Chapter 3
Chapter three
Ashara
The Inquisition
Eyes down, breath held, we crossed the threshold, passing through the Doors of Judgement and into the heart of the chappellum.
The smallest of hoots, so soft I may have imagined it, pulled my eyes from my slippers to the doors.
The owl was alive, but barely, its chest heaving, head hanging limply, eyes dull.
Blood marred its tawny feathers, the red darkest around the base of the iron spikes pinning its wings.
I cursed myself for looking.
Its wide orbs tracked me as I disappeared into the inner arched entry.
I should’ve known better. I did know better than to beg a god, even the Other, for mercy.
None of us would find it here. Perhaps if my hands were free, I could somehow manage the kindness of driving a stake through its heart.
I wriggled my aching wrists, stretching the binds.
The acolytes had bound them tight, the coarse rope digging into my bones, rubbing the skin raw.
It was the first thing they did: cut a length of hemp from their belts to ensure our compliance. “Acolytes…nasty little things,” Demetri always insisted. “Their tongues so far up the arseholes of druids, it’s no wonder they spew so much shit.”
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, letting it glide along the ridges of my teeth. It felt heavy, like lead, swelling so thick I could choke.
Would Capriche deign to tear it from me? Would it hang on the Doors of Judgement alongside the owl?
“Faster,” an acolyte demanded, pulling at my binds.
Paraded down the aisle, the empty pews framed our descent to the cells below, the holding place for those who chose to sin outside of Sermon-turns.
The tall, curved ceilings of the chappellum were swamped in darkness.
I drew a shaky breath, the stench of incense singing my nostrils, its heady perfume failing to mask the cloy of iron.
By the candelabras’ glow, I spotted a dark stain in the straw, still tacky with the cobbler’s blood.
Skirting its edges, I did my best not to recall the tongs and the blade.
Mother would be wondering where I was by now.
It hurt to think of her, pacing the stove, worrying her hands, debating whether to take to the streets.
She’d know soon enough—either when I returned a limb or two lighter, or from her place in the crowds at the Reach of Atonement.
The pad of my footsteps on straw morphed to a light tapping as the ground shifted to stone, Capriche’s pulpit hanging over us like the head of an axe.
Demetri’s head angled towards it, the side of his profile etched into a sneer.
He’d protested at first. “She’s innocent, you bastards.
She’s untouched! A seamstress, sewing my sleeve.
You bald-headed cu—” But he was silent now, thanks to an acolyte’s belt, the fine curve of his cheek now pocked and bloody.
The one to my left boasted a brutal appendage, which swung to and fro, nearly brushing my ankles.
All acolytes had them—a knot in their belts, punctured with iron spikes that hung between their legs.
“In lieu of a cock,” Demetri had reasoned.
In lieu of a cock or not, he’d suffered it, regardless.
“Retrieve His Holiness from the rectory; we’ll need direction of penance,” an acolyte, slightly taller than the rest, instructed another, the glimpse of his gums flashing redder than blood. Behind the pulpit and dais stood a number of doors, where we came to a halt.
“Laurels, unless you wish to endure another correction of the belt, remain silent and heed our orders whilst we prepare you a cell. For Blood Demands Blood.” He didn’t bother to turn to address us but paused until the maxim was echoed.
The gnarliest door, one banded in iron, swung outwards with a creak, and my feet decided they no longer wished to heed. The stench of human waste, sweat, and damp wafted from its depths as I stared into the darkness beyond.
“Come, laurel.” A nudge to my shoulder. I winced as the acolyte retracted his hand, noticing the way his long, thin fingers flexed and splayed. He’d touched me, so why couldn’t Demetri? How was an acolyte’s hand worthier than his?
“Anon, lest this be another show of insolence to add to your ledger.”
I wouldn’t budge. Something was waiting for me down there, something I couldn’t turn from. No matter if I shut my eyes or held my breath, and by the Other, I didn’t want to go.
“Enough.”
Before the acolytes could drag me in by the ankles, kicking and screaming, Demetri chanced a small turn.
Caked in blood, his warm eyes found mine in the candlelight.
