Chapter 14 - Saintess

  Heira was not a pleasant city, and its state had only deteriorated since Ophelia's last visit six month ago.

  She had not surmised this based on the impoverished people lined up before her today, but more on the atmosphere of the city in general. Something about the crooked walls of houses and stores did not sit right with her. It never had. Muddy puddles were commonplace atop depressions formed on the cobbled lanes. The smell of human and animal excrement was unavoidable on thoroughfares, and not ten seconds went by without a vulgar word shouted from an alley, store, or open window.

  Ophelia handed out a hard piece of bread to a shriveled old man who hunched low enough that he seemed he might tip over. A smile formed on that man's cracked lips and he mouthed a 'thank you' before limping away.

  “Won't you Heal him?” Brother Colton, one of the temple's lesser clerics, asked.

  Ophelia shook her head. “He came once before. His limp and bad back are a part of some ailment, not a physical injury. Healing cannot cure diseases or poisonings.” She also did not want to be seen as a Healer out in the open. She wore a white face veil today to hide her face —something common enough among female clerics to not look strange. Healing work was only done in the confines of the temple's infirmary halls and under the watchful eye of several guards. There were too many people looking to use the services of a Healer and Ophelia couldn't help them all.

  Colton nodded, handing out two bread loaves to a mother who looked no older than Ophelia herself. The woman was barefooted and wore a stained ragged top, the babe in her arms wrapped in a worn sheet of rough cloth. “The number of hungry increases every few cycles I fear,” Colton said.

  Ophelia couldn't agree. She wasn't in the city enough to know the difference between today and a month ago. She looked up at Colton. He was tall and slender, his white robes too loose for his spindly arms. The lesser clerics were many, and most were tasked with appeasing the people's concerns. Once every cycle, some among them handed out food to the needy.

  Heira had taken in many a refugee near the end of the civil war, and many of them had not left, adding to the city's burdens and the amount of mouths that struggled to feed themselves.

  Ophelia felt a sting in her eyes from her Healing work yesterday. Some sleep would be nice. She'd grown more proficient, managing to Heal up to two dozen people a day before growing too exhausted, but wounds needing mending numbered too many in such a grand city. While crowded places were not to her liking, she was glad to spend a day in service than in the infirmary halls. “Is cold bread all we have? Some of these people look as if they could use hot broth.”

  “And who's to make it for us?” Colton asked. “The Highers and those of the Second Seat spend their time in their little 'cave' they made for themselves in the cellar. Those few honest are left to pick up all the work and keep the people appeased.” Colton's arm shook as he seemed intent on crushing the loaf of bread in his hands. His thin fingers were too weak to break the cold hard crust of the stale thing. “This temple has grown utterly corrupt since His Brilliance's departure. That the Goddess would allow such malpractice in her own temples… If but the Vicegerent were to return, things could be set right, but he's in the capital, serving a higher purpose.”

  “I'm not so sure Odain was such an upstanding character himself,” Ophelia said, reiterating what she'd heard from Lord Caranel. 'Hidden beneath the kindest of faces are oft the darkest of secrets' he'd said. She glanced across the street where Sister Risa and Brother Castor, two other clerics, were performing the same charitable actions, smiling and offering words of courage all the while.

  “You can't honestly be saying that, Phili? There was order in the city. Thieves and thugs were being folded into our arms and turned into better people.”

  That hadn't been Ophelia's experience with the temple's street recruited holy militia. They'd still been thugs —just thugs in different clothes. “Odain himself appointed the ten of the Second Seat,” she said. “The nine in Heira are all party to this corruption you speak of.”

  “Maybe he was too trusting and wanted to see the good in those men,” Colton argued. “He would know better now. Why don't you come back to us, Phili? We could use an extra honest hand. Our physics are run ragged in the infirmary. Your help would be a blessing.”

  Ophelia was caught off guard by the question. This city had once been her home. But she had no lingering attachments to its crowded streets and grimy walls. She much preferred the gentler atmosphere of the north. It was colder, but quiet. The people were more reserved, yet kind. She felt a certain harmony there. “I can't,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  Ophelia straightened her white robes. The tightly bound white head veil felt stuffy. She dusted flour from her hands and lifted up another sack of old loaves on to the table before her with a grunt. “I, er, have work to do in Red Vine. Work I've been ordered to do.”

  “By Megrez of the Second Seat?” Colton asked. He caught a wrist looking to snatch an extra loaf and shot the wiry boy a glare. “There are others hungry as well, boy. Be considerate.”

  The boy withered. He looked between ten and twelve. Ophelia subtly dropped a loaf to the ground and kicked it beneath the table. It rolled to the boy's feet. His dirty face seemed incapable of expressing gratitude, but Ophelia caught the light in his eyes when she met them. He bent low and snatched the loaf, running away before temple militia standing ready at the alabaster steps could be called on.

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  “Where'd he—” Colton began, reaching out.

  “Sorry. I must have dropped one,” Ophelia mumbled, handing out a loaf to the next woman in line. “My work in Red Vine is Trillia's work,” she said, returning to the original question. “Megrez passed away. I deliver the sermons at Red Vine's temple now.” Passed away, beheaded by Lord Caranel…

  “Oh. That’s… oh.”

  Ophelia looked up. Colton was frowning, as if wondering how he hadn't heard of this before. Hard to blame him. From what Ophelia had surmised during her brief conversation with Higher Keiro and Gremald, the Second Seats would rather there be only one of them than ten. Power split ten —nine now— ways was not appealing at all. This while the Highers beneath them sought to attain the position of a Second Seat, though whether a promotion was possible, she did not know.

