Blood of the Fold (49 page)

He loosened his collar. “Well, we was drinking, and feeling all misty-eyed about breaking up. That bottle was stronger than what we was used to. I asked him where his daughter lived, so I could send him the pay from the tally to help out with things. I got this place, after all, and I can get by. I got work. But Ham says no, he don’t need it. Don’t need it! Well, I was powerful curious after he said that. I asked him where he got money, and he said he saved it. Ham never saved nothing. If he had it, it was because he just got it, that’s all, and hadn’t spent it yet.

“
Well, that’s when he told me to be sure to send the tally to the palace. He was real insistent, I guess because he felt bad about leaving me with no help. So, I asks him, ‘Ham, who’d you put in the ground for the palace?’”

Milton leaned toward her, lowering his voice to a gravely whisper. “‘Didn’t put no one in the ground,’ Ham says, ‘I took ‘em out.’”

Verna snatched the man’s dirty collar. “What! He dug someone up? Is that what he meant? He dug someone up?”

Milton nodded. “That’s it. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Digging up the dead? Putting ‘em in the ground don’t bother me, it’s what I do, but the idea of digging ‘em up gives me the shivers. Seems a desecration. Course, at the time, we was drinking to old times and all, and we was in stitches over it.”

Verna’s mind was racing in every direction at once. “Who did he exhume? And on whose orders?”

“
All’s he said was ‘for the palace.’”

“
How long ago?”

“
A good long time. I don’t remember … wait, it was after the winter solstice, not long after, maybe just a couple of days.”

She shook him by the collar. “Who was it? Who did he dig up!”

“
I asked him. I asked him who it were they wanted back. He told me, he says, ‘They didn’t care who, I’m just to bring ‘em, wrapped up all pretty in clean winding sheets.’”

Verna worked her fingers on his collar. “Are you sure? You were drinking—he might have just been making up drunken stories.”

He shook his head as if he feared she were going to bite it off. “No. I swear. Ham don’t make up stories, or lie, when he drinks. When he drinks he would tell me anything true. No matter what sin he done, when he drinks he confesses it to me true. And I remember what he told me; it was the last night I saw my friend. I remember what he said.

“
He said to be sure to get the tally to the palace, but to wait a few weeks as they was busy, they’d told him.”

“
What did he do with the body? Where did he take it? Who did he give it to?”

Milton tried to back away a bit, but her grip on his collar didn’t allow it. “I don’t know. He said he took ‘em to the palace in a cart covered over real good, and he said they give him a special pass so as the guards wouldn’t check his load. He had to dress in his best clothes so people wouldn’t recognize him for what he was, so as not to frighten the fine people at the palace, and especially so as not to upset the delicate sensibilities of the Sisters, who were communing with the Creator. He said he done as he was told, and he was proud that he done it right, ‘cause no one got disturbed by his going there with the bodies. That’s all he said about it. I don’t know no more, I swear it on my hope to go to the Creator’s light after this life be done.”

“
Bodies? You said bodies. More than one?” She fixed him with a dangerous glare as she tightened her grip. “How many? How many bodies did he dig up and deliver to the palace?

“
Two.”

“
Two …” she repeated in a whisper, wide-eyed. He nodded.

Verna’s hand fell away from his collar.

Two.

Two bodies, wrapped in clean winding sheets.

Her fists tightened as she growled in a rage.

Milton swallowed, holding up a hand. “One other thing. I don’t know if it matters.”

“
What?” She asked through gritted teeth.

“
He said that they wanted ‘em fresh, and one was small, and weren’t too bad, but the other gave him a time, because he were a big one. I didn’t think to ask him more about it. I’m sorry.”

With great effort, she managed a smile. “Thank you, Milton, you’ve been a great help to the Creator.”

He scrunched his shirt closed at the neck. “Thank you, Sister. Sister, I’ve never had the nerve to go to the palace, being what I am, and all. I know folks don’t like to see me around. Well, I’ve never gone. Sister, could you give me the Creator’s blessing?”

“
Of course, Milton. You have done his work.”

He closed his eyes with a murmured prayer.

Verna gently touched his forehead. “The Creator’s blessing on his child,” she whispered as she let the warmth of her Han flow into his mind. He gasped in rapture. Verna let her Han seep through his mind. “You will remember nothing of what Ham told you about the tally while you were drinking. You will recall only that he said he did the work, but you know nothing of its nature. After I’ve left, you will not recall my visit.”

His eyes rolled beneath his eyelids for a time before coming open at last. “Thank you, Sister.”

Warren was pacing on the street outside. She stormed past him without stoping to say anything. He ran to catch up.

Verna was a thunderhead. “I’ll strangle her,” she growled under her breath. “I’ll strangle her with my bare hands. I don’t care if the Keeper takes me, I’ll have her throat in my hands.”

“
What are you talking about? What did you find out? Verna, slow down!”

“
Don’t talk to me right now, Warren. Don’t say a word!”

She swept through the streets, her fists whipping in time to her furious strides, a storm rampaging across the land. The churning knot of fury in her stomach threatened to ignite in lightning. She didn’t see the streets or buildings, or hear the drums thundering in the background. She forgot Warren trotting behind her. She could see nothing but a vision of vengeance.

She was blind to where she was, lost in a world of rage. Without knowing how she had gotten there, she found herself crossing one of the back bridges onto Halsband Island. In the center crest above the river she stamped to a halt so abruptly that Warren almost collided with her.

