Other-Song, Chapter Nine: Of Sorrow and of Solace
The ninth chapter in my novel-in-progress
Other-Song is a serialized fantasy novel-in-progress. It’s a tale of disenchantment, of abusive technology, of heresy, and of a world hidden in plain sight.
This is the ninth chapter.
In the first chapter, “The Last Party, The Last Song,” Lurian, bastard son of the Hornynal family, serves at a party hosted in honor of his brother, Trendal, attended by the Queen’s nephew, along with many other nobles. The Fel’lal musician he hired for the evening, his friend Tri’aln, plays “the last song” on the instrument, which destroys it. Just before it is destroyed, the lights in the hall suddenly flash brightly and every glass in each guests hand shatters as Lurian looks at them. He is then ushered out by the queen’s nephew through the darkness, who speaks cryptically of a heretic.
In the second chapter, “A Bastard and a Heretic,” Lurian waits outside until all the guests have gone, and then sneaks back into the house to gather things in order to leave. Details of his life unfold: her mother had seduced her husband’s brother and then framed him for rape — a plot to gain control of Horynal manse. While packing for the journey, his mother yells at Lurian from the other side of the door, and then curses him as a “heretic.”
In the third chapter, “The Question of the Wells,” Lurian, traveling without light, becomes lost on the paths near his childhood home and twists his ankle. Stumbling about in pain, he passes out for a short time before continuing on and encountering a strange well. In a series of remembrances, significant parts of his childhood related to questions about the nature of such wells unfold. His older brother, Trendal, claimed the Fel’lal sacrificed children there. The drunken house cook, on the other hand, claimed the Fel’lal made insignificant offerings to them. Later, Erol, a nervous tutor, just before being fired, cryptically confirmed their were offerings at the wells but not of children. Thirsty, and recalling Tri’aln’s dismissive assurance that the wells were just full of water, Lurian drinks from it.
In the fourth chapter, “The Herb-Merchant’s Guests,” Lurian awakens in a strange house with no memory of the previous two weeks. He learns from the other guests — Rylan, Katrin, and Rhi — that he was “prophesying” on the paths after drinking from the well. Tri’aln had found Lurian and brought him to the house of a local herb-merchant, who then drugged him so he could sleep off the effects of the well. The other guests in the house are all friends of each other; Rylan, the son of the herb-merchant, is particularly insistent that Lurian returns with them because of what he believes Lurian can do: “will.” Despite the strange circumstances and their evasion of his questions, Lurian agrees to join them on their return journey to the city of Thalyrest.
In the fifth chapter, “A Matter of Academic Interest,” Tri’aln arrives at the home of a man, Terrance, who is currently visited by two other friends. The three men are quite drunk, and Terrance is very angry with Tri’aln for showing up unannounced. From the ensuing conversations, it’s learned that what happened at the Horynal manse is now quite known, and Tri’aln is wanted by the Enforcers. She convinces the men to help her leave the city in return for wyrd-stones, to which the men seemed addicted. Agreeing, they help her past a guard only to find out that Tri’aln never intended to make good on her part of the bargain.
In the sixth chapter, “Of Witches and Nuns,” Katrin, Rylan, Rhi, and Lurian prepare for the journey to Thalyrest. Lurian and Rylan are to disguise themselves as female Solacebringers and Katrin helps them with their costumes. Rhi discusses her misgivings about Lurian’s presence to Janyr. Lurians prophetic babblings have confirmed to Rhi an earlier prophetic vision about her own lover’s death related to the same figure he mentions: “the nightwitch.”
In the seventh chapter, “What Happened on the Road to Thalyrest,” the four are accosted and attacked by Enforcers after encountering actual Solacebringers on the road. A wounded Katrin was able to escape, hiding behind a rock. Rylan appears to have died, Rhi is dying, and Lurian has fled into the forest. Recalling how they came to this point, Katrin decides to interrupt one of the Enforcers who starts a “Calling” to force Lurian to stop fleeing. Convincing the Enforcer that she has a contagious plague, Katrin stabs the man in the leg and is further wounded, falling into unconsciousness.
