Working God's Mischief

32. Khaurene, the End of the Connec

Brother Candle wakened in the wee hours, suddenly, not because of pressure in his pitiful old bladder. His tattoos itched terribly.

He was not alone. Had Bicot Hodier suffered a moral relapse?

The candle on his nightstand, beside his washbasin, strove valiantly against the darkness.

Imagination? Or the shredded remnants of a too-real nightmare?

He considered that candle. Why was it burning? A night light was too costly an indulgence, though it was not his indulgence.

He blurted, “Devil woman?”

Shreds of black swirled round the candle like moths. The Instrumentality appeared in the guise she had worn the night he had acquired his tattoos. His flesh responded again.

He was mortified, but filled with wonder. What sorcery was this? Mankind would embrace and venerate it if it could be made available.

The itching worsened. His snakes were restless.

The woman grinned wickedly. “I am sorry. I should not be so immature. I should not have to reassure myself all the time.”

Her speech was contemporary but with an odd rhythm.

Brother Candle was confused. An Instrumentality was trying to treat him with respect. He, a mere human, who considered her an agent of evil.

She flashed a spine-melting, manhood-stiffening smile. “Thee thinketh too much. Thee giveth too much import to our differences. All middle-worlders do. See me the way thee seeth Kedle and Socia. As thee would look upon thy daughter.”

“Now you mock me. You cloak yourself in that aspect of carnality…”

“Oh! I am flattered. And I do enjoy a sporting night.” The air shimmered. Moths no larger than fleas fluttered briefly. The Instrumentality stepped out of the dusky cloud an older woman, dumpy, missing an upper front tooth, wearing dark hair on her upper lip. “Better?”

“Some. My mind remains afflicted by memory.”

Had he really said that? He had not been that candid with his own wife when they were young enough to be tormented by fevers of the flesh.

“Ah, thee beeth too sweet.”

“Can you make these snakes lie still? And stop itching?” Then he groaned. What a thing to say to this sort of temptress!

She ignored the opportunity. “I come to warn thee that Kedle arrives tomorrow. She brings the captives from Arnhand. Thee will find her changed. She will be harder. She will be less patient. She is injured, too. She refuses to take time to let herself heal. I would see thee compel her to take the time.”

Brother Candle shook the erotic fog, some, though his memories would not go away.

The Instrumentality added, “She has been known to listen to thee,” and, “She is precious to me.”

“Oh?” The Perfect wondered if that meant what it sounded like. That sort of romance was uncommon in the Connec, where romantic love was the ideal but happened between men and women who worshipped one another from afar.

“She reminds me of my father.”

So. This Instrumentality might be capable of pursuing a dozen romances at once, with boys, girls, and goats.

She nodded slightly, with a thin smile.

“That is what I came to tell thee, Master.”

“Why must you use the dialect? You don’t do it very well.”

“Modern speech is confusing. Too formally informal. I am trying. I do not want to stand out when I would rather go unnoticed.”

Brother Candle forbore observing that her going unnoticed was highly unlikely.

She said, “Just make Kedle take care of herself. Make her stay with her family. She does love her children despite not knowing how to show it in ways thee find appropriate.”

He replied, “It may take a while to wean her off her taste for blood.”

“Thee hath no hope of that. She has drunk too much and found it too sweet. I must leave thee, now. I am needed in the east.” The moths stirred. The intensely desirable girl reappeared. She stepped closer, laughing throatily. “Would thee like a sweet memory to take to thy pallet?”

He could not make his voice work.

She said, “Sorry, Master. I cannot help it. It is my nature.”

She faded, but touched his cheek just before she vanished.

The serpent there extended its tongue to taste the back of her hand.

The shock was electric. Brother Candle did not sleep well afterward.

He needed to find another Perfect, to confess, and to be shown the way back to the Path.

But the only Perfect available was the loathsome Brother Purify.

* * *

Brother Candle, with the Archimbaults, was in the mob making it difficult for the Widow, the Vindicated, and their trophies to enter Khaurene.

Navayan soldiers helped make way. Their eyes hardened when they considered Anne of Menand. The caged woman did not understand that she had caused the death of their near-sainted King. She was a broken beast.

Brother Candle thought that he ought to stop the abuse, but he could not. The Khaurenese needed the emotional release. He told Archimbault, “I have to leave. I shouldn’t have come. I’ll beg the Countess to allow you to enter Metreliux. Or I’ll drag Kedle down to your house.”

