Fires of the Faithful (36 page)

“I want to teach you the dance I just played for you. Stand up and form a circle. It’s not hard; Lucia taught it to me and even I could do it.”

They were awkward and self-conscious for a minute or two, but as I picked up the pace I could see them smiling. The energy of the dance hummed in my ears like the strings of my violin, lighting the landscape around me like moonlight. I found myself dancing along with them, facing them as I skipped around the circle while I played. I ended the song, finally, and pulled the energy around me gently, down into the earth under my feet. The hum quieted. I was tired, but oddly warmed. The soldiers sat back down for a few more songs, and then I pleaded exhaustion. Mario passed a hat for me again; the haul was less impressive this time, but it would help feed the Lupi players who practiced instead of working on the wall. I went back to Rafi’s tent and was asleep before I’d pulled my cloak over me.

•  •  •

“So have you figured out yet how you’re going to feed your army?” Rafi asked. It was a warm day, but with a stiff breeze, and we sat outside Rafi’s tent, watching a group of children playing Lupi. “I hope you’re not planning to send those youngsters up against the soldiers.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve thought of what to do with the children.” Rafi looked up with interest. “My village was not in the wasteland—it came through the war with Vesuvia unscathed. The Circle destroyed Doratura.” I sighed into the breeze, closing my eyes for a moment. “The thing is, based on what the woman in the next village told me, the
Doraturiani must have finished some of the spring planting before the village was destroyed. And the plants wouldn’t have come up yet when the fields were burned—in other words, there are fields of food that are probably still there.”

“But if no one has been tending them—”

“There won’t be a lot. But there’s not a lot
here
, either.”

“It’s in ruins, though?”

“Yes. We would have to rebuild.”

“Weren’t there a few survivors from your village? What will they think of Ravenessi coming to live with them?”

“I doubt any of them went back,” I said, thinking of my night in the rubble of my parents’ house. “If they did … well, I don’t think they’ll mind living neighbors displacing the ghosts.”

Rafi digested this for a few minutes. “The neighboring village,” he said. “Won’t they have taken over the fields by now?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it,” I said. “They were ashamed, of what they had done—and the bodies lay in the open. I don’t think they could face the consequences of their own cowardice yet.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

I looked down to see that my hands had clenched into fists over the ends of my sash. “Then we take it from them. They stood by while my family died. They turned me away from their door.” My voice shook, and I looked up to see my anger reflected in Rafi’s eyes. “But, once we break out—the children, the elderly, anyone who doesn’t want to fight, they can go to Doratura. Plant what they can and harvest as much as possible.”

Rafi nodded.

“As for provisioning the army,” I said. “I saw a paper of calculations on Teleso’s desk, back when he was keeping me in his guest room. I
think
that additional grain
should be arriving soon. If we break out right after provisions arrive, we can take those provisions with us. Without the soldiers, the noncombatants, and those who will die in the fighting, those food stores will last a long time.”

Rafi nodded. “So is that what you’re waiting for?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.”

The children who were playing nearby were finishing their game. The “shepherd” had just won and they were picking teams for the next game. “Not even close,” I said softly.

I excused myself sometime later, to go to the latrine. Trenches had been dug along the base of the south hill; a rough wall of half-rotted boards had been staked up to provide at least a token of privacy, although the soldiers on guard duty could easily stare down at anyone relieving themselves. The more modest relieved themselves only at night, but I didn’t care enough to worry about it. Michel, as my bodyguard, escorted me to the area, but let me duck behind the wall to relieve myself without his company.

The smell near the trench was terrible, especially in the heat of the day; the people who lived near it were the weakest and most destitute in Ravenna. The slum within a slum; most lacked even a makeshift tent, sleeping in the open and marking off territory by carving lines in the dust. I was stepping out to head back to Rafi’s tent when I caught a glimpse of Lucia, kneeling in the dust by a small bundle. She glanced up briefly, and I quickly ducked back behind the latrine wall. She looked back down.

“Rachamin, Arka,” she chanted. “Rachamin, Gèsu.”

There was another woman kneeling beside her, staring down anxiously. I realized that what I had taken for a bundle of rags was a child, wrapped in blankets. A man stood nearby, staring at Lucia angrily.

