Saint's Blood: The Greatcoats Book 3 (13 page)

‘I’m old,’ she said, narrowing her eyes and turning a hundred wrinkles into a thousand. ‘Get over it.’ She coughed into a piece of white cloth held between bent, stiff fingers and examined the results. ‘Can we skip the part where I spend hours trying to explain to you how the youth I retained whilst I held onto my Sainthood now flees my body?’ She coughed again. ‘Along with other things.’

I glanced back at Ethalia, but she stood outside the door, out of view. Had this happened all at once, or had Ethalia been watching, day after day, struggling to save this woman so dear to her as she ever so slowly faded? ‘Well,’ I said, turning back to Birgid, ‘I’d sort of had my heart set on an extended discussion of just how terrible you look, but if you insist, we can move straight on to how bad you smell.’

I heard a sharp intake of breath a few feet behind me, but she laughed then, and a little bit of the woman I’d first met on the road came back. Apparently Quentis or Obladias had taken offence at my jibe, but Birgid hadn’t. ‘Ah, now I remember why I liked you, Falcio val Mond. So very, very belligerent in the face of those whose very nature demands you revere them.’

I looked around until I found a small but sturdy oak box which I assumed housed the sanctuary’s religious texts. I dragged it over to Birgid’s bed and sat on it. ‘Belligerence comes with the coat, I’m afraid.’

She reached out and ran the tips of her fingers across the cuff of my sleeve. ‘A slave to your ideals,’ she murmured. ‘And therein lies our one hope.’

‘All hope is given by the Gods, and all glory owed to them,’ Obladias said from behind me. ‘You of all people should know that, madam.’

There was a brief flash of light again, a sudden glow around Birgid that came and went in an instant. ‘I assume, Venerati,’ she said coldly, ‘that there is some reason why Falcio brought you with him. Knowing him as I do, I doubt it was so that you could quote verses from the
Canon Dei
at me.’

‘You’ve got that right,’ I muttered, then turned to what I really needed to know. ‘Birgid, can you tell me who did this to you?’

‘Did you know that the first Tristians came here as slaves?’ she asked, ignoring my question. ‘That’s why our churches are almost all underground – because our ancestors were brought here in chains to work the mines. They spent their nights on their knees, passing around whatever little lump of ore they had managed to hide and smuggle out, taking turns smoothing it in their hands, rubbing their skin raw as they prayed to any God who would listen to come and destroy those who oppressed us.’ She glanced over to where Obladias and Quentis were standing by the door of the sanctuary. ‘But you won’t read that little fact in the
Canon Dei
, will you, Venerati?’

‘Nor will you find any reference to the Saints,’ the old monk replied. ‘Shall we debate the relevance of that “little fact” too?’

I felt my jaw tighten, along with a profound urge to deliver my thoughts on the subject forcefully to the bridge of Obladias’ nose.
Focus
, I told myself sternly
. You have a job to do, and Quentis has a loaded pistol at his side.
‘Birgid,’ I said gently, ‘have you seen either of these two men before?’

She looked up at me for a moment as if she hadn’t understood the question, then gave a little chortle. ‘You mean, is the man who captured me, bound me in an iron mask, forced horrible liquids down my throat and cut my flesh here in this room? Is the murderer of my fellow Saints standing a few feet away so you can challenge him to a duel to the death and save us all a great deal of time?’

‘See, when you put it that way I don’t sound very clever.’

Birgid lifted a hand and motioned me with her finger to lean in. When I did, she whispered quietly into my ear, ‘I don’t know.’

As she pushed me away, without much force, I could see tears of frustration in her eyes. ‘The mask . . . it bound more than just my body,’ she said. ‘It denied me the abilities of my Sainthood.’

I really wanted to ask her what those were – I really hadn’t the barest idea of what being a Saint really meant – but I could feel time slipping away from us.
Deal with the things you know
, I reminded myself.
Deal with the crime.
So instead I asked, ‘How did you get free? How did you manage to get to the Palace of Baern?’