Archimbault nodded grimly. He was a good Seeker. He would become an excellent Perfect one day. He should not condone his daughter’s actions. But he was a father and citizen of Khaurene and the Connec, too. He could not still his pride and gratitude.

The Widow and the Vindicated had worked wonders. They had ended a persistent, pervasive, relentless threat to the liberties and fortunes of the people of the Connec-for this generation, at least.

* * *

Brother Candle was there when Kedle presented herself to Socia and the new Duke. Lumiere was in a fine mood, gurgling and wiggling while his mother handled ducal business. He charmed the courtiers with his ready smile and flirty eyes. Only a handful thought his presence unseemly. The Countess was no day-laborer’s common-law wife.

Kedle, the Perfect noted, had clambered down the long slope to the mundane world of courtesies and courtly politics. She dressed as a woman and was appropriately respectful.

This was her first formal appearance before her Countess. Socia had trouble remaining formal when she would rather be hugging.

Both had been cautioned. The invisible observer, Queen Isabeth, would judge their behavior. If she found the Widow too disquieting she might leave a viceroy with troops sufficient to enforce his views.

The grand formalities, and the presentation of trophies, passed. Socia dismissed the court. She led Kedle and Brother Candle to a private room where bread, mutton, and pickled onions waited. “I wanted to make us a den like the one we had in Antieux.”

Brother Candle did not remind her that Kedle had spent little time with them in that room.

Socia said, “I wish Bernardin were here. But someone has to crack the whip in Antieux. So. Darling Kedle. Tell me everything. And don’t leave anything out, even if I already know.”

Brother Candle found the Widow’s tale uncomfortably candid. The woman knew neither shame nor remorse.

* * *

Bicot Hodier visited Brother Candle in his Metrelieux cell.

The Countess would not allow the Perfect to move in with the Archimbaults. She was ardent about keeping him close.

The old herald announced, “I’ll be leaving Khaurene. I thought the news might interest you.”

“At your age? Because of what happened before?”

“Not that. Not so much. But I do have religious motives.”

“I’ll miss you, truly. You’re a fixture of my Metrelieux.”

“I’m joining the Connecten contingent headed for the Holy Lands.”

Connecten contingent? Brother Candle could not imagine Connectens heading off to participate in a religious war after all that had gone on here for so long.

“I didn’t think you were the crusading type, Bicot.”

“I’m not. I’m the pilgrim type.”

“I see.” That made sense.

Brother Candle kept toying with the idea of a pilgrimage himself.

Hodier declared, “I have nothing here. The Countess will be better served by someone younger whose thinking approximates her own, so I’ll drag this old carcass east and lay it down in the land where God was born.”

“Who all is going? I might tag along.”

Hodier’s eyes waxed huge. The suggestion did not please him. “They’ll all be Brothen Episcopal. You’d have trouble fitting in. Why would you want to visit the Holy Lands, anyway?”

“You said it. That’s where God was born. We agree on that, whatever differences we have on what he said or meant.” And there was a huge one right there, the Perfect realized. Aaron was not God in flesh to any but a small cult of Episcopals whose heresies the Church suppressed as enthusiastically as it did that of the Maysalean Good Men.

“You’re teasing. You wouldn’t try that at your age.”

“No doubt. I don’t handle sea travel well. I still marvel that seasickness didn’t kill me during the Calziran Crusade.”

“I’ve heard tell.” Big, friendly grin.

“So, all best, from your God and mine, Hodier. Fair winds at sea and cool breezes after you arrive.”

One well-known fact about the Holy Lands was that the heat there was unbelievable. And the region swarmed with countless biting, stinging insects, some of which caused deadly fevers.

Thoughts of heat and insect miseries, preceded by deadly pitiless seasickness, as the price of admission to a cauldron of bloodshed, left the Perfect reconsidering even thinking about a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands.

* * *

Brother Candle did get away to Seeker services at Kedle’s home. She had inherited a sizable establishment from Soames, who had left no family to dispute possession. Archimbault-related Seekers had occupied, protected, and maintained the place while she was away.

Some had ambitions involving the property but lacked the courage to argue with the Widow. She installed a dozen Vindicated, then defied the world to challenge the propriety of the arrangement.

The Perfect did not know the full facts but believed that impropriety existed more in the minds of observers than in what happened in private.

The meeting was nostalgic. The local Seekers agreed that it had the comfortable feel of sessions in the old days. Brother Candle eyed Kedle, remembering her as a shy child who nonetheless worked up the courage to express her opinions to adults. She was more reticent now though the others showed more willingness to defer.

