Glasswrights' Test (32 page)

Berylina wanted to argue. She wanted to say that she had offered no resistance so far. She had done nothing to make the guards suspect her. With her wandering eye, she was scarcely able to focus on another person, how was she supposed to threaten great lords? Especially when there were eager soldiers standing nearby, anxious protectors who would sacrifice her as soon as help her toward a greater faith.

But then, Berylina realized that she did not need her Star. She was secure without it. The gods understood her faith. They knew that she honored them, that she saluted their power in all her daily life. She settled for making another holy sign across her chest, and then she followed the guard down the hallway.

He signaled to seven of his fellows as they approached the Midden's double door. The men fell in beside her, their armor bristling like the plates on an octolaris's legs. She had only a moment to wonder at the symbolism, to question whether the soldiers had purposely numbered themselves to honor her past, her homeland, the land of the great silk spiders.

And then the lead guard cast open the door, and she realized that the men meant no honor. They merely hoped to spare her life.

A crowd had gathered in the courtyard in front of the Midden. Men, women, children—hundreds of pilgrims filled the square. Sunlight flashed off of Thousand Pointed Stars, glinting as if fires burned on every breast.

A rotten cabbage sailed over the first of the guards and caught Berylina squarely on the chest. The impact was strong enough that to knock the air from her lungs. She made a squeaking sound as she tried to pull back, but the guards forced her forward, four of them grabbing her arms, two poking her from behind with their short swords. Two of the men began to cut their way through the throng.

The cabbage was only the first of many missiles. Berylina soon found herself pelted by all variety of filth. It seemed as if every rotten vegetable, every stinking fish-head, every chamberpot in the city had been saved for her disgrace. The guards carried rectangular shields which they used to keep the worst of the offal from themselves, but Berylina was left exposed to all the crowd had to throw.

Ranita Glasswright's dress would be ruined, she thought to herself. The sturdy gown had served Berylina well inside her cell. It was a shame to destroy it here, in the open air, in the middle of a courtyard filled with pilgrims.

The garbage was bad. The words the crowd threw were worse, though.

“Witch!”

“Filthy whore!”

“Lying strumpet!”

Berylina's eyes filled at the shouts. She was none of those things. She had never given anyone reason to believe that she was evil, that she was less than chaste. One phrase was repeated the most often, and it grew to a chant throughout the crowd. “Bury the witch! Bury the witch!”

Berylina slipped in a patch of slime, and her guards barely kept her from crashing to her knees. Their fingers dug sharply into her flesh, and she imagined the bruises she would have the next morning. When she regained her footing, she found herself face to face with a furious woman, a wrinkled old alewife who thrust something toward her.

She thought that she was being offered a present, a gift, something to comfort her in the midst of the horror. She could see that the item in the old woman's hand was long and thin—it appeared to be a walking staff that Berylina might use to keep her balance across the filthy square. Even as the princess reached for it, though, she recognized the thing, and she pulled back in revulsion.

A leg bone. A human leg bone. Long and lean and mealy white. The hideous thing had been dug up from the earth; clearly, it belonged to a body that had not been consigned to purifying, blackening flames.

Berylina was grateful that she had eaten nothing of her prison meal that morning, for she knew that she would have emptied her belly on the stones before her.

And yet, that filth would have been cleaner than much that was hurled at her. The guards were swearing at the crowd now, cursing them roundly, and the angry words heightened the mob's anger. Berylina saw children shouting so loudly that spittle flew from their mouths. One man raised an earth-crusted spade high above his head, shaking it at her as if it were a weapon itself. “Bury the witch, bury the witch! Bury the witch, bury the witch!”

The man looked familiar; Berylina knew she had seen his face before. Where? Where? And then she knew—he was one of the burly soldiers who had supported her as she began her pilgrimage; he had forced the stubborn priest to initiate her cavalcade.

