~ Ian ~

For one wishing to avoid throngs of people, there was only one way to get across the Clearwater. The bulk of traffic passed over the trestle by Hultry’s farm, or the majestic bridge which Master Holden’s builders had lavishly constructed a half-mile upstream of it. Not many people knew of the third bridge. It had been built by an old farmer called Mullings, a crusty bugger who had been appointed to farm wheat on the large plot of arable land along the river’s western bank. Mullings was fed up of his hired hands spending an entire day on a journey into the town, held up waiting for people to stand by and let their cart cross the big bridge. So he’d built his own.

Ian crossed Mullings’ bridge tentatively, cursing the farmer’s choice of location. Through disconcertingly wide gaps in the planks, it was easy to see that the Clearwater was at its strongest here. A misstep would mean death. If he was lucky, he might escape with only broken bones and horrible grazes from the rough rocks on either side of the river.

“The trick is not to pay attention to what’s beneath you,” said Sergeant Pratley, leading the way with confidence.

“That sounds like a good way to lose my balance,” said Ian.

“Yeah, you want to try to not do that.”

The sun was a furious blaze on their backs. A fine morning it had turned out to be, after a drizzly start. Ian had emerged from the Tavern clad in a coat he didn’t need. They’d been to speak with Keith Bartlock, husband of Goodwife Sara. Bartlock often visited the church. He was a self-described ‘day congregant’, one among a not insignificant portion of Lightness Skerrett’s flock who attended the sermons but hadn’t committed themselves to the life of an acolyte. They were the laity. Some had jobs that precluded them from taking residence in Skerrett’s pasture, some were drawn to Skerrett’s voice more than the words he said. Bartlock was of a group who had families outside the Faithful. His wife wouldn’t hold with him taking permanent residence within the church. He hadn’t even told her he was a regular. If he wished to preserve his marriage, he had to stay in the town.

Ian couldn’t really fathom a love that strong. He’d not said anything to Bartlock, but he suspected the bloke would be happier if he went and gave himself to the Lightness.

As a regular visitor, Bartlock had great familiarity with the way the church functioned. The moment Ian had mentioned the name ‘Molly Bradshaw’, Bartlock had nodded, smiled a toothy smile, and said “I know where she’ll be”.

For a week, Ian had been thinking about Molly Bradshaw. She was apparently resolute in her conviction that the Gods had come to her. If she was insane, it would be hard to take joy in the anguish it would cause her father. Back on the Eia, before they reached Essegena, his circle and Molly’s had briefly intersected. They’d talked a few times in passing. Yes, Ian had projected his distaste for General Bradshaw onto Molly, and yes, Molly had thrown her weight and her father’s name about like she was something special, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised that she had never done anything to warrant hatred. And even if she had, she was still just a child really. Madness would not be justice for her.

If, on the other hand, she was deceitful, embracing the Church of Lightness for the benefit of some scheme of her father’s, Ian wanted to know. And know he would. Millie seemed nice enough, but she had a woman’s heart—a child’s heart, in some ways. She wasn’t equipped to see deception. Not in the way Ian was.

The trick had been finding Molly Bradshaw. He daren’t go striding into Skerrett’s own pristine palace, not without the support of Sergeant Pratley—and the Sergeant wouldn’t even entertain the idea of heading up the hill. But when Molly left the church, if ever she did, was a question hard to answer. Ian could only guess at the schedules Lightness Skerrett kept.

Even her father hadn’t known what she was up to. Ian had caught General Bradshaw after one of the more temperate meetings. “I had an encounter with your daughter the other day,” he said, trying to convey nonchalance. “She’s looking well.”

Bradshaw’s response had been gruff. “I wouldn’t know. Molly comes to me on her terms. I don’t get a say in when I see my daughter.”

Bartlock, on the other hand, had been able to say exactly where Molly Bradshaw would be. “Molly’s very into the maidenries,” he said. “The acolytes sew together on fine days, the women, next to the river.” And as it happened, today was a fine day.

So there was Ian, traipsing around the edge of Mullings’ farm and trying not to nick himself on the prickly bushes the old farmer had planted to mark his land. Away from the rush beneath the bridge, the Clearwater was peaceful. Water breezed softly by. Some birds were making a ruckus as they glided along the surface, kicking up fine fingers of spray behind them.

The acolytes were easy to find. There were at least a dozen of them, all wearing the same tan smocks. The pallored Boneskin Bets walked between them, hands tightly bandaged, skirts trailing on the grass, blonde hair pulled tight beneath a starched escoffion. Every now and then she’d stop to talk to one of the girls.

