THEN: OFFENSES
The priest did exactly as he had said he would. He distributed a booklet of commands, a sort of summary of many passages fromThe Book of Rodwin. On the last page of these booklets—bound in a cheap canvas with an embossing of a flame, the crest of Perpatane’s king—was a small handwritten list, nearly word for word what Starling had said he would add to the commands. Drink was only allowed for men. Sons were to come before daughters. Any book that was not deemed holy would be removed from a home. Substances like lightleaf that may have eased pain or given one a good night sleep, though they altered the mind, were officially outlawed. I only knew of the drug from Brother Tibolt. What I did not understand was the list of other medicinals listed. I had never heard of mother’s moss or pennyroyal.
I overheard my mother mumbling to herself that something on the list had always been illegal and then snapping the book shut with an uncharacteristic grunt. Then she looked up at us and smiled, saying, “Best to memorize this, girls. Alright?”
Sitting at our kitchen table with our heads bent together,Rowena and I began to read while my mother busied herself with our dinner.
“What is abortion?” I asked, finding the word listed next to ‘theft’ and ‘murder’ a foreign one to me.
She waved my question away, and I found I did not mind her lack of answer because shortly after that, we reached the section on pagan books. And I was distracted by my own terror.
I was frantic during that first week of Starling’s reign as priest. I could not loseThe Life of Una. It was my treasure. It was the only thing I had ever heard or read that made sense to me. The priest visited our house at the end of the week, having started with the keep’s sharecroppers and the farm properties on the edge of Sheridan land. He worked his way inward and along the smaller channel of the river that cut through town and powered my father’s mill. When he got to our house, the residents of Sheridan were in a panic. He had, with that calm, friendly way of speaking, walked into homes and turned them upside down. A barley farmer was caught owning an old copy of a Tintarian book calledThe Remarkable Loaming of Our Goddess, which, while having an interesting title, was really just a compendium of different types of soil along the coast, some of which could also be found in the low countries. Starling made the man stand just outside his house and build a fire. Then the farmer burned his book and prayed for forgiveness.
“They’re going to take Una from me,” I whispered to my sister at night.
“You have to destroy it first.”
“Never!”
“Then you had better hide it well.”
I buried it under hay in one of our horses’ stalls, praying the animal did not shit directly on that hay and that the hay did not get turned over in the next day or so.
But it was not I alone who fell under the new priest’s scrutiny.
Starling walked into the mill house with a welcoming expression,as if he were the one inviting us into his home and not the other way around.
My father, a church elder, was proudly standing in our front room, explaining how his father had owned the mill and his father before him, that he employed three to four men at a time, often the restless sons of sharecroppers who wanted to do something other than farm.
“No apprentice and no sons,” Starling stated more than asked, though there was a question to his speech. He eyed my mother and the two of us with an almost pitying look, as if we did not measure up and he was too magnanimous to cast condemnation on us.
“My wife suffered terribly giving birth to the girls,” my father said. He was a devout man, but he had an obsessive love for our mother. As long as she did not challenge him or shame him, he was content with only Rowena and I, if it meant my mother was not in danger.
“I would hope, madam,” said Father Starling, “you do not employ the way of the witch so as to remain barren. And I would also hope you find some other way to satisfy your husband as he puts a roof over your head and your children’s heads, and marriage to him likely saves you from hell.”
My mother’s face was red. She put her arms around each of us standing at her sides. She did not reply at first and swallowed several times. Then, in response to the man’s raised brows, she bit out, “I do not use any of the substances named in the list of offenses, Father.”
“Very well. Answer the rest of it, madam. How do you satisfy your husband? For it is in the scriptures, a wife’s duty?—”
“She is an exemplary wife and mother,” my father protested. “Truly, Father. I swear to you. A man could not ask for a more godly wife.”
Her face still red, my mother was looking down at the floor. Her hand on my back trembled.
“I will defer to your husband, Madam Miller,” said Starling. “For it is he who is responsible for your immortality. Will you rest easy inthe ground, buried like a good believer, finally at peace? Or will you burn?”
“I will rest,” my mother rasped out, eyes lifted back up to the priest. “I have my husband’s favor, and my husband has our saint’s blessing.”
Starling folded his hands over his front and smiled. He had lost interest in her. Turning to my father he said, “My friend, our lord says you are a pillar of this township, that you are an upstanding man, a follower of Rodwin, a natural choice for an elder. I have saved your household for one of the last of my visits as I thought you were likely amongst the holiest of homes, per Lord Sheridan.”
“Our lord is generous,” said my father.
Starling nodded. “I can see it in you, my son. A mainstay to be sure, a leader. And you provide work. Any man who employs others is a godly person. To provide employment is to provide food and shelter.”
I wrinkled my nose. Starling was younger than our father, and yet our father seemed to brighten at the priest’s words.
“The demon folk of the afterlife are drawn to strong men the most, I have found, however,” the priest continued and lay a firm hand on my father’s shoulder. “They want to feed on that strength after your death, good sir. It is a feast for them, a godly man’s soul. If they can corrupt it, they will dine like kings. That is why men are constantly tempted by the alleged delights of the world.”
My father nodded grimly.
