Chapter 4 Jude
Jude
The oncoming storm chased Jude inside.
His footsteps clattered on the tiles in the main hallway, tracking mud with every step.
Much had changed in the eight years he had called ánhaga home, though sometimes he still felt a jolt of childlike fear walking the halls alone.
Especially nights like tonight, when the storm sought entrance through the cracks in the stone and rain battered the windows.
He’d need to wrangle the ancient mop from the cupboard, scrounge up a bucket and—
Jude stopped.
A letter sat on a low table by the door. Even from a distance, his name stood out starkly black on the envelope.
Elden, his grumpy housekeeper of the past three years and keeper of the kitchen, hadn’t mentioned any post arriving this morning. Jude hadn’t received a letter in eight years, at least not one addressed directly to him.
He approached it slowly, trepidation settling in his stomach.
There was only one place it could be from. Only one hand tight on his throat.
Jude picked it up, ignoring how his fingers trembled. The envelope was pristine, unmarked by rain and travel. His name was scored precisely across the front, the familiar contour of the sigil just as damning.
The cupped hands and sun of the Abbey.
The Abbey which, until his fifteenth year, had been the only home he had ever known.
His grip crumpled the sharp edges of the expensive vellum, and his heart felt like a slow-to-start fire, reluctant to pump blood down the lengths of his limbs.
Steeling himself – he refused to flinch, even if they weren’t watching – he ripped open the envelope.
His lungs caught between breaths.
In a handful of sentences, his forgotten existence turned on its head.
The Abbey was sending an iconographer. One they were considering for the lead position, apparently – a woman called Maeve.
Something about the name sounded familiar…
perhaps they had been at the Abbey together, but he no longer remembered.
It didn’t matter either way. She was coming to paint an icon.
Something Jude could not, in any circumstance, allow to happen.
Hatred surged up in a vicious lash. Both for her, and the Abbey that haunted his every step, looking for some new way to control him. They wanted to ensure he kept to himself, holding himself in check. Alone and abandoned.
And to send an iconographer, of all people… there had to be a reason they wanted an updated icon of him – an exiled saint. Why send her now?
He reread the letter. Underneath the prickling rage and the raw vulnerability that he refused, refused, to acknowledge was the smallest spark of something he was too pessimistic to call hope. An inkling, maybe – grey instead of black.
Over the past year, Jude had been picking at what allowed the Abbey and its insidious band of elders to hold the reins to his magic, to all the saints’ abilities.
It had started with a book he’d found shoved behind a shelf in the dusty confines of the library: Iconography and the Saints.
Despite the title and the fact it had so clearly been hidden, the gold-dusted fingerprints on its spine had piqued his interest. Whoever ánhaga belonged to before Jude had taken up its tenancy had read the book and left their mark behind.
The cramped text within had confirmed something he’d long suspected – the icons were how the Abbey controlled the saints they so dutifully brought up and sent into exile.
His last icon had been painted just before he left.
If its power was growing weak with age… a new icon of him would allow the Abbey to renew their hold on him.
And if, if the iconographer succeeded, if a renewed icon of Jude was made—
The Abbey’s connection to him would be restored. All the measures he’d taken to protect himself and his memories… gone. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to fight his way free yet again.
Jude pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until lights popped and flashed behind his lids.
Memories swam at the furthest recesses of his mind, begging for entry in honeyed voices.
A familiar pang of worry wormed its way into the tender space between his ribs, growing stronger with each ragged inhale.
He rubbed the spot with the palm of his hand, feeling the rise and fall of his chest.
But. But.
That damning thread of hope.
The book hadn’t told him how the elders accessed the magic held in the icons, nor how to restore the memories and magic to the saints they were stolen from.
Maybe the iconographer would know.
She, who formed the icons, who knew of the power between artist and subject… was it too much for him to wonder if she’d share her knowledge? If the Abbey hadn’t sunk its claws in deep enough to keep her from seeing the truth amidst the lies?
He crumpled the letter as the feeble flame of hope began to wane.
She was an iconographer. Fully trained. Deeper in the Abbey’s clutches than he’d ever been, comfortable in its hold.
