[Fic] "Finding Marea," part 3 -- original
Jul. 27th, 2006 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfalling---------------------------------------------
Finding Marea: Part 3
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Attempting to find a woman who has vanished from written records is, to say the least, difficult. I stopped at the abbey of St. Amil again on my way home from Pomosa, but learned nothing besides the bare facts of Laila Tolemeus Tasca's genealogy and her public life in Dora. I was therefore forced to imitate a collector of folktales and wander through the western edges of the riverlands, seeking stories of a woman who traveled with a cartload of books. I hoped that such an unusual traveler might have been remembered.
Several villages did indeed have a story of a traveling female scholar, but that element had become tangled with older folklore. The woman with the books, called Lady Broke-back, was a witch who lured children from their homes and turned them into songbirds, until a brave brother and sister burned her books and converted her to either the Church or the Circle, depending on who told the story. The songbirds changed back into children and the penitent witch settled down as a holy hermit.
"Where did she live?" I asked.
Every village gave a different answer, generally pointing to a local holy site. One girl, however, said that Lady Broke-back had left the place where she had been so wicked, since she would always hear songbirds and be tempted to return to evil. She had driven her cart into the setting sun, over the mountains to the sea, and had joined a convent in Kos.
That seemed to be as much help as I was likely to get from folktales.
Upon my return to Kos, after I had satisfied my abbess that I understood St. Deianora's lesson, I began to search the abbey and college archives on the off chance that a woman with a cartload of books had arrived in the early eighth century. Fortune favored me: within a week, I discovered the story of Sister Broken, a Horse-cult missionary, who was tried and executed for practicing a banned pagan religion, incitement to paganism, and possession and distribution of interdicted books. It seemed, if not altogether likely, then at least not impossible, that Sister Broken might be related to Lady Broke-back and therefore also to Laila Tolemeus.
Execution for religious crimes -- in those days, generally carried out either by stoning or burning at the stake -- struck me as a poor fate for a woman with the courage to set aside both a life of ease and the comfort of her native faith. I thought her courage and convictions misguided, but I had, through the years, come to see some of the appeal of the Circle and Kemar, so I refrained from judging. I believe Circle members see a reflection of the infinite, while they believe I am the one caught by mirrors, but we both agree that the other sees something, and that something exists to be seen, if not comprehended.
One paragraph in the trial report intrigued me. "After the trial, the council examined Sister Broken's books a final time, and discovered that most had pages torn from the fronts and backs. Sister Josia Agipae of the convent of St. Ithigea, who guarded the Horse-cultist before her death, was put to the question. She revealed that Sister Broken had incited her to create a piecework book composed of the torn pages, but died before the book's location could be discovered. Though she did not repent, final rites were administered; may her soul shed its burden in purgatory.
"If the book is discovered," the report continued, "it shall be burned."
No further mention of Sister Broken's book -- created and hidden by Sister Josia at the cost of her life -- exists in Church records. Therefore, I went to the Circle.
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Ifira Burosca had died nearly a decade before; her circle was now under the care of Rappah Nolos, a woman born and raised in both Kos and the Circle. She was a spellbinding storyteller, not for her words -- which were plain -- but for the quiet presence she drew around herself like a cloak. Her circle said that she wore Kemar's shadow when she told stories. She said that she looked for the stillness where truth would echo.
Ifira had kept a close eye on all the affairs of her circle, though she had no official authority over anything but storytelling. Rappah led the weekly rituals and trained new storytellers, but she left the children to their parents, the care of the meetinghouse to a loose association of circle members, and the music and choreography of the rites to Ifira's son, Tassian Burosca. The circle seemed to function equally well either way.
Rappah and her husband, Keiros, were chandlers, and I found her behind their shop, mixing perfume into wax. Heavy scents wafted past me on trails of steam, wreathing around Rappah's figure like gauzy veils.
"Votives for the Miria chapel in the cathedral," she told me in her soft voice. "The new archbishop cares more about saving coin than keeping heathens from supplying his building and his rites. Bank the fire while I pour the wax."
She dipped a wide, copper ladle into the pot and poured moon-pale wax into moulds, filling rank upon rank of hollows, until all several dozen were nearly two thirds full. Now and then, wax splashed up the sides of the hollows, or dripped from the ladle to puddle and cool on crisscross frames of wood that held the wicks taut in the moulds. I banked the fire, leaving an even bed of coals; Rappah set the pot back on the stove and covered it with a heavy wooden lid. Then she took a sandglass from a shelf and motioned me toward her kitchen.
"We have until this runs through," she said as she flipped the glass and set it on her table, "before the second pouring. What did you want to ask?"
I explained my search for Laila Tolemeus and the inconclusive report of a book filled with stories from the Circle.
"Sister Broken's book?" Rappah said as she finished scraping wax from her hands into a shallow copper bowl. "Yes, I've heard that story. We don't tell it to anyone of the Church. Why should I tell you?" She rubbed her hands with a scrap of canvas and studied me.
"Because the Church needs to hear the stories of the Circle, and priests and scholars trust written words more than spoken ones," I told her. "I know the book is interdicted. I won't tell anyone where it's kept. But the Decree of Toleration extends to written materials, even if the cardinals thought that would be an empty promise. If I make a copy, I'm sure I can persuade the College deans that it's a true theological work, and it should be removed from the interdiction list. Knowledge shouldn't be hidden -- please help me bring Sister Broken's words back into the light."
Rappah set the cloth beside the copper bowl and laid her open hands on the table between us. "Listen, then, and I'll tell you the story of Sister Broken. This once, I won't tell you not to write it. I don't think she would mind if she were here to speak, and you're right; the Church needs to hear the other side of their records and histories.
"Sister Broken was a Doran noblewoman who loved three things. She loved books, she loved her family, and she loved truth. Because she loved her family, she left her books to become a wife and mother. Because she loved books, she left her husband once her children were grown. And because she loved truth, she left both her books and all hope of returning to her children. She joined the Circle.
