Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

Nicci’s mother said beauty was a curse to a caring woman and a blessing only to whores.

Puzzled by her mother’s displeasure of her father, Nicci had finally asked what he had done.

“Nicci,” her mother had said, cupping Nicci’s small chin that day. Nicci eagerly awaited her mother’s words. “You have beautiful eyes, but you do not yet see with them. All people are miserable wretches—that is the lot of man. Do you have any idea how it hurts those without all your advantages to see your beautiful face? That is all you bring to others: insufferable pain. The Creator brought you into the world for no reason but to ease the misery of others, and here you bring only hurt.” Her mother’s friends, sipping tea, nodded, whispering to one another their sorrowful but firm agreement.

That was when Nicci had first learned that she bore the indelible stain of some shadowy, nameless, unconfessed evil.

Nicci gazed into the rare face looking up at her. Today this girl’s dark eyes would see things they could not yet imagine. Those big eyes eagerly watched without seeing. She could not possibly understand what was to come, or why.

What kind of life could she have?

It would be for the best, this way.

The time had come.

Chapter 8

Before she could begin, Nicci saw something that ignited her indignation. She whirled to a nearby woman.

“Where is there a washtub?”

Surprised by the question, the woman pointed a trembling finger toward a two-story building not far off. “There, Mistress. In the yard behind the pottery shop are laundry tubs where we were washing clothes.”

Nicci seized the woman by her throat. “Get me a pair of scissors. Bring them to me there.” The woman stared in wide-eyed fright. Nicci shoved her. “Now! Or would you prefer to die on the spot?”

Nicci yanked free a well-worn, reserve studded strap bunched with several others and secured over Commander Kardeef’s shoulder. He made no effort to stop her, but as she gathered up the strap, he seized her upper arm in his powerful grip.

“You had better be planning on drowning this little brat—or maybe cutting off hunks of her hide and then stabbing out her eyes.” His breath smelled of onion and ale. He smirked. “In fact, you start in on her, and while she’s screaming and begging for her life, I’ll begin separating out some young men, or perhaps I’ll select some women to be an example. Which would you prefer, this time?”

Nicci turned her glare down at his fingers on her arm. He removed them as he growled a warning. She turned to the girl and whipped the strap twice around her neck to serve as a collar, twisting it into a handle in the back so she could control the girl with it. The girl squeaked in choked surprise. She had probably never been handled so roughly in her entire life. Nicci forced her ahead, toward the building the woman had pointed out.

Seeing how angry Nicci had suddenly become, no one followed. A woman not far off, undoubtedly the girl’s mother, began to cry out in protest, but then fell silent as Kardeef’s men turned their attention on her. By then Nicci already had the perplexed girl around the corner.

Out back, drab laundry, deformed and crumpled from its ordeal on the washboard, and now stretched and pinned to lines, twisted in the wind as if struggling to escape. Smoke from the fire pit peeked over the top of the building. The nervous woman waited with a large pair of shears.

Nicci marched the girl up to a tub of water, drove her down on her knees, and shoved her head under the water. While the girl struggled, Nicci snatched the scissors from the woman. Her chore completed, the woman held her apron up over her mouth to muffle her wails as she ran off in tears, not wanting to watch a child being murdered.

Nicci pulled the girl’s head up out of the water, and while she sputtered and gasped for air, began clipping her dark, soaking wet hair close to the scalp. When Nicci had finished cutting it off in sodden clumps, she dunked the girl again while leaning over and scooping up a cake of pale yellow soap from the washboard on the ground beside the tub. Nicci hauled the girl’s head up and then began scrubbing. The girl screeched, flailing her spindly arms and clawing at the strap around her neck by which Nicci controlled her. Nicci realized she was probably hurting her, but from within the grip of rage, it was only a dim realization.

“What’s the matter with you!” Nicci shook the gasping girl. “Don’t you know you’re crawling with lice?”

“But, but—”

The soap was harsh and as rough as a rasp. The girl squealed as Nicci bent her over and put more muscle into the scouring.

“Do you like having a head full of lice?”

“No—”

“Well, you must! Why else would you have them?”

