Lilah Read Free Page A

especially visiting those on the street. Arianne
would not want to leave anyone untouched by this magic and in her determination
to cure she failed to consider the effects on me. Though she knew I was physically weakened by such healing , I would not let
her know the worst of it. Some diseases made me incredibly ill and she did not
witness the severe stomach cramps and night sweats in the privacy of my room,
which left me sleeping late into the morning to replenish my strength.
    It was this affliction that would later fuel
suspicion and, ultimately, be my undoing.

 
    Gabriel
    Sometimes I liked to watch from the
tops of the trees and peer into the grounds of the monastery. No-one could see me. They might think it was a trick of the
light, the sight of a man silhouetted against the sun framed in fringes of
conifer leaves, but if they stepped forward for a closer look I would have
vanished in a blink of an eye. It was a popular perch for me to contemplate the
insignificant lives of the peasants who sold their paltry means at stalls in
the town, the visiting arrogant merchants wrapped in their furs, and the
superfluous visits by royals to the monastery to pray for an end to their
current round of bloodshed, but only if they were the victors themselves.
    I had watched the place of prayer rise from the
dirt where men bent for hours crushing lime with sand and water to seal between
the large squares of white granite carried on their shoulders and those of
their sons, and sometimes daughters barely half their height. Piece by piece
from pale coloured stone, the building was born, full of light with high arched
windows. Inside were wooden structures of Jesus on the Cross
and Mary, and the polished oak benches and floors shone even on a dull
day. The plaster was gilded in places, and stone columns reaching the two
storey high ceilings of the entry were etched with crosses. Squares of framed
wood panels lined the arched ceiling, each with a representation of Christian
worship depicted in intricate detail such as the coloured irises of the angels,
the ethereal faces of the apostles, and the baby Jesus in his crib of straw.
Several times I had crept inside long after the bell for sleep had tolled so I
could get a closer look, to remind myself what humans were capable of and how
fruitless was their devotion since their souls could be extinguished at any
moment by the likes of myself.
    The whole structure was a modern marvel, a rare
exercise of teamwork for a common goal and, I should add, a small amount of
cheap coin deposited in the calloused hands of the workers. Though it was more
a token for desperate job seekers than a wage or a labour of love. This place,
the first I had seen completely run by women, was originally commissioned to be
a castle for the last remaining son of a wealthy nobleman. When the son passed
away before it was completed, the nobleman then offered the building to the
Papacy in what he hoped would return him the promise of riches in heaven
– an afterlife swimming in jewels and continuous wealth to squander
rather than eternal hellfire as he, like many of his kind, probably feared, and
deserved.
    Most of the royals and nobles I can safely say
would not have made it to heaven with any amount of coin, so barbaric were
their vain quests for dominance over their own family members and dominions.
But the building, a gift to the holy orders, became a haven to those children
who would grow to be nuns or brothers or leave at least with skin on their
bones and memories of charity. And, for the more cynical but perhaps realistic:
those who would leave to work tirelessly in trades, continuing the tradition of
being too poor to feed their own children.
    Then there were others who would undoubtedly
grow and turn to thuggery ; some performing only minor
misdemeanours. These were untainted as far as I was concerned, and not cut from
the same cloth of those who were just given to
sinfulness. It was the blood, and sometimes souls