Master of restless shado.., p.34
Master of Restless Shadows, page 34
part #1 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
“You need some kindhearted soul to cut that damn thing up for you,” Lord Vediya commented, though he made no move to leave his seat. Instead he propped his feet up on the edge of Narsi’s bed as if it were a footrest. Berto shot Lord Vediya a look of disgust.
Father Timoteo moved to Narsi’s side.
“Would it help you, child? Or are you hoping to improve the dexterity of your left hand?”
“I suppose I ought to use this occasion to do just that,” Narsi replied. “Though I fear I might starve before I see much improvement at this rate.”
“Well, then please allow me.” Father Timoteo took the cutlery from Narsi and quickly stripped the meat from the bone. He returned the silverware to Narsi and then returned to the stool near the bedroom window.
Narsi ate with much greater ease, though it still made for slow going. After he’d finished off the meat and mash, he managed to clasp the cup with both hands and enjoy a few gulps of the tisane.
He didn’t find it odd that Father Timoteo remained quiet and appeared lost in thought as he regarded the garden view outside Narsi’s window. He was a man of contemplation and prone to long periods of quiet between his orations. But the silence between Berto and Lord Vediya was hardly an easy one. Berto glowered like a suspicious guard dog, while Lord Vediya slouched in his chair like a youth bent upon provoking a schoolmaster.
As the silence stretched on Narsi began to wonder why the two of them seemed so intent upon remaining here. Their worry for his welfare made for a flattering motivation. But Narsi doubted it, since neither Lord Vediya nor Berto had insisted upon remaining by his side all the time he’d been unconscious and in the most danger of succumbing to the poison.
Bells sounded from the chapel across the grounds. Lord Vediya scowled and cast Narsi an oddly exasperated glance. Then he swung his long legs down from Narsi’s bed and stood.
“I can see that you aren’t likely to be up to treating my little concern anytime soon, Master Narsi.” Lord Vediya shot Berto a lewd smile as he tapped his fingers over the silver buckle of his low-slung sword belt. “But when you’re back on your feet, do remember to call upon me. Preferably privately. I wouldn’t want to shock the children.” Again he turned his gaze to Berto, who glared back but said nothing. For his part Narsi wondered how Lord Vediya managed to woo so many lovers when he so blithely and constantly implied himself to be riddled with merrypox. He really didn’t seem to give a damn about his reputation or society’s respect.
“I’ll see to the treatments as soon as I can, Lord Vediya,” Narsi replied.
Lord Vediya nodded and then sauntered from the room. A moment later the click of the hallway door sounded and Berto made an obscene gesture at the door.
“Berto!” Father Timoteo shook his head. “Atreau only acts so brashly because he knows that it provokes you. He’s always been a bit of an attention seeker, you know. But there’s never been any real malice behind his incitements, I don’t think. He’s much more of a sensitive soul than he lets on. Wouldn’t you agree, Narsi?”
“Me?” Narsi felt oddly alarmed and guilty being asked his opinion of Lord Vediya’s heart. Perhaps because he knew more than he should have and had come by the knowledge in a manner that would embarrass both himself and Lord Vediya, though for very different reasons. “I’ve really only spent a day with him, but he does seem . . .” Far more politically involved and personally complex than I ever suspected, Narsi thought. Aloud he said, “ . . . sensitive, just as you say. Yes.”
“He rubs me the wrong way. He always has.” Berto scowled at the door, but then some movement outside the window drew his attention and his expression brightened. Narsi looked to see several workmen hauling wheelbarrows brimming with botanicals in heavy pots past the weedy beds of the medicinal garden. Tanned-faced youths sprinted past them with hoes and shovels, while a plump gray-haired woman directed them. Narsi squinted through the warp of the glass panes and decided that the woman had to be Querra. If he listened he could just hear her chiding a young man to be very careful with the dogseye plants.
“Have my botanicals arrived already?” Excitement rose in Narsi’s chest.
