Naylor followed Sandrine through the streets, deep into what had once been the centre of the city's administrative district. A fence rose up on their right, a wall of broken wood braced upright with rusted iron posts. Decades-old graffiti called for the burning of Tremayne, and cast slurs on the parentage of Grand Marshall Harlan. Naylor wondered again about the part Sandrine had played in the death of Tremayne's national hero. Could anyone raised in Brael have remained as dispassionate as she claimed?
Sandrine stopped by a plank which was hanging loosely from a single nail. Pulling it to one side, she revealed a small but well-used entrance to the other side. The earth beneath it had been worn down into a deep groove.
"Short cut," she said, her face impassive.
Naylor ducked under the plank and squeezed himself through the gap she'd opened up. On the other side of the fence, he straightened and raised his eyes. The shell of a once proud building rose up before him. Despite attempts to clean them, its walls of white marble and stone still showed yellow scorch marks around the edges of the vacant arches which had once been windows resplendent with stained glass.
Naylor knew the story of Canto's old Civic Palace. It had been the focal point of Braelish society for generations, but the fire had leapt onto the wooden dome which sat atop its gleaming white walls like a crown, savaged it mercilessly, and brought it crashing down in a seething froth of sparks and smoke.
He'd once met a trader from Brael who claimed to have been there when it happened. The dome had collapsed inwards, he'd said, destroying the oak-panelled offices and ceremonial chambers below, and sending them crashing down onto the floors beneath. The dying shrieks of the people trapped inside had rent the air, clearly audible above the roaring of the flames and the agonised groans of the building itself. Finally, the screams had ceased. The silence which followed, he'd said, had been far, far worse.
It had been the turning point in the city's fight against the Great Conflagration. As the Civic Palace fell, the firefighters had ceased any attempt to extinguish the fire and focused their efforts on simply trying to contain it, destroying whole streets which lay in its path. It had taken two more days but, eventually the Constabulary had brought the fire under control. Thousands of civilian lives had been lost, and Tremayne's Grand Marshall Harlan had become the most despised man in Brael.
Sandrine slipped through the gap in the fence and walked past Naylor, slowly advancing towards the building. Naylor followed her as she mounted the wide stone steps which led up to the building's main entrance. The charred remains of the heavy wooden doors had long since been removed, but the huge marble arch which had framed them still stood. In the years since the war, it had come to be seen as a monument in its own right.
"This is where I first met him," said Sandrine, pausing under the arch. "The Lord High Abbot."
Naylor furrowed his brow.
"You met him?" Sandrine had always been a private person, but he'd have expected something this important to have come up at some stage during the three years she'd spent on the Jennie. "When?"
"Years ago," she replied, forcing her feet to take a step forward. "I was born on a farmstead, a few miles north of the city. My parents died just after the war. There was a lot of sickness back then."
"How old were you?"
"I don't know. Two, maybe three. My brother was older: Kennin. He was eight, I think; almost nine. Food was scarce, so the government gave our farm to someone who could work it. Kennin thought he'd have more luck finding work here in Canto. Sometimes he'd get work on the docks, running messages. Most days he didn't. We lived on whatever he could steal or catch. He became pretty good at catching rats."
Sandrine smiled, but there was only sadness in her eyes. Ahead of her, the street was a long stretch of marble flooring. Now open to the sky, it had once been an interior corridor, one of five radiating out from the great hall which had been at the centre of the Civic Palace. The feel of the smooth white marble beneath her feet, hard and cold, was disconcertingly familiar, rekindling memories she thought she'd buried a long time ago.
Reluctantly, she moved forward, exchanging glances with the men and women who stood in the doorways of the houses on either side. These houses hadn't been here when she'd lived in Brael. She found herself grateful for the lack of familiarity.
After the war there had been nine years of political and bureaucratic wrangling before a decision had been made to convert the ruined offices of the Civic Palace into housing for the homeless.
