Page 20 of The Castle & the Cloister

Once, they had.

Worry tightened around Orden’s throat like a noose. His people were stretched very thin—the conflict in Vesper ate at Honorian resources constantly, stealing the best and brightest of the citizenry, requiring vast inputs of coin and craft and material goods. Caervallion had no similar draw upon its citizens or its coffers, and though it was not as prosperous as Honoria, an allegiance with Song Royale would grant Caervallion new riches and a wealth of incaendium, with which the horror of witchsmoke could be produced.

The very idea of having to face an army that utilized the dread weapon of his dynasty’s own devising soured Orden’s stomach and brought out cold sweat on his brow. But he would not be the king who failed, Orden resolved fiercely, balling his hands into fists at his sides. He would win his wars, and keep his country, his crown, his queen, his life. He wanted it all. And what he wanted, he no longer sought to grasp for his own sake alone. Now he wanted it for his son after him too.

“I warned you,” Lucian’s silken voice said at Orden’s side. He’d appeared soundlessly, watching as the Imperatrice’s retinue vanished into the castle. “You ought to have marched on Caervallion at once, ratherthan declaring your intent, and giving them all time to conspire against you. Why you’re waiting when Afon’s been needling you for years is beyond me.”

Orden thought of the letters he’d received sporadically from Afon ever since their battle summer. Threats, rantings, provocation, and insidious inquiries as to the health of Ariana and the state of the Inver king and queen’s bedchamber. A new missive from Afon was enough to make Orden’s skin crawl. But Hadrian had believed a delay was best—as councilor to Orden’s father, Hadrian Inver had presided over many a victory in Vesper, and had assured the king that providing his people with an opportunity to consider the evils of Caervallin worship and the benefits of a conquest on the Hand would lead to far greater support for his new conflict. When Ariana had begged for a chance to attempt peace, Hadrian had agreed even to that.

Let Honoria see Afon as he is, Hadrian advised the king with satisfaction.When he sojourns within our border, your people will understand better the nobility and honor of their own sovereign, the glory of the conquests you seek, and the barbarous nature of Caervallion. It will bring home to them that we are best served by making a vassal of the north and imprinting the fire and culture of our faith and practices on those wild lands. And if the gods are willing, conquering Afon will lead you to greater success than any of your forefathers. First, a victory in Caervallion. Then afterward, in Vesper, for we will have the means to prevail there with half the Hand at our disposal.

“Majesty,” Gaius said, shoving past a knot of guards and puffing a little as he offered a bow to the king. “Afon is on his way.”

VI

If any grown Honorian be sun-marked or moon-marked or star-marked, let them cleave to the Inver gods, or serve the refractory house of Raea on the Solis Plains. If a child is visited with a mark of the old goddesses, let them be raised properly, in the Inver faith.

But if a scion of the ruling house be born goddess-marked, or visited with the mark at any time, let them be dashed upon the rocks of our mountain, lest the purity of our line grow polluted and our practices corrupt.

—A RELIGIOUS RULE OF THE FIRST PRIEST

Beneson the page had been in the castle’s employ for four years, and in the Priest’s opinion was by far the most useful member of the Inver household. He was possessed of three invaluable qualities, rare in someone grown, let alone a boy of thirteen. A good-hearted child with the most sensitive of moral compasses, he always managed to be just where he was needed most, and coupled his usefulness and tender conscience with enviable discretion. The Priest suspected Beneson, young and unassuming though he was, harbored more Inver secrets than the king’s own spymaster—the key difference being that Beneson was a locked vault and a confidence entrusted to him was kept safe forever, rather than evolving into a weapon as most Inver secrets did.

So as the Priest heard Beneson’s familiar footsteps approaching from across the cavern of the gods, he knew the interruption would be worth his while. Even if it was only that the boy wanted company, as he sometimes did, making time for Beneson wasalwaysworthwhile. Accordingly, the Priest set aside what he’d been doing—mixing a crock of new goat’s milk with bruised paschalflower so that he might stave off the softening of the bones brought on by the cavern’s endless dark—and wiped his hands on a cloth, turning to face the approaching boy.

