Atlantis and Other Places by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Alternative histories (Fiction), Adventure stories, Fantasy fiction, Alternative History, Short Stories (single author), Fiction, Science Fiction, American, Adventure fiction, Historical, Atlantis (Legendary place), General, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780451463647
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Published: 2010-12-07T07:27:16.334042+00:00

Theodore’s funeral felt strange, unnatural. The procession to the burial ground outside the village seemed normal enough at first. Father George and the dead man’s relatives led the way, all of them but the priest wailing and keening and beating their breasts. More villagers followed.

Some of them lamented, too. But others kept looking at one another. George knew what lay in their minds. It lay in his mind, too. They were wondering which of their number was a murderer. Was it someone they despised? Or was it a friend, a loved one, a brother? Only one man knew, and they were burying him.

No. Father George grimaced. Someone else knew, too: the killer himself. And he hoped to walk free, to escape human judgment. God would surely send him to hell for eternal torment, but he must have despised that, too.

George chanted psalms over Theodore’s body as it lay in the grave, to protect his soul from demons. “Let us pray that he goes from here to a better place, to paradise, to the marriage chamber of the spirit,” he said, and he and the mourners and the whole crowd of villagers made the sign of the cross together.

As the funeral ended, they straggled back toward Abrostola. Behind Father George, the gravediggers shoveled the earth down onto Theodore’s shrouded body. The priest sighed and shook his head. That was always such a final sound, and worse here today because some wicked man had cut short Theodore’s proper span of years.

Later that day, Father George went to the dead man’s house to console his widow and daughters. Anna met him at the door and gave him an earthenware cup of wine. She was dry-eyed now, dry-eyed and grim. “We are as well as we can be,” she said when he asked. “I’ll give you another few days to catch the killer. If you don’t, I’m going down to Amorion.” She sounded unbendably determined. In that, she’d been a good match for Theodore.

“I’m doing all I can, all I know how to do.” George knew he sounded harried. His training was to fight sin, not crime. “If you go to Amorion ...”

“The holy images are dear to me, too,” Anna said. “But justice and vengeance are dearer still.”

Father George bowed his head. He had no good answer for that, and no way to stop her if she chose to go. “I’ll do all I can,” he repeated. He finished the wine, gave her the cup, and turned to go.

Demetrios was already hammering away again. When George walked past his house and the smithy by it, Sophia came out and stopped him. “Have you heard?” the smith’s wife asked.

“I don’t know,” Father George said. “But I expect you’ll tell me.”

Sophia put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to one side as she studied George. Her dark eyes flashed. She remained one of the prettier, and one of the livelier, women in Abrostola. Fifteen years before, she’d been the prize catch in the village, as Zoe was now.

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