Fires of the Faithful (16 page)

“My name is Aviro,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at us.

“I’m Eliana,” I said, and since Giula was still staring at him nervously, added, “and this is Giula.”

“You came from the conservatory,” he observed. I nodded. “I’ll have Frugia lend you some clothes.”

“Is Frugia a priestess?” Giula asked.

“No,” Aviro said. “Frugia is providing me with hospitality.”

He’d offered us hospitality in someone else’s house? That seemed rather rude to me, but just then I was more concerned about Giula’s look of open terror. If Aviro turned around, he’d
know
we had something to hide. I jabbed her in the ribs. “Smile,” I whispered.

Frugia met us at the door, a pale, nervous widow who looked older than she probably was. She ushered us up a ladder to the second-floor loft, to let us change into some
dry clothes. “You can borrow one of my daughter’s dresses until your clothing dries,” she said to Giula, and then looked me up and down. “You’re very tall,” she said. “I think we’ll have to get out some of my husband’s old clothing for you.”

“How long have the Fedeli been in your village?” I asked softly.

Frugia glanced toward the ladder. “Aviro is here to ensure the purity of our worship of the Lady,” she said, pitching her speech to be heard downstairs. “There are villages near here who have slipped into superstition or heresy. Aviro is here to find them and to show them their errors.” Her eyes showed fear and suppressed anger. “He has been here for two weeks,” she said in a softer voice. “I don’t know how much longer he’ll stay.”

From a shelf beside the bed, Frugia took out a dress and held it up. “This should do for Giula,” she said, and laid it across the bed. Then she opened a trunk by the window and took out a tunic and trousers, shaking them out and holding them up to me. “They won’t quite fit,” she said, “but they’ll do. Bring your own clothing downstairs when you’ve changed, and we’ll put it by the fire to dry.” She went back down the ladder to give us privacy to change.

It wasn’t until I pulled my robe over my head that I remembered Bella’s cross, on its ribbon around my neck. “Lady’s tits,” Giula hissed, her eyes going wide. “Are you mad?”

I hurriedly clasped my fist over it, as if Aviro might be watching from under the bed. “No harm done,” I whispered, giving her a reassuring grin, but she didn’t looked reassured. I slipped it over my head and hid it in my boot.

“I want to leave,” Giula whispered. “Now.”

“We can’t,” I whispered back. “We’ll look guilty.”

“So what? We won’t
be
here anymore.”

“Don’t you think he’ll come after us, if he thinks he should? We’ll eat dinner, sleep on the hearth, and leave at dawn. Just tell the same lies I do.” I considered for a moment. “And if you get a chance to use witchlight when he can see you, do it.”

Giula’s dress was made of a heavy linen fabric, dyed yellow. It fit her quite well, and I stepped back for a good look, impressed by the embroidered scooped collar and the narrow waist. My clothes were less decorative. I had a linen tunic over black wool trousers. It was loose in the wrong places, and Frugia had forgotten to get out a belt, but my red wool sash was only slightly damp, so I belted it with that.

“You don’t look half bad in boys’ clothing,” Giula said. “Anything but the robes, I guess.” She smiled gamely. “Might as well make the best of it.” We combed our hair and climbed back down the ladder.

Frugia took our wet clothing and half-soaked cloaks and spread them by the fire. “Have a seat,” Aviro said, and gestured at the bench across the table from him.

We sat down.

“Why did you leave the conservatory?” he asked.

“We were expelled,” I said. “We were caught talking to boys. One too many times.”

Giula stared at the floor, feigning shame. “Did you have to tell him that?” she wailed.

“Giula, he’s with the
Fedeli
. Didn’t you see his insignia? We can’t lie to
him
.” I gave Aviro the look I’d seen Giula give male teachers, when she was trying to suck up. Giula was better at it, but Aviro preened anyway, and I felt mildly disgusted with myself.

“You were at the Verdiano Conservatory?” Aviro asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“There were members of my order there a few months ago,” Aviro said.

“Yes,” I said. “During Mascherata.”

“They executed a girl about your age for apostasy,” Aviro said. “I read the report.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you know her?”

I dug my fingernails into my knees to keep my face impassive. “Of course I knew her,” I said. “We were students together for four years.”

“Was she a friend of yours?”