The guards wrestled open a door on the far end of the courtyard, pushing Berylina, pulling her, dragging her into quiet darkness. She heard the iron-clad wood slam shut, but the crowd's rage did not diminish. The chanters battered the door, stomping their feet, clapping their hands.

One of the guards hawked and spat at Berlyina's feet, as if he were clearing the evil experience from the depths of his lungs. Another cursed her openly, and two made a great show of wiping their hands clean on their filthy garments. The first guard, the one who had come to her cell, said, “This way. Things will go worse for you, if you keep the curia waiting.”

Berylina started to argue that she had not intended to keep anyone waiting, but she gave up the protest. After all, these men did not care to hear her. They did not care to listen to what she had to say. She could share with them everything she knew about the gods; she could tell them about how each of the Thousand came to her, and they would ignore her. Some people were not prepared for the reality of the Thousand. Some people wanted to insist on the comfortable and the familiar; they supposed they knew the truth.

The guards made short work of bustling Berylina into an audience chamber. A part of her mind analyzed her surroundings with a princess's critical eye. There. The woodwork was quite fine on that door. Servants had oiled the hinges. The room had been constructed by a master; air currents kept it from becoming too hot, even on this scorching summer day.

Berylina gave free rein to those analytical whispers; they kept her from focusing on other things, more dangerous things. She could pretend that she did not see the five judges who sat before her or the throng that filled the room. She could pretend that she did not see the raised dais, the balustrade stained dark with the grip of nervous witnesses' hands, or the holy altar in the very center of the chamber. She could pretend that she did not see the brazier that glowed in the corner of the room, or the stones that nestled in the coals, or the heavy iron sheet that leaned against them.

She could pretend that Ranita Glasswright was not standing at the front of the chamber, pale and grim, anger fighting with fear across the battleground of her face.

But Berylina could not pretend that she did not see Father Siritalanu. She had spent too many years attuned to messages on his broad, placid face. The priest had been her guide, after all. He had led her from the dark places of her father's court; she was accustomed to following him, accustomed to turning herself over to his capable hands for safekeeping.

Those hands were trembling now. Every line of Father Siritalanu's body was drawn tight, as if he were the one being tortured with the curia's strange implements.

Berylina smiled gently as she approached her mentor. “Father,” she said, as if she might comfort him.

“Silence!” The priest in the center of the curia thundered the command. He was a young man, given over to fat. His lips pursed as if he were forced to drink sour wine, and a sheen of sweat stood out on his brow. His dark hair had begun to recede, even though he could not have seen more than thirty summers. When he spoke again, his voice trembled with authority. His words were oddly pitched—too high for a man of his girth. “You will not speak until the curia has spoken to you!”

Berylina started to agree, but she caught her words against the roof of her mouth. Suddenly, she was not a princess surrounded by the power and the beauty and the glory of all the Thousand Gods. Instead, she was a child, a lost and wandering soul attempting to find her way in her father's court. She was standing in the Great Hall of Liantine, surrounded by dead wooden tokens of the false goddess, the Horned Hind. She was ungainly and awkward and her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth.

Berylina swallowed hard, forcing herself to look at Father Siritalanu. Those days were past, she chided silently. She had grown beyond her childhood. She was a woman, now. She was not the child who had stumbled in front of her father, who had been forced to appear at his feasts and his convocations.

The familiar blush of shame began to steal up her neck, and Berylina knew that her skin would mottle. Her cheeks would flush with an unbecoming color, and her eyes would start to water. Without being conscious of any movement, Berylina started to clasp the fabric of her skirt—of Ranita Glasswright's skirt—opening and closing her fists as if she were a cat kneading a lap.

The gesture brought her some shadow of comfort, some edge of familiarity. She could hear her nurse's soothing voice, she could remember unfortunate public appearances as a child. She had survived those encounters. She had outlived the embarrassment and shame. She would do just fine here in Brianta. All would be well. She clenched the fabric again, barely noting the unsightly wrinkles that she caused. All would be well. All would be well.

