Ch. 89 Our Goddess

Chapter 89: Our Goddess

The first public showing of Aurelia’s recording was delayed by a chair.

It was too tall.

People at the back could see the frame but not the woman inside it, while people at the front were looking directly up her nose.

Perrin stood beside the table with both hands on his hips.

“It worked in the workshop.”

“The workshop audience stood around one bench,” Mary replied.

“We could ask everyone to stand.”

Eleanor looked at the elderly woman settling herself near the door.

“You could find a shorter table.”

He found a shorter table.

We held the showing in the room adjoining the chapel, where people could come and go without interrupting anyone’s prayers.

By the time the frame was ready, the room was full.

I stayed near the back with Evelyn.

Neither of us had brought a crown.

Mary introduced the recording.

She explained when it had been made, what had survived, and which parts remained unreadable.

Then Brin placed her hand against the little charging plate.

The crystal brightened.

A summer garden appeared in the middle of winter.

People became quiet when Aurelia stepped into view.

At first, they watched her the way people watched me when they were uncertain what they were allowed to do.

Then she mentioned arguing with the gardener.

Someone laughed.

A few others followed.

By the time she announced her intention to avoid the night porter by using another door, the room had relaxed.

Beside me, Evelyn smiled.

On the frame, Aurelia accepted her cup.

The recording ended.

Nobody moved immediately.

Then a man near the front raised his hand.

“Did the child recover?”

I looked toward the Castellan’s bronze plate.

His eye appeared.

“The surviving infirmary register records her discharge nine days later.”

The man nodded.

“Good.”

He sounded as though someone had brought news from a neighboring street.

Mary wrote down the question.

I was glad we had an answer.

The children preferred the dog.

This surprised nobody.

They watched Aurelia’s son make his case with complete sympathy and very little respect for the burdens of royal animal ownership.

When the recording ended, a boy asked whether the goat had also stayed.

The Castellan confirmed that it had.

Eleanor gave me a look.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a substantial nothing.”

She folded her arms.

“I’m wondering how long before your two begin collecting things.”

Evelyn considered this.

“Father has already supplied most of the wooden varieties.”

“Excellent,” Eleanor said. “You can tell them the stables are full.”

I looked at my wife.

She looked at me.

Neither of us seemed convinced that would work.

Over the next several days, people returned to see the recordings.

Some came to pray afterward.

Some came because they had never seen a moving image before.

A woman brought her father, whose hands shook so badly that she had to help him remove his gloves. He watched the procession leaf three times.

On the third showing, he pointed.

“There.”

Mary leaned closer.

A row of narrow houses stood behind the passing crowd.

“My mother drew those windows,” he said.

We played it again.

He showed us the upper window with the crooked shutter.

His mother had described a room above a baker’s shop. He had thought she was making it prettier as she grew older.

Now he sat staring at a place he had inherited in stories.

Mary brought him paper.

He drew what he remembered her saying while the frame cooled.

By evening, the procession had acquired a second audience.

People looking past the banners.

Trying to see home.

I had promised Evelyn an afternoon.

Mary protected it with considerable enthusiasm.

When a clerk came carrying three questions about timber prices, she intercepted him outside our rooms.

“Lord Valewood is reviewing those.”

“The merchants asked for His Majesty.”

“His Majesty appointed Lord Valewood.”

I heard the exchange through the door.

Evelyn raised one eyebrow.

“Worth putting on the calendar?”

“Very.”

We spent the afternoon on the rug near the hearth.

The twins lay on a clean blanket between us, awake and making small, serious efforts to understand the ceiling.

I held a wooden bird where Carol could see it.

Her eyes moved toward it.

Then away.

Then back.

I looked at Evelyn.

“Did you see?”

“Yes.”

“She followed it.”

“She’s looking at your sleeve now.”

I moved the bird.

Carol continued studying the sleeve.

Evelyn laughed.

I lay down beside our daughter.

From this angle, the embroidered cuff was considerably more impressive.

“Fair enough,” I told her.

Garrick made the discovery near the end of the afternoon.

He had managed to work one hand free of his blanket.

Evelyn reached to straighten the cloth beneath his shoulder.

A tiny light appeared between his fingers.

She stopped.

So did I.

It was no brighter than a firefly.

Gold at the center.