Exhaling, I held my breath, hoping to starve the flaming waves that roared in my chest. He inclined his head towards the door, as if to say, “Come, Ashara.”
He was right, of course, as refusal would only bring us more pain. Still, it hurt to know there was nothing Demetri could do; that he’d accepted our lot and the things they would do to me, to us.
I stepped forward.
***
It was damp, dark, and I was shivering, my shawl left abandoned in the smith’s yard.
Cramped and padded with rotting, wet straw, the cells were chiselled, not from limestone like the chappellum above, but from the dark rock of Ovidus—a volcanic mineral, abrasive and rough.
I ran my fingers over its bumps, knowing Demetri was on the other side.
He shuffled through the straw, occasionally clanging against the iron of his bars.
“Druid Capriche will enact judgement when he sees fit, laurels,” an acolyte announced from where he sat perched on a bench, watching us, his crimson robes pooling like blood around his feet.
“I would advise starting your penance now—prostrating on your knees—should you desire any mercy. Implore the Blood God for forgiveness, though you deserve none.” His thin neck swivelled towards me, where I crouched on the filthy ground.
“You, Ashara Laurel of the Sewing Guild.” Free of my wimple, I could not disguise who I was.
Most of the enclave knew of the babe born with hair the colour of stone.
I removed a slate-coloured strand from my face with trembling fingers.
“Do you understand the need for inquisition?”
“Are you dumb, deaf, or mute, Laurel? I asked if you understood?”
Demetri cleared his throat, the sound muffled by the wall.
“Yes,” I confirmed before he could answer for me. They’d take a belt to his other side if he spoke out of turn.
Inquisitioned. The word itself was enough for my mind to run wild.
Capriche would probe and prod, hunting for an intact layer of tissue—the thin bridge where, had we not heeded caution, Demetri and I might have joined.
Never had I been more grateful for the man’s stubbornness.
Demetri’s restraint, rare as it was, would spare me my life, if only for a while.
That, and my womb. I hugged my stomach, a pang of nausea swelling through me.
Only a woman’s body, it seemed, could bear the marker of shame.
The acolytes lined on the benches stared at me as if I were already condemned, their beady eyes, like spiders, glinting under the sconces. It was as if they looked not at me, but through me, privy to something under my skin, able to see the bones and flesh underneath.
Skin crawling, I turned, folding into a crouch, knees pressed to my chest.
I was just stitching his sleeve.
But it wasn’t just that, was it? Not moments before, his lips had been pressed to my neck, hands roving, fingers tracing the curve of my hips.
Then, I’d lowered to my knees. I could still taste him, beaded on my tongue, and feel the weight of his swell after I’d swallowed him down, down, down.
It had felt good, like it always did. But did anything feel quite as good as being tucked up in one’s cot, your mother humming from the larder as you drifted to sleep?
Perhaps…perhaps not.
I leaned back, head grating against the cold, hard stone. It was not enough for the Blood God to lay claim to our veins; He demanded the rest of us, too.
“Ashara.”
I stiffened, heart jolting at the sound of Demetri’s voice.
Don’t speak. Don’t speak. Don’t speak.
It would be worse if he spoke. So, so much worse.
“Do not speak.” Acolytes, notoriously emotionless, rarely snapped. This one, though… There was an edge to his words that prickled the hairs on my nape as spite laced each syllable. “You should be lost to the piety of penance, not adding tallies to your due.”
I rotated to face the bars, imploring Demetri through wilful silence to mind his tongue. He’d be struggling now to leash his temper, trying his hardest to indulge in a bit of light choking, lest he wanted his larynx ripped from his neck.
Other, let his restraint win out, I silently begged, though my prayer would most likely go unanswered. If not, he’ll lose more than his tongue.
Demetri stayed silent.
After what felt like an age, though probably no more than a turn, the wooden door swung inward, bathing our narrow cells in light. The shadow of a twisted spike slithered towards me, its peak trailing up the base of my skirts.
“By the pits, what is it now, Pietr?” Capriche’s drawl rang loud against the echoing silence of the dungeons.
