Ashwalk Pilgrim (20 page)

 
Fear froze Mara’s feet. She stared at the woman, knowing that at any moment the noble might glance up and see that Mara was not the servant named Pinne, but the ashwalk pilgrim the entire city hunted. Mara could practically hear the woman’s scream split the air.

“Well?” the woman asked, her disappointment edging on frustration. “Did I not order you to rub the weary from my back? Quit standing there like a dumbstruck glimmer fiend and get to work before I dock your rations.”
 

The woman snorted a laugh. Mara fought the urge to spit in her hair.

Instead, Mara swallowed. She squeezed her son and edged to the gazebo. “Y—Yes. As you command.”

“Good girl, Pinne.”

A pitcher of oil rested on a pedestal by the massage table. Mara grabbed its silver handle and dribbled the gleaming liquid on the woman’s porcelain skin. She frowned at the oiled hourglass of the noble’s figure and her soft shoulders. Mara had dealt with worse at the House of Sin and Silk from both men and women, but somehow that night, she would have paid a handsome sum to treat a filthy beggar over a body with its edges worn smooth by a life of luxury.

While Mara shuddered, the noble shivered with delight. “The oil’s still warm. It feels good. Don’t go sparingly with it, Pinne. We’ve got plenty more.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mara poured more oil onto the noble’s glistening back. It streamed in thick lines onto the linen.
 

“Now work it in and don’t be shy. You know I like a little push.”

Mara bit her lip and put her free hand into the oily slop. She worked her fingers into the doughy layers of the woman’s shoulders.
 

“Harder, Pinne. You usually do better than this. I hope you haven’t snuck any wine for the Harvest Festival. You told me you don’t drink, but one can never trust servants these days. Their stock is just so low, you see. And use both hands!”

Mara squeezed her son.
I would never let you go for the likes of her.

“One-handed is a new technique,” Mara said as she forced a smile. “The other ladies of Hightable all rave about it.”

“They do?”

“Yes, ma’am. It is the newest fashion amongst the highborn, so the other household servants say. They say…Good King Sol prefers it.”

“He does? Interesting. I—I do feel a certain loosening of the muscles I had not experienced before when you used two hands. Yes, it is very nice indeed. Very smooth. Very calming. This single handed massage is not so bad after all. Good King Sol knows what’s best. I shall make sure to tell the other ladies how I enjoyed it.”

Mara rolled her eyes. “Indeed, ma’am.”

As she worked on her massage, her thoughts drifted to escape. She had no idea where the real Pinne might linger, but Mara doubted it wouldn’t be much longer before the servant checked on her lady.
 

“Tell me, Pinne,” the woman said, “have you heard anything of this sorceress stalking the lower city? I do hope she’s burning some of the filth and flotsam down there. It could do with a good fiery cleansing before the king’s men gut her.”

Mara swallowed the glass like lump in her throat and hoped her teeth wouldn’t crack she clenched them so hard. “I’ve only heard she is an ashwalk pilgrim and that the priests of the Serpent Sun hunt her. Do you—do you know anything else?”

“I only know what the other ladies whisper. They say she’s out to kill the king. Good luck with that, I say. I hear Good King Sol has already assumed a throne in heaven, riding on his glorious serpent, and we all know no god can be killed, even if it is a sorceress flinging spells.”

“But is there room for another throne among the Six?”

The woman sucked in her breath. “Dear me, you stupid girl. Servants are so blissfully ignorant. You’re property of House Iona. You wait on the most esteemed Lady Rin Iona. Don’t go spouting off about the Six around anyone else if you’d like to keep your head. Some highborn still bend a knee at night when no one looks, but I’ll not tempt my house with a serpent’s wrath. Understand?”

“I do. Please forgive me.”

“You are forgiven. You are from the lower city, after all. Children of your stock just do not have the mental capacity of the nobility. It is a fact you should know quite well by now.” Lady Rin turned her head to the side. She smiled with her eyes closed while Mara’s eyes shot wide as full moons.

