CHAPTER 1109: A CONFESSOR’S PYRE (PART THREE)

With a bit of gentle coaxing, the High Priest was able to convince Jocelynn to allow the Sisters of Light to tend to Eleanor’s remains. The group of women was exceptionally careful with the body of the fallen Confessor, treating her with the same reverence they would show their own mothers or grandmothers as they worked with soft cloths and gentle soaps to wash the filth of the world from her body, preparing her to pass from this life to the next.

The High Priest didn’t know Eleanor well, but she visited the Temple regularly since her arrival in Lothian March, particularly after Jocelynn returned to the city from the Summer villa. That was why it had been such a shock to him to see her body reduced to a withered husk, as though every last bit of vitality had been stripped from her.

Aubin wasn’t a fool, and he wasn’t a novice in the practice of sacred rituals either. He’d lived through the War of Four Templars and the War of Inches both, and he’d seen the price men paid when circumstances were so dire that only the greatest of miracles could save them from demonic forces.

Those sacred rites were forbidden to all but the most senior members of the clergy, and a woman like Eleanor should never have been taught one, yet he couldn’t deny the evidence of his eyes. Further, he could still feel the gentle, loving warmth of the Holy Lord of Light clinging to Lady Jocelynn, making it abundantly clear who Confessor Eleanor had given her life to protect. He just couldn’t imagine what would have happened to push those women into such dire straits when they were supposed to be safe in Lothian Manor.

"Are there any Confessors here, your Worship?" Jocelynn asked softly as she watched the other women working. "Inquisitor Percivus, he, he burned her robes," she said haltingly. "But, when I found her, she was holding the last scrap of them like it was her most treasured thing," she said as tears rolled from her eyes. "Being a Confessor, it mattered to her. I, I don’t want him to take that away from her at the end."

"Confessors are rare in the marches, my Lady," Aubin said slowly, thinking carefully as he tugged at his long, white beard. "But there have been a few of her order who kept a chapel here. Even if Confessor Josepha is walking among the people and unable to offer her prayers, she should have a set of robes for your cousin."

"Thank you, your Worship," Jocelynn said, sighing in relief as she secured the most important promise from the High Priest. "I, I have another, more selfish request for her. When she died, she, um, she appeared before me. She was wearing both her Confessor’s robes and a sailor’s sash with our family’s crest. She died a Confessor and a Blackwell, and she gave everything she had to heal my wounds and keep me safe."

"I know she was supposed to renounce her surname when she became a Confessor," Jocelynn said, hating the traditions of the Church in a way she’d never even thought possible before. What she’d once accepted as a wise practice to prevent the nobility from accumulating power within the Church now felt like nothing but cruelty intended to sever the bonds of kinship that bound her and Eleanor together, and she couldn’t stand it.

"But, to me, and to my family, she’ll always be one of us," Jocelynn said softly. "She earned the right to have her ashes gathered and placed in the family crypts. I, I hope you can indulge me in this."

"This is the Frontier, Lady Jocelynn," the High Priest said gently, offering a kind, comforting smile to the young lady. "Lord Loman is hardly the first member of the Lothian line to don the vestments of the clergy, and each of his predecessors before him received the honors due their station, whether they were priests or Templars."

"Perhaps my peers in the Holy City would disapprove, but what they don’t know, won’t hurt them," he said as he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We’ll accord her with the same respect we would for the Marquis himself," he promised solemnly.

The entire time they’d been speaking, Jocelynn hadn’t taken her eyes off the work the Sisters of the Light were doing to prepare Eleanor for the pyre. When the women heard the High Priest’s promise, a few of them paused, bowing in acknowledgement before fetching bolts of the brightest white linen the Church could produce, along with several expensive casks of sacred oil.

For most members of the clergy, unless they held high office like the High Priest, their bodies would be anointed in a small amount of sacred oil, rubbed into the skin before they were placed on a simple wooden pyre.

For a member of the nobility, however, they would be wrapped in a shroud of linen, soaked in sacred oil, before they were dressed in their finery. Then, they would be placed on a stone slab, surrounded by heaps of firewood, before everything was lit ablaze. In this way, their remains could be easily collected when the flames of the pyre finally burned down, so that they could be entombed with the rest of their honored ancestors.

According to the teachings of the Church, people who were born into the nobility had progressed in their struggle during their last life, earning both greater privileges and bearing greater responsibilities in their next life.

It had long been believed that placing the ashes of fallen noblemen in the crypts of their families helped them to guide those worthy enough to be born into their families to the place where their next life would begin, and that as long as the crypts were well tended, the past generations of a noble family would be able to watch over their descendants from the Heavenly Shores.

It would be some time before Eleanor Blackwell’s remains could reach her family crypts in Blackwell County, but looking at the determination in young Lady Jocelynn’s gaze, Aubin didn’t doubt for a moment that she would personally make the journey home with her cousin’s remains.

"You’ve done your duty to honor your cousin," Aubin told the young lady in a soft, reassuring tone. "But even my fading eyes can see that her death was a great tragedy. I was told that the two of you had been confined to your chambers while Inquisitor Percivus investigated the Master of Kitchens and the Marquis’ personal physician for conspiring to poison Lord Bors."

"Percivus told me that he believed that you and Confessor Eleanor had been framed by the two men," Aubin said with a dark scowl on his face as his bushy brows lowered enough that they nearly covered his eyes. "He claimed to be working to prove your innocence, and he said that he suspected your men, Captain Albyn and Sir Elgon, were the ones who had conspired to take advantage of your kindness in caring for Lord Bors."

"Clearly, all is not as I’ve been led to believe," he said as he watched Jocelynn’s hands forming into tight fists as her whole body trembled with emotions. "Tell me what happened, child," he said gently. "And I promise you, the Church will not turn a blind eye to what has happened here."

"My cousin is dead," Jocelynn said, turning away from the sisters who were tending to Eleanor’s remains for the first time since they’d entered the temple and facing the High Priest directly. "The Church won’t turn a blind eye, but will it actually execute Percivus for his crimes? He claimed to be doing as Lord Bors asked him to... Will the Church take a stand against the Marquis over Eleanor’s death?"