Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series) by Tanith Lee Read Free Book Online

in the service of the Creator was neither sinful nor cruel. It was just.
    Returning to the world was always strange. The City, the beings which peopled it, were alien and curious.
    Cristiano had attended the Dawn Mass. Now he visited the knight’s castra, broke his fast, with bread dipped in wine, and washed in the cold water from the Primo’s clean wells. He was no longer tired, and would not look for sleep until this evening.
    Less than an hour later, the boat took him through the Silvian Marsh. Today, before the full heat of morning arrived, the smell of salt was strong. Green reeds and brown grasses grew along the water channels, taller in places than a woman. Gulls and other birds soared and sailed, and here and there in the reeds nests were visible, stocked with young chicks. Elsewhere, some men waded with nets and slings.
    Houses still stood in the marshland. Many were ruinous. Gardens had become lakes, from which rose dying cypresses. The old amphitheater was only a ghostly hump on the horizon towards the sea, but they passed close to the Roman temple. Ragged boys, who were fishing there,shouting, went stone-still, seeing the warrior-priest rowed by. Between the greened-over columns, they squinted out at him.
    Even the boatman was wary. They always were.
    When the boat bumped home against the bank of the channel, the Silvian Quarter rising in its yellowing summer tones behind, he took his payment and dropped to one knee.
    “Bless me, brother.”
    Cristiano gave him the blessing—it was a fault, but with indifference. The man did not seem yet quite real.
    Nor any of it.
    Only Christ Himself, a deity who had once been human, could take in the fall of sparrows after the height of the sun.
    Cristiano walked up the alleys to the inn. The morning was loud with living bustle, like the activity of the birds in the marsh. Washing hung out, and there came the clang of pots, a fug of cooking and dirt.
    By the inn door two or three beggars sat on the ground, their backs to a wall. Cristiano paid them no heed. Men had their stations from God, or a calling to some task, as had happened with himself.
    His bother-in-law, the drunk, slunk out. “Soldier of God—Cristiano—welcome, welcome. She’s much better today. Will you have a cup?”
    “You know I won’t.”
    “Yes, Cristiano. She’s in her garden.”
    In the room, the early drinkers glanced uneasily.
    But the Soldier of God barely noticed them.
    He went on through the corridor and out by the little door where he had to stoop.
    The garden was not large, but high-walled. Peaches and vines stretched on frames. In the beds were herbs, and salads and vegetables, with hissister moving slowly among them.
    A servant girl, one of the inn slovens, carried the basket and a knife for weeding.
    Luchita looked no better, he thought. Her body had lost its shape with the last birth. Until this one, that had not happened. Besides, she had borne healthily three sons and a daughter. The dead baby was a shock to her. She had caught Cristiano’s hand on his first visit. “You’ll say it’s my punishment.” Cristiano said, “If you feel it to be so, then perhaps it is.” At which she had railed against him so violently, he was afraid for her, took her in his arms and said, “No, Luchita. Your sin wasn’t such a powerful one. And you repented, you told me so. Be glad for the child, He spared it the agony of this world.” But Cristiano did not believe anything he said. She had committed adultery, which only Christ could forgive. And the world was the Militarium of the soul, where it learned to fight and fine itself for Heaven. To be spared was to be cheated, and God cheated no one, only gave what was earned.
    Now Cristiano’s sister walked to him along the path, and even her walk had changed, less graceful. She kneeled down suddenly, as the boatman had.
    “Give me your blessing.”
    So he stretched out his hand and blessed her, and she became real for him. And the garden,