A Touch of Mother - Chapter 2

As usual, this is an unedited draft of my current wip.

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Of course, Little Bear demanded a group meal at midday with our counterparts from the Temple of Light to discuss the situation. I thanked Balance our cook Deborah put up with our shenanigans. My predecessor Chief Justice Penelope didn’t entertain visitors often, if at all. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the senility that gradually destroyed her mind or her generally disagreeable nature. However, my Temple had become the meeting place for the clergy, the local nobility, the Guilds, and the citizen officials. Mainly, because I didn’t tolerate petty politics.

Not when we’d been dealing with the Assassins Guild, demons and renegade humans for the last year.

My staff rather enjoyed the reaction of the Light personnel when I announced the news from Love. They would have been less surprised if I’d tossed a Jing flashbang with a lit fuse in the middle of the dining table.

After the initial shock and disbelief, the four members of Light surreptitiously peeked at High Brother Luc. As the seat of Light order in Orrin, he had a particular cause to dislike my birth mother. Of course, she had her renegade allies actually cut off Luc’s left foot and deliver it to me in their attempt to force me to turn over a demon grimoire Gerd had obtained.

I spent a great deal of my nights since midwinter, lying awake in my bed and wondering if I made the correct decision.

“Why foster her escape?” Luc said.

“What do you mean, sir?” Garbhan said. As the newest priest of Orrin’s Temple of Light, he was often reluctant to speak up during our meetings.

I leaned my elbows on the polished surface of our dining table. “He means why isn’t she dead. She lost a demon grimoire the renegades wanted. She accidentally exposed the Assassins Guild’s alliance with the renegades, and by that, ruined the plot to quietly takeover Orrin as they had Tandor—”

“You’re forgetting your own contribution,” Elizabeth teased. “You’re the one who uncovered Samael DiRoy’s conspiracy with the previous duke and duchess of Orrin.”

The former chief justice of Tandor had remained in Orrin for her recovery from the year of torture the renegades had inflicted on her. Despite her emotional troubles, I was grateful for her presence. My junior justice Yanaba had been suffering from excessive morning sickness. I wished I could say my gratitude was due to the easing of our workload, but I would be lying to myself.

When Gerd tried to illegally end her pregnancy, she left me blind and unable to bear children. Elizabeth had been granted an exception to the recent change in Temple policy, which allowed, well reluctantly encouraged, the orders of Balance and Light to pursue carnal relations. With the increase of demon activity, we needed as many clergy with our particular talents as we could conceive.

But between my inability to have children and the terrible things the renegades did to Elizabeth, we often retreated to my office and commiserated over a bottle of red wine from the Pana Valley. Even now, Elizabeth sat between me and Sister Shi Hua of Light at the table because she couldn’t barely tolerate being in the presence of any priest of Light. I cleared my throat. “That was totally by accident. We’ve been lucky—”

“You call losing the city of Tandor lucky?” Luc exclaimed.

“Considering we save a majority of the civilians in the midst of a demon siege and invasion,” I snapped back. “Yes, I do.” Regret immediately flooded me. “I apologize for taking my anger out on you.” I blew out a deep breath. “All of you. I’m worried. Worried Gerd and her Assassins Guild cronies will attack the people I care about while the renegades carry out some other scheme.”

“We’ve been warned she’s loose, which is a point in our favor.” Little Bear ran his index finger around the rim of his ceramic cup. I didn’t need to sniff his cup to know it contained water. He would have a tankard of ale on his day off, and I’d never observed him drink more than a sip or two of wine at a meal out of etiquette.

“However, I agree with the high brother.” Little Bear’s gaze fixed on me. “The Assassins Guild doesn’t suffer failure. Especially not failure of Gerd’s magnitude. If she didn’t commit suicide out of loyalty to them, and they didn’t silence her, then they need her for another purpose.”

“But what purpose?” Yanaba asked to my right. She reached unerringly for the pitcher of milk in front of her and pour some into her bowl of oat porridge. Deborah made sure to serve my junior justice something that would agree with her delicate stomach.