“They’ve been showing up all through the day,” Father Timoteo told him. “Mistress Querra has directed the gardeners in uncrating them and preparing the beds, but she didn’t want to presume so much as to take charge of the actual plantings.”
“That’s so good of her.” Narsi took another slug from his cup and set the tray and his cup aside as quickly as he could manage. Then he pushed back his blankets and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. “I should go and thank her. And see that the plants are laid in as soon as possible.”
He managed to stand and even take several steps before the room seemed to tilt under him. All at once his footing failed him and he lurched. Alarm lit Father Timoteo’s expression and Berto bounded to Narsi’s side to support him.
“I’m not sure you should be up yet,” Berto said.
“I suspect it will do me good to move around and work through what lingering numbness remains.” Narsi carefully stretched each of his limbs in turn, testing their stability.
“Or Querra could easily come here to you and give your orders to the gardeners,” Berto suggested.
Narsi shook his head and was pleased to note that it didn’t induce another wave of vertigo. Berto looked to Father Timoteo and, a little to his own annoyance, Narsi found that he did as well—as if they were both still boys, expecting the Holy Father to know what was best in all things.
“Would you advise a patient of yours to leave his bed and go about under the same circumstances?” Father Timoteo asked Narsi.
“If he were young and healthy, yes . . . ,” Narsi replied, but, meeting the Holy Father’s gaze, he faltered. “Though I’d caution him not to go alone and to rest often the first few days. But a walk out to the physic garden is hardly a great distance, and there’s a small stone bench near the fountain where I can sit and oversee the plantings.”
“That sounds reasonable. Let us all three get a little sun and fresh air then.” Father Timoteo nodded and rose to his feet. “I dare say Mistress Querra will be amused by our company just so long as we don’t get underfoot.”
Querra did take their attendance well, though Narsi suspected that was due to her possessing an indulgent and patient nature. She even managed to maintain her pleasant expression in the face of Father Timoteo inquiring after the name and special properties of every single plant specimen, whether it was going into the garden beds or being weeded out. To Narsi’s pleasure Querra informed him of the seasonal shifts of the angle of the sun and how they differed from those in Anacleto. Together they decided which of the raised beds would best suit each of the botanical specimens. Steadily the air filled with the scents of rich soil and bruised mint leaves.
More than once Narsi slipped into speaking his native Haldiim with Querra. They were both more familiar with the Haldiim terms for various plants. As he and Querra discussed which herbs to harvest for the household and which to trade with Mother Kir-Naham, it began to feel almost as if he’d never left Anacleto. It seemed natural to chat about Summer solstice. Narsi was delighted when Querra insisted that he should join her in celebrating with Esfir and Mother Kir-Naham.
Though the curious glances of the surrounding workmen brought him back to his true situation. And then Cadeleonian conversation reasserted itself. Several of the workmen worried over the condition of Narsi’s fountain. Father Timoteo pointed out the little clusters of songbirds that all the digging had attracted. He identified several more from their calls.
Berto remained at Narsi’s side for a time, but then he caught sight of an auburn-haired woman—Mistress Delfia, Narsi realized—escorting two dark-haired children past the garden and excused himself. Narsi felt heartened to see the excitement with which Mistress Delfia greeted his friend.
Narsi leaned back into the cool shadow of the fountain, listening to the conversation a little absently as he admired the display of lustrous leaves, flower buds and young vines. Mere days ago he couldn’t have hoped to afford even half the bounty that spread before him. Now if all went well, in a year’s time he’d be able to distill, harvest and process nearly any medicine he could wish for. All of this was his, now.
Querra waved over two burly gardeners, who joined the three already shoveling bone and blood meal into the dark soil of the only remaining empty plant bed. She paused a moment, frowning, as a gardener wheeled in the three Labaran rose specimens Narsi had paid so much for. She cast a questioning look at Narsi and he averted his gaze, feeling unreasonably guilty. How likely was it that anyone would assume that affection for Lord Vediya had inspired the purchase?
He gazed at the black cat lounging in branches of the overhanging willow while Querra stood over the roses, contemplating the little yellow striped flowers.
