Fires of the Faithful (18 page)

I woke with a start; the night was chill and very quiet. I had been dreaming about the boy from the common room; I’d been furious at him, and he’d been shouting that
he
was the one in charge, not me. I shivered, and then realized that the bed was cold because it was empty. Giula was gone.

She’s probably just gone to use the outhouse
, I thought, and tried to go back to sleep. I closed my eyes, but my nervousness increased.
How could she get into trouble going to the outhouse? This is ridiculous
. I swung my legs out of
bed and sat up with a groan. Giula was going to laugh at me. Still …

Her boots were gone, but everything else was still here, implying that I’d guessed her intentions correctly. I left my boots off, closed the door behind me as quietly as I could, and tiptoed down the stairs.

I could see firelight under the common room door, and I could hear voices. I pressed my ear against the door.

“She’s a
spy
, Cilo.”

“Don’t be so hasty.”

“Don’t be a
fool
. Look at her!” Boots stomped across the floor, and I heard a smack and a shriek. “We know you’re from the Fedeli. Tell us what you heard!” the voice shouted.

That was enough. I slammed the door open. “Leave her alone!” I shouted.

Five men turned. Giula collapsed against the wall, crying. “Eliana! Oh thank the Lady. Eliana, they’ve been shouting at me, and they won’t believe me, and they say I’m a spy and you are too, and, and, and—”

The boy who’d glared at me during dinner stood over Giula, his hand raised to hit her again. I strode straight to him. Even barefoot, I was slightly taller than he was; I drew myself up to my full height to stare him down. “
You
. I don’t know what
your
problem is, but you clearly decided we were spies the moment you laid eyes on us. I don’t know who the hell you are or
what
you think you’re doing that would be worth spying on, but if you can spot a spy from across a crowded room, the Fedeli could certainly use
your
talents.” I turned away from him and knelt next to Giula, trying to reassure her.

“You see, Cilo?” The violet-eyed boy turned furiously to the older man. “I was
right
.”

I lifted Giula up, one hand around her waist. “If I
were
one of the Fedeli,” I snapped, “I’d have you drawn and quartered by my men-at-arms for hitting my friend.
Bastardo
.”

One of the men, not Cilo, blocked the door.

“We’re not spies,” I said. Across the room, I could see a loaf of bread and a carafe of wine on the table, and on impulse, I flipped Bella’s cross out from under my dress. The man who had blocked our way stared at it for a moment, then slowly moved aside. “Can we go now, please?” I asked.

“That proves nothing,” the young man shouted.

Cilo turned on him and said mildly, “It explains why the girl was listening to us, does it not, Giovanni?” He turned back to us and bowed slightly. “Go in peace. We apologize.”

Giula’s cheek was flaming red where the boy had slapped her. She continued crying as I helped her up the stairs and back to our room. “What happened?” I asked as I barred our door.

“I went to the outhouse,” she whimpered. “On my way there, I heard music—singing. Old Way music. So I stopped to listen. Then they opened the door and dragged me in. The boy who was glaring at us, he wouldn’t stop yelling. I told him I wasn’t a spy but he didn’t believe me—” her voice went quivery and she sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I’m so glad you came.”

I helped her sit down on the edge of the bed, but she didn’t take off her boots. “I still have to go to the outhouse,” she said, looking up at me pathetically.

I escorted her back downstairs. The common room was empty and silent as we passed. We slipped out the back door; I was still barefoot, so I waited in the doorway while she ducked into the outhouse. As I waited, I heard someone behind me. It was the boy with violet eyes—Giovanni.
“May we have your permission to relieve ourselves,
signore
?” I whispered.

“
You
were never going to the outhouse,” he said.

“You’re right,” I said. “I came looking for my friend. Now would you be so kind as to go
away
, so that she doesn’t start crying again when she comes out of the privy and sees you?”

“I’m sorry your friend is such a fragile little flower—” he said.

“You
hit
her,” I said, furious. “You decided we were spies because we were strangers. It never crossed your mind that we might just be
strangers
, trying to get home to our families. Spies for the Fedeli! Unbelievable. Now go
away
,” I said again, because the outhouse door was starting to open.

With a final muttered insult, Giovanni slipped away, and was out of sight when Giula padded up the stone walk. “Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s get back to bed.”