She snatched the silver braiding at his collar. “You get yourself down into the vaults and link up that prophecy.”

“
What are you talking about?”

She shook him by his robes. “The one that says that when the Prelate and the Prophet are given to the Light in the sacred rite, the flames will bring to boil a cauldron of guile and give ascension to a false Prelate who will reign over the death of the Palace of the Prophets. Find the branches. Link it up. Find out everything you can. Do you understand!”

Warren snatched his robes free and tugged them straight. “What’s this about? What did the gravedigger tell you?”

She held up a cautionary finger. “Not now, Warren.”

“
We’re supposed to be friends, Verna. We’re in this together, remember? I want to know—”

Her voice was thunder on the horizon. “Do as I tell you. If you press me right now, Warren, you are going to go for a swim. Now go link up that prophecy, and as soon as you find anything, you come tell me.”

Verna knew about the prophecies in the vaults. She knew that it could easily take years to link branches. It could take centuries. What choice was there?

He brushed dust from his robes, giving his eyes an excuse to look elsewhere. “As you wish,
Prelate
.”

As he turned to go, she could see that his eyes were red and puffy. She wanted to catch his arm and stop him, but he was already too far away. She wanted to call out to him and tell him that she wasn’t angry at him, that it wasn’t his fault that she was the false Prelate, but her voice failed her.

She found the round rock beneath the limb and sprang up the wall. Bothering with only two branches on the pear tree, she dropped to the ground inside the Prelate’s compound and, when she regained her feet, started running. Panting in hurt, she slapped her hand repeatedly against the door to the Prelate’s sanctuary, but it wouldn’t open. Remembering why, she dug in her pocket and found the ring. Inside, she pressed it against the sunburst on the door to close it, and then with all her anger and anguish, heaved the ring across the room, hearing it clatter against the walls and skitter across the floor.

Verna pried the journey book from the secret pouch sewn on the back of her belt and plopped down on the three-legged stool. Gasping for her breath, she fumbled the stylus from the spine of the little black book. She opened it, spreading it flat on the small table, and stared at the blank page.

She tried to think through the rage and resentment. She had to consider the possibility that she could be wrong. No. She wasn’t wrong. Still, she was a Sister of the Light, for what that was worth, and knew better than to risk everything on presumption. She had to think of a way to verify who had the other book, and she also had to do it in a way that wouldn’t betray her identity if she was wrong. But she wasn’t wrong. She knew who had it.

Verna kissed her ring finger as she whispered a prayer beseeching the Creator’s guidance, and asking, too, for strength.

She wanted to vent her wrath, but before all else, she had to make sure. With trembling fingers, she picked up the stylus and began to write.

You must first tell me the reason you chose me the last time. I remember every word. One mistake, and this journey book feeds the fire.

Verna closed the book and tucked it back into its secret pouch in her belt. Shaking, she pulled the comforter from its resting place atop the box bench and dragged it to the fat chair. Feeling more lonely than she had ever felt in her entire life, she curled up in the chair.

Verna remembered her last meeting with Prelate Annalina when Verna had returned with Richard after all those years. Annalina hadn’t wanted to see her, and it had taken weeks to finally be granted an audience. As long as she lived, no matter how many hundreds of years that might be, she would never forget that meeting, or the things the Prelate had told her.

Verna had been furious to discover the Prelate had withheld valuable information. The Prelate had used her and never told her the reasons. The Prelate had asked if Verna knew why she had been selected to go after Richard. Verna said she had thought it was a vote of confidence. The Prelate said it was because she suspected that Sisters Grace and Elizabeth, who had been on the journey with her and had been the first two to be selected, were Sisters of the Dark, and she had privileged information from prophecy that said the first two Sisters would die. The Prelate said she had used her prerogative to pick Verna as the third Sister to go.

Verna asked, “You chose me, because you had faith that I was not one of them?”

“
I chose you, Verna,” the Prelate said, “because you were far down on the list, and because, all in all, you are quite unremarkable. I doubted you were one of them. You are a person of little note. I’m sure Grace and Elizabeth made their way to the top of the list because whoever directs the Sisters of the Dark considered them expendable. I direct the Sisters of the Light. I chose you for the same reason.

“
There are Sisters who are valuable to our cause; I could not risk one of them on such a task. The boy may prove a value to us, but he is not as important as other matters at the palace. It was simply an opportunity I thought to take.

“
If there had been trouble, and none of you made it back, well, I’m sure you can understand that a general would not want to lose his best troops on a low-priority mission.”

The woman who had smiled at her when she was little, filling her with inspiration, had broken her heart.

Verna drew the comforter up as she blinked at the watery walls of the sanctuary. All she had ever wanted was to be a Sister of the Light. She had wanted to be one of those wondrous women who used her gift to do the Creator’s work here in this world. She had given her life and her heart to the Palace of the Prophets.

Verna remembered the day they came and told her that her mother had died. Old age, they said.

Her mother didn’t have the gift, and so was of no use to the palace. Her mother didn’t live close, and Verna only rarely saw her. When her mother did travel to the palace for a visit, she was frightened because Verna didn’t age to her eyes, the way a normal person aged. She could never understand it, no matter how many times Verna tried to explain the spell. Verna knew it was because her mother feared to really listen. She feared magic.