The Light of Heaven (12 page)

"That's right," Scarra said. His voice was measured and jovial, but his eyes were wide, the smile a little too fixed. He stepped down in front of her and backed away. "This is one of Makennon's harridans," he called out to the crowd. He looked at Erak. "So, you've come to accuse me of something, I suppose?" Erak stayed silent, to Gabriella's satisfaction.

"Is there something you feel guilty about?" Gabriella asked.

Scarra looked toward Erak again, then to Tanner, to Oaks and to Komo, but none of the men would speak to him.

"Perhaps there's some reason you think a woman shouldn't be talking to you? Or at least a woman in religious service?"

"The Lord Of All needs no woman to spread his word," Scarra snarled. "Only to spread his worshippers."

Gabriella grinned. The man was an idiot. "There's only one worshipper who I want to spread right now. As ashes." The crowd shifted, unsettled. "Just one," she repeated. A few eyes darted between her and Scarra and back.

"She's a witch," Scarra scoffed dismissively. "You know what to do with witches?"

"Burn her!" someone in the mob shouted. A murmur of agreement spread all around.

Gabriella's eyes flicked to the source of the call. A man in green robes recoiled from her gaze and she smiled coldly. "Burning's for heretics, fat man," she said. "Witches are hanged, by the proclamation of the Anointed Lords since time immemorial."

Scarra laughed. "Who cares whether she hangs or burns, as long as the witch is dead?"

Gabriella looked back at him. "Have you seen any heretics lately, Scarra?" Her smile widened slightly, and the murmuring of the crowd took on a more uncertain tone. "Members of the Brotherhood of the Divine Path, for example? Conspirators to assassination?" She surveyed the mob. "So, what think you? If you want to burn someone, then there Karel Scarra stands. If you want to kill me, you'll have to hang me." She smiled coldly. "If you can."

To her left, a few figures began to move and Gabriella gripped the hilts of her swords. Then she realised they were backing off and moving away. A couple of others on the right were doing the same and the men surrounding her were looking uncertain. She pointed to them and snapped "You two!" They froze, startled. "Grab him." She told them.

Looking surprised at themselves, they grabbed hold of Scarra's upper arms and frog-marched him towards her. She could have had soldiers-at-arms do it, but Scarra's own people aiding in his atonement was a better symbol, and one the people here would remember longer.

Gabriella drew a blade and put it to Scarra's throat.

"You could make a martyr out of me," he warned, his voice shaking.

"I could," Gabriella agreed quietly. "Or I could make an example of this village." She let that sink in. "You're not going to tell me you're the one and only member of the Brotherhood here?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything."

"But you'll tell our Confessors a lot."

"What makes you think that, witch?"

"Because you have, shall we say, Brotherly love for your friends here." She gestured towards the townspeople.

His eyes widened in horror as he understood what she was suggesting.

"These people are innocents, employees of my family. They are not..." He swallowed, hard. "They are not complicit in what you and your ilk would call my sins."

"I'm sure most of them aren't. I'm just as sure a few of them are." She paused to let that sink in. "Now, there are two ways we can deal with this situation. You can come with us, have the courage of your convictions and our Confessors will certainly get the relevant names from you for arrest and trial..."

"Or..."

"Or I'm sure I don't have to remind you of the Anointed Lord's decree at the siege of Freiport."

"'Kill them all, the Lord will sort the wheat from the chaff.'" Scarra whispered. He looked at her with revulsion. "You are a monstrous abomination, witch."

Gabriella's leg flashed round and up, a high kick taking him in the face, sending him sprawling. "I'm an angel, sinner. I'm giving you a chance to do your soul some good by saving all these lives."

Scarra spat blood from his split lips and got to his knees. "Very well."

"Good." Gabriella turned and beckoned a couple of soldiers-at-arms to come forward and secure the prisoner. She then rejoined Erak and the other knights. "That's the important bit done. We'll leave some of the soldiers to make sure everyone stays put and have Confessors and reinforcements sent from Andon to take everyone back to the Preceptory for confession. Some of them will be Brotherhood."

"Perhaps one in five, judging by their expressions." Tanner agreed. "I'll see to it. And the estate?"

