Resurrection (Blood of the Lamb) (27 page)

The last of the comfort garnered from the bath shocked right away. “Is this not a marriage veil?”

Mother Elizabeth, a spectral figure through the suffocating veil, refused to meet her eye. “Come,” she said. “Enough of your questions. Father Joshua awaits.”

Maryam could get no more from Mother Elizabeth, who was now knocking on the door for their release. She abandoned Maryam to the same po-faced server, who escorted her up through the corridors of the ship. Apostles and servers alike stopped their conversations and stared rudely as she was paraded past.

At last they entered the corridor that housed Father Joshua's private rooms. Waiting outside the door was Lazarus, dressed all in white, and bound at his hands and feet.

He looked her up and down. “Holy hell. What on earth is that all about?”

“Your so-called ally Mother Elizabeth says I'm in for an “unprecedented privilege”.” She whipped off the veil so that she could look at him directly. “I have a really, really bad feeling about this. Mother Elizabeth said—” She was about to tell him more when she was distracted by raised voices emanating from the slightly open door.

Lazarus jerked his head toward the sound. “They've been arguing like this since I got here.”

“…is totally unacceptable.” Fury powered Mother Lilith's words. “This is not about securing your position—this is solely an excuse.”

“Can you think of a better way to dampen down the furore? If we finish with her right now, we'll have a revolution on our hands.”

“Do you think I'm a fool? I've closed my eyes to your
carryings-on for years now, knowing we need more donors, but if the cure is proved to work I warn you your excuse is gone.”

“Whatever my father is planning,” Lazarus whispered to Maryam, “it's got Mother more steamed up than I've ever heard her.”

Just then the door flew wide open and Mother Lilith stormed from the room. When she saw Maryam and Lazarus waiting in the corridor, she marched right up to Maryam and pressed her seething face in close. “May the Lord strike you down, you scheming little whore!” With this she sped away, not giving her son even a second glance.

Now, as Maryam tried to compose herself, the server knocked on the door. “They are ready, Holy Father.”

“Bring them in,” Father Joshua ordered, his tone as chilly as a winter wind.

The server shot out his hand and clasped Maryam tightly around the wrist to twist her arm behind her back. She dared not struggle, lest he undo the efforts of the doctors who'd fixed her broken bone, but still it hurt. He pushed her forward, guiding her in through the door before roughly depositing her into one of the chairs. Out of nowhere, it seemed, he produced one of the thick ropes that Maryam had tossed into the crowd as proof of the Territorials’ existence, and used it to bind her to the chair. Next the server fetched Lazarus. He shuffled awkwardly, hampered by his bindings, but the server ignored his discomfort and lashed him into another chair. All the while Father Joshua worked on at an ornately carved desk in the far corner of the room, not glancing up until the server had closed the door behind him with an ominous thud.

“And, so,” Father Joshua finally said, spreading his fingers onto the desktop to give him traction as he rose. “Our little game begins.”

“What are you playing at, Father? If you lay a finger on Sister Maryam I'll—”

Father Joshua lunged at Lazarus, seizing him by his hair and meeting him eye to eye. “You'll what, boy? Slap my hand?” He laughed. “You've done your duty by delivering me my little bride. Now all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the fun.” He slammed Lazarus back into the chair so hard, his head banged against the frame beneath the headrest with a resounding thwack.

“Your bride?” Bile shot into Maryam's throat, nearly choking her as she struggled to swallow it back down.

Lazarus threw himself against his bindings, thrashing and jerking in an attempt to break loose. “You total utter bastard! Let me go so we can have this out man to man!”

“Man? Spare me your drivelling, boy.” Father Joshua cradled his arms across his chest, leaning back against his desk as he watched his son. His eyes radiated menace as his lips drew up in a cynical smile. Only when Lazarus at last gave up his struggle did his father continue. “It's brilliant, if I do say so myself…I tell the villagers the Lord has sent our nubile little Sister here to aid me in his glorious plan to rid us of Te Matee Iai, her outburst merely a ruse to test their faith. And once we've consummated the marriage—” he winked luridly at Maryam—“life can return to normal and my dear new wife will quietly retire to serve me at my will.”

“I'll never serve you,” Maryam said with all the force she could muster. “I'd rather die.”

His eyes grew even colder, as though set to stone. He calmly poured some kind of liquid from a jug into a cup that sat upon his desk, then advanced with it toward Maryam as te bakoa stalked its prey. “Be careful what you wish for, you stupid child. One word from me and I can make it so.”

He pinched her nose between his thumb and fore-finger, pressing her head back so hard into the chair she couldn't shake it loose. Now he raised the cup up to her lips, and the sharp acrid scent rose up to greet her. Anga kerea toddy. She took a deep breath and clamped her lips shut, but it was hopeless: when she was inevitably forced to gasp for air, he tipped the cup, pouring the drink straight down her throat. She gagged on the burning liquid and tried to spit it out, but he mashed the ball of his palm down over her mouth, sealing it shut until she had no choice but swallow the bitter toddy down.

“There, that's better, isn't it?” Father Joshua ran his finger across Maryam's toddy-slicked lips, his touch sending such a shudder of revulsion through her that her stomach nearly purged. “Drink up now, so you can have a nice wee nap while I prepare for the joining of our lives as one.”

Twice more he forced her to drink, until her stomach was a churning soup and her eyes blinded with tears. All the while, Lazarus, immobilised, hurled insults at his father, his anger filling the room until his words lost all sense.

The toddy took effect almost immediately, burrowing down into Maryam's gut to detonate like a falling star pitched down to earth. Heat consumed her; sweat broke out on her forehead as subtle fingers of confusion twisted around the cells inside her brain. The world was swimming in an ocean of distorted shapes and sounds, and the urge to vomit swept over her in restless waves.

