Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) (14 page)

She stood there for some time, just holding the weapon in
one hand, her arm extended out in front of her as though she
didn’t wish to bring the item closer; as though it were a dangerous
animal about to strike at or bite her. Catelyn pressed in, trying to
understand what was happening, and prompting Silena to say
something.
“Please, I would like your honest opinion, Silena,” she
said.
Perhaps it was the kind tone that Catelyn used, or the
courtesy of saying a simple please, but Silena tilted her head up to
Catelyn and then brought the weapon to her chest. She clutched it
in a strange way, like a child with a doll, and ran her fingers over
the handle almost unconsciously, admiring it with breathy
enthusiasm.
Finally after several whispers of this, while still remaining
silently entranced, Silena broke her silence and spoke softly.
“I cannot help you with this, my dear. This is...beyond my
capabilities.” Simple, blunt rejection.
The response was completely unexpected, and Catelyn
could hear no guardedness in her voice, or in her manner. She
used a hushed, almost reverent tone when she spoke, and Catelyn
was aware, in that simple statement of honesty and
disappointment, of how much trust had formed between the two of
them in such a short space of time. And she was also made
painfully aware of just how much she had missed such a thing.
Still, Catelyn blanched, unsure exactly of what had just
happened.
“You’re...refusing to buy this?” Catelyn asked, quietly
shocked.
Silena simply nodded. Catelyn focused her bubble entirely
on Silena, listened to her pulse and her breathing, smelling her
sweat. Catelyn was surprised at what they told her. Silena exuded
complete and utter inner calm. And not a trace of deception. This
was not, as she had briefly suspected, simply a ploy to take
advantage of Catelyn, by refusing to buy and pretending not to be
interested in a vain attempt to drive the price down. Catelyn felt
herself deflate.
To her surprise, Silena was there, steadying her with a
hand on her elbow, as Catelyn tried to understand what was
happening. Catelyn had expected a number of scenarios, but a
merchant refusing to buy such an exquisite and exclusive item had
not been on her list of possibilities, and she was completely taken
off guard by the response.
“What...But, Silena, why?” she said aloud.
“It is not for me. It was meant for you,” was all she said.
“What does that mean?”
“Only the Divines know, my child. I would guess that this
came to you for a reason, by Their hands. I cannot defy that, nor
would I wish to.”
Catelyn was as confused by these words as she was
surprised. She thought that she was one of the last people in the
Seat to believe in the Divines, though her faith had dwindled to
almost nothing these last few sojourns. She certainly didn’t expect
a pragmatic woman like Silena to have faith in them.
Silena reached out to take Catelyn’s hands, passed the
weapon back to her, then clasped them around the handle with
warmth and reassurance. The exchange surprised both of them
somewhat, both for the act, and for what it represented. Catelyn
pulled her hands away, feeling hope crash around her, a feeling
she was all too familiar with, and returned the weapon to its
temporary home in the loop of leather on her belt.
Silena, still standing just inside arm’s length, spoke.
“Catelyn, I deal in curiosities, and in things that, though
valuable to some, are practically useless to people living today.
This...this is something far more important. It is not meant to be
traded like some trinket found in the rubble.”
Even this admonishment was delivered with warmth and
compassion, and Catelyn felt something she hadn’t felt in six
sojourns; genuine tenderness. Silena reached out, once again
putting both of her hands on Catelyn’s upper arms. Catelyn could
feel the rough paper feel of her hands, the skin wrinkled and
callused, the fingers bony and crooked with age. When Silena
spoke again, there wasn’t a trace of the coolness Silena was used to
putting in her voice. It was like she had been transformed by the
brief contact with the weapon.
“Even if it weren’t the case that this was more valuable
than to be simply traded, if I were to show something like this to
anyone else, the Empire would have soldiers in my stall dragging
me off to an interrogation room the very next day, never to be seen
again. In that, the Divines have truly been watching over you that
They directed you to me, instead of some other merchant who
would have led to you ruin, certainly.
“I’m old enough that if I were to be taken by the Imperials,
I could not withstand the techniques that they use, and they would
discover where, and from whom, I had acquired such an item.
Then they would come after you.”
Silena’s hands on Catelyn’s arms gave a warm squeeze.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” Silena said, this last part full of
warmth and emotion choking her voice, and Catelyn felt a stabbing
pain in her heart, as an echo from her past erupted into her
consciousness at the similarity to words she had heard sojourns
ago.
“We won’t let anyone hurt you, Catey,
” her parents had
promised. That promise had been broken.
Silena paused, composing herself, coughing to cover her
obvious emotional struggle as she let her hands drop back to her
sides.
“I wouldn’t like that,” she continued. “You seem like a nice
girl just trying to stay alive and you’ve got to stay away from
trouble like that.
Catelyn, now taken aback both by Silena’s refusal and her
display of emotions, considered what she herself was feeling before
speaking.
“It’s true that I live quietly, in the shadows. I have my
reasons. And I don’t wish to change that if it means taking such a
