The Godspeaker Trilogy (73 page)

A pulse beat frantically at the base of Rhian’s throat. “This has nothing to do with religion, Eminence . You—”

“Nothing?” roared Marlan, and flung her away from him. “You ignorant girl, every breath you take has to do with religion! You breathe the air God sends you to breathe! Helfred …”

He swallowed a shriek. “Your Eminence?”

“I thought your duty lay in guiding this girl? In teaching her to more perfectly understand God’s will? Are you her chaplain or are you not ?”

“Don’t blame Helfred!” said Rhian, before he could answer. “He’s done everything you told him to, Prolate. He’s nagged and nattered and hounded and harassed till I thought I’d be driven to distraction. When he doesn’t bore me to sobs with prosing lectures he bleats on and on about your precious Lord Rulf and denigrates the dukes’ choices as though they were spittled degenerates. If I were a weaker woman I’d have surrendered by now. But I’m not weak, Marlan. I’m my father’s daughter. He didn’t raise me to simper and sigh.”

“Nor did he raise you to respect authority as you should,” said Marlan. His sibilant voice was loud in the chapel’s hush. “It is past time, girl, that I remedied the lack. On your knees before the Living Flame.”

Some madness seemed to have possessed the princess. She threw her head back and met Marlan’s glare with her own, her fair skin still marked from the cruel pressure of his fingers. “The Flame’s behind me, Prolate. Don’t you mean on my knees before you ?”

Marlan raised a clenched fist. “ Kneel, you proud bitch! Kneel before I knock you to the floor!”

She dropped to her knees but kept her head lifted. “You’d best be careful. The dukes won’t tolerate your interference. You’ve no business meddling in matters of state. You should concern yourself with the Church and let me worry about the Crown.”

“God never did a better thing than take your father from the world,” Marlan whispered. “He made of you a rank unfit monstrosity, devoid of common virtues the meanest woman counts as her own. As for the dukes …” He bared his teeth. “An assembly of straw men. God’s fire will consume them. It will consume you too unless you mend your wicked ways.” He reached inside his vestment tunic and withdrew a short-handled whip with many thongs. “Helfred. What is this?”

He had to wet his lips before he could speak. “Eminence? It’s—it’s a whip.”

“Commonly known as?”

Oh, God save the unfortunate princess. “Eminence, it’s known as the penitent’s friend.” Every Church novice in the kingdom, male and female, was familiar with it. Friend by name, most unfriendly by nature.

“I think it time Her Highness made its acquaintance,” said Marlan, gently. “Take it. Introduce them.”

Horrified, he stared at the whip Marlan held out to him, then looked up. “Your Eminence? You—you want me to beat the princess?”

Marlan nodded. There was no pity in him. “Blessed Rollin in his Twelfth Admonition speaks at length of a child’s duty to God through instant obedience to the will of his parents. Kneeling on this chapel floor, Helfred, is a manifest sinner. She rages, she rails, she refuses obedience. She must be corrected for the good of her soul.”

And in the same breath I’m punished too, for failing to convert her to your desire. Oh God . Helfred took the whip. His hand was trembling. “Prolate Marlan—”

“Make her weep, Helfred,” said his uncle, immoveable. “Only her tears can purge her of sin.”

Beneath his plain habit, his entire body ran with sweat. He dragged his sickened gaze away from his uncle and stared at the princess. The fresh colour had fled from her cheeks and her eyes were wide, like a startled horse. He thought it was pride alone that kept her from breaking.

“Well, Helfred?” she said, her voice thin and tight. “You heard your uncle. Beat me, for all the good it’ll do. All you’ll achieve is an aching arm and a stain on your soul. You know this is wrong.”

Dear God, it is. King Eberg would never beat his child. Not to make her marry a man like Rulf.

This is wrong … and I can’t prevent it.

Rhian’s steady gaze was taunting. “Come along, Chaplain. What are you waiting for? You’ve been dying to do this from the first day we met.”

What? No! All right, yes, he’d wanted to slap her. He’d yearned to slap her, and more than once. But beat her? Whip her? No, he’d never wanted that.

“Helfred,” said his uncle. His eyes were terrible. “Would you disobey me? I don’t advise it. I make a bad enemy. Blood stretches so far and no further.”

Oh God . He looked at Rhian. “Your Highness … please. Submit to the prolate. Admit his authority over you. Acknowledge your sin and be guided by your betters. Say you’ll marry Lord Rulf. After all …” He tried to smile. “You must marry someone.”

