Naamah's Curse

TWENTY-NINE

For the first time in days, I was allowed to leave my cell.

That was the one good thing about this second stage of my penance. To be sure, it was the only good thing about it.

Pyotr Rostov led me through the modest living quarters back to the temple where I had first arrived, passing through a curtained doorway in an alcove behind what I would later learn was a stand for chanters during the liturgy.

We entered the temple proper. Yeshua ben Yosef was there in the presence of the immense mosaic on the wall, holding the world cupped in his hand, looking stern and imposing and not at all like the kind fellow from Aleksei’s readings. That Yeshua had prevented an adulterous woman from being stoned. This one looked like he would give the order himself, and look on with an impassive gaze.

The Patriarch’s wife, Luba, was there waiting for us at the foot of the altar, a wooden bucket on the floor beside her. They exchanged a few words in Vralian.

“Very good,” Rostov said, switching back to D’Angeline for my benefit. “Now, Moirin. It is important that you understand this is not a punishment. To do penance is to seek redemption, to purge one’s sins. It is a time to reflect and meditate.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said obediently when he paused.

Luba’s upper lip curled. A few times, she had brought food to me; otherwise, I’d seen very little of her since I’d been brought here, and I suspected that was by her choice. On no occasion had she spoken a single word to me. But although she did not like me and did not want me here, based on their interactions, I was certain she would sooner cut out her tongue than defy her husband.

“As an act of penance, you will wash the floor,” the Patriarch said.

“Oh, I see.” I relaxed a bit. No doubt he thought it was a fitting humiliation for the descendant of three royal houses, but I had been raised in a cave in the Alban wilderness. From the time I was old enough to hold a broom, I’d swept our hearth every day. I wasn’t afraid of hard work, nor did I think it beneath me.

I glanced at the bucket, looking for a mop.

With a satisfied look on her face, Luba held out a very, very small scrub-brush.

“You see the squares, Moirin?” Her husband pointed at the floor. Until this moment, I hadn’t bothered to take it in. The floor was also a mosaic, this one formed of pebbles in contrasting hues. The pattern was an abstract one of small squares, each one a box containing a flared cross.

Any sense of relief I had vanished. “Yes, my lord.”

“On your knees, you will scrub each one in order,” he said, pacing to the far right of the altar. “Beginning here.” He raised a finger in caution. “You are not to touch the altar, or anything on it. You are not to venture past it into the sanctuary. Is that understood?”

I sighed. “It is.”

“This is not a punishment,” the Patriarch repeated. “It is an opportunity. Focus your thoughts on each square. Contemplate the sign of the cross, that vile instrument on which Yeshua suffered for your sake. Think upon his suffering. Think upon your sins, and beg his forgiveness. Will you do this?”

As if I had a choice. “Yes, my lord,” I muttered.

“Moirin.” He said my name sharply. I looked reluctantly at him. “Over each square, you will utter this prayer. ‘Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Say it.”

“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” I echoed.

He spoke to his wife in Vralian, then addressed me in D’Angeline. “Very good. Say it again.”

I repeated it, while Luba listened intently.

The Patriarch nodded in satisfaction. “She will be listening to make sure you do not err.” His face softened. “I know you do not mean the words, not yet. But repetition is a powerful tool. If you say a thing often enough, it may become true.”

I blew out my breath, glancing over the vast expanse of squares and crosses. “Do you expect me to finish it today, my lord?”

“No.” He smiled at me. “I do not think that is humanly possible. But it matters not when you finish, for you can always begin again.”

Helpless tears stung my eyes, and I bit the inside of my cheek to try to keep the tears from spilling. I didn’t want him to see.

He knew, anyway. “God’s work is endless, Moirin,” he said, and took his leave.

Luba handed me the scrub-brush and addressed me for the first time, pointing toward the corner and speaking three curt words in Vralian. They didn’t need translating.

Get to work.

Scrub-brush in hand, I hauled the wooden bucket to the far right of the altar and knelt on the pebbled floor, my chains clanking and rattling around me.

It hurt; of course it hurt. If the mosaic floor had been comprised of smooth bits of tile like the one on the wall, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But the inlaid pebbles were raised, digging into my knees. Right now, the pain was a minor annoyance. Over the course of hours, or gods, days, it would grow much, much worse. Gritting my teeth, I contemplated the first square. It was a bit larger than the palm of my hand, mayhap four inches by four.

It was the first of more than I could count.

Hovering behind me, Luba repeated her curt Vralian injunction. I dipped the brush into the bucket, into cold water that smelled strongly of lye. Water sloshed onto the floor as I withdrew the brush, scrubbing the pebbles.

“Yeshua the Anointed,” I said grimly, “Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I moved the brush to the adjacent square. Luba made a disapproving sound, leaning over to tap the bucket, indicating that I was to dip the brush anew.

