Theology
“Well.” Berend shifts, the varnished wood uncomfortable under his still-sore legs, and moves himself closer to Isabel. “It can’t be all bad, can it?”
She gives him a look, her brows furrowed and her mouth twisted into a confused frown.
Try as he might, Berend can’t think of anything to tell her to lift her spirits. “The weather’s lovely,” he tries, but it falls flat even to his own ears.
Isabel folds her hands in her lap and looks over her shoulder. A lone petitioner, dressed in heavy black layers and a mourning veil, enters the cathedral and turns toward the priests’ offices. Her shoes echo a slow, steady rhythm under the dome. They sound expensive.
“I might as well tell you, since no one else will hear it,” Isabel says, half-whispering, her head now bowed as if in prayer. “It’s not just me. There was a ghost in the chapel, and Brother Risoven couldn’t put it down either. Inside the wards, it shouldn’t have even been able to act.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Berend asks. He might be imagining it, but the room feels colder. Its emptiness has become oppressive, rather than a reassurance that they won’t be overheard. He shudders before he can stop himself.
“I don’t know.” She glances up again toward the altar, and then looks back at her hands. “I’m afraid it might be all of us. Even this place might have become deconsecrated. Father Pereth has sent for another Sentinel, though, so I suppose we’ll find out.”
“How long will that take?”
Isabel lifts her narrow shoulders and drops them in a resigned shrug. “Weeks. We’re headquartered in Vernay, and that’s already several days by horse.”
Berend doesn’t have that long. “Listen, I don’t want to alarm you, but there is a very powerful family after my head, and I need to find enough evidence to convince a magistrate to at least keep them from killing me.”
“I don’t think—” she begins.
Berend interrupts her. “From what you’re saying, one Sentinel is just as good as another.”
“Well, we don’t know for sure—”
“I’d rather at least give it a try with the Sentinel I know will watch my back than sit around waiting for the hired assassin. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll wait for a different one. How does that sound to you?”
Isabel sighs. Her fingers pluck at a loose thread on her ill-fitting dress. “I can’t. Father Pereth has ordered me to complete an interval of penance, to see if Ondir will reach out to me again. He says I performed necromancy in the house, and that’s what led to all this.”
Berend’s anger surprises him. “That’s horseshit. I was there. You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Isabel shrugs again, but one corner of her mouth cracks into something that might be a sliver of a smile. “So, you’re a theologian now?”
“No. I just have eyes.” He slouches against the back of the pew, tilting his head back to look at the domed ceiling. A parade of painted skeletons, dressed in the tatters that once were their trappings of station—ermine capes, a blacksmith’s apron, armor pitted with rust—march in circles above him. They spiral toward the center of the dome, where a figure in obscuring robes stands beside an archway, holding a lantern in one skeletal hand. “I suppose I don’t really know what happened while you were unconscious. You went off to do something else and left your body behind. Even if it was necromancy, or what have you, you did it to save me and a lot of other people. I don’t think the gods would mind too much.”
“That is one school of thought,” Isabel says, shaking her head. “A heretical one, according to the 965 Enclave of the Seven, but it exists.”
Berend smiles and spreads his arms out to take in the whole parade of the dead painted on the ceiling. “Well, there you have it. I’m not being struck down in Ondir’s very house, so he must agree with me.”
This time, Isabel does smile. “Don’t let the priests hear you say that, or you’ll really be struck down.”
“I think I can outrun a few old monks.” He squares his shoulders and feels a twinge. Maybe not. “So, have I convinced you? Will you come with me?”
Isabel’s face falls. “It doesn’t matter. I still can’t help you with your ghost.”
“Can you at least try?” says Berend. “I’d feel better with you there. And I think it would be good for you to get out a bit.”
“I told you, I can’t do anything. I could maybe force it to manifest, I did that at the chapel, but that’s all. I’m less than useless to you.”
He can’t quite believe it, Berend realizes. He knows she’s telling the truth, but he can’t imagine her performing her rites, just as she has again and again over the course of the past few weeks, to no avail. She’s not even the first Sentinel he’s met, though he wasn’t acquainted with any others closely enough to know them by name. Of the remaining holy warriors of the Seven, they’re the most mundane, and the most efficient.
And now they might all be in the same state as Isabel. What could have caused something like this? Did Warder’s device do something, like Berend is almost certain it did something to Mikhail’s soul?
“Maybe you just need a change of scenery,” he says. “It’s really quite beautiful out by the Belisia estate. At least, I think it should be. I was only there at night, and in the middle of a haunting.”
Isabel only looks at him, doubt written all over her face.
Berend sighs. “I don’t want to go there alone. And there are very few people in this city I can trust, and you’re the only one of that small number who both can wield a sword and knows something about ghosts.” He turns back to her, reaching out for her hand where it fusses with a wrinkle on her dress.
