Page 31 of Among the Burning Flowers
They joined hundreds of people leaving their shops and homes. Liyat led, knowing the city well. Melaugo tried to ignore the foreboding. She pulled the brim of her hat down as the crowd washed them towards the Plaza Oderica, where the Great Sanctuary of Ortégardes stood.
She could have killed the city guard for interrupting their conversation, but even though it was long overdue, perhaps Liyat needed a little more time.
Her cheeks were still burning from her final outburst. Perhaps she really ought to leave Yscalin and become some kind of wandering bard. Most likely, Liyat would close herself off and withdraw, and she would have destroyed one of the few joys she had ever known.
The people of Ortégardes were filing out of their lodgings and villas, some of them none too pleased to be summoned. Melaugo had never seen so many unlaced shirts or bare shoulders. In the warm half of the year, the city guards in the south of Yscalin tended to overlook any contravention of the sartorial laws, even in the city devoted to the Knight of Courtesy.
The Knights Defendant waited in a crescent formation at the top of the steps to the Great Sanctuary. There were forty of them, all on white stallions, wearing armour and masks that evoked a crueller period of Yscali history.
Liyat looked at them with quiet contempt. They were the last remnant of the Order of Ederico, which had spurred the Yscali conversion to the Six Virtues after the death of Isalarico the Benevolent. They had killed or banished anyone who refused to accept the new faith entirely. Now they visited the settlements of Yscalin at random, punishing vice and heresy, destroying the exact sorts of objects that Liyat fought so hard to protect.
Melaugo squinted at them from beneath the brim of her hat. They were flying a banner showing the red pear of Yscalin, butwithoutthe True Sword, which appeared in the heraldry of all four countries in Virtudom.
‘The banner,’ she said to Liyat. ‘Do you see?’
‘Yes, but … why?’
‘I have no idea.’
Ortégardes was such a large city – far larger than the capital – that it took some time even for one district to be gathered. In the end, silence descended as one of the knights kicked her steed forward. Beneath her engraved steel helm, she looked gaunt, with a hollow gaze.
‘People of Ortégardes,’ she bellowed, ‘l am Donma Lusua Vuleydres, a sworn member of the Knights Defendant.’
As was the custom, the knight paused so that people could pass her words from the front of the crowd to the back. Fortunately, her voice carried, and Melaugo had the ears of a barn owl.
‘Long have you been loyal to Galian Berethnet, he who called himself the Saint,’ Donma Lusua continued. ‘Long have my fellow knights made sure to keep his law throughout this land. But I have come to tell you, here and now, that his time is over in Yscalin.’
Melaugo arched an eyebrow. All around the vast square, there were mutters of confusion and anger as the words reached each part of the crowd. Liyat lifted a hand to her neckline.
‘I can’t hear a word,’ the man beside her grumbled, straining to see. ‘What’s she saying?’
‘Five centuries after the conversion, His Majesty, King Sigoso of the House of Vetalda, has seen the light of the Dreadmount,’ Donma Lusua shouted over the clamour. ‘He has sworn allegiance to the Nameless One, and to Fýredel, the Iron King, Lord of the Mountain!’
Now the mutters turned into sharp cries, full of outrage. Melaugo could not believe what she was hearing. The woman was not only condemning the Saint, but praising the wyrm that had almost destroyed the world. She might as well have chopped some wood and built her own pyre.
‘What sort of jape is this?’
‘A test from King Sigoso, surely,’ someone murmured. ‘A test of our loyalty to the Saint.’
‘Are you absolutely sure that’s what she said?’
‘Hear me,’ Donma Lusua called. ‘The Nameless One seeks only to cleanse the world of corruption.’ Her voice cracked. ‘We fought the mighty Fýredel during the Grief of Ages, but this time, we must not resist his coming. Until this kingdom has been scoured of the unholy Saint—’
‘Blasphemer,’ a man bellowed, and his accusation set everyone off, like a flame put to a keg of gunpowder.
‘Heretic!’
‘What do you mean by this?’
‘Do not resist,’ Donma Lusua ordered again, but Melaugo could have sworn there was fear on her face. ‘Please, do not resist—’
Liyat reached for Melaugo, her breath coming short.
‘Whatever this is,’ she said, ‘I want no part in it.’ She started to shoulder through the crowd, which was now surging forward, towards the Knights Defendant. ‘That man over there was right. This must be some perverse test of faith. We should leave.’
Melaugo nodded. ‘We can wait in the storm drain,’ she said. ‘Just until—’
A chilling scream cut her off.
