24
Members of the four paths to Hananja’s wisdom are permitted to put aside propriety and the order of command, so long as this is done in service of peace.
(Law)
The Superior of the Hetawa sat in his office, enjoying the sounds of early morning, and wondering again how long it would be before his Gatherers came for him.
A day and a night had passed since the meeting with the Prince, and its aftermath. Usually when he returned from such meetings in the small hours of the morning, few of the Hetawa’s denizens were about—only the two Sentinels who served as his bodyguards, the ones on guard duty, and the handful of Sharers on night duty. Sometimes a few sleepy acolytes accompanied the latter, in their contemplation of the Sentinels’ or Sharers’ paths, and a few apprentices assisted their older brethren. But as the Superior had passed through the Hall of Blessings that morning, Rabbaneh had been there, kneeling at Hananja’s feet—but not praying. The Gatherer instead faced the Hall’s entrance, and he had not donned his hooded robe; he was still on duty. Shocking to see him like that, the Superior reflected, with his back to the statue. A snub to Hananja, though a mild one since after all the statue was only a statue.
But Rabbaneh’s gaze had been fixed on the Superior, his face unsmiling, his gaze a condemnation. There is only one affront to Hananja here, those eyes had said. And with that, the Superior had known his Final Tithe had come due.
He had spent the time since confined to his rooms, ordering no visitors so he could pray and contemplate and prepare himself for Hananja’s peace. During the night he had inadvertently fallen asleep, and been astonished to wake up alive. There would be no time to brief Teacher Maatan, his chosen successor, in the secrets that came with the mantle of Superior. Those secrets had all gone wrong anyhow. Perhaps if they died with him, the Hetawa might survive the coming storm.
The beaded front hanging rattled to announce that someone had entered his quarters. The Superior tensed, then forced himself to relax. Only a Council messenger or a Sharer responding to an emergency could violate the Superior’s privacy when he requested it. And Gatherers, of course. They went wherever they pleased. He opened his eyes.
They stood on the other side of his desk, solemn, still dressed in their sleeveless formal robes after the morning’s Tithing Ceremony. Not a Gathering, then. The Superior wasn’t certain whether to feel relief or annoyance.
“We would speak with you, Brother Superior.” Sonta-i, sounding as though he’d come to discuss the weather. And perhaps this meant no more than that to him, with his peculiar sense of right and wrong. Doubtless it was Rabbaneh who needed the explanations and details; for Sonta-i it was a simple matter. If the Superior was corrupt, then the Superior would die.
“Yes,” the Superior said. “I’ve been waiting.”
“We come to speak only,” Rabbaneh said. He sat in the chair on the other side of the Superior’s desk. Sonta-i remained standing.
“An Assay of Truth, then. I should thank you for your consideration.” The Superior sighed. “Though a part of me would prefer you get this over with.”
“Explain,” Sonta-i said. “Perhaps we shall oblige you.”
The Superior rose, going to a nearby cupboard. He opened it and took out a red bottle, wrought of glass by one of the greatest craftsmen in the city. Gatherers shunned drink for their own pleasure, but sometimes they would partake on a tithebearer’s behalf. “Drink with me, Brothers. I’m not quite an elder yet. I’m not ready to spend my last hours alone.”
“Is this a confession?” Rabbaneh watched his face intently as the Superior took three red glasses from the cupboard and set them down on his desk. “Are you asking for Hananja’s blessing?”
The Superior paused for a moment, considering, then sighed and began to pour. “Yes to the first question, no to the second. I would like very much to live. But I know the law of this land as well as you and by that law, Her Law, I am corrupt. Whatever you may think of me, I have never wanted to be a hypocrite.” He paused, taking his glass and nodding for them to take the others. Rabbaneh hesitated but then took one. Sonta-i did not.
Instead Sonta-i said, “Whether you wanted it or not, you have become one. Only a hypocrite would decry our brother as a rogue, then allow the Prince to take him away. If you believed him dangerous, he should never have left this Hetawa and the care of his brethren. But Rabbaneh says you acted on the Prince’s orders.” For just an instant something flashed across Sonta-i’s weathered face: curiosity. “How is it that the Superior of the Hetawa, Hananja’s foremost Servant, follows any orders save Hers?”
The Superior lifted his glass and took a sip, savoring the sweet, clear taste. A Giyaroo liqueur; one of the few northland delicacies he had ever liked. “You must understand I did not know everything at first. The Prince is a master at concealing his plans. For three years even I was fooled. Now I know the truth: the Prince is quite mad.”
Rabbaneh’s face was implacable. Good-humored Rabbaneh, who had been hot-tempered Rabbaneh in the years before he’d become a Gatherer. Fascinating to see that something of their old selves could surface at times like this. “Then he should be given dreamblood and healed.”
