Lies of Light (25 page)

“You were a pretty boy,” she said as if trying to convince herself that that had any significance.

“I’m no boy,” he said, and moved his hand down to wrap around one perfect breast.

“No,” she whispered, her flesh responding to his touch even if her voice didn’t.

“I will love you,” he whispered, “if that’s what you want.”

She shook her head and replied, “That’s the last thing I want.”

She leaned in and let her lips play along the side of his neck. He closed his eyes.

“Tell me what you want,” he said. “No,” she replied.

A tear came to Willem’s eye, and he wrapped his hands around her neck, but didn’t squeeze.

“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered. “Are you going to strangle me in your bed, with your mother in the next room?”

He clenched his jaw closed so tightly he thought his teeth might shatter.

“If I thought for a moment you could do that,” she breathed. “I never would have come.”

He kept his hands on her throat, and took a deep, steadying breath.

“If that’s where you want to touch me, suit yourself,” she said. “I want you inside me, Willem.”

He took his hands away from her throat. “That’s a good boy,” she whispered. Halina, he thought. I’m sorry.

46__

18Alturiak, the Yearof the Shield (1367DR) The Sisterhood of Pastorals, Innarlith

IVIarek Rymiit couldn’t believe they’d allowed him entry. He’d seen the building from a distance a few times. One part temple, one part convent, the Sisterhood of the Pastorals seemed cut from glass. He’d never seen so many windows, or uninterrupted panes of glass quite so enormous. His off-hand comment to the dour old woman who’d shown him in, that the clerics and lay-worshipers who called the place home “should surely think twice before throwing stones,” was utterly lost on her.

She took him to a hothouse of sorts where Halina knelt on a flagstone floor, digging with her hands in a pot of dirt. Dressed in a simple peasant’s smock, no shoes on her feet, her hair a tangled mass pinned up out of her face, she looked twice her true age. She didn’t notice him standing there, looking down at her, for what felt like a terribly long time. The dour sister shuffled off, and Marek ignored her stern, warning glance.

“Has your dirt goddess made you deaf, girl?” he said.

Halina was so startled, she tipped the pot over, spilling dirt into her lap and burying the little plant that sat on the floor in front of her.

“Uncle?” she said, looking up and blinking.

“One and the same.”

“How did you… ?” she muttered, still blinking.

“I presented myself at the door and asked for you,” he said. “That will be the last time, I should add, that I will answer a partial question. You may be surprised to see me, but let us take that as a sign of your own shortsightedness and move on from the shock and awe of it so that we can speak in complete sentences.”

Halina looked down at the floor and said, “If you’ve come here to take me ho—to take me to your house, I’m afraid I will not be going with you.”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he said. “I made promises to your mother, my younger sister, that I would see to your care after her death. Surely I can’t allow you to just wander off without explanation.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” she muttered, still not looking at him.

Marek stepped back from her and let his attention drift to the many potted plants that lined the glass room. He touched the petal of a large red flower.

“I can’t say I’ve ever been to this part of the Third Quarter before,” he said. “It doesn’t smell as vile right here as it does in the rest of the quarter.”

The Sisterhood of Pastorals sat only one major thoroughfare east of the Golden Road, barely more than a stone’s throw from the north gate. Across the street to the east was the impoverished and crime-ridden Fourth Quarter.

“The sisterhood is a beacon for the people who call this part of the city home,” Halina recited. “It reminds them of the beauty of nature and the loving embrace of the Great Mother.”

“Yes,” Marek drawled, “I’m sure the beggars and drunkards of the Fourth Quarter are delighted to accept the Great Mother’s loving embrace in lieu of food.”

“Please,” Halina whispered, and her voice had a desperate sound to it that grated on Marek. “Please don’t say things like that. Not in here.”

The Red Wizards looked around and smiled. He was in Chauntea’s temple after all—enemy territory in some ways. He made a show of shrugging and moved to another potted plant that he pretended to examine.

“If you intend to stay here,” said Marek, “I will be happy to be rid of you.”

Halina let go a long, hissing breath then said, “I’m just trying to lead a good life.”