It had been one of the government's most prestigious reconstruction projects. Walls had been repaired, and the larger offices had been partitioned. Initially each office had been fitted with a covering of wood or canvas but, in the years since, the new residents had replaced them with more permanent roofs of grey-blue Braelish slate, and the Civic Palace had slowly started to acquire a reputation as one of the more desirable places to live.
"Of course," she said to Naylor, "it wasn't as nice as it is now."
She led him through the streets which had once been corridors, past the houses which had once been offices, and into a wide open square which had once been the central banqueting hall. Sixteen red and green marble pillars jutted up out of the ground, broken, barely half their original height. Now covered in handbills advertising local social events and pleas for the return of missing pets, Naylor knew they'd once supported a ceiling which Braelishmen had been proud to describe as the most elaborately carved in the whole of the Southern Seas.
The upper portions of many of the pillars lay on the ground, and eight had been arranged to form a wide circle around the centre of the square. On these marble benches, the residents sat exchanging gossip, reading the latest news sheets, or simply enjoying a few moments peace.
"We slept up there most nights," said Sandrine, her eyes fixed on a point far above their heads, the remains of the building's third storey. Naylor followed her gaze. The tiny, jagged piece of flooring looked tired, sagging under its own weight. "No one could see us up there. We felt safe."
"Where is he now, your brother?"
"He died." Sandrine paused, her mind drifting back to a life she'd long since left behind. "If it was raining, Kennin used to take off his jacket and try to pin it up over my head. It didn't keep me very dry. It had too many holes."
"And that's how he died? From a fever?" Naylor tried to imagine the two children perched high up on that scrap of broken floor, Sandrine's eight-year old brother wet and shivering as he gave up his jacket to shelter his younger sister.
"No. There was an accident at the docks. One of the porters ran a barrow into his leg. It wasn't a deep cut, but it turned septic. He was eleven then, not quite twelve. And ... and there was nothing I could do." Her voice caught, and Naylor reached out to take her arm. She recoiled from his touch as if stung, and turned her back turned towards him. If she faced him now, she wouldn't be able to continue.
"You were just a kid," said Naylor.
"I know." Hastily, she moved to one of the marble benches. A woman in a grey smock sat on the bench reading a news sheet. She glowered as Sandrine sat down heavily next to her, but Sandrine gave no indication of having noticed her disapproval. Her legs felt as if they might give way at any moment. Her chest was constricted, her breathing shallow. It had been a long time since she'd shared anything this personal.
The woman rose, folded her news sheet under her arm and, with a parting glare, crossed the square to another vacant bench.
"I'd just turned six," continued Sandrine, lowering her eyes from the broken slab of flooring high above their heads. "Kennin couldn't climb up there any more, so we set up a new camp in that corner there." She nodded towards the south-east corner of the square. A huge fragment of one of the sixteen pillars was propped up against the wall, fencing off a small area behind. A news vendor had set up a small stall there now but, back then, it wouldn't have been difficult to drape something over it. Not for an adult, at least. But for a six-year old? "I took care of him as best I could. Tried to keep his wound clean. Learned where he'd set the traps for the rats, so I could feed him. It didn't do any good."
Again Sandrine fell silent, lost in her own thoughts. Naylor watched her for several minutes before daring to speak.
"And that's when you met the Lord High Abbot?" he prompted at last. Sandrine smiled as she recalled her first meeting with the man who was destined to rise to such great heights within the Order.
"He was just a Ferryman back then," she nodded. "The same as I am now. He was in Brael to fulfil a contract, and he found me and my brother here. Kennin was in so much pain. He was delirious, screaming about ants in his eyes. I was so scared. And then ... there he was." She paused, for a moment reliving the horror of her brother's illness and her inability to help. Naylor settled himself quietly beside her, unsure of whether he should prompt her again. He noticed her lips remained dry, no matter how many times she tried to moisten them.
