Temple of the Winds

Chapter 21

Clarissa gripped the weathered sill of the window in the stone tower of the abbey in an effort to control her quaking. She clutched her other hand over her thundering heart. Even with the acrid smoke burning her eyes, she had to force herself to blink as she stood transfixed, watching the tumult in the city, and the square below.

The noise was deafening. The invaders screamed battle cries as they charged ahead, swinging swords, axes, and flails. Steel clashed and rang. The air hissed with arrows. Horses screamed in panic. Balls of light and flame wailed in from the distant countryside and exploded through the stone walls. The grisly invaders blew shrill horns and bellowed like beasts as they poured through the rents in the city walls, their impossible numbers darkening the streets in a sooty flood. Flames whooshed and roared and snapped.

Townsmen wept unashamedly as they begged for mercy, their hands outstretched, imploring, even as they were put to the sword. Clarissa saw the bloody body of one of the assembly of seven being dragged down the street on a rope behind a horse.

The shrill screams of women pierced through it all as their children, their husbands, their brothers and fathers were murdered before their eyes.

The hot wind carried the jumbled smells of a burning city, pitch and wood, oil and cloth, hide and flesh, but laced through it all, in every breath she pulled, was the gagging stench of blood.

It was all happening, just as he had said it would. Clarissa had laughed at him. She didn’t think she would ever be able to laugh again as long as she lived. At the thought of how short a time that might be, her legs nearly gave way.

No. She wouldn’t think that. She was safe here. They wouldn’t violate the abbey. She could hear the throng seeking safety in the great room below weeping and crying out in terror. This was a sacred place, devoted to the worship of the Creator and the good spirits. It would be blasphemy even for these beasts to spill blood in such a sanctuary.

Yet, he had told her they would. Below, out in the streets, the army’s resistance had been crushed. The Renwold defenders had never before let an invader set foot inside the walls. It was said the city was as safe as if the Creator Himself defended it. Invaders had tried before, and had always departed bloodied and dispirited. No horde from the wilds had ever breached the city walls. Renwold had always stood safe. This day, as he had said it would, Renwold had fallen.

For their audacity at refusing to surrender the city and its spoils peacefully, without a fight, the people of Renwold were being shown no mercy. Some had urged surrender, arguing that the red moons of the previous three nights had been an ill omen. But those voices were few; the city had always been held safe before.

The good spirits, and the Creator Himself, had turned away from the people of Renwold this day. What their crime was, she couldn’t fathom, but, surely, it must be terrible indeed to warrant no mercy from the good spirits.

From her vantage point at the top of the abbey, she could see the people of Renwold being herded into clusters in the streets, the market district, and courtyards. She knew many of the people being forced at the point of steel into the square below. The invaders, clad in foreign outfits of studded metal, and spiked leather straps and belts, and layers of hides and fur, looked to her the way she imagined savages from the wilds.

The invaders began sorting through the men, pulling aside those with trades: smiths, bowyers, fletchers, bakers, brewers, butchers, millers, carpenters—anyone of a craft or trade who might be put to use. Those men were chained together, to be marched off as slaves. The very old, young boys, and those seemingly without useful trades, like valets, yeomen, innkeepers, city officials, and merchants, were slaughtered on the spot—a sword hacked to the side of the neck, a spear through the chest, a knife in the gut, a flail across the skull. There was no system to the slaughter.

Clarissa stared as an invader clubbed the head of a man on the ground who wouldn’t seem to die. It reminded her of a fisherman, clubbing a catfish on the bank—thunk, thunk, thunk. The man doing the clubbing didn’t seem to think any more of it than a fisherman would. Dumb Gus, the poor half-wit who ran errands for merchants, shopkeepers, and inns, his work paid for with food and a bed and watered ale, kicked one last time as his thick skull gave way with a resounding crack.

Clarissa put trembling fingers over her mouth as she felt the contents of her stomach lurch up into the back of her throat. She swallowed it back down and gasped for air.

This wasn’t happening, she told herself. She was dreaming. She repeated the lie over and over in her head. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. But it was. Dear Creator, it was.

Clarissa watched as the women were culled from the men. The old women were summarily put to death. The women judged worth keeping were shoved, screaming and crying for their men, into a group. Invaders sorted through them, further winnowing them according to age and, apparently, looks.

