His color rose; but he’d found his own ways of dealing with me. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “If you bait me, I will not teach you Vralian, Moirin.”

“Oh, fine.” I let my smile fade.

“Anyway, I am not so sure,” Aleksei said unexpectedly, once again taking the conversation in a direction I couldn’t have anticipated. He bowed his head, his tawny hair falling over his brow, bronze locks shot through with gold. I longed to run my fingers through it. “I wonder… I wonder, why has God sent you to tempt me? Surely, you have suffered in the bargain. Are you my heretic saint? What am I meant to learn from this?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured.

“It is hard, so hard,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I wish I knew.”

I did, too.

And because I had come to care for Aleksei, compassionate, damaged soul that he was, I wished I could comfort him. I wanted to go to him, put my arms around him, offer the solace of human warmth and kindness.

I didn’t dare.

He might have accepted it-might have. Or he might have pushed me away and fled, fearful that I meant to seduce him. The stakes were too high, and I was too afraid. So I remained where I was and stifled my urge to give comfort, reckoning it was but one more casualty in the ongoing war for my soul.

THIRTY-FOUR

Beneath the Patriarch’s stern gaze, I dipped my brush in the lye bucket and scrubbed the last square of my penance.

“Yeshua the Anointed, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

It was done, twice over. Over the course of weeks and months, I had finished one complete circuit and begun anew.

Now that was done, too.

I clambered wearily to my feet, my stiff back and bruised knees protesting. “Again, my lord?”

“No.” Pyotr Rostov placed both hands on my shoulders. “No, child. You have done well, so very, very well, and I am proud of you.” His velvet-brown eyes shone with genuine warmth. “Moirin mac Fainche of the Maghuin Dhonn, are you prepared to be baptized into the Yeshuite faith?”

I would have danced naked in the village square if it meant getting rid of these hateful chains.

I lowered my gaze. “Do you think me worthy?”

He embraced me. “I do.”

I made myself glance shyly at him beneath my lashes. “Then it would be my honor, my lord.”

“Good, good!” The Patriarch embraced me again. I managed not to shudder with revulsion. After a moment, he let me go, regarding me and steepling his fingers. “The Duke of Vralsturm comes next week for the festival. I shall arrange for your baptism and chrismation to coincide with his visit, that he might see God’s glory at work. I trust you do not mind?”

I shook my head. “No, my lord. I am privileged to serve as an example.”

His creamy look came and went, replaced by one of solemn gravity. “And I to serve as the vessel of your redemption.”

“Yes, my lord.”

In the privacy of my cell, I wondered if he believed it. I daresay he did. Like Raphael de Mereliot, he was a man of great ambition. Unlike Raphael, I had no idea what forces had shaped the Patriarch’s nature. I only knew he had a profound hunger to believe himself the conduit of his God’s will.

Well and so, I would let him.

Like Aleksei, I did not feel wholly good about our endeavor. Alone in my cell, I addressed Yeshua ben Yosef in quiet prayer.

“Forgive me,” I whispered. “I do not wish to lie. But I do not wish to die, either. So when the time comes, I will lie. If Berlik was right about you, you will understand and forgive me, along with the oath-breakers and the murderers, and everyone else who has fallen low. Will you?”

Yeshua did not answer me-but then, gods seldom did.

The following week, the Duke of Vralsturm arrived in Riva, where he was received with great fanfare. I was not permitted to take part in any of the celebrations, but I could hear them through the narrow window of my cell. Hard as it was for me to imagine them rejoicing, the folk of Riva sounded merry.

My baptism was to take place the following day on the shores of Lake Severin, for one of Yeshua’s apostles had decreed that it was best done in living water. There was to be a solemn procession through the town wherein the Patriarch and a coterie of lesser priests led me in my chains to the lake. There I was to be submerged in water three times, and then led in procession back to the temple, where the final ceremony of the chrismation was to be performed.

I was not looking forward to it.

But Pyotr Rostov had promised that once I was baptized and anointed, once he had pronounced me born anew in the Yeshuite faith, he would unlock my chains and set me free; and Aleksei claimed his uncle was a man of his word.

Stone and sea, I hoped so.

For two days before the ceremony, I was made to fast. I would have reckoned it yet another punishment, but the truth was, these Yeshuites were mad for fasting. Aleksei regularly fasted for days at a time. I wondered if they would be quite so keen on the practice if they’d ever had to endure a long, lean winter.

Probably. In Aleksei’s case, definitely. He would welcome the opportunity to offer his suffering up to God. Me, I could not help but think that there was more than enough suffering in the world without adding to the balance.

The morning of my baptism, Valentina came to fetch me. I was to be given a thorough bath and dressed in a clean garment of white wool. Gods willing, I thought, it would be the last time I had to be sewn into my clothing.

Although she had shown me occasional small gestures of tenderness since my whipping, today Valentina handled me with impersonal efficiency, draping the shapeless robe of white wool over me once I was scrubbed clean. Her face was more careworn than usual, and she looked unhappy.

“What is the matter?” I asked softly. “Is this not the very outcome you desired upon my arrival, my lady?”

She gave me a sharp look. “Is it?”

“Your son has helped guide me on the path toward redemption.” I’d developed a certain fondness for poor Valentina, forever punished for her transgression, unable to help yearning for beauty nonetheless-but not enough to trust her with the truth. “Is that not pleasing in God’s eyes? Does it not suggest he has forgiven you?”

Valentina laughed, a broken sound. “It begs the axiom, does it not? Beware what you pray for, lest God grant your prayers.”

I was silent.

She paused in her stitching, gazing into the distance. “Do you know, in the western Church, they venerate Yeshua’s mother, Marya. We do not do that here in the east. Women are not venerated, not even the Mother of God. After all these years, I still miss it.” She continued stitching. “Would that I had appreciated such grace when I had it.”

“I understand,” I murmured. I did, all too well.

A single bitter tear trickled down her cheek. “God help me, I’d come to hope…” She did not finish the thought.

I knew, though. Valentina had come to hope that I would succeed in seducing her son, that I would persuade him to leave this place and find his wings. I wanted to tell her that I had tried my best, that one cannot free someone who doesn’t wish to be set free. Two months ago, I would have done it without hesitation.

Moirin the unrepentant sinner would have said it. Moirin the penitent catechumen didn’t dare.

Even so, I reached out and wiped the tear gently from Valentina’s face, trying to tell her without words that I was sorry for failing. She shook her head at me, and finished stitching me into my white robe, then winding a white woolen scarf around my head.

And then it was time.

My nemesis Luba came to fetch us. Once again, I was led outside so that I might enter the temple properly. It was a fine, bright summer day. If I’d actually wanted to be baptized, I couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious day.