Our Lady of the Islands

by Shannon Page

  But, alas, she would be all the way over on Malençon at dinner time. She had no choice but to cancel her meeting with Reikos — unless …

  Sipping the last of the tepid kava, she pulled out a piece of blank paper.

  Reikos,

  Greetings and felicitations on this fine day.

  I too warmly anticipate the resumption of our negotiations and am eager to view the cloths and other items of which you speak. Sadly, a last-minute business engagement has presented itself, and I shall not be available this evening before the twelfth bell of night.

  I am terribly sorry for the late notice and the imposition on your no doubt busy schedule. If the revised hour is at all feasible, we could meet at my offices. I do hope to see you, though of course I will understand if you must reschedule.

  Please let me know by return note if I should expect you this evening.

  Yours,

  Domina Sian Kattë

  Sian read the note over once, then folded it up. Tucking the whole stack of finished correspondence into her satchel, she set out into the streets to find an errand boy.

  Her messages dispatched, Sian joined Viel Road, the island’s largest thoroughfare. The streets seemed even more crowded now, and surlier; people bumped into one another with cross words and frowns. She took a deep breath and pressed forward. Perhaps she had been spending too much time on Little Loom Eyot; she felt unused to the pace of central Alizar.

  She passed by the grander houses and shops of the wide street, then nearly tripped over some large obstruction, just catching herself by thrusting an arm against the adjacent building. “Oh!” She sucked in a breath as pain shot through her arthritic shoulder, and looked down to see what in the world had caught her feet.

  A beggar woman sat below her, soiled, scarred, with bruised legs splayed into the cobbled walking border of the road. The creature gazed up at Sian with dull, red-rimmed eyes, but made no move to escape or protest, or even to get out of the path.

  “I beg your pardon, I did not see you there.” Though Sian’s words were apologetic, her tone was sharp, which she instantly regretted. But really, who sprawled into a crowded street with so little regard for their own safety? Her shoulder pain eased slightly as she rubbed it, but she knew it would go on smarting for some time.

  The beggar woman blinked, staring up at her sullenly.

  “You should take more care. You’re lucky I didn’t injure you. You … aren’t injured, I hope?”

  “Butchered God say I be safe wherever I lay me head.”

  Sian stared down at the woman, at a loss for words. So now the ‘god’ was suspending the rules of the physical world as well as those of economics? Where would this end? With the poor flying off to live in the stars? She shook her head and stepped over the beggar woman’s legs, continuing on her way.

  Soon the Hiring Hall loomed before her. She nodded at the old men as she went inside, then smiled as she walked up to a booth run by the Brownrock brothers — Gord, the elder, and Ellevan, the younger, yet smarter of the pair. Not that either of them could be called particularly young; they’d long been in business even when Sian was a girl. She always enjoyed passing the time with them, even to the point of sitting down for a game or two of bone-match.

  Today Ellevan was there, leaning spindly elbows against the hard countertop of his meet-table. The board behind him was heavily chalked with men’s names, nearly all of them crossed out with a thin white line, indicating that they were working, but might be available at the right price. Erasure only happened with men who were hired out to distant islands on long-term contracts. Or dead. And even then, sometimes the brothers didn’t erase a name till a month or more had passed.

  “Greetings, Ellevan.” Sian walked up to the high counter and leaned her elbows opposite the frail fellow’s. She looked for the usual answering light in his eyes, yet it was a long moment before he yielded to her charm.

  “Greetings, Domina Kattë.”

  “How is your brother?”

  “He passes fair well, I suppose.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Still eating broth.”

  Sian nodded. The woman was rumored to be over one hundred years old, and seemed bound to outlive everyone in Alizar. Good thing she was sweet; being so helpless, and with her sons so businesslike, they might have poisoned her soup decades ago if they’d had a mind to.

  “Excellent.”