In the eighth chapter, “Death in the Forest,” a shocked Lurian, attempting to come to grips with having just killed two of the Enforcers who attacked them, recalls being locked in a stables as a child and being forced to kill a horse. Rhi tries to shake him from his stupor, and then the two of them see that one of the Solacebringers they met on the road has returned. Katrin and Rylan are both alive but badly wounded, and Rhi discovers she knows the Solabringer, Sister Enyth, from her own childhood as an orphan.
Chapter Nine: Of Sorrow and of Solace
“I think I will come back with you to Thalyrest,” she said, shaking from the chill of her wet clothes and the cold of the returning memories.
Enyth hugged Rhi, then managed a weak smile at the man. There was nothing she could think to say to him, nothing that could suffice to hide the tumult of horror she felt when she saw his eyes. She would not yet let anything drown the joy she felt at finding, finally, the means to quell her guilt.
Like a patient dog, that guilt had bitten into her. Then it had bitten again and again, gnawing at the ossified shell of her heart. And if that guilt could not at first break her, it could gnaw until she was worn down. It could bury her and find her later, dig her back up into the light, back into its maw, grinding with its teeth into the marrow of her soul.
Their three horses trudged through the brambled path along a muddy stream running through the woods. Enyth held aloft the flickering oil-light lantern, searching for the path. The stream was edging west now, and she urged her horse across it first, pointing to what could have been in this light a wide deer track or maybe merely a gap between several trees.
Despite her own doubt, she suggested the others follow, and they did. “Steady, please,” she whispered to the horse who, caught in unseen thorns, reared back to free itself.
“Are you stuck?” asked the man, Lurian, Rhi’s companion, shifting a little in the heavy saddle, one arm holding the unconscious man in front of him, the other holding the rein. “Calm,” he muttered to her horse. The mare she rode calmed, lifting one leg deftly out of the tangle. The horse rose up, and Enyth with her, but not so much that Enyth feared falling.
“I think you’re out,” he said, letting the weight of the man he held slide a little while he craned to look at her mount’s legs. “You are. Want me to take the lantern?”
She shook her head and tried not to look at his eyes. “I am fine.”
He nodded with what seemed simple kindness and concern. He called after Rhi, who was a little behind them both.
“We’re fine, Lurian.”
Fine, Enyth thought. Fine, even after being abandoned a second time. Fine, though I left you with the dead and did not come back, though I promised you I would.
The two girls appeared one cool spring evening at the Cloister of Galn four months to the day that Enyth had arrived. They’d been left at the gate, wrapped in cloaks too large for them, clutching tightly to wooden toys and a blanket, silent, brave, and smiling.
Enyth had found them. She’d been walking through the gardens close to the side gate as she had every night since she’d come there. The gardens were her favorite place, the safest place, the most beautiful place, and the one farthest away from others. She could be alone there, could keep to her silence, and could try to forget what had been done to her.
That night, she had heard the small bell ring. No one else was around, and it seemed more effort to go get the others than to answer the gate herself. Somewhere in her mind, she knew she wasn’t allowed to do this, somewhere she’d known she should have alerted the others. But there they were, the two strange, brave, beautiful girls, and Enyth opened the door.
Until then, Enyth hadn’t said a word to anyone since she’d been brought to the Cloister. She’d said nothing, only ever giving a nod or a shaken head. There was nothing to say, no words that could change things.
She had screamed, and those screams had not been enough to stop that man who had forced himself repeatedly on her. What good, then, would any words be?
The brothers and sisters, the mothers and the grandmothers, had stopped asking her questions. She’d not been the first half-dead street-girl brought to them, Enyth came to understand. They accepted her silence and merely offered comfort, offered tea and food, offered salves to ease the constant bleeding and pain from where he’d been. They would offer, and she would nod, and Enyth saw they heard her silent “thank you” in that gesture.
But those first four months of silence had been enough, she decided. The little girl, hair knotted and tangled, holding a small blanket in one hand and the smaller girl’s hand in the other, stood at the gate and asked for a drink of water.
And Enyth, after four months of silence, smiled and said, “Of course.”