Her father suggested she speak. She replied, “After going the places I have, seeing the things I have, sinning as I have, I have no business speaking to the Seekers. I must find my way back to the Path first.”

Brother Candle clapped his hands gently. “Well said, Kedle. I, too, will defer to those who haven’t strayed.”

Someone accused him of attempted poesy.

“Think as you will. Right now this Seeker is far from Perfection. The rest of you go ahead. I will referee should the exchange become heated.”

Kedle told him, “You come help me in the kitchen.”

She began by busying herself with the teakettle. Little Raulet, having sneaked out of bed, joined them. He stood eight feet away and stared at his mother, not the least sure about her.

That saddened the old man. It said so much. It declared the rapidity of change. Kedle’s babes already felt closer to their grandparents, and to Escamerole and Guillemette, than they did to their mother. And Kedle seemed both ignorant of how to correct that and possibly disinclined.

Brother Candle wondered if it might not be possible to have her boys raised with Lumiere.

“Master, I am a bad woman.”

“Kedle? How can you say that?”

“I am a devil. A waste of flesh as a woman. It tears me apart but I can’t stand this.” She gestured, indicating her surroundings.

“Uhm?”

“The guilt. It hurts so much. But I can’t live this life anymore. If I stay here I’ll go mad. I’ll hurt somebody.”

“You’ll settle in. All soldiers have to adjust.”

“I’m headed for the block. I can’t stop thinking evil thoughts.”

“The war is over, child. You won.”

“The war with the monster inside me has only just begun, Master. This morning I caught myself trying to work out how to kill Raulet and Chardén so I wouldn’t have that responsibility anymore.”

Brother Candle was appalled. Was speechless, as she expected him to be.

She had confessed because she did love her boys enough to want them protected.

The Perfect felt the reality behind her fear. “The Instrumentality. Can you summon her? Can she help?”

“Hope? She never showed me a way.”

“Too bad, that.” Should he believe her? “I can’t call her, either.”

Kedle eyed what could be seen of his tattoos. “What is she up to with you, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Bernardin and I … I think her original scheme has passed her by. Things didn’t work out the way she expected. These snakes, and Socia’s ability to change shape, may just be useless afflictions, now.” He hoped they no longer fit the Instrumentality’s plan. “Hope is ancient compared to us but she’s really just a spoiled, willful, not very bright child enamored of the power of a woman’s body.”

Kedle nodded. “Willful, selfish, and self-important because she’s destined to survive beyond the Twilight. Though that whole mythology must have totally unraveled by now.”

Brother Candle did not understand so Kedle passed along Lady Hope’s explanation.

“I see,” the Perfect said, though the northern beliefs were no less confusing for having been explained by an insider.

“Hope had to go join up with the other Shining Ones. Something to do with the crusade. She never clarified what.”

The Perfect said only, “We should get back before the gossip starts.”

Kedle’s eyes widened. Then she laughed, but the mood fled quickly. “Master, I am truly afraid that I might hurt my sons.”

This was not the girl Brother Candle had known as a child. She could now be considered a minor Instrumentality, personifying the darkness at the heart of Connecten nationalism. “We can’t have that.”

“That’s why I brought it up, old man!”

Brother Candle sighed. Now she was angry. He did not understand. Something had warped her root nature. The twist had been slow, beginning long before it became evident, possibly even before her marriage and the time of exile on the Reindau Spine.

“I’ll talk to the Countess and your father. He may never understand. He only sees his little girl even when she shows up in bloody armor.”

He paused. Kedle did not need her father explained. She needed a way to come to terms with herself. The war between what she was and what she thought she was supposed to be caused pain that she expressed as rage against what might look like the source of her dilemma.

Kedle said, “Talk to Momma first. Momma understands me better.”

Could be. Madame Archimbault never put herself forward but she was the backbone of the family. She had a little quiet Kedle in her. She would be more disappointed than Raulet but definitely more understanding.

The Perfect said, “Let’s see what we can do for the boys right now.” He had some ideas. He would run them past Socia.

* * *

Queen Isabeth left Khaurene quietly. Only a few people turned out to watch. The weather was damp and cool and Isabeth had done a good job of fading from public awareness. She left one company of sixty soldiers to defend the Duke and train local soldiers.

The flight of militant Episcopals left the city quieter than it had been for years.

The economy was recovering. The Khaurenese were hardworking people who understood that God had given them an opportunity.