The Superior fought the urge to laugh. He covered it by taking a long swallow from the glass instead. “He was given dreamblood. That was how this nightmare began.” Ah, but it had begun long before that, in the birth throes of Gujaareh and even before that in Kisua. He should confess it all to them, tell the whole truth so that they could experience the same shock and horror and disillusionment that had afflicted him since he’d found out—
No. The words of his predecessor drifted back to him, full of loathsome wisdom: A Servant of Hananja exists to ease Gujaareh’s pain. The role of the Superior is to ease the pain of his fellow Servants. There are secrets that would destroy your brethren; it is your duty to bear them alone.
Bear them and be crushed beneath them, it seemed.
“The Prince killed his father to gain the throne,” the Superior said, gazing into the red glass. “Such things happen. But when Eninket—our Prince, pardon—took the Aureole, he immediately began to show signs of a dangerous instability. Among other curious acts, he sent a force to Kite-iyan and had slaughtered every one of his father’s wives and other children, down to the newborns. Including his own mother. Only Ehiru survived, because the Hetawa had laid claim to him by that point.” He paused, thoughtful. “Some say Ehiru’s mother had the gift of true-seeing and knew the slaughter would come. We shall never know for certain, as Ehiru does not speak of his past.”
“Perhaps because it has nothing to do with the current situation,” Sonta-i said.
The Superior smiled. He envied Gatherers their ability to see the world in simple terms: peace and corruption, good and evil. A Superior had no such luxury.
“It has everything to do with the situation, Brother Sonta-i, but I appreciate your impatience.” He took another sip of the liqueur. “The Hetawa’s duty seemed clear. We offered the Prince dreamblood—as a privilege of power, you see. The upper castes of the city whisper that it far surpasses timbalin or any other pleasure drug. The fact that it heals the mind is something they neither understand nor care about, but it suits our purposes. So a Sharer was dispatched to provide the dreamblood and perform the healing. But the Sharer found there was no madness to heal—not in the physical sense, at least. His humors were in balance; his head had suffered no injury. The Prince’s… excesses… were committed in perfect sanity.”
“Corruption,” Rabbaneh said. He scowled. “On the Sunset Throne.”
“It has happened before,” the Superior said, taking care to keep irony out of his voice. They were already angry enough. “A certain amount of corruption is inherent in any position of power. For the peace of the city we tolerate it. But what is relevant in this case is that the Prince, as a result of our attempt, tasted dreamblood. He demanded more.”
Sonta-i was staring at him with narrowed eyes, perhaps sensing his prevarication. To avoid the Gatherer’s probing gaze, the Superior drank the last of the liqueur, which delved a pleasant fiery trail down his throat.
“You didn’t give it to him?” Rabbaneh’s eyes were wide as he understood—or thought that he understood—the danger. “In quantities sufficient to heal…”
The Superior sighed. “A Prince who can slay his own mother is capable of many things, Gatherer Rabbaneh.”
It took a moment for understanding to sink in for Rabbaneh. When it did he caught his breath. “He would not dare threaten the Hetawa! All Gujaareh would rise up against him.”
“He would never threaten openly. But make no mistake; though the Hetawa and the Sunset Throne purport to share power in the city, along with the highcastes and the military, the Prince is stronger than any one of those groups alone. Ordinarily we have the support of the people to balance this weakness in our favor; any attempt to control the Hetawa, by any power of the city, would be seen as an affront to Hananja Herself. Even the servant-castes would take up arms on our behalf. But in this case, the Prince had a weapon to counter that as well—the weapon we had given him. He would claim that the healing marked the Hetawa’s attempt to control the Throne.”
He saw the quintessential horror of that sink in for both of them. The Hetawa, publicly accused of corruption? Unthinkable. Intolerable. They were both so very, very pure.
“So now the Sunset controls the Hetawa of Hananja.” Sonta-i folded his arms. “Foul as this circumstance is, it doesn’t explain your secret meeting with the Prince in the small hours of the night, like some skulking criminal. Or the fact that the subject of conversation was our brother. You will explain.”
The Superior’s fingers tightened on the glass. Clever Rabbaneh, not just following him but eavesdropping as well. So much for protecting them, then. He prayed their faith would survive the truth. It had taken many years for his own to recover.
“It is in part that Ehiru is his last living brother,” the Superior said. “I believe he enjoys having his brother’s life in his hands at last. The rest of it… Understand, my Gatherer brothers, that even I didn’t realize the lengths to which the Prince was willing to go. I thought if we kept him in dreamblood that would be enough. As Superior, I have all but bathed in corruption—yet always I have tried to keep it from soaking through my own skin. The good of the people, the will of Hananja; these things I have kept foremost in my mind.”
“Corruption is a disease of the soul,” Sonta-i said. The Superior had expected no mercy from him. But when he looked at Rabbaneh and saw the same hardness in the younger Gatherer’s eyes, he knew Hananja’s judgment had fallen upon him at last.
So be it.
“Tell us the rest of it, Superior,” Rabbaneh said, very softly. “Tell it all.”
“Dreamblood,” the Superior said. “In the end, it all comes down to that.”
May Her blessing wash me clean, he thought as he began his final confession, and the Hetawa along with me. May I find the peace in Ina-Karekh that I have never deserved. And may you, my Gatherers, my brothers, find the strength to save us all.