She led them in through the gardens and then into the kitchen, the girls trudging quietly and sleepily behind her. She watched their eyes and smiled. They looked at the early flowers in the garden with cautious delight, the candlelight from sconces dancing in reflection across the polished stones with interest, and at the kitchen full of hanging smoked sausages, jars of honey, and baskets of bread with ravenous awe.
Enyth drew a pitcher of water from the kitchen well, poured a cup for each of them, and handed it to them with a smile. She then cut open a small loaf of bread, drizzled honey over each slice, and put it on plates before them.
The girls drank viciously. Then, the youngest, her voice defiant and victorious, turned to the other and said, “I told you.”
“Shut up,” said the older, looking suspiciously at the bread.
“What are your names?” Enyth asked, meeting the return of her voice as the embrace of an old friend.
“Rhi,” the younger girl had exclaimed. “What’s — owww! You pinched me, Mara!”
And then the older girl had stood in front of the younger, defiantly ready to protect them both while chiding her, “I told you not to tell her! That’s what you deserve.”
Enyth, welling with joy at their arrival, could only laugh.
The woman, Katrin, whose head Enyth had quickly sewn and bandaged, woke when their horses stumbled down a steep hillside. No one fell, though one of the glass plates of Enyth’s lantern shattered when it fell from her hand. The oil-well hadn’t broken, though, and the flame hadn’t gone out. Still, Enyth now had to position it constantly so that the exposed facet faced her.
“Where…?”
“Not far, Kat,” said Rhi. “Just be still.”
Katrin, disoriented but comforted, leaned the unwounded side of her head into Rhi’s shoulder. Enyth didn’t resist the smile, the brief vision of solace she found there, watching the orphan to whom she’d once given solace give it to another.
“I think we need to stop,” Rhi called out, rousing Enyth from her reverie. “Should she be —”
“Vomiting?” Enyth called back, hearing the pained retching behind her. She turned as best she could in the saddle, shifting the lantern again from one hand to the other to look. “What does it look like?”
“Red and a little green — really watery.”
Probably okay, Enyth considered. “Is there any black in it?”
Lurian looked ready to dismount, but she held her hand up for him to stop. “Shine my lantern over there for her, please.”
He reached his arm out to take it, but she pulled involuntarily when she caught another glance at his eyes. They reflected nothing of the dim flame.
Lurian caught himself just before falling, looking severely frustrated, balancing precariously between his own horse and hers, the hand he’d extended to take the lantern now planted firmly on her mount’s neck.
“Sorry,” she said, as honestly as she could. She was sorry, of course, but also terrified of what she saw in his eyes.
“Can you help push me up?” he snapped, shortly. “I’m gonna fall.”
Enyth bit her lip — it would not do to have him angry at her. “Here,” she said, quietly, reaching her arm under his and lifting him as strongly as she could.
“Wait! No, not — just hold my arm — don’t … okay. There, thanks.”
“Sorry about that,” she muttered. “I must be — tired.”
“It’s okay,” he answered. “It’s just over that hill, right?”
She nodded, handing him the lantern. “I’m certain.”
Lurian turned the lantern around and fumbled with several of the latches, shifting the mirrors to focus the light towards the ground near Rhi’s horse where Katrin, leaning oddly, vomited again.
“No black that I can see. Is this okay?”
Enyth was not worried and made sure as much of that confidence accompanied her words. “Yes — that’s to be expected. Your friend Rylan will do it, too, if he wakes up tonight.”
Muttering apologies, Katrin wiped her mouth with her sleeve and allowed Rhi to help her upright. “It’s okay,” Rhi answered. “These aren’t my best holy vestments.”
Katrin managed a short laugh before quietly asking for water, a request that Enyth could see in Rhi’s brief smiling glance meant the same memory for both women from the Cloister at Galn.
As the spring had given way to summer, Mara had relaxed much of her aggressive protection over her younger sister. Still, the older girl always seemed to take any question or chiding, no matter how gentle, as if it were an opening salvo in some war she had to fight. Always a little pause, a piercing, inquisitive stare, squared shoulders, and one clenched fist, with the other holding Rhi too tightly, ready to fight and flee. But then, just as quickly, Mara would suddenly relax, agree to the suggested bath or hair-brushing, answer the provocative inquiry about a proffered cookie or glass of milk, and then smile victoriously.