Her fingers go still. When Berend picks up her hand, she doesn’t resist.
“Please, Isabel. Sentinel or not, I need you. Will you come with me?”
Isabel frowns, staring at her hand in his. She looks down and away. “I…suppose I could ask Father Pereth. Service to the dead might help my penance.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank the gods.” He kisses the back of her hand and drops it immediately at the sight of her surprised face.
Isabel tucks both hands into the pockets of her dress and stands up. “Even if the high priest gives me permission, we can’t leave yet. The watch will be releasing Brother Risoven this afternoon. I want to be here when he arrives.”
“Whatever you need,” says Berend, clearing his throat. “I should go retrieve my things from the upstanding gentlemen out front, though, before they decide they’d rather not return them.”
“I’ll meet you by the Orchard gate,” Isabel says.
Berend spends the next several hours at the Fox and Dove, eating passable venison and early vegetables and drinking terrible ale. The bread and hard cheese he wraps up for the road. He sleeps, as well, as the sun reaches the peak of the council building in the distance. He’s still so tired. His body aches, just enough that he’s aware of it and it takes him another hour to find a comfortable position on the straw mattress, but not enough that he can justify another day spent resting. He wishes he were younger.
At sunset, he puts his boots back on and straps his sword and his pistol around his waist, concealing them under his good cloak. The air has a sharp smell to it that tells him it will be cold tonight.
The guards at the gate let him out without a fuss. They’re only worried about who might be coming in. Berend wonders if the fellows by the temple ever figured out that he was lying. Since he didn’t cause any trouble, they’re probably not paid enough to care. There is a reason Berend never tried to become one of them.
A cold, dry wind whispers through the orchards. The trees look like soldiers, standing in rows, their limbs heavy with fruit. Old soldiers, then. Tired ones. After Braeden Hill, the Sons of Galaser—young and old—had looked similar. Over the trees and above the last fiery light of the sun, the first stars are bright and clear, and the sickle moon, far to the west, glows a snowy white.
If there’s a better night to go to the Belisia estate, Berend can’t imagine it. He’s reasonably certain he will be up to the long walk. Hiring a carriage would be a wonderful way to let the Belisias know where he is and that he’s on his way to their house.
Just as he starts worrying that Isabel isn’t going to show up after all, the gate shudders open once more. She is dressed in her uniform again, though the silver brooch of Ondir’s gate is missing, as is her sword. In the place of the latter is a long hunter’s knife, its hilt plain leather over dull, scuffed steel. She carries a lantern in one hand.
“So they’re serious about the ‘not a Sentinel anymore’ thing,” Berend says.
Isabel ducks her head, the brim of her hat obscuring her face. “Yes, it’s quite serious.”
Berend wishes he hadn’t said anything. He holds out a hand to indicate the road through the orchards. “So. Shall we? It will be a bit of a walk, but we should get there before midnight.”
Isabel’s hat bobs up and down in a nod, and she lights the lantern. Berend feels a little guilty that he didn’t tell her they would be making the journey on foot, but she doesn’t say anything in complaint.
The trees sway and murmur as they pass through. Berend considers taking a few apples for the road, given that all the guards usually standing by to prevent theft are in the Temple District now, but he’s already going to be trespassing tonight. He decides not to push his luck.
Night falls when they emerge from the orchards, the sun sinking behind the hills ahead and the sky turning to ink. Isabel’s lantern casts a pool of soft fire at their feet.
“Tell me about this ghost,” she says.
“Her name is—was—Bessa Kyne,” Berend says. The name is heavy in his mouth, laden with guilt. If she’s still in the world, he promises, he’s going to set things right for her, one way or another.
“It’s still her name.” Isabel’s voice is soft and gentle. They must train Sentinels for that, Berend thinks, for comforting the guilty and grieving. Gods know they’re stilted and brusque in every other situation.
“She was involved with the Belisias’ younger son, Hybrook. He promised to marry her, I think, but instead he murdered her when he found out she was pregnant and buried her in the rose garden.”
It sounds horrific, now that he says it aloud. He feels ghostly hands around his neck again. If he had the opportunity to choose how he was going to die, he would pick anything but strangling.
Isabel nods, her face impassive. “So she was haunting the house.”
Berend forgot how little death affected Sentinels. He’s only seen such utter indifference a handful of times before, in the oldest members of the Sons, the ones who had been fighting too long. “Yes. Lord Belisia had Warder and me remove her. Warder used his device. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”
“You should have told me before,” says Isabel. “Or someone at the temple, if you didn’t want to tell me.”
Yes, he should have. There were a lot of things he should have done when it came to the Belisias. “I was specifically ordered not to get the Church involved.”
“If you had, I could have set her to rest before I lost the ability,” Isabel says. “Now, I don’t know what will happen.”
Our protagonists are back together again for another adventure. Thanks for reading! I’ll have some exciting news on Friday, so come back soon!
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