huge risk. But I also went through something...horrible to acquire
this and I hate to simply abandon it.”
Silena reacted with dismay to this last part.
“Abandon it? What on Ereas makes you think the Divines
would give you such a gift only to have you abandon it? This is
Their doing; surely you can see that. I don’t know the depth of
your faith, but hopefully now you see the depth of mine.
“And whatever else you might think about that item and
its purpose in coming to you, you and I both know what an
exceptional weapon it is. All other factors aside, I can’t think of a
better companion for a young girl who lives alone in a place like
this.”
Catelyn grunted. In truth, she wished to tell Silena that she
did believe in the Divines, that she too prayed to them. And that
she agreed that the Divines had brought this thing into her life. But
she was afraid to speak those beliefs aloud, for fear that it would
not be those words that she spoke, but those of the other voice
inside her. The words of the voice who pointed out how many
times the Divines had failed to help her before. The voice who
increasingly spoke to her of how she had no reason to believe they
would start helping her any more now.
She still felt comforted by her faith and said all the words,
but the Divines; Mother, Father and Child were, in her mind at
least, merely silent watchers. Catelyn’s beliefs were...complicated,
and growing harder and harder for her to justify.
“I’ll admit that I have thought often of keeping it, if only to
study the faces of the people carved into the handle. But selling it
would keep me alive longer than if I simply studied it.”
Silena once more reached out and squeezed Catelyn’s
hands, a gesture that both women were becoming more and more
comfortable with, and Catelyn once again smelled and felt the
layer of warmth encompassing the pair. The remembrance of these
kind of feelings threatened to bring to the surface painful
memories that she had long ago buried, and so Catelyn broke
contact with Silena, which elicited a clear sense of disappointment
in the older woman.
But Silena simply sighed, and spoke one more.
“I am truly sorry that I can’t help you, Catelyn. I will pray
to the Divines for you, and ask for Them to bless you with Their
guidance.”
There was a pause and then Silena tentatively asked a
question.
“It may not be any of my business, but I feel compelled to
ask. How did you come by this in the first place?”
Catelyn felt the blood drain from her face, and a stab of
panic nearly overwhelmed her. She felt so many conflicting
emotions right at this moment, and she struggled to rein in some
of them lest she lose herself in the deepness of the longing she felt
to completely trust someone again. But she hesitated. Did she trust
Silena enough to reveal the circumstances of that night? Catelyn
ran it over in her mind, trying to decide, while Silena waited
calmly, patiently. That calm was what decided it for Catelyn.
In the end she decided to be truthful, but only divulge
enough truth as necessary.
“I got it from a...man. From Dane Eyrris.”
Suddenly, Silena’s demeanor towards her completely
changed. All of Catelyn’s senses could detect the shift that had
taken place between them. Where she had been all warmth and
kindness a moment ago, she was now cold as ice and wary of
betrayal. When she spoke, it was with a dangerous edge to her
voice, and Catelyn could smell the tang of fear as Silena’s guard
came back up. She responded coolly.
“I make a point not to put my nose in anyone’s business
where it’s not wanted, but if I were you, I wouldn’t continue to deal
with...creatures...like Dane Eyrris.”
Hearing this cold retort after their previous exchanges felt
to Catelyn like a punch in the gut, like a splash of ice cold water in
a warm, luxurious bath. The shock Catelyn felt must have
registered on her face, because Silena softened her tone.
“I’m sorry. Don’t despair, dear girl. Not for a second do I
think you’re a part of that world. I’ve got enough sense to see that
you haven’t made friends with that pack of wild dogs. And only the
Divines may judge the things you feel that you need to do to
survive. I’m simply advising that you steer well clear of any of the
animals that call themselves Dane. They belong to a cult of sorts,
which they call the Sado-Sexual Elite. You don’t want to know
what they do to earn their place in that den of evil.”
Catelyn didn’t have the heart to tell Silena that she already
knew all about that side of the Dane and his friends, but with her
warning delivered, Catelyn felt a palpable wave of relief that Silena
was still friendly with her.
As she stood listening to Silena talk, hearing her heart beat
and the woman’s strong, kindly voice, the cadence of her
breathing, Catelyn silently promised herself that she would make a
point of spending more time getting to know this woman.
Although the exchange hadn’t worked out the way she had
planned, having the chance to talk to Silena and to get to know her
and experience a moment of unguarded interaction with another
person had been more rewarding than she could have imagined.
With no business to conduct, Silena said a heartfelt
goodbye and departed with her bodyguard in tow, and Catelyn
waited until they passed out of her sensory bubble and then
climbed back to the rooftops and traveled gracefully along the
eaves and gutters of the Seat towards her roost, a lopsided grin on
her face and a feeling of pure joy warming her heart, both of which
were extreme rarities in Catelyn’s world.
If she stopped and thought about it, she would have
connected these feelings to ones she had felt many sojourns
before, when she had been a small child, comforted and warmed
by the loving arms of her mother.