“Please! I’ll try to do better. I’ll wash. I promise!”

Nicci remembered how much she hated catching lice from the places her mother sent her. She remembered scrubbing herself, using the harshest soap she could find, only to again be sent off to another place, where she would get infested with the hated things all over again.

When Nicci had scrubbed and dunked a dozen times, she finally dragged the girl to a tub of clean water and swished her head about in it to rinse her off. The girl blinked furiously, trying to clear her eyes of the stinging, soapy water as it streamed down off her face.

Gripping the girl’s chin, Nicci peered into her red eyes. “No doubt your clothes are lousy with nits. You’re to scrub your clothes every day—underthings, especially—or the lice will just be right back.” Nicci squeezed the girl’s cheeks until her eyes watered. “You are better than to be filthy with lice! Don’t you know that?”

The girl nodded, as best as she could with Nicci’s strong fingers holding her face. The big, dark, intelligent eyes, although red from the water and wide with shock, were still filled with that rare sense of wonder. As painful and frightening as the experience was, this had not dispelled it.

“Burn your bedding. Get new.” Given the way these people lived and worked, it seemed a hopeless challenge. “Your whole family must burn their bedding. Wash all their clothes.”

The girl nodded her oath.

Task completed, Nicci marched the girl back toward the gathered crowd. Forcing her along by the studded strap used as a collar, Nicci was unexpectedly struck by a memory.

It was a memory of the first time she had seen Richard.

Nearly every Sister at the Palace of the Prophets had been gathered in the great hall to see the new boy Sister Verna had brought in. Nicci lingered at the mahogany rail, twining around her finger a lace dangling from her bodice, only to pull the lace straight and then to twine it again, when the pair of thick walnut doors opened. The rumbling drone of conversation, sprinkled with bright laughter, trailed to an expectant hush as the group, led by Sister Phoebe, marched into the chamber, past the white columns topped by gold capitals, and in under the huge vaulted dome.

The birth of gifted boys was rare, and a cause of expectant delight when they were discovered and finally brought to live at the palace. A grand banquet was planned for that evening. Most of the Sisters, dressed in their finery, stood on the floor below, eager to meet the new boy. Nicci remained near the center of the lower balcony. She didn’t care whether she met him or not.

It came as something of a shock to see how Sister Verna had aged on her journey. Such journeys typically lasted at most a year; this one, beyond the great barrier to the New World, had taken nearly twenty. Events beyond the barrier being uncertain, Verna had apparently been sent off on her mission too far in advance.

Life at the Palace of the Prophets was as long as it was serene. No one at the Palace of the Prophets appeared to have aged at all in so trifling a span of time as two decades, but away from the spell that enveloped the palace, Verna had. Verna, probably close to one hundred and sixty years old, had to be at least twenty years younger than Nicci; yet she now looked twice Nicci’s age. People outside the palace aged at the normal rate, of course, but to see it happen so rapidly to a Sister…

As the roaring applause thundered on in the huge room, many of the Sisters wept over the momentous occasion. Nicci yawned. Sister Phoebe held up her hand until the room fell silent.

“Sisters.” Phoebe’s voice trembled. “Please welcome Sister Verna home.” She finally had to raise a hand to again bring the clamor of applause to a halt.

When the room had quieted, she said, “And may I present our newest student, our newest child of the Creator, our newest charge.” She turned and held an arm out in introduction, wiggling her fingers, urging the apparently timid boy forward as she went on. “Please welcome Richard Cypher to the Palace of the Prophets.”

Several of the women stepped back out of the way as he strode forward. Nicci’s eyes widened; her back straightened. It was not a young boy. He was grown into a man.

The crowd, despite their shock, clapped and cheered with the warmth of their welcome. Nicci didn’t hear it. Her attention was riveted by those gray eyes of his. He was introduced to some of the nearby Sisters. The novice assigned to him, Pasha, was brought before him and tried to speak to him.

Richard brushed Pasha aside, a stag dismissing a vole, and stepped out alone into the center of the room. His whole bearing conveyed the same quality Nicci beheld in his eyes.