“Stand forward,” the central priest commanded. Berylina complied with his command, stepping away from her guards. She dared a look at the chief inquisitor, and she realized that he wore a priest's green robes. Those robes were shadowed, though, covered with a dull, brown overgarment. A quick glance confirmed that each member of the curia wore the same ominous combination—green declaration of faith overlaid with the earthy threat of punishment.

Berylina argued for her life before this panel. The ultimate punishment that the curia could assess was death. Death beneath the earth. Death apart from the purification of flame. Death eternal.

“I am Torio, prelate of this Curia. I will guide my brothers in their judgment of you today, in this grave matter where you are named witch. State your name, that our clerk may inscribe it in the book of this proceeding.”

Berylina swallowed hard. Torio, then. He would be her judge. He would decide whether her nightmare became reality. She had lived in Morenia for long enough that it seemed odd for a priest to have so short a name. Five syllables, she thought. His name should twist for at least five syllables.

She knew that she should not worry about such foolish concerns. She should look directly at the curia. She should face them down with the same grim acceptance that she had mastered in the Morenian court. She should conduct herself like a princess; like the poised young woman she had become.

But all of those lessons were cast out of her soul, squeezed from her body with the short, panting breaths that had taken over her lungs. She could not look directly at Torio; she was reduced to the sidelong glances that had filled her childhood. Her tongue was thick in her mouth, and her protruding teeth seemed to take so much space that she could never hope to push words around them. “Berylina Thunderspear,” she managed at last, forcing out the words as if they were poisoned fruits.

“You are called before this curia on the most serious charge that can be brought against a pilgrim, the most serious accusation in all of Brianta. You are called a witch, and you are asked to account for the purity of your body and your soul.”

No! Berylina wanted to cry. I am not a witch! That's a lie!

She could say nothing, though. She could only look around the chamber, at Torio and his henchmen, at the guards ranged to either side, at the people who watched with eager curiosity. She could only look at Ranita Glasswright and Father Siritalanu, standing helpless at the front of the room.

Torio waited until she had returned her attention to him and his brethren. “How do you plead, Berylina Thunderspear? Are you a witch?”

Protests pounded through her head, arguments and scholarly rebuttals. Of course she was not a witch. Could a witch speak the names of the Thousand? Could a witch describe the appearance of each of the gods? Could a witch travel to every shrine in Brianta, making offerings, studying altars, dedicating her very soul to the Thousand Gods?

“Do not waste our time, Berylina Thunderspear! You must plead. Are you a witch?”

Her father had berated her like this. He had taken her before his court in Liantine and forced her to speak in front of his nobles. His face had twisted with shame of her, with hatred that her birth had cost him his beloved wife. Berylina had shrunk from those appearances, longed to disappear, to fade away before the court of Liantine.

“I ask you one last time, Berylina Thunderspear! Do you claim the name of witch?”

“No!” cried Father Siritalanu. “She is not a witch! She is the holiest pilgrim I have ever laid eyes upon, the most faithful woman I have ever met.”

“Silence, priest!”

“No,” Berylina finally managed to answer, but her word was lost in the crowd's uproar over Torio's rebuke of a robed priest. “No,” she whispered into the melee.

Torio pointed a fleshy finger at Siritalanu. “You will stay silent, priest, or you will be cast out from these proceedings. We need not call you as a witness. We have enough to speak against your ward, and all here know that you are biased.”

Nevertheless, poor Siritalanu looked as if he would protest further, as if he would tell Torio that such rules were patently unfair. No, Berylina wanted to say to her protector. There was no use in argument. Torio had made up his mind already, without the difficulty of a curia. Without the need for his implements of torture.

Like Berylina, Ranita Glasswright seemed to understand the play that they were acting. The guildswoman shook her head slowly and stepped toward Siritalanu, laying one hand upon his arm. When the priest did not acknowledge her, she leaned toward him with greater urgency. Berylina could see that the gesture had two purposes—Ranita was pulling the priest closer to whisper in his ear, but she was also leaning heavily upon him.