"Kemar tells us that all things change, so we try not to hold onto things that won't last. But that's hard -- that's the hardest thing in this world -- and a person can spend her whole life learning to let go. Sister Broken died before she learned how to let go all the way. She wanted to catch stories from the air and trap them on paper so they would last forever. She wanted to keep her name alive in ink. So she wrote a book. She trapped herself in ink and paper and hoped that someday a person would read the words and unlock her voice.
"When Sister Broken died, she gave the book to her friend, Sister Josia, who gave the book to the Circle in Kos. The Circle didn't want a book. 'What use is it?' they asked Sister Josia. 'What would we do with dead stories?'
"'The stories aren't for you,' Sister Josia told them. 'They're for the Church, but the Church isn't willing to listen. One day, Church-folk will be ready to hear, but we trust books more than our ears, so save Sister Broken's book until that day. And when that day comes, let them read.'
"The Circle took the book from her hands. Within a week, Sister Josia followed Sister Broken into death." Rappah traced a gyre in the air. "She went to the light. Kemar loves those who care for the truth and for each other."
"The Circle has survived in Kos, sometimes in secret and sometimes in the open air, and we keep the book until the day the Church is ready to listen, ready to open the pages and bring the ghost of Sister Broken's voice to life."
Rappah shrugged, then, and tapped the empty sandglass on the table as she stood. "I don't know how much truth you can find in dead stories, but maybe there's enough that you can still hear some of the echoes, especially if you read them aloud. Maybe that will make people curious, and they'll come to us to seek the light."
"You know where the book is?" I asked.
"Yes. When I've finished the candles, I'll show you."
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Sister Broken's trial dragged on for nearly three weeks after Laila Tolemeus's agreement with Sister Josia Agipae. Religious trials were usually shorter, but the Circle had begun to flourish in Kos despite the laws against it. The archbishop, Makos Tegorae, hoped to turn people against the Horse-cult and drive it out of his city; he had, therefore, turned the trial into a comprehensive attack on the Circle.
This gave Sister Josia ample time to sort through Laila's books. She borrowed a shielded lamp under pretext of sitting up in night vigils for her friend's soul, and crossed the half mile between the convent and the archbishop's palace night after night, to tear pages from books, shuffle them into a rough order, and bring paper to Laila so her friend could record the story of her imprisonment and trial.
Sister Josia was no bookbinder. Her creation is a collection of badly sewn pages bound together with rough cord and protected by several layers of cloth -- more a series of pamphlets than a true book. The paper is yellowed and fragile with age, but the Kosian circles preserved it carefully, keeping it safe from acid, oils, and the damp, salty air.
As I touched the pages -- the first person to read them in centuries -- I wondered what had driven two people to give their lives for this book: Sister Broken to write it, and Sister Josia to preserve it. Laila left her motives in ink, as honest as self-professed truths ever are. Sister Josia's remain murky. Something she read during those weeks, or something spoken in the quiet darkness of Laila's cell, moved her enough that she gave her life rather than reveal the location of that hastily compiled book. I can only speculate what touched her heart. She never wrote it down.
The only evidence of Sister Josia Agipae, in her own words, is the title page of Laila's stories and a brief theological argument appended to the collection. "God so loved the world and us, his wayward children, that He sent His Son to live among us and bear the burden of our sins. Perfect love is beyond us, but man is created in God's image," Sister Josia writes, "and we must strive to honor that image. God loves us all, even heretics and pagans. Therefore accept this book and its author with compassion, though their message is flawed. We are all flawed, and which among us is worthy to cast the first stone?"
She signs that message, "Josia Agipae, Sister of the Order of St. Allea, of the convent of St. Ithigea in Kos, in the year of the Lord 723. I go to my fate with an open heart."
I have spent my life trying to respect others' faith, and to bridge the chasms between different views of the infinite. In Sister Josia's brief plea, I found a kindred soul, five centuries dead. And I found myself remembering Larachine Avedura's words on St. Deianora.
"Faith is faith," Larachine told me, "and no faith goes unrewarded. Reflections are distorted, but it's still the same light."
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Listen to the first story in Sister Broken's book:
"In the beginning, the world was empty, dark, and changeless, until Kemar danced and sent time flying ahead on its gyre," Laila writes. "Her sweat became water and her breath air, and when she paused in her dance, she raised dry land from the waters so she could rest.
"But the world was still empty and dark. So Kemar kindled light in her hands. She hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, and set them dancing.
"But the world was still empty. So Kemar swirled her feet in the waters, ran her hands through the earth, and shouted into the air. All the creatures of the world -- fish and birds, trees and grain, wolves and deer and flowers -- woke into life. And they moved along the great cycle of time, from birth to death to birth.
"But something was still missing. So Kemar spat onto the earth and shaped mud into a man and a woman. She touched their eyes so they could see truth, kissed their mouths so they could speak, and touched their hearts so they could love. Then she breathed into their nostrils to wake them.
"'You are man and woman, Adin and Zefaiah,' Kemar told them, 'and I've made this world and its wonders to share with you. Time is flying ahead of us, and not even I know what tomorrow will bring. Love the world and each other, but don't hold too tightly to anything. Time will change all things in due course. Some of those changes will be hard, but no change lasts forever. Remember that, and hold fast through the storms.'
"Adin and Zefaiah were afraid. They said, 'Must we be subject to time? The world is beautiful now, and we love it already; what if things are never this good again?'
"So Kemar reached out and plucked time from its path, and wove it around the edge of the place where Adin and Zefaiah stood. 'I've made you a garden,' she told them, 'where time can't enter and nothing will change. You can stay here as long as you like, but only if you sacrifice knowledge; you will become like children and you won't be able to leave. Is this what you want?'
"'This is what we want,' they said.
"So Kemar laid her hands on the heads of the man and the woman, and when they opened their eyes they were like children. 'This is a garden I've made for you,' Kemar told them sadly. 'Nothing here can hurt you, and all things here are yours to enjoy, except the fruit of the tree in the heart of the garden. That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if you eat its fruit you will die.'
"Then Kemar began to dance again, and time whirled her away into heaven."
To me, this story is a distorted reflection of the Book of Days. To the Circle, my story is the distortion and this is the truth.