  There was the usual pause as Sian and Ellevan regarded one another. In earlier days, Sian would have jumped right into whatever negotiation she was here about. By now, she had learned better. As with all other business in the islands, there was a pace and order to these things.

  Continuing his part of their ritual, Ellevan said, “Arouf, he passes well?”

  “Fair well.”

  “Your lovely daughters?”

  “The same. And Maleen’s children never stop growing.”

  “Your business is not in trouble?”

  Sian snapped into focus, looking into the man’s eyes. What an odd question. Quite outside the usual run of the thing. Was his mind slipping, or was he trying to maneuver her in some way? “No,” she said, barely missing a beat. “In fact: I have need of two more weavers. I need men of good strength yet short stature, to work the great loom. Young, late in their second decade at the most, but full-grown. Who do you have for me?”

  Ellevan shook his head as she spoke. “Might have one fellow for you, might not. A bit simple in the head, but he follows directions well.”

  “I need two good men — not some great oaf who can’t read a pattern.” Sian looked at the board behind Ellevan with a rising sense of desperation. “Are all those men working? The crossed-out ones?”

  He gazed back at her. “Might be. Might be roaming the streets. I don’t hear for certain, I leaves them put.” Shrugging, he added, “I don’t get the renewal fee, then I know.”

  There were three or four men not crossed out. “What about them?” Sian pointed.

  Ellevan paused another half-beat, then hoisted himself up and went to the board behind him. His shoulders were hunched as he ran his finger over the columns of names, muttering to himself. “These fellows, you don’t want them.” His hand hesitated over two unfamiliar names; they looked foreign. Or maybe that was just Ellevan’s crabbed handwriting. “No, I only got Frico. He got the strength of two men.”

  “I need two strong men,” Sian repeated, but without much force.

  “I give you one,” Ellevan said, with a note of finality. “And you lucky to get that. Good customer, these years.”

  “Yes.” She bit back her disappointment. “I thank you.” She didn’t doubt he was doing the best he could for her, however irritable he might seem about it. “How soon can he make his way to Little Loom Eyot?”

  Ellevan grumbled again, carrying on a complex conversation with himself as he made a series of elaborate check marks and notations in a tattered notebook. “Three days, he should turn up. Check back with me if it’s been a week.” He turned away to get the necessary paperwork.

  “I shall. And perhaps you’ll have more men in a week?”

  “Might could.”

  Sian pulled a small handful of silver from her purse as Ellevan set the contract on the table. She signed it, then passed him the coins, which disappeared into his grubby robe.

  “I thank you.”

  “Aye.”

  Sian sighed. Well, at least she had secured one new laborer, for whatever he might be worth. She would check other booths; Ellevan could hardly object. She had, after all, come to him first. “Well, I’ll see you next time. Please give my best to your brother and your mother.”

  “Will do, lady Kattë.”

  Sian departed his table and started to make her way through the large room. But nobody was behind the counter at the Longstrand booth. Capri Lotello avoided her gaze, turning to see to boxes in the back room as she approached; his chalk board told an even more dismal tale than the Brownrocks’ had. Down at the
end of the hall, a loud, angry argument at House Mars discouraged her from approaching the counter at all.

  The anxious energy in here finally wore her down altogether. Sian left the Hiring Hall and stepped back out into the sweaty, crowded street.

  The whole city was in a foul temper today, she decided. It might be better just to return to the townhouse and prepare for her dinner meeting in peace and solitude. She must be both sharp and calm to negotiate with the Hanchu. They were notoriously difficult trading partners, but their silks were unique and exquisite; the effort would be worth it.

  Sunset promised to be glorious as Sian set out for her dinner meeting. Towering thunderheads far out at sea, limned in molten gold, threw pale streamers up across the powder-yellow sky. Sian was dressed in thicker silks now, close-cut and midnight blue. After careful consideration, she had discarded the yellow: its dual messages muddied the waters, and not in any advantageous way. This fabric, screamingly expensive but subtle enough that only sophisticated textile experts would recognize the fact, would convey her message to the traders much more satisfactorily.

