Chapter 19 Csilla
Csilla
Mihály’s fingers twitched at his collar, pulling it from his sweat-dampened skin. He seemed to think the inn was overly warm, but Csilla’s arms were covered in gooseflesh.
‘Remember why we’re doing this,’ she whispered. The words half-choked her. People were crowding into the room, and she tried to take the measure of their faces. One might be the killer. One would be a victim.
But now we know, she told herself. We can end the whole thing if we’re quick and clever and blessed. The words repeated themselves, building a wall between her mind and the tug of wrongness in her gut.
Mihály looked down at her, then put his hand on her head and smiled softly.
She tried to smile back, like this was a perfect idea, like his touch was warming instead of a further pulse of worried ice down her spine.
If this was what it took to get him to lead one of his lambs to the chopping block, so be it.
She could swallow her doubts and pretend it pleased her.
‘I’ll be watching from the back.’
He started to bend closer, but she ducked and scattered toward the edge of the gathering crowd with an apologetic wave.
They needed to focus on him, not the attention he was paying to the girl he arrived with, especially when she was bolting the door.
She would watch, try to spot the most suspicious, and Ilan would wait outside to test their souls and find the vessel.
They might all be grey with listening to heresy, but only one should be ruined black with Shadow.
What they hadn’t anticipated, however, was how many would show up.
There were people from all areas of the city, those whose clothes were mended with coarse thread and those with subtle gold on their ears and necks.
Some were even pilgrims or refugees, wearing the kind of clothing that would be dear to import.
Death made no distinctions, and so neither did the kind of person who feared it.
So many faces she knew, at least in passing; the ill were the first to search for a miracle.
A hand caught her arm.
‘Csilla! I’ve missed you. I couldn’t believe when they told me you’d left service.’
Elmere. She froze as he kissed her cheeks and fussed over her fine dress with a grandfather’s teasing. He shouldn’t be out here. She took his hands out of habit, frowning at his loose collar and the rash creeping down his neck. ‘Elmere . . .’
‘It seems you’ve been doing well for yourself, though, dear. And you went to the Izir, like I told you.’ His eyes were nothing but kind, and she hoped he couldn’t tell how forced her smile was.
‘I’m well enough. But you shouldn’t be here. Go home and rest.’
Mihály’s curious gaze was hot on her back, waiting for her to get in place. She stepped aside, but the old man still had her hand. ‘And miss his preaching? He hasn’t been on the streets in days.’
Because of Csilla. No wonder everyone here was desperate to see Mihály again.
‘What if I promise you he’ll come visit you later? Personally?’ She tilted her head, trying to look convincing. ‘I’m working with him now. You don’t have to stay in this crowd. It won’t make you feel any better.’
‘I’ve already come all this way.’ But he was unsteady on his feet, and she squeezed his hand.
‘Trust me. Please.’
He sighed, but the fondness in his gaze squeezed her chest. ‘I always have, little girl. Well then.’ They walked arm in arm to the door, Elmere leaning on her for balance. ‘I suppose standing for hours wasn’t going to be the most comfortable experience. But I expect to see you soon.’
‘You will,’ she promised, guiding him past the tight-pressed bodies. ‘Please, rest.’
He patted her arm, pausing in the doorway. ‘I am glad you’re doing well for yourself, even if you couldn’t join the church.’
Doing well. She tipped up and kissed his cheek again so he couldn’t see how her face twisted.
The agitated crowd began to shift and caw.
‘Where have you been, Izir? They’ve no right to stop you from speaking,’ a dark-skinned man with deep furrows across his brow said. ‘We need your council.’
So many voices chimed in that the individual words were smothered, but bits reached Csilla’s ears.
‘The deaths prove we’ve been abandoned. They’re saying the bodies are putting the city under some kind of spell.’
‘Who is “they”?’ Mihály asked, but any answer was lost in yet more questions and accusations.
‘Why hasn’t the Incarnate come back? He should be here in his stronghold, not frittering with the governors or pushing our borders.’
‘We came to Silgard because it was supposed to be safe. Asten isn’t going to return if all of us are dead.’
Csilla’s heartbeat picked up. No one should dare mutter the things they were saying, and here they were, speaking them in clear voices heard by more than just Asten.
But a hard knot in her breast told her they were right.
The Incarnate should be here. How could the people trust the Church if the voice of their god wouldn’t come back to salve their wounded faith?