I traced his outline in the glow of the wall sconces burning in the stairwell, hunting for his hands—hands that would soon be on me, inside me.
Bile bubbled in my chest, threatening to erupt.
An acolyte stood, bowing his head as he motioned to our cells. “Two unrelated laurels, Your Holiness. Found unchaperoned in the disused blacksmith’s yard. Holding hands.”
“Holding ha—” Capriche didn’t finish the sentence but rubbed the metal ridge of his helm, sniffing sharply. “Deepest pit, Acolyte, you dare disturb my supper, for what? Some hand holding? Rod their knuckles and be done with it. Of all the…” he trailed off, making to leave.
I edged closer to the light, hands curling around the iron bars. Something dangerous stirred within my chest, something reserved only for fools. Hope.
A rod to the knuckles? It was the lightest of penances, other than a slap to one’s cheek. Let them rod us til’ sunrise.
“Yes, Your Holiness, most wise. Except…” Another bow. “As the Book of Dendralis dictates, I propose an inquisition before penance is awarded.”
I scrambled away to the corner, still sodden with another Thromarrian’s waste.
No, no, no.
The druid hung his helm, point scraping the wall.
A long, suffering sigh pushed from his lips, still masked by a veil, as he twiddled with a pouch of something tied to his belt, twisting and twisting the small bag as if wringing water from a towel.
Capriche’s rigid formality at sermons seemed so at odds with the man who stood before us, treating our penance as if it were an elbow on the table.
“Very well, Pietr, but I have little time to check the cunts of wayward laurels—the venison grows cold. Do it yourself. Disturb me again, and I will have that bald head of yours scalped of more than just hair, and see to it that your rations are decreased.”
My heart plummeted, as hearts often do when raised to foolish heights.
The acolyte remained a painting of deference, his eyes glassy and glazed, though his red, pointy tongue flicked over his lips, as if already famished at the mere mention of rations.
“Of course, Your Holiness. And the penance, should she be found to have been tampered with? Shall I proceed with the custom?”
I winced.
Capriche’s boot paused halfway up the first stair, the other hovering at the threshold.
His outline, stripped of ceremonial garb, stood lean, tall, and broad.
If not for the helm, I might have mistaken him for a man, not a beast. Yet I had long since learned that men were capable of cruelties far greater than any monster conjured in tales at the hearth. Still, he twisted the bag.
“Yes, Acolyte, proceed with the custom.”
“If not, we take a hand for their dues?”
My own gripped the bars tighter.
Capriche spun, tossing his head back, helm with it, the chainmail layering his face like a pall.
“If nothing untoward has occurred,” he huffed, sniffing again, “then a lashing will do.
I have a long line of whippings come the ‘morrow, so diligently prescribed to me by your faithful houndings, Pietr. What be two more?”
He slammed the door.
I relinquished my grip. Better than a hand. Better than a hand.
The acolyte hovered, face slack, his long fingers flexing until they rounded into two fists. Scouts or no, it was an acolyte’s hands I was to be at the mercy of, then Capriche’s come the morn…and all for the perceived sin of Demetri’s in my lap.
Hands.
Hands.
Hands.
Perhaps we were better off without them, for all the trouble they caused.
A twist of red robes and he was on me, his pallid face pressed to the bars. “Up, Laurel.”
I shook then, unable to stop the tears from spilling from my eyes, nor temper the sob from my throat.
“Fuck it,” a familiar voice cursed from the din.
Pietr’s head whipped left, his slender neck angled towards Demetri’s cell, to the source of the noise.
“Ashara, listen to me.” Demetri’s voice was clearer, louder, as if he’d pressed his face against the bars closest to where our cells conjoined. “It’s going to be alright. They’ll find nothing. Don’t look. Keep those eyes closed and don’t look. Don’t—”
Acolytes and monks pressed in from the shadows, yanking his bars open before tumbling into the cell. I was dragged, clutching at rancid straw as they hauled me along the floor.
Hands all over me, scuttling like ants.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
For if I didn’t look, I wouldn’t feel.
I wouldn’t feel.
I wouldn’t feel.
I wouldn’t feel.
From above, the owl wailed.