Ian watched this from a shaded knoll at the boundary of Mullings’ property. Beside him, Sergeant Pratley was leaning on the stile that at present made up the entirety of the fence, picking at the leaves of a nearby tree and shredding them between his fingers. “Can you see Molly? Is she there?”

It was difficult to say. All of the acolytes were wearing plain white bonnets, and all were facing in the other direction. There was only so much Ian could glean from their backs. Several did have dark hair like Molly’s, stretching partway down their backs in elaborate braids, and some of these shared Molly’s tanned white skin. Whether she was among them was impossible to tell.

“Only one way to find out,” he said, walking forward and beckoning Sergeant Pratley to follow.

Pratley hesitated. “I’d rather wait for you here, sir, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Ian gave him a withering look. “At some point, you’re going to have to tell me what your problem is with the Church.”

“At some point,” Pratley agreed. “Not today.”

With a sigh Ian moved alone. He was not more than a dozen feet from them when one of the acolytes happened to catch a glimpse of him. The girl gasped, and turned to look forward, head cast down, hands hanging at her side. The rest followed suit, one by one, as they noticed him. He tried to ignore them as he walked between their ranks. At the front, Boneskin Bets looked at him with an expression of curiosity.

“Master Fitzhenry. The Lightness did not say to expect you.”

He shook his head. “Lightness Skerrett didn’t send me,” he said. “How’s your hand?”

“Oh.” Boneskin Bets seemed flustered. She touched her bandaged palm with a thumb, but did not answer the question. “It’s not customary for men to be present during maidenry lessons. These girls must learn to overcome carnal temptation, if they are to let the Lightness in. You understand, of course?”

Ian nodded. “I’m ignorant of your customs,” he said. “May I humbly apologise for causing offence?”

Boneskin Bets smiled thinly. “You wanted something.”

It wasn’t a question. “Indeed I did,” said Ian. “A word with Molly Bradshaw, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Molly Bradshaw is not here.”

“Yes, I am,” said a voice behind Ian. He turned to see Molly, trembling slightly, stood.

“This is the maidenry, Molly,” Boneskin Bets hissed. “Lightness Skerrett will have to hear of this. It’s forbidden to talk with men during the maidenry, as you well know.”

Ian turned to Boneskin Bets. “Lightness Skerrett doesn’t need to know I’ve been here. You see my man over there?” He nodded a head towards the stile where Sergeant Pratley was watching. “He has ways to ensure your silence. Though I’m sure that won’t be needful, will it?”

Boneskin Bets glanced fearfully over to Sergeant Pratley, then shook her head. “You will be allowed five minutes with Molly,” she said, “but you cannot come here again.”

Ian smiled. “You have a deal, Matron.” She didn’t have to know that Sergeant Pratley was the last man to come over here and arrest her.

He took Molly to the very waterline, where he hoped not to be heard. There was a breeze blowing, towards the water; sound shouldn’t be able to carry as far as Boneskin Bets.

Molly was barefoot, he noticed; the wounds had healed slightly, though they still looked painful. The smock she wore was too long and dragged on the floor. The bottom was skirted green with grass stains.

“You needn’t have threatened Matron Bets,” Molly complained. “You’re supposed to be a friend to the faith.”

“It was an empty threat, Molly,” he said. “But needful, to convince her to let me speak with you.”

“How can I be of service?” She curtsied before him, which took him aback.

“I just wanted to ask a question or two. If I may.”

Molly smiled a broad smile. “Anything to help you, Master Fitzhenry.”

“I’m curious to know how you came to be faithful,” he said. “You’re clearly very devoted. This isn’t the girl I met on the Eia.”

“That girl was blind,” said Molly. “I saw her. The goddess, Fréreves. It sounds silly but it’s the truth. Master Fitzhenry, she spoke to me. She told me things. Secrets.”

“What sort of secrets?”

Molly leaned in to whisper. “We’re not the first. There have been others here, so many others. Some of them are here still.” Ian wondered how she’d known about Arthur Balkett’s colony. Who else knew? Chris was probably deep in the shit already.

She was crying, he noticed. The tears had nestled around her eyes. “She showed me things. I saw my father fighting in the church, screaming to burn it down. And I saw my mother, rotting in her grave, but alive. She was scratching to get out, but the stone was too heavy. Imagine how it would feel to be trapped there, in the dark, and to not know what happened. Fréreves said I could talk to my mother again, explain to her what’s happened. That way she could move on. But I had to go to the church. I had to read the books. And do you know what?”

“What?”

