24. Then Offenses
THEN: OFFENSES
The priest did exactly as he had said he would.
He distributed a booklet of commands, a sort of summary of many passages from The Book of Rodwin.
On the last page of these booklets—bound in a cheap canvas with an embossing of a flame, the crest of Perpatane’s king—was a small handwritten list, nearly word for word what Starling had said he would add to the commands.
Drink was only allowed for men. Sons were to come before daughters.
Any book that was not deemed holy would be removed from a home.
Substances like lightleaf that may have eased pain or given one a good night sleep, though they altered the mind, were officially outlawed.
I only knew of the drug from Brother Tibolt.
What I did not understand was the list of other medicinals listed.
I had never heard of mother’s moss or pennyroyal.
I overheard my mother mumbling to herself that something on the list had always been illegal and then snapping the book shut with an uncharacteristic grunt. Then she looked up at us and smiled, saying, “Best to memorize this, girls. Alright?”
Sitting at our kitchen table with our heads bent together, Rowena and I began to read while my mother busied herself with our dinner.
“What is abortion?” I asked, finding the word listed next to ‘theft’ and ‘murder’ a foreign one to me.
She waved my question away, and I found I did not mind her lack of answer because shortly after that, we reached the section on pagan books. And I was distracted by my own terror.
I was frantic during that first week of Starling’s reign as priest. I could not lose The Life of Una.
It was my treasure. It was the only thing I had ever heard or read that made sense to me.
The priest visited our house at the end of the week, having started with the keep’s sharecroppers and the farm properties on the edge of Sheridan land.
He worked his way inward and along the smaller channel of the river that cut through town and powered my father’s mill.
When he got to our house, the residents of Sheridan were in a panic.
He had, with that calm, friendly way of speaking, walked into homes and turned them upside down.
A barley farmer was caught owning an old copy of a Tintarian book called The Remarkable Loaming of Our Goddess, which, while having an interesting title, was really just a compendium of different types of soil along the coast, some of which could also be found in the low countries.
Starling made the man stand just outside his house and build a fire.
Then the farmer burned his book and prayed for forgiveness.
“They’re going to take Una from me,” I whispered to my sister at night.
“You have to destroy it first.”
“Never!”
“Then you had better hide it well.”
I buried it under hay in one of our horses’ stalls, praying the animal did not shit directly on that hay and that the hay did not get turned over in the next day or so.
But it was not I alone who fell under the new priest’s scrutiny.
Starling walked into the mill house with a welcoming expression, as if he were the one inviting us into his home and not the other way around.
My father, a church elder, was proudly standing in our front room, explaining how his father had owned the mill and his father before him, that he employed three to four men at a time, often the restless sons of sharecroppers who wanted to do something other than farm.
“No apprentice and no sons,” Starling stated more than asked, though there was a question to his speech. He eyed my mother and the two of us with an almost pitying look, as if we did not measure up and he was too magnanimous to cast condemnation on us.
“My wife suffered terribly giving birth to the girls,” my father said. He was a devout man, but he had an obsessive love for our mother. As long as she did not challenge him or shame him, he was content with only Rowena and I, if it meant my mother was not in danger.
“I would hope, madam,” said Father Starling, “you do not employ the way of the witch so as to remain barren. And I would also hope you find some other way to satisfy your husband as he puts a roof over your head and your children’s heads, and marriage to him likely saves you from hell.”
My mother’s face was red. She put her arms around each of us standing at her sides. She did not reply at first and swallowed several times. Then, in response to the man’s raised brows, she bit out, “I do not use any of the substances named in the list of offenses, Father.”
“Very well. Answer the rest of it, madam. How do you satisfy your husband? For it is in the scriptures, a wife’s duty—”
“She is an exemplary wife and mother,” my father protested. “Truly, Father. I swear to you. A man could not ask for a more godly wife.”
Her face still red, my mother was looking down at the floor. Her hand on my back trembled.
“I will defer to your husband, Madam Miller,” said Starling. “For it is he who is responsible for your immortality. Will you rest easy in the ground, buried like a good believer, finally at peace? Or will you burn?”
“I will rest,” my mother rasped out, eyes lifted back up to the priest. “I have my husband’s favor, and my husband has our saint’s blessing.”
Starling folded his hands over his front and smiled.
He had lost interest in her. Turning to my father he said, “My friend, our lord says you are a pillar of this township, that you are an upstanding man, a follower of Rodwin, a natural choice for an elder. I have saved your household for one of the last of my visits as I thought you were likely amongst the holiest of homes, per Lord Sheridan.”
“Our lord is generous,” said my father.
Starling nodded. “I can see it in you, my son. A mainstay to be sure, a leader. And you provide work. Any man who employs others is a godly person. To provide employment is to provide food and shelter.”
I wrinkled my nose. Starling was younger than our father, and yet our father seemed to brighten at the priest’s words.
“The demon folk of the afterlife are drawn to strong men the most, I have found, however,” the priest continued and lay a firm hand on my father’s shoulder.
“They want to feed on that strength after your death, good sir. It is a feast for them, a godly man’s soul.
If they can corrupt it, they will dine like kings.
That is why men are constantly tempted by the alleged delights of the world. ”
My father nodded grimly.
This was all outlined again and again in The Book of Rodwin.
“They roam this land, you see,” Starling said, as if he was only speaking to our father now.
