John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

“Notus. We are called Notus.” To Miss Daw, he said, “My brother is being unduly cruel. What a wonder of cruelty! That cell is clearly cursed with a cur…” (or maybe he said “ker”) “…and it cannot be healthy for a woman of this most tender age. The Great Lady Cyprian, I am thinking her happiness will not be a great thing, hearing of this.”

Dr. Fell said drily, “They are organisms from Chaos. Pre-frontal lobotomies would have been the best way to keep them restrained.”

“To you, I will not speak!” exclaimed the black man. “You are a thing of gears and levers, you. I do not call you a man! Bah! You, Thelxiepia, you are a gracious woman. You know the secrets which cause men to die when they hear them. Can you not prevail upon Boreas? Tell him we will take these children away if they are not well cared for! We have an agreement with the Uranians!”

Dr. Fell said sardonically, “Why ask her, Notus? Boreas is your brother.”

“Bah! Since I am not talking to you, I am not listening to you!”

I suddenly had the fear that the scheme Boggin had told me, about how sternly we were supposed to be treated in order to convince the others that we were secure, was about to backfire.

I said, “They really don’t treat me that badly! Boreas is really nice!”

The black man had a look of slow horror come onto his face. Nothing I could have said would have convinced him more completely that I was being lashed and tortured.

He let go of me, which made my arms suddenly feel quite cold. “It does not matter. You may not take her back to the cell yet. We need Dr. Fell to bring his instruments to take some readings, to localize the breach. Come, Telemus!”

“I am not under your authority,” Dr. Fell said coldly.

“You will come, or I will whirl you from here into the sea!” And the black man’s long shining hair began to flow and sway as if in the breeze, except there was no breeze. A warmth came from him as if an invisible oven had suddenly opened its door.

Dr. Fell raised his hands, and said sardonically, “Well, your argument has some merit. It is what we call Argumentum ad Baculum, of course, but I am not prepared at this time to enter into the finer points of such a dispute. I will communicate with Mulciber about this.”

“Bah! Again, I say my Bah! I am with the Lady Cyprian. I do not care for your Mulciber, Round-eye!”

Dr. Fell put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Neither, by all accounts, does the Lady Cyprian.”

Then Dr. Fell wiggled his finger at me, and to Miss Daw he said, “Watch her. Guard her. She is the dangerous one.”

The two men walked away, Dr. Fell marching with his stiff step (almost like a goose) and Notus, with many a glance back at me across his shoulder.

“Can we walk around the estate? Just up and down a few paths, or see the Library? I’d like to get a book. I’m so bored! Please?”

Miss Daw just sat down on the bench that was there, a marble slab with feet carved into little cherubs blowing trumpets. Two dry rosebushes showed their thorns to either side. She patted the seat next to her.

Slowly, I sat. Then I threw back my head, and laughed.

Miss Daw looked at the horizon, and was preparing to take no more notice of me.

I said, “You are not going to ask me why I laughed, are you? It’s because of what Dr. Fell said. He called me the dangerous one. Not Victor, not Colin, not Vanity, who can call a magical mind-reading ship from beyond the world’s edge. Me! Why am I the dangerous one?”

I started kicking my legs back and forth under the bench. Maybe I should make a break for it? Pick up a rock and brain the frail Miss Daw over the head? She would probably go down harder than the unexpectedly brawny Headmaster Boggin.

I decided to give talking one more chance: “Why did Boreas tell you not to talk to me? He cannot be afraid of me. I am not the dangerous one. You cannot be afraid of me, Miss Daw; you’ve known me my whole life. You know me. I am not a monster. Really, I’m not. No more than any other girl my age, I suppose.”

Miss Daw smiled, a sad smile, a very far-away smile.

I looked around on the ground. Here were patches of winter grass, mounds of snow lining the edges of the path, a little strip of leafless and barren garden to our left and right. No rocks.

I could see the buildings of the estate all around me. Beyond the Great Hall was the main Manor House, with the Library to the North and the Stables and yards to the South.

No one was around. I was hoping Victor might come along the path. But there was no one.

“What are they doing in my cell?”

Miss Daw’s lips twitched, but she did not answer.

I said, “Miss Daw…?”

No answer.

“…how long am I going to have to stay there…?”

She thought about whether or not to answer. Then she said, “Be at peace, child. Matters will soon resolve themselves. One way or the other.”

I said slowly, “But they aren’t, are they? They are not going to go back the way they were. We’re too old. Everything’s changed.”

Miss Daw said, softly, “Nothing is stable. Nothing is certain.”

She hugged herself a bit. She murmured, half to herself, “Changes will come, but other changes will come after, wiping out each layer of change like waves on a beach, erasing the ripples in sand cast up by the previous wave. Everything is sand. There is only one rock to which we can cling.”

I thought I knew what she meant. I said, “You saw me praying. What did you see?”

Miss Daw spoke in her silver voice, her eyes still on the far horizon. “Your prayers flew up. There was an echo in return. The relational energy went somewhere. Where, I do not know. Someone heard you.”

Well, here was a topic I could get her to rise to. I said, “What denomination are we?”

She drew her eyes down from the horizon and glanced at me, a small quirk to her lips. “ ‘We’? Miss Windrose, that is an excellent question. What indeed are we?”

“Well, then, what are you? High Church? Dissenters? What?”

She smiled a half-smile, filled both with melancholy and with an aloof amusement. “I am of the body of the one true Church, and I am the last of that body. We called ourselves the Pure Ones. Others called us Donatists.”

“And where was your Church?”

Her face showed that she had flown in thought, far away, far down the corridors of memory. At last she said in a soft, distant voice: “Our Archbishopric was centered in Alexandria, at a time when North Africa was the most civilized and cultured spot in the Empire. The European and Asian provinces had been wasted in the wars between the Four Caesars.

“We cast out from us the unfit, who delivered their scriptures and sacred vessels up to our persecutors under Diocletian; once the persecution was relaxed these traditors, these deserters from the duty of martyrdom, attempted to carry on as if their actions had not put them out of communion with the faithful. Bribed electors raised, and men outside grace ordained, a certain false bishop, Caecilian, above us; but we refused him, electing Donatus the Great from among the pure and faithful.

“How the Bishop of the Chaff hated the Bishop of the Wheat! The impure said that their bishops had authority to choose our bishop, and that we were their cattle. The archbishop of Antioch turned Constantine against us. Constantine was one who hated our religion, but sought to harness the power of the faith of Christ and use it against his political enemies.

“In time, Constantine declared himself Pontifex, and said his word ruled the Church as a matter of law. Him! Pontifex! As if the outcome of bloody battles made his the voice of God! The election of pagan and corrupt Praetorians could vest Constantine with temporal power, yes; but spiritual authority, we held, came from other sources.