Molly looked at him with big round eyes, earnest in their determination. “It’s true. Every word. I could feel it. There’s stuff out there that science alone can’t explain, Master Fitzhenry. Wouldn’t it be rude to ignore the Gods when they come to us with answers?”

“Your father misses you, Molly,” said Ian. “Why don’t you go to him?”

“Why should I?”

“Back aboard the Eia, he told me all about you,” Ian recalled. It was the one conversation he’d had of any length with General Bradshaw. He couldn’t remember what had led to the two talking, but he was holding a glass of something, that much he knew. “‘Molly and Megan’, he said, ‘they’re my real joy. They’ll have good lives.’ Your father would put anything on the line for you. Anyone you fell in love with, he’d pull the strings and make sure you could marry. He told me he wanted to see his daughters on top of the world.”

Molly laughed. “Every morning when I wake up, I look out of my window and my father is below me. Here in the valley. How can I choose not to live above the rabble? I love him, really I do, but I’m not him. I’m a person in my own right. I have my own life to live, and I want to live it in reverence. That’s my choice to make.”

“You should at least speak to him,” said Ian, wondering how he’d ended up defending Mark Bradshaw’s rights as a parent.

Molly shook her head. “I hope I see you at the church again,” she said, her ruby lips shining. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have maidenry.”

Ian was alone when he made his way up the steps to the Lord Constable’s Tower. He’d not been afraid, or worried. He’d insisted that he go alone—Sergeant Pratley was becoming enjoyable company, but Ian needed to speak to Chris. He could do without extra ears to be listening. Entering that tower, to be greeted at once by uncertain stares from half a dozen eyes, he felt less sure of himself.

Nobody had quite been able to explain why Chris was so often found in the Lord Constable’s Tower. He had an office of his own—the best part of a whole building, in fact, in the form of Government Hall. And he had his suite on the Eia. But since Caroline had been taken ill, he’d started working in the tower. His security staff had been merged with the Constabulary. It was soldiers from a mixture of these groups who were staring at Ian.

“Can I help you?” said a huge corporal with gruesome scarlet stains on his teeth, sat behind the main desk of the tower’s marble antechamber.

Ian nodded. “I’d like to speak with the Governor, if I may. It’s only me.”

The corporal grunted. “Disley will accompany you.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

The woman who Ian presumed was called Disley stepped forward. She was a good deal shorter than Ian, but had an authority imbued in her face that made it quite plain that she was the one in charge here. “With me,” she said, “and keep up. If you lag behind you might find yourself killed.”

Ian laughed at that, which made Disley furious. The soldier didn’t say another word to Ian as she led him up a flight of stairs and down a sparse hallway, which suited him just fine. He hadn’t come to speak to her anyway.

“The Corrack is here to see you, Governor,” she said, arriving at Chris’ door.

A muffled voice on the other side bade him entry, and Disley begrudgingly let Ian through.

Chris looked tired, but he was smiling. “Ian. What brings you here?”

“Do I need a reason to find you? I thought we were friends.”

“We are, of course,” said Chris. “But it’s late nonetheless. If you’re here seeking an apology, now isn’t the time. Perhaps it was a misjudgement not to tell you about the Balkett colony, but it’s a misjudgement I stand by. It wasn’t relevant. Still isn’t.”

Ian waved him away. “I’m not here about that,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d have preferred it if you’d kept me in the loop, but what’s done is done. Holding a grudge isn’t going to change the past, is it? No, I just wanted to talk to you. I’ve been talking to Lightness Skerrett.”

“Lightness Skerrett?” The look of confusion on Chris’ face seemed to suggest that he’d never heard of the Lightness.

“From the church up on the hill,” said Ian.

Chris laughed. “Somebody mentioned a church. Sergeant Poulton, I think. I must admit, I’m not familiar with it. I obviously didn’t study Master Holden’s plans well enough.”

“Knowing you, you definitely didn’t study Master Holden’s plans,” said Ian, “but the church won’t have been on them anyway. Lightness Skerrett’s been siphoning materials from the main supply to get it built. All above board, too. Master Holden signed off on the material transfers.”

“He just didn’t tell me about it,” Chris finished. “I’ll have to have a word with Holden. But first I’ll be speaking to this Lightness... Sorry, did you say his name was Lightness Skillet? Isn’t that a pan?”

“Skerrett. Chris, you’ll make his day if you pay him a visit. He wants to talk to you—reckons the Unity’s always tried to suppress the Faith, and wants to see if you’ll be any different. He asked me to talk to you about it.”

Chris nodded. “I’ll take some soldiers up with me.”

“I don’t think it’s a trap, Chris. Their beliefs are genuine.”

