Chapter XXII The Most Esteemed Surgeon #2
The Seraphine were not immortal and certainly not immune to disease, though the close pulse of Seraph’s power extended the length of their lives. The Dogaressa herself was two hundred. She had seen the erection of the winged lion statue and watched it turn mossy and green with time.
“Perhaps so,” said Liuprand.
The prince stood in the doorway of the chapel.
From behind his large body, light streamed in, the only light that could repress the darkness of the chamber, chasing the shadows to the farthest corners and the highest vaults of the ceiling.
Not a single candle flickered against this immense blackness.
They all had been extinguished and burned down to their ends, leaving only a waxy film behind, which dripped off the altar in frozen suspension like icicles on eaves.
“I have no further wisdom to give,” said the Most Esteemed Surgeon. “He is dead. A tragedy, I suppose, if I did not believe he had long been vainly awaiting his ascent to heaven.”
The prince’s eyes narrowed. He was truly a beautiful man; the most virile and refined blood of Seraph. Along with his new bride, they made quite an appealing pair, if one could suppress prejudice against the native people of the island.
“I do not need your wisdom in this matter,” Liuprand said. “I merely wish to know whether you advise performing the desecration.”
Surprise jerked his head upward. The Most Esteemed Surgeon glanced askew at Truss and Mordaunt. Though they knew better than to speak, a single look shared between them communicated their shock. And Ninian’s brow furrowed, her hand still pressed over her mouth.
“He is Seraphine,” the Most Esteemed Surgeon said at last. “The last holy man who remained on this heathen island. You would subject him to such ignominy, as no such Seraphine has been subjected before? The bones of your mother and grandmothers and grandfathers were returned to Seraph and buried there beneath the earth.”
“Death is an inherent state of ignominy. He perished on Drepane. His corpse should be dealt with according to the articles of the Covenant.”
The Most Esteemed Surgeon scoffed. “Surely you cannot mean that. He is not some idolatrous serf. His teeth are holy instruments. His eyes stared deep into the blue lagoon. His lungs inhaled the Dogaressa’s perfume.
His heart beat with love for his true home across the sea.
His bones are the apparatus of God. And his blood sings the divine song. ”
“Sang,” the prince said flatly. “And all that may be true, but it does not exempt him from Drepane’s customs. For nearly a century, he lived on this island. That is cause to wonder what, truly, is the nature of home.”
“You tread close to heresy.” The Most Esteemed Surgeon puffed out his chest. “Nicephorus will not live to be an old man. That much we all know. Is this the sort of king you wish to be?”
“I will be no king at all if I do not abide by the laws of my own ancestor’s invention.”
“Careful,” the Most Esteemed Surgeon warned. “Berengar was a conqueror. He was not a god.”
“Yet he created the laws of this land. He built a castle where there was nothing but dirt and stone. Perhaps this is cause to wonder what, truly, is the nature of a god.”
The lightness of the prince’s tone belied the ferocious blasphemy of his words.
“Stop,” the Most Esteemed Surgeon said. He shook himself all over, as though he were a damp dog. “I shall hear no more of this.”
“Very well. But you will perform the desecration nonetheless. It is my decree as prince.”
The Most Esteemed Surgeon drew a breath.
At his back, the darkness shuddered and bloomed, threatening to engulf him.
The light filtering in from the corridor now seemed dubious, unfaithful.
It would only take Liuprand stepping away and letting the door close behind him to plunge them all into irrepressible blackness.
This prince who looked in all respects an ethereal child of Seraph yet, with every word, strove to make himself an apostate.
Was it the princess, that Mistress of Teeth?
Had she seduced him into this heathen conduct?
The true lover believes only that which he thinks will please his beloved.
The Most Esteemed Surgeon shuddered. Perhaps he, too, had been too ensorcelled by her beauty; perhaps her comely face hid her poisonous heart.
Perhaps their marriage was no more than the union between a dead tree and the rot that consumes it.
Perhaps there could not ever be true love between a Seraphine and a native of Drepane.
“Your earthly decree.” The Most Esteemed Surgeon spoke slowly, so that every syllable fell from his mouth like a hard fat raindrop. “It spits in the face of God.”
“Then let God try to prevent me,” Liuprand said.
And then he was gone. He did not leave them all in darkness; the Most Esteemed Surgeon almost wished that he had, for it would have made it easier to loathe the prince—this arrogant, impious prince, who might yet be the ruin of his line.
Rather, he propped the door open so that light still drained into the seething black chapel, but it seemed diminished now, a watery light, closer to gray than to gold, as if the prince had taken some of the luminance with him.
The Most Esteemed Surgeon stood with great stillness for a moment, half bathed in the prince’s discarded light.
A thin bile pervaded his stomach and then rose up to his throat, so that when he spoke, each word was touched with poison—renewed as he was in his revulsion for these islanders.
And yet—he sounded more weary than hateful in the end.
“Take the body to the pit,” he said, nodding toward Truss. Then, tipping his chin at Mordaunt, he said, “And let me not lay eyes on this girl again.”