Many of Sister Broken's stories have similar echoes of the Book of Days, with similar pagan or heretical distortions. When the great flood covered the earth, the Circle's stories blame humans who wanted to hold back time -- and thus hold back disasters -- and who only staved sorrow off for a generation until all their catastrophes struck at once. Pride and sin are still central to the story, but Kemar has little personal involvement.
When Kemar asks a man if he has faith in her love, he offers to kill his son himself; she accepts the gift and raises the boy's soul in a rain of fire from the mountaintop. Instead of preaching divine vengeance for a lack of faith, Kemar's prophets promise war, plague, and famine caused by human desire and blindness. And while the Circle speaks of heaven -- of light and reunion with Kemar -- they define this as an interval of peace in a mother's embrace, a pause along the endless circle of death and rebirth. A desire to break that cycle -- to stop time, stay in heaven, and reject Kemar's gift of the world -- is as close as Circle-folk can come to heresy.
Still, the mythological and theological stories are only one portion of Sister Broken's book. By far the largest is a collection of tales dealing with the history of the Circle, from its birth sometime in the second century of our Lord to Laila's day, some six hundred years later. These stories deal with journeys, martyrs, traitors, oppression, unexpected victories, and all the various folktales and hagiographies that accrete around any religion.
Marea's story is the last in the book. Whether Sister Josia placed it there on her own initiative, or whether she consulted with Laila, I cannot say. I can, however, say that the story was clearly important to Laila. It is one of the few stories written in more than one variant, though two are clearly marked as 'lesser' versions, with a notation of the original storyteller's name. At the conclusion of the main version, there is a small note.
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This is how Sister Broken tells Marea's story. Listen:
"During the reign of Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus, Mechved of the Hagarites was king in Ochre Varos. The Circle and Church were both young in those days, and their missionaries fought over the hearts of the people. Sometimes they fought with words, but more often their followers fought with steel, and so the sands of Ochre Varos were soaked with blood.
"Mechved decreed that as there was only one king in the city, so there would be only one religion. He gathered the Circle, the Church, the Amaalites, the Jenjani sacrificers, the southern pagans, and the symbolists of Calaea, and spoke with them for seven days, until his mind was clear.
"'The Church holds the greatest number of people within its arms,' he proclaimed, 'and the Church works in the light, without blood and death. Therefore, the Church of the Lord will be the only religion in Ochre Varos.'
"The Jenjani sacrificers moved their altars across the river. The Amaalites muttered and grumbled, and continued to observe their private rites and abstentions in their homes. The pagans bowed to whatever god they faced and named their own gods in silence, as they had always done. The symbolists peddled their potions and fortunes, but bit their tongues instead of preaching that the world was an illusion. And the Circle was driven into the shadows.
"So Mechved's choice brought peace to Ochre Varos. But it was the peace of the sword, for any person caught practicing rites not of the Church was tried for heresy and treason, and forced to repent and convert, or be exiled. The priests of the Church pressed for Circle members to be hanged or burned, but Mechved feared the power of martyrs, for Ochre Varos was tinder-dry and a martyr could spark violence like wildfire.
"Marea Shouja was a daughter of the Church, but she questioned her faith. She wondered why the Church feared other religions -- what did truth have to fear from lies? She had eyes to see, and strength to follow her sight. She left her father's Church and stepped into the Circle and Kemar's embrace.
"That summer, her circle planned a Great Rite. Marea chose to dance, to call Kemar into her soul and spill light and hope into the darkness. She was at peace with her choice and her faith, but her family became suspicious. Her father followed her that night and brought soldiers to disrupt the Rite before Marea could seal it with her life.
"The Church held her in a convent cell, praying for her soul and torturing her so she would turn back to her childhood faith. Marea was strong, and she had felt Kemar's touch in her soul. She held firm. They pressed her to accept exile, but she said, 'Ochre Varos is my home, and the law is false. If you shut me outside the walls, I will come back through the gate, again and again until you let me stay or kill me.'
"After seven months, Mechved summoned her to his palace and ordered her to convert or accept exile peacefully. 'The city is restless,' he told her, 'and my laws are all that keep blood from soaking the sand. Your defiance brings no help your people; you only incite them to violence and force my soldiers to kill them. See the truth and relent.'
"Marea laughed. 'The city lived before your laws, and it will live after you are dust and forgotten. People are stronger than you think, and we see more clearly than you. Trust us to make our own choices.'
"Mechved tried again to persuade Marea, but his words were empty and couldn't touch her. Finally, he led her to a balcony and spread his hands. 'If you refuse to convert or to accept exile, only two paths remain. Here is a guard to take you back to prison, and here is the balcony rail. This is your last choice. I wash my hands of your fate.'
"'I made this choice seven months before,' Marea told the king. Then she climbed onto the rail and threw herself into Kemar's light."
Beneath this story, there is a rough sketch of the desert flower called mirian, which lent its name to Miria, Mother of God. Twined around the flower is a stem and leaf of the bitter herb called marach, from which perfumers make funeral incense. Written beside them are the words "purity" and "sorrow," both scratched out, and the word "death" underlined.
"Marea gave her life for her faith," Laila writes underneath the illustration. "Would that I were half as certain of my choices. Still, what is done is done, and not even doubt can last forever. Perhaps even Marea's certainty would have ebbed in time, but we trap her in her moment of strength as an example to us all. I think Kemar understands our need for guiding stars, and in her mercy she forgives us this small weakness."
According to the Circle storytellers I have known -- Ifira Burosca, Somae Taucannig, Larachine Avedura, and Rappah Nolos -- Kemar is not merciful. This is not because she holds humanity to impossible standards, but because she does not judge. Kemar does not allow or disallow anything; that implies a control over human fate that she does not claim.
Yet Laila asks her forgiveness. Is that a true reflection of a theological shift over the past five centuries, or simply a remnant of her decades as a daughter of the Church? The Church of Laila's day had no interest in the fine points of a pagan or heretical religion, and the Circle has left no records for us to search. Whatever the truth may be, it has shifted and flowed, like water in an endless river.
"That is as it should be," Rappah said when I spoke to her. "That's the way of life."
