Chapter 3 Maeve
Maeve
Ezra came for her as the sun was setting.
Maeve was in her studio. Felix’s icon was no longer there.
Neither was the gold. Every speck of something amiss had vanished so completely she wondered if she had imagined it entirely.
Only the gold-dusted soles of her slippers reminded her that her memory wasn’t faulty.
Somehow, Felix had finished and dried the icon.
And soon, Ezra would ask something of her that Brigid demanded she agree to.
The knock came. Maeve moved to the door. Her hand hovered over the doorknob. Gritting her teeth and summoning every last drop of confidence afforded to her, she opened the door.
Ezra wasn’t a tall man, only a handful of inches more than Maeve, but when he drew himself to his full height and donned the air of an Abbey elder, he sketched a formidable silhouette. He fixed her with a calculating look in his pale blue eyes. ‘You’re needed.’
She nodded, letting the door close softly behind her. Her breathing, shallow and quick and far, far too loud, echoed through the maze of halls as Ezra led her to the basilica.
A hushed reverence shrouded the colossal space like a burial shroud. Maeve turned her eyes upwards reflexively. High above, the rose window turned the pale stone and endless parade of portraits multicoloured with the setting sun.
The entirety of the wall to her left was covered in icons, some hundreds of years old. The golden haloes undulated the longer she looked, water-gilded surfaces burnished in glittering metallic. She recognized dozens of her own icons staring down at her.
The style of her work had changed drastically over the years.
She’d begun her specialized training in iconography at thirteen after six years at the Abbey, but her icons hadn’t been deemed good enough for the basilica until her seventeenth year.
Even still, seeing her earliest paintings hanging on the walls made her cringe.
She’d been a little too obsessed with motifs at the beginning.
But, like all things, practice, patience, and sheer determination to be the best had grown her abilities.
Now, her paintings were so lifelike they almost breathed.
Close enough to touch, as though mere proximity could win holiness.
If that was the case, Maeve might’ve been a saint herself given how many icons she’d rendered over the years.
Ezra led her to just beneath the rose window, sun-bruised light streaming over his shoulders in crimson and azure, gold so bright it hurt to look at. Shadows obscured his expression.
Maeve bowed her head and waited for him to speak. If she knew him at all, he’d make her wait for a few tense minutes before putting her out of her misery. Just because he could.
Although saints were the highest echelon of Abbey power, the elders were the ones truly in control. The ones who decided the rules and regulations, who ran daily life, who monitored the veins connecting each and every acolyte to the beating heart of the Abbey.
More importantly, elders venerated acolytes into sainthood through holy visions.
A sacred ability held only by the elders, kept just as secret as the saintly power to answer prayers.
All she knew was that once they saw a sign in a person, a saint was marked with a tattoo – a vertical line bisected with three horizontal.
The rune for SAINT forever inked beneath their left collarbone.
She often wondered what the first signs of sainthood were in a person. Was it like an icon, a corona forming around their head that only the elders could see? Did it come to the elder in a dream, or did it happen in real time?
Finally, Ezra cleared his throat.
Maeve lifted her head. The silence of vast, empty spaces pressed in on all sides. Ezra’s hands were clasped in front of him so tightly that his knuckles were entirely bloodless.
A thought occurred, the accompanying strain of hope damning in its intensity.
Maybe she hadn’t been summoned here for a punishment. Maybe it was a reward. Had whatever happened between her and Felix been a test of Maeve’s loyalty, a stepping stone on her way to the lead iconographer position?
Or… had she ruined her chance at advancement by asking Brigid?
She should’ve stayed silent.
Lead positions weren’t easily come by, especially in iconography.
Illuminations, scribing, masonry… all were important, hard-to-master jobs, but none held the status iconography did, nor the level of isolation.
If she were made lead, that would all change.
She could stretch the limits of her art like never before.
Maybe she could visit other painters in the surrounding towns and learn new techniques.
Perhaps she could paint something other than icons.
Waves and birds and rolling, endless hills.
