Our Lady of the Islands (54 page)

“You’re doubtless right,” the young man said. “But they will have no help from me. Or from the god they claim to worship, I don’t think. If I understand anything he’s compelled me to say or do these past few years, he only wants them awakened to what they were meant to be, and to start being it again. Not to settle on some clump of stone here and lord it over anybody.”

“But … why now?” Sian asked. “Why us? … After all these ages.”

The young man shrugged. “We were … sufficiently ready to break, perhaps? I’m convinced we called to him somehow — knowingly or not. Not the other way around. Every nuance of his presence I have ever known conveyed this.”

“So … you think it’s done, then,” Sian said, feeling the tug again. Of something half-forgotten. She flexed her back, her arms and legs, and felt them complain. Yes, of course she’d lain in bed for four days now. Some stiffness in her joints and muscles was to be expected. Except that she’d been spared precisely this ever since the gift’s arrival. Normal aches and pains. Now back, it seemed.

The niggling tug increased. For just an instant, she recalled … a choice. Made somewhere. At some time … “Were you hurt in any way during this revolt inside the temple, Father Het?”

“Fortunately no.” He held up a bandaged finger, grinning. “Unless you count this little scratch I gave myself, shutting a tunnel grating on my own hand as I was smuggling documents to safety from the library.”

“May I touch that hand, please?” Sian asked.

“Oh, my dear, no. You’ve just awakened. You don’t need to start dispensing —”

“I would like to, Father Het. If you don’t mind? I owe you quite a bit, as I recall. It would make me feel much better to make some small installment on repayment.”

He rolled his eyes with an indulgent smile, and unwound the narrow bandage to reveal a finger darkly bruised from nail to knuckle.

“A scratch?” she asked. “You do tend to exaggerate the insignificance of your wounds. Reach down, please. I’m still a bit too stiff to sit.”

He stretched his hand down, and she took it gently in her fingers.

No pain.

No ginger.

His bruise remained. She waited for a moment to be sure, but she had known. Before she’d even asked if he was injured.

She nodded, and let go, looking up at the Butchered God’s ex-priest. “I too sometimes wondered if the gift would vanish once I’d healed Konrad. Whether all of this is done or not, it seems my part is finished.” She gave them both a wistful smile, still unsure of how she felt about it. Was this loss, or liberation? “Am I still a hero, do you think?”

“Oh, yes! Of course,” said Het. “You have done what you have done.” But he gazed in perplexed surprise between Sian and his unhealed finger, obviously dismayed.

The younger priest nodded his agreement, though he too looked troubled.

You have choice
, the god had told her. Sian felt certain she had made a choice of some kind here. She could not remember when, exactly. But it was there, inside her. Still tugging, very softly. For the most part, though, she felt relieved. She would be able to go walking in the streets now without being some kind of traveling sideshow. She could just throw her hands up again, like everybody else, and say,
The world’s pain is endless, but what can I do?
She could safely buy a chicken at the market.

Still, she could not help wondering who she’d overlooked while there was time. Who she would wish later she could heal.

“Oh!” She tried to sit again, and fared no better than before. “Where is Pino?”

The two men nearly glanced at one another, aborting even that response almost in time. “My dear, all this conversation will exhaust you,” Het said gently. “You’ve too much to absorb already. Why don’t we —”

“No. Tell me. Have they found him?”

“I’m sorry, dear,” said Het, stone-faced. “They did.”

“Oh no,” she whispered. “How bad …” She felt her face begin to crumple. “Is he …” Her eyes grew hot. If he were alive, they’d have said so first. She knew this. “Where?” she asked, already weeping.

“His body washed ashore amidst the wreckage of his boat,” said Het.

She turned away and pressed her face into the pillows, crying harder.
Oh, Pino
…
Pino
…
I did not want this
…
I did not ask this of you
…

They had the grace to let her cry undisturbed by words of shallow comfort. They didn’t leave her, though. Their simple presence helped as much as anything was likely to.

When she had no more crying left in her — for the moment, anyway — she rolled onto her back, and stared up at the ceiling. “Have they already burned him?”

