Fires of the Faithful (12 page)

I clasped her tightly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I can’t do this again,” she said. “I won’t be able to let another friend die.”

“The Fedeli leave at dawn,” I said. “They won’t come back.”

Mira fell silent, then began to weep again. I pressed my hand against her wet cheek, wiping her tears away. “Mira,” I said.

“Don’t say it,” she said. “Whatever it was you were going to say, just don’t say it.”

So I waited until she was asleep again. The moon was up, and shining through the cracks in the walls enough that I could just see Mira’s face when I sat up. The warm flush had drained out of her face, leaving her as pale as polished bones. I touched her cold forehead with my lips; she didn’t wake.

“I know you don’t want me to bind myself to you, Mira,” I whispered. “But even if you don’t hear me, I want to tell you that I’m not going to leave you.” I crossed my forefingers. “Whatever you fear, I will face it with
you. Whether we face Maledori or Fedeli, I’ll stand beside you. If it’s in my power, I’ll protect you.” I kissed my fingers, sealing the oath. Mira’s eyes never flickered.

“I love you, Mira,” I whispered.

I slept, toward the end of the night, my body tucked around Mira’s. I dreamed all night of the soldier I’d seen in the old practice hall before, and of Mira’s eyes, watching me across a vast chasm filled with fire.

At dawn, I peered out through a crack in the wall to see the Fedeli leaving. Once I was certain that they were gone, I went to stand in the courtyard, where Bella had died. It was the earliest dawn, and the courtyard was empty. As I started back toward the old practice hall, to see if Mira would wake for breakfast, something caught my eye.

Between two paving-stones, stained with blood, was a small wooden cross on a broken cord. Bella’s cross. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching, but the Fedeli had gone and the courtyard, in the cold dawn, was empty. I snatched it up and slipped it into the sleeve of my robe.
Bella would have wanted me to have it
, I thought, then went to wake Mira.

T
he rest of the winter passed too quietly. No one spoke of the Fedeli, and no one openly said Bella’s name. As the first heavy rainstorm turned the roads to impassable mud, Mira fidgeted and paced until I set aside my music and pulled her down to sit beside me. “The Fedeli can’t come back,” I said. “No one can travel in this.”

“But I can’t leave, either,” Mira said.

“Do you want to leave so badly?” I asked. My hand, clasping Mira’s, trembled slightly.

“I came here to play the forbidden music,” she said, dropping her voice even though we were alone. “To teach it. But after what happened …” She turned her face away from me.

“Where would you go, if you left?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Farther south, maybe. Back to my home village.”

“I thought you wanted to become a minstrel. That’s what you said, once.”

Mira glanced up at me with a faint smile. “Want to try
to work out a minstrel style on the violin with me? Sing and play at the same time?”

“I can’t sing,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s really not as hard as Celia makes it out to be.”

“I know what a voice should sound like,” I said. “My voice doesn’t sound like that.”

“Stand up,” Mira said, hopping off the bed. I stood, and she touched my back lightly. “Stand up straight.” I straightened. “Now, pretend I haven’t heard ‘The Wicked Stepmother’—and you’re the only person who can sing me the words.” She sat back down on the bed and looked at me expectantly.

I started to say that I really didn’t have a good singing voice—but Mira just waited, still smiling, so I took a deep breath and started the song.

When I was done, my face was hot, and I stared down at the floor. “I don’t know why you say you can’t sing,” Mira said. I looked up, surprised, and she met my gaze with a smile that struck me like an arrow. “You have a lovely voice. All you need is to be able to accompany yourself with the violin.”

The violin worked reasonably well for a minstrel performance, as it turned out. We couldn’t tuck our chins
down while singing, of course, and it took some practice, but we were able to work out a way to play and sing at the same time. The violin was louder than a lute, and two violins sounded really good together. Mira and I started digging up old folk songs to play together—it wasn’t Old Way music, so we couldn’t get in trouble for it, but at least it was something
different
and a little strange. And the project seemed to dispel Mira’s restlessness, just a bit.