Rhian closed her eyes. “I’ve told you and told you, Helfred. I won’t marry him .”

Sweet Rollin, the foolish girl. Did she really think she could defy his uncle? No-one defied Marlan. At least not for long or more than once.

“Helfred,” said his dead mother’s brother. “I’m waiting.”

Sweating profusely, he did as he was told. The first blow across Rhian’s back was as light as he could make it. If he stung her a little she’d realise the trouble she was in, surely, and save them both a lot of grief. She must have felt it, even through her linen bodice, but pride wouldn’t let her make a sound.

“Harder,” said his uncle. His eyes were narrowed, his gaze trained on Rhian’s face. “Again.”

Teeth sunk into his lower lip, he struck the princess a second time. Thank God Marlan hadn’t told him to rip her dress open. If he’d had to whip her on naked skin … well. Thank God he didn’t, that was all.

“ Harder, Helfred,” said his uncle, his gaze incendiary. “Are you capable or should I demonstrate? On you?”

Helfred stared back at him over the top of Rhian’s head, feeling the sweat on his skin turn to ice. Oh God. Princess, I’m sorry . He hit her again and this time was rewarded—punished—with a flinch and a gasp.

“Better,” said his uncle. “Continue, Chaplain Helfred.”

He hit Rhian as slowly as he dared, with his own gaze fixed on her lovely, netted hair. Once he looked up into his uncle’s face. What he saw turned his stomach. He almost wept.

He made sure not to look up again.

Rhian was a strong girl. Too strong for her own good. If she wasn’t so stubborn she’d let herself break. Give Marlan what he wanted, some tears, some sign of weakness. Penitence. But even though she was in pain, even though she rocked on her heels with it, her cries remained trapped inside her throat. The only sound that escaped her was a small, choked moan. It wasn’t enough to satisfy Marlan.

“Harder!” said his uncle. “I will break this bitch if it takes all day.”

Please, Rhian, stop trying to win! You’ll never win, you don’t know him like I do! His arm was aching now, rising and falling. For the love of God, girl! Give him what he wants!

With the next blow he saw a thin line of crimson spring through the pale blue linen covering the princess’s bowed, shaking back.

He looked up. “Prolate. She’s bleeding.”

“ Good ,” said Marlan. “Strike her again.”

The whip dropped from his fingers. “I—I can’t. Eminence, she’s the princess . She’ll be Ethrea’s queen . What if I damage her, what if I—”

“You pimpled fool !” snarled Marlan, striding forward and snatching up the whip. “It doesn’t matter if you beat her to pulp. She can remain in this clerica until her flesh is mended. This is Church business, it will stay between us.”

“You think so?” said Rhian, her voice tight with pain. “I don’t. I’ll shout this from the rooftops. I’ll strip naked in the street so the people can see—”

Marlan snatched her hair in its plain net and wrenched her head back. “The only words you’ll be shouting are Yes, I’ll marry Rulf .” He released her and turned, the whip outheld. “Helfred, continue.”

The look on his uncle’s face was frightening. “Eminence, this isn’t right,” he whispered, the words rising unbidden and escaping his tongue. Something deep inside him was breaking, some cherished belief was tearing apart. “Please. Let us withdraw a time and pray together. Once you’ve mastered your temper and the princess has had time to reflect, perhaps then—”

With a wordless cry of rage his uncle lashed the whip over his face. Helfred felt the skin split. Felt the blood burst forth. Felt the dreadful pain a heartbeat later.

“Get out!” cried Marlan. “Before you join her on the floor, you cowardly turd!”

As he reached the chapel door he heard the whip descend again. Heard his uncle’s joyful exhalation. Heard Rhian scream at last.

He made it three staggering paces down the corridor before he lost his breakfast onto the clerica’s cool stone tiles.

God forgive me. I’m a wicked cowardly wretch.

M
arlan returned to the capital from Dame Cecily’s clerica in a filthy temper.

The little bitch. Defying me. Thwarting me. If this intransigence continues I’ll do more than welt her back.

His mood wasn’t improved by Ven’Martin’s delivery of a message from the council: he was summoned to an extraordinary session in the castle.

“By God, gentlemen, you risk your very souls!” he declared, storming into the council chamber. “Am I some servant, to be sent for on your whim?”