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After so many stories, it seems odd to shut away voices and turn to the written records of the College of St. Larach. Even bone-dry lists of names and dates, however, have stories to tell -- to say nothing of the great historians' epic works -- and they deserve as much attention as the Circle's ephemeral tales. Perhaps some truths must be felt in the soul or nowhere at all, but others can be confirmed by words and numbers, and such proofs lend a comforting weight to the more rarified realms of philosophy and theology.
In the year 100 -- one, the number of potential, shadowed by seventeen for glory -- Hagaral the Great came to the throne of Ochre Varos, which was then a minor tributary kingdom of the Empire. Over the twenty-six years of his reign, he cast off the imperial yoke and extended his lands to Lake Nacoma in the north, and well into Rimaspa in the south.
His son lost Rimaspa. His grandson lost the lakelands and all territory east of the Mother River. His grand-nephew, Mechved II, ruled little more than the city-state Hagaral had inherited, and only his tributary alliances with various Jenjani princes kept him nominally free from the Empire.
The last thing Mechved could afford was civil war. In light of the violence between the Church and the Circle -- court records in Ochre Varos overflow with tales of assault, robbery, slander, rape, and murder -- his proclamation of one received religion is less a matter of faith than an attempt to paper over quarrels that could easily have undermined his struggle against the encroaching Empire.
Marea Shouja was arrested, along with a circle of nearly fifty people, in summer of the year 177 -- fifteen, the number of anger and strife. They were convicted of performing forbidden pagan rites, and most were released once they swore on the Book of Days not to repeat the offense. A few were exiled, and Marea -- described, in court records, as the 'Horse-cult priestess' -- was turned over to the archbishop when she refused to convert.
It is not clear why she was not simply executed. The Circle might have objected, but they might equally well have taken her death as the completion of the Great Rite. Perhaps Mechved or the Church fathers misunderstood the mood of the Circle, or perhaps they were simply cautious. Marea's father, Vaparchim Shouja, might have called in favors from both government and Church officials -- secular tax records show that he was wealthy, and Church records show that he contributed richly to the fledgling cathedral in Ochre Varos.
In any case, Marea was held in a convent for nine months. By spring of the year 178, five more Great Rites had been interrupted, nearly a hundred people had been executed and a hundred more exiled, and Circle adherents had led several retaliatory raids on Church members. Marea was brought to Mechved's palace, perhaps to serve as a public example.
It is not clear whether she leapt from the balcony, whether she was deliberately pushed, or whether she fell accidentally when the crowd beneath turned restive; accounts differ. All accounts, however, agree that her death triggered deadly riots of at least two days' duration, after which Mechved partially repealed his law. Henceforth, he proclaimed, members of the Circle of Kemar, commonly known as the Horse-cult, would be allowed to practice their rites, provided that they refrained from proselytizing and human sacrifice.
In summer of the year 180, Mechved II died. By the end of autumn, Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus had conquered Ochre Varos. This time the city did not retain even nominal independence; Mechved's brother was deposed, and an imperial governor and general were appointed in his place. The emperor banned all religions but the Church.
The Circle of Kemar remained outlawed in the Empire for the next six hundred years.
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When I was a young woman, I dedicated my life to God, to truth, and to the Church; I saw no difference between the three. Now that I am old, I see many shades of meaning -- many reflections -- where once I saw nothing but pure light.
My faith is strong. I have no desire to leave the Church, or even to renounce my vocation. I have never regretted my choices.
And yet, I find that God is not the Church, nor, perhaps, is God the only truth. Perhaps not all people can face truth head-on, and must view it sideways, backwards, upside-down. Perhaps they find truth in ever-changing reflections.
Perhaps even immutable truths change, depending on who tells the story, or who listens.
Take, for example, the sin in the garden. Every person in the Empire -- Church-folk, Circle-folk, Amaalite, pagan, sacrificer, or symbolist -- knows that story. It is written. It does not change.
And yet, perhaps it does. When I was young, the story told me the dangers of disobeying God. It told me the source of evil and unhappiness in the world, and it told me the limits of humanity.
Now, I wonder if those warnings are all the story holds. Zefaiah desired to be like God, to be wise. In the garden, without knowledge, Adin and Zefaiah could not choose to be good. Without death, they could not have eternal life. Without the possibility of doubt, what is the worth of faith? Without the possibility of evil, what is the worth of good?
Adin and Zefaiah chose to be human -- to think, rather than to live as naked and innocent as the beasts of the field. They chose knowledge, and its consequences: sorrow, pain, and death. Rather than the changeless perfection of the garden, they chose the uncertainty of time, which wears away all things but God.
"Listen, and I'll tell you a story," the Circle storytellers say. "Everything always changes; what does not change is dead."
The words of my stories do not change, but they are far from dead. They live in my heart, and the hearts of countless thousands. Their lessons and their hope lift the Church in our quest to know God and follow his will, to do the Lord's work on earth as his will is made manifest in heaven.
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Listen, and I will tell you a story.
In the days of the Emperor Aratis IV, the Decree of Toleration established the six received religions of the Empire. Nevertheless, people continued to distrust each other, and the Church, the Amaalites, and the symbolists continued to treat their own heretics harshly.
In the days of the Emperor Itharis Damicas, five hundred years later, little has changed.
Listen to Sister Josia Agipae: "God so loved the world, and us, his wayward children, that He sent His Son to live among us and bear the burden of our sins. Perfect love is beyond us, but man is created in God's image, and we must strive to honor that image. God loves us all, even heretics and pagans."
In the face of perfect love -- in the face of the infinite -- why do we persist in anger, hatred, and suspicion? Why do we seek out our neighbors' flaws and ignore our own? We are all flawed, and none of us is worthy to cast the first stone. The one who is worthy has, instead, granted us forgiveness and mercy.
Listen. Truth changes even as you hear it. Even God can change, as He did when He took on human flesh. Without change -- without choice and consequence -- life has no meaning, and truth becomes a prison with no door.
Life is what we make it, God is where we find him, and we always have choices, even at the very limit of our endurance. This is the truth I learned from the Circle. This is the truth I read in Sister Broken's book. This is the truth I take from Marea's story.
Forget words and numbers and logical proof.
Open your heart to the infinite.
Listen.
