Chapter 13 Csilla #3
A young man in a dark coat beckoned to Mihály from across the room, and Mihály raised his hand in an answering wave.
‘Another admirer?’ Csilla asked, grateful for the distraction. Her questions had dragged a gloomy cloud over what was already an awkward meal.
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘No. Why don’t you go talk to him.’ She pushed away from the table and stood. She didn’t belong here. She wanted to think. To be alone. ‘You can ask them if they know anything. I’d rather just go . . .’
There was no home. There was a Church who didn’t want her and a fine and draughty house she didn’t know.
‘I’ll go with you, then.’ A desperation had lit in his eyes, and she flinched.
‘I’m just tired. I’m not running away. This has been a lot for me.’ Her eyes dropped at the intensity of his expression. No one had ever cared that much about where she was. ‘Please, stay and enjoy yourself. I’m sure you’ll have more fun if I’m not here falling asleep into my soup.’
He studied her for a moment, then nodded.
‘Here.’ He fished coins out of his pocket. ‘Take a cab. Any of them will know the Varga house.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, though her first instinct was to refuse. Her feet had always served her well.
But when she stepped into the night, the idea of the claustrophobia of the little box cabs set her head pounding.
She could wait out here. It wasn’t too bad – except her hands were cold. He’d forgotten to buy her the gloves he’d promised. Impatient horses pawed at the cobblestones, every breath frosted.
Through the windows she could see Mihály, who had moved to watch her, morose and betrayed as he sipped. Maybe he really did want her company, and she was the one being petty by choosing to sit alone where he could still see.
His own fault for wanting to spend the evening on dining or cards or smoking or any of the things that weren’t quite sin, but were still ill-advised. There were plenty of people approaching him; it was hardly like he would spend the evening lacking companionship.
‘Are you waiting for a ride, miss?’ a coachwoman called. ‘Do you need me to get something? It’s easy to freeze after drinking.’
She could protest that she hadn’t been drinking, at least not enough to matter.
But she should be kind and at least move out of Mihály’s line of sight and let him get on with more pleasant things than sulking.
She climbed up into the covered cart with a final, guilty glance over her shoulder and a wave he didn’t return.
The coachwoman opened the top hatch. ‘Where to, miss?’
‘Could we just . . . ride around a bit?’ The only thing waiting for her at the house would be Madame Varga’s pointed questions.
‘It’s your money.’ The woman accepted the coins with a dark-gloved hand.
The clack of the horse’s hooves created a pleasing rhythm, and she stared at the black ceiling of the cab, dozing and coming to over and over in exhaustion.
The reflection out of the corner of her eye was depressing – a young woman, brown hair mussed, sprawled in the back of a cart that was both too much and not enough like a confessional booth, wasting money by the hoof beat. And that’s you.
She’d barely left the safety of the Church, and now this.
Mihály was right – they had no plan. It was easier to think without him hovering, no unexpected touches or offhandedly flirtatious remarks to derail her thoughts.
They’d start by asking the kin of the victims for any details that may have been missed by the Church, and perhaps Mihály could send word to scholars more willing to help.
Surely he still had some well-connected friends despite the expulsion.
She stood, jostling at the bounce of wheel on stone, and opened the top door again.
‘Can I ask you something?’
The woman pulled the horse to a stop. ‘Ready to give me a destination, miss? Your fare is running out, and I’ll have plenty of others clamouring for a ride soon enough. There’s a curfew set, you know.’
Csilla gave an apologetic shake of her head that the woman couldn’t see. ‘I just . . . I imagine you see a lot of the city. You know that people have been killed . . .’
‘Nothing anywhere close to this district, miss. You’re perfectly safe.’ The clip of the woman’s voice was clear; she wanted direction, not discussion.
She needed to go back before the coachwoman dumped her at the far corner of the district and she compounded the waste of money with a long walk. She had promised to stay off the streets at night, what felt like a long time ago, when she was a different person.
‘I’m ready now. Take me to . . .’
Before she could finish, a woman with a child too large to be carried in her arms, and another girl trailing them, caught her eye, the woman’s stumbling and upward glances showing she didn’t know where she was. Csilla opened the door and slid out as the driver exclaimed a curse of surprise.
‘Do you need help?’
‘On our way to a mercy hall,’ the woman said. ‘He’s burning up, and the one in our district is full. But we’ll manage.’
The coachwoman offered a prayer, but not her hand to help.
Csilla motioned for them to join her. Unless things had changed very much in the two days since she left the Church, there wouldn’t be any more room at the next nearest mercy hall.
