Chapter 21 Csilla
Csilla
A scream echoed in the dark cathedral hallway, bouncing off stone and into Csilla’s ears.
She shuddered, stomach clenching, offering a small and useless prayer of solace as she rubbed her fingers together, nails stained with traces of Arany’s gold that she’d brushed as she passed the statue.
No one had given her a second look as she entered.
Wrapped in a wool cloak dyed a dear robin’s egg blue, brown hair uncovered and curled loose around her shoulders, she looked like any other citizen come to beg something of the Church, not belong to it.
It was a part to be played, but it fit worse than the dress.
As she hurried through the cloister walkways towards the rooms where the Church’s justice was dealt, she kept her head down, pulling her hood up whenever she heard footsteps.
It wasn’t only that she couldn’t risk being seen. She wasn’t sure she could bear it.
Perhaps she should have waited for Mihály to fully wake, but it had been enough of a challenge to get him in motion and into a proper bed before sunrise.
At least he’d slept; with him breathing in her hair and kicking her in the throes of sweat-soaked nightmares, she’d barely had a chance to close her eyes.
She’d kept her promise, but what sleep she had gotten felt haunted.
All she could see was the cracked eyelids of corpses and her ears were full with the whispers of a dead girl, urgent and rattling.
When she’d tried to rouse him in the morning, even over-steeped tea and thick liver paste on thicker toast with enough paprika to make her sneeze hadn’t been enough to chase away his hangover, and he waved her off with a groan and promised to join her later.
When she arrived outside the chambers, tucking herself beside a painted wood icon of Ignaz and her many-tailed lash, the sounds of pain leaking from beneath the door made her wish she had waited.
While she wanted to know if there had been any pay-off to their gamble, she wasn’t sure she wanted to face Ilan.
Or if he’d even talk to her – he certainly seemed to have gotten what he wanted last night.
No matter what small favours Ilan did for her, she shouldn’t forget where his loyalties lay.
The muffled cries of his victims were as much her fault as if she’d been the one flogging them.
When the man limped out, cradling his shirt to his chest as red welts swelled on his back, Csilla’s stomach lurched. She stepped forward, wanting to offer something, but her hands and pockets were empty, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes to let her soothe him with words.
Ilan followed minutes later, starting at her but recovering quickly.
He didn’t look put out in the slightest, save a light sheen of sweat from the exertion.
She swallowed back an admonishment, knowing her anger should be turned in at herself.
Ilan had never claimed to be anything but what he was, and she was the one who had put Mihály’s followers into his hands.
Justice was a virtue. If this could be called justice.
‘Did any of them tell you anything helpful?’ That would at least make this worth it.
Ilan’s gaze slid across the empty hall, silently chiding her for recklessness. He gestured for her to follow him.
Ilan’s room wasn’t any different from the small rooms used by the other clergy members privileged enough to be granted privacy, everything simple and serviceable.
As he shut the door, though, he reached up and slid an extra chain lock on the inside.
The untarnished iron was stark against the centuries of wear around it.
‘You shouldn’t be here. What if it hadn’t been me in there? What excuse would you have given then?’
She didn’t have an answer, and her shoulders sank.
‘Well I could hardly not come. You don’t have to beat them, you know.’ They hadn’t punished Mihály’s followers before, merely warned them, and surely just being dragged into the cathedral was enough to make them honest in their answers. ‘They’ll think themselves martyrs and hate us even more.’
‘Consider it a blessing. The riot means I was able to interrogate them for something they actually did. Everyone in the city is going to end up on the rack at some point if Sandor keeps on, and at least this might be useful.’
Fair enough point. But something in it rankled her. These people weren’t just part of a puzzle to be solved or a collection of clues. They were alive, and they hurt.
‘But did they actually know anything?’ She crossed her arms, bracing for the answer she’d come for.
Ilan paused, an annoyed twitch on his cheek. ‘No. Not yet. But we’re not done.’
Her stomach dropped.
‘So we’ve got nothing.’ Yanking their single thread had pulled the piecemeal cloth to tatters. ‘None of them are guilty at all? What do their souls say?’
The cold anger she’d seen in Ilan’s eyes as he pulled her away from fists and curses returned.
‘Nothing so dark as murder. Certainly not possession. And none of them have seen any sign of demons here, though the stories the refugees tell are horrors.’
