by Jay Lake
I had laid out bodies before. We did it for our own in the Temple of the Silver Lily, Blades for Blades, justiciars for justiciars, and so forth. Sometimes the Blades did the duty for people we had slain, for one reason or another of Kalimpuri precedent, law, or custom. And we had discussed it often enough during my education.
Mother Meiko had always averred that anyone who was prepared to kill should equally be prepared to manage the entire process of dying, death and beyond. As we Blades were technically priestesses in the service of the Lily Goddess, this was sensible enough. Nuns, of a sort, though that was a Stone Coast concept with no real Seliu equivalent. Fighting nuns who ministered to their targets.
My thoughts continued while I dodged grocer’s carts and shoals of dark-suited clerks. While I had not killed Amitra and Nitsa, they had died for me. So it was right that I would lay them out. But what of my intense and unexpected obsession with the ceremony?
I could only conclude that the god Endurance was showing his people what he expected of them. My first memory of Endurance was of my grandmother’s funeral, so fair enough that these rites should be adapted from what I could recall of her own, overlain with later knowledge.
There was something haunting about the idea of future generations of Copper Downs being laid to rest with a ceremony that had its roots in Bhopuri death customs. “For you, Grandmother,” I whispered. A tiny and much-belated funerary offering. Still, I could not help but think that she would understand and approve.
My feet had led me to the breweries near the docks. Even my wandering mind could not ignore the odor of yeasts and hops and spillage, and the spoiled barrels placed out on the loading docks, from which the poor could drink unmeasured at their own risk for half of a split copper tael or some shred of barter. Horses, too; the district always had that smell of horse, those monstrous great beasts that drew the brewery wagons about the city.
Beer I was fine with, horses I mistrusted deeply. The broken screw that had borne me on my fateful trip with Septio, leading to his death and my pregnancy, had been a wicked animal with a special hatred for me in its liquid eyes.
An ox, now, there was an animal with which you always knew your place. No question of standing with an ox. They never got above themselves, and generally were not independent thinkers. Little wonder that Endurance had manifested as he did. I shuddered to think of the moods of a horse god.
I strode casually past the mouth of the Tavernkeep’s alley. I was pleased to note that no crowd of Selistani filled the narrow roadway as they had on my previous visit. Wandering around the block, I chanced to duck unnoticed behind a hops wagon, then scaled to the roof of the warehouse that should back onto the tavern. From above I scrambled across the tarred sheet metal expanse of the warehouse’s flat roof, then dropped to the sloped tile of the tavern itself.
That building was three storeys tall, though I’d never been above the second floor. It surely also had a cellar for beer barrels and the distilling of bournewater, the mountain liquor of the pardines that looked like rain and stole away the sense of any human who imbibed more than a few sips. All I could do from above was watch the entrance and the alleyway. There I could see who might be watching for me.
Blackblood’s men, for one. And people from the embassy. Not that the Prince of the City cared, but I had come to understand that Mother Vajpai and Surali were at odds, just as they had always been back in Kalimpura. Both of them had business with me. So possibly two sets of watchers from the embassy, poised for me and for each other. And by now, Kohlmann and the Interim Council might well have their own people tracking me.
Erio didn’t need to have been concerned for Copper Downs. All the old ghost needed do was be concerned about me and the troublemakers I attracted.
Too many cared where I was to be found. Too few cared for the right reasons. I would not give up my baby, and I would not give up myself. So with my long knife balanced across my thighs I crouched up on the roof, the cistern behind me to break my outline against the sky. There I hunted my hunters as patiently as if they were rabbits in the meadows of High Hills.
***
A surprising number of Selistani came and went over the next hour. At least a dozen of them passed down in the alley, almost all men. They seemed of the meanest and poorest classes-beached sailors, displaced farmers, idled laborers. Most were burned dark by the sun, without the pale, oiled sleekness of the aristocracy and the merchant castes. Almost without exception they wore faded and patched kurtas, very nearly the uniform of the country of my birth for those who could not afford more, but whose modesty forbade a dhoti or a mere clout.
I would not put it past Mother Vajpai to set a clever spy for me, but I doubted that Surali would even think to hire such a person as these to her service.
Only one Stone Coast woman came in the hour, and she quite clearly was bringing supplies, in the form of two herb baskets across her shoulders. She left twenty minutes later, her baskets somewhat the lighter.
Also, three pardines.
That proved to me that the Tavernkeep had not shut his business, and that the pardines had not drifted away in the face of the human invasion brought on presumably by Chowdry’s cooking.
And of course, that was where he had been so often lately. The realization struck me as funny. Chowdry was working his shifts for the Tavernkeep. A temple camp full of the round-bellied children of the wealthy, and still he trudged here every day to make curry and samosas and whatever else struck the fancy of either Chowdry or his patrons.
Did the pardines’ subtle distaste for the human not extend to the Selistani lately come among them? Or was their patience simply long enough to wait out this latest insult? That was a question for which I had no useful answer, though I could spin theories enough. Besides which, it was only my curiosity talking. No stakes rode with the issue.
That I could think of.
It occurred to me that lately my judgment of what was important had been flawed.