The other Solacebringers, returning from their prayers that night, had no choice but to accept the arrival of the two orphans. It was too late to turn them away once Enyth had let them enter, but Enyth was shocked to learn such a refusal might have even been considered.
The girls had been Harrow-marked, branded with wyrd-scripting on their foreheads. They were marked for death or imprisonment, declared guilty of the crime of heresy. No one in the Cloister could guess what sort of horrors the orphans might have already endured, nor could anyone be certain who exactly might be looking for them. But they were certainly too young to be heretics, and also too young to be turned back out on their own. So they would have to stay, they would have to be protected, and they would have to be hidden.
The last part had, of course, meant a few battle stances from the ever-vigilant Mara, suspicious that the prohibition of playing outside past the walled garden meant punishment. “Why not!” she’d shouted, defiant to the end, oblivious to the danger for both her little sister and herself.
Rhi, though, would always calm her. “We can play here, and remember we promised we would listen.” And then Mara would shoot a warning glance at Rhi to say nothing more but would relax regardless.
Enyth had taken to the girls’ care immediately, and the others at the cloister seemed pleased. She’d begun speaking again anyway, and Enyth could see they felt relieved that she’d stopped mourning.
In the months that followed, Enyth became a kind of mother for the children, and their presence made her more comfortable at the cloister. Life flowed again inside her at their laughter, her own interest in life increasing daily as their fierce awe of the world infected her.
At first, the cloister had felt to Enyth merely like a hospital and a hiding place, a place to heal and not be seen by the man who hurt her. By mid-summer, however, her interest had grown so much that when the grandmother of the cloister asked if she’d be interested in becoming a Solacebringer herself, Enyth didn’t have to think before responding.
“Yes, please,” she’d said. She’d had no interest in ever leaving, going back into the horrible world where men rape women and leave them dying, nor the world where people brand children as heretics. Life here made sense and was beautiful, life here was full of care and kindness, and life here was full of Rhi and Mara.
So, added to her role as caregiver to the two girls, Enyth became a student of the others. She was most excited about learning to read better. She’d only learned a little when she was younger, only ever seen books in other people’s homes. She’d known her letters, how to put some of them together to make words, but had never understood quite how they worked.
One night, as eager to distract the two girls from fighting as she was to practice what she was learning, she pulled Mara and Rhi to her lap and read aloud to them.
“That says ‘Goat,’ not ‘Got,’” Mara interrupted her.
“Goat,” Enyth had repeated, surprised. “Who taught you to read?”
“My mommy, but she didn’t teach Rhi ’cause she was too young.”
Offended, Rhi had shouted back, “I was not!”
Mara had become quite bossy and overbearing, but Enyth noticed less and less of it was directed at Rhi and more often at others. Enyth took great personal pride in this shift, having tried to help Mara feel she didn’t need always to be so responsible for protecting her sister anymore.
No one else at the Cloister seemed to notice this subtle change in the girl except the brother who’d taken upon himself both Enyth’s and the orphans’ tutelage. He’d mentioned it several times and encouraged her to keep going. They’d become collaborators, almost conspirators, in the girls’ well-being.
“She can read?” he asked Enyth incredulously when she recounted Mara correcting her own recitation. “Then why won't she do it in front of me? Mara won’t even look at me when I try to teach her how to draw letters.”
“Because she says you smell and have funny hair, Erol,” Enyth had answered, matter-of-factly. “And your spectacles are too shiny.”
He had looked genuinely offended. “My hair’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not. It’s adorable, if a little messy.” She made him blush, which made him awkward, which made learning to read more difficult, so she moved on. “Try teaching her something she doesn't know yet.”
“Oh, sure. If I can get her to stop Telling me what to do.”
Enyth laughed, not catching the severity edging his voice. “She's rather forceful.”
Erol had taken off his spectacles, cleaning them on his sleeve though they hadn’t been dirty. “You haven’t noticed?”
Enyth stared at him, masking her own interest with a dramatic, inquisitive look. “You mussed up your hair differently today?”