Laughing invaders held the women as others of the beasts methodically went from woman to woman, seized them by their lower lip, and poked it through with a thin spike. A ring was pushed through each woman’s lip, its split opening efficiently closed with the aid of the invader’s teeth.

He had told her this, too: the women would be marked into slavery. This, too, she had laughed at. And why not? He seemed to her as daft as dumb Gus, expounding his crazy, preposterous ideas and nonsense.

Clarissa squinted, trying to see better. It appeared that the different groups of women had different-colored rings put through their lips. One group of older women of every shape looked to have copper-colored rings. Another group of younger women screamed and fought as silver rings were put upon them. They stopped fighting and meekly submitted after a few who fought the hardest were run through with swords.

The smallest group of the youngest, prettiest women were in the grip of the greatest terror as they were surrounded by a gang of burly invaders. These women received gold rings. Blood ran down their chins and onto their fancy dresses.

Clarissa knew most of these young women. It was hard not to remember people who regularly humiliated you. Being in her early thirties, and unmarried, Clarissa was the object of scorn among many women, but these young women were the crudest, giving her smirking sidelong glances as they passed, referring to her as “the old maid,” or “the hag,” among themselves, but just loud enough that she could hear them.

Clarissa had never planned to be this age and without a husband. She had always wanted a family. She wasn’t entirely sure how life and time had rolled on without providing her with the opportunity for a husband.

She wasn’t ugly, she didn’t think, but she knew she was no more than plain, at best. Her figure was satisfactory; she had meat on her bones. Her face wasn’t twisted, or shriveled, or grotesque. Whenever she looked at her reflection while passing a window at night, she didn’t think an ugly woman stared back at her. She knew it wasn’t a face that inspired ballads, but it wasn’t repulsive.

Yet with more women than men to be had, being merely “not ugly” wasn’t adequate. The pretty, younger women didn’t understand; they had men in abundance courting them. The older women understood, and were kinder; but still she was an unfortunate in their eyes, and they feared to be overly friendly, lest they catch the unseen, unknown taint that kept her unwed.

No man would want her now; she was too old. Too old, they would fear, to give them sons. Time had trapped her, alone and an old maid. Her work filled her time, but it never made her happy the way she suspected a family would have.

As much as the sting of those young women’s words hurt, and as much as she had often wished them to experience humiliation, she would never wish them this.

The invaders laughed as they ripped the bodices of the fine dresses, inspecting the young women like livestock.

“Dear Creator,” she wept in prayer, “please don’t let this be because I wished them to feel the shame of degradation. I never wished them this. Dear Creator, I beg you forgive me ever wishing them ill. I didn’t want this for them, I swear on my soul.”

Clarissa gasped and leaned out the little window for a better view when she saw a band of invaders running forward with a log. They disappeared beneath an overhang below.

She felt the building reverberate with a dull thud. People in the great room screamed. Another thud. And another, followed by splintering wood. The underworld’s own pandemonium broke out below. They were violating the sanctity of the Creator’s abbey. Just as the prophet had said they would.

Clarissa clutched her dress over her heart in both hands as she heard the slaughter begin anew below. She shuddered uncontrollably. They would soon come up the stairs, and find her.

What was to happen to her? Was she to be marked with a ring through her lip, and cast into slavery? Would she have the courage to fight, and be killed, rather than submit?

No. She knew the answer would be no. In the face of it, she wanted to live. She didn’t want to be butchered like one of the people in the square had been, or like poor dumb Gus. She feared death more than life. She gasped as the door banged open.

The Abbot burst into the small room. “Clarissa!” Neither young nor fit, he huffed from running up the stairs. His portly shape could not be disguised beneath his dull brown robes.

His round face was as ashen as a three-day-dead corpse. “Clarissa! The books,” he panted. “We must run away. Take the books with us. Take them and hide!”

She blinked dumbly at him. The room of books would take days to pack, and several wagons to lug them away. There was nowhere to hide. There was nowhere to run. There was no way to escape through the throng of invaders. It was a ludicrous command born of mad terror. “Abbot, there is no way we can escape.”