Maybe, just maybe, she could shrug slowly out of her loneliness, inch by inch.
Even one single friend would be enough. One person she could talk to openly without fear.
Maeve scanned the wall across from her. She focused on an unfamiliar icon. A boy around fourteen or fifteen with dark hair curling around his temples, vivid against the paleness of his skin and a curiously devoid gaze. She silently prayed to the saint that she hadn’t ruined everything.
‘Maeve,’ Ezra said. ‘As you’re aware, Brigid will soon be retiring as lead iconographer.
She’s devoted over forty years of service to the Abbey.
Painted hundreds of icons, many of which adorn our walls today.
’ He swept a hand towards the wall across from them.
‘I recognize a few of yours alongside hers, yes?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. Her voice shook only slightly.
‘I thought so. You’re very talented…’ he paused. Maeve shifted on her feet. ‘I brought you here tonight to inform you we’re considering you for Brigid’s role. But there is something we’d like you to do first. An assignment, of sorts.’
There was something cold to the way he regarded her. Suddenly, she wondered if the anger she’d thought he’d shown last night was resurfacing in an entirely different way than she’d expected.
‘Anything for the Abbey,’ she murmured, drawing her spine up straight, shoulders back.
Ezra angled his head towards the boy saint she’d prayed to mere minutes ago. ‘Do you recognize him?’
Maeve studied the icon. Once more, his eyes struck her. Devoid, like a candle snuffed out.
An image pushed forward at the furthest recesses of her mind, hazy with age and distorted around the edges.
A boy – this boy? – with his face turned away, kneeling at a man’s feet, both hands extended in front of him.
A thin piece of twine across the boy’s palms, blood welling around it, dripping towards the floor. Dark hair, damp with sweat at the nape.
As quickly as it had come, the recollection faded.
Recollection… if she could even call it that. It was too hazy to be a memory, too unsteady to be her imagination. She tried her best to force it from her mind, the ruby blood splattering on the flagstone, vivid against the greyscale of dreams.
‘No,’ Maeve managed. ‘I don’t recognize him.’
At least, she didn’t think she did.
‘His name is Jude. A saint, as you might have guessed,’ Ezra said. ‘He’s no longer welcome at the Abbey or within our fold. Put simply, he’s been exiled.’
She rolled his words over in her mind, not liking their sound. Saints were encouraged to live isolated lives, but this sounded like something more. Exiled?
It didn’t sound like a punishment; it sounded like a sentencing.
‘Why?’ she asked, praying the question would be allowed. ‘Did he… do something?’
‘A good question,’ Ezra murmured, the brogue of his accent thickening.
‘Jude took the power of the saints, the sacred ability to answer prayers he was blessed with, and uses it outside its design. A corruption that we fear he might use to harm those who pray to him. A recent development, we believe.’
‘How?’ Maeve breathed.
‘We don’t know. Not yet. That’s where we need your help.’
‘My help?’ Her voice was meeker than she would’ve liked.
She glanced at Jude’s icon. He’d be close to her age now based on the date under the indiscernible scratch of a signature.
The painting was almost entirely done in greyscale except for the corona haloing his face.
Despite its age, it remained as brilliantly gold as though it was painted yesterday.
‘We’d like you to go to him and paint an updated icon,’ Ezra said, drawing her attention back. ‘We’d like you to report any findings you may encounter in his home.’
‘You want me to spy?’ Maeve asked before she could stop herself.
Ezra winced slightly. ‘Not spy. More like carefully observe. And let us know what you find.’
So, spy.
Questions bubbled up thick and fast. She desperately wanted to put voice to them but wondered how much prodding Ezra would allow. Would she even be permitted to say no? Even if she wanted nothing to do with this Jude and his corruption of what she held most dear, most sacred?
She wet her lips. She had to ask. She had to be certain.
‘Why an icon?’ she asked. ‘If he’s been… exiled, why do you need a new painting of him?’