He frowned, put on his glasses again, and shook his head. “Don’t you ever find yourself suddenly doing something you didn’t want to, something that Mara just commanded you to do?”
Enyth laughed, watching the reflection of light streaming through the high windows dance in his lenses. “Sure. It’s easier than arguing sometimes.”
He pondered her for a long moment, weighing his possible responses, and then shrugged. “Nevermind. Want to read this part to me?”
Enyth didn’t learn what Erol had really meant until months later while attempting to put the girls to bed. There was to be a serious meeting that night, the subject of which had caused all the elders to become quite silent. Enyth needed to be there, too, though she was not yet a full initiate, so Enyth had explained to the girls that they were both to go to sleep early.
Enyth was standing in the kitchen, covered in flour, when she finally noticed the Grandmother of the cloister staring at her.
“It is rather generous of you to attempt the baking of something which will no doubt remind us all why we leave cookery to Sister Arnys, but precisely why — and why now — I cannot fathom.”
Enyth turned to look at the kind old woman. “I’m baking cookies for Mara and Rhi,” Enyth answered, quietly, suddenly remembering she didn’t know how to do much more than boil water.
“Yes, of course. And, my dear Enyth, I am guessing you do not remember why you decided to attempt such a task during a rather serious meeting?”
Enyth shook her head, suddenly reeling. “I — I think Mara told me to.”
“Yes. She Told you to. You are released. I’ll have words for the children later.”
No one in the meeting except Erol made any sign they’d noticed her flour-caked hair and face when she took her place with the others. He nodded a curt greeting and grinned before turning his face suddenly sour again and speaking to Brother Thurn, who was gritting his teeth.
“I can’t for a second believe you’d let them die.”
“You’d let us die instead? See sense, Brother Erol.”
“Please,” interrupted the Grandmother. “You will both note that no one wishes anyone dead. But since this is quite important, and since Enyth will soon join us as a Sister, and because she was until this moment rather indisposed to join us, we should repeat the reason for this meeting for her. And we will all be a little more cautious when interacting with a certain ward of ours.”
Enyth had listened rapt, completely ignoring the drying dough on her hands. The Grandmother herself explained the cause of the meeting, her even voice soothing the tensions of the others despite the stress of the situation. Fifteen miners, all of them Fel’lal, had been sealed into a mine in Galn for refusing to continue working. It had only been a strike for pay, their demands quite reasonable. But the Lord of Galn, who was never known to be reasonable, had ordered the entrance shut instead of giving in.
Everyone agreed this was a horrible thing. What they disagreed about, however, was what to do about it. A group of rebels, whom the Cloister had given shelter to previously, intended to free the miners before they suffocated. But the miners would need a place to hide for a while, and many of them had been injured by Galn’s soldiers when they tried to fight off their attempt to seal the mine.
“So the choice is,” the Grandmother concluded, “risk the safety and protection of our Cloister to help them, knowing full well that Galn would not honor our right of sanctuary, or do nothing? In the first case, it is possible some of us may die. In the latter, it is certain fifteen people will die.”
The Grandmother then suggested a brief break for contemplation, quiet, and tea. Enyth followed several others back into the kitchen, whose arguments with each other fortunately distracted them from the mess she had made. She cleaned as best she could, then noticed Erol beckoning her from the doorway, so she followed him into the corridor.
“What happened to your hair?” he asked her. His expression was heavy, but there was still a lightness in his voice for her.
“Mara told me to make cookies,” she sighed.
“She’s getting better at that,” he answered distractedly. He’d had another reason for talking with her. Enyth had grown so fond of the awkward man that she could listen to him say nothing important at all. But he was even more charming, more beautiful when passion overtook him, a passion which she found herself embarrassingly hoping he might one day direct at her.
"We can't just let them die, En. They’ll be sealed up until they starve to death. Can you imagine?"
Enyth’s cloistered life had sometimes felt suffocating, but it was, she decided, completely by choice. The Fel’lal did not choose to work the mines, nor did they really choose to be shut up within them until they choked without air, even if that was how the Council Steward of Galn was explaining his decision.