Shi Hua sighed. “We could speculate on that subject until the stars fall from the sky.” She jabbed her table knife into the slice of roasted duck on her plate and sawed furiously even the bird was far more tender than the dried venison and beef we’d relied on through the winter.

Her skin glowed dark pink, far hotter than the effort she expended on the slice of breast on her plate. The fact I knew she was with child was driving me mad. It was really none of my business, given the uncomfortableness regarding the lifting of the chastity restriction on our orders. It was merely a reminder another priestess could do something I couldn’t.

“It would be nice if we were ahead of whatever the renegades planned for once,” Jeremy growled.

“It would help if we had a true oracle at our disposal,” Nicholas said quietly.

All of us paused eating and stared at Light’s chief warden. Even my blind sisters turned their heads in the direction of his voice.

“Why, Chief Warden, did you just make a joke?” I grinned at him. The quiet man rarely offered his opinion unless he was asked directly, though he’d become more vocal over the last six months.

The corners of Nicholas’s lips twitched beneath his turquoise facial hair. “It’s been known to happen occasionally. However, I’m not jesting at the moment. Brother Jeremy is right. We can’t keep chasing the renegades. It’s as productive as a hound chasing its tail.”

“So, what do you suggest?” Luc asked.

Nicholas shrugged. “We infiltrate them.”

“Thief has tried,” Shi Hua said.

“They know Thief’s practices to well,” Nicholas murmured. “It would have to be someone they’d normally be interested in turning to their cause.”

“Then who? And how?” I waved my hand to indicate everyone at the table. “Anyone we truly trust is too well known to the renegades.”

“We have two possibilities,” Nicholas said. “Chief Justice Elizabeth or Brother Garbhan.”

“Me?” he squeaked. The newest brother of Light was barely a year younger than Jeremy. On the surface, he seemed terribly shy and unsure of himself. However, he’d been one of Reverend Father Farrell’s primary aides. And after a couple of incidents Shi Hua and Jeremy mentioned, Luc and I rather suspected everything we said in front of Garbhan was reported back to the Issuran home Temple of Light.

“Of course.” Elizabeth leaned forward as if trying to peer into Nicholas’s soul. “Garbhan could be extremely dissatisfied with his new posting since he’s no longer directly advising the Reverend Father. In my case, we use the story the renegades in Tandor succeeded in converting me.”

“High Brother, I assure you I have no complaints about being assigned to your Temple,” Garbhan protested with a wild look in Luc’s direction.

However, Luc was staring at me. From the tight rein on his thoughts, he didn’t like his chief warden’s idea, but he wouldn’t undermine the man in front of his peers. No doubt we would be discussing this matter later in private. Luc turned to Garbhan.

“Your loyalty isn’t the issue, Brother.” He grinned at the young priest. “However, most priests in your position would consider such a transfer an insult.”

“B-but with Tandor gone, and the loss of most of your staff—” Garbhan blinked. “Oh!” His face shifted from orange-yellow to a red-orange. Maybe the naïve persona the young priest displayed was his true face. Few people could control their body heat to such a level.

“Can High Sister Mya or someone from her order create a sub-personality for us?” Elizabeth asked.

“You mean like what your seat of Child did with High Brother Aduba to gain the confidence of the renegades?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll make the inquiry, but between her and Talbert, I believe it’s possible.” I pushed back my own plate, my appetite gone despite the excellent roast duck. “I’m not sure putting you in that position is such a good idea.”

“Nicholas is right.” Elizabeth gestured in the general direction of Light’s chief warden. “I wouldn’t take much to make it appear as if the renegades broke me. Garbhan is too valuable to risk since we have so few Light talents in Orrin. I’ll just need a little extra help to make the deception work.”

I opened my mouth for my retort on the matter when someone knocked on the door of Balance’s new dining room. “Come!” Warden Gina pushed the door open, her skin orange-red and worry rolling off her psyche. “I beg your pardon for the interruption, Chief Justice, but Peacekeeper Jaime is here. There’s been an incident involving your squire.”

Alarm jerked my body. “Nathan?”

She nodded. “Magistrate DiCook requests your presence along with a member of Light.”

My heart sank. There was only on reason Malven DiCook would want me and one of the clergy from Light.

There had been a murder.