Of course it was Harley who answered, the arrogant boor. “No. You’re a charlatan whose word is worth less than a Dev’kareshi sailor’s.”

All the dukes’ men were glaring at him, even Henrik Linfoi, their fists knuckled on the council table. Dester, his head down, recorded the comment, sharpened quill skittering across his paper.

With an effort Marlan kept his fists to himself. “In the interests of good government I shall overlook that mannerless outburst. This time.”

Henrik Linfoi raised a restraining hand in Harley’s direction. “The choice of words was ill considered, Prolate, but our concerns are not. Reliable sources tell us you have been to the clerica at Todding. Is that true?”

He stood his ground before them. “Am I answerable to you for Church business, Linfoi?”

“Marlan, you swore to us you’d not use your position to pressure the princess,” said Linfoi, his face grave. “Do you deny it? Dester can read back the record of that meeting if, for some reason, memory plays you false.”

Reliable sources? When I find the traitor in my staff I will make him sorry. God knows I will .

“Gentlemen, you astound me,” he said, letting a little of his deep contempt show. “Your confidence in your dukes’ candidates must be slight indeed if you have convinced yourselves they stand so little hope of success after all your wheedling and finagling into Princess Rhian’s ear. I wonder, do your dukes know how precarious is your faith?”

“Our dukes know you have a vested interest in the outcome of this matter,” retorted Volant. “My lord Duke of Arbat has expressed himself most forcefully, Eminence .” His tone made the honorific an insult. “But you also have a vested interest in not overstepping your bounds. Perhaps it’s time you remembered that.”

Around the table the other councillors nodded, eyes meeting briefly and sliding away. The room stank, suddenly, of unspoken threats.

Overproud fools. When Rulf is king I will see them on their knees. This council will be disbanded, it is an echo chamber for idiots.

He fixed his stare on Arbat’s toothless lapdog. “You may tell your ducal brother-in-law, Volant, that any attempt to withhold or divert the pittance of tithes owed to my churches and chapels in his duchy will be met with the severest ecclesiastic recriminations. I doubt Rudi would care to explain to his people why they can no longer marry or be buried or hear the Litany or receive spiritual comfort of any kind for so long as said tithes are not promptly paid.”

“Dear God, you are shameless !” cried Lord Niall, as Volant spluttered incoherently at his side. “I knew we would come to this, sooner or later. I knew you would abuse your position, Marlan, and so I’ve told Duke Kyrin. The princess must be brought back from Todding. Today. She must stand before us and declare her choice, she’s had enough time to make up her mind. As long as she stays in the clerica she’s in your power and duchy Hartshorn will not support that.”

A groundswell of muttering. Dester was writing so fast his paper was practically smoking.

“My lords, you astound me,” Marlan said, sweeping them with an icy glare. “Are you truly simpletons? Or so afraid for your positions you would imperil your souls with blusterings against a man of God? I have done nothing untoward or outside the bounds of my authority. If you say otherwise then show proof of my misdoings. Take it to the Court Ecclesiastica, that its Most Venerables can see how their prolate acts against the interests of God and this kingdom. Can you do that? I say you cannot.”

Silence. Uneasy, sideways, slipshod glances. Cleared throats. White knuckles.

Henrik Linfoi released a sigh. “Your Eminence … Marlan… these are testing times. We face a crisis that with better management we need never have faced at all. Eberg, God rest him, accepted the truth of his mortality, his imminent demise, too late. It has left us uncertain and quick to fear the worst.”

Eberg, the pliant fool, had let himself be cozened into believing there was a chance he’d recover. Battered by grief at the loss of not one son but both, tormented by guilt that he’d let his heirs romp around the world, weakened by flux and fever and pain, it had been easy enough to help him delude himself. No man is so blind as one afraid to see.

Marlan kept his face strict, but smiled behind it. This council will not blow me from my course. These councillors are nothing. Gusts of hot air in bags of skin .

“Gentlemen, you have raised a sweat for little purpose. Perhaps if you bothered to ask my reason for travelling to the clerica, instead of leaping to unfounded conclusions, you would look far less ridiculous. Dame Cecily sent word to me that the princess seemed distressed by the energetic importuning of her many eager visitors. She asked me as a matter of urgency to see for myself Princess Rhian’s distress. As prolate it is my duty to ensure she is not unduly worn down by the momentous burden God has seen fit to place upon her frail, female shoulders.”