What do you feel in your soul?
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End
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Story Notes
Finding Marea: Part 3
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Attempting to find a woman who has vanished from written records is, to say the least, difficult. I stopped at the abbey of St. Amil again on my way home from Pomosa, but learned nothing besides the bare facts of Laila Tolemeus Tasca's genealogy and her public life in Dora. I was therefore forced to imitate a collector of folktales and wander through the western edges of the riverlands, seeking stories of a woman who traveled with a cartload of books. I hoped that such an unusual traveler might have been remembered.
Several villages did indeed have a story of a traveling female scholar, but that element had become tangled with older folklore. The woman with the books, called Lady Broke-back, was a witch who lured children from their homes and turned them into songbirds, until a brave brother and sister burned her books and converted her to either the Church or the Circle, depending on who told the story. The songbirds changed back into children and the penitent witch settled down as a holy hermit.
"Where did she live?" I asked.
Every village gave a different answer, generally pointing to a local holy site. One girl, however, said that Lady Broke-back had left the place where she had been so wicked, since she would always hear songbirds and be tempted to return to evil. She had driven her cart into the setting sun, over the mountains to the sea, and had joined a convent in Kos.
That seemed to be as much help as I was likely to get from folktales.
Upon my return to Kos, after I had satisfied my abbess that I understood St. Deianora's lesson, I began to search the abbey and college archives on the off chance that a woman with a cartload of books had arrived in the early eighth century. Fortune favored me: within a week, I discovered the story of Sister Broken, a Horse-cult missionary, who was tried and executed for practicing a banned pagan religion, incitement to paganism, and possession and distribution of interdicted books. It seemed, if not altogether likely, then at least not impossible, that Sister Broken might be related to Lady Broke-back and therefore also to Laila Tolemeus.
Execution for religious crimes -- in those days, generally carried out either by stoning or burning at the stake -- struck me as a poor fate for a woman with the courage to set aside both a life of ease and the comfort of her native faith. I thought her courage and convictions misguided, but I had, through the years, come to see some of the appeal of the Circle and Kemar, so I refrained from judging. I believe Circle members see a reflection of the infinite, while they believe I am the one caught by mirrors, but we both agree that the other sees something, and that something exists to be seen, if not comprehended.
One paragraph in the trial report intrigued me. "After the trial, the council examined Sister Broken's books a final time, and discovered that most had pages torn from the fronts and backs. Sister Josia Agipae of the convent of St. Ithigea, who guarded the Horse-cultist before her death, was put to the question. She revealed that Sister Broken had incited her to create a piecework book composed of the torn pages, but died before the book's location could be discovered. Though she did not repent, final rites were administered; may her soul shed its burden in purgatory.
"If the book is discovered," the report continued, "it shall be burned."
No further mention of Sister Broken's book -- created and hidden by Sister Josia at the cost of her life -- exists in Church records. Therefore, I went to the Circle.
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Ifira Burosca had died nearly a decade before; her circle was now under the care of Rappah Nolos, a woman born and raised in both Kos and the Circle. She was a spellbinding storyteller, not for her words -- which were plain -- but for the quiet presence she drew around herself like a cloak. Her circle said that she wore Kemar's shadow when she told stories. She said that she looked for the stillness where truth would echo.
Ifira had kept a close eye on all the affairs of her circle, though she had no official authority over anything but storytelling. Rappah led the weekly rituals and trained new storytellers, but she left the children to their parents, the care of the meetinghouse to a loose association of circle members, and the music and choreography of the rites to Ifira's son, Tassian Burosca. The circle seemed to function equally well either way.
Rappah and her husband, Keiros, were chandlers, and I found her behind their shop, mixing perfume into wax. Heavy scents wafted past me on trails of steam, wreathing around Rappah's figure like gauzy veils.
"Votives for the Miria chapel in the cathedral," she told me in her soft voice. "The new archbishop cares more about saving coin than keeping heathens from supplying his building and his rites. Bank the fire while I pour the wax."
She dipped a wide, copper ladle into the pot and poured moon-pale wax into moulds, filling rank upon rank of hollows, until all several dozen were nearly two thirds full. Now and then, wax splashed up the sides of the hollows, or dripped from the ladle to puddle and cool on crisscross frames of wood that held the wicks taut in the moulds. I banked the fire, leaving an even bed of coals; Rappah set the pot back on the stove and covered it with a heavy wooden lid. Then she took a sandglass from a shelf and motioned me toward her kitchen.
"We have until this runs through," she said as she flipped the glass and set it on her table, "before the second pouring. What did you want to ask?"
I explained my search for Laila Tolemeus and the inconclusive report of a book filled with stories from the Circle.
"Sister Broken's book?" Rappah said as she finished scraping wax from her hands into a shallow copper bowl. "Yes, I've heard that story. We don't tell it to anyone of the Church. Why should I tell you?" She rubbed her hands with a scrap of canvas and studied me.
"Because the Church needs to hear the stories of the Circle, and priests and scholars trust written words more than spoken ones," I told her. "I know the book is interdicted. I won't tell anyone where it's kept. But the Decree of Toleration extends to written materials, even if the cardinals thought that would be an empty promise. If I make a copy, I'm sure I can persuade the College deans that it's a true theological work, and it should be removed from the interdiction list. Knowledge shouldn't be hidden -- please help me bring Sister Broken's words back into the light."
Rappah set the cloth beside the copper bowl and laid her open hands on the table between us. "Listen, then, and I'll tell you the story of Sister Broken. This once, I won't tell you not to write it. I don't think she would mind if she were here to speak, and you're right; the Church needs to hear the other side of their records and histories.
"Sister Broken was a Doran noblewoman who loved three things. She loved books, she loved her family, and she loved truth. Because she loved her family, she left her books to become a wife and mother. Because she loved books, she left her husband once her children were grown. And because she loved truth, she left both her books and all hope of returning to her children. She joined the Circle.
"Kemar tells us that all things change, so we try not to hold onto things that won't last. But that's hard -- that's the hardest thing in this world -- and a person can spend her whole life learning to let go. Sister Broken died before she learned how to let go all the way. She wanted to catch stories from the air and trap them on paper so they would last forever. She wanted to keep her name alive in ink. So she wrote a book. She trapped herself in ink and paper and hoped that someday a person would read the words and unlock her voice.