They would be given medicine if there was some to spare, but they would be turned away and even further from their lodging.
‘Take us back. Is there enough on the fare for that?’ Mihály could be useful in this if he wasn’t too drunk. A little part of her was also pleased at the chance to alleviate the guilt of leaving him to dine alone.
‘Not a problem of money,’ the coachwoman said with narrow brows. ‘The charity is a credit to your soul, but I don’t need the air in my box tainted.’
‘Surely you won’t blacken your soul by refusing mercy.’
The woman sighed and gestured to the door. ‘I’ll be keeping the excess fare.’
The mother hesitated but passed the child over with exhausted arms. There was a high flush on his freckled cheeks, and heat radiated from him like a furnace. At least she felt like herself again as she made soothing noises to the child and felt him relax.
‘It’s dangerous to be out at night,’ Csilla cautioned, adjusting the boy to rest on her shoulder. ‘You must have heard what’s been happening.’
‘It can’t be worse than Ruze.’ The woman reached out to smooth the boy’s sweaty hair as he quietly groaned.
‘Is that where the illness is?’ Ruze was a week’s ride away, but there’d been no call for extra hands or supplies from their parishes.
‘If only.’ Her eyes were steely. ‘Has the news truly not reached Silgard?’
‘It hasn’t reached me,’ Csilla answered.
The woman pulled her daughter close. ‘There was a creature sealed in our woods after the Severing, and it awoke.’
‘Awoke?’
She shifted her daughter into her lap and put a hand over the upturned ear. ‘Awoke and took a body. Took a girl, then killed her mother. Only one of our priests could work a banishment. Everyone else was powerless.’
Csilla clutched the boy tighter in horror. ‘Have they sent—’
‘They’ve sent no one, that I know of. Our bishop said the fact that only one priest could claim the glory meant it was no real demon at all. But the old black mark is gone. My brother went and looked. That’s why we’re here.’
She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. ‘The body of the mother . . . Was it . . . defiled in any way? Did you see it?’
‘Unfortunately I did. But she was just dead.’ The woman blinked like she wanted to cry, but that well was dry and filled in. ‘At least in Silgard there’s none of that. People are good, and if not good, at least human.’
That’s what everyone new to the city would think.
The cart slowed again as they returned, but the hoofbeats turned quick and nervous. Csilla slid back the panel. The dim glow of lights showed nothing without the ability to look ahead.
‘What is it?’
‘Looks like everyone is on the streets, the blackcoats too. Maybe a fire?’
Or murder. The woman was still looking at her with hope. Csilla’s fingers danced over the brooch pinned to her dress. The sapphires were probably real.
Before she could think too much about how she was robbing both an old woman and the dead, she pulled it off and passed it up through the roof slot.
‘Take them to the mercy hall by the merchants’ guild.
’ She touched the woman’s knee. ‘Ask for Katherina if they won’t let you in.
And if they have to send you back, this should pay for that, too. ’
The mother thanked her for doing so much, but it didn’t warm her when she knew she couldn’t do nearly enough.
Csilla opened the door and hurried into the throng, searching for Mihály. He should have stood well above the crowd, but there was no sign of him. The people she passed were pressed tight together, faces worried, and when she reached out to touch an arm, the person jumped like she was scalding.
‘What happened?’
The man drew his finger across his throat like a blade.
Csilla swayed on her feet. So close. ‘Inside?’
Where was Mihály?
‘No, out the back and a ways down. It was Janos.’
The name meant nothing to her, but her heart ached all the same.
‘Did you see the Izir?’
‘Oh, you’re the girl who was with him.’ The man looked her over with fresh eyes. ‘He left not long after you did, said he was going home. Lucky he did. The rest of us have to freeze out here until we get permission to leave from the priests.’
He was no doubt waiting for her now, disappointed.
She sighed, taking a measured breath to release her frustration, when a familiar figure caught her eye.
The rhythm of Ilan’s sure-footed steps coming towards her echoed in her chest, and fear closed her throat.
The iron in his gaze was the weight of every right thing she’d given up, everything Mihály had told her.
He would only have to touch a weak spot, and she would confess everything.
He was famously good at finding weak spots, and she was already thin-skinned with guilt.
She smiled through her shaking. He’d been kind to her once. More than that, really. He kept the Church’s tenants even when they contradicted his nature.
Ilan eyed her gown and its embroidered vinework and her pearl-beaded slippers.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The Izir brought me. But I left before anything happened.’
A fresh light entered Ilan’s pale eyes. ‘And yet you’re here.’
He slipped a leather cuff over her wrist and snapped the leash tight.