“Good day, Lucia,” another woman said as she approached.

“Good day, Margherita,” Lucia said, and I peered around the wall again, shocked. Margherita was the closest approximation to Ravenna’s High Priestess of the Lady. “I’ll be done soon,” Lucia added, and Margherita sat down on the other side of the child. The woman who knelt beside Lucia gave Margherita a hostile glare.

Lucia took out a small vial from under her dress, dabbed the contents onto her finger and traced a cross on the child’s head. “Vinni, son of Ottone and Elettra,” she said, and then continued in the Old Tongue, alternating between spoken and chanted words. When she had finished, she clasped the hand of the woman beside her—Elettra, presumably—and they briefly bowed their heads in silent prayer, eyes closed.

“Your turn,” Lucia said, and backed off as Margherita pulled out her small pouch of dried crushed flowers. The man who had been glaring at Lucia knelt eagerly now, and assisted the priestess with the church healing rite. I was struck by the similarities of the rituals. Someone somewhere had done a lot of rather obvious borrowing. Lucia looked on, patting Elettra’s hand and whispering to her.

Margherita and Ottone prayed silently for a minute, just as Lucia and Elettra had. When Margherita was done, she and Lucia both stood up to go, promising to speak to one of the local healers. Margherita headed back toward the main camp, but Lucia paused by the edge of the latrine curtain.

“You can come out now, Eliana,” she said.

I stepped out. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” she said, but her face showed hurt. I didn’t know what to say—I’m sorry, Lucia, I just don’t believe? I still don’t understand what the rules are for this faith of yours? Maybe somebody drew a cross on my
head with water, but they didn’t draw it on my heart?—so I jerked my shoulder in a shamed shrug, and lowered my eyes.

Lucia turned her head to look at me and gave me one of her quirky smiles. “It’s probably just as well you stayed in hiding. If you’d come out to help pray, poor Ottone’s heart would probably have burst with fury.”

“So the child who was ill—”

“Has a Redentore mother and a Della Chiesa father.”

“Della Chiesa.” Of the church. I hadn’t heard the expression before.

“And Elettra just about had a fit at the thought of Margherita praying to the Lady over the boy. Fortunately,” she shrugged, “Margherita and I are both sensible enough to recognize that a useless prayer to a nonexistent deity won’t do any harm. I humor her, and she humors me.” Lucia sighed and brushed off her dress where she’d knelt in the dust, then tucked the tiny vial back into her dress. “Let’s go back to Rafi’s tent.”

“What about the healer?”

“Petro won’t go to them on my instructions. I have to ask Rafi, and he has to ask Isabella, and she has to send Petro. Nothing’s ever simple.”

“Do you think Petro would go on my instructions?” I asked.

She grinned. “No. But you could go straight to Isabella.” Her smile faded. “I doubt there’s much that Petro will be able to do for the boy.”

Isabella agreed, on my request, to send Petro. She seemed pleased that I had asked; I could almost see a balance sheet of favors being tallied in her head. Afterward, Lucia suggested that we go to one of the hills to sit. “I’m tired,” she said. “I want to go somewhere quiet.”

Nowhere in Ravenna was exactly quiet, but the hills
near the guard posts were less crowded. We picked an area patrolled by someone friendly and sat down. Michel was going to sit down beside us, but Lucia gave him a threatening stare, and he moved off along the hill to a spot where he could see us but couldn’t overhear our conversation.

“Do you know about Tomas, Eliana?” Lucia asked after a while.

“You mean the soldier?”

“No, not the soldier. Tomas the Doubter.” I looked at her blankly and she sighed. “Your education has been sadly lacking. Do you at least know of the Sacrifice and Resurrection? Oh, good God.” It was a prayer, eyes rolled heavenward for strength. “You know of Gèsu, at least.” I nodded vigorously and she sighed and began her story. “This is not the first terrible famine …”

•  •  •

Centuries ago, the land was shattered and wasted, and it seemed that perhaps all of humanity would die. Our only hope lay in God’s mercy, but She turned Her back on us in anger. The world was Her child, but we had caused Her too much pain, and She had shut away the love She had once felt for us.