After the meeting at the abandoned bank with Silena they
had established a high degree of trust, and Catelyn began making
regular visits each span to her market stall to make conversation
with the woman, her enthusiasm for this part of her new routine
was palpable, but she worked to make it so that it was not plain for
all to see. To an outside observer, Catelyn put on the act of being
the same nuisance she had been prior to that night, moving from
stall to stall, browsing but never buying. And to her credit, Silena
played along as well, always shooing her away at the end of each of
their exchanges. Only the two of them, young and old, knew the
true value and purpose of these exchanges: the solidifying of
something neither of them had expected to find in the Seat.
Friendship.

Catelyn began to feel a closeness with Silena that she
hadn’t felt since her parent’s deaths. She still reserved a part of her
heart, hiding deep within her inner defenses, to protect her from
what she knew must inevitably happen. But for the first time since
that terrible day six sojourns ago, Catelyn found that she was not
only willing, but able to open herself to another person.

Several of their visits were camouflaged using small talk,
as they both felt that other buyers within earshot need not know
the depth of this burgeoning relationship. It wouldn’t do for
Catelyn to lose her mystique, nor for Silena to lose her perceived
edge as a shrewd merchant, and so when others were near they
chatted idly about the city, the weather or that day’s business.

But Catelyn longed for those moments when the two of
them had the stall to themselves. During those conversations, the
two women were free to drop the pretense of merchant and
customer, and share genuine pieces of themselves.

Silena shared with Catelyn in a hushed voice all about her
youthful defiance of the Empire, and the toll that such actions had
cost her. Catelyn, in return, had described the many tribulations
her parents had faced as chosen parents, and later, their pointless
deaths. Catelyn had been numb most of her days since that one,
but on the days when she and Silena could confide in one another,
she felt deeply, and the two of them would both need to restrain
their emotions, lest their shared tragedies overwhelm them.

It certainly wouldn’t help either of them to collapse into
sobs and wailing before the entire marketplace. But those more
intimate visits over the next few spans were the exception, not the
rule.

Truthfully, it wasn’t solely company that Catelyn sought in
these regular visits to see Silena, it was also information. The first
visit, Silena had informed Catelyn that because of her position, she
was able to employ a variety of techniques and spies throughout
the marketplace which kept her informed about the things that
were happening in the Seat. It had helped her immeasurably in the
past to know when to buy, when to sell, and when to keep her head
down.