The next morning, I walked Giula to the south gate. “Do you think you can make this last bit on your own?” I asked. She nodded. Giula’s family lived only a day or two south of Pluma, and another five miles east of the main road—the war really had gone right past them. Giula was still shaken from the confrontation in the night, but once she was out of the city, I was fairly certain she’d be all right. I gave her a long hug.

Giula sniffled. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” she said.

“Soon,” I said. “We’re friends. We’ll find each other.”

Giula hesitated for a long moment, and I smiled at her encouragingly. “Bye,” she said finally, and walked away down the road. I watched her go for a few minutes. She did not turn to look back. After a while, I turned east.

I knew it should be faster to go through the city, but I’d
have to find my way through the streets. I decided to just walk the extra distance around the edge.

As had happened when I approached the city, I smelled the refugee camp before I saw it. Gusts of wind brought the smell of death as I circled the last of the wall. I hesitated, but the road east led directly through the encampment. There was no way to go but through.

Giula had turned away from the boy begging for food yesterday, but there was nowhere to look here that was “away.” Filthy children with huge hungry eyes swarmed around me as I walked through the camp; I could feed one or two, but how could I feed all of them? There were hundreds—no, thousands of people here.

As I’d noticed the previous evening, the tents were toward the city wall. As I moved outward, it grew worse. There were people dying, fevered and alone. There were people too weakened by hunger to move, who stared at me as I passed, arms wrapped around bony legs.

There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do. After what seemed like a thousand years of walking, I passed the last sprawling bodies, and walked out into open fields.

•  •  •

The road was quiet without Giula, but I made better time. By the end of the day, I’d covered half again as much road as I would have with Giula. I tried not to think about how much my feet hurt; once I was home, I’d be able to rest.

Heading south and west, I passed through territory that had seen battle. This wasn’t truly famine area; crops were stunted and shrunken, but they were at least growing. Some of the farms I saw were clearly abandoned—many had been destroyed during the war, and had caved-in roofs and burned-out barns.

Even in the worst areas, the land was returning to life. It was only early spring, but weeds and grasses grew knee-high in the abandoned fields, and honeysuckle worked its way through the fallen stones of the empty houses. There were no trees here, though, just a few stunted shrubs. I passed what had once been an olive grove; every tree was twisted and black, burnt skeletons frozen in place, arms raised in surrender.

I spent the first two nights in abandoned farmhouses, but came to an inhabited farm on the third evening and knocked on the door. The woman who answered was young, not much older than myself, and carried an infant. “Good evening, signora,” I said. “I’m traveling to my family’s home in Doratura and I need a place to stay. Can you provide me with hospitality?”

“Come in,” she said, stepping out of the doorway. “You’re welcome to stay with us. My name is Herennia.”

The cottage was small, but clean. I put my packs by the door and sat down at the table. Herennia balanced the baby on her hip as she added a bit more water to the soup and then poured me a cup of wine.

“My husband, Metello, will be back soon,” she said, sitting down across from me. “Where are you coming from?”

I told her I’d been at a conservatory and described my travels. Herennia listened with interest, rocking the baby. “We came here last summer,” she said. “The farm was abandoned, and no one seemed to expect that the family that had lived here would come back. The neighbors didn’t mind if we settled here, so we did.”

“Are things very bad where you came from?” I asked.

“Terrible.” Herennia didn’t elaborate. “We were very surprised that anyone would leave this farm. We got some planting in, late last summer. I hadn’t had the baby yet
then. We grew just enough to last us through the winter. They say the plants here are stunted, smaller than they should be, but …” She shrugged. The baby took a handful of her sleeve and stuffed it into its mouth. She pulled the sleeve away gently and leaned across the table toward me. “We’ve heard recently that people in the famine areas aren’t being allowed to leave.” Her voice was tinged with horror. “We heard soldiers were sent to keep them from leaving.”

The baby grabbed again, at something around Herennia’s neck, and I realized that he’d grabbed a tiny wooden cross on a ribbon. Herennia followed my shocked gaze and her smile tightened. She started to turn away, to tuck it back under her dress.

“Wait,” I said, catching her arm. “I’m just surprised. With the Fedeli in Verdia—aren’t you afraid?”

Herennia didn’t reply; her fist closed over the cross. I stared at her rigid face, floundering for something I could say that would make her trust me.

