Red He Wept

by David Samuels

Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

conclusion

I returned to the infirmary fully expecting Benfrey to take me to task for my dereliction of duty. He was rinsing blood from his hands at a washstand when I tapped him on the shoulder. More blood flecked his face to give his wide-eyed gaze a sinister appearance. He gripped both of my shoulders and shouted full in my face, “We won! Our firebombs cleaved through the heathens like that!” He tried snapping his fingers, only to flick pink water into my eye.

The news shocked me more than the water. In my rush back to the infirmary, I’d hardly noticed the battle dying down. I glanced across the river to find bodies heaped amid coils of smoke.

Victory at last! Much as I wanted to believe the gods were responsible, I was coming to learn not to rely on divine intervention to solve life’s problems.

Shortly before sunset, Arabelle caught me finishing up with my patients. “Glad to see you survived the battle in one piece,” she said, waddling down the row of tents. “I put Olvara in a cell in the basilica’s undercroft, but I don’t think we’ll get any more answers from her. Time to move on to Fergus.”

“Way ahead of you,” I said. After receiving a dismissal from Benfrey, I led Arabelle deeper into the encampment. I managed to fill her in on my standoff with Fergus by the time we reached the detainment ward.

Here in this open-air prison, two rows of cages had been lashed together from planks of deconstructed ships. Within those cages languished war prisoners up for ransom. Fewer than I expected for such a battle, but enough to present a sorry sight indeed. Stripped of their chainmail armor, they sat in their own filth and stared emptily from between bangs of blood-clotted hair. I felt a clinical urge to patch up their grazes before infection could set in. Perhaps later I could convince Luthos to let me treat them, but first things first.

Fergus had a cage to himself near the front of the pens. A rip in his tunic exposed a bruised rib underneath. One of his eyes was swollen shut, but that did nothing to reduce the ferocity of his glare. “You again!” he muttered to me. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“Not quite,” I told him. “We know what you did, but the why still eludes us. Even if you struck me as the type to sacrifice your own pig in some cultic ritual, I can’t imagine why you’d report it back to us. Not unless someone else pulled your strings. Give us a name and things will go easier for you.”

Eyes downcast, he seemed to consider my words when he was really gathering enough saliva to spit at my feet. A sidestep saved me from most of the filth.

I fancied myself a patient man, but everyone has their limits. With my face still aching from Fergus’s oar, I said, “Let me rephrase that. Answer my question or face the consequences. What sort? Well, perhaps the imp’s advocate can enlighten us. Arabelle, what’s the punishment for dark magic these days?”

She tipped me a nod that doubled her chin. “The body must be thoroughly purged in a pyre, although not before the guilty party is drawn and quartered.”

Fergus didn’t quite shudder, but he rubbed his arms and glanced off to the sunset.

Once the image had time to sink in, I asked, “So, how about that name?”

He flared his nostrils. “Even if I told you, you wouldn’t be able to find him.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because... because...”

“Out with it!”

“Because he’s dead, alright?!” He aimed his scowl at Arabelle. “Your servitors killed him in Oldchapel.”

“You don’t mean...?” from Arabelle.

“Her assassin?” from me.

His head sank between his shoulders, beard dangling below a bald patch on his scalp. “I never woulda done it if I knew he’d croak later. He threatened m’daughter, said he’d do her in like he did the pig. I woulda killed him with m’bare hands, but he said he was writing letters to the Patronists outside the walls, tellin’ ’em to kill my brother if I didn’t follow through.”

“Of course.” I tapped my chin. “The Patronists would’ve seen a miracle as a threat to their assault. One that they needed to subvert. If our men learned that the tears were part of a demonic ritual, it would’ve ended in chaos.”

I was about to add more when a commotion broke out at the far end of the holding pens. Two soldiers had unlocked a cage and were herding the prisoners out by sword-point. I had to do a double-take when I recognized one of the captives.

It was the same bearded sergeant who had dragged Gaston into Luthos’s command tent. Come to think of it, the overzealous redhead was nowhere to be found among the other captives.

Heart swooning, I caught up to the procession and called out to the sergeant. I got his attention alright, as well as a shove from a guard.

