She nodded. “My given name, Hierophant, is Green Butterfly. I’m sure you knew this.”
He nodded.
“Like my namesake, I long to be free. I long to fly away from this tower. Perhaps as you yourself do?”
He stopped nodding.
“These legs are rotten. They will be the death of me. And yet, I’m not ready to die.”
He said nothing.
“I would like to be rid of this prison.” She motioned to her lower half. “Just as you would.”
“How?”
She rearranged her sumptuous fabrics around herself weakly. Discovery bent over her and fluffed them up, then went to the sideboard and lit another smoking candle, and yet more sweet-smelling medicine filled the air.
“That is a question I have long pondered. I have considered many different approaches, but now I have the ear of the second most powerful man in the land. How might I be free, Priest? I will not give the Cape another Pardoness. This light in the sky may portend death for us all, or eternal life. These are the times we are living in. Somehow I knew I would live to see them.” Then she said: “I will forgive your past sin of attempting to kill this man. I will do this if you free me.”
“I can’t just take you out of the tower, everyone would see—”
“No. Free me.” She pointed to her legs. Now that he knew what was beneath the fabric, he could not unsee it. They were like sausages bursting their casings. And Marvel had watched many a person be tortured. “I—”
“That little man. The Walking Doctor,” came Juniper’s voice in his ear. “The one with no ears. From Kansas.”
“No,” said Marvel, to no one. The word floating up as from the bottom of a well.
“He said his patients always lived, I thought.”
“Are you suggesting he take her legs off?” He shook his head. “You’re crazy. The blood alone—”
Juniper’s clear eyes seemed strangely delighted.
“And anyway,” Marvel said, disturbed. “With all respect due to your office, Pardoness, I’m not asking forgiveness for my past sins, I want forgiveness for my future sin. And if the sin was once justified, why shouldn’t it be justified again?”
“I cannot give you that. But if, as you say, this sin is justified, you don’t need my or anyone’s forgiveness.”
He tossed his hands up. “Why did I even come to you?”
“Because you are uncertain. You”—she spoke in a solemn voice—“are a man of uncertain faith. And yet you are also a man who deeply needs to believe you are right. Your longing for peace surprises you, am I correct?” She reached for her little glass again and took a drink. “My predicament, though less philosophical, is similar. I wish to be free of this bondage. The end will come, either now or later, but I wish to use my remaining days as I desire. I wish to leave this place.”
There had been a few, rare moments during his life when Marvel felt he truly understood other human beings. The isolation of his rank and temperament lifted, almost like a mist dissolving, and what remained was his hand in that of another human. Courageous, contented, unified. He glanced about, absorbing all he saw in this dreadful room, so unlike his own chamber: the medicinal smoke, the sallow nude sycophantic attendant, the grim deformities, and indeed he judged this woman’s life to be a prison—and here he had thought she lived in luxury. Everyone did. What did this unsavory truth now require of him, as a man of religion? He could not not help her.
She gestured to the sky beyond the ceiling. “The world may change forever. This may be the Return. We may soon be transported upward to Heaven. Or we may live in a new way here on earth. No one knows. Not even me.”
“I don’t think anything is going to happen,” Marvel said.
“That is your prerogative.”
“And you say I definitely don’t need a pardon?”
“Not if you believe what you are doing is right.”
“But I don’t know.”
“Then no one does.”
Marvel had spoken before he even realized it. “Bring the prisoner Tygo here. He will save her if he can.” He paused when Juniper nodded eagerly. “It’s the least we can do,” Marvel muttered.
Juniper left and returned some minutes later with the news that Tygo was already out of his cell on the order of the Chief Orbital Doctor John Sousa, an ineffectual pipsqueak of a man Marvel had distrusted for years. And yet for the moment he felt untroubled by the hitch in his plans. The order had been issued. Tygo would see the Pardoness soon enough. He would look at her legs. He would do something to free this woman, if he could. Thus, Marvel would use this good deed to set in motion a string of treacheries he hoped were for the common good.
Just as when he’d left Kansas the first time.
This circle pleased him, although he could not quite put his finger on why. He bowed deeply to the Pardoness and turned to leave. “Grace, I have done what I can.”
She nodded, and he strode toward the door, but she said something from behind him that he did not hear. He looked back. “What was that?”
“I said that faith is both reasonless and the reason for everything. Beware any certainty, High Priest. For not many things are certain, and the ones that are certainly have no reason to be.”
CHAPTER 6
THE ANGELS
John Sousa, King