"When Sister Broken died, she gave the book to her friend, Sister Josia, who gave the book to the Circle in Kos. The Circle didn't want a book. 'What use is it?' they asked Sister Josia. 'What would we do with dead stories?'
"'The stories aren't for you,' Sister Josia told them. 'They're for the Church, but the Church isn't willing to listen. One day, Church-folk will be ready to hear, but we trust books more than our ears, so save Sister Broken's book until that day. And when that day comes, let them read.'
"The Circle took the book from her hands. Within a week, Sister Josia followed Sister Broken into death." Rappah traced a gyre in the air. "She went to the light. Kemar loves those who care for the truth and for each other."
"The Circle has survived in Kos, sometimes in secret and sometimes in the open air, and we keep the book until the day the Church is ready to listen, ready to open the pages and bring the ghost of Sister Broken's voice to life."
Rappah shrugged, then, and tapped the empty sandglass on the table as she stood. "I don't know how much truth you can find in dead stories, but maybe there's enough that you can still hear some of the echoes, especially if you read them aloud. Maybe that will make people curious, and they'll come to us to seek the light."
"You know where the book is?" I asked.
"Yes. When I've finished the candles, I'll show you."
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Sister Broken's trial dragged on for nearly three weeks after Laila Tolemeus's agreement with Sister Josia Agipae. Religious trials were usually shorter, but the Circle had begun to flourish in Kos despite the laws against it. The archbishop, Makos Tegorae, hoped to turn people against the Horse-cult and drive it out of his city; he had, therefore, turned the trial into a comprehensive attack on the Circle.
This gave Sister Josia ample time to sort through Laila's books. She borrowed a shielded lamp under pretext of sitting up in night vigils for her friend's soul, and crossed the half mile between the convent and the archbishop's palace night after night, to tear pages from books, shuffle them into a rough order, and bring paper to Laila so her friend could record the story of her imprisonment and trial.
Sister Josia was no bookbinder. Her creation is a collection of badly sewn pages bound together with rough cord and protected by several layers of cloth -- more a series of pamphlets than a true book. The paper is yellowed and fragile with age, but the Kosian circles preserved it carefully, keeping it safe from acid, oils, and the damp, salty air.
As I touched the pages -- the first person to read them in centuries -- I wondered what had driven two people to give their lives for this book: Sister Broken to write it, and Sister Josia to preserve it. Laila left her motives in ink, as honest as self-professed truths ever are. Sister Josia's remain murky. Something she read during those weeks, or something spoken in the quiet darkness of Laila's cell, moved her enough that she gave her life rather than reveal the location of that hastily compiled book. I can only speculate what touched her heart. She never wrote it down.
The only evidence of Sister Josia Agipae, in her own words, is the title page of Laila's stories and a brief theological argument appended to the collection. "God so loved the world and us, his wayward children, that He sent His Son to live among us and bear the burden of our sins. Perfect love is beyond us, but man is created in God's image," Sister Josia writes, "and we must strive to honor that image. God loves us all, even heretics and pagans. Therefore accept this book and its author with compassion, though their message is flawed. We are all flawed, and which among us is worthy to cast the first stone?"
She signs that message, "Josia Agipae, Sister of the Order of St. Allea, of the convent of St. Ithigea in Kos, in the year of the Lord 723. I go to my fate with an open heart."
I have spent my life trying to respect others' faith, and to bridge the chasms between different views of the infinite. In Sister Josia's brief plea, I found a kindred soul, five centuries dead. And I found myself remembering Larachine Avedura's words on St. Deianora.
"Faith is faith," Larachine told me, "and no faith goes unrewarded. Reflections are distorted, but it's still the same light."
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Listen to the first story in Sister Broken's book:
"In the beginning, the world was empty, dark, and changeless, until Kemar danced and sent time flying ahead on its gyre," Laila writes. "Her sweat became water and her breath air, and when she paused in her dance, she raised dry land from the waters so she could rest.
"But the world was still empty and dark. So Kemar kindled light in her hands. She hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, and set them dancing.
"But the world was still empty. So Kemar swirled her feet in the waters, ran her hands through the earth, and shouted into the air. All the creatures of the world -- fish and birds, trees and grain, wolves and deer and flowers -- woke into life. And they moved along the great cycle of time, from birth to death to birth.
"But something was still missing. So Kemar spat onto the earth and shaped mud into a man and a woman. She touched their eyes so they could see truth, kissed their mouths so they could speak, and touched their hearts so they could love. Then she breathed into their nostrils to wake them.
"'You are man and woman, Adin and Zefaiah,' Kemar told them, 'and I've made this world and its wonders to share with you. Time is flying ahead of us, and not even I know what tomorrow will bring. Love the world and each other, but don't hold too tightly to anything. Time will change all things in due course. Some of those changes will be hard, but no change lasts forever. Remember that, and hold fast through the storms.'
"Adin and Zefaiah were afraid. They said, 'Must we be subject to time? The world is beautiful now, and we love it already; what if things are never this good again?'
"So Kemar reached out and plucked time from its path, and wove it around the edge of the place where Adin and Zefaiah stood. 'I've made you a garden,' she told them, 'where time can't enter and nothing will change. You can stay here as long as you like, but only if you sacrifice knowledge; you will become like children and you won't be able to leave. Is this what you want?'
"'This is what we want,' they said.
"So Kemar laid her hands on the heads of the man and the woman, and when they opened their eyes they were like children. 'This is a garden I've made for you,' Kemar told them sadly. 'Nothing here can hurt you, and all things here are yours to enjoy, except the fruit of the tree in the heart of the garden. That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if you eat its fruit you will die.'
"Then Kemar began to dance again, and time whirled her away into heaven."
To me, this story is a distorted reflection of the Book of Days. To the Circle, my story is the distortion and this is the truth.