“They have more freedom outside the blessed lands of Perpatane. They are not curtailed by our saint. Hence, why I seek to bring the settlement of Sheridan to its knees. On the border of the most heathen country of law, the land of Tintar, a name I can barely say without spitting—are not these people the most vulnerable?”
My father gave another nod.
“And the most vulnerable of them are actually the strongest men. A demon’s spirit, ever present, will tempt a strong man with women or drink.”
“I have seen it,” my father agreed.
“And if those don’t work…” the priest trailed off and removed his hand from my father’s shoulder. “Little things, small sins, will be used against him. A single book on his shelf of pagan ideas. Gluttony of the belly.” He waited a beat and then finished by saying, “A game of cards.”
Both of my parents went very still.
Rowena and I were confused. At that age we did not know our father played cards at The Pale Horse, that he bet large sums of coin on games and lost more than he won, that he had debts.
We did not know then that Torm Sheridan knew of these debts and kept offering my father to pay them off in exchange for ownership of the mill.
We did not understand yet the brilliance of the priest’s campaign.
By starting with the lesser residents of Sheridan, he had obviously built up fear by openly shaming them more easily than he could do to the close friends of Torm.
But this had also allowed him to gather information on those men.
His manipulation and mastery of the elders and businessmen in Sheridan were formulated of secrets and lies.
“I pity you, my son,” said the priest, his smile nearly convivial. “To be such a cornerstone in the edifice of this place, to be so well regarded and so strong, you are hounded by evil. I pray for your soul.”
My father, his face pale, thanked the priest. He had been shamed somehow, that much I could tell. And so when Starling turned his attentions to me, my father’s pride was bruised, and it was with almost relief that he agreed with the priest’s proclamation that I had a spirit of rebellion in me.
“Lord Torm tells me she was the first boxed in many winters, your darker-haired daughter.” The priest had drawn nearer to my mother and us and was peering down at me. “A rebellious girl. Full of questions.”
“She has been good of late,” my mother burst out. “Very docile and obedient. Reliable in her chores. I swear it, Father.”
“But she has a history of mutinous behaviors,” said my other parent. “Our lord speaks true. Roberta has unrest in her.”
Starling made a hmm noise, those blue eyes memorizing my face. “Unrest is a common sin in girls. Your other daughter? Her twin?”
“She is a sweet girl,” my mother said.
“Ah,” differed the priest, a finger in the air. “As our saint warned us, we must be wary of a woman who entices with sweetness but strikes like an adder. We are warned of sweetness. It veils a poison.”
“She is a good girl,” my mother insisted. “And close with her sister.”
“Which makes it easy for Roberta to lead Rowena astray,” my father countered.
I looked past the priest at him pleadingly. I had tried so hard recently to be good. I had even tried to pray to the saint for guidance. Why did he turn on me now? Could he not see my bowed head and my valiant attempts?
“We must keep an eye on Roberta then,” said Starling. “Do you know what your name means, girl?”
I shook my head.
“It means legendary fame, and it means a blaze of glory. Those are things meant for men. You must cut out your pride, daughter. Your name is a curse and a reminder to you that you are but a worm in the ground compared to our saint.”
And though I had not opened my mouth, had not said one word, had remained demure and respectful, something in me had sparked his interest. The priest saw me like an X on a map, as if the key said, “This is where the fire should burn.”
From the ages of eleven to thirteen, I was boxed with regularity.
Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for others, there was only one box to be used.
So my stints in the box were never longer than a day as someone else had to turn themselves in on second days.
I would climb out and return home, and the new wrongdoer would take my place.
This went on all week. I would try my hardest not to anger my father, and whole seasons would pass without punishment, but eventually, I opened my mouth and found myself back in the box.
In the scriptures of Rodwin, it said, There shall be one box in a village, in the church.
Therein each sinner will lie. That singularity of that box will serve to show that the one boxed is the most shameful of the village.
I had the idea that if the scriptures did not have such explicit instruction about the number of boxes, Starling would have filled his church with them.
Though he reigned with a radical devotion to the literal translations of The Book of Rodwin, boxing every woman and child who was turned in by their husband or parent, he did save the boxing on tenth-day services for the worst sinner of that week.
And more often than not, it was me. So while I suffered no more and no less than my fellow sinners, I was the most public of them.
To avoid this, my mother constantly sent us on errands as we aged.
When my father would ask after us, coming into the house for his midday meals, she would say that she had us delivering a basket of something or visiting a friend of hers to see after their being ill.
In truth, she would suggest we pick wild windflowers in a field as she liked to dry them for decoration.
They grew on the border of Nyossa, and soon we spent whole days exploring the edge of the pagan woods.
By our fourteenth winter, I was better at biting my tongue but worse for having more and more rebellious thoughts.
Once, after a shouting match with my father that had ended with him stalking out of the house and making for the keep to report me to Starling, my mother had sat me down in a chair in the kitchen and begged me to be quieter and more conciliatory.
Chastened, I tried my hardest to explain that my tongue never could sit in my mouth, that it had to be free, that my thoughts flew from me like fledglings from a nest, that I could not contain my mind.
“You are a wildfire,” she said. “I need you to be a hearth fire. I need you to burn in place. Just a little meeker. Burn if you must burn, but if you do not contain that mind of yours . . . Roberta, I don’t know what to do with you.”
As she went on, trying to explain that my father disciplined me because he loved me enough to want to save my soul, I thought that I too did not know what to do with myself.