The Godspeaker Trilogy (116 page)

I thought I was done with being reborn. I was mistaken. Tonight sees yet another new Rhian.

“Rhian …” Zandakar sighed. “You want be queen? This is queen. To kill bad men and be
wei yatzhay .”

Slowly, so slowly, she raised the knife before her eyes. Made herself look at the dried blood, the edge on the blade. “It may be queen where you come from, Zandakar. Since the time of Rollin it has not been our way. And if I change that … if I turn back the clock… something will wear my face but it won’t be
me .” She shifted her gaze to Ven’Martin’s stiffening corpse. “He was wrong to attempt my life.
I was wrong to take his instead.” She dropped to her knees and let one hand rest palm-down on the man’s unmoving chest. “I forgive you, Ven’Martin. I hope you can forgive me.” She looked up. “Dance your
hotas if you must dance them, Zandakar. They are part of you, I understand that. But from this moment you’ll dance them alone.”

“Alone?” Zandakar frowned. “Rhian
wei dance
hotas ?”

“No. Not any more.”

“Tcha! Rhian dance
hotas, ” he said, his voice sharp with irritation. “Rhian
good dance
hotas .”

“That’s the problem,” she whispered. “That’s why I must stop.”

Because I’m more than good. I’m very good. And because a part of me likes them. A part of me exults in my skill with a blade. A part of me—God have mercy—is not sorry Ven’Martin’s dead.

Across the inn’s courtyard, the sound of a door opening. “Rhian. Aren’t you done yet?”

Alasdair.

“Yes. I’m done,” she said, and stood. “
Yatzhay, Zandakar,” she told him, softly. “
Yatzhay and thank you. For the second time you’ve saved my life.”

“Rhian, please,” said Alasdair. “Helfred’s waiting in the cellar. Let Zandakar take Ven’Martin to him. You must get some sleep before we ride in the morning.”

He was right. Dawn was close. “Will you clean this?” she said, and held the knife out to Zandakar. “Keep it after, if you like. Or if you don’t, throw it away. I have no more use for knives.”

The request distressed him. “Rhian …”

“Fine,” she said, and tossed the blade aside. The sound it made hitting the ground a second time was loud and final. “Take Ven’Martin’s body to Helfred.
Zho? ”

His ice-blue eyes were touched with anger now.
“Zho.”

She turned towards Alasdair then turned back. “Please. See to the knife.”

“Wei,” he said. “Your killing. Your knife. You clean. You throw away.”

His arrogant refusal roused her own anger. She opened her mouth to chastise him … then closed it.

Damn him, anyway. He’s right. Papa would say the same thing and not so politely.

She retrieved the knife that had killed Ven’Martin. Washed it clean in the yard tub. Dried it on her shirt then laid it neatly on the dead man’s breast.

Here is the first and the last of my killing. Whatever I am, whatever I may be, I will not be Queen Rhian with a blade.

“Are you all right?” said Alasdair, his voice tightly controlled, as they returned to their guest chamber. They were alone, though light shone beneath every door they passed.

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

He ushered her into their room and closed the door behind them. “Rhian—”

“Alasdair, please,” she said, her back to the window. “I needed to talk to him. Zandakar understands.”

“And I don’t?”

All the warm pleasure between them was drowned in blood. The soft kisses, the tender touchings, cut to pieces in the silver moonlight. “I know you want to.”

“But you’re saying I can’t.”

In his eyes she could see his heart breaking. Could he see hers, broken already? “Alasdair … you’ve never killed. How can you possibly know what I’m feeling?”

“I’d know if you’d tell me! But you’d rather tell
him !”

“Do you know what I’d
rather ?” she shouted, her brittle self-control shattering. “I’d rather Ven’Martin wasn’t dead. But he
is dead, Alasdair. He’s dead because
I killed him . And nothing can undo that. No words can bring him back. So can we go to bed, please? One way or another it’s been a busy evening and, as you say, I really need some rest.”

“My God, Rhian,” Alasdair whispered. “You’re a stranger. I don’t know you any more.”

He opened the door, then shut it quietly behind him. The latch’s soft catching was more terrible than the loudest bang.

She closed her eyes against a fresh welling of tears.

That’s all right, Alasdair. I don’t know me either.

