadow less than a league away from the horrors of the Dismal Bog. The wall was covered with exuberant paintings, vibrantly colored depictions of the lesser gods’ deeds, cramming the wall from top to bottom and for as far as Lusielle could see. Life inside the temple, however, seemed to be limited to its artful representation. Bren banged the iron ring on the massive doors to no avail.
“They’re at the prayers,” the blind beggar sitting by the gates said. “You can bang all you want, but they won’t open the doors for the worshipping day until they finish their rites.”
Lusielle shuddered. They had beat Orell to the temple, but the thug was probably on the way and not too far off. Orell and his men were likely to show up at any moment.
Bren stormed off to inspect the massive walls. His silence was frightening and alienating. His mood was like the changing season’s unpredictable weather—fine one moment, violently storming the next. Was he capable of murder after all?
The gods would have to help her now if she had made the wrong choice.
She shifted her attention to the formidable walls before her, wondering what kind of place this temple was. She had never been to any of the kingdom’s temples before. Her parents had always stayed clear of towns and temples. Aponte had limited her outings to his store and warehouses, severely punishing her if she deviated from her daily routes. He claimed he was protecting her from a corrupted and corruptive world. Right.
She shook off the chilling memories and focused on the present. It also required her wits. At least now she had a chance at something else. She had hope and—provided she could part ways with Laonia’s odd lord fairly soon—she had a dream she could have never considered while living in the kingdom under Aponte’s rule. She was curious about the thirteenth temple, but as she stood in front of the massive gates, she didn’t know what to expect.
She kept an eye out for Orell and his men. A few hundred people loitered by the gates, waiting to worship one god or another. Some seemed like locals on an outing. Others were obviously travelers by the look of their baggage and the makeshift tent town sprouting in the surrounding fields. Most came by foot, but mules, donkeys and the occasional horse loafed in the meadow.
An old woman squinted at Lusielle through the swollen eyelid of her infected eye. “What are you, c
ursed with filth?” she said. “You don’t need the gods to cure that. A bath will do.”
Lusielle tried to shake off the mud clinging to her skirt, but the woman was right. Nothing except a good scrubbing could improve her or her clothes. “We had a bit of a rough journey getting here.”
“Don’t we all.” The woman smiled, a flash of pink gums and a few crooked teeth. “Are you here to pray for a husband?” She glanced over to Bren, who looked as filthy as Lusielle did. “No, you’ve got one of ‘em losers. Let me guess. You’re here to worship Odalis. Having trouble getting with child? Or is your man running around on you?”
“Odalis has nothing to gift me,” Lusielle said. “What about you? Why are you here?”
“At my age, I got the long list.” She pointed to her inflamed eye. “I want relief from Izar’s curse if she wills it, a blessing for my new grandson from Pious Eligious, and one last favor from fickle Puernicious.”
“Puernicious?”
“God of luck, girl, king of the odds. You’re still counting on your nice curves for advancement. This old wench needs a big win to finance her old age.”
“You might be able to help the healing along.” Lusielle took a closer look at the woman’s ailing eye. “An infusion of berberine and dry sobar petals may help clear your eye. I hear the temples have a good selection of useful ingredients.”
“Are you one of Izar’s chosen?” the woman asked.
“Oh, no, but I have some experience with remedies.”
“How kind of you to offer to make me an infusion.” The woman proffered her hand. “I’m Nelia. What’s your name? Where are you and your man from?”
Lusielle shook the woman’s hand, but her eyes narrowed on the speck of dust she spotted down the road. It was moving. Fast. Horses. Lots of them.
She called out to Bren. “They’re coming.”
Bren’s face hardened. Despite the distance, Lusielle could see that Orell had augmented his numbers since they had last met. At least some twenty warriors rode with him.
The old woman was already running, scattering at the sight of the king’s forces like the rest of the people who had been waiting by the gates. Panic rippled through the crowd, sending the frightened worshippers to hide among the wheat fields and the forest beyond. Even the blind beggar fled, challenging the seeing folk with a swift escape.
“Put out your hands,” Bren said, undoing the leather straps around his forearms and wrapping them around his fingers. “Stand firm against the wall.”
With a running start, he stepped on Lusielle’s clasped hands. His body’s heavy load balanced there briefly as he bounded onto her shoulder and jumped, reaching out for the top of the wall.
He managed to hook a knuckle or two around the base of one of the spiked iron barbs topping the wall. For a moment, he dangled there, scuffing his dirty boots against the wall, summoning the strength to pull himself up. Swinging his leg, he managed to wedge his foot between the jagged shards, finding purchase to scale the rest of the way up, until he balanced precariously on the narrow ledge edging the spikes.
“Sorry,” he said, before he flexed his knees and, leaping high above the barbs, dove into the compound.
Lusielle had a sense of sudden loss. She looked back and saw the king’s warriors, coming closer. It occurred to her that the Lord of Laonia was now safe behind those walls while she wasn’t.
She crept a few paces along the wall until she felt her back pressing against the gates. Orell’s face was visible now, mouth twisted in anger. She had an urge to run, but where? Through the meadow like the others? Back to the swamp?
A bell tolled behind the walls. The rustle and bang of wood preceded the screech of the gates. The massive doors cracked open.
“In here.” Bren yanked her inside. With a grunt and a push, he shut the door behind her and tackled the heavy bar.
