After praying for the poor families in the neighborhood of Veln Borough, Niamh and her kin followed the road out and climbed Red Maraz Hill. A group of children, familiar with the comings and goings of the Atmos Septi, started kicking their lamb stomach around the group, whooping and cheering whenever one of the priests or priestesses kicked it back. Niamh put the sadness she had experienced conversing with that widow behind her—as well as the mystery of the strange box carried by their senior priest, Tolleo—and smiled as she returned the ball to the children, while hiking up her grey skirts to run about the street with them. For a few moments, she and Miril played keep-away with them—and fairly successfully—before they left the vicinity the group called home, and the children branched off to play their game without the well-meaning clergy.
Rejoining with the group, Niamh eyed the wooden lockbox held between Tolleo’s elbow and the slightly rotund side of his torso. She had seen many such boxes before: capped by an elaborately carved lid, it mainly served to keep its contents private, not secure. It was Tolleo’s explanation that raised questions for Niamh—questions she had certainly kept to herself.
As he reported it, a family member of the late Archpriest Roithe had approached the Grey Temple to inquire about his personal belongings, requesting that they be delivered to the home of his relatives. Roithe, Niamh knew, was one of two Archpriests to perish during the terror attack in the harbour of their city nearly a year earlier. It was not the nature of the request that seemed strange to Niamh, but the delayed timing—and the fact that the Temple administration did not have record of Roithe’s family’s address. While many of the upper priesthood did have lives outside of the Temple, it was unusual for them to be unknown by their peers—which is what this circumstance seemed to Niamh.
From Red Maraz Hill, Niamh and her peers sought out anyone in the markets that needed advice, prayer, or even help with errands. Tolleo’s group from the Reformer’s Creed consisted of more than a dozen, including Niamh and Miril, and they often divided their attention wherever it was needed. Before they got too far from Tolleo, the senior priest called a few of their names: “Miril, Anthin, and Niamh.” When they gathered before him, the greying clergyman told them, “We’re as near to the late Roithe’s family now as we will be today. Please go together—take the box and see it delivered to the fourth house on Calinar Road.”
Miril accepted the box, briefly admiring the carving of Abbess Maralaia on its locked lid before following Anthin and Niamh past the nearest market stall. Niamh chatted with her friend about their outreach that morning while they made their way from one street to the next, until they reached Calinar Road.
Roithe’s house—or that of his family—was a comfortable, middle-class size. The two-storey home had a yard of a modest size, surrounded by a small, wooden fence. Anthin opened the fence gate to let Miril and Niamh enter the yard before him, then loitered near the street. The front deck was up a few steps. Lines on the old boards indicated a rocking chair might have once sat near the door.
Lifting her hand, Niamh rapped on the door three times. The wooden door swung in an inch—it was unlatched.
“That’s strange…” Miril murmured.
“Hello?” Niamh called through the cracked doorway. When there was no answer, Niamh looked at Miril with raised eyebrows.
“Well hurry it up a little—Tolleo is waiting,” Anthin called.
Niamh glanced back at him, squinting in the sunlight. “The door’s open, but there’s no answer.” She turned back to Miril. “Maybe we should check around the back?”
Miril shrugged. “They could be in the garden, I guess.”
“Wait here, then,” Niamh told her friend. Perhaps the homeowner would come to the door a moment after she stepped around the side. She hurriedly followed a straight footpath through the narrow space between fence and brick wall. When she passed a window with one shutter half-open, Niamh hurried by. She didn’t want to pry.
Sure enough, there was a garden in the back yard. It was starting to grow over—and there was no sign of its owner or any caretaker for that matter. A man worked in a similar garden in the yard that neighboured the back fence, a few dozen feet away. Niamh looked at the wild garden once more, trying to imagine someone letting it get into such disarray.
She hurried back toward the front yard. “There’s no one,” she said, spreading her arms. “What do you think we should do?”
Miril came down the steps from the deck to speak with Anthin and Niamh in the middle of the front yard. Anthin, looking bothered, pointed out, “Tolleo said the request came just last week. Someone wanted it delivered here.”
“But we can’t just leave it in plain view,” Miril insisted. “We could leave it around the back, maybe?”
“You said the door was open—could we just put it inside?” Anthin asked.
Niamh frowned, fretting with her grey robe and glancing back at the inch-open door. “I don’t feel comfortable inviting myself inside. Do you?”
“Let’s leave it at the back, then,” Miril said.
“Close the door, then,” Niamh told Anthin, and followed Miril along the footpath. As they walked, she said, “These poor people have been waiting what, 9 or 10 months? I don’t want to cause further disrespectful—or get Archpriest Roithe’s things lost…”
Miril stopped walking, looking at the ajar shutter on the side window. A sly smile spread on her features. “Let’s just be sure no one is home.” She passed the wooden box to Niamh and then stepped off the path.
Nervously, Niamh stayed where she was and watched her friend. After a moment, she asked, “Do you see anything?”