There was silence for a little while, then she started, ‘They had me chained to a wall. When nothing else worked, I began smashing my head against it, over and over, until, finally, a piece of the mask shattered. There was a man there, a servant, who tried to stop me. His will was weak and I found that with the mask partially broken I could set my Awe upon him. I forced him to free me and then . . . and then I walked. I was in a daze, a fog so thick that the days and the miles meant nothing to me. I walked so long and so far that I couldn’t mark the weeks or the miles. My need drove me, directed my steps, even when I couldn’t see or hear or think.’

‘Your
need
?’ I interrupted, but she dismissed the question.

‘I cannot guide you to the man who did this to me, Falcio.’ She glanced at Quentis and Obladias. ‘He could be one of these two, Falcio, or he could be you, for all I know. That damned mask . . .’ She drifted off for a moment, her eyes closing.

‘Birgid?’ Though I hated it, I needed to bring her back to the subject at hand.

‘There is a weight to him,’ she said, slowly, as if searching for words to encompass the nature of the enemy. ‘A great and terrible intellect. A mind that would see this world shaped to his liking.’ She opened her eyes then. ‘Falcio, his desires cannot abide Mercy. He will destroy it unless you stop him.’

Quentis Maren spoke for the first time. ‘Why the others, then, Saint Birgid? He may despise Mercy this much, but why kill the others?’

‘I suspect he despises a great many things.’ She shifted on the pallet. ‘Do you know why the Saints came into being, Inquisitor? We had a purpose once, and it wasn’t wandering around giving blessings at weddings and harvests and being worshipped.’

Quentis came a little closer and I started to reach into my coat, but Birgid touched my arm, stopping my hand. The Inquisitor spoke carefully, respectfully. ‘I know what I have been taught, my Lady, but I have the sense that you would disagree.’

‘Trust that sense, then, Inquisitor. For it is rare in a man who chooses your rather idiotic profession. Tell me, how many so-called heretics have your men tortured today? How many senile old codgers or silly children have your men put to the knife for misquoting the canons?’

‘That was a different time, my Lady,’ Quentis replied, ‘when those of my order misunderstood the calling of the Gods.’

Birgid gave a soft snort. ‘The only thing the Gods ever call any of us is fools, Inquisitor.’

To his credit, Quentis took the jibe with good grace and merely bowed. ‘We all play our roles, my Lady.’

‘What then is the actual role of the Saints?’ I asked, not wanting to waste time on a theological debate.

Birgid opened her mouth and for an instant, for the smallest fraction of a second, I thought she would answer me. Instead, she pursed her lips. ‘No. This is a thing which each Saint must learn for themselves; it has never been shared with those not called and I will not be the first to break that Law.’

She started coughing then, a great, wracking cough that shook her so hard I thought it might be her last. When it was finally over, she said, ‘Damn it all! Ethalia! Are you too busy sleeping with men for money to bring me some tea?’

‘It wasn’t I who bedded Caveil-whose-blade-cuts-water,’ Ethalia said archly as she leaned over me to pass a mug to Birgid. The smell of lemon and ginger-root rose in the air. ‘Remind me again, who was it who got pregnant with Caveil’s child and gave birth to Shuran, the man who nearly destroyed our country? I wonder, oh wise and terrible Saint, if perhaps we should withhold judgement about the value of our respective professions?’

Birgid’s laugh was strained and cracked and beautiful. It would have been utterly infectious, were it not so clearly coming to its end. She handed the mug back to Ethalia and touched her hand as she did. ‘You above all others,’ she said. ‘Always do I hold that angry little girl in my arms and in my heart.’

Something wet touched my face and I realised that Ethalia was crying; she had leaned over me to hold hands with Birgid, tears slipping from her cheek to mine. A life that had once been measured in centuries had ground down to weeks and days and now, finally, minutes.

I still had questions, dozens of them, but I could tell Birgid was done answering them. She had said all that she wanted to say to me and now it was time for me to leave her and Ethalia to spend these final moments together.

But Birgid surprised me, letting go of Ethalia’s hand and grabbing weakly at mine. ‘Will you do something for me, man of valour?’

‘I will,’ I replied.

She held out both hands. ‘Lift me in your arms,’ she said. ‘Carry me from this dark, empty place up and outside so that I may take one last breath in the light of day to carry with me on my journey.’

As carefully and as gently as I could, I slid my hands under her frail body and lifted her from the bed. She weighed so little I wondered if perhaps she were already a ghost and I was merely imagining that I held her.