Het shook his head. “He is not to be burned. The Factora has commanded that he have a full state funeral, and be interred beside her husband’s body in the Factorate Hall of Ancestors. I am to officiate. We have begun the preparation of his body for preservation, but although the Factor’s funeral was two days ago, she ordered that Pino’s be postponed until you were sufficiently recovered to attend.”

“I don’t want him buried with the Factor,” Sian said. It was a great honor. She understood that. But she didn’t want him to be … that alone. He had never known the Factor. Or any of the kind of people buried there. “I want his shrine on Little Loom Eyot. There is a hilltop there … where he belongs.”

“I cannot see why the Factora would refuse you,” said Het. “I will speak with her, unless you’d rather do so.”

“Thank you. She must be very busy now. I won’t ask her to come here. I would be grateful if you’d convey my congratulations, and my condolences, along with my request.”

“I will do so. In the meantime, I know of someone else who will want to know you are awake. With your permission, dear, I will go let him know?”

“Who?” Though she knew. She hoped, at least.

His smile returned. “Would you rather not just be surprised?” The smile faded. “Pleasantly, this time.”

“Well. You’d better go then.” She dredged up a smile from somewhere too, and waved him toward the door. When he’d gone, she turned to look up at the young man whose given name she still had never learned. “If I’m not even supposed to call you the Butchered God’s priest now, what name should I use?”

He looked surprised. Nonplussed, in fact. As if he didn’t know, himself.

“What do your guards call you?” she asked.

“Sir,” he said, sheepishly.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You must have a name.”

He shook his head, slowly, as if just realizing now how strange it was. “I left my name behind when I was taken by the god.”

“Well then, what name
was
that?” she asked impatiently.

“I … would rather not …”

“You’re really going to go through life now as
that man without a name
? If you’re no longer a fugitive, what’s the danger in telling me what you were called before all this began?”

“I guess … you’re right,” he said. “I’ll have to choose a name now.”

She could not believe he was so thick. In fact, she was quite sure he wasn’t. “You’re avoiding my question. I asked what you
were
called. After all we’ve been through, may I not know where you’re really from? How all this happened to you?”

“My lady, I know how this will sound, and I apologize. You are literally the last person in the world I would wish to offend, but … I’m not sure it would be helpful to tell
you
. Specifically.”

Sian gaped at him. “Well, now I really must know why.” She was too surprised to feel offended. “You said that night out on the beach that you had grown up in the slums, but that’s obviously not true. I have spent some time with people from the raft warrens, as you know, and you are not remotely like them.”

“Are you certain?” he replied. “Het is from the warrens. His father was a foreign sailor. Left his mother in the warrens before Het was even born.”

She had thought there could be no surprises left. “How would you know that?”

“We’ve spent a lot of time together here, these last few days. With little to do but talk. The temple took him as a child. For charity. They’ve educated him very well, but you can hear it in his speech still, if you listen.”

“But not in yours,” she said, moved nonetheless. “You’ve been here? All this time?”

“Where else had I to go?” He shrugged uncomfortably. “My task seems done as well, as I just told you. And … I do feel … both grateful, and a bit … responsible still. To you.”

“Then why won’t you —”

“Because I fear that it might cause you pain,” he cut her off in agitation. “And I have caused enough of that. To you especially.” He took a breath to calm himself, and turned to go back to his doubtless stone-cold kava at the table. “Some stories are best left behind.”

His past would cause
her
pain? How could he think she’d just sit still for that? “Have I ever told you how I was awakened to my gift of healing,
sir
?”

He looked up from his kava, as if she’d slapped him. “If you feel the need to mock me now … I guess you’d be entitled.” He looked away again, and raised his cup to drink.

“I have no desire to mock you,” Sian said. “But I’m wondering what you think could possibly cause me too much pain to deal with after all I’ve been through. And forgiven you for.”

His shoulders slumped. He set the kava down, staring at the table.

“I
have
forgiven you,” she said. “I understand now what it’s like to be used by a god. I harbor nothing but respect for you, young man. And the best of hopes for your relief from … whatever haunts you so. But it would be … gratifying to know that you trust me some as well. At least a little. You told me on the beach that night that you’d been beaten too. Harder and longer than I was. If you can’t tell me where you’re from, then may I know, at least, what was done to
you
?”

