Articles of Faith

‘So,’ said the guardsman after a respectable number of chews, ‘you’ve been enjoying festival week?’ Chel only chewed. He could feel the food restoring him. ‘Partial to a bit of brandy myself, as it happens. I was a young man once: every night defiance, every morning … regret …’ Chel nodded along, half listening to Heali’s words, until his platter was empty.

Hanging behind the oven was a wooden mask, taller than a man’s head, carved with intricate detail and inlaid with a silvery metal. Its expression was unfriendly. Chel stared at it.

‘What is that?’

‘Battle-mask,’ said a voice beside him. He turned to see a child looking back with wide, dark eyes. Imust be hungover, he thought. That’s the third person to get the drop on me this morning.

‘A battle-mask?’

‘My father was a famous warrior in our home. He has many masks.’ The tone was even, the gaze level.

Chel shot a look at the wiry little man, as the girl started clearing plates. He was scrubbing the inside of the oven with something. ‘He doesn’t look like a famous warrior,’ he said.

‘That is why he would have killed you.’

Chel’s eyebrows climbed. ‘That a fact?’

The girl nodded, her contemptuous expression not far off the mask’s. Chel squinted; he could see faded paint on it, yellow and maybe blue. ‘The champions of the cantons were given masks if they won a great battle or defeated another champion in a duel. My father has six masks.’

‘Cantons?’ Chel blinked. ‘You’re Norts?’

She nodded, but her eyes flickered in disapproval at the term. ‘Iokara.’

‘I didn’t think any Norts ever crossed the sea.’

‘Then you should feel shame at your ignorance.’ With that she turned and marched away, platters in hand, leaving Chel gawping in her wake. She reminded him strongly of his sister Sabina.

Heali was chuckling. ‘Feisty lass, eh? His boy will be around here somewhere. He’s even less forgiving.’ He laughed again, and Chel’s cheek twitched. ‘Didn’t think Norts crossed the sea. Not been around long, have you? How could you not know a mask? Everyone knows Norts fight in masks.’

‘That’s not what she … ah, forget it,’ Chel sighed. His hangover had faded but his shoulder still ached. He looked back at the little man, who was running a sharp-stone over a gleaming steel carving-blade. He didn’t let his gaze linger.

Heali was talking again, but Chel let the words wash over him. For the first time that morning, he felt vaguely human, and his eyes wandered over the spread of the lowport below, its ceaseless flurry. They had a good view down into the plaza from the rooftop. One of the preachers had attracted quite a crowd, although her proclamations were inaudible over the general clamour.

‘… close chums, goes the word, but is theirs a harmonious affection? A bond of equals, or pals for the proles, as my old cousin would say? You’ve been with the good lord some time now, I’d wager, and …’ Chel was half listening again, his attention drawn to something disturbing the crowds on the plaza’s far side, perhaps a wagon trying to move through. People were definitely trying to get out of the way of something.

‘… perhaps handle some of his correspondence?’ Heali went on. ‘See, there’s always dissent, especially around a man with a title like the grand duke. Question is, should matters come to a head, which way would your liege be leaning? Now, Master Chel, as a young man who likes a nip, perhaps you’d—’

Movement on a rooftop overlooking the plaza caught Chel’s eye.

‘Sweet merciful Shepherd, it’s that pig-fucking beggar! The one that tripped me on the wall. There, on that roof!’

He was off and running before Heali could stop him, pelting away and down the steep steps back to the lowport, chair tumbling in his wake. The shamble of rags had been unmistakable, the stick, the cloud of ash. He tore into the human press at the foot of the path, one eye on the rooftop on the far side of the plaza. The beggar couldn’t have seen him, not from there, and even if he had, how fast could a shuffling old bastard leaning on a stick go?

The human tide at the plaza’s edge seemed suddenly against him, as if the square were trying to empty itself in one go. Chel fought to get past, his eyes locked on the roof-line above, then with a curse changed tack. He rolled around the flood of traffic and into a side-alley, in dingy shade from the angled sun. Unimpeded at last, he drove his tired legs forward. The alley bent around toward the back of the plaza, and from there he’d have a direct line toward the crumbling rooftop where he’d seen the beggar. He just needed to find steps or a ladder, or—

Gaze still fixed on the bright sky overhead as he rounded the bend at full speed, he didn’t see the figures in the alley’s gloom. He crashed into them, sending one tumbling, crunching into dirt himself for the second time that morning. At least the robed man beneath him cushioned his fall. He was mumbling the world’s fastest apology, already looking around for his target roof, when his cushion’s companion whimpered, a small, pitiful sound in the claustrophobic stillness.