Lusielle’s rubbery knees buckled, but she forced herself into action. The bar had just fallen on the brackets when the door rattled with Orell’s furious pounding.
“On behalf of the king,” he shouted, “I command you to open the gates!”
Fear weakened Lusielle’s legs, and not just because of the close call. The space they had entered consisted of a massive courtyard crammed with the lesser gods’ many shrines. Colorful buildings of all manner of construction and sizes packed the huge courtyard from the outer wall to the inner wall. Another concentric set of inner walls were built at the base of a gradually sloping hill above the courtyard, dotted with small windows and arched balconies. A third set of fortified walls sat atop the crest of the hill like a shimmering crown.
But it wasn’t the visual shock of the ornately decorated architecture overwhelming Lusielle. It was the red-clad army of priests pouring from the inner wall’s gate, the anointed Ascended who comprised the rank and file at the temple, surging towards them like a bloody tide.
The Ascended held no flowers in their hands to welcome them. Instead, they wielded long fighting canes sharpened at both ends. The canes strummed as they sliced the air, bouncing with a hollow thud when they crashed against Bren’s sword.
He warded off the attack, sidestepping his opponents, deflecting the onrush of blows and disarming quite a few of the Ascended. “On behalf of the house of Uras,” he said while parrying, “I bid you to stop.”
“House of Uras?” one of the Ascended said. “Stop!” he said to the others, who heeded his order. “Now, show us your ring.”
Tracking the uneasy group with his sword, Bren dug out a chain from beneath his shirt. A large, silver ring dangled at the end of the chain, topped by a black etching, which Bren displayed for the Ascended.
Something about the ring struck Lusielle as familiar, but she had never seen it before, didn’t even know he had it until this moment.
“Who rang the bell?” A commanding voice echoed in the courtyard. “Who dares to disrupt our rites?”
A strapping man of mid years, average height and unremarkable features stepped through the ranks, dressed in a red robe edged with golden ribbons and matching silk sandals. He might have been easily confused with all of the other Ascended, had it not been for the jeweled belt around his waist, the long braid, which reached down to his knees, and the expression of indisputable authority fixed on his face.
Red lines rimmed the shrewd eyes that scoured Bren and undressed Lusielle as if she was but a harlot working the streets. She watched the man as he came down the stairs. To her trained eye, his gait lacked the confidence to match his arrogance.
“What mortal man dares the wrath of the Thousand Gods’ legions?” he demanded.
“It is I, Brennus, Lord of Laonia. Don’t you remember me, Pious Eligious?”
“The Lord of Laonia?” The Pious seemed surprised. “I made you for dead months ago.”
“And yet here I am.”
“And look at you.” The man grimaced. “A mangy mongrel would be an improvement. You’re a disgrace to your people. What kind of trouble are you in this time?”
“I’ve got Riva’s dog at my heels.”
“I want no trouble with the king,” Eligious said. “Your struggles don’t belong here.”
“And here I thought the temples were precisely the place where men and gods met for the good old chat.”
“What do you want?”
“I need a safe place to rest, clean clothing, some hot food, if you can spare it, and the temple’s protection.”
“Your troubles are of your own making,” the Pious said. “Don’t bring them to me.”
“Are you refusing to help me?”
“You of all people should know better than to dawdle in Riva’s territories.” Eligious shuffled back to the stairs. “Get out, Brennus. The gods owe no favors to the wicked.”
Lusielle was stunned. They had come all this way, crossed the Dismal Bog, survived it, only to be turned away and delivered into Orell’s murderous hands because of the Pious’s whims?
“I thought you said he was your friend,” sh
e murmured.
“The word ‘friend’ is a relative term in my world,” Bren muttered.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re not dead yet. Pious!” Bren called out. “I demand sanctuary.”
Eligious stumbled. “What did you say?”
“I said, I demand sanctuary.”
The man turned to face Bren. “Dare you rub my nose in the old ways?”
“I’m Lord of Laonia, favored of Twins, beloved of the Triad. The code stands. You can’t refuse me sanctuary.”
“You’re testing my patience.”
“What will the folks at the sacred island say if you forfeit the code?” Bren said. “The Chosen will be most unhappy to learn that with your refusal to assist me, you released Laonia from its obligations.”
Lusielle realized the delicate game Bren was playing. She didn’t know much about temples and highborn, only that they were linked by the code in a complex relationship. She surmised that when one party failed in their obligations, the other party was freed from theirs.
Bren was setting up his gamble to win even if he lost.
If Eligious granted them refuge, he would keep his life and freedom, at least for the moment. If the Pious refused Bren sanctuary, Bren would fall to Orell, but Laonia would be free of paying the tribute, a payment he hadn’t been able to gather yet.
She wagered the temples were too greedy to risk the yearly tribute.
Eligious gnashed his teeth in a bitter smile. “You want sanctuary? Fine. I’ll give you sanctuary. Three days. That’s all you have by the code and Orell knows it. He’ll surround the temple. He’ll be waiting for you when you come out and you would’ve wasted Laonia’s rights for nothing.”
“Don’t worry about Orell on my behalf,” Bren said. “Sanctuary is all I ask.”
“And all you should have, provided of course, you can comply with the conditions. You do remember the conditions?”
“I’ll make a fitting offering to the Triad.”