During the worst of the rains, we celebrated the birthday of Aelius, brother of Gaius. Gaius was the prophet who brought the Lady’s Gift of magery to the rest of us; Aelius was not a prophet, but he was honored by musicians because he had started to teach musicians to play in ensembles, and had created the Central Conservatory in Cuore. The legend said that he also created the first violin, though in the library I’d seen drawings of similar instruments that had predated Aelius. His birthday was not a sacred day, so we didn’t have to go to the chapel; instead, we had the day off from lessons and classes and threw a party in the meal hall.

Bella had always loved celebrating Aelius’s birthday. At the party, we played games—trying to name ensemble pieces from a line of harmony, or racing to play a tune named by the musical archivist. Bella had a superb memory and always won every game until the teachers disqualified her to give someone else a chance. This year, nobody felt much like playing anything.

When the rains stopped and the roads hardened again, the mail came. People scrutinized their letters in silence and compared notes privately later. Several villages had had visits from the Fedeli, and others, like Flavia’s family, had seen soldiers—hundreds of soldiers, marching south. None had seen Circle detachments. Everyone wondered the same thing—if we’re going to war with Vesuvia again,
where are the mages? How can the army fight without magefire?

And why had the Fedeli come? They were driving out the Maledori that had caused the famine, some letters said. There was nothing to fear. Other letters were fearful or angry. There had been a burning, in one village, or so I heard.

The Fedeli had not come to Doratura, my home village, nor had my family heard these rumors. Instead, my mother wrote about a new ritual they did each week to honor the Lady and ensure the fertility of the land. Singing, with drums and dancing.
This is an older way to honor the Lady
, she wrote.
Sometimes it’s the older ways that are the best
. I shuddered, and added to my letter back:
Be careful, all of you. The Fedeli came to the conservatory, and we found that they take a dim view of certain “older ways.”

At Equinox, we would celebrate Ritorno, the Lord’s return from His battle with the Maledori. Chastened by the visit from the Fedeli, the conservatory was planning an extensive and elaborate observance. I helped halfheartedly with the preparations, thinking of home—they would be planting the early crops, onions and wheat and beans. They’d celebrate Ritorno with a bonfire in the piazza, and rites to ask the Lady to bless the fields and the planting. On our first beautiful day, the week before the Equinox, I slung my violin over my shoulder—so that I could pretend to myself that I was going to practice—and made my way to the conservatory wall to watch the festival preparations in Bascio. I sat down on the wall and swung my legs to dangle into forbidden territory.

Two—no, three summers earlier, Bella and I slipped out of the conservatory one night on a dare.
Bring us a pebble from the Bascio piazza
. It had been Celia’s idea. Bella and I had jumped over the wall and crept down the hill; the
moon had been full, and we’d jumped at every noise, convinced that someone from the conservatory had seen us. We each grabbed a smooth pebble, white in the moonlight, and ran back to the conservatory, smothering our giggles.

Pushing down the grief that rose up into my throat, I stared down at a stray goat that was winding its way around the cottages of Bascio, filching stray vegetables. Someone spotted it and started beating it with a stick, shouting words I could almost catch. I wondered how Doratura would look from this perspective. Probably much the same.

I tried to remember when I had last been down to Bascio. Seven months ago, I decided, shortly before Mira arrived—for my new boots.

I opened my violin case, but couldn’t bring myself to play. Tucked in with the extra gut and the rosin, though, was a tiny clay bird whistle, which my brother Donato had made for me while we were walking to the conservatory. He’d tried to make it so that I could use it to tune my violin, and it hadn’t really worked, but it had a pure sweet sound, and I blew through it gently to pick out the tune to the song about the poisoned honey.

I heard a twig snap and turned around; Mira had crept up behind me. She also had her violin slung over her shoulder. I started to swing my legs back to the legal side of the wall, and she laughed. “Don’t get up on my account,” she said, and sat down beside me. She gestured to the whistle. “You’ve been hiding one of your talents.”