  Ophelia looked down at the remaining sacks of bread. The lines were long but the food was running out. There were others stalls with other clerics handing out food, but everyone's stock was running low. Someone whistled to the militia standing watch, and they stepped closer, in the event the desperate broke out in a riot.

  “There isn't something else, is there?” Colton carefully asked, giving Ophelia a side glance. He idly touched the three pointed flower necklace hanging just below his neck.

  “Something else?”

  “The Highers. I've heard them say something about your task with this Lord Caranel. They say he has a half dozen whores working his manor. That you're the real power at Red Vine and… his favorite.”

  “Colton!” Ophelia gasped. Her brows could still be seen despite the veil. She was certain her most angered expression was getting through to the cleric.

  “No it's just—”

  “Nonsense is what it is,” Ophelia said. “Lord Caranel is—” she paused before saying anything further. Lord Caranel made a point of deceiving the Trillian Order. While she wanted to proclaim his innocence, perhaps it wasn't right to. “He is not like that. At least not entirely. The people of Red Vine have faith in the Goddess. The Lord simply can't disobey me in certain matters lest he draw the people's ire. That's all there is.”

  “You mean you have the ear of a High Lord?” Colton asked with sudden enthusiasm. “Can you convince him to march on the city? Convince him that Heira is full of corruption and—”

  “No, none of that!” Ophelia said, shaking her hands. Between their combined distraction, one older teen ran off with four loaves of bread. Colton cursed. “I said I have leverage in certain decisions,” Ophelia continued. “Not everything. It's sort of like a leash. He still pays tribute to the Highers to maintain his rule. They were the ones that brought him to Red Vine after all.”

  “Oh. So he's as corrupt as the rest of them.”

  Ophelia opened her mouth to speak, but snapped it shut in an instant. That was the image he'd sort of been building for himself to anyone outside of Red Vine. A former pirate who was a despotic noble's bastard. Keep up that image and no one would suspect him of being competent when it mattered. When it matters… Ophelia chewed on her thumbnail. When will that be? What is Lord Caranel building up to by playing these charades?

  Either way, Ophelia couldn't wait to be heading back to Red Vine by the nine day cycle's end. Heira had too many foul memories for her to want to stay. Her abusive stepmother was still here somewhere, and those thugs she used to spend her Healing Gift on were probably still employed as temple militia.

  Plus there's all the preferential treatment I get at Red Vine. Saintess Ophelia they call me.

  She didn’t like the attention it drew to her, but there was a certain appeal to being the gem of everyone's eye. It came with a lot of respect, even from the other girls of the town who were her age. They spoke to her as they would their mothers. Ophelia couldn't deny taking pleasure in exercising that kind of slight power over others. All her life, she'd been the inferior small little thing. The admiration of others in a small town like Red Vine was something long deserved, she felt.

  “Saintess? Saintess Ophelia?”

  Look at me. Maybe I'm enjoying my power too much. I'm hearing my title of Saintess here some fifty leagues south of Red Vine.

  “Saintess? It is you, isn't it?”

  Ophelia snapped to her senses. A portly, somewhat decently clothed man was making his way down the steps of the temple. He seemed oddly familiar. He had a bulging tote in his hand. Some manner of a merchant perhaps. “I, er, can I help you?” Ophelia stuttered. She was veiled. There was no way—

  “Saintess! It is you! Why the veil, though, my lady? Look at these poor people in line. They're in need of your blessings!”

  “I—”

  “I've spent days telling everyone about you, Saintess!” the man continued, cutting her off. “About your Healing and how your blessing changed my life! Ever since I received your blessings, my luck has turned. My business is booming! I cannot thank you enough!”

  Ophelia recognized him at last. A resident of Red Vine. One who traded in Silver Tail pelts and elk leather. His business had grown since Lord Caranel had assigned designated hunters to work around the northern regions. What was his name? Stelton? Ashton?

  “I mean, the business is owned by the high lord, but he trusts me as the middleman, of course. For who else can get the best of prices for pelts and leathers than I, Ashton of Red Vine!” he proclaimed with a thumb to his own chest.

  Ophelia frowned. This Ashton was a boastful one, and had too much energy. Boastful with purpose though. It had, after all, been Ophelia who'd straightened out Lord Caranel's ledgers. Ashton's name came up often. He was indeed good at getting selling rates some two to five percent above the average cost of pelts and leathers compared to others in his trade.

  “Saintess Ophelia?” Colton asked with a cocked brow.

  “I—” she began, but stopped. The bread had run out. The militia were moving forward to disperse the crowd, whose agitation was noticeably growing with each passing second.

  And throughout that crowd's van, dozens of pairs of eyes were turned toward Ophelia, a single word upon all their lips. Saintess. It seemed Ashton's talents were not just in trade, but gossip as well. Trillia's Flaming skirts! For how many days has he been spreading these rumors…?

  People down on hope clung to stories of a miracle savior. That was something the Vicegerent had once said. Such hope easily became admiration, and such admiration oft led to worship.

  The people's object of worship was standing before them at that very moment.

  Ophelia's realization came too late. She saw the tension build within the crowd. They resisted dispersion. The militia resorted to force, and the impoverished responded in kind. Staffs and batons were swung into the crowd, while rocks and fists were hurled in opposition. More and more desperate people looked and pointed toward Ophelia's stall, toward her. Her mouth went dry and her heart began to hammer. The temple steps were but a few dozen paces away.

  Riots exploded before she could turn. The militia were outnumbered. Their line crumbled and the mob broke free, more than half making their way toward Ophelia, their alleged savior.