The laws of the Church were supposed to be the armour that protected people from their own worst impulses and the leaders examples of what it looked like to live hand in hand with the will of the divine.
But the Incarnate’s absence showed Asten cared more about war than bringing his most holy city to peace.
‘Were the victims somehow touched by evil? Have we lost our protection?’ The woman’s voice was half-wail.
‘We have,’ another man spoke up. ‘I heard what happened in Kis. The wards were broken, the demon found a host, and they burned the cathedral and everyone in it.’
Csilla glanced over the crowd at that, searching for a reaction at the mention of the possessed. There were grimaces and gritted teeth on every face, but less surprise than there should have been. Truth was leaking.
‘Were you there in Kis?’ Mihály spoke over the fearful murmurs, and the man seemed to shrink, pulling at the wooden mark hung around his neck.
‘Well, no. But I heard from a pilgrim, who heard from a merchant . . .’
The adherents jostled and complained and reached out for Mihály, who soothed them as best he could but soon looked like he was up to his neck in water in a grasping sea.
‘Peace, all of you.’ Mihály raised his hand. ‘This anger risks your souls. You shouldn’t fear.’
They should have become soft at his words, pliant and meek. Instead, a palpable agitation rose. The room was sweltering.
One man kicked his chair, the sharp, angry rattle drawing a momentary silence.
‘It doesn’t matter if we’re angry or not.’ He pulled up his shirt, where the skin across his back was bruised in a lash line of mottled brown and yellow. The mark was human-made, and all the uglier for it. ‘The Church isn’t protecting us anymore. This is what they give us for keeping the Faith.’
Mihály flinched like he’d been struck, and Csilla pressed her hands to her heart. It was likely Ilan’s work.
‘I know. I’m only trying to provide comfort.’ He offered them his glorious smile, but it was hazy around the edges.
‘Comfort doesn’t bring back the dead.’ The man who spoke next was dressed in fresh mourning blacks. ‘Comfort doesn’t stop my children from panicking every time a rat scutters through the beams.’
‘I’m sorry,’ was all Mihály could say, over and over, until it became its own kind of intercessory prayer smoothing the edge of violence.
Csilla looked between the faces; blotchy, pained, and feral. She couldn’t see anyone she would pin as a killer. This snap-jaw anger was only the instinctual reaction of the hunted, not intentional violence. It was all painfully human.
‘Please. Listen,’ Mihály pleaded.
‘Listen to what, Izir?’ A person in front of him hissed.
‘We came because we thought you’d have answers.
Why are things only getting worse? Are you going to tell us it doesn’t matter, we should happily die and let our souls know peace?
You’re the one telling us ghost stories.
Where is the peace in that?’ A few people spat at the statement, the air growing rotten.
Csilla edged her way to the front of the room, dodging splayed feet and cocked elbows. Mihály caught her gaze, and she put her hands together. Pray, she mouthed. If his own words were failing him, the saints that had come before had left them plenty to use.
Mihály closed his eyes a moment, lashes falling over his cheeks, still and perfect. His voice deepened and took on a resonant tone like the bells chiming through the square.
He began to pray.
Csilla’s lips moved along with the old words to the litany of peace ágnes used to use in place of a lullaby, set down by Blessed Imre, said to have been whispered to him in Arany’s arms. As Mihály spoke, he seemed to glow from within, holiness radiating.
Everything around him seemed brighter, more perfect, and Csilla squashed an urge to go to him, to see if standing next to him would let her share the blessing.
The crowd softened as surely as if they’d taken a dose of Mihály’s sweetest drug, violence charmed away by his beauty.
Csilla looked over the gathered again, searching for any sign of a killer’s appetite and claws.
But all of them seemed ordinary people. Scared, hopeful, faithful people, now under the angel’s sway.
Sweat glistened on Mihály’s brow, and his words tripped, slurred with nerves.
Dismiss them, she mouthed. They’d done their job. But he wasn’t looking at her now, and he continued to speak until his throat grew parched and the words became hoarse exhalations.
Even an angel’s voice couldn’t last forever. He coughed, shoulders wracking, and slumped forward.
One man stood in the broken pause, face flushed and eyes wild.
‘We believed in you. I closed my ears to the rumours. But this city was safer before you showed up.’
His punch caught Mihály square in the stomach. The Izir doubled over, holding out an ineffective hand to try to protect himself.