“‘Though a sinner, the man who would become the Trueblade never shirked his duty,’” she quoted. “‘He was wounded in service to the people, taken by the arrow of a lawless man. For days he lay in pain, senseless to the world, until the Father’s word woke him to a new purpose.’”
“You know the Eleventh Book then?”
“Every word.” Beaten into me, until I knew it better than he did.
“That man last night,” the Fief Lord said. “You knew him, didn’t you?”
She nodded, finding herself unable to speak of the priest.
“Then you know his name,” Veliss said, looking up from her scroll. “His companion, the one you maimed, seems reluctant to tell us.”
“It’s unlikely he knows it. The Sons rarely use their true names, even to each other.”
“The Sons.” Her uncle sighed, sipping more wine. “Of course. Who else? Always the bloody Sons.”
“Except,” Veliss observed, regarding Reva with the same brazen interest she had shown in the bedroom. “Now we have a daughter in our hands.”
“A niece,” the Fief Lord said in a flat tone. “My niece, counsellor.”
“Do not mistake me, my lord. After all, like you, I owe this interesting young woman my life. I wish nothing more than to please her . . .”
“The maimed prisoner,” he interrupted. “Did he have anything else of interest to impart?”
“It’s all here.” She tossed the scroll onto the table. “Usual fanatical nonsense. Reclaiming the fief for the World Father, ending the Heretic Dominion. It took some time before he became cooperative.”
Lord Mustor picked up the scroll, squinting as he read. “The maid?” he asked. “That’s how they got in.”
“It seems she was sympathetic, didn’t expect her reward to be a slit throat. I must be more rigorous in selecting future employees. I’m having her room searched now, though I doubt we’ll find anything.” She turned again to Reva, her expression harder now. “The name,” she said.
“I never knew it,” she replied. “Priests do not share the names given them by the Father.”
Veliss exchanged a glance with Mustor, a faint look of triumph on her face. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said in a warning tone.
“Perhaps not yet.” Veliss moved back from the table with a brisk flex of her wrists. “Though it does give me another avenue to explore with our prisoner. If you’ll excuse me, my lord.” She bowed to Reva. “My lady.” She began to walk away then paused at Reva’s side, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, I’ve arranged for a gift for you. A token of my esteem you might say. It’ll be here presently.” A final wink and she was off, striding along the gravel path back to the manse, full of purpose.
“Is she torturing him?” Reva asked.
“Nothing so vulgar,” he replied. “At least not until it becomes necessary. Lady Veliss is skilled in the concoction of certain herbal mixtures that can have a loosening effect on the tongue, and also the mind, which makes the questioning fairly tricky. My counsellor’s manner can be somewhat . . . unsubtle, at times. But she is loyal to this fief, and to me. Have no doubt.”
“I don’t like the way she looks at me.”
Lord Mustor laughed as he poured the remaining wine into his glass. “Take it as a compliment. She’s very choosy.”
Reva found this was a topic she didn’t wish to explore further and reached out to touch her fingers to the sword’s hilt. “You saved it,” she said. “Kept it. I should thank you for that.”
He frowned in puzzlement. “Your great-grandfather’s sword has been hanging on the practice-room wall for as long as I can remember. I was curious as to why you should go to such lengths to steal it.”
“Great-grandfather?” She groaned, withdrawing her hand. “I thought . . .” I have come so far, for nothing.
“You thought this belonged to Hentes?” His eyebrows rose in understanding. “The sword of the Trueblade. A great and holy relic indeed. I wish I had it.”
“You do not?”
“Lost in the High Keep when he died. Vanished by the time it occurred to me to retrieve it. I would have asked Al Sorna to force those dungeon rats in his regiment to give it up, but my stock wasn’t particularly high at the time.”
“All a waste then,” she said, voice soft. “I have travelled so many miles, lying, hurting and killing along the way. All in search of something that can’t be found.”
“The priest. He set you on this path?”
“He sent me to die. I see it now. Al Sorna was right. I was to be the new martyr, the rallying cry for the reborn Sons of the Trueblade. That’s what the priest made me, ever since I was old enough to walk, he raised me to be a corpse.”
“Do you remember nothing before, nothing of your grandparents?”
“There are . . . images of other people, faces I knew before his. I think they were kind. But they always seemed a dream. And he was so very real, his every word the Father’s truth. Except he was a liar. What does that mean, Uncle? What of the Father’s love now?” Tears were coming again and she was obliged to use the lace cuffs of her ridiculous dress to wipe them away.
Her uncle drained his glass and waved it at a servant who trotted off to fetch another bottle. “Allow me to impart a secret, my wonderful niece.” He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “I may cultivate the image of a godless sinner, but I have never doubted that the Father’s gaze rests upon me. I feel it, every day, a great and terrible weight . . . of disappointment.”
She found she couldn’t contain the laugh, mirth and tears mixing on her face.
“But there’s more,” he went on. “Who but the Father could bring me such a great gift? A saviour and a niece on the very night assassins come to kill me. Tell me you do not see His hand in this, and I’ll not believe you.”