*

I walked slowly out of the dark chamber of the sanctuary. The Saint of Mercy felt so fragile in my arms that I feared any sudden motion might cause her bones to break. Obladias and Quentis stood aside, casting their eyes down to the ground, perhaps out of respect, or maybe because they were religious men and it was too hard to see a Saint come to this. Ethalia didn’t look away but took Birgid’s hand and held her gaze every step of the way.

When we reached the top of the stairs I looked around the coloured walls of the sanctuary. I was oddly unsure of which door to choose, which God to follow. In the end, I went to the pale purple wall and the door that would be guarded outside, however poorly, by the statue of the Goddess of Love.

‘There are still things worth saving,’ Birgid said as we exited into the warm sun. A light breeze lifted the thin white strands of hair from her face. It was, I supposed, as close to a parting gift from the Gods as we were likely to get. Birgid looked pleased, though, wearing the big toothy grin of a card player who has just laid down her last hand to win the final round. Her Sainthood gave another little flash, a soft glow barely noticeable against the afternoon sunlight. Ethalia stood close by, smiling down at Birgid, trying to fill the old woman’s last vision of the world with love.

And in the midst of this, I felt a desperate desire for this to be over. Ethalia was breaking inside and it should have been my job to hold her, to help her grieve and mourn, and then to lead her on those first fumbling steps towards healing.

But I needed to hunt down the man who had brought this upon us and end him.

Birgid’s description of him came back to me:
A great and terrible intellect. A mind that would see this world shaped to his liking.

I was so sick to death of those who kept wanting to twist and destroy what my King had tried so hard to build, what so many Greatcoats had died to protect.

Birgid shifted in my arms and I looked down. She reached up and placed a hand on my neck, pulling me closer to her.

‘Are you . . . ? Is there—? Can I do anything for you?’ I asked.

She didn’t answer, but I felt her take in a breath so deep I feared her ribs might shatter from the effort. She held it a long time, and then kissed me on the cheek and whispered, ‘Forgive me, Falcio. I would have spared you this if I could.’

Shame burned in my gut. While I stood there letting my frustrations roil, she was breathing her last. I put on my best wry grin and prepared something clever to say, something that might bring one last stutter of laughter to the Saint of Mercy, but when I looked down at her, the life had already fled her body. I waited, wondering if perhaps some last flash of light might come, or there’d be some great parting of the skies above us and thunder and rain would be unleashed to mark her passing. Even after Quentis approached and the old monk, Obladias, started muttering whatever useless prayer his Gods demanded be uttered at this moment, still I waited. Someone said my name, but I ignored them. Moments before I had wanted to be done with Birgid, and now I couldn’t let her go.

Only when I felt someone trying to take her from me did I finally kneel and ease her body down on the soft grass that lined the path. I gazed at her face, willing it to look peaceful or serene or whatever words we use when recounting such events to others, though it would have been a lie. I’ve seen a great many dead people in my life. They just look dead.

‘Falcio?’ Ethalia said. I didn’t think it was the first time she had spoken.

‘Why did she say that?’ I asked. ‘Why did she ask me to forgive her?’

When she didn’t answer, I tried to turn, and only then did I feel that heaviness upon me, that distinctive sluggishness. I couldn’t seem to get to my feet. For a moment I wondered if perhaps I’d been struck on the back of the head, or if Quentis had shot me in the back – sometimes it takes a few seconds to feel a wound when you’re hit. But I didn’t recall hearing pistol fire, or feeling anything hit me. I simply couldn’t rise.

The grass beneath me became brighter for a moment, as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.
That can’t be right. There weren’t any clouds in the sky.
The answer came to me then, even before I drew on every ounce of will inside me to force my body to respond, to demand that my hands push me to my feet and my legs straighten themselves. And as I stood, before I turned, I understood why Birgid’s final words had been to beg my forgiveness
.
I knew what need had driven her to smash her head against the walls of her prison over and over until she could escape, and I knew that she had not, in fact, come to the Palace of Baern in search of me.

I knew all of this even before I found myself staring at the source of the light coming from the new Saint of Mercy.

His desires cannot abide Mercy. He will destroy it, unless you stop him
.