"These people have been led astray... They need reassurance." One in five of them might belong to the Brotherhood, but Gabriella knew that the rest were victims of the Brotherhood's corruption. They didn't deserve to have their progress towards godliness held back by the minority.

"Guidance?" Oaks chipped in.

Gabriella nodded. "Sequester the estate and all of Scarra's assets for the Faith. These people will earn a more honest living when they're working for a more worthy cause."

CHAPTER 6

Gabriella led Erak into Scarra's house, leaving the other three Knights in charge of the troops and prisoner. A faint scent of Dreamweed hung in the air. The largest room was a lounge filled with plush chairs and lined with bookcases. Small tapestries hung on the panelled walls. A small group of servants stood meekly, watching the pair with noticeable fear. Gabriella dismissed them with a wave.

"Right, what are we looking for?" Erak said as he scanned the room.

"Maps, letters, that kind of thing. Anything that ties Scarra in with the Brotherhood and the assassination attempt."

It didn't take long to check over the house and find Scarra's study. The room was small and strewn with parchments, maps, quills and so on. The maps were simply road maps and most of the parchments were either to do with the vineyard's business, or contained sermons Scarra had written for the Brotherhood.

"He been a busy man, our fat friend," Erak commented.

"Busy, but not very good at keeping useful records." Gabriella sighed. "The Brotherhood sermons are enough to condemn him, but not really what I wanted to find."

"Confessor Kamil will get more information out of him when she meets him at Andon," Erak promised.

"Yes, but how long might it take? Meanwhile, seeing as we have him here. Why don't we..." She arched an eyebrow in what she hoped was a conspiratorial look.

Erak rolled his eyes and turned away. "Oh, no. I know that look, Gabe."

"Just a quick friendly chat with our pal Scarra, that's all it will be, don't worry." She patted him on the shoulder.

They had Scarra brought into the lounge. A man-at-arms shoved him roughly into a seat, and remained standing next to him. Gabriella sat opposite.

"It's going to be a fast trip on to the Cathedral at Andon," Gabriella told Scarra. "Everyone who's heard of the events at Kalten will want to see justice done."

"If there is to be any justice, you would not be doing Makennon's dirty work."

"Ah, dirty work."

She smiled disarmingly and was rewarded to see his expression grow confused. Now that she had him indoors, she noticed that Scarra himself carried the odour of Dreamweed. He must have been smoking it to calm his nerves, knowing that he was hunted. She considered adding it to the list of charges, but thought better of it. If it relaxed him, perhaps she could exploit the effects, before they wore off.

"It's a great pity that the son of an Eminence has ended up doing the dirty work of the Brotherhood."

He shook his head. "The Brotherhood is nothing dirty, my child. I was as educated as... As yourself, probably, and perhaps that is how I came to see the light. You've found my study, so I can hardly deny being a traveller upon the Divine Path, but my work for the Brotherhood is not dirty work."

"And what about your work for Goran Kell, personally?"

"Bishop Kell is an... important man."

"And an absent one, I notice." She saw a faint flash of anger in his eyes, but it wasn't anger at her. "He didn't accompany you in your escape. Or, perhaps I should say, he didn't have you accompany him."

Scarra's voice came through gritted teeth. "Bishop Kell wisely felt that splitting up would increase the likelihood that at least one of us would escape."

"Bishop Kell? Interesting that you call him that."

Scarra looked uncertain. "It is his title -"

"And you don't deny it. You don't try to hide it. That's interesting." She leaned forward. "Let me speak plainly: I'd like to know where Kell is."

"I'm not going to tell you where he is. I know you and your Confessors think I will, but I won't." He looked annoyed with himself. "I can't."

"You'd be surprised what a man can do, that he thinks he can't."

Scarra laughed. "Oh, girlie, I don't mean I can't, like I can't bring myself to betray a fellow Brother, or anything like that. I mean I can't because I don't know where he is. And, believe me, if I did know, I might well tell you."

Gabriella hesitated, unsure that she'd heard correctly. "You
would
? In the hope of leniency?"