There was someone else with him. Someone whose wary, self-assured tread the Priest did not recognize. But as the page and the stranger stopped before him, the Priest caught a distinctive scent.

Salt water. Linen. Lavender. The warm fragrance of soil on a summer afternoon. It was one of Matria Dolenza’s women, standing next to Beneson. Only the daughters of Raea still smelled of sun, even in this lightless place.

“Beneson. Soria,” the Priest said with a courteous nod of his head. But it was disconcerting that a soria was here at all without the Priest having heard of it beforehand. Usually the network of devout scullery maids and disillusioned court secretaries he’d cobbled together did better by him than this.

“Priest,” Beneson said, his voice high and anxious. “Can I have a private word?”

The Priest nodded.

“My apologies, soria. This will only take a minute,” he said, before drawing Beneson aside.

“Something happened upstairs this morning,” Beneson whispered, rising up on his toes to speak for the Priest’s ear alone. The boy was used to the sanctuary and the dark and carefully held his torch clear of them both, the heat of it perceptible to the Priest. “Lucian purged the kitchen and the guard of anyone goddess-marked. Turned them out, without pay or reference. I think… I think maybe His Majesty’s more anxious than he lets on about this new war he’s after, and about trouble at summer council. Most of your folk are gone now. There’ve been a lot of changes among the court officials and the nobles, too—positions cut, people sent off to their estates without a warning or a reason, and others brought in from the provinces who’ve never so much as visited the capital before. And I heard the king had words with Gileta in the courtyard earlier. She’snot been in Inverlyn three hours and already threatened to break her alliance with Honoria and support Caervallion instead.”

The Priest frowned. Well, that at least explained why he hadn’t heard a messenger from Dolenza was in the castle. As for Gileta, she was always murmuring about shifting her allegiance to Caervallion, given their nominal worship of Silith. Thus far, Orden’s more moderate temperament and Afon’s crueler nature had prevented such a change. But with Orden calling for war, and Ariana indisposed, Gileta might finally make good on her threat.

Ruthlessly, the Priest forced down any feeling or opinion he might have on the matter. His sphere was the religious, not the political. Better he kept himself uninvolved. If he was ever to dabble in affairs of state, it would only draw attention and paint him as a threat to the throne and Honoria’s established order. Though many Invers questioned Orden’s wisdom in allowing his half brother to survive, they had grown used to the Priest’s presence in their sanctuary. The Priest relied on that familiarity and complaisance for his own safety—he had no interest in challenging the status quo.

“What about Ari?” the Priest asked swiftly. “I haven’t had any news. Is Her Majesty’s trial over yet?”

Beneson hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. “Yes, but… I think the soria can explain it all better than I can. That’s what she’s come for. I’ve got to get back upstairs—Afon will be here any minute, and everyone’s in a lather.”

“Go,” the Priest said, and Beneson hurried off.

Returning to the altar rise where the soria waited, the Priest was puzzled for a moment. Fear and discomfort radiated from her, and Dolenza’s women were generally an unflappable lot. She stood motionless, and the Priest did not realize what was eating away at her until she spoke.

“It’s dark,” the soria said, her tone at once nervous and belligerent.

“Apologies,” the Priest said again, as he moved to the hearth goddess’s altar and took a patch box from the shelf at back of it. Striking sparks, he lit the tinder kept perpetually ready in each of the gods’ metal braziers. Warmth and the sound of catching flames radiated from the hearth goddess’s altar, not loud enough to drown out the soria’s relieved sigh.

“This is the first time I’ve met a soria who minds the dark,” the Priestsaid mildly, returning to her when he was certain the little altar fire had taken. “Gileta once told me followers of the Three see an absence of light as an attribute of Silith, for the Wise Moon sometimes hides her face entirely.”

“I’m not a soria,” the woman before him answered, still tense and unhappy, though her fear had lost its edge. “Just a postulant. And I don’t much care if the dark belongs to Silith. To me, it belongs to my mother, who used to shut me up in a root cellar with no light. The winter my two younger sisters died of plague, the ground was too hard for them to be buried, and my village couldn’t spare the fuel for a pyre. So we kept their bodies frozen in the cellar until spring. I spent days at a time down there with them, when I’d been clumsy, or done something that got my mother’s back up.”