That perked Marek’s interest. “A good life?” he asked. “And what is a good life? Planting flowers in pots at the command of a pack of—” He stopped before saying “nature witches” aloud. He was, after all, surrounded by nature witches. “Well, there now. I’ve done it myself. Perhaps there’s something in the air here that makes it difficult for one to finish a thought.”

He smiled down at her, and Halina looked up at him. She returned his smile, but it was half-hearted at best. Brushing the dirt from her gown, she stood and faced him.

“I don’t know what a good life is,” she said.

“No?”

She shook her head and told him, “Maybe it’s a life spent crying less than I do. I would like that life, good or evil.”

“Indeed,” Marek said with a sneer. “Crying, Halina, is not a legitimate form of expression. It’s a sign of weakness—of a loss of control. You know I forbid it in my house. Are you telling me you’ve cried under my roof?”

She couldn’t look at him anymore, but to her credit at least she didn’t back away.

“Every day,” she whispered.

“You’re forgiven,” he said, speaking quickly so as to keep her off balance.

“No,” she said. “No, I’m not. I’m sorry.”

“Do you think I’ve led a good life?” he asked.

He waited for longer than he should have for her to answer and was about to go on when she said, “No.”

“Really?” he replied, glancing at her only briefly before returning his attention to the plant.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if you’ve led a good life, or even if I’ve led a good life. I just know I want to lead a good life.”

“That Cormyrean did things to you, didn’t he?”

He could feel her vibrate from a distance, she squirmed so terribly. Marek resisted the urge to laugh, and instead made himself wait for her answer.

“He did nothing I didn’t want him to do,” she whispered. “Don’t make me talk about that.”

“He seemed happier after he’d been with you,” Marek said. And he wasn’t simply torturing her—though he was doing that, too—it was something he’d actually noticed. Willem Korvan was in love with her.

“Did he?” she asked. “I could never tell.”

“Did he throw you out?” he asked. “Is that why you came here to dig in the dirt?”

“No,” she replied, “he didn’t throw me out.”

“But he didn’t marry you.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“What are you doing here, really?” he asked, and looked her in the eye.

She met his gaze for only a heartbeat before turning away and saying, “I’m helping people.”

“How?”

“The Sisterhood of Pastorals teaches people how to tend to the soil and harvest the bounty of the Great Mother. We teach people how to feed themselves, and if we can’t do that, we feed them. We help people to live.”

“Do ‘we’?” he asked. She seemed quick to include herself among Chauntea’s Pastorals. “You’ve only been here a few days, Halina. How many people have you helped?”

“No one, yet, I suppose,” she replied. “But if I stay, if I work hard, I could help hundreds, maybe thousands.” He laughed, but just a little.

“You shouldn’t laugh at that,” she said. “That’s not funny here.”

“The idea that by planting flowers in pots you’re going to help thousands of people is funny anywhere, Halina,” he said, risking Chauntea’s wrath. “But leaving that aside, are you telling me that altruism alone guides your actions now? If you can’t satisfy one eager young Cormyrean, why not feed the masses?”

“That’s cruel to say it like that.”

“Is it cruel to say it, or cruel to do it?”

“I don’t understand,” she admitted.

“No,” he teased. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

“It’s not altruism that brought me. here,” Halina admitted. “And no, I don’t think that I’m going to single-handedly feed thousands of starving people.”

“Then what do you want, girl?” he pushed. “Say it.”

“Happiness.”

“And what makes you think you deserve that which has eluded so many?”

“I said I want it; I don’t think I deserve it,” she whispered. “And that’s why I’m here.”

“You don’t know why you’re here.”

“I’m here because he wouldn’t marry me,” she said.

“And that’s what you wanted?” he asked. “That’s what would give you this elusive ‘happiness’?”

She nodded and sighed again. She sounded as tired as she looked—as beaten.

“I’ve told you before, Halina, that your happiness, your needs, are of no consequence,” the Red Wizard said. “You are not some goddess, or some lone creature inhabiting a plane of her own. You are a young woman who is a part of two societies. You are a part of the community of the city-state of Innarlith, and you are a citizen of Thay. Those communities require your service, not your happiness. They require

your obedience, not your opinion. They require that you do as you’re told. At times, I’m afraid, they require that you don’t run off to some convent to wallow in self-pity, digging in the dirt while you cry over a lost love.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, and he grimaced at the sight of it.

