Cleansing
A hoarse scream rebounded off the stone walls, and it took Lei several moments to realize it was his. Too late, he closed his mouth. He gagged, and new spasms of coughing jerked his body. Jolts of pain zapped his aching shoulders and his tied wrists. The heavy metal door slammed shut, and footfalls receded behind it.
The fire stopped crackling and hissing, but smoke from the new batch of chilis and rose stems scratched at Lei’s throat. At least he’d kept his eyes shut this time, though tears flowed freely through the itch and soreness. When he forgot to close them during stoking, the bright flame and acrid fumes brought on a spell of dizziness.
When guards had dragged him out of here and into his cell the previous night, nausea had overpowered him. The tiny room held only a handful of straw, and the crisp air of an autumn night came in through the narrow-barred windows, but he had retched and heaved long after they’d left him crumpled on the floor.
His knees hurt, pressed against the stone slabs, but even the tiny movements his chains allowed brought on more aches than they soothed. Every shallow breath felt like inhaling briars, burning all the way to his lungs. His stinging eyes never stopped watering. He had pleaded with his captors, but it had helped no more than his prayers to the Parents. The face of the red-robed priest who regularly threw chilis and roses into the fire was as cold and unyielding as the blue lith of the gods outside town.
His headache and dizziness made it hard to focus. Only his painful breaths and the stoking of the fire marked the passage of time. Shouldn’t someone have cleared up whatever misunderstanding had landed him here? Thoughts swirled in his head like a flock of startled birds, and he had trouble following a single thread to its conclusion. Eventually, the needling in his arms subsided into numbness. If exhaustion did not overpower him, their soreness would keep him up at night. They’d return him to his cell to sleep, wouldn’t they?
Some moments – or perhaps an eternity – later, the metal door creaked open. With a loud clang, a heavy iron bell dropped over the firepit to smother the flames. Heavy footfalls departed, but a voice nearby continued to murmur. Lei dared to take a deep breath and open his eyes.
The figure on the other side of the firepit had raised her left arm with the palm upward. Her right stretched down, palm parallel to the ground. Two oil lamps by the door framed the priestess’ head in a halo, while the ones behind Lei cast dancing shadows on her face, making it hard to determine her age.
Blinking away tears, he stared at the brooch fastening her scarlet sash to her robes – three red roses in full bloom. Yarrowhill did not have such high-ranking clergy, nor was her stern face familiar. With slight shock, Lei recognized her quiet prayer as the Orison of Cleansing.
When she finished, the priestess opened her eyes and studied him thoughtfully.
“Are you Leia, daughter of Fent and Searah, apprenticed to Helennah?”
No, thought Lei, but he nodded instead. His shoulders complained. “I am, Venerable Aunt.”
His voice sounded raspy and foreign. Maybe they had cleared up the confusion and he could go home? The priestess’s face looked like a rock upon which hopes were dashed. Perhaps she had news of his father, then. A dull ache seized him at the thought.
“I am Venerable Aunt Vashda, dispatched by the Hearth from Granford to help the good people of Yarrowhill keep the Bleeding Boils at bay. It has been brought to the attention of the Church of the Parents that you have strayed from the Path of Righteousness, a deed for which your father has paid.”
“My…father?” Lei croaked weakly.
“Your father, like all the others whom the Parents have seen fit to strike with the Boils, has been taken to the hospital of the Church. His fate is in the hands of the Parents. Your fate, however, for your part in bringing this plague down upon him and this town, is in the hands of a council of Venerables.”
Lei’s breath hitched. Had her gaze flicked to his right arm, or had he imagined it? His vision was still blurry, and he blinked more tears away.
“Your behavior has been reason for concern in the past, Leia, but your teachers dismissed it as whims, as young folks are wont to have. Now graver accusations have surfaced, and we cannot ignore them.” Lei felt her every word like a punch to his guts.
Vashda crossed the cell in a couple of resolute strides, stopping behind him, by his shackled wrists. He drew a sharp breath when cold fingers unbuttoned his right sleeve, rolling it up. The movements were neither gentle nor particularly rough, but they set off hundreds of tiny pinpricks in his tired muscles.
There was a disapproving smacking of lips, and then her fingers traced the barely visible lines on his skin, nestled within the web of scars on his right forearm. Lei shivered. Staring at someone’s tattoos was rude, touching them an intimate gesture. To everyone except himself, his true tattoo was on his left arm, the mark of an herbalist. The symbol of a man that he had painfully etched more than two years ago into the skin of his right arm, the arm of the Father, was tantamount to blasphemy.
The priestess lowered his sleeve over the scars once more. She stepped away, lips pursed.
“Who gave you that abomination of a tattoo? Do you seek to defy the gods?”
“Nobody!” Lei burst out, his voice breaking on the edge of tears. “I’ve had those scars for years, since I fell down a flight of stairs carrying jars.”
“Do not lie to me, girl!” Vashda snapped, her tone icy. The last word stung, and Lei recoiled. “Your little… quirks are not child’s play! Those of you who stray from the Path have brought the plague down upon all of us. People are dying because of it. Because of you, girl! Do you understand?”
The nausea, his tortured throat, his sore muscles and aching knees – everything combined and crushed Lei with exhaustion. Venerable Vashda’s words fell like rocks, burying him underneath.
“Yes, Venerable Aunt,” he rasped.
His head throbbed. There was no misunderstanding. The guards had apprehended him to be Cleansed and likely punished. Vashda crossed her arms and tapped her lips with a finger. He shivered under her scrutiny, feeling the weight her scarlet robe and triple-rose brooch gave to her accusations. Drawing herself to her full height, she spoke with an air of finality.
