‘A sister,’ I said. ‘A sister of the Merciful Light.’
‘A what?’ Aline asked dubiously.
The Order of Merciful Light was a very specialised clerical order. The nuns were reputed to have remarkable healing and precognitive powers to go along with their … other charms.
‘She’s a prostitute,’ I said.
The woman laughed. ‘I am that, I suppose,’ she said, without ire or shame.
‘What do you want?’ Aline asked.
‘To fulfil my oath, to honour the will of my God and the commandments of my Saint.’
‘Saint Laina-who-whores-for-Gods is one of my favourites, sister,’ I said calmly. ‘But the timing is suspicious.’
She walked to me and casually pushed the blade of my sword aside before reaching out to touch my face. ‘You’ve been hurt, Falcio. You have many reasons to question the kindness of strangers. But I am no enemy. My name is Ethalia, and I am here for you, to hide you from your enemies, to heal you from your wounds, to salve your heart.’ She looked into my eyes. ‘But you remain suspicious. You are a man of laws, a man of evidence, of proof, and so I shall give you three proofs. Will that suffice?’
‘It depends on how convincing they are,’ I replied.
‘I will show you, Falcio, with magic, with memory and, though I wish it weren’t needful, with heartache.’
‘Falcio, I don’t trust her,’ Aline said.
Ethalia smiled at the girl. ‘Your father would tell you differently, little one. Shall I speak his name aloud?’
Aline froze at that.
‘As you wish. But time is passing, and the darkness which cloaks us will not last, and so let my first proof be this.’ She walked over to the horse and reached up to place her hands on either side of her face. I thought the beast would take her head off, but instead she dropped her muzzle down to Ethalia, who kissed the Fey Horse on the spot between her eyes.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ she said. ‘You will see your children again, in the far fields that stretch past the long night, but not now, and not for many years yet. There is much to do.’
‘How did you—?’ I was stunned.
‘How did you get her to save the girl?’ Ethalia asked back. ‘How did you get a Fey Horse to let you ride upon her back? She let you because she knows your heart, as she knows the girl’s, and as she knows mine.’
Ethalia returned to me. ‘The second proof is this,’ she said. Then she knelt before me and held both hands up as if in prayer, opening them then closing them. It was an ancient and formal way of expressing gratitude.
‘I don’t understand; why are you—?’ I started.
‘—Expressing thanks? Because you saved my life, Falcio val Mond, and my second proof is to give you a reason you can understand for my assistance.’
‘Lady, I’ve never met you. I doubt I’d forget the face.’
She smiled and rose. ‘I was younger then.’
‘How old are you now?’ Aline asked.
‘I’ve watched twenty-three summers pass. But when Falcio saved me, I was just thirteen, no older than you are now.’
I tried to remember back. It was true that I’d been in Rijou ten years ago, on the King’s business. It was the jeweller’s dispute; I’d come to hear a case against his landlord. The King had wanted to begin seeing justice done even in Rijou, which had never seen any but that which resulted from the Duke’s fickle commandments.
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘look how your mind wanders along its narrow paths. You think so much of your King and his laws that you don’t even remember the little mercies you give along the way. Like a girl, being held against her will by a man in the street …’
‘The whore!’ I said stupidly. ‘I mean, the girl … You were the girl. I remember, out on the street corner—’
She smiled patiently. ‘Yes, and a man who had given me money for my services wanted more and I refused.’
‘He offered you more money,’ I said, remembering the coins on the ground as he slapped her across the face.
‘But the money we take is to help those we serve take value in our gifts, not as a price you would pay to buy pigs at a market.’
‘I’m sure they’d be happy to get them for free,’ Aline commented.
‘Hush child,’ Ethalia said. ‘Let him remember.’
‘There’s not much to remember,’ I said. ‘I remember the man; I remember telling him to stop. He wouldn’t, so I dealt with him. He went home bruised but alive, and I left. It’s no different than what any city guard or half-decent shopkeeper would have done. I was on my way out of the city, having failed utterly to save the jeweller whose case I had come to hear.’
She shook her head and looked disappointed in me. ‘Three city guards walked past, as it happened,’ she said. ‘And many shopkeepers saw, and Lords, and Ladies. And no one stopped. No one but you. Can you not take some measure of happiness knowing you saved my life? Even a whore’s life, as you put it?’
‘Forgive me, Lady, I meant no offence.’
‘I take none, but instead apologise as I give you the third proof.’
She put her hands on my chest and leaned forward. For a moment I thought she might be about to kiss me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, when her mouth turned and she whispered softly and sadly in my ear, ‘I know you love me, and I know you would fight for me, but not here, not now. I will do this thing and I will pay the price for both of us and I will not scratch or claw or scream and he will leave us and go with his filthy men and his filthy King and you and I will grow old together and laugh at the day these silly birds came to rest in our fields.’
I pushed her away. ‘No!’
She kept her eyes on mine. ‘I am sorry, so sorry, for her loss.’
I grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. ‘How—? How can you know that? How could you possibly know what she’d said to me? Tell me!’
‘Because I am Ethalia,’ she said. ‘I am a sister of the Merciful Light, and it is my geas to help you. And because nothing else would convince you, Falcio val Mond of Pertine. Because you demand pain before you will accept mercy.’
Ethalia turned from me and began walking down one of the side streets.
‘Falcio?’ Aline asked. ‘Falcio, what are we going to do?’
‘We go with her,’ I said, putting a hand on the horse’s mane, knowing she would come, and began following Ethalia down the path.
ONE NIGHT OF MERCY
It’s hard for me to describe that night – to describe what Ethalia did, and what she took from me. She had unleashed a pain inside me that was so deep it made the torture of the last several days feel like when a child touches a hot stove by mistake: the pain is hot, but it passes quickly. But this …
When we arrived at the temple, which I reminded myself was as good as a brothel, I was taken up to Ethalia’s private room. Aline had insisted on staying with the horse and they had been given a place behind the temple with enough space for the horse to feed and a bed for the girl to sleep in. Ethalia promised me that we could not be found here and, lacking the will to do anything else, I chose to trust her.
She told me to lie back in her bed. ‘I need a bath,’ I warned.
‘I will bathe you,’ she replied, motioning me to remove my coat. What was left of my clothes were torn and caked in blood, dirt and things fouler-smelling than those. With a small pair of scissors she began cutting my shirt off of me.
‘Stop,’ I said.
She pointed to a neat pile of clothing on a table near the door. ‘Those are for you,’ she said. ‘These rags no longer fit you, and the memories they carry are no sweeter than the smells they emit.’