H
elfred found the letter from Marlan in the pocket of Ven’Martin’s unlikely old coat.

After stripping the corpse and washing it free of blood and the voided wastes of violent death, he methodically inspected the discarded bloodstained clothing to see if he might find an explanation for this horrible event.

There had to be one. His uncle would never send a man of God to do murder. Ven’Martin had acted of his own wicked volition. Or perhaps he’d lost his mind. Or been a dupe. Yes. Someone else, Damwin or Kyrin most likely, had convinced Ven’Martin to attempt this heinous act. But it wasn’t his uncle. It couldn’t be.

And then his fumbling fingers touched the folded parchment.

Venerable Martin, my beloved servant in God , read the note. It was his uncle’s exquisite handwriting. The hope of trickery was dashed. I pray this finds you strong in faith and unblunted in purpose. Know that I trust you above all men. Indeed, you are as my own right hand, indispensable to the wellbeing of my body. Ven’Martin, Rhian’s evil overwhelms God’s light. Her corruption corrupts us. The Church of Rollin is in the shadows and, fought to a standstill, I am on my knees. Only you can save my soul. Only you can save God’s Church and our sweet Ethrea from the scourge of this self-proclaimed queen. Rollin admonishes: it is sin to take a life. But I tell you as God’s prolate: he who takes life in his service is blessed. Ven’Martin, I beg you. Save God’s Church from this wicked woman. Save Ethrea. Save me.

After some span of time, some uncounted passing minutes, Helfred refolded the letter and pushed it into the pocket of his chaplain’s robe. Surrounding him in the chilly cellar, wrapped hams and cheeses and other perishable things.

If I touched them now they’d turn to stone.

Was he a fool, to feel so utterly betrayed? Ever since the clerica he’d known his uncle was … flawed. Why then was he bludgeoned with grief to learn how deeply those flaws had scarred him?

Because ambition is one thing. It can be tempered. Channelled correctly it can even work for good. But a man of God who’d suborn murder to serve his own ends …

Odd, but if Marlan had attempted Rhian’s life himself he doubted the pain would burn so fierce.

It’s the corruption of Ven’Martin that makes me want to weep. The twisting of his faith and the curdling of his soul.

He pressed cold lips to Ven’Martin’s colder brow. “God forgive you, brother,” he murmured. “You were sorely led astray.”

He’d never dressed a corpse in a winding-sheet before. That was the work of Ethrea’s devouts. Chaplains came after, to bless and sanctify the body with the right words and incense. He didn’t even have a proper winding-sheet to hand, only clean bedlinens from the inn’s housekeeper. Plain cotton, wearing thin here and there.

A small sin, not to give the best sheets to the dead.

It was a clumsy business, tearing them into long strips and binding Ven’Martin’s lax, soul-fled body. The knife-slit in his belly was so obscure. An inch wide, no wider. One little incision and his life had leaked away.

Why did I think this death would have a greater fanfare?

It felt like a mercy to cover Ven’Martin’s face with clean cotton. Faceless assassins were less frightening. Less … real.

Is not God omnipotent? Is he not a force against evil? How then did evil come to touch us so close? How have two sworn men of God smirched their souls so completely and brought such disrepute down on his Church? Is God powerless to prevent such infamy? If he is, what does that mean? Have I devoted my life to a phantom? An empty shell?

Aching with misery, steeped in despair and harsh questions without answers, Helfred knelt on the chilly flagstoned cellar floor and tried to console himself with prayer. His muscles stiffened. His fingers numbed. The tip of his nose felt like a chip of ice. But prayer had deserted him. All he had left was bitter disappointment.

When men of God turn to evil what hope is there for the world?

Then a warm breeze stirred the hanging hams and cheeses. A faint voice whispered … Helfred. Don’t lose heart .

He was so startled he fell over.

“Who said that?” he demanded, flailing like an infant, or a turtle on its back. “Who’s there?”

Helfred, have courage. Follow your convictions and keep the faith.

His fingers found the edge of the trestle table set up for Ven’Martin. He pulled himself to his feet and stared round the cavernous cellar. “Who is that? Is it—are you— Hettie ?”

Helfred, you mustn’t abandon this cause. If good men turn from a righteous fight how then can good hope to triumph?

