The Orphans of Raspay (Penric and Desdemona, #7)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

The dark smelled of old timber and tar, fish and rancid oil, spilled stale wine, with a more recent overlay of piss and sour vomit. He’d been in worse oubliettes, though not lately.

Pen managed a shrug in reply to Falun. Some Quintarians with a deep religious calling might risk martyrdom, proclaiming their faith in the teeth of such mockery. Pen thought if his god wanted him martyred, He could bloody do it without Pen’s help.

Some poetic epics extolled heroism in warriors; Adelis the actual soldier put his faith in logistics, Pen had noted.

A creature of spirit, like a demon—or a human soul, for that matter—cannot exist in the world of matter without a body of matter to support it.

An appalled grin threatened to stretch his mouth. What, so the white god has drunk up His chosen soul like a merrymaker at a tavern, and rolled out leaving me to pay His bill? It was a rude way to think about the gods, but the Bastard could be a very rude god. And, truly, the gods could do nothing in the world of matter except through beings of matter. A doctrinal point Pen had constantly to explain to people trying to pray for good weather or no earthquakes, who never listened, he’d finally decided, because they didn’t want it to be so. The gods did not control the weather. Or the world. Or souls. But death, oh, they own that.

A stable for the sacred animals was built against the outer wall, with a low, slanting roof. The old timbers were sturdy and elaborately carved. New repairs were crude. The long shed seemed currently underpopulated, with a pen of chickens, a couple of nanny goats, and a dozing donkey flopped in its straw. The menagerie seemed less hallowed than practical, not that it couldn’t be both.

Only you, Pen, said Des, exasperated. Regretfully, Pen laid the alluring picture of a team of dolphins towing them home to Vilnoc aside for later experimentation, along with his narcoleptic rats.

“Stay here a few paces off, and be ready to row away if they start to come for you.” They looked at each other. “Without you?” said Seuka in a tentative voice. “If necessary.” Lencia cocked her head at him, and said in a remarkably dry tone for a ten-year-old, “To where?”

General Adelis Arisaydia, scourge of the Rusylli and pride and terror of his troops. Pride because terror, Pen gathered, because soldiers thought like that.

“But she was the most endlessly kind person I have ever met, of any sex or sort. Her fearless caring terrified me at times. She would take in strays, you know, others of her profession who had run into rotten situations of one sort and another. Especially the young ones, who had grown no slyness or deceit by which to defend themselves.

For the first time, the hidden bud of Jedula Corva’s relationship with her god seemed to unfold its secrets before Pen’s eye like a blooming flower. Beloved, god-touched, great-souled… a saint, even? The true sort, who moved through the world as silently as fishes, unnoticed by carnal eyes that focused only on outward domination and display. Never on a small woman in a small town, being kind. Soul by soul. And her faithful lieutenant, it seemed. Pen studied the unprepossessing, middle-aged merchant, sitting oblivious to these reflections, anew.

Getaf sighed. “I suppose Jedula spoiled me for any other woman. Any other person, really. My life is going to be much… duller, now.” His grimace didn’t much resemble the buffering smile he evidently intended. God-touched at least, then. Pen recognized that particular bereft longing left when a great Presence became a great absence. That heartbroken loss only known to those who, at some perilous apogee, had almost grasped that inchoate, indescribable essence.

“Will he be safe?” fretted Seuka. All too aware, now, not just of the hazards of the world, but of the fragility of grownups.