22
THEN: STARLING
Brother Tibolt apparently did this for all who were boxed under the list of offenses. And some stupid, pious soul, perhaps flush with refinement and salvation from their night in the box, reported him to Torm and the other elders. The High Conclave was notified by letter. A small unit of Perpatanian soldiers arrived a moon afterward to deliver his replacement, an imperious-looking man of thirty winters or so.
“This one,” Tibolt said, flustered and pacing his office in the church. “Oh, Roberta, you have to be careful around this one. He is not like me. He is a zealous priest, I can see it in his eyes.”
I was sitting on the floor, wrapping his more precious books in cloth and stacking them in a trunk. I had made my way down to the church for my regular doxology tutelage and been informed by him what was the reason behind the arrival of the transport wagon and more than twenty men on horses.
“They send my replacement,” he had cried when I opened his door.
“I will be careful,” I assured him, a child calming an adult.
Tibolt shook his head. “You won’t. I know you, girl. Your mindis too like your heart. My mind is like yours, but my heart has always been weak. Your heart is alive in your breast. And your mind is too, and it gives your heart a dangerous fire. I worry about your burning.”
“My burning,” I said, only half listening. I was eyeing that copy ofThe Life of Unastill on the shelves. I would return it every other week so that he never missed it. I was realizing that his departure meant the book’s as well.
“That’s the thing of it,” the disgraced priest was trying to explain. “In severe cases, when boxing does not work, women have been burned alive.”
“Pardon?”
He nodded, coming to an abrupt halt in his short circuit from one side of the room to the other. “It’s an old, old practice. Far older than boxing. Our saint set himself aflame to cover the cost of our sinfulness, so that we would not awaken in the demon realm in the afterlife. You know that fire is a holy thing?”
I nodded.
“Well, if a woman cannot be saved by prayer or by boxing—after several winters? Churches have, in the more rural parts of Perpatane, set women on fire. It is a forced salvation, you see.” He put his hands over his eyes. “My gods, I should not be saying any of this to a child.”
“It is still done then?” I asked, a squeak in my question.
Brother Tibolt looked up at me. “In very small communities in the countryside. And they are not reined in by King Pollux. I think he likes the devout insanity of the country folk. It makes the less flamboyantly devout of his cities seem sane. And this new one they send? May our saint have mercy on us. Though he is apparently popular with the king and the people of court, though he is lauded as an advisor to the king, as an educated man of both Rodwin and church law—this new priest?Heis from those rural places. He is from the burning lands.”
“You know him?”
“I recognized his accent. And I asked him.”
Having put the last of the current stack of wrapped books intothe trunk, I sat on my heels, hands folded in my lap. “Are you saying he will bring this to Sheridan? Burning women?”
Tibolt drew himself near and bent over me. Had he been less rotund and younger, he could have perhaps kneeled. But his lean was charitable, and I felt myself become overwhelmed with sadness at knowing he was going.
“My dear, dear girl,” he began, “I am saying do not speak, do not question, do not so much as breathe around this man. Do not look him in the eye. He will see that rebel heart of yours. I can see it too, but I have never judged you for it.”
He straightened and looked away from me. “The thing of it is, Torm Sheridan is the perfect kind of man for my church. He is strong, not puffed up but truly strong. And he is greedy enough to want more power. And they will give it to him and then teach him how to be yet more powerful. Torm will only grow and become more of a tyrant with each winter. And it will be a slow thing, so that once this town realizes that he has the entire run of it, it will be far too late.”
“What do you mean?”
Tibolt’s eyes grew glazed as if he was seeing something not in the room with us, like he was remembering. “The Lord Sheridan knows the pockets of every man in this fiefdom. He knows who has gambling debts, who has a weakness for drink, who has no heirs to his property. He knows how to use those secrets to his own aims. Already he buys up more property than just his keep grounds and sharecropper fields. And Perpatane, this new man they bring? They will sharpen the already vicious knife that is the lord.”
I was too young and untested to understand his meaning.
Then he said, “There is no room for us, Roberta. Not people like us. We don’t belong in this world, I think. You are too curious and I am too soft. And I am so sorry I cannot offer you more explanation than that.”
Tibolt went to the last set of bookshelves yet to be taken downand pulledThe Life of Unafrom the top shelf. He returned to me and extended it down to me, a look of tenderness on his round face.
I took the slim volume and clutched it to my chest.
“Don’t,” he said, his tone harsh with fear. “Don’t let them see that. Promise me. You can never let them see that. Do you understand? Say you understand?”
I nodded, a blush creeping up my neck. I had thought myself clever, borrowing the book but always returning it with other titles.
