Chapter 41: The Church Canonized the Hero and Excommunicated My Wife

"They’re carrying two bulls, Majesty. One of them is good and they’ll make you hear the good one first."

Zelina told me that in the corridor with her hand on the throne room door, after nine minutes talking to the legate’s coachman.

The papal legate had asked for audience in the great hall instead of the study, which already said who the performance was for.

He came in with twelve clergy and an escort of twenty, which in a capital with open gates is a number chosen to be counted.

They read the first bull standing.

Roderic Alden, raised to Blessed in Life by manifestation of proven grace, by abbreviated process on grounds of urgent need of the realm.

Three hundred nobles in the tiers. The applause lasted as long as paid applause lasts.

I counted the ones who didn’t clap, which is the only count worth anything in that room. Eleven. Nine from the north and two from the Vado.

"Nine days," Zelina said at my ear. "Since the duel."

"Since the duel exactly."

"Somebody opened that process the night Saoirse measured his signature."

Roderic listened to his own canonization from the second step, hands folded in front of him, and his face didn’t change once.

"The second one," I said.

"Majesty, perhaps in private."

"The second one, legate. Out loud, or my wife reads it to me."

He unrolled the second parchment and read it faster than the first.

Calista Bloom, formerly Saint of the Diocese of the Vado, declared apostate for public renunciation of her vows and for erroneous doctrine on the nature of miracle. Severed from communion. No right to consecrated burial.

Calista stood on my right, no habit, hair tied back with a ribbon borrowed from Zelina.

She didn’t move while they read it.

"May I?" she asked when he finished.

"The record allows no reply."

"I’m not replying." She came down the three steps and stopped at the foot, looking at the tiers and not at the legate. "I’m asking three things and then I’ll go."

Three hundred nobles said nothing, which in that room is the closest thing to permission.

"Blessed in Life by manifestation of proven grace," she read off the parchment, slowly. "First. Who proved it?"

"The diocesan tribunal."

"With what?"

"The testimony of twelve witnesses."

"Second." She raised two fingers. "I treated one hundred and forty sick in eleven years, with names and dates, and I waited fourteen months for an ordinary process. They canonized him in nine days. How many sick has he touched?"

The legate didn’t answer.

"None. I know because I asked at the Vado hospice this morning. The sisters from there are in the third tier if anyone wants it confirmed."

Three heads in the third tier went down at once.

"Third." She handed the parchment back with both hands, without creasing it. "The first bull says urgent need of the realm. That isn’t a word from theology. That word comes from accounting."

"Sister..."

"Not anymore." She went up the first step and stopped. "Sign whatever you like. But canonizing on grounds of urgent need says in Latin that the realm requires it. That isn’t a miracle. That’s a budget."

She went back to her place and folded her hands in front of her, the same as before.

Roderic Alden, Blessed in Life, had watched her the whole time from the second step.

When the legate rolled up the bulls, Roderic stepped forward and spoke for the first time since they came in.

"Legate."

"Blessed one."

"I refuse the process."

The room made a sound that wasn’t any word.

"It cannot be refused. Grace is not returned."

"Then return hers." Roderic came down to the foot of the stair. "I’ve healed nobody. She has, a hundred and forty times, and you have it written down. You’ve given me a title you took from the only person in this room who earned it."

"You are refusing an honor from the Holy See."

"I’m refusing an honor that took nine days." He turned to me and dropped his voice, though nothing stays low in that room. "Vaelion. That’s four."

"Four what?"

"Four points today." He opened his collar like a man who is hot and isn’t. "Seventy eight."

"Roderic."

"I’m fine. I just need to..."

And he went down on his knees on the marble in front of three hundred nobles and twelve clergy and a papal legate holding two bulls.

Calista got there first. She held his head, opened the collar the rest of the way, and found his pulse with two fingers, and kept counting when the legate told her from behind that an apostate could not lay on hands.

"I’m not laying on anything," she said without turning. "I’m counting his heartbeats. Anyone can do that."

I came down the three steps and stood beside her, which was the only useful thing available.

"How bad?"

"A hundred and ten and climbing. It isn’t the heart." She thumbed an eyelid open. "The pupils are uneven. That’s from inside the skull."

Zelina arrived on the other side with her case already open, and the two of them worked without speaking to each other, which is the strangest thing that has happened in that room in twenty years.

Then Calista sat back on her heels and looked up.

"Everyone out. I’ll take him."

"I can carry the case," Zelina said.

"Everyone, Zelina."

Zelina stopped with her hand halfway to a bottle. In eleven weeks I had never seen anyone in this palace take an instrument out of that woman’s fingers.

She stood up and stepped back.

Nobody asked why. She was the healer, and healers get the room.

The legate was still on his feet with the two bulls, not knowing which step to occupy.

"Legate."

"Majesty."

"Your Blessed in Life collapsed refusing the honor. Three hundred witnesses. What do you put in the report?"

He didn’t answer.

"Write what you saw. There’s no room in here for anything else."

They carried Roderic out on a guard stretcher and Calista walked beside it the whole way with two fingers on his wrist, counting under her breath so she wouldn’t lose the number.

On the marble where he fell, his sword lay where it had come loose from his belt.

I picked it up, because nobody else would touch it.