“No,” I said. “Just someone I knew.”

“There was a servant, as well,” Aviro said.

“Giorgi,” I said. “He disappeared.”

“How much contact did you have with him?”

“Not much,” I said. “He worked in the kitchen.”

“How about you?” Aviro said to Giula.

“Not much,” she squeaked.

“And Bella? Were
you
friends with her?”

Giula shook her head.

Aviro turned his attention back to me. “Who is Rafina?” he asked. “The woman you spoke of in the chapel. Who is she?”

Giula was weakening—I could feel her trembling next to me on the bench. I dropped one hand under the table to squeeze her arm tightly. I needed to divert the conversation; Rafina was clearly guilty of apostasy, and sooner or later Giula would blurt something out. “Are we under suspicion of something?” I asked.

“Is there something on your conscience that would arouse my suspicions?” Aviro asked.

“No,” I said. “But you’re asking us questions like you think there is.”

“ ‘Innocence doesn’t need to hide,’ ” Aviro quoted.

I licked my lips. “ ‘When you welcome a guest,’ ” I quoted back, “ ‘you shall first bring wine, that he might refresh himself from his travels.’ Do you intend to meet the Lady’s obligations of hospitality?”

Aviro’s eyes narrowed and Giula sucked in her breath. “Are you quoting the Book of the Lady to
me
?”

“I shouldn’t have to,” I said.

Aviro slammed his fist down onto the table. “You—”

There was a crash from across the room. “Oh, Lady,” said a timid voice. We turned; it was Frugia’s eldest daughter, gathering up shards from a broken bowl. “It slipped out of my hands, signore. I’m so clumsy—I’m sorry.” She stared at us meekly in the silence. “Mother is almost done cooking dinner,” she said. “Why don’t we get ready?”

Aviro made the ritual offering to the Lady before the meal, then said a long, involved prayer, thanking the Lord and the Lady and their servants and everything short of the house sprites. Frugia and her children sat, backs straight, eyes closed. Even the youngest child, who couldn’t have been more than seven years old, sat perfectly still until the meal was served. By then, of course, it was lukewarm. Such is the price of piety.

Frugia’s eldest daughter sat to Aviro’s right, and I noticed as the meal progressed that she was keeping his wine cup filled to the brim. I glanced at Frugia and saw her giving her daughter an almost imperceptible nod.

When the meal was concluded, Aviro took out a worn, heavy copy of the Book of the Lady to read aloud. “Lift up your voices to give eternal praise to the Lady and thanks unto Her,” he read. “For She will never turn Her back on you, nor turn a deaf ear to you in your time of need. She asks not blind faith, but places Her light in your hand, dispelling the darkness and the Maledori.” Aviro stumbled
over
Maledori
, slurring the syllables. “Ever loving and ever faithful, She waits with open arms for all who seek Her warmth.” He stumbled again and yawned. “Excuse me. She watches us as we slumber. She—um.” He closed the book. “My apologies; I’m very tired. We’ll continue this in the morning.” He went up the ladder. Apparently Aviro slept upstairs; Frugia and her children slept in beds around the hearth.

Frugia’s oldest daughter cleaned up from dinner silently. Frugia went to look up the ladder, then returned and shook her head, and gestured for Giula and me to spread out our cloaks by the hearth.

“What were you
thinking
?” Giula hissed as we lay down.

I shrugged, not wanting to explain that I had been trying desperately to steer the conversation away from Rafina before Giula blurted anything out. I was too worried to be sleepy, and watched as Frugia put her younger children to bed. She peered up the ladder again, and nodded once to her eldest daughter. The daughter opened the door and peered out, then felt our robes, which had been moved out of the way of the bedrolls. She shrugged.

Frugia came down to sit beside Giula and me; her daughter followed.

“If you have anything to hide,” Frugia whispered, “then you should go now.”

“Won’t that make us look guilty?” Giula asked.

“Yes,” Frugia said. “But he already suspects you of something. You’re better off guilty and
gone
.”

“Will you get into trouble?” I asked.

Frugia’s daughter gave me a slight smile. “No,” she said. “He’ll sleep well into the morning, and we’ll tell him you left at dawn.”

“What about your clothes?” I asked.

Frugia looked us over. “Give me a coin and we’ll call it even.”