  Mindful of Jamino’s tale of the attack on his runner-cart, and still uneasy about that ragged stranger who had stared at her at the café, she had decided to carry no bag or satchel. Even her small purse had been stripped down to its tiny inner coin-pouch and tucked into a pocket of her undertrousers. Nothing flowed or dangled as she moved. Her long hair was tied in a black ribbon and braided into a queue hanging down her back.

  Sian glanced at her reflection in the dark panes of her front windows as she stepped into the street. Yes: she looked exactly right, confident and strong. And there would be plenty of time to change into something more … comfortable … before Reikos’s visit at midnight. His return note had made clear his eagerness to be there.

  She passed out of Meander Way onto Viel Street, looking for one of the runner-carts normally ubiquitous in this part of town. She liked to walk to such meetings when she could. Such gentle exertion always left her more alert and energized upon arrival at these contests — which had paid off handsomely on numerous occasions. But Malençon was at the other end of Alizar; hours away, even by cart. Lady Suba-Tien of Crux had married into the Hanchu Tien family three years before, and after moving into the Suba estate, her new husband had since moved his family’s Alizari trading house to the closest island with a major port — to everybody else’s inconvenience. Such were the privileges of success. So, a runner-cart was needed, though Sian supposed she might even splurge on a water-taxi coming home, if things went very well.

  Tonight, however, a cart was nowhere to be seen. Business must be strangely brisk for such an hour, she thought with irritation. Or had this strange new unwillingness to work in Alizar spread even to cart runners now? What were all these work-resistant people doing to feed themselves, she wondered.

  She crossed the bridge to tiny Phaero, still looking for a cart. The only ones she’d seen so far had been at a distance, and already occupied. The narrower streets felt even more crowded than Viel’s had been, making her glad that she had changed into more close-fitting garb — and that the day’s muggy heat had subsided. Processions and prayer lines were everywhere, in far greater profusion this evening than she’d ever seen them. Muttering, chanting devotees of the so-called Butchered God surged past around her without looking at their own footfalls, pushed along by sheer force of numbers. It occurred to her that perhaps the runner-carts were just avoiding all this congestion.

  “A curse, a curse upon the city.” The sudden wail, practically at her shoulder, gave Sian a start. She drew back against a spindly guava tree and let the latest procession wend past her, all weeping and praying. “A curse … a curse …”

  Sian reached out and caught the arm of a young boy, perhaps thirteen summers old. “What is happening? What is wrong?”

  The boy stared at her with tear-stained eyes. “I… Lady, please!” He yanked his arm out of her grip and ran to join the rest of his procession.

  “It’s Konrad, the Factor’s boy,” said a quiet voice behind her.

  Sian turned to see a middle-aged man standing in an open doorway, a greengrocer’s apron tied around his ample midsection. His face was grim, but his eyes were kindly enough.

  “What about him?” she asked, taking a step towards the man.

  “They’re saying his illness has become much worse. The rumor is that he will die now. And the Factor and his Consort are too old to bear another heir, of course. These fanatics claim it’s a sign that Alizar is doomed to barrenness as well.”

  “I had heard that Konrad was improving, if slowly.” Sian did not mention, of course, that she was related to the Factor. “What has changed?”

  “Crab disease, or so they say.”

  “Oh no.” A likely death sentence, certainly. The poor boy. And very bad news for House Alkattha. Still … “How does that suggest a curse on Alizar? The crab disease strikes where it will, and often, sadly.”

  The man shrugged. “All I know is what these fanatics say as they whip and reel throughout the city.” Sian raised her eyes at his artful language. Grocer by day, poet by night? “If the priest of the Butchered God proclaims the heir’s illness a curse: then it is a curse.” He nodded her good-evening, and stepped back into his shop.

