The words Caleste had taught her for this. Words she had never yet said. ‘Great Tanis, Lord of Living and Dying, Great Tanis Who Rules All Things, this one your servant has done a bad thing. She has brought darkness where there should be light. She has brought death where there should be life. We tremble before your anger, oh Lord. We bring her to you. We take her eyes, that she may see neither light nor dark. We take her hands, that she may use them for neither good nor evil. Take now this punishment and forgive her, oh Lord. From the fear of life and the fear of death, release us.’
She brought the knife down. Again. Again. Again. Hands not stabbing but sawing, cutting at bone and sinew, almost beyond her strength. Ausa screamed until finally she stopped screaming. Thalia stood before her and raised her left arm. She cut herself from wrist to elbow, a shallow jagged cut over the course of her scars. The blood ran down, mingling with Ausa’s blood. She stood for a moment, her arm shaking, the knife raised. Put down the knife and walked away, through the curtain, through the Great Chamber. The slaves came out of the shadows and carried Ausa away.
In a corridor she met Tolneurn. He had been waiting, perhaps. He looked at her, covered in Ausa’s blood, her dress clinging to her body. His eyes flickered. Disgust and desire. Desire and disgust.
That was the secret, the thing Helase was too innocent to see. The reason poets clamoured to write of the beauty of the High Priestess. Disgust and desire. Desire and disgust. Samnel knew it: Thalia saw that in the older woman’s face after every death, mocking and knowing. The thin face stared at her, pale man eyes, lust and loathing, jealousy of her power, revulsion at her act.
‘It is done, then?’ he asked, pointlessly.
‘It is done.’
‘Is she—?’
‘If she is unlucky, she will live.’ She would pace out her days doing what little useless things she could, a servant who could not serve, a priestess whom the God had abandoned. Better she had died under the knife. Better she had drawn a black lot. Better she had never been born. Thalia made herself stand very straight and tall as the man gazed at her. Why did he not move? Why did he not go, let her flee away and get clean? She was alive, she thought. She was my friend. So much life in her.
‘She was your friend. Do you grieve for her?’
‘She was a priestess who offended the God.’ Her legs felt as though they might buckle beneath her. The weight of Ausa’s blood was crushing; her arm hurt where it bled. Still he looked at her.
‘My Lady.’ Samnel. Come to rescue her. A kind act.
‘They are waiting for you upstairs,’ said Samnel. Tolneurn bowed his head and left them, looking back for a moment as he went. Thalia let out a great sigh and almost fell against the older woman. Samnel flinched at the feel of her, the taint of her as they touched.
‘I am sorry,’ Samnel said. ‘That it was Ausa. That it had to be done.’
‘It was needful,’ said Thalia in an empty voice. Not before Samnel, either. You worship Him with such ardour, she thought. This is what He wishes. What we must do. They went up the stairs together, the girl leaning on the woman’s arm. In her bedroom, Thalia was washed and her wound treated, given a cup of warm water sweetened with honey. The servants who tended her were kind, though she could feel them drawing away from her. What she had done had not been done for a long time.
Ausa was somewhere down below, in the small infirmary with the old sick woman Calden who was too weak and senile to serve. Thalia could see the Temple in her mind as the God must see it, as though the roof had been taken off and the contents displayed like a toy. Ausa, in her bed, drugged and tied down. Thalia, standing at her window. She was so tired, she just wanted to sleep. She did not feel exhilarated, as she did after a sacrifice, only worn and trembling as if she had a fever. There was a service later she must officiate at.
She stood at the window, looking out at the bright sunlight and the flowers and the birds. Difficult to think of what she had done, bathed in the light and the warmth, a butterfly dancing on the sill. Guilt, crushing her. Shame. She did these things, for her God, for her pride. She could have defied Tolneurn. She could have defied them all. She could have defied the God. The weight of it, the pity of it. For herself, as much as for Ausa. That she came to these things. Blind and crippled, as Ausa was, trapped within the walls of life and death. Shedding blood. Killing. Locked away from the world. I bring life, she thought. But I will never see it.
The butterfly danced nearer and landed on her outstretched hand. Its wings were green and gold. A little child laughed somewhere down below in the garden, playing in the sun.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tobias and Rate sat at a table in the Five Corners, arguing.
‘We’ve got to go out and get the bloody gear,’ said Tobias. ‘Today. Now. We can’t fuck everything up because of one bloody idiot boy.’
‘Emit’s still missing,’ said Rate. ‘We ought to look for him again. He could be in trouble.’
‘Yeah? Well, where shall we look, then? Wander about and maybe another nice young lady will lead us to him?’
‘I don’t bloody know. He could be anywhere.’
‘He’s dead,’ Tobias said flatly. ‘There’s no point in looking for him. We don’t have time to fuck around pointlessly looking for a corpse. He’s dead and dumped outside the city walls by now.’
Rate glared at him, stood up as if to walk out and start searching immediately right then. ‘How do you know that? Feel it in your bones? Known him so long you can tell when he snuffs it? Or are you such a good squad leader you’d feel the same for any of us? I know he’s a shifty, grumpy bastard but we can’t just leave him.’
Oh for gods’ sake. ‘How many men, exactly, do you think I’ve had to leave for dead in my time? He’s dead, Rate. You know he is. Marith basically told us as much.’
‘I don’t know that. You don’t know. Marith— Oh. Fuck.’ Rate sat down again slowly. ‘You think Marith killed him?’
Tobias rolled his eyes. Maybe not as bright as he’d thought. Too trusting, underneath it all.
‘But he … I mean … Why?’
Really not as bright as he’d thought. ‘Why do you bloody think, Rate?’
Rate still floundered. ‘But …’ He frowned. ‘Oh gods. He didn’t somehow end up in that hole drinking rat poison by mistake, did he?’
‘No,’ Tobias said with a deep sigh. ‘He didn’t. He very much didn’t.’
A look of realization in Rate’s face, as if something had just been confirmed for him. ‘And the twitching …? He’s a hatha addict as well, isn’t he? I was half wondering, but he seemed so … so …’
A brief silence. Tobias felt his face go red with rage.
‘What do you mean, you were half-wondering? Wondering what?’
‘He … he has some of the symptoms. Of hatha cravings.’ Pause. Rate licked his lips. Embarrassed. You damn well should be embarrassed, Tobias thought. ‘He’s good at hiding it, but … At first I thought you knew. And then, the trust you put in him, I thought I must be wrong …’