The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - BRIGADIER DENIZ (Part 3)
(Chapter 41 Part 3)
The case began with meeting Fortunato in my office, and now it would end with me attending his funeral, still threatened with my own; quite the snake eating its tail for me there. I would arrive cleaned up in nice clothes, and I had no idea what the outcome would be for me, and I think neither did Efan.
He politely left the room—though since he owned my contract now, he certainly wasn’t obliged to—and I found unwrapping the paper parcels, he had selected clothes for me in woodland colors—fallen-leaf gold shawl, apple red chiton, lichen white under-chemise, and new sandals, like my old, with the red stitching that looks pretty with my skin. Barsina, in harvest gold and brown, with a light fading-leaf green shawl, fastened everything with my bee brooch that she had carried safely from the Palace of Justice.
“What do you think?” I asked.
She raised a finger, and did up my hair for me like it was old times still, softly humming, wrapping it in long ribbons and a net snood. “Sir wishes you to look like a citizen still, Miss.”
“And why is that?”
“We are what we look like. Has not Miss learned that in Aulis?”
“Needn’t say Miss anymore,” I said.
“Can’t help it.” She tied up her own hair quickly in a strip of unbleached linen, and opened the door again for Ensign-Captain.
He smiled at us, pleased. “All right, let’s go.”
“What is going to happen to us?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. He squeezed my arm gently and put his hand at the small of my back. “But we’ll hope for the best.”
“Little comfort.”
He drove us from the enfermerio down Avenuo de la Mizerikordo and around the Hipokrata Rondejo to the lower end of Lunastrato, past the majestic Irodiatheum to the Nekropolo—the fancy cemetery on the northern side of the city by the Basiliki Gardens. There’s an outcropping in that quarter of red and gray granite where the skirts of Mt Ossa trail into the suburbs. On the right flank are kilometers of olive groves and vineyards and pleasant country villas, and on the left a forest and the State Labor Facility, the execution grounds whose scenery I enjoyed the day before, and the highway to Helioshad. In between are cliffs, into which are carved elaborate tombs of militia figures, some as old as the war—and the temeaeum.
“We’re going to the temeaeum? We’re women. We can’t go into the temeaeum, Efan!”
“Not ordinarily,” he said, slowing the ground-car. Along the road were parked many others, and stragglers like ourselves were afoot on the dirt and gravel. Through the trees, lit by the rays of the setting sun, we could see the cliffs. “This is a special situation. It’s important,” he said, parking, “that you remain silent unless you are spoken to. You can do that? Barsina?”
“Always, Sir.”
“Dardana?”
“What’s going to happen?”
“Dardana?”
“You sound skeptical.”
“Darnjo?”
“Yes, yes, I will.”
“I begin to understand the broken bones.” He let the flywheel spin down, and the ground-car slowly ticked into silence. “All right, let’s get out, and I’ll prepare you.”
Preparing us consisted of a black silk band tied over our eyes, and a black sheer silk veil dropped over our heads, and then Barsina held to me, and I to him, and he led us down a grassy trail close to the cliff face: I could tell because of the echoes and reverberations from our steps and the echoed, lowered voices of men.
Efan stopped us, took our wrists and tied them with something coarse. “You will sit here,” he said to us suddenly stern. “You will take off your sandals, and you will leave them here when the time comes. You are not alone. There are men to watch you with naked blades, so you will not speak from this moment unless you are spoken to. This is not a place for women’s voices. There are other prisoners here also. You will not speak to them.”
We sat, hesitant, on a grassy bank, put aside our sandals, and held hands, nervous. Many men passed us, boots treading the ground; I don’t know how many. Scores, I suppose.
If there were men with naked blades with us, they were uncommonly quiet. I could hear Barsina breathing and the sighs and rustles of other women within an arm’s length. By tilting my head, I tried to see past or over the blind; if I saw anything, it was the inside of the veil. We heard voices, a deep, slow baritone singing, a distant gong, one faint voice, then another, and more gongs. This went on a long time, and it got nothing but darker in my veilings, and the heat of the day began to turn into the cooler night breeze: until the boots returned.
They said nothing, but there was a man for each, hands guiding us, and for the others, it sounded. Grass and the stones were under my bare soles, and then cool stone. Things were stuffy. There was shuffling, breathing, and echoes, but no voices.
I was pushed against a cool stone wall crowded between two other women. Neither felt like Barsina. We stood perfectly still and perfectly silent.
Someone struck a chime.
“This is a funeral but also a trial.” It was Brigadier Deniz’s voice. “Our brother was struck down and slain in his house in the course of his work. He has paid for his sins, but to settle his spirit for the journey it will undertake, there are others to consider. They stand here above the steps of the sanctuary for judgment. They will not speak unless they are spoken to! There is naked steel for them if they speak out of turn. They will not speak again. Free their eyes!”
It was a bit of a sight, or shall I say, a lack of one. I’d been in my own dark for so long that I was dazzled even though it was dim. This is some of what I saw:
There were candles, pillars, paintings on the stone walls, and a hundred, two hundred men, weirdly garbed. Half had crow masks and black cloaks, and many of them had white cloaks and white veils. Others had red cloaks and sort of costume armor, with brassy-looking masks, and some had lion masks and lion skins around their shoulders. Some had a curious outfit I couldn’t even begin to describe, and a handful were clad in cloth like gold with gold masks and crowns.
My eyes drifting left, I saw a lone man, as dark as I, in purple robes with gems and a gold and silver mask and a crown and a staff, and a long beard of some false stuff, and he spoke with Deniz’s voice. “There are women here who are not permitted here normally, here on the floor above the sanctuary. Two of them are aggrieved, three are prisoners with fates to be decided. Six are only chattel to be disposed of. Brother Heliokuristo Unue, Brother Leono Sesa, present the aggrieved and the prisoners.”
“Brothers,” said the column-commander’s voice. A man masked as a lion silently directed crow-faced and white-masked men to arrange us under candlelight.
A gong was struck. The trial began.
( … This way to Chapter Forty-one part 2 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Forty-two part 1 … )
… ( … This way to Chapter One part 1 … ) …
🤨🕯️🥻
Pulling back the curtain some.