“Your apprenticeship with Helennah ends now. She is a pious woman, but in her old age, she cannot shoulder the burden of training two apprentices while also offering guidance on the Path of Righteousness.
“You will remain on the grounds of the hospital at all times, under the supervision of a guardian. I have been told you are a gifted herbalist, so you will be an asset to the hospital. Honest toil among those afflicted by the plague the likes of you have brought upon us should keep you focused on atonement. Cleansing will continue daily until your guardian considers your thoughts pure and your mind pious.”
Lei stared at her in a daze as she carved away at his little world piece by piece, as if it were an apple.
“It is my understanding that you are in your fourth cycle. You should have married last summer, settled down – then there would be less time for troublemaking. If you are still among us at the end of the plague, the matter of your marriage shall take priority. If not, then the Parents will have cast their judgement upon you. You will not set foot in your father’s bakery henceforth, lest you should give in to temptation again to make a man’s work your own.
“As for that…” She gestured to his arm, frowned, then tapped her lips again. “I have not encountered such a transgression before. You are stubborn, reckless, and misguided about the Path, but a herbalist is most useful with both arms. Perhaps a mere brand will suffice to erase that mark of defiance so the gaze of the Parents will never fall on it again. I will take this question to the Council. We should reach a conclusion tomorrow and deal with it right away. Then you may begin atonement in the hospital.”
The Priestess paused, looking quite pleased with herself, and waited. Lei bowed his head and delivered the answer she expected.
“Thank you, Venerable Aunt.”
“I will hear the Pledge to the Path from you.”
Lei swallowed, then recited the text that had been drilled into him every morning at school, pausing to cough and draw in raspy breaths that did not soothe his parched throat.
“This is the Path the Parents have laid down for us to walk upon so that we may…live fruitful lives in their…care. This is the Path the Parents have entrusted…to their Venerables so that they may guide us and see…that we do not stray. This is the Path that I shall walk…for the duration of my life upon Father Earth, under the gaze…of Mother Sky. May the blessings and mercy…of the Parents be upon us all.”
“Very well. Think on that before sleep and recite the Orison of Cleansing so you can return to the Path. May the Parents have mercy on you, girl.”
The Priestess turned and banged on the metal door, then left in a rustle of her scarlet robes when it swung open.
A guard walked in and removed Lei’s shackles. A pained scream erupted from his lips. His arms fell like lead, reminding him tenfold of all the places he hurt. The guard pulled him up and he groaned, biting his lower lip to stop another scream. His knees were on fire, and he was not sure he could stand or move without keeling over. A second guard entered, and without uttering a word, they half walked, half dragged him to his cell. Lei sank to the floor on the pile of straw, curled up in a ball, and gave in to the soundless spasms shaking his body.
He cried until his tears ran dry. Silent sobs shook him until they were too much to ask of his tortured airways. The headache had subsided, but all his muscles ached. Thoughts chased each other around his head over and over like the drawings on a child’s spinning top, round and round and round.
Father has the Boils. I cannot go back to Auntie Helennah. I am not allowed in the bakery. They want to brand me. I am not allowed into the forest. They will force me to marry if I survive. Father has the Boils. I cannot go back to Auntie Helennah. I am not allowed in the bakery. They want to brand me.
Huddling up tighter kept neither the chilly air nor reality at bay. He pictured himself in his simple dark blue dress, curled on handfuls of straw in the middle of a cold, dark, stone-walled cell, a little like a pill bug after being poked with a stick. And what a stick they had used for him… The mental image made him snort.
“I am not a bug,” he mumbled into the empty cell. That gave him pause, and he tried to focus on a new train of thought. A bug would not be held by stone walls and iron doors – it would crawl out of the cell and be on its merry way.
Also… why was the cell so empty?
“Kevv?” He held his breath, listening. “Kevv’ach, are you there?”
He kept his voice low, but the only sound was the drumming of his heart against his ribs. He had grown so used to the Night Demon’s presence that he took it for granted. Slowly, he willed himself into an upright position. Two small windows high in the wall dripped twin pale orange squares of light onto the floor, crisscrossed with the shadows of bars. It was barely enough light to make out shapes. Lei leaned his back against the outside wall and let his eyes adjust to the darkness.
“Kevv’ach?” he whispered a little more urgently.
Squinting, he looked for the swirling black smoke. Why was Kevv not here? Was he feeding somewhere else? Lei had not had many dreams to nourish him the past few nights. Not much sleep at all, in fact.
And that other thought, of bugs crawling out of places they did not like…Lei definitely did not like this place. Unfortunately, he was not the size of a bug and could not crawl out, but maybe there was some other way.
If he stood on tiptoe, he could peek outside, into an inner courtyard he knew well. It was not meant to hold prisoners. He was in the old school building next to the church. A new wing had opened during his first education cycle. The old one had been converted into accommodations for pilgrims during the Year of Lavender, and it served as storage for the school and the church when not otherwise needed. And now, it was an improvised dungeon for the priestess from Granford.
He studied the bars on the windows – a new addition. The metal was shiny, no sign of rust or wear. He pulled at them, bracing a leg against the wall, but they did not budge.
Lei ignored the bare walls and closed the short distance to the door. A lighter patch on the wall showed where a bolt had been removed. Lei remembered the sturdy metal latches on the outside, secured with a padlock. He pressed his ear to the thick wood, but the only sound he heard was the blood pounding in his ears. Careful not to make noise, he tried pulling and pushing. Of course the guards had not forgotten the padlock. It gave the door almost no leeway.
With a sigh, Lei lowered himself again to the straw. How else could he get out? He had no hope of overpowering or outrunning the guards. If he wanted to get away before Venerable Aunt Vashda made good on her threats, he needed to sneak out, and he needed to do it before daybreak.
“Kevv? Please, I need you.”