“At the conservatory,” I said, “we always played Old Way music—secretly. Then the Fedeli came last winter. One of my closest friends had become Redentore; they killed her when she refused to renounce her faith.”

Herennia’s face softened, but she still said nothing.

I pulled out Bella’s cross. “This was Bella’s. I’ve worn it since she died.”

Herennia raised her eyebrows. “That was foolish of you,” she said. “The Fedeli could have seen it.”

“But you wear one,” I said. “Haven’t the Fedeli come here?”

Herennia bent her head briefly to her baby, then looked up at me again, and I could see that she’d decided to trust me. “The Fedeli don’t come this far south.”

“How can you be sure? Maybe they just haven’t come yet.”

“They won’t,” Herennia said. “There are too many of us here. They’re frightened of us, and they’re frightened of the famine. They won’t go past Pluma.” She touched Bella’s cross gently. “You can wear that openly here,” she said. “Don’t be afraid.”

I nodded and touched the cross uncertainly. It felt very strange not to have it tucked under my robe.

“Do you know what this means?” she asked, seriously.

I shook my head. “Another one of my friends—” I couldn’t say Mira’s name. “She got several of us to play the songs together. Bella actually became Redentore, but the rest of us just played the music. It’s beautiful.”

Herennia’s smile warmed. “It is, isn’t it? Do you know any of the dances?”

“Dances?” I said, then remembered the group I’d spied on in Bosco. “No.”

“Do you know the creed?”

I shook my head.

“Have you been sealed?”

I shook my head again.

The door swung open, and without meaning to I clapped my hand to my chest to hide the cross. It was Metello, Herennia’s husband. “Metello, this is Eliana,” Herennia said. “She is one of us.”

“Evening, signora,” Metello said with a slight bow. “Glad to have you here.”

They said a prayer before dinner; I bowed my head when they did and crossed myself as they finished. Herennia passed the baby to Metello for a while, so that she could eat, then took him back so that Metello could eat some more. The soup was thin; I would be hungry later.

“Why did you leave your conservatory?” Herennia asked. “Shouldn’t you be going to join an orchestra?”

I shook my head, bending my head over my soup to stall for a moment. I didn’t want to tell her the lie I’d been using, that I’d been caught with a boy. For one thing, I liked Herennia and her husband, and for another, I wasn’t sure she’d believe me. But I really didn’t want to tell the whole story about Mira, and what she turned out to be. “I found out that magefire caused the famine,” I said, and looked up from my soup, to see how they reacted.

The baby was squirming; Herennia offered him her breast, stroking his soft dark hair as he nursed. Metello had looked up sharply at my words. “So the Lady’s Gift
is
poison,” he said.

“Yes.” I looked back down at my soup. “I’d always hoped to play with an orchestra in Cuore, but after I found out about magefire—I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Circle. So I left.”

“Let’s hear you play,” Metello said, so I finished my soup and tuned up my violin. I played one of the ballads I’d learned with Mira, to warm up, and then played the music for the Redentore healing prayer. The fire had burned down, leaving the room deeply shadowed; I couldn’t see Herennia’s reaction to my playing, or Metello’s.

When I finished, they were silent for a moment, Herennia rocking the baby. Then Herennia said, “God is with you, Eliana, even if you don’t know it.” Her voice was distinct in the darkness, and I wasn’t sure if she meant to reassure me or to frighten me.

Metello was gone when I got up in the morning; Herennia gave me a small bowl of porridge for breakfast, then said, “Wait a while. There’s something that must be done before you go on.”

We sat on the doorstep of the house, in the sunshine,
Herennia’s baby in her lap. Her cat sauntered over and rubbed against my leg; I picked it up and it purred vigorously, butting its head against my chin. The morning sun dazzled my eyes. Staring across Herennia and Metello’s fields, I could almost see my own mother striding along the path, a basket over her arm and a jug of water balanced on one hip. Normally she would bring out a snack of bread and cheese in midmorning to whoever was working in the fields, but one day when we were planting, the basket contained bread and cheese and a kitten. One of the cats had had kittens a few weeks earlier, and my mother had finally found them, and she’d brought one out to the fields for us to play with. Donato had set the kitten on his shoulder; it had squeaked a protest and tightened its claws, but Donato had just laughed, gently detached it, and handed it to me.