Csilla turned away from the window and sunk down on his bed.
She spread her hand on the grey blanket, imagining the Seal beneath her fingers, the faint glow on the stone and dirt and bone below.
Mihály would be sick over putting his followers under Ilan’s striking hand for nothing, and she would be sick over bringing him the news.
She was sick now with how she’d only made everything worse for the people she wanted to help. And Ilan didn’t seem to think anything of it beyond how it affected progress in their case. She studied his face and the calm there, nothing sweet in it, but not even the slightest touch of guilt.
He turned, a thoughtful tilt to his head, and she pulled her gaze away and pretended she was studying the wall behind him instead.
‘Would you like to pray? You do still do that, don’t you?’ Ilan asked, kneeling in front of his altar.
He lit a stick of incense, and her nose twitched at the note of fir resin under the warm spice of myrrh.
It called up the forest more than the worship hall.
She eyed his icons with curiosity. Beside the Eye of Asten was an image of shadowy Ignaz, aloof in her justice, and Sainted Vasya with her wolves.
There was even a rendition of Gellért’s forest, beautifully translucent.
All were as detailed as the most expensive of illuminated manuscripts, and the style had a certain ring of familiarity.
‘Did you do these?’ Apparently he was skilled at more than just sketching the dead. She had an urge to pick them up and study, but his look stopped her.
‘I asked if you prayed.’
‘Not enough.’ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tried to properly speak to the divine. It didn’t seem to matter as much when she had Mihály beside her. She gathered her skirts and got to her knees, self-conscious as she tried to maintain some semblance of grace.
‘I’ll pray for the people you’ve got in there. And Mihály, I suppose.’ She could pray that he would rouse and be well and that he wouldn’t need her quite so close tonight.
Ilan’s eyes swept over her as she fidgeted with her layers. When they stopped, there was a new crease in his brow and a curl to his lip.
‘Are you in love with him?’
Oh.
‘No.’ Unfortunately. That, at least, would be something other people could understand. ‘I just think he could use it.’
‘You worry for him an awful lot.’
An exasperated laugh bubbled up in her throat. If that were the criteria, she was in love with the whole world.
‘By all the saints, I wish I were in love with him; it would certainly make things easier. But I’m not. And I worry about you too, you know.’
Ilan looked abashed, a slight redness rising on his pale cheeks. ‘I don’t need you to worry about me.’
As if not needing to worry had ever stopped a single worrier. ‘I suppose you don’t, with the new inquisitor so pleased with you.’
His eyebrows raised, and she flinched, placation rising in her throat. She really hadn’t meant for that to come out. ‘Excuse me?’
She shifted, looking everywhere but his narrowed blue eyes.
‘I’m . . .’ Sorry was the first word on her tongue, but she didn’t want to apologise. ‘I thought you didn’t like him. But you still took everyone in when he ordered it.’
‘That was always the plan, Csilla. He only thinks it was his own idea. I still loathe him, but he was momentarily useful. You don’t have to like the people you work with, especially in such vital matters.’
It felt like a direct dig, and she stared into her lap. Well, she’d never planned to be liked. It didn’t matter.
‘The result is what’s important, not the means,’ Ilan continued. ‘I’m loyal to the principles of the Church. I know my place. As I thought you did.’
She raised her eyes to meet his, unable to answer.
They never gave you a choice, came Tamas’s mocking voice again. But she’d made a choice anyway. She’d chosen the Church. She’d chosen to help.
Sometimes it seemed like those things weren’t the same, a worry always just out of sight in the dusty corners of her mind.
But Ilan would never understand that. He was already turning to his prayers, lips moving silently.
With no one to glare at, his face was calm and assured, and she would have traded anything for a moment of that peace.
She used to find it so easily here, taking comfort in ritual so old it left physical marks; stone worn down by praying knees and ceilings stained to smudge with candle smoke. Now everything was jagged.
He opened his eyes, and she flinched at being caught. ‘Yes?’
‘I . . .’ She held out her hand. ‘ágnes always said that it might help Them listen. To me.’ Her words grew small with flustered embarrassment. No one else in the Union needed a conduit. Least of all Ilan.
If he did take her hand, she could at least absorb a touch of his confidence, if not his blessing. She would give anything for even a fraction of that self-assurance.