Aral Refuah
, the Archangel Rafael, pleaded with Her to heal the world.
Aral Din
, the Archangel Michel, urged Her to give us one more chance—to devise a test for humanity, and if we passed the test, to spare us. Only
Aral Mot
, the Archangel Lucio, urged Her to let us die; we had brought this destruction upon ourselves, he pointed out, and deserved no mercy.

God listened to Her advisors, but then turned away from them, and spoke:
I will turn no more toward the world
.

There is one more archangel,
Aral Chedvah
, the Archangel Gabriele. Gabriele also believed that humanity should
be saved, but he knew that God would not save us unless She could be moved to love us again. Gabriele stole a fragment of God’s holy Light, and placed it in the womb of a pure young woman. And so she conceived a child, a son, and she named him Gèsu.

Gèsu was human, like us, but he carried the Light of God in his soul, and it would not let him rest—and so he began his journey. He became a teacher and a prophet, and many began to follow him, because they sensed the Light within his soul, and even when they did not understand his words, they longed for the Light of God. Because Gèsu was human, he loved his friends; because he had not God’s bitter anger, he loved the world and all humanity. And his Light grew ever brighter.

But there was one, called Giudas, who came to fear the Light; and so he betrayed Gèsu, going to the soldiers of the Empire and saying that Gèsu was going to lead an uprising against them. Soldiers came to arrest Gèsu, but two of his friends—Tomas and Mara—stood by him and spirited him away to a hidden cave. The soldiers knew that they would never find him by looking, so they took Giudas prisoner, and said that if Gèsu did not turn himself in, they would kill Giudas.

Despite Giudas’s betrayal, Gèsu loved him; when he heard this, he could not leave Giudas to die in his place. Tomas and Mara begged him not to go, but he kissed them and said, “I will be ever with you.”

The Empire crucified Gèsu, spilling his blood onto the broken earth, and buried his body in the sand.

When Gèsu died, the Light in his soul returned to God, and suddenly She felt the love he had felt for the world, a love so complete that he had willingly died for a traitor. God wept, and spoke to Her Angels, saying
The world is My child; I will not let humanity die
.

So God resurrected Gèsu and said,
Through your blood shall the world be redeemed
. Where his blood had fallen, flowers bloomed, and the wood of the cross burst into leaf.

And so Gèsu returned, and clasped hands with his followers to dance with them. Then he poured them wine. “This is my blood,” he said. “Share it among you, and redeem the earth.” He broke bread with them and said, “This is my body, which was broken for you and for all the world. Eat, and live forever.” Then he danced with them again and said, “Thus does God pour out Her Light upon us. So long as the children of Her Light sing and dance on the earth, God will never turn from us again.”

•  •  •

Lucia was silent for a long time after she finished the story. Finally I asked, “Why is Tomas called the Doubter?”

Lucia sat up again and laughed. “I almost forgot why I was telling you the story. When God returned Gèsu to the earth, he went first to Mara, and sent her to tell his other followers. But Tomas didn’t believe her. ‘Not until I touch his foot and feel the warmth of life, and touch his hand and feel it clasp mine, will I believe.’ When Gèsu came to them all the next day, he said to Tomas, ‘Reach out your hand and touch my foot. Let me clasp your hand. Now, will you believe?’ ” Lucia fell silent again for a bit. “I’ve touched His feet,” she said. “I’ve reached out and felt His hand grasp mine. But I don’t know how to make someone else trust in something they can’t see. Not even you, Eliana.”

That night, I waited until Michel fell asleep and then went for a walk alone along the hillside. The moon was nearly full and I could pick my way easily. I could admit it; I had never trusted in things I couldn’t see. Lucia, on the other hand … I found myself envious of her belief, even as
I feared it. She was
Fedele
, faithful, in her own way. I could see her eyes, as I stared into the darkness, steady with her absolute conviction, lit with her inner light.

“There are some things that are never meaningless,”
she had said.
“God’s love is one.”
Nights were cold in the wasteland; I clasped my arms around myself as I walked, trying to keep warm. There was something that I felt when I played the music that I could not explain. But I had had no grand visions like Lucia’s, and the bread Lucia put into my mouth during Mass just tasted like bread. What was I supposed to see? What was I supposed to feel? Church had always left me cold, but you weren’t expected to love the Lady with Lucia’s brand of fervent love—just to pray to her and obey her.