Pale white along the edge.

For one heartbeat, it illuminated the creases in his palm.

Then it vanished.

Our son waved his hand indignantly, as though somebody had taken something from him.

Neither of us spoke.

I felt for the familiar movement of power.

There.

Faint, but unmistakable.

Evelyn looked at me.

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Neither did I.”

Garrick sneezed.

The solemnity of the moment suffered.

I began to laugh.

Softly at first.

Then Evelyn did too, though her eyes were wet.

I rested one finger against his open palm.

He caught it.

No light came this time.

Only his hand.

Ilyen examined him before supper.

She listened to our description, watched the little amber tracing in her bowl, and checked Carol as well.

Both children were warm, alert, and annoyed by being undressed.

“Their power is present,” she said.

“Growing?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes.”

I stood beside the bed with my arms folded, trying to appear less concerned than I felt.

“Is that dangerous?”

“I don’t know enough yet to promise that every part of this will be simple.”

She looked up at me.

“But nothing I see now suggests he was hurt by it.”

Evelyn touched Garrick’s cheek.

“What do we do?”

“For tonight? Feed them. Keep them warm. Tell me if anything changes.”

Ilyen closed her bowl.

“And resist gathering an audience every time he opens his hand.”

I looked toward the door.

Helena, Garrick, Melody, and Mary were all standing just beyond it.

There was a brief silence.

Then Helena said, “We were passing.”

The news from Stoneford arrived the following morning.

Sister Maelin had written to ask whether she might return.

With her teacher.

The letter was short, but Maelin’s handwriting grew tighter near the end.

Her teacher had recognized the old prayer.

She had also recognized Aurelia’s name.

She wished to explain in person.

Evelyn read the letter beside me.

“How old?”

“She doesn’t say.”

“Can she travel comfortably?”

“I’ll have Mary arrange someone to meet them at the gate.”

My wife nodded.

Then looked back at the page.

“She knew.”

“Apparently.”

“Why wait until now?”

I thought about Eda’s wooden disk.

The bracelet taken from Lysa.

The long years in which people had learned which names could safely be spoken aloud.

“We’ll ask.”

Maelin returned two days later with a woman wrapped in a dark green cloak.

Her teacher was smaller than I expected.

Age had bent her back and narrowed her shoulders, but her eyes were sharp beneath pale brows.

She leaned on a stick with a polished handle.

When I greeted her, she studied me for a long moment.

Then she said, “You’re younger than the reports.”

“I suspect the reports have had a difficult month.”

Her mouth curved.

“Good. You can still be impertinent.”

Maelin looked embarrassed.

“Mother Seline.”

“What? He can.”

I offered my arm.

Seline accepted it without ceremony.

We walked slowly toward the receiving room.

Halfway there, she stopped beside the chapel door.

The restored relief was visible from the passage.

Her grip tightened.

“Oh,” she said.

That was all.

But we remained there for quite some time.

Evelyn received her by the fire.

Carol slept in her arms.

Seline sat carefully and looked at the baby.

Then at my wife.

“Maelin tells me you’re learning.”

“Yes.”

“Good teacher?”

“Ilyen.”

“Then yes.”

Evelyn smiled.

“You know her?”

“I met her when she was young enough to believe she could manage three difficult births without eating.”

From the doorway, Ilyen sighed.

“I was hoping you’d forgotten that.”

“I’m old. I keep the useful things.”

Once everyone had settled, Seline drew a small book from inside her cloak.

Its cover had been replaced more than once.

She laid it on the table.

Mary leaned forward.

“A prayer book?”

“A working book. Prayers. Remedies. Names of people who taught me things.”

Seline opened it near the middle.

The writing changed from page to page.

Some entries were little more than a few words.

Others filled every margin.

She found the prayer Maelin had brought us.

Then turned the book around.

At the top, in faded ink, was a name.

Aurelia.

“My teacher wrote that,” Seline said.

Nobody interrupted.

“She was a girl when her family fled Greykeep. She remembered the infirmary. She remembered the queen coming through the wards.”

“The recording,” I said.

Seline nodded.

“Maelin described it.”

“Would you like to see?”

“Very much.”

Mary went to arrange the frame.

While we waited, Seline rested one hand on the book.