“It’s horrible, Erol. But what can we do, really? Imagine us all trying to fight! I can’t even win wits against a seven-year-old girl.”
“Mara’s got a weapon you don’t, En. It's not your fault," he said, looking over the hopeless mess of sticky wheat glue and smiling, “but it’s also a little funny."
“Good that someone thinks so,” she grinned.
“I don’t think they’ll agree,” Erol continued. “This is awful.”
Enyth watched sorrow and something that might have been anger pass across his face. Enyth wanted to reach for him, to console him, to give him solace. She kissed his cheek.
Erol had stared back, surprised, suddenly trembling. “Thank you, Enyth.”
The next morning, Erol said to her, “I’m going to help them,” his voice low but forceful.
“Help who?” asked Mara, loudly, her voice echoing off every wall of the inner courtyard.
“You,” Enyth had said to her, sweetly. Then, noting the beginnings of a pout forming around Rhi’s lips, she added, “and Rhi, too.”
“Good,” replied Mara, matter-of-factly, and then marched off with Rhi to play with the abbey cat.
“Good,” whispered Erol, relieved. “How’d you do that?”
Shrugging, Enyth kissed Erol’s forehead. “What are you going to do, exactly?”
He didn't tell her until much later that day. He had come to her room to wake her, but Enyth hadn’t been sleeping. When she heard him she rose, quietly, watching the unconscious bodies of the girls in the small bed they shared not far from her own, glad of all the extra running and jumping the girls had agreed to do before dinner.
The Cloister of Galn had decided: they would not risk helping the miners. It had been a great sorrow, and even those who’d argued most fiercely against sheltering the Fel’lal hadn’t seemed relieved, only resigned. Erol, however, had been neither.
“There are other people who can do what Mara can,” he whispered to her, his hand reaching again for his spectacles. “There are a few of them who want to save the Fel’lal."
“Who are they?” she asked and then decided the answer to that question mattered much less compared to the next. “What will you do?”
“We’re going to raid one of the smaller shafts. Most of the soldiers are guarding the main shaft, so we can get the miners out a different way. Here’s the thing, though….”
She met his pause with a slight shift of her head.
“It’ll be easy to get them out, but we have to hide them somewhere.”
“Here?” Enyth asked, frowning.
“Here. There’s nowhere else, no one else. Just for a day — not even a day, just from the morning until sunset. Then we move them out of here at night, and they flee to the Galnwyd. From there, they’ll be on their own mostly, but they’ll be safer there.”
“The others won’t agree! Erol, they already decided against helping them.”
“They will help if the Fel’lal are already within the walls. We can’t reject anyone who needs our help and comes through our door, right? So, we’ll lead them to the gate and you’ll let them in.”
Both terror and joy thrilled through her. She had been able to think of nothing but the suffocating Fel’lal since she’d learned of them. She’d woken from dreams of darkness and thirst, of airless cries and falling rocks. But even still, this was not quite how she hoped their rescue would occur.
“Will you do it?” Erol asked.
She knew his answer before she asked for it. “There’s no other way?”
“None. We do this, or they die.”
“Yes,” she replied, trembling.
“Yes, that is their village,” Enyth answered, staring in the direction Lurian had pointed. “Do you speak Fel’lal?”
“Not very well,” he answered, sighing. Enyth was surprised — it was so rare to hear someone sound disappointed about not speaking Fel’lal. This warmed her to him, and she chanced another look at his face, trying not to meet his eyes directly.
“I do,” she continued. “I will ride ahead to ask them, though I am certain they will not say no.”
“Thank you,” the man with darkness in his eyes answered, sincerely. “For everything.”
She coaxed the horse onward, feeling again a little jealous of Rhi and Lurian’s riding skills. She’d only ridden twice before, and neither time alone. She still surprised herself that she could balance, that she could keep from panicking whenever the horse took a step she did not expect. The mare was well-trained, she guessed, since she had no claim to any ability with animals, besides perhaps a fondly missed abbey cat.
“Of all the things,” she mourned aloud, now far enough out of earshot to pick up her habit of talking to herself. “The cat.” But when she thought on it, her grief no longer felt so heavy.