“Hettie or not, I demand you show yourself! Immediately!”

You’ve a purpose, Helfred. You’ve great work to do. A great sacrifice to make so God might not be defeated.

The voice was much fainter now. He could hardly hear it. “What do you mean, a great sacrifice?” He spun around, trying to see every corner of the cellar at once. “And who could possibly defeat God? God is God, there is no greater power—is there? Is there?”

But he was alone. Alone with a dead man and cheeses and hams.

“God have mercy,” he muttered. “I’m losing my mind.”

He remained in the cellar with Ven’Martin, praying.

God, show me the path to take. Show me how to serve you. Show me what I must do to save my uncle from the darkness. Show me how I can return him to your light.

He heard no more strange voices. No more breezes stirred the cellar. His heart, so disquieted, found its peace again. And when the innkeeper came down to him with a message that it was just on dawn and he was wanted by the queen and her council … he knew without a whisper of doubt what it was he had to do.

“What?” said Duke Edward. “Man, are you salt-brained ?”

“Edward,” murmured Rhian. “Temper your language.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” said Duke Edward, pink with emotion. “But Chaplain Helfred is salt-brained if he thinks to march into Marlan’s clutches and survive the encounter with a whole skin!”

Helfred stood before Their Majesties and the dukes, who were seated round the public dining room’s long table. The queen looked sleepless, the king like a bowstring pulled too tight. They sat side by side … yet separated by a distance as wide as the river.

Zandakar stands between them. He is hazardous, like rocks.

He cleared his throat. “Your Grace, you may call me salt-brained, you may call me daffy-doddled, you may call me any uncouth epithet you like. But the fact remains that Venerable Martin lies dead beneath us in a cellar. He must be returned to the bosom of the Church so he might be reposed and prayed for and buried.”

“Buried with holy rites?” said King Alasdair. “Within the precinct of a church? Ven’Martin? Are you mad, Chaplain, to offer such an insult to Her Majesty’s face?”

The three dukes were glaring, grossly affronted by the idea of Ven’Martin receiving any kind of grace. Clearly they wished him tossed nameless in a deep hole dug by labourers in an unknown field.

He kept his hands clasped loosely before him. “Your Majesties … Your Graces. I appreciate this is a difficult morning. I imagine we have all struggled overnight with Ven’Martin’s death. However—”

“However?” said Duke Rudi, pugnacious. He was like a Keldravian fighting dog, overmuscled and swift to the throat. A good man for Rhian to have on her side but wearisome when it came to tempering with commonsense. “There’s no however here, Chaplain. Ven’Martin was a conniving would-be killer, sent here by Marlan to butcher Ethrea’s queen. He was filth, man. He was—”

“Your Grace, please,” said Helfred quickly. “While we must deplore Ven’Martin’s actions it’s not your place or mine to condemn him out of hand. He’s a son of the Church. Only the Court Ecclesiastica can assess his culpability.”

“And who is it heads your precious Court?” sneered Duke Adric. “I believe it’s the prolate, is it not? I think I see a problem there, Chaplain, since it was the prolate who sent Ven’Martin to kill the queen.”

God save me, God save me . The letter from Marlan burned in his pocket. If he showed it to them they would never let him go. They would use it to bring Marlan crashing down from his great height … and in doing so might well destroy the Church too.

I cannot allow that. God’s Church must survive.

“That is what Ven’Martin said,” he replied. “But the word of a dead man is not proof, Your Grace. I always suspected Ven’Martin’s devotion to my uncle was of an order inclining him to … rashness. When I return his body to the capital I shall request an audience with the Court Ecclesiastica and tell them of his claim. The Court will investigate. It’s empowered to judge even a prolate. If I can convince them my uncle has—has—”

“Lost his reason and run amok?” said the king. “You’re a fool, Helfred. Marlan will deny everything and the Court will never support you over him.”

“Helfred …” Rhian cleared her throat. “You can’t go. The Court Ecclesiastica has declared you anathema. If you show your face to its members or your uncle …”

He’d known it from the moment she’d said Ven’Artemis had come for him, but even so the words were a blow. Cut off from the comfort of the Church …

Echoing faintly in his memory, that strange, unknown voice: Helfred, have courage. Follow your convictions and keep the faith .