Ezra moved closer until they were mere feet apart. The sun had left the rose window. Inky shadows stretched across the space between them. ‘Icons bridge the gap between saints and petitioners. We pray to their image, and it works.’ He let out a slow sigh. ‘A holy mystery.’
Her jaw clenched. Did elders like Ezra not know exactly how the saints’ magic worked? Did that mean she wouldn’t, either?
Piety. Belief. Devotion.
Maeve swallowed the words like a stone, felt the weight keenly in her stomach.
‘I’ve spent years studying your art,’ Ezra continued.
‘Learning how the saints’ power works. Some days, I feel closer than ever.
Others… it’s as though I’m standing on a cliff, straining to see past the horizon.
Whatever exists beyond my eyesight is unreachable, no matter how far I swim. Do you ever feel the same?’
‘I do,’ she breathed, soothed by Ezra’s unexpected candour, despite how it surprised her.
She often had the same wonderings around prayer.
She’d experienced small moments of the saints’ magic in her own life.
A lost hair ribbon found the next day. A day out in Whitebury.
Burns on her arm, healed far faster than was natural. ‘I do feel the same.’
Ezra smiled softly. ‘The man Jude is today is unknown to us. A new icon will help us assess the damage he has wrought to his sacred ability and place measures to prohibit he doesn’t… harm any petitioners.’
‘I understand,’ she replied.
She’d always felt a connection to the saint she was painting, like she was creating a bond between her brush and her heart that existed long after the icon was finished.
It felt similar to praying, in a way. Like something lasting was being built, even if she couldn’t see it at the time – a connection both invisible yet solid as stone.
It was heartening to learn her abilities could be used to protect the Abbey, even if the prospect of going to Jude’s, of spying, was one she found uniquely frightening.
At first glance, Ezra’s mission looked like exactly what she had been praying for – freedom. Fresh air on her skin. A glimpse of the world despite how she’d been taught to see life outside the Abbey as one fraught with turmoil and darkness.
Freedom as a concept was intriguing, but as a reality…
Maeve swallowed. Perhaps the illusion of choice was a shallow one.
‘I’ll go to Jude’s if that’s what you’d like of me,’ she replied, exactly as Ezra expected to hear.
He reached out, laying his hand on her shoulder. ‘I would trust no one else but you. You know that, Maeve, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured, trying to convince herself that it was true.
‘Even more than our lives, our very safety, the saints’ abilities must be protected. The sanctity of their magic must be upheld. Perhaps you can be the one to provide the information needed to stop what dirty thing he’s made of it. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she repeated, louder, more sure. ‘Of course.’
‘He knows you’re coming to paint an icon, but that’s it. You’ll leave tomorrow and travel across the moors. Shouldn’t take more than a day by horse. His housekeeper will be there to greet you. You won’t be alone.’ Ezra paused and considered his words. ‘It’s near the Goddenwood.’
The smallest seed of excitement grew in her chest, and she fought to keep it from showing on her face. ‘How close is it?’ she asked. She wouldn’t be allowed to visit, but even a glimpse of its existence would settle her immensely, the promise of its nearness like sunlight on her skin.
‘A few hours away,’ Ezra replied. ‘Let its proximity be a reminder that the Abbey rewards loyalty. A paradise Jude could avail of if he repents and turns back from his corrupted ways.’
She drew his words tight to her chest, revelling in them.
Why would Jude want to risk his future at the Goddenwood?
Why would he reject a life of peace, of community with his fellow saints?
Somehow, the idea that he’d willingly turn his back on it was more jarring than anything Ezra had told her yet.
She clenched her hands into fists at her sides. Maybe she could convince him differently. The Abbey would certainly see fit to reward her if she brought him back like a lamb to the fold.
‘How long will I be gone for?’ she asked.
Ezra moved closer. The hem of his robes brushed the stone floor with a faint whoosh. He gathered her hands in his. His touch, warm and solid, familiar enough to make her heart ache, steadied her immensely. ‘As long as it takes, my dear girl,’ he said. ‘As long as it takes.’