Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(42)

To my relief, Charles didn’t seem to notice that I was behaving oddly. The helmet had already gone back beneath his arm. Several times, I caught him glancing at his reflection as we passed a stall and artfully rearranging his tousled hair. This resulted in no difference that I could perceive, but nevertheless a girl carrying a basket of flowers blushed and smiled at him as he passed.

He led us onto a narrow, winding avenue where stalls crowded the cobblestone lane. Steam hissed from a nearby booth, followed by the rhythmic clanging of a hammer. Heat billowed across the street as a man drew a red-hot lump of metal from a forge.

“Consecrated steel amulets!” the vendor shouted. “Protect yourself from the unseen! Effective against wights and ghasts of every order!”

I frowned, giving his stall a closer look. Dozens of pendants hung glinting from the awning. Melted down from Clerisy horseshoes, I guessed, and almost wished the revenant were fit to comment, just so I could hear its scornful reaction. Pieces of consecrated steel that small would barely deter a shade.

Another vendor’s voice drew my attention. “The crossbow bolt that struck Artemisia of Naimes, miraculously recovered from the battlefield! Just a single copper pawn to touch it and receive her blessing! Guaranteed to heal wounds, guard against blight, restore imbalanced humors!”

For a moment I barely believed what I had heard. But then a different voice declared, “Splinters of wood from the holy arrow, stained with Saint Artemisia’s own blood! The genuine article! Buy a piece for only five pawns!” He glared across the street at his competitor.

I stared in disbelief at the long lines crowding each of these stalls. Then anger boiled up in my chest, stopping me dead in the middle of the street. Charles walked a few paces ahead before he noticed I had lagged behind, and hurried back.

“What’s wrong?” He took in the direction of my gaze and scoffed. “Unbelievable, isn’t it? I hear they’re dipping so many splinters of wood in pigs’ blood that the butchers are starting to run dry. That’s just the way things are, I suppose. Do you know they’re already calling it the Battle of Bonsaint? Like something from the War of Martyrs. Oh,” he added suddenly, standing on his toes to see farther down the street. “Come on, we need to get out of the way.”

There was some sort of procession coming down the narrow lane. That was all I managed to grasp before Charles drew me aside into an empty stone doorway. The rest of the foot traffic did the same, squeezing between stalls or into alleys. Charles briefly glanced upward as he shuffled to make room, and I nearly joined him before I caught myself. Shades clotted the top of the archway like old cobwebs, their grasping hands and contorted faces swirling in and out of view. Shades that Anne of Montprestre shouldn’t be able to see.

“I saw it happen, you know,” Charles said. I felt a jolt of alarm, but when I glanced at him sidelong, he wasn’t looking at me. He was gazing in the direction of the stalls, his expression far away. “I was there on the battlefield, fighting. I saw her—Artemisia of Naimes. I even touched her horse.”

“What did she look like?” I asked warily.

“Beautiful,” he said, his eyes shining. “Like the Lady Herself, surrounded by silver fire. The fairest maiden I’ve ever seen.”

He definitely hadn’t seen me, then.

I was starting to wonder how long we were going to be stuck in this doorway together when I felt the revenant stir, feebly clawing at me for attention.

“Nun,” it hissed. “Watch out. Relics…”

A hush had fallen over the street. In the newfound quiet came the chiming of bells and the haunting rise and fall of voices harmonizing in a sacred chant. Gooseflesh pricked my arms. I pressed my back against the stones as a slow-moving procession of white-robed priestesses came into view, their veiled faces downcast, gently swinging silver censers. Pearl rings gleamed on their fingers. As incense fogged the street behind them, the shades lurking in the shadows mingled with the smoke and dispersed.

They had to be orphreys, priestesses who devoted their lives to purification. Their undine relics allowed them to submerge themselves in sacred pools for hours on end to prepare for cleansing rituals like the one they were currently performing.

And they weren’t alone. At the end of the procession, six knights carried a litter. The parted curtains showed glimpses of a woman within, resplendently robed in silk and brocade. A miter rested atop her head, heavily embroidered with gold. Onlookers touched their foreheads in reverence as she approached.

It was the Divine. To my eyes she appeared no older than she had in Naimes four years ago, though her age was difficult to tell for certain. With her hair pinned up beneath her miter and her delicate features caked with white maquillage, she looked more like a painted wooden doll than a person. Her many relics completed the effect—rings on every finger, an amber pendant at her breast, and a jeweled scepter across her lap, encrusted with diamonds.

My gut clenched as the litter drew level with the archway. The smoke that curled from the censers burned my throat and stung my eyes. If the Divine happened to be using any of her relics, I doubted that the revenant would be able to hide itself in its current condition. But as I waited, holding my breath, her white face didn’t turn. She was speaking to someone on the other side of the litter, their identity concealed by its frame. Whoever it was, it was clearly someone she admired. Gone was the air of loneliness that had haunted her in Naimes. Her wide eyes looked eager, even devoted. Tension bled from my body as the litter moved past, until its changing angle revealed the figure walking alongside.