The words were another Church-sanctioned kindness that felt like pain. She nodded, trying to reconcile the priest who caused the agony that still rang in her ears with the man before her, urging her to do what she was made for: comfort. Regardless of his personal feelings, he understood her. She would try to offer the same.
‘Thank you.’
?
Ágnes was in her room, lap draped in fur and a copy of the writ, and she was sleeping. It was relief and pain in one. If she was too ill to tend to others and take mercy missions, she’d be sick in heart as well as in body.
‘Ágnes?’ Csilla crouched before her, placing a gentle hand upon her knee. The older woman’s thin lashes fluttered, and she looked down with rheumy eyes.
‘If I wasn’t still so cold, I’d say this was a vision. A welcome one,’ she added at Csilla’s worried frown. ‘Why are you here?’
‘You,’ Csilla answered, achingly aware that wasn’t the whole of it. ‘I hope they’ve been helping you.’ It didn’t look like it.
‘I help myself, and Erzsébet keeps my lap warm. I’m glad to see you,’ Ágnes said, and Csilla lit with guilt. ‘But you’re still only in Silgard because of the heretic, aren’t you?’
Ágnes always had been able to see right through to the truth of Csilla. It didn’t take blood to know a daughter.
‘Yes.’ But only until I can come back, she added silently. It was one of a thousand little darknesses that would be swept away in greater glory once they saved the city. ‘I can’t leave Silgard. I don’t want to leave you.’
Ágnes touched her cheek. Sitting at her feet was like being young again, being read to on long, lazy afternoons, told it wasbecause she was bright and loved the word best. She’d only learned much later those afternoons had been when families were coming to take other children. Ágnes had tried to spare her the pain of being passed over by making her feel chosen, darkening her own soul with the lie. Just like she was doing now, allowing Csilla to sit where she didn’t belong and take up her precious seconds, soft tokens of affection worth more than any gift.
‘I’ll be gone soon, Csilla. I’ve worked with illness too long not to recognise it in myself. I’m not hastening it, trust me,’ she soothed Csilla’s small noise of distress. ‘But there’s nothing to be done.’ She swallowed back a shaking cough. ‘Here, I’ll read to you. Asten hasn’t taken my eyes yet, so there’s that blessing.’
‘No, let me.’ Csilla took the book from her lap and settled back. She leaned her head against Ágnes’s legs, in tears at the gentle pressure of a hand on her head. ‘If it gets worse, you will tell me before you go into anchorage, right? You can send word through Ilan. He knows where to find me.’
A person’s final days were between them and Asten. But Ágnes stroked her hair gently and nodded.
‘I will, dearest.’
Csilla nodded and opened the book to a saint story, one of the first she’d memorised when she was small: St. Ferdek’s miracle that brought a springing well to a parched town and saved thousands overnight. The angel Orsolya had given him a running crown of her tears, and the illustration had always reminded Csilla of her dozen unlucky baptisms. The madder and azure were more faded than she remembered, years of finger pressure eroding the crispness of the pages.
She used to love to think about the miracles and how wonderful it was that divine magic came to save.
Now what lay on her heart was how terrible it was that people needed saving. People could find meaning in suffering but thatdidn’t mean it meant anything on its own. If Asten were here, and just, Their creation wouldn’t have to hurt. They wouldn’t have let it break, leaving Shadow and pain.
‘Do you think,’ she asked carefully, forming the delicate words like they were bubbles of spun glass, ‘Asten intends to come back at all?’
Among the questionable games a pack of orphans with little supervision played was one of holding their heads underwater in a trough to see who could hold their breath the longest. In the end, everyone came up, but whoever won the game had a headache and sore chest for their prize.
What was happening now didn’t feel like worship. It felt like that standoff, and the world on the edge of drowning.
‘That doesn’t sound like you,’ Ágnes frowned, leaning forward slightly. ‘I know your road is hard, but don’t make it harder with doubt.’
How?she wanted to ask.
From far below came the shrill whistle of alarm, quick blasts that could only mean death. She stood so quickly her knee popped.
‘Csilla?’ Ágnes reached a hand out. ‘That was the alarm. Stay here.’
‘I know,’ she said, leaning forward to kiss the old woman’s cheek, catching the scent of the mint oils used on sore bodies in a last effort to soothe aches.
‘That’s why I have to go.’
22
Ilan
The wooden cart clacked as it was rolled into the churchyard, the faces of the young inquisitorial priests drawing it grim. There were already other priests and curious novices darkening the courtyard, and from the corner of his eye he could see Csilla skirting the edges, no doubt summoned by the bells. She didn’t look any more settled for having been to see Ágnes. This certainly wasn’t going to help.