He turned at the sound of the main gate opening. “Ah, it seems my counsellor’s gift has arrived.”
Reva rose in alarm at the sight of the approaching group, four guards, pushing a broad-shouldered youth ahead of them. She ran forward as they came to a halt, Arken sporting a blue-black bruise under his eye. “What have you done to him?”
“Apologies, my lord,” the guard sergeant said as Mustor sauntered over. “The boy saw us coming and jumped from the inn window. Wouldn’t listen to reason.”
Reva touched a hand to Arken’s bruise, wincing. “I told you not to wait.”
He gave a sheepish grimace. “Didn’t want to go to the Reaches on my own.”
The Fief Lord coughed in expectation. “It seems,” Reva said, “we’ll be staying with my uncle after all.”
◆ ◆ ◆
They gave her a maid, a quiet woman with mercifully few questions, but a keenness to her gaze making Reva suspect her principal duty consisted of providing reports to Lady Veliss. She was given more dresses and a suite of rooms on the floor below those her uncle shared with his counsellor. She wondered if there was any significance to the fact that Arken was housed in a separate wing.
“He’s just my friend,” she had insisted in answer to the Fief Lord’s query over breakfast the next day.
“An Asraelin friend,” he pointed out.
“Just like Lady Veliss,” she returned.
“Which gives me a wealth of experience in fending off the jibes of those in this fief who still hunger for independence. If you are to be my acknowledged niece, a certain . . . discretion will be required.”
She chose to ignore the obvious irony of being lectured on discretion by so famous a whore chaser. “Acknowledged niece?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“I . . . don’t know.” In fact she had little notion of what course to follow next. The priest was a lie, the sword a myth, and the Father’s love . . . “I thought I might journey to the Northern Reaches. I have friends there.”
; “Al Sorna, you mean.” There was a sourness to his voice that told her she had finally found someone not in awe of her former tutor. “I don’t think I like the notion of my niece in proximity to that man. Trouble finds him with far too much regularity.”
“So I am your prisoner, now? Kept here to do your bidding.”
“You are free to go where you wish. But don’t you want to stay a while with your lonely old uncle?”
Reva was puzzling over an answer when the Lady Veliss arrived to join them. Breakfast was usually eaten in the large dining hall with the portraits on the walls. Veliss and the Fief Lord had a curious habit of sitting at opposite ends of the long table, obliging them to converse in shouts.
“Any more intelligence to impart, counsellor?” Mustor called to her as she sat down to a plate of bacon, eggs and mushrooms.
“Sadly our prisoner contrived to expire under questioning,” she shouted back, shaking out her napkin. “Too much drum-weed in the mix. All I managed to extract were a few ramblings about some great and powerful ally, able to match the Darkness that perpetuates the Heretic Dominion.” She shook her head. “These fanatics grow ever more deluded.” She cast a critical gaze over Reva. “You’ll need to change, love. Something more formal, and pleasing. It’s the Father’s Day, and we have a service to attend.”
“Service?”
“The date of Alltor’s first prophecy approaches,” her uncle said. “Three weeks hence. The Reader himself will conduct a service in the cathedral on each Father’s Day until then.”
“Services are a perversion of the Ten Books,” Reva said, in remembrance rather than conviction. “No rituals are stipulated in the books. The truly loved need no empty ceremony from the venal church.”
“Did the priest teach you that?” he asked.
She nodded. “And much more.”
“Then perhaps there may be some wisdom to the Sons’ delusions. In any case, perversion or not, I would greatly appreciate your attendance. I think the Reader will find you most interesting.”
◆ ◆ ◆
She tried on four dresses before finding one Veliss approved of, a black tight-bodiced contrivance with lace sleeves and a high collar. “It itches,” Reva grumbled as they formed a procession before the main gate. A squad of guards lined up on either side and they started forward at a sedate walk, making their way through the gate and into the square beyond.
“Power comes at a price, love,” Veliss replied through bared teeth, maintaining the smile she offered to the townsfolk lining the square.
“What power?”
“All power. The power to rule, to kill or, in your case this fine morning, the power to incite the lust of the old goat you’re about to meet.”
“Lust? I have no desire to incite lust in anyone.”
Veliss turned to her with a quizzical expression, her smile suddenly genuine. “Then I’m afraid you’re in for a lifetime of disappointment.”
Inside, the cathedral seemed a vast wonder of ascending arches and tall windows, the stained glass casting multi-coloured rays across the pillars. The air was thick with incense as they made their way to the balcony on the western wall, the raised seats offering a fine view of the interior. In the centre of the space below stood a podium surrounded by ten lecterns.
It took an age for the whole congregation to assemble, finely attired nobles and merchants in the foremost rows, poorer folk behind, the poorest lining the walls. Reva had never seen such a multitude in one place, and found herself squirming under the weight of so many curious eyes. “Is the whole city here?” she whispered to her uncle.
“Hardly. Perhaps a tenth. There are other chapels in the city. Only the most devout come here, or the richest.”
