Chapter 14 Csilla
Csilla
The chill of the cathedral’s cell leeched through every bit of her shoes and clothing, the floor sharp with chips of crumbled stone.
Csilla kept her knees up to her chest as she shivered against the damp.
The space had a hollow carved out for lamp oil and holy books, a crusted drainage hole on the other side, and was otherwise bare.
Somewhere in the walls and beneath the floors was the labyrinth of tunnels for ferrying holy relics and keeping the Seal of Silgard safe.
In a more peaceful time, this was one of the cells where the Faithful went when they wished to give up the world in its entirety, but now it had been partially converted to house the Church’s enemies, and the cells were full of people awaiting their turn for a whipping or for their family to gather enough money to pay off their sins.
She’d heard that Mihály’s theories inspired petty crimes as people lost faith in the Church, but this seemed far beyond people testing the limits of what they judged a sin.
She put her forehead down on her knees, surrendering to the dark and praying for calm for her roiling stomach. The Church would forget about her and leave her to dissolve like the water-eaten cracks in the wall. And that would be if she were lucky.
It was hard to believe this squalid and freezing room was part of the place she’d once called home.
That somewhere above her ágnes was likely in prayer, and the others in the mercy crew were folding bandages and laughing among themselves.
That Erzebet was no doubt curled on Csilla’s bed, pleased to have the whole of it for herself.
The scrape of a door opening had her on her feet, face pressed against the flaking iron of the bars. Grunting. The thud of boots. A wet, rough slap of flesh on stone.
They were dragging in an unconscious man.
No. Even the unconscious had some movement – the twitch of an eyelid or breath at their lips.
This was a body. The light of their torches highlighted the trail of blood streaking the floor. The man yanked Csilla’s door open and deposited the corpse with a squashed thud too much like the delivery of a pig carcass to the kitchens.
What once was a man was now all fish-belly white flesh and smears of copper.
‘We thought a mercy girl wouldn’t mind. Everywhere else is full.’
They’d never been full before. But she had no time to reflect on that.
The victim was face down splayed on the stone, mole-dotted skin on depraved display. She touched her heart. They could have at least given him a blanket for dignity, and she didn’t even have a cape to offer him.
The marks along his back were still smeared, hard to see in the dim light.
Corpses had never bothered her – she’d worked with the mercy crews since she could toddle, and flesh was flesh.
But as she touched the sliced skin, a pulsing shiver worked its way up her spine and set her scars burning.
She traced the cuts the same way the scholars had made her trace their books.
That had only been finger over paper. Now on this fresh human velum, her fingers froze.
The cooling body couldn’t explain the sudden frostbite twinge that shot through her fingertips.
Crusted blood scraped away from the thin lines of the wounds under her probing.
She moved to the crushed column of the victim’s throat, her small hands where the murderer’s had been, a whispered prayer to the hanged saint Angyalka on her lips.
Angyalka had lived and was blessed with the visions that led to the naming of the first Incarnate, even though the bruises never faded.
The blotchy purple under her palms was still swollen, blood congealed under the skin like a sausage in the casing.
She stiffened as footsteps sounded in the hall and the cell door swing open, a moment later her shoulders were seized by skeletal fingers.
ágnes.
‘What are you doing?’ she hissed. ‘There’s nothing that can be done for the man now.’
‘I wanted to see.’
She turned to look ágnes in the face, and sharply drew in a breath.
She looked so much worse than she had just days before.
There were bluish bruises shading her skin, and her eyelids drooped.
But Csilla’s gasp was too quiet, and the older woman continued, though her voice grew more hoarse with every word.
‘See? And touch?’ She shook Csilla’s limp hand, and the sting in the scold sent her gaze to the floor. ‘Is this what you’ve gotten from being with the Izir?’
‘He’s stopped preaching heresy,’ Csilla said, looking down. Easier to face the entire inquest branch of the clergy than the woman who raised her. ‘I’m on holy business.’
If it involved Mihály it had to be holy, no matter what it looked like.
She raised her eyes, a tiny grain of confidence rooting in her purpose. ‘I’m trying to save the city.’
The matter of her own soul aside, ágnes had to understand that she was trying to do something good. That she was good.