“It won’t matter much after tonight anyway,” Lady Rin continued. “They say Good King Sol will purge our city of the Six soon enough. Once the cleansing begins—”

“Cleansing? Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight, or did that hollow head of yours think the king would stand to have those temples surrounding his home for all eternity? Why do you think he ordered every priest and acolyte into them? Not to keep them safe. Not to keep
him
safe. He’s gathering them under his heel so when the time is right, he can bring it crashing down on their little heads like a soldier’s boot on roaches. What better time than Harvest Festival to wipe the stain of the Six from Sollan than when the city is drunk on wine and saltwater gin and bedding maidens on barges?”

“All those most loyal to the Six are in the lower city,” Mara murmured. “There will be no one to hear the priests’ screams.”

“No one but those of us faithful to the Serpent Sun, and I for one will enjoy a nice glass of wine while I watch from my balcony as the Mother’s temple burns. Oh—Pinne, you’re massaging a little too hard. You’ll leave a bruise!”

Mara caught her breath and softened her palm against the woman’s shoulder even though she wanted nothing more than to break it and strangle her with a strip of burlap. Mara’s gaze caught the flickering oil lamp, and for the briefest moment, she considered ripping it from the arch and tossing the flame on Lady Rin’s oiled back.

Mara blinked away the dark thoughts. She remembered Vibiana’s screams, and the wicked burns from the widow’s hearth fire. Even though Lady Rin was more serpent than a snake, Mara’s will lacked the hunger to visit that cruelty on another living being.

Instead, she would have to be satisfied that the blood of the silent sons who died protecting Mara covered Lady Rin’s back. Ash from her cloak clogged the noblewoman’s pores. Threads of burlap seasoned the woman’s skin like peeled chives.

Mara straightened. “Lady Rin?”
 

“Yes, Pinne?”

“I’m afraid the oil’s run low, and I have another new technique I’d like to use that the other servants rave about. They say the king himself created the technique, and it has yet to filter down to the others in Hightable. It is a secret, and one I have kept so close to my heart because I loved you, so I wanted you to be the first in Hightable to experience it.”

“Oh dear, really? Be a good girl and fetch some more oil, then. Don’t take too long. I would hate to be forced to beat you on such a pretty night, and after you give me such a…gift as your, ah, love.”

“Of course, Lady Rin. I’ll return as quickly as I can.”

She spun on her heel and darted from the gazebo. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her oil-soaked fingers trembled. She apologized to Pinne the servant girl who would probably get a beating when Lady Rin discovered that the ashwalk pilgrim had treated her that night and not her loyal servant.

Then again, perhaps the woman’s status would keep her lips sealed. Mara could only imagine how the other ladies of Hightable would shun the one who let the king’s would-be assassin and evil sorceress of the Six give her a back massage.

Mara grinned. Poor Lady Rin wouldn’t sleep for a week, and best of all, she wouldn’t dare tell another soul.

Mara wove through one frustratingly beautiful garden after another. She hid in the shadows of unlit gazebos and pressed her back against the marble pools of glorious fountains. Always she kept the temples and grand palace in sight. Slowly, she worked her way toward them, the infant’s body growing heavier with each breath she took, the stars in the night sky beginning to fade with the creeping dawn.

No alarms rang from Lady Rin’s home. No soldiers came marching through the wide streets, flooding into the woman’s tall, sprawling estate. Mara had been right to think the noble’s humiliation at the hands of the ashwalk pilgrim had kept her mouth shut. With any luck, the servant named Pinne also escaped a beating.

Few soldiers patrolled the streets of Hightable. Apparently, not even the king thought Mara would penetrate Sollan’s heart. She couldn’t blame them for thinking so. Even she surprised herself by making it that far, by skirting the sickening violence that fell everywhere around her like leaves in autumn.

She flitted like a burlap wraith behind an estate with darkened windows. A garden of trimmed hedges and round pools capped by miniature titan skeletons sprawled before her. Opposite the mansion and clear on the other side of the garden, a simple servant’s quarters sat amongst a throng of weeping willows with soft, curving branches weighed by countless pink and white blossoms.

A gold lamplight illuminated the second floor of the mansion. It melted from one window to another, slowly moving through the estate as its carrier made their way through the sprawling home. Mara narrowed her eyes and watched as the light drifted window to window.
 