“It’s dark in there,” Miril whispered. “There’s—that’s—” She stepped back from the window and looked at Niamh. “The bookshelf is knocked over.”
Anthin had just come around the bend from the front yard. “It was peculiar—the door wouldn’t actually latch. I think it’s broken.”
Niamh glanced between the two of them. “I think we ought to report this to Tolleo.”
While Anthin nodded, Miril stepped off the path for another look. “What if someone is hurt?” she asked.
“That’s why we should report this,” Niamh insisted. She clapped the wooden lid of the box. “Let’s keep hold of this for now, too.”
As they approached the fence gate, a short-haired man stepped up to it from the street. He smiled, opened the gate, and called, “Oh, the Brethren!” He closed the gate behind him, then started toward the front door of the house, waving them to follow. “Sorry, you almost missed me. I was just out.”
Surprised, Niamh found herself wordless while the other two introduced themselves. Then, she awkwardly tacked on, “Niamh,” at the end of their words.
The man nodded to each of them, as he stood in front of the deck. “I’m Paremh. Roithe was my grandfather.”
“Sorry for your loss,” Niamh intoned, respectfully.
“Thank you,” Paremh replied. “We did not know him very well, but he was around on occasions. Ah, these are his things?” He reached out for the box.
Niamh nodded. Without thinking, she passed the box to him and then—as cued by Miril’s sharp glance—remembered the peculiar state of the house. “How long have you lived here?” Niamh asked as the man examined the woodcarving on the cover.
He smiled. “Seven or eight years. Moved from Portside.” He took a step up the wooden steps and the boards creaked beneath his sandals.
“With your wife?” Niamh asked.
“Not married,” the man replied amiably, pulling at his collar to show the lack of any brooch or bond.
The man took another step up, now positioned immediately before his latch-less door. “Well—thank you for this. I’ll see if he left me anything in particular.”
Feeling more frantic with each breath, Niamh searched for something else to say. Her friends must have done the same, until Anthin awkwardly offered, “You’re very welcome. Blessings of Atmos!”
Paremh bowed his head, then disappeared inside.
The three priests looked at one another with a medley of expressions. The one thing their discordant hearts shared: Something is definitely wrong here.
“What do we do?” Miril asked. “He can’t live here—it was a disaster inside.”
“We could knock and ask him more questions? More pointed ones,” Anthin suggested.
Niamh looked back up at the door. Despite the vibrant rays of the sun, she felt very cold beneath her grey robes. She looked at Miril directly. “I really want to report this to Tolleo—it’s not something we resolve alone.”
“You’re right. This isn’t what we were told would happen,” Miril said, leading the three of them toward the street. “Let’s go.”
Anthin touched her on the shoulder as they passed through the fence gate. “I’ll stay somewhere around here—make sure he doesn’t go anywhere with the box.” As they returned the way they had come along the street, he crossed between passersby to find shade under a hawthorn tree across the street.
As they hurried back to the Red Maraz market, Niamh whispered quiet prayers to Atmos. Then she told Miril how strange it all was. She asked Miril to repeat what she had seen, but Miril only said what she had before—a knocked over shelf and scattered books. “I don’t think that was his grandson,” Niamh said, feeling her stomach trying to digest dread.
Tolleo attempted to calm them down and get the complete story. The two young priestesses took turns recounting the events that had transpired on Calinar Road: the broken door latch, the dark house with the broken bookshelves, and the strange man who took the box. When he clarified that the man had mentioned nothing about the state of his home, Tolleo began to grow more concerned. “Let’s return, then,” he said. He waved for another priest to take over supervising their market group. “Come along, young sisters.”
When they returned to Roithe’s property, Anthin reported he had not seen the strange man—Paremh, if that was even his name—again. Tolleo ascended the deck with his three subordinates in tow and knocked on the door once more. When no answer came, he knocked again—harder.
It swung open a little more than it had before. There was a closet next to the door—an open closet with an overturned basket hanging partway out of it. Tolleo pushed the door open the rest of the way and gasped. There were torn papers scattered across the hall floor and an overturned table visible in the next room.
“Anthin—go call upon the guards at once!” Tolleo ordered. Then the senior priest bravely led the way indoors.
The house was properly ransacked. The tables had been overturned—every drawer was pulled out of its comfortable home to be scoured. Fearful to proceed deeper into the startling scene, Niamh and Miril waited in the entry corridor while Tolleo went in search of the stranger they had encountered. Niamh noticed there was a thin layer of dust on even the pulled-out drawers. This hadn’t happened yesterday—or even last week.
“Did you find anything?” Niamh called.
Tolleo’s old voice called in reply: “No sign of him!”
Soon the guards arrived and a proper search began. Niamh, Miril, and Anthin reported all the details they could recall, while Tolleo described the obvious importance of Roithe’s rank and what it meant for his home to be ransacked and his possessions stolen. As the investigation got underway, Niamh felt that cold dread return. She had handed over that box—she had fallen victim to some devious scheme.