Many of Sister Broken's stories have similar echoes of the Book of Days, with similar pagan or heretical distortions. When the great flood covered the earth, the Circle's stories blame humans who wanted to hold back time -- and thus hold back disasters -- and who only staved sorrow off for a generation until all their catastrophes struck at once. Pride and sin are still central to the story, but Kemar has little personal involvement.
When Kemar asks a man if he has faith in her love, he offers to kill his son himself; she accepts the gift and raises the boy's soul in a rain of fire from the mountaintop. Instead of preaching divine vengeance for a lack of faith, Kemar's prophets promise war, plague, and famine caused by human desire and blindness. And while the Circle speaks of heaven -- of light and reunion with Kemar -- they define this as an interval of peace in a mother's embrace, a pause along the endless circle of death and rebirth. A desire to break that cycle -- to stop time, stay in heaven, and reject Kemar's gift of the world -- is as close as Circle-folk can come to heresy.
Still, the mythological and theological stories are only one portion of Sister Broken's book. By far the largest is a collection of tales dealing with the history of the Circle, from its birth sometime in the second century of our Lord to Laila's day, some six hundred years later. These stories deal with journeys, martyrs, traitors, oppression, unexpected victories, and all the various folktales and hagiographies that accrete around any religion.
Marea's story is the last in the book. Whether Sister Josia placed it there on her own initiative, or whether she consulted with Laila, I cannot say. I can, however, say that the story was clearly important to Laila. It is one of the few stories written in more than one variant, though two are clearly marked as 'lesser' versions, with a notation of the original storyteller's name. At the conclusion of the main version, there is a small note.
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This is how Sister Broken tells Marea's story. Listen:
"During the reign of Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus, Mechved of the Hagarites was king in Ochre Varos. The Circle and Church were both young in those days, and their missionaries fought over the hearts of the people. Sometimes they fought with words, but more often their followers fought with steel, and so the sands of Ochre Varos were soaked with blood.
"Mechved decreed that as there was only one king in the city, so there would be only one religion. He gathered the Circle, the Church, the Amaalites, the Jenjani sacrificers, the southern pagans, and the symbolists of Calaea, and spoke with them for seven days, until his mind was clear.
"'The Church holds the greatest number of people within its arms,' he proclaimed, 'and the Church works in the light, without blood and death. Therefore, the Church of the Lord will be the only religion in Ochre Varos.'
"The Jenjani sacrificers moved their altars across the river. The Amaalites muttered and grumbled, and continued to observe their private rites and abstentions in their homes. The pagans bowed to whatever god they faced and named their own gods in silence, as they had always done. The symbolists peddled their potions and fortunes, but bit their tongues instead of preaching that the world was an illusion. And the Circle was driven into the shadows.
"So Mechved's choice brought peace to Ochre Varos. But it was the peace of the sword, for any person caught practicing rites not of the Church was tried for heresy and treason, and forced to repent and convert, or be exiled. The priests of the Church pressed for Circle members to be hanged or burned, but Mechved feared the power of martyrs, for Ochre Varos was tinder-dry and a martyr could spark violence like wildfire.
"Marea Shouja was a daughter of the Church, but she questioned her faith. She wondered why the Church feared other religions -- what did truth have to fear from lies? She had eyes to see, and strength to follow her sight. She left her father's Church and stepped into the Circle and Kemar's embrace.
"That summer, her circle planned a Great Rite. Marea chose to dance, to call Kemar into her soul and spill light and hope into the darkness. She was at peace with her choice and her faith, but her family became suspicious. Her father followed her that night and brought soldiers to disrupt the Rite before Marea could seal it with her life.
"The Church held her in a convent cell, praying for her soul and torturing her so she would turn back to her childhood faith. Marea was strong, and she had felt Kemar's touch in her soul. She held firm. They pressed her to accept exile, but she said, 'Ochre Varos is my home, and the law is false. If you shut me outside the walls, I will come back through the gate, again and again until you let me stay or kill me.'
"After seven months, Mechved summoned her to his palace and ordered her to convert or accept exile peacefully. 'The city is restless,' he told her, 'and my laws are all that keep blood from soaking the sand. Your defiance brings no help your people; you only incite them to violence and force my soldiers to kill them. See the truth and relent.'
"Marea laughed. 'The city lived before your laws, and it will live after you are dust and forgotten. People are stronger than you think, and we see more clearly than you. Trust us to make our own choices.'
"Mechved tried again to persuade Marea, but his words were empty and couldn't touch her. Finally, he led her to a balcony and spread his hands. 'If you refuse to convert or to accept exile, only two paths remain. Here is a guard to take you back to prison, and here is the balcony rail. This is your last choice. I wash my hands of your fate.'
"'I made this choice seven months before,' Marea told the king. Then she climbed onto the rail and threw herself into Kemar's light."
Beneath this story, there is a rough sketch of the desert flower called mirian, which lent its name to Miria, Mother of God. Twined around the flower is a stem and leaf of the bitter herb called marach, from which perfumers make funeral incense. Written beside them are the words "purity" and "sorrow," both scratched out, and the word "death" underlined.
"Marea gave her life for her faith," Laila writes underneath the illustration. "Would that I were half as certain of my choices. Still, what is done is done, and not even doubt can last forever. Perhaps even Marea's certainty would have ebbed in time, but we trap her in her moment of strength as an example to us all. I think Kemar understands our need for guiding stars, and in her mercy she forgives us this small weakness."
According to the Circle storytellers I have known -- Ifira Burosca, Somae Taucannig, Larachine Avedura, and Rappah Nolos -- Kemar is not merciful. This is not because she holds humanity to impossible standards, but because she does not judge. Kemar does not allow or disallow anything; that implies a control over human fate that she does not claim.
Yet Laila asks her forgiveness. Is that a true reflection of a theological shift over the past five centuries, or simply a remnant of her decades as a daughter of the Church? The Church of Laila's day had no interest in the fine points of a pagan or heretical religion, and the Circle has left no records for us to search. Whatever the truth may be, it has shifted and flowed, like water in an endless river.
"That is as it should be," Rappah said when I spoke to her. "That's the way of life."