“Stay away from the prisoners!” The guard’s jaw stretched the red tears tattooed on his cheek.

At the top of my voice, I shouted, “I demand to know where you’re taking them!” to no response from the guards.

It was the sergeant who called, “Eastgate Terrace! That whoreson Gaston is sacrificing captives for Divine Galvin! You need to—”

“Enough from you!” bellowed the guard, but the words had already set off shouts from neighboring cages. The Patronist soldiers rattled their bars with wild-eyed gazes. All hells broke loose when a group broke free from their cage. The guards converged on the escapees, leaving the sergeant’s party to run for their lives.

I could have used the collected presence of Arabelle just then, but she had disappeared amid the turmoil. Further back, Fergus smirked at me from behind the bars of his cage.

I edged around the skirmish and asked him where Arabelle went, but all I got was a shrug.

If it fell to me to put a stop to this madness, then so be it.

* * *

In a race against nightfall, I rushed down the city streets to Eastgate Terrace. There I found a crowd whose torches were burning orange against the ebon gloom of dusk. Some soldiers, some townsfolk, all were as solemn and motionless as the statue they surrounded.

But none looked more solemn than the row of twenty soldiers ranged in front of the plinth. Mostly junior officers to judge from their unbearded faces. Swords in hand, they loomed over an equal number of prisoners bound on their knees. The victims wore linen sacks to conceal their faces from the victors; easier to slay a man when you rob him of humanity.

Heedless of the piss-puddled cobblestones, Gaston walked the line of prisoners and shouted with all the vigor of a street-corner doomsayer, “Here we stand, triumphant over the heathens! All thanks to Divine Galvin’s blessing. Just a few nights ago, he came down from the heavens to assure me of victory. But in return, he demanded a sacrifice. One made exclusively to him! And what better sacrifice than a herd of apostates, hrm? I know!”

He paused in front of the middle prisoner, whose bulky arms struggled against the rope. “How about this nonbeliever?” With a flick of his wrist, he tore the bag from the poor bastard’s head.

“Luthos!” My voice was lost beneath the gasps and mutters from the onlookers.

“When I tried to fulfill Divine Galvin’s task by opening the gates,” said Gaston, “our illustrious marshal put me under lock and key! Who knows how Divine Galvin might’ve reacted if my men here hadn’t rescued me from detainment during the battle?”

Veins bulged from Luthos’s neck as he shouted past the rag in his mouth, but his bellows were no more coherent than the groans of my past patients. He kept hollering until Gaston bashed him in the cheek with the pommel of his sword.

All of my muscles went tense as I watched my cousin crumple sideways. He blinked dazedly while a soldier jostled him back to kneeling position.

I darted panicked glances at the crowd. Surely they couldn’t be buying this. But their pale faces remained as expressionless as votive candles for a sinister ritual. Further back, the fainthearted twitched back curtains from the safety of their homes. Clearly Luthos’s coarse style of command hadn’t won him any friends.

Much as the oaf deserved a beating, this took things too far. Something had to be done. And fast.

“Gaston is leading you all astray!” I felt disconnected from my body as all eyes swung towards me. My feet carried me out of the crowd and into the clearing, within stabbing range of Gaston. Turning in a full circle, I asked, “Are there none among you who can see past this deception? Your faith is admirable, but don’t let it steer you wrong. Use your heads and you’ll find that this miracle is as false as this so-called prophet.”

“Where’s your proof?” someone called out. I couldn’t see his face because of the glare of torchlight.

“He’s just a bloody naysayer!” shouted another.

“Worse!” Gaston’s voice raked icy claws down my spine. “He’s a nonbeliever! Just like his cousin!”

The crowd broke into such deafening jeers that I couldn’t hear myself think, much less compose an argument. If only I knew then how logic held no sway with the mind of a mob. As two of the fanatical soldiers closed in on me, I realized with terror that I’d end up kneeling next to Luthos.

Not a moment too soon, the tromp of bootsteps snared glances from the crowd. Those who weren’t frozen in place opened an aisle for a troop of holy servitors. The plate-armored knights outnumbered Gaston’s men two to one. A few of the youngest fanatics shuffled in place as if deciding whether to retreat.

