Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

‘Giljohn. I hope your arrival was unremarked. What do you have for me?’ The priest spoke with casual authority, making no effort to hide his distaste.

‘The boy, your worship. Marjal true-blood. Thought of you straight away. He’s the sort you send to that monastery on the coast. More than a touch in him, make a fine Mystic Brother this one would.’ On the road Giljohn had ruled them with an iron hand and dealt with the farmers of the Grey as if he were a lord dispensing favours. But here, with the stone house rising before him and formal gardens to his back, he seemed a peasant himself, servile and ill at ease.

‘I’ve had seven boys off you, Giljohn. Abbot Tae reports that only two showed any touch of marjal, and one of those was half-wild.’ He descended the steps, staring at Markus. ‘The wild ones have to be broken early if they’re to be kept. Break them properly and their minds can be retrained to more useful ends. But it’s a lot of effort.’

‘Strong signs with this one, your worship, strong signs. Half-blood at the least! Clever too. Could take to sigil-work double quick.’ Giljohn nodded.

The priest, though short beside his guard and Giljohn, loomed over Markus. He looked an old man, his hair grey, face craggy, but his eyes were sharp, slicing across Hessa, discarding her. His arm when he reached for the boy was snake-fast. ‘Sigil worker?’ His hand fastened about Markus’s wrist. ‘Or wild boy?’ A sharp jerk brought Markus staggering forward with a cry.

Fast as the priest was Four-Foot moved faster, leaning in to bite the fingers clutching Markus’s wrist. The priest released him with an oath, and Four-Foot set to braying loud enough to bring maids to the upper windows to stare.

Giljohn, all apologies, stepped in to check the hand the priest held cradled to his mouth but the guardsman sent him reeling back with a straight arm to the chest.

‘Never seen that mule bite anyone before, your worship, Ancestor’s truth!’ Giljohn looped an arm about Markus’s neck and pulled him back behind him. ‘It’s the marjal in the boy – like you said, your worship. Wild. But emfy can work on people too, if it’s trained right. That kind of influence can be gold in your pocket.’

‘It’s empathy, you idiot, not emfy.’ The priest lowered his hands, one clutching the other, red-fingered. He had blood on his mouth too, and an ugly look beneath it. ‘And there are a hundred touched whispering to beasts for each prime that can turn a man’s mind. And ten primes for each full-blood that can own it … But I will take the boy. And the mule.’

‘Ah. Well the lad’s twenty crowns, your worship. Like a son to me … he is. But Four-Foot, he’s not for sale. Been with the old fellow twelve years now.’

‘You’ll take ten for the boy and a crown for the mule. You’ll get a young one for pennies at the Brown Fair. My gardener and his son will help you push your cart there.’ The guardsman stepped in close behind the priest’s shoulder.

Giljohn swallowed, still holding Markus behind his back. ‘Ten. Ten I can take, from a man of the cloth. A sign of my devotion to the Ancestor. But Four-Foot—’

‘You’ll sell me that mule, Giljohn, or you’ll never sell anything in this city again. A word in Captain Herstin’s ear and the guard won’t even let you past the city gates. So, enough with this foolishness. A crown for a vicious mule that’s a season from being rendered for glue and hound meat.’ The priest waved to his servant. ‘Pay the man.’

‘Don’t do it!’ Markus broke free of Giljohn and ran to Four-Foot, taking the mule’s head over his shoulder. ‘He wants to hurt him.’

The adults paid no attention. The servant produced a worn leather pouch from within his velvets and brought forth the first crown to count into Giljohn’s palm. The child-taker held out his hand reluctantly, face twitching with warring emotions.

‘Don’t!’ Markus shouted, eyes wild. ‘It was my fault, not Four-Foot’s!’

The servant laid the crown on Giljohn’s creased and dirty palm: a silver coin, polished with use, traces of tarnish in the grooves picking out the emperor’s features. He counted out the rest, each chinking against the next. At ten Giljohn closed his hand.

‘See … Four-Foot is family—’

‘The animal bit me.’ The priest held his hand up, sticky trickles of blood reaching down as far as his wrist. ‘Accept your coin, child-taker. Or are you so wealthy that you’ll sacrifice your livelihood over an elderly mule?’

The servant pushed the last coin into Giljohn’s half-open hand. The rain that had threatened for so long began to fall.

‘Tie the beast up over there. Use a heavy rope.’ The priest gestured to the pillars holding the roof above his rear door.

Giljohn took Four-Foot’s halter in his hand, ignoring Markus’s cries. ‘Sorry, lad,’ he muttered as he took the mule. Four-Foot let himself be led, but whinnied his distress, rolling a dark, liquid eye at Hessa. She clutched herself tight, not wanting to see but unable to look away.

Giljohn left Four-Foot tied to the nearest pillar with the thick tow-rope used to get the cart, and sometimes other travellers, out of deep mud. He returned to the cart looking a poorer man despite the additional silver in his pocket.

The gardener and his boy came to roll the cart back out through the gates, but the priest didn’t seem inclined to wait. ‘You know, Giljohn, how to break someone? Of course you do – the Scithrowl had you a while did they not?’

Giljohn said nothing, just bent his back to the task of pushing, but before his shoulder set against the cart’s edge his hand reached up to touch the empty socket of his left eye.

The rain thrummed down around them, dripping from Hessa’s nose, running down the bars of the cage.

‘You break a man, or a boy, most easily by breaking something that they love. Better still if it loves them too.’ The priest’s voice didn’t turn them but the crack of wood against flesh and the startled bray did. He had his staff raised again as Hessa looked around, both hands at the end, swinging it over his shoulder.

‘No!’ Markus darted forward but the guardsman caught him by an arm.

The priest swung again with all his strength, bringing his staff down across Four-Foot’s back. The mule, already straining, threw himself against the rope, braying his surprise and pain. The priest struck again, and again, and Four-Foot strained against the rope, eyes wild and staring. Markus was screaming, struggling to be free, but over the cracks of each blow and Four-Foot’s loud distress Hessa couldn’t understand the words.

‘You don’t—’ Giljohn stood and raised his voice and his hand before letting both fall. Rainwater trickled from the socket of his eye in place of the tears that should have been there. ‘You don’t … Pulling’s all he knows … He thinks you want …’ Giljohn shook his head, lowering his face to hide his emotion.

‘Stop him,’ Hessa begged, but Giljohn, the thickset gardener, and his lean son, all looked away, each of them broken in some manner that Hessa, even with her useless leg, was not.

The staff made its own rain of blows, thick and heavy, the tempo regular, not frenzied. The priest, breathing hard, marked each blow with a word. ‘You. Bit. Me. You. Filthy. Animal.’