Partly due to the intercession of Maysalean Perfects, Serenity and Anne of Menand went off display, to be confined in more benign circumstances. Both recovered some. Anne never did understand why she had been so maltreated.

Their God did not intercede on their behalf.

Perhaps He was testing their faith. Serenity certainly believed himself to be on divine trial.

The deposed Patriarch loudly insisted that he was still the legitimate prelate.

Two score citizens of Antieux made the pilgrimage to Khaurene to attest to the evils Bronte Doneto had inflicted upon that city.

The verdict was never in doubt. Only the severity of the sentence remained to be discovered.

Brother Candle and other Perfects argued for clemency. They won the point partially, on Anne’s behalf, and that only because they argued that the judges must honor the Widow’s commitment to King Anselin.

Anne went home after just five weeks of Khaurenese torment, the shine gone off her that quickly. Anselin was welcome to her.

Kedle volunteered to lead her escort.

Socia refused her.

So the Widow vanished. Like that, during the night, she and the Vindicated decamped.

Brother Candle was surprised only because Kedle said no farewells.

Evidence at the Soames house suggested that the flight had been planned and executed with military precision and little concern for family.

Socia summoned Brother Candle. “Kedle is headed for the Holy Lands. She is on the road to Terliaga. She has a ship chartered. It won’t be fully fitted and provisioned for several weeks yet.”

“You know all this how?”

“I went and looked.”

He did not address that. She was a grown woman. She knew her own mind. Nor would he be able to change anything after the fact.

He was certain she roamed the darkness most nights, more carefully than she had done in Antieux. There were no rumors.

She was not him. She would not disdain the use of the tools the Instrumentality Dawn had given her.

He said, “She hid her intentions well.”

“She wasn’t happy. She couldn’t be the Widow here.”

“I knew that without understanding how miserable she really was.”

“What are you thinking about, old man?”

“Nothing. Other than to wonder about how Raulet and Chardén will be affected.” Mother preferring war to the company of her sons was sure to shape tomorrow’s men.

“They’re already used to her not being around.”

He grunted.

“Kids are tougher than you think. I survived it. You scream and curse but ten minutes later you don’t remember what your problem was.” She was sad, suddenly. “Neither Raulet, nor Chardén, nor even Lumiere, will have known their fathers.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.”

“Having children makes you think.”

“Unless you’re Kedle.”

“She thought a lot. Count on that. And she’s still tormenting herself.”

Probably true. “She was afraid she would hurt them. Physically.”

“I know. The same hungers and dreads haunt me. But I don’t have the option of running away.”

“Kedle has another twist. Hope set the fire.”

“I know. But Kedle wants that not to be true.”

Brother Candle thought Kedle wanted it to be true with Socia, instead-the impossibility of which might have tipped her decision to run away. Choked, he said, “I know how I can help.”

* * *

Brother Candle wore the white of a Seeker Perfect. That drew stares in Terliaga. Terliagans seldom saw Maysaleans. Most did not realize what he was.

Though al-Prama was the majority religion in that city, most other faiths had a following. Unlike the Khaurenese, Terliagans got along.

Brother Candle was intrigued by the squawking, quarreling seabirds overhead. He acquired an equally raucous coterie of curious youngsters. He smelled the waterfront long before it came into sight.

The vessel he sought proved to be a dismally small coastal carrier called Darter the way a grotesquely fat man might be called Tiny. He grew miserable just looking at it. Its aroma said it went fishing when it had no cargo or charter.

Brother Candle supposed the crew would not be above a foray into piracy, either, if the odds looked good enough.

The roguish-looking one-eyed ship’s master was pleased to have another paying customer. He became obsequious once he saw the Perfect’s serpent tattoos. The eyes of the one on the old man’s throat tracked.

No other passengers were aboard when Brother Candle took possession of a coffin of a cabin, determined to begin gaining his sea legs while the craft was still tied up.

Raulet Archimbault and the Khaurenese Seekers had been profligately generous in their effort to succor the moral foundation of their most famous daughter. Kedle might become the face seen by the entire eastern world.

So Brother Candle could afford the ship’s mess and a personal cabin.

The old man obsessed. Why must he afflict himself with the hell to come? Why was he not on the road to Sant Peyre? What hideous, insane compulsion drove him?

A Seeker pilgrimage to the Holy Lands really made no sense.

There was only one explanation.

The Good God required his presence amongst the Wells of Ihrian.