“Not really,” I said. “A bird whistle isn’t exactly a flute. My brother Donato made this for me.”

“Can I see?” Mira asked. I handed it to her, and she blew on it, a little too hard; the sound was harsh. She laughed and handed it back. “Well, it takes
some
sort of talent, anyway.”

“Just a little practice,” I said, and put it away. I would
make a whistle for Mira, I decided; not clay, that would be too hard to get on the conservatory grounds. I’d carve a wooden whistle for her. We looked down at Bascio for a few minutes. The troublesome goat had been corralled and tethered to a post, where it had started to chew on its rope again.

“Are you homesick today?” Mira asked.

“No,” I said.

“Letters make a lot of people homesick,” she said.

“I’m feeling restless,” I admitted. “I wish I were graduating this spring, instead of next spring—I’m ready to get out of here.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Today? Anywhere that
isn’t
the Verdiano Rural Conservatory.”

Mira flashed me a smile. “We should go on a trip,” she said. “Right now.”

“Where? Bascio?”

“No, farther than that. We should run away. You’ve got your violin with you, I’ve got mine. What more do we need? We could just jump over the wall and go.” She grinned broadly. “What do you say?”

“Keep talking. You might convince me.”

“We could play at taverns,” she said, “the two of us together. Those songs we’ve been learning—we sound good.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Minstrel life is hard. Never knowing if we’d sleep in a bed or under a bush—never knowing if we’d eat or go hungry—”

“We’d eat,” she said. “We’d sleep at the inns where we played. Think, Eliana! Freedom. Adventure. We could see the whole
world
together.” She clasped my hand and fell silent, looking into my eyes, and I realized that she wasn’t joking.

My heart started knocking in my ears as I returned her
stare. I realized that I was holding my breath. The warmth of her hand felt like it was scorching mine; my grip tightened.
Leave the conservatory?
I thought. It was a crazy idea. But—

There was a crash from behind us and we both whirled, leaping to our feet. It was Giula, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” she said. “Mira, your teacher sent me looking for you. You’re late for your lesson.”

Mira smacked herself on the forehead. “I can’t believe I did that.” She turned and whispered in my ear, “Think about it.” Giula gave me an apologetic look and followed Mira back up the hill.

I broke a small branch from one of the trees that grew along the wall, and started carving a whistle for Mira, thinking about her offer as I let the sun soak into my skin. What if she truly was planning to leave?
I’d go with her
, I thought.
If I had to
. But I preferred to stay, as long as I could persuade Mira to stay with me; I wanted to finish my last year at the conservatory, audition for ensembles, and see how I did. It occurred to me that Mira had said repeatedly that she didn’t ever want to go back to Cuore, and of course I’d be auditioning for ensembles there … Well, there was no guarantee that I would get into
any
ensemble, let alone one of the ensembles in Cuore. I’d worry about it if it happened.

I blew into the whistle to test it, and was pleasantly surprised by the sweet, clear note. Mira would like it, I thought.
I would go anywhere, if it meant being with Mira. Or rather, if the alternative meant
not
being with Mira
. I slipped the whistle into my violin case and started walking back to the room we shared.

Mira wasn’t there, so I left the whistle under her pillow, then leaned out the window to stare up again at the clear blue sky.
I need to get out
, I thought,
just for a day. Maybe
I can convince the Dean I need new boots. No, a new cloak
. I fingered the fabric thoughtfully.

The next day, giddy with my temporary freedom, I managed to keep myself from skipping down the road from the conservatory to the village. The Dean had looked over my shabby cloak and given me coin and permission to go get myself a new one. The cloak I wore had been cut with a generous hem that could be let out as I grew, but no one had known I’d grow two inches taller than most men. It was too short for me, and wearing badly at the edges. I slipped a bit in the mud as I reached the village; it had rained the night before, leaving the stones of the Bascio piazza glittering in the sunshine.