“And their beliefs might prescribe my dying,” said Chris. “I can’t take the chance, even if it’s a vanishingly small one. I’m the Governor, Ian, and whether or not I like it there’s a target on my head. Someone’s already got to Caroline. If anything happens to me, Bradshaw will get to crow on about how the Ballards don’t have the strength to be leaders. That’s the dynasty over. Dead. The soldiers are getting paid whatever they do—what does it hurt to bring a few along with me?”

He raised some fair points. Ian couldn’t exactly judge Chris for bringing security with him; he had, after all, been walking around with Sergeant Pratley at his side more often than not since he came to Essegena. And General Bradshaw was exactly the sort to harp on about any slight weakness he saw in the Governor’s actions. No doubt he’d see dying as an incredible show of weakness.

Though losing your favourite child to the Faith was probably just as much a weakness in Bradshaw’s book. “You know the best bit?” he said. “Bradshaw’s girl is one of Skerrett’s new acolytes. She’s gone all in. Living on site, doing all the maidenries. Hasn’t spoken to her father in weeks—months, maybe.”

As expected, that news brought a smile to Chris’ lips. “Molly?”

Ian nodded.

“I always thought she was too pretty,” said Chris. “How can a flower like that come from a man like Bradshaw? Apparently at the expense of any of her father’s brains. You say she’s really converted? It’s not just some plan of Bradshaw’s?”

“No,” said Ian, “she’s genuine. I had Millie cosy up to her, and I’ve spoken to her myself. The Gods came to speak to her, so now she’s a believer.”

Chris snorted. “Gullible bitch. Does she not know they’re just stories? This Lightness Skerrett’ll probably fuck her ‘for the Gods’, and it’ll be what she had coming.”

Ian took a step backward. Molly Bradshaw had seemed so happy that morning. So what if she hadn’t really seen the Gods? Clearly she believed she had, and clearly that belief had been the better for her. He couldn’t agree that it made her gullible. It certainly wouldn’t justify Lightness Skerrett assaulting her.

Not that Skerrett would. The preacher emanated honesty; he was probably weaned on the code of chivalry. Molly was safe in his company. And if it ever seemed she wasn’t, Ian would make it his business to get her out of danger. That was how to appease Dani’s shade.

“Will you stay, Ian?” Chris stood and moved towards a crystal decanter. “David’s due soon. A couple of others besides. It’ll be like the glory days, back in the Gleaming Scabbard.” Except it wouldn’t be—it wouldn’t even come close. The Gleaming Scabbard was Borrowood’s main boozing hall. They’d spent their evenings drinking there, in the glory days. Armand was always there. Nick Aspian too. And the girls—Caroline and Tessa, Dani, Freya, Elise. Back then Elise had been fun company. And Ian hadn’t been broken.

It would be nice to go back and pretend that those days had never ended. But he was broken. He was broken into little bits, held together by sinews of contrition, and Chris wasn’t the man to help him mend.

He shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Next time, maybe?”

Chris nodded. “Of course. Next time.”

Ian looked back towards Chris when he reached the door. Already the Governor had returned to his seat, immersed himself in whatever work he was doing. He didn’t notice Ian shutting the door behind him.

Ian took to his chambers, in the company of a dram of straight chartreuse and the Testimony of Eia. What else was there to do? Millie was unavailable. It seemed Mistress Snyder had been spooked by word of the sickness in the hospital. The seamstress had shut up shop and wouldn’t let Millie leave, oblivious to the fact that the hospital was locked down, and thus the disease contained within.

He’d been there just a few days before they closed their doors, to visit Caroline. He’d needed to speak to her. To come clean. Even then, there had been a sombre cloak of fear. One or two had died, though Doctor Caerlin on the front desk had seemed upbeat about the chances of keeping it contained. Doctor Caerlin had been less optimistic a few days later, bursting into Government Hall to announce that the hospital was about to be locked tight. As council debuts go it was spectacular. What had happened in those few days to cause this change of tack?

Whatever it was, it left Ian alone. Sergeant Pratley had offered to accompany him to the Tavern, but that wasn’t a great idea. Ian would likely drink half his bodyweight in cider, and too much cider made him maudlin. Better to entertain himself somehow.

On top of it all, he hadn’t spoken to Caro. He’d visited her, yes, but she was unconscious at the time. He sat by her bedside, watching one of the nurses tying a ribbon to the foot of Caroline’s bed—and long before she woke to realise he was there, he’d talked himself out of making his confession. Now he couldn’t. The ghosts weighed heavy tonight, and he could not release the pressure.