“Halina,” he said, “I want you to listen to me very carefully while I tell you precisely how you will live every day of your miserable existence from this day forward. When I am finished, you will have the choice of doing what is required of you or—”

“Pardon me,” Willem Korvan said.

Marek almost gasped.

“Master Rymiit,” Willem said, “please excuse me, but may I ask that you step out for a moment and allow your niece and I a moment to speak with each other?”

Rymiit was less surprised to see Willem Korvan standing there than he was by the young man’s appearance. If the homespun clothing and dirty hands aged Halina, Willem appeared even older, and his clothing was as fresh and clean as his hands. The Cormyrean’s eyes had sunk deep into his face, rimmed underneath with dark bags that made him look as though he’d been punched in both eyes.

“Senator Korvan,” Marek said with an over-wrought bow.

He glanced at Halina, who didn’t notice him. She stared at Willem with her mouth hanging open and tears in her eyes. The young senator stared back, and appeared as surprised by her appearance as she was by his.

Marek walked out of the greenhouse, past Willem. When he was out of earshot he muttered a quick incantation that would allow him to listen in on them. He walked at a brisk pace, under the watchful eye of more than one priestess, but was not prevented from sitting on a low stone bench under a strange sort of tree he’d never seen before, which grew in the central rotunda of the sisterhood’s glass house.

“… awful, Willem,” Halina said. Her voice was clear to Marek, though he knew no one else around him could hear her. “You’ve been drinking. Have you been drinking?”

“Yes,” Willem replied.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Why am I here?” Willem replied. “Why are you here? You disappeared. I couldn’t find you. I had to call in favors before I was told where you were.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d—”

“Halina—” Willem grunted.

Marek sighed. It was going to be a long conversation if they both insisted on stopping midsentence, and his spell wouldn’t last forever.

“I came here when I finally realized I had nowhere else to go,” Halina said.

Her voice sounded different to Marek, and it wasn’t just the spell’s occasional distortion. She spoke differently with Willem than she did with Marek. She was more relaxed.

“You’re looking at me,” she went on, “as though you don’t understand what I mean.”

“I don’t,” Willem admitted. “I didn’t drive you away, did

I?”

“No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “But you didn’t take me in, -either.”

“Loved me?” she finished for him.

“Yes,” he said with much eagerness.

Marek heard footsteps, a sound of some small disturbance, and Halina said, “No, please don’t.”

More shuffling feet then Willem replied, “You won’t let me touch you? Have you taken some vow of chastity here?”

“Don’t be vulgar,” she scolded, and Marek lifted an eyebrow at her tone. “I am not a priestess here. I’ve come to help, and to think, and the sisters ask nothing more of me.”

“And that’s it, then?” he asked.

“Willem, you just said you loved me.” There was a pause during which Willem might have nodded. “Loved me. Past tense.”

“No, Halina,” Willem whined. “I love you. I love you in the present tense.”

“Then why won’t you marry me?” she asked and Marek was relieved that she’d finally come to the point.

“I will,” the Cormyrean replied.

“Why?” she asked. “And when?”

“Halina,” said Willem, “I will marry you now, this precise moment, if that’s what you wish.”

“What do you wish?” she pressed him.

“I want you,” he said. “I want you now, and forever. If I . have you, maybe I won’t have to drink to keep from shaking. If I had you to come home to at the end of the day, I would come home. If I knew that you loved me and would love me forever, I would never again ki—”

He stopped short, and Marek held his breath. Was he going to say “kill”?

“Willem?” Halina said.

“I love you,” he replied. “I love you with my whole heart. I’m only happy when I’m with you. I’m a better man, with a brighter future. I smile only when I am with you.”

“Willem…”

“Forgive me,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “Halina, please forgive me for everything I’ve done and will ever do. Forgive me, and love me, and save me.”

“Save you?” she asked.