Eyes adjusting to the alley’s shade, Chel looked from one to the other. The man he’d downed was back on his feet, clad in a dark, stained robe, a short, thick stick in his hand and a snarl on his face. Huddled against the far wall was the whimperer, a wild-haired woman, her face mud- and blood-darkened.

Chel swallowed, shifting back toward the pair. ‘What’s going on?’

The man’s snarl widened. His head was shaved but for a dark tuft at its crest. Chel had seen hair like that around the port and assumed it was a fashion of sorts. ‘Church business. Fuck off.’

‘What kind of church business involves beating a woman in an alley?’

‘The kind you don’t get involved in.’

Chel set his jaw. He felt the fluttery canter of his heartbeat against his ribcage. ‘I’m from the palace. I won’t let you hurt her.’

The man’s snarl became a grim smile. ‘That, boy, would be a matter of opinion.’ Chel braced for his swing, but instead the man bared his teeth and whistled through a dark gap at their centre. Chel heard the approaching thud of footsteps from the distant alley-mouth, the rhythmic jingling. He turned to see two more robed figures advancing, heads shaved but for the tuft, sticks in hand. They passed through a musty shaft of morning light and their robes glowed a deep red, their steel necklaces gleaming.

Chel rubbed at his thudding temple. ‘Oh, shit.’

***

The three robed men marched Chel and the bleeding woman out of the alley and shoved them into the sudden bright emptiness of the plaza, the sun’s glare harsh against the whitewashed stone. Chel kept his feet, the woman collapsed to the dust beside him. She was draped in filthy rags, her visible skin scarred and blotchy, odd pale welts curled down her arms like vines.

‘Shepherd’s mercy, what is it now?’

A figure strode into view from behind a dark-wood cart that stood at the plaza’s rough centre, its sides and rear caged with iron. She was slight and sharp-featured, her silver hair cropped close to the skull, and was swathed in robes of white and rich vermilion. A long, hook-headed staff tapped the stones in time with her steps. Chel recognized her immediately. He’d seen her at the winter palace, being treated by the servants with a deference that bordered on fear: Sister Vashenda of the Order of the Rose. No wonder the plaza had emptied so fast. Chel grimaced. A set-to with the Church on a hangover was about as far away from ideal as anything he could imagine.

‘One of the heretics, Sister,’ one of the tufts grunted. ‘Fell short on her repentance.’

A sigh. ‘And the other?’

‘Interfered. Says he’s from the palace.’

Her head tilted. ‘Does he now?’ She waved her free hand, urgent, exasperated. ‘Go, find the rest, get them to the croft. Clean this place up.’

The tufts departed, leaving Chel and the two women in the otherwise empty plaza, except for the cart. From the look of it, there were people inside, peering gloom-eyed from behind the cage bars. Chel swallowed.

Sister Vashenda was staring directly at him. ‘Brother Hurkel,’ she called toward the cart. ‘Would you join us, please?’

The cart moved, shifting on its axle, then settled as its front lowered to the ground. The hulking figure that lumbered into view was clad in a rust-coloured tunic, a milk-skinned beast of a man with a shock of blond hair crowning a too-small head the colour of beetroot. An intricate steel necklace jangled at his beefy chest, and at his belt his stubby fingers rested on a short, heavy ball mace. Its head was stained dark.

‘Yes, Sister?’ the giant rumbled.

‘Brother Hurkel, do you know this young man? He claims to be from the palace.’

‘I do not, Sister. Perhaps he has hit his head. Perhaps he wishes to.’

Chel stood his ground. A sickly fire burned anew in his innards. ‘I’m a sworn man in the service of a lord under the grand duke’s aegis. I’m protected as his guest and servant.’

The sister walked toward him, her face curious, as if he were the most interesting turd she’d stepped in that day. She looked him up and down. Behind her, Hurkel had advanced, drowning them in his shadow. ‘Do I know you, sand-flower?’ Vashenda asked, eyes narrowed. ‘Are you Sokol’s brood?’

‘By marriage, not blood,’ he snapped, then cursed himself.

She offered a smile that contained not a jot of amity. Her teeth were so white. ‘Between chosen people, a word of advice, perhaps?’ She stepped close, a silver flower gleaming at her chest, bright in his eyes. ‘Sand-flower or not, a lucky traveller keeps from the Rose’s path,’ she whispered, then clacked her teeth so hard in his ear he shied away, certain she’d bitten off his earlobe.