15.4
“There you are, Yapper! Where you been? You shouldn't wander off around here! Don’t you know? That fiendish king steals kids for feeding to his monsters in these parts!”
Havel was not expecting to have this problem, but after a bit of thought it really was inevitable. When you spend a good portion of a year on the road with people they tend to get to know you. He’d tried to stay beneath notice to the actual important priests and succeeded quite well, but apparently being an inconspicuous mute acolyte probably-orphan-child had left an impression on his ‘peers’.
“Well, it’s alright now, not your fault Yapper, just try and stay closer to our wing of this place when doing your chores alright? Father Barnaba and Brother Corrado have been in a fury over the meeting with the northerners. Something happened in the ritual last night ya know? Big enough that everyone’s been sworn not to say what happened!”
Havel silently nodded, it was demeaning the way even the children talked to him when he was ‘Yapper’. Not really like one of their own, more how they spoke to the horses. Also he’d really prefer if this boy would let go of Havel’s hand and let him walk with them like an actual person.
So far no luck.
The other acolytes and the few adults that even bothered to notice him in the Pantheon’s entourage all treated ‘Yapper’ like she was not even the mute girl Havel pretended to be. No, ‘Yapper’ was fussed and guided like ‘she’ couldn't string a single thought to another, Havel’s disguise was led around or directed like a beast, no, worse than one!
He’d seen the Cantoran natives treat cows and oxen with more respect and consideration than ‘poor dumb Yapper’.
“No-ones talking ‘course, cuz vows ya know, but the chores definitely were for a mighty invoking that night! A Proper full god! The quality and number of the priests were fine to see! In the feasting hall too under the zodiac dome! It's a proper old cantor work and intact! Bundles of mint! so that’s one of the underworld stars. Can’t say more, but I was there when setting up, they put me to a vow too! And all I did was carry things!”
The youth, which Havel genuinely had not bothered to remember the name of, eyed his disguise up and down before grinning wide.
The boy had stopped pulling him along, settling the pair in a presently abandoned hallway. If this wasn't an acolyte youth Havel was pretty sure he could fold in half twice over without effort the waif might have been worried.
“But you’re Yapper, you won’t go telling no one right?”
Havel shook his head as ‘poor dumb Yapper’ should, making sure to keep his hooded face shadowed under the light from the Palace windows. The boy leaned in closer, enough that Havel shrunk inward like a shy child as he was expected, but also as a cover for keeping his face from showing too clearly.
“Well I saw some of it at the end while peeking, that wicked wyrm the high king gave a county to did something extra queer. They called up a man’s soul and she just flat told the big looming underworld god it was the wrong one! Not even just claiming it was the wrong one said it wasn't proper at all!“
The whisper was hardly a whisper, nearly shouted in a shrill hiss. If anyone had been in that hallway they would hear the secret this child had apparently vowed to keep.
Havel made a motion that would keep him from standing out to the youth that obviously was burning with a need to speak about what he’d seen. Who had probably been looking for ‘poor dumb Yapper’ as the only person in the Pantheon’s entourage he could tell it too without threatening to break his vow.
Even if he didn't realize the mute acolyte orphan that everyone had invented their own story about was the most dangerous person to tell in truth. But Havel had been learning in his time sneaking through the Pantheon.
“The Highest Fathers were fighting afterwards, after they got into private. They called for wine and of course I jumped to serve them, after all they didn't allow non-not-under vows to bring their wine to them!”
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Heaven’s vows were nowhere near as perfect as the priests made them out to be.
This poor acolyte child would probably choke on his words the moment he even suspected that Havel was anything close to who he actually was. But ‘poor dumb Yapper’ couldn't talk, that was something everyone who ‘knew’ of the poor servant orphan ‘knew’ about ‘her’.
“Father Evaristus got possessed by Persephone! Wore him like a glove and wiggled her fingers! Not invited either! Not properly, but he had a goddess' own fingers up inside him and then she spoke all weird like, not proper as she should. That upset all of them!”
So it was impossible in this boy’s heart that he could possibly be breaking whatever vow of secrecy had been made to recite. As long as Havel didn't do anything to draw attention to the web of assumptions that lay at the center of that belief.
Which was very tricky.
“And it wasn't even just him who got worn, not just the highest fathers either, it was every one of the priesthood in the ritual, but the star only sunk into them a tiny bit, just enough to make them say a few words and move a bit. But it wasn't proper! It was against the ritual! The highest fathers were drinking bottles dry and yelling so loud about it for hours!”
Havel felt those hints and nuances far less clearly than the itching knowing of where the boy’s eyes were directed (or not). Not on Havel’s face certainly, barely even brushing over his stolen acolyte robes, too caught up staring at his own memory by how not even the hall in front of the boy’s face felt like it had attention.
“They spoke about a lot, it was scary, Father Evaristus and Father Ioannes were talking about the gods lying to us! Like proper lies, not just being mysterious and difficult like Sister Clarice says.”
Havel only nodded because it was the motion that was expected, it was the shape of action that let the boy continue without really considering what was going on. Unburden himself of the secret that was burning in his heart without a thought.
The path that didn't risk drawing attention and consideration.
Havel felt like he was trying to balance on old straw over a chasm for how faint the feeling was.
“Father Arrigo though? He was furious! He called them some things that I dare not even repeat, no, not even to you Yapper, no good for your delicate ears.”
Havel nodded in a way that probably looked befuddled and naive, even though he was certain that the old Guard in Kaeketeh had used some words that would have turned the youth next to him’s hair growing back into his scalp.
“But the Highest Fathers were having a proper row about it, drinking heavy and then finally leaving to their chambers late into the night, its right trouble little Yapper, why it's important you don’t wander off, we probably will be leaving quickly if the King here is consorting with something so fiendish it can twist up good men like that so badly. Father Evaristus and Father Ioannes said last night there's gonna have to be a discussion at the highest council for this business here.”
The boy let out a heavy breath, his attention coming back to the hallway, then to his hands holding Havel’s clenched and sweaty, he quickly dropped it like the waif’s diminutive palm were a hot coal.
“Ah anyway, so yeah don’t go telling no one any of that right Yapper?”
Havel gave a slow, uncertain nod and a raspy huff.
“Right, okay, good, but yeah so you shouldn't wander off, oh right! But you got chores for the Fathers and Brothers right?”
Havel nodded, with a firmer more assured certainty behind it and a more attention grabbing exhalation.
“Well, okay, yeah, but remember what I said right? We could be needing to leave early, and the king here isn't a nice man no matter how soft he talks, there is fiends afoot here for sure alright?”
Havel gave a more uncertain nod and a slower wheeze. Which seemed to satisfy the boy who had lightened his spirit of secrets.
“Aight I got my duties too, take care Yapper, and no snitching ya? ha!”
And then he was off, Havel left alone in a random hallway, a selfish kid that one! If he'd really been worried about ‘poor dumb Yapper’ he’d have finished getting her somewhere ‘safe’ but as soon as he’d finished unburdening himself to someone that could ‘never share the secret’ he was off and away leaving ‘her’ all alone.
Still it worked for Havel’s purposes.
He’d need to slip away and properly find a different disguise though, probably contributing to the rumors about High King Mathias feeding children to his menagerie when he stopped showing up. But being ‘Yapper’ was getting far too dangerous.
Also Havel had to report what he’d just heard to the Countess.