That was the last thing he said to me other than a wistful farewell when I left his office that afternoon, having read nothing but lovingly packed up each book of his own personal library. He and his things were packed into the transport wagon, and the soldiers escorted the old priest back to his homeland.
In his place, Perpatane had sent Father Stephen Starling.
23
THEN: REFINER
That first tenth-day service with Father Starling behind the podium, the air in my lungs felt thinner, as if the church sat atop a mountain and the act of breathing took concentrated effort. There was a restrained fever in town, the swift departure of Tibolt having set tongues wagging and eyes ogling.
Everyone wanted a glimpse of the new priest. He was good-looking, less than half Tibolt’s age, and though his features were austere in their arrangement, his eyes were lit from some inner spark that fascinated us.
He and the lord stood before the town, and Torm Sheridan declared a new age of piety would begin, that we would no longer give our hearts to sloth, to desires, to ease, that we would devote our minds and bodies to hard work, to self-denial, and to labor. He said wives would truly respect their husbands, that servants would kneel to masters, and that blessed days were ahead. No longer were we a town made weak by a weak priest. We were now led by a conduit to Rodwin of great renown, a friend to King Pollux, a figurehead we knew nothing about except that he was a devout Rodwinfollower and sat on a throne made of gold. We were now led by Father Starling.
“A new day dawns in your fair settlement,” said the striking young man, eyes combing over every face in the crowd from where he stood. “I bring to you a great and terrible fire, my friends. But only the impure of heart will be at the mercy of it. The true believer? They will remain unscathed.”
He stepped away from the podium and, slowly, began to pace a little. “You see I hail from the mining territories of Perpatane. You would be more familiar with the industrious metals of our allied country, the city-state of Eccleston. And they have a few silver mines. But only my home country has gold, and most of the known world’s silver. And I am from those endless, flat rocks that span on into the distance, covering the rich strains below. And do you know why I speak of fire today?”
His question was met with silence, of course, but also with bated breath. His every word carried, echoed. Starling’s speech resounded in the ear and in the mind. His voice was not thunderous or hollering. It was nearly friendly. It was as if he was letting you in on a clandestine truth, like you were the first person to hear it.
“I speak of fire not because of our saint’s selfless sacrifice, though that should always be in our hearts and minds.” And here the young priest paused to look out at his congregation, a chiding but not judgmental look, a mother hen clucking over chicks. “I speak of refiner’s fire. When metal is smelted, the filth rises to the surface. When our saint’s spirit looks into your hearts, what will he see? What will need burned and skimmed from your soul? When a smelted ore is hot, all the impure things turn into a layer of slag, and it is skimmed from the top. That is what the mortal heart is, raw ore. The fire our venerated saint set to his own clothes dipped in oil, the thankless sacrifice he made setting his own body on fire so that we could be spared the fires of a demon hell? That is the fire we must apply, in spirit, to ourselves. That terror, that heat, must purify us of the sin of being born. We areall born to squalor, no matter the material of the cradle, be it one of wicker wood or one gilded in gold.”
I had the thought that the golden-cradle people in life certainly seemed to have an easier go of it. But then my attention was turned back to the striking mesmeric father, simply dressed in a long, belted tunic over trousers, a red-and-silver sash across his chest, the brooch of copper and silver flames pinned to his breast the only evidence of his station.
“It is as your lord has declared,” Starling went on. “We are no longer going to have days of lenience and laziness. My dear colleague, Father Tibolt, was too old and too soft, bless him. He did not do right by your souls, guiding you to betterment, taking you to a place completely safe from hell. But I am here and your lord is here, with the help of our saint, and we will keep you from the demons both that tempt us here on earth and would torture us in death.”
I glanced around, trying not to move my head too much. The faces I could see were rapt, worshipful.
“And so,” he kept on. “From this day forth, these things will apply. Firstly”—and he stopped and held out his right forefinger—“every word of scripture will be followed to the letter. Every. Word.”
“Hear, hear,” came a man’s voice.
The call was repeated by several other men, my father included.
“Second,” the priest kept on, nodding in thanks to the men who championed him and holding up his middle finger along with his fore, “the list of offenses against the saint will be copied and given to each house, even those who do have their ownBook of Rodwin. The list will be posted in the town square until that paper disintegrates, and then it will be reposted. You will memorize, each of you, every command. You will live by those dictates and you will demand, husbands and fathers, that your household abides by them.”
More men called out in agreement.
“And I will add these to the list of offenses,” Starling said. “These are grievances I observed in my short time here that must be addressed. Unmarried women are never to drink any kind of liquor;no whiskey, no cider, no ale. Married women may only imbibe on holidays if their husbands allow it. Children shall not speak in public without express permission from their parents. Girl children shall not expose any length of leg, no matter their age. All the skirts of all girl children are to be lengthened at once.”
My mind flitted to the day dresses that only reached our mid calves that Rowena and I had worn when we were smaller.
“At the dinner table! Boys will be served first and will be given seconds first. Your sons’ needs must be met first. They alone are to be taught to read and do arithmetic in the home. No more will you show this to your girls. There is no need for it, and the female mind is too easily corrupted. When you teach a woman to read, she will surely seek out ungodly books. When you teach a man to read, he reads things that edify his mind and soul. If you already have daughters that can read, they should only be allowedThe Book of Rodwin.”
My heart thudded as I thought ofThe Life of Unatucked under our mattress.
“We have been warned of this! We have been told of ‘the woman who entices with sweetness but strikes like an adder.’ This is what our womenfolk become when they are ungoverned. And what do our scriptures say about snakes? ‘The adder is the emblem of a pagan god, and its venom and hiss must be choked out.’ We know it to be true. Allow me to again quote our saint and say that ‘a woman’s clutches and coils will weaken the pillars of men’s reason.’ We know this to be true. A man can erect a respectable home, and a woman’s mind can burn it down if her wanton fires are not banked by her husband or father. Too long the women of this place have been cheated out of the guidance they need. How negligible, to let the women and girls of this fine settlement run free without direction. It comes to an end. I will visit every home in Sheridan. Every one. And I will ascertain—as my saint commands me, as his conduit—who abides by his word and who does not. I will suss out the slag, you see. I will skim off the impurity.” The priest pointed to himself and, almost apologetically, explained, “Refiner’s fire.”
When the priest paused, allowing for the two words to hang in the air, there was not a sound to be heard. Every congregant was rapt with attention.
“Let us not forget the tongue of soundness,” Starling went on. “Allow me to quote our saint’s book. ‘The sinner must be washed by the wisdom of reason, of good sense. They must be cleansed by the tongue of soundness. Those that feed the tongue their sins will be made free. And those that bring the tongue the sins of others will be made kings.’” He hung his head slightly and ended his sermon by saying, “It is only with soundness, children, with good sense, that we can be free from hell.”
And then his gaze, like the blue of the innermost part of a flame, found mine in the crowd—and we looked at each other, the girl and the priest.
He must have read it in me that day, seen that will to fight even when I wanted to lie down and give in, even when I was so weary by the blight that was my family faith I found myself wondering if death would be peaceful, a horrible thought for a girl of eleven. My spirit would never let me rest, it seemed. Not on my weakest day did my heart stagger. It kept time in its rhythms, kept pushing me to resist. I had tried to be a good girl, a faithful daughter of Rodwin. But I always failed because my damned heart—that little creature of riot and ruin—just kept beating, forcing me to ask questions, making me be me.
Starling saw it and fixated on it. He squinted and smiled ever so slightly, as if to ask, “What is this new wickedness?”
24