“My teacher used her name privately. By the time I began traveling, it was safer to leave it out.”

“So you did,” Maelin said.

There was hurt in her voice.

Seline looked at her.

“Yes.”

“You taught us the prayer.”

“Yes.”

“And let us repeat what the temples said about her.”

The old woman lowered her eyes.

The fire shifted in the grate.

“I told myself I was preserving what I could.”

Maelin’s hands tightened in her lap.

“For thirty years?”

Seline closed the book.

“I was afraid for longer than I meant to be.”

I had expected an explanation that made everything easier.

Perhaps a threat.

A terrible incident.

Something we could all look at and agree had left her no choice.

Instead, Seline sat beside our fire and admitted that one quiet omission had become years of them.

Maelin rose.

“Excuse me.”

She left the room.

Seline watched the doorway.

Then reached for her stick.

“I should—”

Evelyn spoke gently.

“Give her a moment.”

The old woman settled back.

For a while, Carol’s breathing was the loudest sound between us.

At last, Seline looked at me.

“I don’t expect you to welcome that.”

I thought of Aurelia growing faint.

Of prayers reaching toward her without a name.

“I’m glad you brought the book.”

“That is generous.”

“It isn’t everything I feel.”

She nodded.

“No. I shouldn’t think it would be.”

We showed her the garden recording after lunch.

Maelin returned before it began.

She took the chair beside her teacher, though she did not speak.

The frame brightened.

Aurelia stepped into view.

Seline pressed her fingers against her mouth.

We watched the familiar scene.

The gardener.

The fever.

The night porter.

When the image faded, Seline was crying.

“My teacher told me that story.”

“About the child?” I asked.

“About the door.”

She laughed once through her tears.

“She said the queen came through the laundry and helped carry a basket because the women wouldn’t let her pass empty-handed.”

I looked toward the blank crystal.

Another small piece.

Something Aurelia had done when nobody was building a monument.

Beside Seline, Maelin moved her chair closer.

They sat without touching.

Then the younger woman reached for the old book.

“Show me what else you left out.”

Seline nodded.

They began at the first page.

By supper, Mary had permission to copy the book.

There were gaps.

Pages lost to water.

Names neither Seline nor the Castellan could identify.

But there were also prayers we had never heard, descriptions of ordinary healing work, and a passage about three houses that had once trained Aurelia’s attendants.

One in Greykeep.

One beside a western river.

One beneath the hills north of Stoneford.

The last entry had a small drawing beside it.

A rose above an open doorway.

I studied the lines.

“What happened to them?”

“My teacher knew only that the Greykeep house fell,” Seline said. “She never returned to the others.”

Mary looked toward me.

Neither of us needed to say it yet.

There would be maps to consult.

People to ask.

Perhaps nothing left to find.

But for the first time, we had somewhere to begin.

Seline asked to visit the chapel before bed.

Maelin went with her.

I followed a little later and found them on the front bench.

The book lay open between them.

Eda sat nearby.

A few other people had gathered, drawn by an unfamiliar voice saying familiar words.

Seline stopped halfway through a line.

Maelin waited.

Then the old woman began again.

This time, she spoke Aurelia’s name.

Her voice shook.

Nobody hurried her.

When she finished, there was no rose above the basin.

Only candlelight on water.

Seline bowed her head.

Maelin put an arm around her shoulders.

I left them there.

Upstairs, Evelyn was waiting with both babies awake.

“I have been informed,” she said, “that neither intends to sleep until you return.”

“By whom?”

“Their representatives have been very vocal.”

I took Garrick.

He quieted for three breaths.

Then remembered his complaint.

Evelyn smiled tiredly.

I walked with him while she settled Carol.

The little light did not return.

I found I was glad nobody was waiting for it.

After a while, Evelyn asked about Seline.

I told her.

“She said the name?”

“Yes.”

My wife looked down at our daughter.

“I wonder if Aurelia heard.”

“I hope so.”

We had almost settled both children when the scent of roses reached us.

Faint enough that I might have missed it if Evelyn had not lifted her head at the same moment.

No voice followed.

No figure appeared.

But for a few breaths, the room seemed warmer.

I looked toward the window.

Somewhere below, an old woman was learning to say a name she had spent most of her life avoiding.

I held my son a little closer.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“I think she did.”