"Brother Emryn he was called then," she told him. "He told me ... well, he told me the truth. Kennin was dying, he said. He couldn't save him, but he could ... he could ease his passing. Help him to die. All I had to do was say yes, and his suffering would stop."
"He asked you to decide?" Naylor had been moved by Sandrine's story. Now, however, he was shocked. How could anyone decide if it was right to let another person die? Especially a relative? And at six years old ...?
"He had to," she said. "Kennin was too sick."
Naylor stood and paced around the bench, circling Sandrine as he tried to comprehend the enormity of what she was telling him.
"It's ... it's against everything the Order teaches," he said, finally coming to a halt in front of her. "You've always said, always told me, the client must make the decision himself. That's why you have contracts."
"Well, sometimes that's not possible! Sometimes our teachings aren't enough. Or they're ... they're just wrong! Sometimes you just have to do what's right!"
Naylor glared at the corner of the square as if everything which had befallen Sandrine was somehow the fault of the news vendor who now occupied the tiny space in which she'd shared her brother Kennin's final moments. He pressed his fingertips against his temples.
"I'm not blaming you," he said quietly. "But ... do you think the Order knew he'd breached their teachings? When they elected him Lord High Abbot, I mean?"
"I don't know." There was a harder edge to Sandrine's voice now, defensive; protective of the man who'd come to her when she'd most needed help. "He ended my brother's suffering." She stood and faced Naylor for the first time since she'd brought him here. She stared deep into his eyes, willing him to look into hers and understand. "I couldn't think of a better calling in life," she said, unaware of her right hand picking at threads on the dressing wrapped around her left. Already, her voice was softening again. "To be able to take away someone's pain like that? I swore there and then that I would dedicate my life to the Order. That I'd repay him by being like him."
"By becoming a Ferryman."
She lowered her eyes, embarrassed at her own level of candour.
"He took me to the Abbey here in Canto. His contract here had been his last before formally taking up his appointment as head of the Abbey. Father Emryn we had to call him then. He instructed the Abbey to take me in, and I began my pupillage that same day. I studied for six years. Then, just after I became a Novitiate, he was assigned to the Abbey in Ferrali, and he took me with him."
"He was looking after you."
"Yes. He moved around several times after that. Senior Abbot of Mura; Archabbot of Rondoun."
"And then Lord High Abbot."
Sandrine nodded.
"I stayed attached to the Abbey in Ferrali but, wherever they posted him, he always wrote to me. Every year, he wrote. I ... I still have his letters. Every one. He followed my progress and, when I took my orders, he travelled all the way back to Ferrali, so he could officiate. The only person who'd ever cared for me since Kennin. The nearest thing I ever had to a father. I owe him everything, Naylor. I've devoted my life to continuing his work. And now he's dying. This contract, this Rite of Passing, is the last thing I'll ever be able to do to thank him. For everything. For helping Kennin; for looking after me ... I can't fail him, Naylor. Not now. Not in this."
Naylor reached out and took her hands in his. Instinctively, she stiffened but, for once, she didn't pull away. She couldn't. She'd been too open; left herself too vulnerable. And now Naylor was going to treat her like a child. It was so typical of him to try to let her down gently; to tell her she was being foolish; that, if she really wanted to help the Lord High Abbot, she would allow someone else to take the contract; someone closer to Charon. And he'd be right; she knew that. She felt her anger rising even before he said a word.
She felt him squeeze the tips of her fingers lightly.
"We won't let you down," he said softly. "The Jennie and me, we'll get you to Charon."
***********************
Author's note
Apologies for the lateness of this instalment, guys. Hope you felt this little peek into Sandrine's backstory was worth waiting for! If you've enjoyed it, please do click that little "star" (we loves those little stars!) and, if you have a moment, leave a comment letting us know which parts you liked best.
NEXT UP: The next instalment is live now, so why not read on? We'll be looking in on Perrick and Alyss again in the next instalment and - who knows? - after this revelation about Sandrine, we may even have a little something to share about those two. Or one of them, anyway!