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After so many stories, it seems odd to shut away voices and turn to the written records of the College of St. Larach. Even bone-dry lists of names and dates, however, have stories to tell -- to say nothing of the great historians' epic works -- and they deserve as much attention as the Circle's ephemeral tales. Perhaps some truths must be felt in the soul or nowhere at all, but others can be confirmed by words and numbers, and such proofs lend a comforting weight to the more rarified realms of philosophy and theology.
In the year 100 -- one, the number of potential, shadowed by seventeen for glory -- Hagaral the Great came to the throne of Ochre Varos, which was then a minor tributary kingdom of the Empire. Over the twenty-six years of his reign, he cast off the imperial yoke and extended his lands to Lake Nacoma in the north, and well into Rimaspa in the south.
His son lost Rimaspa. His grandson lost the lakelands and all territory east of the Mother River. His grand-nephew, Mechved II, ruled little more than the city-state Hagaral had inherited, and only his tributary alliances with various Jenjani princes kept him nominally free from the Empire.
The last thing Mechved could afford was civil war. In light of the violence between the Church and the Circle -- court records in Ochre Varos overflow with tales of assault, robbery, slander, rape, and murder -- his proclamation of one received religion is less a matter of faith than an attempt to paper over quarrels that could easily have undermined his struggle against the encroaching Empire.
Marea Shouja was arrested, along with a circle of nearly fifty people, in summer of the year 177 -- fifteen, the number of anger and strife. They were convicted of performing forbidden pagan rites, and most were released once they swore on the Book of Days not to repeat the offense. A few were exiled, and Marea -- described, in court records, as the 'Horse-cult priestess' -- was turned over to the archbishop when she refused to convert.
It is not clear why she was not simply executed. The Circle might have objected, but they might equally well have taken her death as the completion of the Great Rite. Perhaps Mechved or the Church fathers misunderstood the mood of the Circle, or perhaps they were simply cautious. Marea's father, Vaparchim Shouja, might have called in favors from both government and Church officials -- secular tax records show that he was wealthy, and Church records show that he contributed richly to the fledgling cathedral in Ochre Varos.
In any case, Marea was held in a convent for nine months. By spring of the year 178, five more Great Rites had been interrupted, nearly a hundred people had been executed and a hundred more exiled, and Circle adherents had led several retaliatory raids on Church members. Marea was brought to Mechved's palace, perhaps to serve as a public example.
It is not clear whether she leapt from the balcony, whether she was deliberately pushed, or whether she fell accidentally when the crowd beneath turned restive; accounts differ. All accounts, however, agree that her death triggered deadly riots of at least two days' duration, after which Mechved partially repealed his law. Henceforth, he proclaimed, members of the Circle of Kemar, commonly known as the Horse-cult, would be allowed to practice their rites, provided that they refrained from proselytizing and human sacrifice.
In summer of the year 180, Mechved II died. By the end of autumn, Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus had conquered Ochre Varos. This time the city did not retain even nominal independence; Mechved's brother was deposed, and an imperial governor and general were appointed in his place. The emperor banned all religions but the Church.
The Circle of Kemar remained outlawed in the Empire for the next six hundred years.
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When I was a young woman, I dedicated my life to God, to truth, and to the Church; I saw no difference between the three. Now that I am old, I see many shades of meaning -- many reflections -- where once I saw nothing but pure light.
My faith is strong. I have no desire to leave the Church, or even to renounce my vocation. I have never regretted my choices.
And yet, I find that God is not the Church, nor, perhaps, is God the only truth. Perhaps not all people can face truth head-on, and must view it sideways, backwards, upside-down. Perhaps they find truth in ever-changing reflections.
Perhaps even immutable truths change, depending on who tells the story, or who listens.
Take, for example, the sin in the garden. Every person in the Empire -- Church-folk, Circle-folk, Amaalite, pagan, sacrificer, or symbolist -- knows that story. It is written. It does not change.
And yet, perhaps it does. When I was young, the story told me the dangers of disobeying God. It told me the source of evil and unhappiness in the world, and it told me the limits of humanity.
Now, I wonder if those warnings are all the story holds. Zefaiah desired to be like God, to be wise. In the garden, without knowledge, Adin and Zefaiah could not choose to be good. Without death, they could not have eternal life. Without the possibility of doubt, what is the worth of faith? Without the possibility of evil, what is the worth of good?
Adin and Zefaiah chose to be human -- to think, rather than to live as naked and innocent as the beasts of the field. They chose knowledge, and its consequences: sorrow, pain, and death. Rather than the changeless perfection of the garden, they chose the uncertainty of time, which wears away all things but God.
"Listen, and I'll tell you a story," the Circle storytellers say. "Everything always changes; what does not change is dead."
The words of my stories do not change, but they are far from dead. They live in my heart, and the hearts of countless thousands. Their lessons and their hope lift the Church in our quest to know God and follow his will, to do the Lord's work on earth as his will is made manifest in heaven.
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Listen, and I will tell you a story.
In the days of the Emperor Aratis IV, the Decree of Toleration established the six received religions of the Empire. Nevertheless, people continued to distrust each other, and the Church, the Amaalites, and the symbolists continued to treat their own heretics harshly.
In the days of the Emperor Itharis Damicas, five hundred years later, little has changed.
Listen to Sister Josia Agipae: "God so loved the world, and us, his wayward children, that He sent His Son to live among us and bear the burden of our sins. Perfect love is beyond us, but man is created in God's image, and we must strive to honor that image. God loves us all, even heretics and pagans."
In the face of perfect love -- in the face of the infinite -- why do we persist in anger, hatred, and suspicion? Why do we seek out our neighbors' flaws and ignore our own? We are all flawed, and none of us is worthy to cast the first stone. The one who is worthy has, instead, granted us forgiveness and mercy.
Listen. Truth changes even as you hear it. Even God can change, as He did when He took on human flesh. Without change -- without choice and consequence -- life has no meaning, and truth becomes a prison with no door.
Life is what we make it, God is where we find him, and we always have choices, even at the very limit of our endurance. This is the truth I learned from the Circle. This is the truth I read in Sister Broken's book. This is the truth I take from Marea's story.
Forget words and numbers and logical proof.
Open your heart to the infinite.
Listen.
What do you feel in your soul?
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End
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Story Notes