When she arrived at the edge of the camp, an old mate came out to meet her. “Gone at lightrise if it is wanted,” Enyth explained in the sing-song of the Fel’lal. “Not-willing and not-hoping but fearing maybe troubled silence upon you.”
“Not-willing and not-hoping but fearing maybe troubled silence upon you,” had said the eldest Fel’lal through translation.
Erol had managed to lead only six of them back to the cloister. The rest were dead.
She had waited hours by the gate, fearing for them, fearing for Erol particularly. Hours by the gate, waiting first for sunrise and then waiting after, her fear growing, her worry threatening to consume her. And then her fear grew even more when she heard Erol’s agonized voice at the gate.
“Hurry, by Melys, please!” His words had been garbled, his throat raw. She heard blood in his cough.
She had planned to unlock the gate quietly, to sneak the fugitives in through the outer courtyard. She would then bring them through the inner courtyard where they could wait until she and Erol approached the Grandmother with the news of their ploy. But Erol’s tortured cries had woken the others, others who rose from their quiet sleep to the sight of great suffering and great betrayal.
As shocked and angry as they were at the betrayal, no one would refuse solace to the survivors. No one held back their hands from tying tourniquets on limbs they could not save or bandages on which they could. No one stood idly instead of sewing great gashes closed or re-setting bones. And the Grandmother herself, the one from whom Enyth feared the most anger, said nothing as she held her hands against Erol’s open bowels, mending together muscle and gut to undo the brutality of a wyrd-bolt.
Mara and Rhi had also awakened. To Enyth’s wonder, the two were only a little frightened, and they sat by Enyth’s weeping, terrified side to comfort her.
“They seem like nice people,” Mara had assured her, pointing to the wounded miners.
“And they sing when they talk!” Rhi had added, smiling. “What are they singing about?”
Enyth dismounted, as weary of the mare as she imagined the horse was of her. A younger mata took the lead of the horse from her, drawing it willingly amongst the assembled tents where it could rest, while Enyth held her lantern up, high, waving it from left to right twice to signal the Fel’lal’s offer of hospitality.
Enyth waited until she was certain the others were coming, and then walked lightly on the ground. She was happy to be again on her feet, happy to have arrived at her destination, and especially happy to be out of the dark, clambering forest and into the open.
When the others arrived, she helped Rhi lower Katrin from the horse first, letting the wounded woman lean into her. She then gave quick instructions to Rhi and Lurian as to how to carry Rylan so as not to hurt him more.
Lurian left off to sleep soon after they arrived, while Rhi and Enyth sat by the fire a little longer. Enyth had wanted to speak, to give words to her guilt, to apologize, but it was Rhi who spoke first.
“You’ve saved me twice now, Enyth. Thank you.”
Enyth sighed, not bothering to wipe away the tears falling from her eyes.
“But I didn’t save you, Rhi! I left you alone, I left you both alone with all that death, death we’d brought upon you. I ran,” Enyth continued, “I was so terrified, and I told you I’d come back.” The tears burned her eyes, but she didn't wipe them away.
Rhi threw her arms around her. “Oh, Enyth! I thought they killed you, too! They killed everyone, everyone around us. Even the cat — you remember her?”
Enyth had seen the twisted body of the cat floating in the kitchen well when she returned, without Erol, two days later.
She had once foolishly thought the Cloister was sometimes too dull, lacking life with all its quiet prayers and chants and muffled voices. But even the slightest of one of those maddeningly serene sounds would have been as loud as the greatest shout if she could just hear them again.
But she couldn’t. The soldiers had silenced every possible sound, every whisper, every prayer, every stern chiding, and every comforting smile. They had left the flesh and muscle and tendon of her family to the birds and beasts, the blood to the earth and the bones for the dogs to gnaw.
They had come before nightfall, over forty of them, soldiers and a few Enforcers from Galn. They had cared nothing for writ nor for the right of sanctuary. And like the man whose violence had left Enyth near death at the gate of that cloister, they did not ask entry and instead forced themselves in.
Enyth shuddered at the sounds of the screams as the first of them died. She didn’t remember whether it was a Fel’lal miner or a Solacebringer who died first, but it didn’t matter — the men were killing them all.
