“Why did you kill them?” It was the half-blood, bitter as he was indignant.
Ba’al paused for a moment, pondering what sort of answer would hurt the worst. The pastor’s son was easy—gouge the open wound—but he knew next to nothing about this one. He asked him, “What’s your name, Imp? What were you doing at the parish?” but the half-blood kept his mouth shut and eyes to the floor. Occasionally, he’d glance toward the woman. Ba’al started again, then changed his mind. He could feel the itch, the agitation, the sickness. “Have it your way.” He stepped out of the Imp’s reach and jerked the woman by her chains and manacles. “How about you? What’s your name, witch?”
“Jezebel,” she answered, flatly, revealing nothing.
“Well, Jezebel, are you the kind of witch who likes to sing?”
Her deep, brown eyes peeled wide, and a curious smirk slipped from her lips.
“You do, then! Good, good. This won’t take long—”
He smashed the lantern against her manacles, gripping her chains to keep her from flinching while the others pleaded, feeding his glee as he pressed the jagged glass against her arm. She winced as the flame licked her skin—the stench of melting flesh.
“So, Imp, let’s try again. What is your God-forsaken pagan name?”
“Adnihilo!” he blurted.
Ba’al forced the glass deeper. “What were you doing in the parish?”
“We were there for the feast! Please, stop!”
“Are you pagans? Converts? Why did David turn against the church?”
The half-blood and the pastor’s son sputtered as fast as they could, yet it was not enough for the bishop. He wanted more—for the whore to howl, to beg him herself. She was already grimacing, her skin blistering, welting as she struggled in vain. Just a bit more. He twisted the glass—then strangely she stopped, and he turned to face her—felt the fingernails dig across his cheek, down his jaw, into his neck. He jerked back and dropped the lantern, watched it bounce from the scaffold and smother on the floor.
“Impii bitch!”
He dabbed at the blood. It was only enough to slick his fingertips but felt worse in the dark. Ignorant savages! I swear, if there are scars I’ll give them all to the Gauts! What good are they anyhow? The Walls will come down just the same without them. A buzzing answered from inside his ears, like a storm of hornets. Agitation. Sickness. He took the thought back and stepped down from the scaffold, smashed fish underfoot as he found the ladder. The sound died.
Ba’al conceded, “Fine, but she’s going to pay for what she did.”
†
Trey and Venicci were engrossed in their game when Ba’al slipped inside the cabin unnoticed. He crept behind the knight and spied the board. Gildmane had disgraced himself—was down to a few pieces scattered about. He overextended, waged the bishop. The knight had that habit, and it seemed no number of lessons could rid him of it. Venicci was loving every second. Unlike Gildmane’s mistakes, however, razing the smuggler’s grin was simple as the bishop clearing his throat. At once, Trey jumped. The tops of his thighs struck the bottom of the table, and the game board and all its ivory figures flew to every corner of the room.
Then came the inevitable lampooning, the profuse apologies, the comments about Ba’al’s fresh wounds to which he lied and evaded till finally the knight took his leave. Only after he and Venicci were alone did the bishop relax into his seat and call the privateer from the floor.
“Stand up; you can find them later. There’s been a change of plans.”
“There you go again, talking to me like it wasn’t your man who knocked them over.”
The bishop dropped onto his cushioned stool. “I might be willing to share some of my cargo.”
Venicci stood and sat across from him, his yellow eyes squinted, suspicious. So when Ba’al said he would sell one of his captives, at least for the rest the journey home, the smuggler was not prepared to curtail the perverse curl of his lips.
“Which one?”
The question took the bishop by surprise. “Which one do you want?”
“I’ve never had one from the Summerlands.”
“The Messah, then? Done, but it will be payment for our passage east. And I have one more stipulation.”
“What?” he asked, anxious.
“The bitch has to watch.”
Sixth Verse
It was warm in her dream and getting warmer as Jael padded the length of the sea-stranded cog: a hot deck slick with salt water and not a sliver of shade, nor a wheel, nor sail. Her soles were blistered, her shoulders bare and peeling under the yellow glare of an angry sun. Viciously, he watched her, stripping layers of her skin like a moulting snake—fresh, pink, and vulnerable. Then a wave struck the ship, and the spray rained like fire, and Leonhardt cried until her eyes were empty. When she opened them again, she found the deck flooded; and in the water were reflections. She saw the face of the torrid sun and her own exposed flesh. It was then that Jael realized she was naked. Out of instinct, she hugged her knees to hide her indecency—then felt herself a fool. From whom would she hide, alone on the open sea? She glanced again at her reflection, at her body, her nakedness. Why did God make me like this? She thought. Why didn’t he just make me a man?
Suddenly, the sky grew dark as the depths of the ocean, and all warmth fled like the breath from a corpse. Even the sun had hidden his face, eclipsed by a new moon whose corona shone silver-white like twilight in winter. Jael shivered. Beyond the cog was nothing but shadow of a thousand shades, shifting, morphing, the largest and darkest of serpentine shape. It saw her, she was