In any case, no one lingered with their eyes on the tavern that I could see. I spent time scanning the few windows opening on the alley. All were dark and still. A watcher or three quite possibly lurked within, but my entry there would not be reported without me knowing it.
Feeling quite pleased with myself, I put away my long knife and moved two rooftops over to a loading bay out of sight of the Tavernkeep’s door. There I made a rather showy descent before an audience of a ragged orange cat and several pigeons. The baby had not overset my balance so much that I couldn’t slide down a pipe or bounce off an awning. The landing stung my feet and shins a bit more than I thought proper, but the watchers did not complain or mark me out.
***
Inside, the Tavernkeep’s place did not seem so homey as it had before, yet it still welcomed me. Low ceilings with their heavy wooden pillars, a bar to my left with a kitchen beyond, stairs at the back, a large, cold fireplace on the right-hand wall. He had no windows here, only the door, so it was dark except for oil lamps burning with some imported scent that had little in common with the usual acrid smokes of this city.
Tables were more closely crowded together than I remembered. The widely spaced circles favored by the pardines, each with its deep stone bowl, were the same; but smaller furniture had been brought in for the Selistani who now patronized the place. A number of my countrymen were scattered about the room with the air of long-term occupants. Card games overflowed, as well as several sets of the Hanchu gambling tiles that could be found in any port town, along with the inevitable clack of dice. Those who have almost nothing always seem willing to play the highest stakes.
The smell of them-that scent of food and the choice of soap and the sweat of each race of man-was so familiar that it almost made me ache. I fought the urge to step back into the alley. I could not flee my own people. The embassy aside, they were not part of my troubles.
In a sense, I was responsible for them, too. Much as I had brought Chowdry to Copper Downs, so my deeds had brought the rest of t
hese men.
I did scan carefully for Little Baji, whom I had recently glimpsed here, as well as anyone else who seemed familiar, or simply out of place. If any of those present were watching for my entrance, they had adopted a magnificent pretense of complete disinterest.
Turning my attention to the rest of the room’s occupants, I saw that a pardine stood behind the bar puzzling over some mechanism. A pump handle, I thought. It was not the Tavernkeep, but a rangy, younger male with ginger fur, two heads taller than I. He looked to have lost more fights than was properly pleasing to him. Several of their tables were occupied as well. Tails flicked attentively, but not at alert. Ears were perked, but not tense. I could read this crowd. One feline face met my gaze and nodded.
Someone who had fought beside me at Lyme Street, though I could not bring a name to mind.
I nodded back. A human gesture, not native to them according to my old teacher the Dancing Mistress. These pardines had chosen to live in exile from their forest home and mountain fastnesses here among the human sprawl. In doing so, they had made their own accommodations to fit within our ways.
In truth, I was hoping for the Rectifier, though not with much expectation. The old miscreant was difficult, and had nearly fought me to the death on Lyme Street that most fateful day when we’d brought down one god and raised up another, but I had never counted him as an enemy. In the troubles dogging me now, his sort of wisdom might be very much to the point. Surely he was disinterested in these factions much as any of his people would be. More likely he was up in the hills hunting priests, or making some other form of trouble.
Which was of course what I needed him for. Not that I meant to attack Blackblood directly. That would be foolish in the extreme. Undermining the gods of a city was somewhat different than undermining the streets and walls. Rather, I was confident that the Rectifier knew better than I how to fight, and defeat, the will of the gods.
I was merely a tool of the gods. He was a weapon against them.
Tool, weapon, or otherwise, the only thing for it was to approach the bar. I pulled up a stool near the pardine at his work. He glanced up at me. “I cannot load this spring,” he said softly. His Petraean had a hillman’s accent, which made me wonder where he had learned the Stone Coast tongue.
“Shall I try?” From my time with the Dancing Mistress I knew that their fingers were not so nimble as a human being’s. With claws extended, their hands were weapons. With claws drawn in, their furred bluntness was inconvenient for handling small tools and mechanisms. Few pardines sewed, for example, because of the difficulties inherent in managing needle and thread.
He handed me the pump fixture with a flash of fangs that I knew for a smile. Despite my years with the Dancing Mistress, I had none of their language, nor a tail to flick as they were wont to do among themselves. I smiled back instead, and looked for his trouble.
“What will you have?”
“A very small bowl of the Tavernkeep’s finest bournewater, and if he is about, a moment of his time.” Though I had eaten only a few hours earlier, I also liked the smell from the kitchen. The kick from the bournewater would give me a needed lift. “And some of whatever is cooking to the scent of lentils and cloves.”
“Our best cook is not in today,” the pardine replied. “But the boy back there does well enough.”
“Do you enjoy Selistani cooking?” I asked, curious. The spring fitted into the sleeve with the proper snugness; he had been struggling to slip it past a little burr meant to keep the metal bit safely within once emplaced.
He answered me in poor but intelligible Seliu. “The taste is very fine.”
I laughed softly and handed him back his pump fixture. He shouted into the kitchen, then went to draw me my bowl. My mouth watered at the scent of the food, but I wondered how the baby would take the spice. The oddest things bothered me these days.