He laughed again. "Hell no! I know better than to think talking would save me!" His smile faded. "But to take him with me... That'd serve the smug bastard right for running out on me. Don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind that he did that deliberately. I suppose it would have depended on whether telling you or not telling you would hurt him or the Faith more. But since I don't know anyway, it's a moot point."

"Why would he do that? If he thinks of you as a loose end, why didn't he just kill you?"

Scarra shrugged. "All I know is he screwed up and ran out on me. Kell is a two-faced... Bishop. Yes, if you catch him, he deserves at least as much as will happen to me."

"Goran Kell left you hanging," Gabriella said. "If it was me, I'd take a measure of revenge. Do whatever I can to get back at him for this betrayal."

"You mean help you?" He laughed again. "Don't think that just because I don't think much of him that that means I don't hate the Faith more. I'm not going to help that narrow-hipped vixen back in Scholten, even to spite Goran Kell."

"You've already confirmed his rank in the Brotherhood."

"You knew that already." Scarra looked away, trying not to let her see the fear and dismay in his eyes. He felt sick. "And what good would it do me?"

"It would help you fly with the Lord in the clouds of Kerberos."

Scarra was silent for a while, then said. "I don't know where Kell went after our last meeting. But I know this much: he has Freedom."

"And I'm sure he enjoys that freedom, but -"

"No, child. Not freedom.
Freedom
. Not just the concept of being free, but the actual Freedom. It exists. That is its name."

For a moment, Gabriella thought he was playing word games with her, but his tone was straightforward. "Freedom? You mean, a ship? Or a place?" She said.

"Truth to tell, I don't know. It's a word I heard him use once or twice, and which seemed to have some special significance for him, beyond the ordinary meaning of the word."

Gabriella let the matter drop. It was probably the Dreamweed talking, putting an artificial emphasis on an everyday word. "Our Confessors -"

"Will no doubt cause me great pain and suffering in Makennon's name, and they may even get me to name some other place that they suspect as being worth destroying, but none of that will be true. What I've told you is all I know."

Gabriella knew better than to trust him, but she felt that what he said had the ring of truth. "I'll make sure the Confessor knows you were helpful."

"There's one other thing, a person he mentioned sometimes. A lover perhaps. I never took much notice."

"Being a woman, you mean you thought she wasn't worth taking any notice of?" She didn't even bother feeling disgusted with his attitude. She was used to it by now. "Who is she?"

"I don't know her name -"

"How convenient," Gabriella said, through gritted teeth.

"But I know he referred to her by a nickname. The Huntress, he called her."

"Huntress?" It was an odd name for a lover. A mercenary might have such a nickname, and there were female mercenaries, but Gabriella found it hard to believe that a Brotherhood leader would hire one. The Brotherhood tended not to view women as resources, at least not within their priesthood. Perhaps she was a mercenary elsewhere, but simply a mistress for Kell when she was with him.

"Usually he'd just call her that," Scarra said. "Sometimes he'd call her his 'Golden Huntress' - I imagine she turned a tidy profit for him - but normally just 'The Huntress.'"

"And where might I find her?"

"I don't know exactly. I've never met her."

"Then what about generally, if not exactly?"

"Down in Fayence, I think. Kell always travelled up to the Anclas by the western routes."

Gabriella rose and nodded to the man-at-arms. "So be it."

The road ahead breasted a ridge and, as they climbed, the smell of Turnitia - salt water, oil and fish - became stronger. The city was built on the side of a cliff, who's top was festooned with gallows-like cranes and taught ropes and cables. Below, the docks and the bay were held fast by huge black monoliths that kept the worst of the breakers from swamping the whole place. The living area of the city itself rose gradually up from the warehouses near the cliffs, through the markets and towering Citadel to the most desirable homes atop the hill.

Goran Kell could see how organically it was growing around that hill. It was solid at heart, but with new buildings spored outwards, like a moss thriving on the sunward side of a rock. It was spreading just the way that all of God's creations did when they prospered. It was beautiful.

Larger, more impressive, buildings flowered here and there nearer the cliffs. Kell hurried through the streets in search of a particular set of rooms, where pastries and small beer were sold cheaply to tired workers. He ducked under a low archway between two ship owners' offices and along into a dark tavern. The smells of hot food, spiced drinks and small beer drifted out.