The woman’s spasming cough shook her like a crumpled fall leaf. Csilla put an arm around her.
‘You’re worse. I’ll get something that can help you. Mihály—’
ágnes waved her hand. ‘No.’
Csilla held ágnes’s shoulders as she coughed again, so frail there was practically no weight against Csilla at all. How could this be the woman who’d carried her around on her hip until she came waist-high and was far too old for such babying?
The new steps in the hallway were heavier.
Ilan emerged and leaned on the doorway, scowling, his collar and hems stark for their lack of decoration. He looked like any other priest, save the crackling anger in his stare. ‘Csilla. And Elder ágnes. Are you not late for prayer?’
‘Aren’t you?’ she asked, standing and smoothing her skirt. Csilla’s heart ached to see that ágnes stood in front of her, still trying to offer some protection in her frailty. Too many of her few and precious breaths were being spent defending Csilla.
‘I have to question her. Only questions for the moment.’ He held out his hands as if the lack of a whip assured Csilla’s safety.
The woman nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave Ilan as she left. As if reminding him that whatever he did, it would be seen. If not by her, then by the divine.
‘What are you planning?’ Ilan leaned against the iron bars, blocking the door. As if there were any way she would run.
‘Me?’ How did he know they were planning something? Csilla shrunk under his dissecting gaze. Perhaps it had been foolish to think the Church wouldn’t know. Asten’s eyes were stamped throughout the city, seeing everything. Maybe that was more tangible than she’d realised. ‘I’m just trying to help.’
It sounded pointless falling from her lips and even worse when reflected in his expression.
‘How was stealing my notes helping?’
Of course he would have noticed. He continued before she could conjure another pale defence.
‘And you didn’t kill the heretic. How long have you been working together? Since before I even found you in the street?’
‘You think this is some kind of conspiracy?’ Her exhalation was a brittle laugh. ‘I didn’t kill him because I’m not as good as you, I suppose. And as for your work, I just needed information. Not for anything bad.’
‘Why?’
He didn’t sound like he believed her. Her breathing quickened. She knew what happened when he didn’t believe someone – screams and burns and blood. He reached for the cell lock, fingertips scraping the iron.
‘Ilan, what is the meaning of this?’ A new priest was behind Ilan, arms crossed, and Csilla had never been so glad to see a member of the Faith.
Then she blinked, looking between the stranger and Ilan.
It was this new man who wore the High Inquisitor’s robes, and Ilan was in the plainer garb of an ordinary justice priest.
‘This is the last of them?’ The stranger tilted his head. ‘Good. Question her and be done with it. No need to toy with her like a cat.’
Csilla pulled her hands to her chest as if that could spare them from the ropes. Ilan didn’t take his eyes from her, pinning her as surely as with iron.
‘I know this girl, and I know she hasn’t killed anyone.’
Csilla shivered at the slither in his voice; he called her innocent, but there was no exoneration there.
‘Then she has something to say about someone else?’ The man’s expression lightened. ‘Come, then, girl, out with it. Who should we be bringing in for iron shoes tonight?’
‘I – no one!’ Csilla stuttered. ‘I don’t know who the murderer is.’
‘You won’t give us a name, any person who might have information? It will be a blessing on your soul.’
She winced as he continued.
‘Surely you must have some little sin you wish to clear. And we have ways if you don’t wish to talk.’ He delivered the threat with no change to cadence, so smooth it almost slid right past her.
Torturing people for information? She chilled at the thought.
The Church was there to protect the Faithful, and if it hurt them it was only in the name of salvation.
Her eyes flickered to Ilan, but he remained in stony silence – no mention of the torture.
Not even of the fact that there was no way to view her sins.
And she certainly had sins now. She shook her head.
The large man reached past Ilan, taking the key and freeing her.
‘Well then, we’re done here. And you,’ he said, eyes back on Csilla, ‘you’re always welcome to return with better information.’
Ilan’s fingers tightened around the bar, and his face took on a terrifying calm. ‘Come then, Csilla. I’ll take you home.’
He walked her out through the courtyard in tense silence.
‘I’m staying with the widow Varga.’ Csilla tried to fill the cold morning air with chatter, if only to stop Ilan from asking the questions he clearly wanted to. ‘She was very kind to take me in.’