The sound of a bell pealed forth, stilling the murmur of conversation. After a moment the white-robed figure of the Reader appeared, preceded once again by his five book-bearing bishops. They went to each of the lecterns, placing the books with careful reverence before stepping back, hands clasped together and eyes downcast as the Reader ascended the podium. He surveyed the congregation with a faint smile then raised his gaze to the balcony, smiling at the Fief Lord, at Lady Veliss, and paling somewhat at the sight of Reva, the smile slipping from his lips, making them sag on his aged face like two wet slugs.
That, Reva decided, is not the expression of a lustful man.
The Reader seemed to recover his composure quickly, turning and opening one of the books, his voice strong and clear as he read, “‘There are two types of hate. The hatred of the man who knows you and the hatred of the man who fears you. Show love to both and they will hate you no longer.’”
The Tenth Book, Reva recognised. The Book of Wisdom.
“Hatred,” the Reader repeated, raising his gaze to the congregation. “The World Father’s love, you would think, would be enough to banish all hatred from the hearts of men. But, of course, it is not. For not all men open their hearts to such love. Not all men allow themselves to listen to the words in these ten books, and many who do make only a pretence of hearing their truth. Not all men have the courage to cast off their old ways, to banish sin from their hearts and make a new life under the Father’s gaze. In return for what He offers the Father asks so very little, he offers you love. His love. A love that will preserve your soul for eternity . . .”
Reva’s boredom grew as he droned on, her collar itching worse than before as she tried not to fidget. What am I doing here? she wondered. Showing respectful obedience to an uncle I don’t even know. Alongside his whore no less.
She was seized by a desire to leave, just get up and walk out. Uncle had said she was free to go where she wished, and she wished to be somewhere far away from this old man’s twaddle. But his expression when he saw me, she remembered. Not lust, fear. She had scared him, badly, and she found she wanted to know why.
Although it seemed a century, the Reader spoke for perhaps an hour, pausing now and then to read another passage from one of the books, then launching into another rambling diatribe on the Father’s love and the nature of sin. As a child one of her few pleasures had been those periods of respite when the priest would educate her in the Ten Books, reading every passage with such passionate conviction she couldn’t help but be swept along in the torrent of words. The respite was always brief though, for he would test her after every reading, hickory cane poised to punish any fumbled recitation.
She found no echo of the priest’s passion here in this vaulted cavern of glass and marble, just an old man’s empty dogma. It can’t all be a lie, she thought, fighting a rising sense of desperation. Even Uncle Sentes feels the Father’s love. There must be truth here somewhere.
The Reader’s last words were lost to Reva as she indulged in memories of time spent with Alornis, finding she badly wanted to see her draw again. Finally he fell silent and walked from the podium as the congregation rose from their seats, heads bowed. The bishops, who had remained standing throughout, though some were almost as old as the Reader, retrieved their books from the lecterns and followed in solemn silence. The bell pealed once more and the cathedral began to empty. A few of the nobles and merchants attempted to linger at the balcony steps to beg a word with the Fief Lord but were shooed away by the guards.
“Right,” Uncle Sentes said when the last of the congregants had filed out, standing and offering Reva his hand. “Let’s see what the old bastard has to say for himself.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Your niece, my lord?” The Reader’s voice was carefully modulated, just enough surprise mixed in with the serenity. They had been conveyed to his private chambers by a coldly servile priest who couldn’t disguise his disdain for Veliss, or a suspicious sneer at Reva. She resolved to punch him on the way out.
“Indeed, Holy Reader,” Uncle Sentes replied. “My niece, soon to be acknowledged as such. It would be an honour if you would witness the warrant, as well as servin
g to still any silly doubts amongst the people. I’ve had the document prepared.”
Lady Veliss placed the scroll she held on the Reader’s desk, unfurling it and securing the edge with an inkpot. “Where I’ve marked, if you please, Holy Reader.”
The Reader barely glanced at the document, apparently finding it difficult not to look at Reva, his expression not so fearful now. Some lust in him after all, she thought. “How old are you child?” he asked.
She couldn’t say where the certainty came from, but she had no doubt he already knew her age, probably to the day. “Eighteen years this summer, Holy Reader,” she replied.
“Eighteen years.” The old man shook his head. “At my age the years speed by so. It seems no more than a week since your father came to me, seeking guidance. He wanted so badly to marry your mother, and, though it grieves me to say so in your uncle’s hearing, I counselled him to do so, in defiance of his father. ‘The joining of hearts is to be rejoiced at.’”
“‘And only a sinful man will sunder those joined in love,’” Reva concluded. The Second Book, The Book of Blessings.
The Reader smiled and sighed in pleasure. “I see the Father’s love burns bright in you, child.” He picked up a quill, dipping it in the inkpot to add his signature to the document formalising her acknowledgment as Lady Reva Mustor, Niece to Fief Lord Sentes Mustor of Cumbrael. Veliss reclaimed the scroll and moved back to the Fief Lord’s side, blowing gently on the wet ink.
“I do so hate to trouble you further, Holy Reader,” the Fief Lord said. “But I have grave news to impart.”
The old man gave a placid nod. “The Realm Guard marches towards our borders once more. Grim tidings indeed. We can only trust the Father’s benevolence will save us from further ravishment.”