At my back, the murmur of Selistani voices died. One last tile clacked, and the room fell silent. I wondered if the Rectifier had arrived against expectation. A pardine voice spoke softly, and I turned about to find the greatest shock I’d experienced yet since returning to Copper Downs this time.
The Dancing Mistress stood in the middle of the room, close by the pardine who had recognized me. I had never thought to see her again. Given the expression on her face and the stirring of her tail, I realized that my instincts had probably been for the best.
***
“Green,” she said, then began to stalk toward me.
The Dancing Mistress moved with such intensity that I wondered if I was about to fight an old teacher for the second time in a handful of days. She would be as difficult to defeat as Mother Vajpai. At most, I could battle her to a standstill and then hope to escape.
Sliding from my stool, I prepared to palm my short knives and studied her in the few seconds I might have before violence erupted.
The Dancing Mistress looked wild, as if she were as fresh from the hills as the bartender I’d just helped. I could not say precisely why-the unaccustomed rough nap of her coat, from living outdoors, perhaps? Or the way she moved through the space around her as though filling it. Much as the Rectifier did, who deliberately cultivated a feral image, and so unlike her old mode of walking, where she slid between people and the gaps they made.
Not accommodating. Rather, asserting her control and power. Uncivilized, in the most literal sense.
“Mistress,” I replied warily. When we’d met in Kalimpura, we’d fought. She had not known it was me behind the mask. I was defeated by her, and I had been in better training then than I was now. “You are home from the mountains.”
Her tail flicked. A half-dozen more wild pardines spread out behind her. Pottery clicked nearby and I smelled a mouthwatering hot paneer. A weapon, of course-spinach in oily water near the boiling point.
“This is not home,” the Dancing Mistress said flatly.
I knew to listen to her tone, but I knew more to watch her claws. She was far too canny to signal her movements as most human adversaries would-even a well-trained woman requires iron self-control and fantastic muscle strength to lean in one direction and kick in another, but pardines are too alien to read in that same fashion.
The claw tips showing in her furred fingers were key to what would happen next. Flexed outward, but not fully distended. She would probably continue to speak with me. For now.
“It is my home.” I was quite surprised at my words.
The Dancing Mistress snorted. Her smallest laugh, escaping from her narrow nostrils. “I would never have thought to hear you say that, Green.” Her tail relaxed and the claws disappeared.
Without taking my eyes off her, I extended my hand behind me and grasped hold of my bowl of paneer. My mouth was watering, and while I could still throw it at need, I could also eat. The baby was hungry.
“I might say much the same.” With swift decision, I plunged on. “Why are you back in the city? I’d not figured to find you again in Copper Downs after you turned me away last summer.” Recovering from her wounds in an upper room of this tavern, the Dancing Mistress had refused to see me. She’d then slipped from the city without a farewell.
“The world is not about you, Green,” she said sadly. For this moment, we were only a student and her former teacher.
“The world was never about me.” My voice was hard; I touched my belly lightly with my right hand, still holding my spoon. “Until I made it listen. A skill you taught me.”
“Fair enough.” She ran a hand across her close-furred scalp, as if nervous. “Why are you here?”
“The usual,” I admitted.
“Gods and monsters and politics?”
“That, and I was hungry for some good Selistani cooking.”
She nodded, that human gesture again. “Your man here is becoming famous.”
“He’s not my man. If Chowdry belongs to anyone now, he belongs to Endurance.”
“You brought him helpless across the sea,” she replied. “He is yours.”
Anger stirred and my voice heated. “Then by your logic I belong to you as much as to myself.”
That brought me a feral glitter of teeth and quick flexing of the claws. “I should not be so foolish as to try to take you up like an old weapon.”
“I would not shatter in your hands,” I told her, “but you might not enjoy so very much the edges you find.”
“It is edges I search for now.” That was an admission of sorts. “Though not yours. I’d heard you were safely in the High Hills.”
And so I’d meant to be, but I did not say that thing to her. Instead I pursued her hint: “What edges?”
“Please,” she said. “Sit with me and we will talk.”
My paneer and I followed her to a table at the back of the room. As I walked, the earlier buzz of men and their games resumed. Whatever came next between us would not be at the center of all attention.
One of the big round tables was clear, near the back stairs. Her escort of wild pardines spread out along the wall where they could watch our table, the room, and each other. I found that a little strange. Such conspicuous display was never the Dancing Mistress’ way.
Nonetheless we sat. My bowl of bournewater was provided, and a larger one for her. A lotus flower floated in the deep stone bowl at the center of the table, symbolizing the feasts by which the Dancing Mistress’ people shared souls and bound the mourning of their dead to the communal memory.
The clack of tiles and the rattle of dice was the heartbeat of the room. We sat in the shadowed back like two actors waiting for our light.
She sipped at her drink and watched me for a while. Being raised as I had among the harshest teachers, I was quite accustomed to this. I amused myself by staring back. Nothing I saw altered my earlier assessment of her. The Dancing Mistress had the mountain way about her now. She didn’t seem to have been in any serious fights lately, for her muzzle and face bore no fresh scars.