Severo found Fra Murta’s company unpalatable, and was relieved when the path narrowed as it began to ascend the pass to Sant Clara and they had to ride single file. Until then the friar had maintained a continuous stream of nauseating conversation, retailing the huge numbers of heretics who had been flushed out by various stratagems used by the brotherhood of itinerant inquisitors of which Fra Murta was one. Severo did not doubt the Church’s right, the Church’s duty, to crusade against heresy, where heresy was a problem; on Grandinsula any heretics kept their heads down, and he thought it best to leave them to their own damnation. But it was one thing to accept that there must be steps against heresy, and another to relish them. After listening for some miles to an animated account of how many had been ‘relaxed’ – that is, handed over to the secular powers for execution – and how many at the last minute had offered confessions and repented in exchange for being garrotted before being burned, Severo offered a rebuke.
‘The shedding of blood is a terrible thing, in any circumstances, Fra Murta.’
‘My name is Damaso, Holiness. And yes, of course, naturally. But the Church is innocent of the blood of these recalcitrants. The Holy Inquisition merely discovers heretics; they are handed over to the civil power to dispose of. Any blood guilt is on the hands of the civil power.’
Severo reflected grimly that on Grandinsula the civil power in question was vested in him. ‘Fra Murta, has it ever happened in your extensive experience that a person accused of heresy has been found to be innocent?’
‘Once. The woman’s accusers all owed her money. We kept the names of the accusers strictly secret, of course. But when we asked her to name any enemies she had, she listed them all. We admonished her and released her. That was the only time I can recall. Of course, heresy accusations are nearly always denied vigorously at first. Later they are admitted.’
The narrowing path brought relief to Severo. Instead of this distressing conversation and repeated invitations to call the man Damaso, he could ride ahead in blessed silence, hearing only the murmuring winds in the branches and the innocent birdsong, spurring his horse lightly whenever the clopping hooves of the horses behind him seemed to gain on him. He tried to calm himself. What the child said was in the hands of God, and God was merciful.
He was welcomed with the usual semblance of joy at Sant Clara. A posy of wild flowers stood on the windowsill of his room in the guesthouse, overlooking the sea. A ewer of warm water was ready for him, and a jug of wine. He felt suddenly and irrationally ashamed – like someone who has unwittingly trodden in filth and brought it into a friend’s house on his shoes. The creature whom he had brought with him, who was even now settling into the room next to his, should have been kept away from this kindly house. Severo took a grip on himself and offered a silent apology to his God for such a twinge of loathing for a fellow churchman. He wondered what was happening to him; instead of the calm progress through life which he had been able to achieve these many years, he seemed to keep needing to rein in his feelings, turn himself round, calculate a new course, like an inexperienced navigator in stormy waters. He recited a psalm to himself before going across the garden to interrogate the snow-child.
‘Is this she?’ he asked. She was standing facing him and Fra Murta at the other end of the long refectory table. That ugly young novice stood just behind her, and the sisters were all ranged in the shadows, sitting along the walls of the room. He was staggered by the change in the child. In his mind’s eye he had expected the howling, scratching, raging creature he remembered. A thing that could not really be questioned, that bore witness in its every sound and movement that it knew neither God nor man. He had expected Fra Murta to be confronted with what Jaime had called blackness. But what he saw now was a slender, bone-thin child wearing a clean shift, standing straight. Her fingers were laced together, and she wove and wound them restlessly. Tendrils of dark curling hair hung round her narrow face and shaded her brow. She seemed – he was thunderstruck – a pleasing young girl. Then suddenly she worked her jaw convulsively, moving it in an exaggerated sideways slide, suddenly wolfish, an appearance which as rapidly disappeared. Watching her, Severo discovered that he had not expected his experiment to work, that he had been deceiving himself, and that he was terrified now of what she would say.
‘Amara,’ he said to her, ‘do you remember me?’
She shot him a darting, piercing, discomforting glance from under her dark brows, her fringe of hair. He asked again, and she said, ‘Not know you. Not like him.’ She looked fleetingly at Fra Murta. Severo pressed his lips firmly together. He could not afford to smile.
‘Amara,’ he said, ‘do you remember living in the mountains?’
‘Snow there. Yes,’ she said. ‘I go there more. Soon.’
‘Who was with you in the mountain cave?’
‘Who did you then think created you, looked after you, as the nuns do now?’
‘Wolf.’
He tried again. ‘Was there any spirit, anything all around you, unseen, but that you felt?’
She scowled with an effort, it seemed to him, of thought. ‘Cold,’ she said.
His relief was immense. She was not going to say anything to comfort Fra Murta.
Fra Murta now joined in. ‘What was above you, in the mountains, my child?’ he asked.
‘I not your child,’ she said, scornfully.
He tried again. ‘What was above you in the mountains, Amara?’
‘Sky,’ she said.
‘Was the sky empty? Could you feel something there that helped you, cared for you?’
‘Like wolf?’ she said. ‘Wolf in sky?’ She emitted her startling, barking laugh. ‘Nothing in sky.’
‘She does not understand us,’ said Fra Murta. ‘They have not taught her enough language. Teach her some more.’
‘Fra Murta,’ said Severo, standing abruptly. ‘You overreach yourself. It is not for you to command this sisterhood. Withdraw with me, and help me decide what is to be done.’
As they left her he heard the soft voice of one of the nuns behind them, comforting the child. ‘It is all right, Amara. You answered well. You did well, child, we are proud of you . . .’ It was true, he thought. The poor creature had done well. To the immense question they had put to her she had given a clear answer. The answer was, ‘No.’