  The Butchered God again. Sian stared at the receding prayer line even as her ears picked up the ecstatic calls and wild mutters of yet another somewhere near. Why would any god smite the Factor’s child? It would only distract the man from tending to his people’s needs. Did this Butchered God of theirs wish trouble on Alizar?

  Sian shook her head, walking on. This kind of unrest was bad news indeed for the average small business owner. Particularly a business dealing in luxury items, whatever the more optimistic of her many reports might have her believe.

  Sian found herself following in the rambling prayer line’s wake now, and hung back, careful not to seem a part of it. The lines were not, strictly speaking, illegal, but they were unambiguously disapproved of by both the Factorate and the Mishrah-Khote, and clearly nothing a respectable businesswoman would want to seem connected with. She glanced around, reconsidering her decision to walk, but still saw no ready conveyances. She began to look down each cross street she passed, and, to her great relief, soon saw an empty cart parked just a block away. She all but ran to flag its runner down before someone else could rob her of his services.

  The lean, bare-chested man turned as she called out, smiling from underneath his bowl-shaped hat.

  “Where have you all been?” she asked, nearly out of breath.

  “Lady?” he said, puzzled. “I am being right here.” He flashed her a winning smile. “Waiting for pretty lady to come hire me.”

  “Aren’t you charming,” she said dryly. “Can you take me all the way to Malençon?”

  His smile became a furrowed expression of concern. “Oh, crowds very bad tonight. That take a long time more than you want, maybe. Maybe cost a lot.”

  She looked back at the mob-choked street she’d left. She was clearly going to be late. There seemed no help for that now. She turned to the runner. “Can you not find some way around all this?”

  “Sure, lady.” He shrugged. “On the islands, yes. But there no way around the bridges. They clog all them. At the bridges, nothing I can do.”

  “Well, I don’t seem to have much choice,” she sighed, climbing into the open wicker cart. “Do the best you can, please. I will tip you handsomely if you can get me there by two hours after sunset.”

  He nodded, hunching his shoulders to concede the possibility of failure, but hurried to pull on his harness and haul the cart into motion.

  They dodged one way then another across the rest of Phaero, keeping to the edges of Lady Nissa Phaero’s large east-shore estate where the prayer marchers seemed least in evidence, but, as her runner had predicted, the bridge to Cutter’s was a solid mass of shuffling, chanting cultists. Whatever are they doing? she thought, exasperated. Was somet
hing special happening tonight?

  Half an hour later, they were still not even past the Census Taker’s lush grounds. The prayer lines were right there in front of them, no matter which street the runner dodged to next, it seemed. Are they off to meet the Hanchu traders too? she wondered. Not until they’d made their sluggish way across the densely packed bridge to the twin atolls of Hither and Yon did the press of worshippers finally abate. By then, the sun had nearly touched the sea, the screech of gulls and terns had given way to the rolling trill of nightjars, and the sky was all ablaze in orange and crimson fire. Sian began to hope she might not miss the meeting altogether. Perhaps her hosts had even heard by now about the unprecedented congregation of so many marchers, and were anticipating her delay. She could only hope so.

  They made very decent time across the larger island of Three Cats. Her runner was clearly trying to earn that tip she’d promised him. But then they reached the bridge to Malençon, and Sian threw her hands up with a loud sigh.

  The island’s entire shoreline, as well as the bridge itself, was packed to overflowing with chanting cultists who seemed more prayer meanderers now than marchers. They bobbed and swayed almost in place, clear across the channel.

  Sian’s runner turned in his harness to look up at her. “You maybe get there faster walking now,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry, lady. Nothing I can do here. Not for long time, I thinking.”

  This was beyond ridiculous. Sian had little choice but to agree with him. She would have to get out and try to push her way across the bridge, which would take another hour at the very least, she estimated, and would likely leave her décolletage drenched in sweat. But missing such a meeting altogether would send even less desirable messages to her Hanchu associates.

  A curse upon the city, indeed. Did this Butchered God of theirs have some grudge against her personally?