“It could be a servant like Pinne,” she said.

The light paused before a window.

Mara chewed on the corner of her lip. “Or it could be a noble like Lady Rin…”

She didn’t have the time to spare on detours away from the temples, yet some part of her knew the safest path and the quickest one diverged before her. She spun on her heel and sprinted into the manicured yard.

Pool after pool she passed. Her breaths came hot and heavy. The wind pulled her hood from her head. Her dirty, matted hair bounced over her shoulders. Mara glanced behind her. The gold light had drifted from the second floor to the first like a hungry demon searching for its prey.

Ahead, the blooming willows loomed large. She leaned forward and sprinted harder. She took a last, fleeing look behind her. The light illuminated the crack beneath a door and the ground. The handle twisted, and the door parted.
 

Mara leapt into a curtain of blossoms. The soft petals kissed her cheeks and caressed her arms as she barreled through the silken veil. She twisted around a trunk and pressed her back against its rough bark, panting like a fox freshly escaped from a hungry wolf.
 

She closed her eyes and inhaled. Only her heartbeat kept her company beneath the willow’s boughs.

Exhaling, she peeked around the trunk. Across the garden, the door swung wide. A nobleman appeared with an oil lamp in hand, glaring down the length of his lawn.
 

“He can’t see you,” Mara told herself. “You’re safe.”

Her eyes locked onto the man. His gaze centered on the tree where she hid. Mara tightened her jaw. The willow branches swayed. His eyes narrowed, but he never called for soldiers. He never stepped beyond the comfort of his doorway. The nobleman retreated into his mansion, and the door swung quietly shut behind him.
 

Mara breathed a sigh of relief. She pinched her brow, rubbing her temples with her thumb and middle finger. She had precious little time to reach the temple before Olessa’s glimmer completely faded from her blood.

“Look at where your son would have lived,” she heard Olessa say. “Look at the luxury afforded to those in Hightable. It is the pearl of the shitty oyster that is Sollan. I see you still wear the ashen burlap. Good girl.”

“It’s what the ashwalk demands. I nearly changed earlier and it almost got me killed. The Six want me in burlap.” Mara closed her eyes so she could better picture her madame.
 

“Then you really do want to save that little bastard’s soul? This wasn’t about having an adventure for a night?”

Mara’s gaze drifted to her lifeless son. She smiled at his plump cheeks even though their blue hue brought tears to her eyes. “I do. It’s not.”

“If he had lived, I would have sold him to one of these highborns. This would have been his world.”

“I believe you,” Mara murmured. She brushed her finger through his wispy hair. “But that is not the life he would have lived.”

“And what life do you think that would have been? You are no longer faced with death on the Waterstair. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you believe, Mara.”

Mara leaned against the willow’s trunk. Around her, blossoms pale as fresh milk weighed the tree’s branches. They formed a cocoon for Mara and her thoughts. In her mind’s eye, she parted the branches, and beyond, the play of her son’s life spread out before her like an epic tale told for generations.

“Tell me,” Olessa repeated.

“This king of ours, many think he is a man with vision. But he has more than just vision. He has hunger. He has rage. Those that willingly bow before him will regret the act before long. Those that love him now will fear him later. They will give up hope.”

The words spilled from her like she’d rehearsed them. “But my son? He would never give up hope. He would have seen Good King Sol for the monster he truly is. My son would have stopped this king. As a boy, he would have hidden in shadow. As a man, he would have stepped into the light and raised armies to slay the king and his flying serpent and squelched the Serpent Sun before it rose. If a heart beat in the lands of Urum, they would know my son’s name.”

Mara stalked forward. She stared into the willow blooms. Olessa joined her, and together they watched the play of her son’s life unfold before them.

“Do you see him, Mara?” Olessa asked.

Mara smiled and pointed through the petals. “Look, Olessa, right there! He walks with five others. The days are dark and the world full of fear, but wherever he goes, a light shines. They follow him, Olessa, they follow him to the ends of Urum, to kingdoms I have only ever dreamed of and places long forgotten by men.”

Olessa pursed her lips and nodded. “He’s searching for something. But does he find it?”

“I’ll help him if he cannot find the way. I will always be there for him.”