I sat back on my heels. “Every single bedamned square?” I pointed, miming. “Each and every one?”

She nodded and tapped the bucket again.

I eyed her, remembering the fantasies of violent escape I had entertained on my journey here. We were alone in the temple together. If I rose right now and wrapped my chains around Luba’s neck, throttling her, there was no one to stop me. I was young and strong, and I was fairly confident I could overpower her.

And go… where?

Alarmed by the unspoken menace in my face, Luba retreated a few cautious steps, fixing me with a seething gaze. She pointed toward the temple doors far behind us, interlacing her fingers with a sharp gesture. She pointed at my chains, and mimed rattling them, mimed stones being thrown. She shook her head slowly at me, pointing at the bucket and the floor.

In the Tatar lands, I had come to recognize how easily two people of like minds could converse without a common tongue. Checheg with her gentle, unremitting kindness and hospitality had taught it to me, long before I had mastered the rudiments of her language.

This was the other side of the coin.

And I understood it full well. The meaning of Luba’s gestures was clear. The temple doors were locked, inside and out. Even if I could escape, my chains marked me as a witch, singled out for death in eastern Vralia.

Here, I would be stoned.

I dipped my brush into the harsh lye and scrubbed at the second square, intoning the prayer the Patriarch had taught me.

“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Again.

Again.

Again.

I kept count during that first row. There were one hundred and fifty squares in it. Each and every one, I scoured. Over each and every one, I uttered the same prayer.

I reached the end of one row, moved on to the second one. The temple was at least twice as long as it was wide, which meant there were at least three hundred rows. I was no mathematician, but by my calculation, that meant I had some forty-five thousand squares in total.

I drew a long, shaking breath, trying once more not to weep.

Luba smirked.

I shuffled on my bruised, aching knees, bowing my head to the task. I was sweating and itchy beneath the coarse woolen dress. My back began to ache from bending. The words of the prayer began to blend together into one long stream of meaningless syllables.

Yeshuatheanointedsonofgodhavemercyonmeasinner.

Although she did not speak D’Angeline, Luba had a good ear. When my prayer degenerated into an inarticulate mumble, she tapped me on the shoulder and made a gesture with both hands as though stretching a rope, telling me without words to slow down and do a proper job of it.

“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” I said with fierce precision, dipping and scrubbing. “Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

The only small mercy that Yeshua the Anointed saw fit to grant me was that by the time I had finished the second row, Valentina came to replace Luba on sentinel duty. Her, at least, I could bear.

And she did not badger me when I paused to wipe my sleeve over my sweating brow and stretch my aching back. My spine made unpleasant crackling sounds. I shifted on my sore knees, trying to find a position in which the pebbles didn’t dig into my flesh so.

“He assigned me this penance, too,” Valentina said in a low voice. “For sins committed with Aleksei’s father.”

“Did you find redemption in it?” I asked wearily.

“Yes,” she said simply. I gave her a sharp look, and for once she did not look away. “There is peace to be found in surrendering to God’s will and begging his forgiveness.”

I shook my head. “For his children, mayhap. I am not one of them.”

“We are all God’s children,” she replied.

I smiled bitterly. “Tell that to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, who claimed me as Her own.”

“Where is she, then?” Valentina gestured around. “You are here in the temple of God and his son Yeshua, Moirin. Where is your bear-god? Where is your D’Angeline whore-goddess Naamah? They have abandoned you.”

“No.” I touched my chest. “Perhaps they cannot find me, with my spirit shrouded in chains and charms. But I carry the divine spark of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself within me. I carry Naamah’s gifts in my blood. So long as that is true, I do not believe they have abandoned me.”

There was sympathy in her gaze. “It would be better for you if you did.”

“I know.” I picked up the brush, dipped it in the bucket, and began scrubbing anew. “Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I had completed a grand total of four rows when Valentina bade me stop-not out of any sense of pity, but because it was time to prepare the temple for the afternoon liturgy.

I got gratefully to my feet, pain shooting through my abused knees and stiff, aching back. I felt a hundred years old. “Does it get any easier?”

“No,” she said. “Harder.”

I’d assumed as much. I wiped my tired, stinging hands on the woolen dress. I stank of lye and sweat. “My lady, is it possible to have a bath?”

She hesitated.

“I do not ask with an eye toward seducing your son, who seems to be avoiding me anyway.” Even my voice was tired, my throat raw from endless prayer. “I’ve been chained in the same garment for many days. Whatever else you may think of me, I do not like being unclean.”

For a mercy, another small mercy, Valentina relented. She even let me scour myself, although I suspected it was due to a reluctance to get anywhere close to touching my skin. I could feel the tension in her haste as she sewed me into a fresh, sack-shaped woolen dress just as drab, prickly, and hateful as the first one.

Still, it was something.

My soul might be black with sin, but my flesh was clean.