Giula took out a coin to give to Frugia, and we gathered up our cloaks, violins, and packs. We pulled our boots on.

I paused in the doorway to look back at Frugia. “Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t mention it,” Frugia said. “
Some
of us are faithful to the Lady’s obligations of hospitality. Now get going.”

It had stopped raining, and the moon was out. “Not a bad night for travel,” Giula breathed, and we headed down the road by moonlight.

W
e walked through the night and through the next day, and made it almost to Pluma. We were so tired we couldn’t even walk in a straight line; as evening fell, we found a spot off the road to camp. I wanted to try asking for hospitality—what were the odds of running into the Fedeli
twice
—but Giula refused, and we were close enough to the city that people were less likely to be hospitable. We could see the flicker of firelight through the trees. We hadn’t seen many refugees yet; the north-south road and the east-west road crossed just east of Pluma, a few hours’ walk from where we were.

Giula scraped out a hole in the ground for our fire while I gathered up firewood. We were fortunate that I was skilled at magery, or we’d never have gotten the damp wood lit. We spread out our cloaks and lay down; except for the tree root poking into my back, the ground was softer than the hearthstones had been.

“You were studying minstrel techniques, weren’t you?” Giula asked. “With Mira, before she … left?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How well was it working?”

“Better than you’d expect,” I said. “Mira claimed she liked my singing voice.”

Giula laughed. “Could you teach me the techniques? How hard were they?”

“Not hard. Here, let’s tune up. I’ll show you a few tricks.” I sat up and took out my violin.

As Giula and I tuned our violins, I heard a footstep behind me and felt as if someone were staring at my back. I turned around slowly, afraid for a moment that it would be the Fedele.

It was not Aviro. Standing just outside our camp, staring at us, was an old man wrapped in a ragged cloak.

“So you’re here already,” he said hoarsely, still staring at me.

“Excuse me?” I said. “I don’t believe I know you.” Maybe he was someone from my village I’d forgotten? I felt a brief pang of worry. “But you can share our fire, if you like.”

He laughed, the gravelly chuckle rattling in his chest like pebbles, then hopped over a fallen branch to join us by our campfire. “Let me be the first to salute you, Generale!” he said to me, and thumped his bony chest, then held his fist out, a soldier’s salute to his commander.

Giula and I exchanged shrugs. This diverted his attention to Giula.

“Ah, yes,” he leered. “And you as well.” He sidled up to Giula, and without warning, grabbed her breast. “Sweet young thing, aren’t you?”

Giula shrieked and smacked his hand; I shoved him away from her and stood between them. He pouted at us. “No fun; you’re no fun at all. You’re
all
like that. No fun at all. You’ll see—you’ll see what I mean.”

“Go away,” I said. “We don’t want to share our fire with a crazy man.”

“Go away,” he said sadly. “I’ll go away. No one wants to share their fire with me. I’ll sleep under a rock—don’t mind me.” He shuffled off into the night.

Giula brushed her dress clean, shaking and looking disgusted. “I can’t believe it. What a disgusting old man. Do you think we need to take turns watching?”

I closed my eyes. “Probably. You go ahead to sleep; I’ll take the first watch.”

I woke Giula midway through the night to take over watching—but when I woke at dawn, Giula was slumped over asleep under the tree she’d been leaning against. Fortunately, no one had robbed us, and the madman hadn’t come back. I sighed and shook Giula awake.

The road became much more crowded as we neared Pluma. I wondered how many of the people around us were refugees from the famine areas. The merchant caravans with their heavily armed escorts obviously weren’t. But looking around at the other people on the road, I wasn’t sure where “traveler” stopped and “refugee” started. Some of the travelers looked like us, footsore and dirty but with packs clutched tightly against potential thieves. There were families that huddled together, resting by the edge of the road with small crying children. There were people who wore rags and carried nothing. I thought that Giula and I were obviously travelers, rather than refugees, but I saw one woman close one hand protectively over her necklace when she saw me approaching.

I smelled Pluma before I saw it. Smoke, road dust, incense, horse shit, perfume, fried meat, and the sour smell of rotting garbage mingled in the air. The city was surrounded by a high wall; we could see the ragged edge that had been filled in with newer stones after the war. The old
wall that had remained standing after the war was dirty and worn; the new parts were cleaner, the rocks still rough.