He released a bitter little laugh, and shook his head. “They are the same story, my lady.”

A story clearly eating him alive, whatever it was. “Then tell me,” she said softly. “And be free of it.”

He looked at her at last. “I swear to you, my lady. This had no bearing on why you were chosen. That was the god’s choice. Not my own. I swear it … on my father’s shrine. But … it made nothing easier for me that night.”

Her lips parted in surprise. Was there some reason after all that
she
had been chosen?

“To arouse your gift, the god used one of his own bones. And me.” Though he still stared at Sian, the priest was clearly seeing something else now. “To awaken me, he used your family.”

Sian felt her face slacken.

“My father was once a very highly placed employee in the household of Escotte Alkattha. Lord Alkattha had not yet been installed as Census Taker, but he was already an important man, and my father’s position was high enough that we too lived in relative luxury on Alkattha’s largess.” His eyes flickered toward her again. “You are right, in part, my lady. I enjoyed a very fine education growing up, and learned how to conduct myself in one of the finest homes in Alizar. Until I was fourteen.” His gaze softened again, once more focused on the past.

“My father did his job extremely well. He wasn’t just hard-working. He was intelligent, creative, and honest to a fault. He was also just naïve enough to think that these things had won him at least the begrudging respect of his employer. Foolishly presuming on that assumption, he dared to question, politely, a fairly petty household policy injurious to many of the servants, which resulted in excessively high turnover among them, as well as reduced morale and productivity, and to no recognizable gain for Alkattha. My father may have dared to press the point a bit too hard, believing that a man of such apparently high character would be persuaded by reason and elevated moral vision to listen.”

Sian closed her eyes, dreading to hear what her monstrous cousin had done to them. “What was this policy?” she asked.

“Something to do with household chain of command, I believe. Which positions were subservient to which others, how daily household questions and permissions were to be submitted, and to whom. I can’t remember more than that. I was very young, and not involved in any of it but the aftermath.” He sighed, and looked away again.

“Lord Alkattha was a rising star, of course, extremely conscious of his image in those days. To be corrected by an employee, however circumspectly … There were precedents at stake here. People watching. Evidently, he felt some example must be made. To prevent such subversive instincts from infecting others, not just of his household, but of our family’s class in general. Firing my father wasn’t near enough to serve …”

The priest fell silent, lost in what he was remembering for a time, then drew a deep breath and went on. “Your cousin used all his influence to make absolutely certain we were ruined. After we’d been kicked out of the house without a moment’s notice, allowed nothing but the clothes we wore, he had us spied upon. Every time my father — or my mother — tried to get a job of any kind, however lowly, Alkattha sent someone to inform the prospective employer how they would be punished if they hired us. Others in your family assisted him in this. That much I know.

“When my family had been reduced to living in a bamboo lean-to down in Hell’s Arch, he finally called his spies away. But even then, if he happened to hear that my father had found employment as a charcoal hauler, or a boat scraper, he made whatever effort was required to see him dismissed, even from that.” The priest’s eyes flickered toward Sian again. “He didn’t live five years, my lady. My mother made it eight. She died four years ago, just after my sister, of grief as much as anything, I think. I am all that’s left.” He shrugged. “And then the god washed up. I was among the first to rush down to the beach that day, and beg my portion of the meat.”

He drew another very long, deep breath, and stood to go look out a window at the sunlit sea. “There are many ways one may be beaten. I was beaten physically on any number of occasions during those years. Sometimes into stupor. That’s how life is lived in such places. Such beatings were the
least
injurious of my torments.

“There is a great deal more, that I beg you not to make me recite, my lady.” He turned to gaze at her again. “I do not attempt to justify — with this tale, or by any other means — what I
agreed
to do to you that night. I was convinced, not compelled, to do as the god asked. I still am not sure what I should have done. Not in my heart. I know that you’ve forgiven me. I know that in my body, as you will remember, I believe. That was a very great gift, my lady. I will never know how to tell you all you changed in me that night. For that, I am forever grateful. But your forgiveness does not make it all right to have been the one wielding the whip. Even for that hour. Not for me. This, I still hold against the god. And perhaps, against myself.