It wasn’t until the servitors fanned out in front of the statue that Arabelle emerged from their midst. I hardly recognized the advocate in her official vestments. The hem of those green-and- silver robes flapped at her ankles as she stepped up beside me.

“Forgive me for rushing off earlier,” she whispered. “I couldn’t waste time on explanations.”

Fair enough. Luthos would’ve been one head shorter if I hadn’t intervened in time.

After clearing her throat, Arabelle whirled on the crowd and announced, “People of Galvin’s Ford, hear me well! It grieves me to inform you that the tears aren’t as miraculous as you believed them to be.”

She didn’t so much as blink from the jeers that erupted from the crowd. Instead she laid out the course of our investigation: the ruby sap, the ledgerbook, the culprit behind it all.

As the evidence piled up, the congregants lost their flinty determination. Shamefaced, some glanced down at their feet while others watched on with jaws unhinged. Hard to say what discouraged them more: Arabelle’s logic or the servitors at her side.

Behind me, Gaston’s face grew so pale that his freckles stood out like flecks of blood. He shot glances to both sides, where the servitors were pressing in on his men. It took two of them to wrestle him into submission.

While Arabelle wrapped up her summary, I used my scalpel to slice through Luthos’s bonds. He waved my hands away when I tried removing his gag so he could do it himself.

A little gratitude would’ve been nice, but he turned to the would-be executioners and shouted, “You’ll all hang for this! I swear it!”

“Maybe a little mercy is in order,” I whispered in his ear.

“Mercy?” he responded at the same volume. “Do you think they would’ve granted me the same?”

“Of course not.” In the calm voice I reserved for patients who needed amputations, I said, “But it would be wrong to hold them accountable for falling sway to a miracle which you, yourself, helped encourage.” I quelled his protests with an upraised palm. “Set an example by hanging Gaston. Pardon the others and you’ll make allies for life.”

He jutted out his jaw before saying, “I’ll think about it,” which was about the best I could expect from the blowhard. Although I will say this: Luthos hasn’t called me “Morty” ever since.

* * *

Later that night, Arabelle arrived in my tent with a smile on her lips and a scroll in her hand.

“Tomorrow I plan to return to Three Falls with our prisoners,” she said, “but first I want to give you this.”

I unfurled the scroll and felt my heart skip a beat at the Godstree seal at the foot of the page. The lines of neat script listed a range of feats in such glowing terms that it took a moment for me to realize they referred to me.

“For rescuing a prelate from certain death... apprehending a suspect on the sidelines of battle... restoring order to the city of Galvin’s Ford....” I lifted my brows at Arabelle.

“Go on,” she said. “You’ve almost reached the good part.”

There, in the last paragraph, the document released me from my duties as an infirmarian with the proviso that I serve as an apprentice to Arabelle as an imp’s advocate of the Church.

Just like that, a world of opportunities unrolled before my mind’s eye. No more patients screaming their lungs out. No more worrying about life after my contract as an infirmarian. A single scrap of paper solved all of my problems.

Which was why it took all of my willpower to tear it down the middle.

Wide-eyed with shock, Arabelle glanced from the parchment to me and back again. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“That and more. Before you came, I would’ve traded anything for a chance like this. Life as an infirmarian was chipping away at my faith in the gods. But I never stopped to consider how I’d lost faith in my own capacity to do good.”

I thought back on Arnolt’s gratitude. How his words reminded me of what drew me to medicine in the first place. “If the body is proof of divine creation, then our actions should reflect divine will. Faith alone solves nothing; that’s what Olvara got wrong. It’s faith in ourselves — in each other — that’s most important. I can’t undermine that by abandoning my vows. So, yes, I intend to finish my contract. But after that, I’m your man.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled with amusement. “If that’s how you see things.”

“It is.”

“Then I’ll be off. But before I go, a word of advice...”

“All ears.”

“Next time you’re given a document with the Church’s seal, don’t rip up the damn thing. It’s punishable by death in Three Falls.” With one last handclasp, she turned around and waddled outside.

No wraiths haunted my dreams that night, no spooks or demons whatsoever. It was perhaps the best sleep I’d had since childhood. The time for real monsters would come later in my newfound career.

Copyright © 2021 by David Samuels

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