“You won’t. Just follow the protocol, and everything will be fine. And one last thing.” Her lips twist wryly as she crosses back to me. “Men may have been created in the image of the Father, but they are not perfect. There are long-standing disputes between many of these countries, so be prepared to see childish behavior this evening.”
I’m about to ask what she means when a Knight of the Order of Saint Ovin enters the parlertorium, his pale blue cape billowing behind him.
“Forgive me for interrupting your preparations, Sacrist, but I have come to summon Daughter Gelya to the receiving room on behalf of the Goodson.”
“Goodson Anskar? He’s here?” I exclaim.
“The first Grand Summit in over half a century is taking place this evening,” Zofia says. “Of course he’s here. He’s running security.”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“Because I knew you’d be a nervous wreck. I doubt he’ll be in the parlertorium to watch you work, but I’m sure he’s going to give me an earful about your singing this morning, how I’m not pushing you to reach your full potential.”
“Can I go?”
She laughs and shoos me away with a flapping of her hand. “Meet me in the scriptorium by eighteen bells,” she calls as I race out the door.
When I burst into the receiving room two minutes later, the Goodson rises from his chair at one of the tables and smiles at me. Aside from the Hand of the Father emblazoned on his chest, his white wool tunic is as pure as the day it was shorn from the lamb. He wears a sky-blue cape at his shoulders—blue being the color of heaven—and the Hand of the Father in the scabbard at his side. It’s an elegant if simple weapon, honed for the purpose of serving the Father in modesty and humility. He’s tall like me—but unlike me, he wears it well.
“I hope I’m not calling you away from your work,” he says.
The world’s stupidest grin spreads across my face. “Daughter Zofia said I could come see you.”
“And I must speak with her.” He gestures for me to take the wooden chair opposite him. “Your singing at services this morning didn’t showcase your full potential. She’s not pushing you hard enough.”
My stupid grin widens as we both sit. “She said you’d say that, too.”
“Ah, well, the Father knows I am nothing if not predictable.” His smile turns rueful, but his gray eyes dance with amusement. “Shall we play a game of Shakki? It’s been a good long while.”
I pour us each a cup of tea from the service as he sets up the game board. We speak of banal things—the weather, which of the Aurian translations of The Songs is best—but my mind latches onto the text Zofia took from me weeks ago, the one she didn’t want me to mention to the Goodson. Now all I can think about is how I’m not supposed to say anything to him about it.
I’ve spent the past ten years trying to erase my memories of Hedenskia, but ever since I felt the word Mother in that inscription, I find myself doing the opposite, hunting down and clinging to anything I can dredge up from my childhood. I want to know where I came from, and the Goodson is the only person who can tell me anything about it.
“Goodson Anskar,” I begin as I split my cavalry between two of the fictional countries on the board. “May I ask you something?”
“Of course.” He rolls the dice and takes out half my cavalry with his army from the southwest. I didn’t think he would cross an entire country for such a small threat to his borders, but then, I’ve never been much good at anticipating his strategies, which is why I usually lose.
“Was my name always Gelya? I mean, was that my name when you found me?” I try to sound passingly curious, but I’m quaking inside. I should be grateful that the Goodson saved me from Hedenskia, and I am grateful. But I had a mother at some point, a family, a place where I belonged in the world. I can’t help but wonder how my life might have been different if the Goodson had never found me, and it feels like disobedience, wanting to know about those things.
“No,” he says. He offers nothing more.
“Were you the one who named me?”
“I was. Did you not know?”
“I guess you’d have to be.” I force a smile and move a unit of my men to back up my remaining cavalry. “Why ‘Gelya’?”
He scrutinizes me but in a kind way, the same steady man he has always been, the one who fought the telleg of the Dead Forest for nights on end to save my life. When he speaks again, his tone takes on the mythic, reverent cadence he reserves for the Father alone.
“When I placed the seedpod of the Grace Tree in your hand all those years ago, it was the only time in my life I have witnessed the Father choose His Vessel. To be in the presence of the Father, to watch His hand as He chooses a Vessel for His Holy Word from heaven above . . . it took my breath away. The Father made you so that you would fill the world with His love and wisdom. His eternal goodwill, revealed to the faithful through your voice, is like the gelya berry in winter: bright and alive and lovely when all else seems to have died, a reminder of our everlasting life in heaven. So, you see, I named you after the glory of the One True God. Surely there is no greater name than that?”
I’ve never thought of my name in this light, and I’ve certainly never thought of myself as bright and alive and lovely. A hard lump of affection clogs my throat. “Thank you,” I croak.
He reaches for his tea and takes a contemplative sip. “It’s natural for you to wonder where you came from, a girl your age. But you must overcome that curiosity. You are a Vessel. Your life belongs to the Father. Who you were before the Father chose you, where you came from—those things don’t matter now. And they were troubling to begin with.”
This is the first time Goodson Anskar has spoken of my past so specifically. My pulse quickens, hopeful. “Troubling because you know what it’s like there, because of your mission to convert the Hedenski heathens?”
“Because of my failed mission to convert the Hedenski heathens.” He sets his cup down and smooths away a drop of liquid that spilled onto the table’s surface. When he turns the full intensity of his gray eyes on me, I can tell I’ve pushed too much, too far. “You must guard yourself against the temptations of Elath the Great Demon. A Vessel is as easily filled with evil as she is with good, and a Daughter of the One True God is still a woman, made in the demon’s image. You must resist this curiosity. To know of sinful things fills you with the sin itself.”
“But Elath is imprisoned,” I argue, both scared and empowered by this new temerity. I just want to know, I think.
“That doesn’t erase Her subtle influence in the world. What on earth has come over you?” Reproach colors his voice. I may as well break a stone with my bare hands as stand up to Goodson Anskar. I slump in my chair, disheartened and sulking. “Nothing.”
“None of us are safe from the lure of worldly pleasures,” he continues when I am already defeated. “The demon’s temptations permeate the very ground beneath our feet and all life that springs from it. As a Vessel, you are particularly vulnerable. That’s why you live here, safe inside the convent.”
I give him a weak nod as he moves his army north to meet mine. Within ten minutes, he trounces me. I stare at the board, my eyes drifting from my decimated southern armies to my nonexistent defenses on my northern border.