Labaran roses didn’t possess the enormous blossoms of the hundred-petal varieties that adorned so many of the duke’s arbors and pots. But even at a distance their perfume filled the air.
“Those are Labaran roses, you realize,” Querra commented.
“Yes, a groundsman at the Royal’s Physic Garden assured me that they are very winter hardy and produce the finest of distillates.”
“That is all true.” Querra tucked a lock of graying hair that had come loose from her matron’s braids back behind her ear. “But Labara is not so popular a place just now.”
“The flowers are hardly to blame,” Narsi responded. It surprised him to see Father Timoteo too contemplated the fragrant small blossoms with a troubled expression.
“Nor is the color red,” Querra replied quietly. “But there are still more than a few idiots going around the city hurling shit and calling folk traitors for wearing Count Radulf’s color.”
Narsi almost argued, but then he remembered that the only Cadeleonian whom he could recall wearing red had been Inissa—but even that had been a ploy. Were all citizens of the capital really that opposed to Count Radulf, or was it simply easier for most of them to give up wearing red and avoid the wrath of a few outspoken bullies?
“I’m not going to kill my roses for fear of some shortsighted bigots,” Narsi replied.
“And rightly so,” Querra responded. “They’re wonderful flowers. But maybe we should plant them nearer your window and farther from the wall where all and sundry passing by will see them.”
Narsi considered the proposition, feeling annoyed and uneasy with the thought of having to take some imagined idiots’ hateful reactions into consideration. But he was already an outsider to most of the surrounding Cadeleonians. It would be foolish for him to flaunt a Labaran affiliation when he’d been warned against it, and—the memory came back to him again—he’d actually assisted Lady Hylanya to evade the royal bishop’s men. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything to hide, he realized.
And he liked the idea of being able to smell the roses from his bedroom window.
“All right, let’s plant them back away from the wall,” Narsi agreed. Querra nodded and then offered Narsi a sympathetic smile. He suddenly realized that she, too, had to weigh the risks she took by simply speaking Haldiim to him.
“Who would have imagined that foreign politics would dictate my garden layout?” Narsi commented.
“Count Radulf’s actions have had a greater effect than even he can likely imagine.” Father Timoteo’s gaze drifted up to the bright blue sky overhead. “Between the count freeing so many banished monsters in the northlands and the Bahiim waking Anacleto’s White Tree in the south, many Cadeleonians have come to see themselves as surrounded by growing threats of heathenism and witchcraft. Monsters and demons at our gates.”
Narsi found the idea of the holy White Tree being demonic or threatening to anyone absurd. It was a source of blessings and offered protection and respite. Though recalling how eerie he’d found the Circle of Wisteria, he had to acknowledge that not every aspect of Bahiim mysticism was innocuous and nurturing. The Bahiim had once been a warrior sect who battled demons and Old Gods. Even so, Bahiim beliefs represented no threat to Cadeleonian lives.
As for Count Radulf, Narsi knew little of the man personally, but Lord Vediya’s book had not depicted the trolls, frogwives and weathra-steads he liberated as monsters, but as creatures kept too long in bondage. Obviously Lord Vediya’s memoir being banned and burned deprived all but a small population of Haldiim readers in Anacleto of that knowledge.
Narsi wondered if that might have been the very reason that the royal bishop had condemned the book.
“Fear can make some people violent and cruel.” Father Timoteo sighed. “It blinds them to beauty and allows them to see new things as threatening.”
“But not all people,” Narsi said.
“No, not all, but men like you and women like Mistress Querra are more rare than I think either of you imagine.” Timoteo offered them both a slight smile before returning to his contemplation of the heavens. “If I’m honest, I must confess that uncertainty frightens me as well, some days. But I’ve seen where giving in to imagined threats can lead. No, as a man of faith, I must believe that these new happenings are part of our Lord’s plan. It may take time, but we will find the divine within the strange. We will be all the stronger for accepting both the wonder of the White Tree in Anacleto and the awakened ancients of the northlands. We will learn from them, and they from us.”