He rushed to her and took her hands, he licked his lips. His eyes darted about. “They won’t notice us. Pretend we are just going about our business. They won’t question us.”

She didn’t know how to answer such delusion, but was denied an attempt. Three men in blood-splattered leather and hides and fur stepped through the door. They were so big, and the room so small, that it took them only three strides to close the distance to the Abbot.

Two had greasy, curly, matted hair. The third was shaved bald, but had a thick beard like the other two. Each wore a gold ring through his left nostril.

The one with the shiny head snatched the Abbot by his fringe of white hair and yanked his head back. The Abbot squealed. “Trade? Do you have a trade?”

The Abbot, his head bent back so that he could look only at the ceiling, spread his hands in supplication.

“I am the Abbot. A man of prayer.” He licked his lips and added in a shout, “And books! I care for the books!”

“Books. Where are they?”

“The archives are in the athenaeum.” His head tilted back, he pointed blindly. “Clarissa knows. Clarissa can show you. She works with them. She can show you. She cares for them.”

“No trade, then?”

“Prayer! I’m a man of prayer! I’ll pray to the Creator, and the good spirits, for you. You’ll see. I’m a man of prayer. No donation required. I’ll pray for you. No donation.”

The man with the shaved head, his sweat-slicked muscles bulging, pulled the Abbot’s head back further and with a long knife sliced down through his throat. Clarissa felt warm blood splatter her face as the Abbot exhaled through the gaping wound.

“We don’t need a man of prayer,” the invader said as he tossed the Abbot aside. Clarissa stared in wide-eyed horror as she saw blood spread under the Abbot’s brown robes. She had known him for nearly her whole life. He had taken her in years ago, and kept her from starving by giving her work as a scribe. He had taken pity on her because she could find no husband, and she had no skill, except that she could read. Not many could read, but Clarissa could read, and it provided her with bread.

That she had to endure the Abbot’s pudgy hands and slobbering lips was an onus she had to abide if she wanted to keep her work and feed herself. It hadn’t been that way right from the first, but after she came to know her work and feel safe in being able to meet her needs, she came to understand that she had to tolerate things she didn’t like.

Long ago, when she had begged him to stop and that hadn’t worked, she had threatened him. He told her that she would be banished if she made such scandalous accusations against a respected Abbot. How would a single woman, alone in the countryside, survive? he had asked. What truly terrible things would she suffer then?

She supposed it wasn’t the worst of things. Others went hungry, and pride didn’t fill their bellies. Some women suffered worse at the hands of men. The Abbot never struck her, at least.

She had never wished him harm. She only wished him to leave her be. She never wished him harm. He had taken her in, and given her work and food. Others gave her only scorn.

The brute with the knife stepped to her, startling her from her shock at seeing the Abbot murdered. He slid the knife behind a belt.

He gripped her chin with callused, bloodstained fingers and turned her head side to side. He looked her up and down. He pinched her waist in evaluation. She felt her face burn with humiliation at being scrutinized so. He swung to one of the others. “Ring her.”

For a moment, she didn’t understand. Her knees began trembling as one of the burly men came forward, and she realized what he had meant. She feared to cry out. She knew what they would do to her if she resisted. She didn’t want her throat slit like the Abbot, or her head bashed in like poor dumb Gus. Dear Creator, she didn’t want to die.

“Which one, Captain Mallack?”

The bald man looked into her eyes. “Silver.”

Silver. Not copper. Silver.

A maniacal laugh cavorted through the back of her mind as the man gripped her lower lip between a thumb and knuckle. These men, these men who were experienced at judging the worth of flesh, had just valued her more highly than her own people. Even if it was as a slave, they had given her value.

She clenched shut the back of her throat to hold in the scream as she felt the pick stab into the margin of her lip. He twisted the pick until it poked through. She blinked, trying to see through the tears of pain.

Not gold, she told herself, of course not gold, but not copper, either. They thought her worth a silver ring. Some part of her was disgusted at her vainglory. What else did she have, now?

The man, stinking of sweat, blood, and soot, shoved the split silver ring through her lip. She grunted in helpless pain. He leaned in and closed the ring with his crooked yellow teeth.

She made no effort to wipe the dripping blood from her chin as Captain Mallack looked her in the eyes again. “You are now the property of the Imperial Order.”