Through the worsening sense of sea-sickness, she realised Father Joshua was attempting to dose Lazarus with the toddy as well. The two of them seemed engaged in a squirming battle as Lazarus resolutely refused to swallow down the drink. At last he spat
a mouthful straight into his father's face, and Father Joshua reeled back and stalked to the door.

He flung it open. “Get in here and hold him down,” he snarled to the server standing guard outside.

In a flash the man was at Lazarus's back, pinning his head to the chair with one unyielding hand. He blocked Lazarus's nose with the other hand, and Father Joshua poured the toddy down his throat, sealing his mouth shut so Lazarus had no choice but to swallow or suffocate right there. Yet still he fought on. Maryam was barely able to follow their struggle as the toddy hit her with its full effect. It felt as if she watched the world through a full fathom of murky water, everything out of focus and forever shifting even as she tried to pull her thoughts together and work out what to do. Had Father Joshua said he was to marry her? Could he even do that when Mother Lilith was already his wife? He can do whatever he wants, her topsy-turvy thoughts answered her back. Take you and defile you, and then wipe you out.

For a while she continued to register the torrent of slurred abuse Lazarus pitched at his father, but soon even this gave way to a hush so ominous that the silence itself grew loud and overpowering, hissing like repressed steam inside her ears. She was defeated, entrapped by self-pity, as everything beyond the jeering turmoil in her head retreated and she lost all sense of time. She closed her eyes, only to jerk them open again as the world lurched off its axis and started spinning at alarming speed. But her eyelids drooped again, sending Maryam spiralling into a place of such nauseous confusion that all she could do was sob like a deserted baby until even this effort grew too exhausting to sustain.

Maryam shocked awake, her head pounding as if it had been rent in two. She forced herself to focus, and spied Lazarus still bound and comatose in the chair beyond. His cheeks were flushed, his mouth open, slightly awry, as a small puddle of saliva pooled on his shirt, but the sight of him cheered her all the same. At least she was not alone with his monster of a father. She had no idea how long she'd slept. The light pouring in through the doors that led out to the deck had softened only slightly from its midday peak. It could only have been an hour or so at most.

It hurt to think, sharp stabbing pains assaulting her when she moved her eyes, but she scoured the room regardless, relieved to see no sign of Father Joshua or anybody else.

“Laz?”

He jolted, his tongue running between his top lip and teeth, but did not wake.

“Laz-a-rus!” She called as loud as she dared. “Wake…up.”

“Wha…what?” For a moment his eyes flicked open, and his face broke into a beatific smile as his gaze met hers. But then she lost him as the toddy once again shrouded his brain.

“So you're awake, eh?” Father Joshua appeared in the doorway of his adjoining bedroom. He was dressed in his formal uniform of white and gold. “You're tough, I'll give you that.”

He sauntered across the room, slipping around the back of Maryam's chair so she had to strain to keep him in her sight. The movement rattled her brain, slamming it, bruised and cowering, inside the cap of bone. He was leering down at her. “You could enjoy this if you allowed yourself,” he said, dropping his hands down to massage her shoulders, moving ever closer to the opening at the back of her gown.

She tried to think of a sharp retort to drive him off, but
disgust and fear stampeded over conscious thought, locking her tongue in place. He was toying with her neckline now, slipping his white spidery fingers under the linen, tracking down toward her breasts.

“Gedoff!” It was the best that she could manage. If only she could think: the toddy somehow stole her ability to move the fury in her head from thought to sound. She felt so heavy, her limbs dead beneath her.

Still his hands trekked downward, roughly pinching at her nipples as she tried to writhe and break his hold.

“Don't be so impatient, my dear. Soon we shall be free to consummate our union properly as man and wife.”

She spat onto his arm, transfixed by the frothing trail of yellow-tinged saliva that stained the fabric of his jacket as it ran down to his wrist.

“Dirty little slut!” He dredged up a handful of her hair and wiped the spit away, delivering an extra root-jarring tug before he set it free.

She felt sick again, the toddy still swilling inside her, fermenting in an evil brew of drink and bile. She didn't know how to stop him as he unhooked the button at the back of her neck and drew the gown down over her shoulders, baring them as he leaned in and started kissing her neck with his thin old-man's lips. He stank of sweat, as though he'd not washed for weeks despite his pristine clothes.

“Get away from her!” Mother Lilith's entrance was punctuated by a bang as she slammed the door shut behind her. She locked it, putting the key into her pocket with one hand while, in the other, she pointed something glinting and metallic at Father Joshua's chest.

Lazarus, roused by the noise, spoke up in a drunken slur. “S’that Captain Saul's gun?”

Father Joshua raised his hands, manoeuvring around until Maryam sat trapped between the two. “For heaven's sake, woman, put that thing down before you do some harm.”

Mother Lilith waved the gun toward the desk. “Sit down, or Lord help me I'll use this thing.”

A drip of saliva landed on Maryam's chest and she realised her mouth was hanging open. A gun? What was going on? She couldn't make sense of it; her brain was too foggy and her shock to great to take it all in. All she could do was watch as Father Joshua crossed the room and lowered himself onto the chair behind the desk, never for a moment taking his gaze from Mother Lilith's face.

“There's really no need for this, darling—”

Mother Lilith stepped into the middle of the room, using both hands to aim the gun directly at her husband's head. “I've had enough humiliation to last a lifetime, thanks to you. I'll not sit by and watch you make a fool of me again with this piece of…of…detritus.” She swung the gun around to Maryam, who cowered as Mother Lilith aimed the barrel right at her. But, thankfully, Mother Lilith now turned it back on Father Joshua.