So once again he found himself in the world of the Mother Eia. One page in particular had caught his eye as he picked up the book; the corner had been folded back, and someone had written in the margins. ‘READ THIS FITZHENRY’, it said, in red ink. The scrawl was spidery. Even in block capitals it had the feel of somebody writing in a scratchy half-remembered cursive. The handwriting didn’t look familiar.

Caroline used to leave notes in books, he remembered. She marked all her favourite passages, the bits that had made her laugh, and when Ian came to borrow the same books later on he’d be treated to a second narrative—the evolving picture of Caroline’s humour, and the glimpses it offered into the woman beneath her warm exterior. He used to cherish every note. Used to imagine her thinking of him as she scribbled in the pages.

This one couldn’t have been Caroline’s. She was in the hospital, barely lucid, shut away on the other side of the lockdown.

Was it a message from Lightness Skerrett? It didn’t make sense that he’d not noticed the folded-back page before, but who else was there for it to be? He must just have missed it before. Shrugging, he’d decided to obey the strange message. What harm could a bit of reading do?

The Mother Eia had just arrived in a small town somewhere in once-proud headlands, and—staying in an inn there—relayed the story she learned of the town’s history. Berengue was the hero of the tale. Berengue the warrior-maiden, who wove lilac petals into her hair and swore she was twice the fighter any of the boys she spent her days with were.

Berengue who, travelling to fetch water from a well among the celandines, was set upon and attacked by those very same boys. They were jealous of her, and embarrassed that she had shown them up. They beat her. One by one they kicked her. Somebody stabbed her, and laughing they left her in the dust. The Mother Eia took a detour at this point to emphasise that she would have hunted down any who would do this to her daughter—that she hoped her dear Matheld might come to embody even half of the courage of Berengue of the lilacs.

Because Berengue hadn’t given up. She’d not lain there to die. Instead, she’d forced herself to her feet, walked all the way back to her little town even though she had barely the strength to stand. At last, inches from death, she had come upon the inn which so many years later the Mother Eia had come to. Berengue forced her way through the door of the inn. There she begged the young innkeeper for shelter. A dozen pairs of eyes turned to her, to watch her as she bled. Only the innkeeper’s wife stepped forward. She tried to tend the wounds and stem the bleeding, but Berengue of the lilacs passed away on the wooden floor of the inn. ‘No kiss of love could wake that maiden thereafter,’ the Mother Eia wrote, ‘for the lifeblood had drained away; and as Berengue had in life loved and laughed, so in death, on that oaken bed, the martyr bled’.

They could never clean the bloodstains out. The Mother Eia recorded that she’d laid eyes on that dried blood in a dark patch just inside the door. Word was that the trail of spots leading from the well, marking the last journey of Berengue of the lilacs, still endured too. The Mother didn’t mention if this was more than just rumour.

Years passed, said the Mother, and Berengue was forgotten. The girl she had been in life passed out of memory, and only the sensation of her bloody murder survived. And then a plague came to the town. One by one, the town’s residents fell sick. In a day or in a week, all died, and a painful death. The only physician—who by chance had been one of the boys who had attacked Berengue—was the first to lose his life. As the pestilence spread, so people began to take flight, stocking up their carts and riding for safe ground. All fell ill on their journey, and no pilgrims from the town ever made it to the neighbouring villages.

But the innkeeper and his wife did not flee. One night, sweeping the floors of their inn after the patrons had gone, they were visited by the spectre of Berengue, a pale-faced harbinger who to them swore that the inn was consecrated ground. By her blood it had been cleansed. The protection of the Gods was with them, and no harm would come so long as they remained.

And so for half a year plague ravaged the town, and when at last it subsided, only the innkeeper and his wife remained. Berengue had been true to her word. The plague had not entered their inn.

The story seemed fanciful to Ian, a slightly morbid morality tale of some sort for parents to read to children. The Mother Eia was earnest in her vouching for it. That same innkeeper and his wife were the elderly couple who had offered haven to the Mother, and given her rest and board. In time the town had returned to life. Berengue’s name had become that of the town, she herself had become venerated by its residents, and the Mother Eia had been sad to report that the headland town of Berengue offered no sign of her dear Matheld.

In the morning the Mother Eia had moved on, continuing to the next town along, and Ian had left her there. He closed the book and returned it to its shelf.

Dani’s ghost was with him tonight. He could feel her, but he dared not look for her. He didn’t want to see her. She wouldn’t be the Berengue of the modern age, come to tell Ian that he was safe here. She was the martyr. She had bled—not in the literal sense, maybe, but in the heart. And she had come as she always did to mock Ian with that reminder.