The danger far outweighed the potential of breaking himself free.
Of curing himself of the Abbey’s grip on his magic, a poisonous taint that turned it into something that wasn’t his own.
Of running as far as he could from the Abbey and ensuring they could never touch him or his magic again.
Maybe then his life would finally be his own.
Jude had done what was needed when he agreed to leave the Abbey. He’d donned the title of saint just as they asked. A perfect fucking icon for anyone looking for something to pray to.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
‘What else can I do?’ he whispered to the house, voice cracking on the syllables.
He forced a slow breath in between his teeth.
In and out, in and out, until the rapid fluttering of his heart settled.
The Abbey suddenly remembering his existence couldn’t be anything but a threat to the fragile peace he’d managed to forge for himself.
Redemption couldn’t be something he still hoped for.
It couldn’t.
He smoothed the letter back out. His focus landed on the iconographer’s date of arrival.
Two days from now.
Jude shoved his letter into his pocket and made for the front door.
He couldn’t stay here, cooped up like a man in a cell.
Not tonight. If he had anywhere else to go to that wasn’t the house they had sent him to, that’s where he would go.
But he didn’t. There was nowhere he would be safe from the Abbey, nowhere they wouldn’t find him.
Every cyclical worry and half-suppressed fear chased him outside like a shadow he’d never outrun.
He’d run once, and he could do it again. Forever, if that was what it took.
He strode towards the entry gate, palming the back of his head to protect against the whip of winter cold. Short hairs tickled the skin between his fingers. He’d kept it shorn close to his skull for eight years, never allowing it to grow long enough to grab.
Flickers of memories coloured the backs of his lids.
Blood and iron and salt. The edges of his vision glinted metallic. He’d need to visit his library and sate the magic inside him before she arrived – but not tonight.
Jude only allowed one thought to find harbour as he ran for the neighbouring village of Oakmoor. He wanted to get completely and utterly sloshed. Forgetting had never been a problem for him, but tonight, he wanted his thoughts free of anything but the bottom of a cup.
He kept his head down and his feet moving as he entered the town.
Consisting of only two major streets, though even that was being generous, Oakmoor was shabby and startlingly poor, its population dying out with every passing year.
It was almost empty this time of night, which suited him perfectly.
He didn’t want to be recognized. Not when he had one stop to make before the blessed oblivion of the pub.
Too soon, the village shrine stared back at him.
It was small enough that he could wrap his arms around it and pull it free from the wall if he tried. Other villages had churches and cathedrals, grand places of worship with room for hundreds, but Oakmoor only had the shrine. Small and forgettable, though not to Jude.
The base was carved wood, the saint’s visage above worn by time and clawing, desperate fingers.
Frost turned the metal luminescent in the moonlight.
A slot was cut in the base for coin. Something to urge the prayer along, or some other brainwashed claim they liked to spew to the poor souls who still believed.
He blinked back the gold, the murmur of memories knocking against the back of his skull.
Hollow eyes watched him turn and walk away.
He was glad he made the stop. He needed the reminder that the Abbey wasn’t returning to his life – they’d never left.
The arrival of the iconographer would simply be a step closer.
Jude tucked his hands into his pockets, squeezing his nails into the soft meat of his palms until the rolling mess inside him quieted.
He rarely visited Oakmoor, fearful of the Abbey’s long-fingered reach.
They would know if he tried to weave himself into the community, of that he was certain.
Abbey members visited often enough – to collect the shrine’s coins, to sell pilgrim’s tokens, to preach in the streets.
Tucked away in a wild corner of patchwork towns and surrounded by the bleak moors of the Wold, it was an easy place to be forgotten.
But they hadn’t forgotten him, a needling voice whispered. Why else would they be sending the iconographer?
Jude made a vicious promise to himself – he wouldn’t think of the Abbey anymore tonight, even if it took a whole bottle of whisky to achieve it.
The bell above the pub’s door chimed his entrance. The smell of burning peat and souring pints filled his lungs. He’d been coming here for a little under two years, ever since Elden convinced him leaving his cage was not only possible but could be good for him.