Timoteo seemed unaware that his words had caught the attention not just of Querra and Narsi but also of the surrounding workmen and gardeners.
“But they’re heathens, father,” a young gardener with a sunburned nose and shaggy brown hair objected. Other men stilled in their work, clearly waiting for Father Timoteo’s response.
“Yes, they are.” Timoteo smiled in that indulgent way that Narsi remembered so well from his boyhood. “But then again, aren’t we heathens from their perspective?”
Not unsurprisingly, the young man and most of the other workers looked confused. Querra sighed and Narsi suspected that she’d already heard Timoteo’s thoughts on the subject. Narsi made himself comfortable. Once Father Timoteo got going, these discussions could range on for a long while.
“No church, religion or holy book is without error,” Father Timoteo said. “Not even our own. Why, only a few years ago the most blessed royal bishop failed to notice that Fedeles Quemanor had been possessed, despite Fedeles standing before him. It required the intervention of a heathen Bahiim to see the truth. Such failings are not rare, though men in power often try to hide them. Throughout our history ordinances have been withdrawn and holy texts altered to remove false predictions and outright mistakes. But if we consider that these writings are supposed to originate directly from our all-knowing, all-seeing divine Lord, then that presents a problem.”
Timoteo paused, but no one spoke in the quiet. Narsi had no doubt that the Holy Father held the rapt attention of the devout workmen surrounding him.
“Either we must accept that our Holy Lord has made numerous errors and does not even know the true size of the very ocean he created, or we must recognize that our understanding of our Lord is imperfect. Now, I don’t see the wonders of the world around us as the creations of an inept deity, do you?”
Narsi briefly entertained the thought of a religious order that did worship a bungling, clumsy god. He smiled and cracked his eye open briefly to see all of the groundsmen shake their heads. Several of them sat on the stonework of the raised beds with their tools in their hands, while a few others leaned on their shovels as if they were staffs.
Narsi closed his eyes again, and the sunlight shining through the willow branches played across his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his skin. The fountain at his back murmured soothingly, like a slow-flowing brook.
“It’s not hard to accept that we—not our Lord—are the source of errors and misunderstandings in our holy texts and teachings,” Father Timoteo went on in that low, assured tone of his. “It only follows that being flawed, mortal creatures, we cannot perfectly comprehend the divine. We understand a little of his instruction; we see glimpses of him in the world around us and in each other. But we cannot grasp the whole and so we have only fragments of truth. But then what do we make of other religions and peoples?
“We know that when our Lord created us all, he imparted instructions to us. If we recognize that we misunderstood some of those instructions, then no doubt so have other peoples—likely that is why we have many different beliefs across the world instead of only one. At the same time, we ought to recognize that as we have grasped some divine truths despite the confusion, then other people must have as well.”
Narsi didn’t bolt upright, but only because he was still recovering from poisoning. He met Querra’s wide-eyed stare with his own. Clearly this was not an opinion either of them had heard Father Timoteo voice aloud before. Seated beside Narsi, Father Timoteo appeared so serene that it seemed almost impossible to believe how near heresy his words brought him. And the Holy Father just kept talking.
“If that is the case, then every religion and every people possesses some aspect of true holiness. It would be up to us not to reject heathens but to look into their ways for those jewels of our Lord’s whole wisdom that we have lost.”
“Like fitting together pieces of a broken crock from shards scattered all across a floor? Is that how you mean?” a leathery, middle-aged gardener asked.
“Yes. Exactly,” Father Timoteo replied. “I think that all the peoples of all nations are in possession of parts of a whole, and if we wish to know and serve our Lord, we must seek those pieces out by exchanging ideas and teachings.”
To Narsi’s surprise, the men gathered around Father Timoteo didn’t outrightly reject his suggestion. Some appeared skeptical, but most wore almost dazed expressions, as if the Holy Father had performed some magic trick that they still struggled to comprehend. The young sunburned man appeared troubled. At last he spoke in a nervous whisper.
