There was a tattoo on his arm, a long one that stretched as low as the knobs of his wrists. It must have hurt, to be marked so close to the bone, with a bare needle and soot and tannin to darken the scarred lines. The words were in an old Saketan script, but Malini could pick up snatches of meaning here and there.
Mothers. Flame.
Void.
“No priests remain here for long,” said Malini. “This is thankless work.”
“There is nothing thankless about tending to the sacred rites of the dead,” the priest said swiftly. Then he blinked, graying as he remembered himself. “M-my apologies, Empress.”
“No need. Where is your temple?”
“Empress?”
“Your temple,” Malini repeated patiently. “You accompanied Lord Narayan here, but there is no temple on his lands. I am asking where you trained and worshipped, before you came to lay Saketa’s dead to rest in my camp.”
“On the land held by Prince Kunal,” the priest, staring at her with the alarmed look of a prey creature under the paw of a beast. “There is a temple adjoining his mahal—the priests are Parijat-trained—”
“I’m sure that is true. But that was not your temple,” Malini said.
“No, Empress. N-no.” He swallowed “I was trained in a small shrine. One that served the farmers, primarily. And many merchants, who passed through.”
“You were well treated there? Educated?”
He nodded.
“Show me your wrists,” Malini ordered softly.
He wore a long shawl, loosely coiled over his arms and shoulders. He shoved the fabric back to bare his arms and held his wrists before him. They were shaking.
“You are tattooed, as he is,” she observed. “I was sheltered in the heart of the faith, in Parijat. But I know that the priests of the faceless mother carry the names of the mothers in their flesh, so that worshippers may be free to pray to one figure alone.” She raised her gaze, expectant.
“My temple,” he said, stiff with terror, “where I was reared. We—it—worshipped the faceless mother. Yes, Empress.”
“As did this man, I see. This man, who should not have been anywhere near the battlefield, let alone poised to save my life. He should not have died for me. But he did. And I believe you know why.”
“Empress,” the priest choked out.
“Tell me what you know,” she said, gentle in her relentlessness.
“He was sent,” the priest said. “Surely he was sent.”
“By who?”
“The temple’s high priest,” the man whispered. “Perhaps. I was told nothing of this, Empress. I promise it.”
He sounded truthful enough. That did not mean she believed him. But she nodded as if she did. Gazed into his eyes, over the corpse of a fallen priest.
“Tell me more about your high priest,” said Malini, “about the temple where you were trained. I want to know everything. And in return, I will forgive you for the secrets you have kept from me, however unwittingly.”
When he woke, he heard an old voice in his head. A turning-over-in-grave-soil voice. A voice that had been woken from rest and yearned to return to it.
I never wanted this.
But it was too late. In the deathless waters beneath the Hirana, he was being reborn.
The birth took a long time. But time had no meaning to him. Time had no meaning to the waters, either. Everything grows in its correct season. Everything of flesh or earth must be shaped and hollowed and named.
For a long time, the waters were still.