She ran with the girls, trying to keep her eye out for Erol. He was already wounded and wouldn’t be able to fight back or even run away. Mara and Rhi were in each hand, and she was between them running towards the kitchens and then to the pantry.
“Hide here,” she’d told them, moving sacks of flour around them. They looked back at her, tearful but quiet, trust keeping their fear from overwhelming them.
“I’ll be right back. I have to get Erol. Don’t make any noise, and don’t leave until I come back. You understand? It’s very, very important.”
And then Enyth had run back into the courtyard, trying not to let all the death she saw cripple her legs or courage, nor to let the smell of blood and fear nauseate her.
And then she saw Erol. He’d been crawling towards the side gate, the same gate by which she’d first entered, the same gate at which she’d met Mara and Rhi clutching their toys, their blankets, and each other. He was near it, but he couldn’t stand, couldn’t reach the bar to open it.
Enyth looked. None of the soldiers had noticed him yet, their attention turned instead towards the Grandmother who stood at the front door of the abbey. Enyth couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she didn’t need to. She knew the kind but stern old woman’s soul, knew she would not bend so easily, knew she would not accept death without first chastising those who brought it.
Enyth ran to Erol. He hadn’t seen her — he flinched in fear when he heard her running steps, bracing for death. Enyth could see he was bleeding badly, and that he would die without help.
She opened the gate for him, dragged him through, and then kept dragging him as far as she could to find a place to hide him. He was bleeding a lot, but it was dark enough now that they wouldn’t be able to see the blood smear he’d left until morning. She dragged him a little farther, into the tall meadow where on summer days bees swarmed and drank from the flowers for which the cloister’s honey was so renowned.
“I’ll be back,” she had whispered to him, then turned to run back into the cloister to find the girls.
But the gate was locked. She’d forgotten to prop it open, and as it closed behind her the bar had fallen again, blocking her entrance. She held back an angry scream, then started to run towards the main gate, then stopped. Soldiers stood outside it, laughing with each other, blocking the only way in.
Enyth could have done nothing else. She told herself this then, told herself this every day since, but still didn’t believe it. She’d gone back to Erol, tore off part of her cloak to bind his leg, waiting in the long night with him, listening for an opening of the side gate or silence at the main one. She checked, quietly sneaking as close as she could, but the soldiers never left that night.
Nor did they leave the next day. Helplessness overwhelmed her. It made every part of her soul ache the way the man who’d hurt her had made every part of her body ache. She could only tend to Erol, keep him quiet, keep him alive, knowing all the while that Mara and Rhi were still inside the cloister.
Were they dead or alive? She didn’t know, and she screamed that question in her head all that next day and next night and every night of the past twenty years.
“Rhi...” Enyth said. “I couldn’t get back in. I tried so many times. I was stuck outside, I couldn’t get past the soldiers. I tried so hard, I promise.
“And then they left. I didn’t see them leave. I’d been asleep, and when I woke up everything was quiet. There was no one at the gate, and then I looked through and I didn’t see any soldiers at all, just….”
“Just everyone dead,” Rhi said, nodding.
Enyth shook her head, weeping. “I ran as fast as I could to the kitchens. There were bodies everywhere, and dried blood, and even the cat was dead. They’d killed him, and he was floating in the kitchen well. And….”
Rhi hugged her. “We weren’t there.”
“You weren’t there!” Enyth sobbed, choking on the words. “The pantry door was open, and you weren’t in there! I searched everywhere, every hiding place you two ever had, every place I thought you might have run. I moved bodies, I turned them over in case you were hiding under them. I even tried to search the well in case you’d fallen in.”
“We didn’t die, Enyth.” Rhi’s tears met her own, and Enyth saw also that she was smiling. “We survived. We got out. It’s okay — Enyth, it’s okay.”
The endless guilt that had gnawed for so long at her heart suddenly ebbed away. Mara and Rhi had survived, and Rhi was with her now, somehow, alive.
“But … but how, Rhi? How did you get out?”
Rhi smiled at Enyth, and said only, “Mara.”