by Jay Lake
“Ain’t going in, boy. Especially not with that there mask on. In any case, they’s busy.”
I could hardly pick a fight here. “I am sent for.”
“Now you’re being sent away.”
They both chuckled.
“Federo wishes to speak to me.”
The chuckling stopped. The pikeman’s eyes tightened. “And you are being certain you wish to speak to himself? Ain’t no great treat, I don’t reckon.”
I thought of the certain pleasures of feeding him to Skinless, but held on to my rising irritation. “I won’t know until I go in.”
He took a step back and banged on a door featuring stained-glass images of the wonders of felt. An elderly, dry-faced clerk looked out.
The guard pointed at me. “This one say’s ’e’s for Federo.”
The clerk looked me up and down. “I do not believe we sent for a boy assassin. Surely you belong on Lobscouse Street among the music halls.”
I undid my veil and showed him the scars upon my cheeks.
“Perhaps I am wrong,” the clerk said smoothly. “I see the rumors of your arrival did not overstate the case.”
“Thank you,” I told the guard sweetly.
The blacks were good enough for Kalimpura, where it seemed that there were as many modes of dress as there were people. Here where the costume was native to the stage, at least, I just looked strange. Veils were not in fashion especially, nor masks.
Now that I was in the Textile Bourse, there was little need for more secrecy. I tucked the veil away in my satchel as I followed the clerk through the doors.
The hallway within had once been grand. Today it was mostly crowded. Shelves and cabinets and desks were shoved in roughly squared arrays across the marble floor. Maps had been strung up over the portraits of long-dead bourse presidents. People trotted back and forth with papers in their hands, scratched with fountain pens, or met in little knots of two and three. Customs duties and the licenses of trade and guild had not stopped simply because a throne had fallen.
“As you see,” the dry clerk said, “we are quite occupied. We find it efficacious to place the tax and fee work here, where public complaints can be met. Please, come with me.”
I followed him through an irregular path threading across the room in twists and turns. The place was noisy, in a way that oddly reminded me of Below with its whispers and distant echoes. We mounted a grand staircase, now mostly a document repository, complete with little notes pinned to stacks of paper and ledgers. Once we’d cleared the wide turn that swept away from the tax floor, things were much more quiet.
The clerk paused at the top of the flight. “You are the girl, of course.” His voice almost seemed to click. “I am Mr. Nast.”
“My name is Green, Nast.”
“And my name is Mr. Nast, Green.” His smile was more of a mobile wrinkle on his face. “I expect we shall be the dearest of friends.”
I could not help but laugh at that.
Mr. Nast led me down a hall of offices that overflowed with more people at their work. A few were women, but most were stout, older men. The walls here were stacked with paper as well. A large door at the end held another square of stained glass illustrating even more of the wonders of felt. An argument could be heard within.
Nast rapped sharply on the door.
“We are in confidential session!” shouted a voice.
“Sir,” the old clerk called. “The girl Green is here.”
Silence fell. Behind me, the bustle of the hall died. I looked back to see pale faces peeking out of doorways. A young woman stood with an armload of folders, hand covering her mouth.
“You may enter,” the old clerk told me. “Best of luck, young lady.”
I pushed open the door and stepped inside to finally meet Federo once more.
Five people were seated within. I scanned as I would facing any threat, eyes leaping to their weapons, the exits-for a moment I was a Lily Blade on the point of action. Then I met Federo’s gaze, and I was once more just a girl beneath a pomegranate tree, waiting for my secret friend to return.
Those feelings swept over me like waves crossing a bar. They passed as quickly as they came, and once more I was fully and only myself.
Federo’s yellow-brown hair was darker, except where it was shot through with gray. His face was seamed as well, as though he’d worn the years far more heavily than I. Even his eyes seemed to have faded.
For a long second, there was a hard look upon him; then his face split into a great smile. “Green!” he shouted, leaping up from the leather chair in which he’d been sitting. He raced around the table, saying in Seliu, “Welcome, welcome back,” just before he collided to hug me close.
That felt real, at least, though I wondered at the passing hardness. When we pulled apart, I said in the same language, “I am honored to be in your home,” using a formal register that emphasized his possession. Then, looking past him, “Do they know of all my deeds?”
“Only the least bit.” His eyes flicked away like birds on the wing, giving his words the lie. “What is needed, nothing more.”
My heart filled with sadness that he should begin our reunion with untruth. The Dancing Mistress had mistrusted something in him. I could already see why, if not what.
“Meet the Interim Council,” he said in Petraean. Three of the four I did not recognize, but last was the Pater Primus of Blackblood’s temple, dressed now in a formal cutaway with a bloodred waistcoat beneath. He now far more resembled a banker than a fruitier. Without his cowl I could see his hair was that rare and strange northern orange, blond alloyed with copper. He nodded slightly to acknowledge my recognition, but did not invite me to greet him.
Puzzled, I allowed Federo to lead.
“This is Loren Kohlmann,” he said, pointing to a rotund gentleman with no hair on his head or eyebrows. Kohlmann was dressed in an anonymous gray suit, which could indicate any of the monied professions. Pale like the others, the man had dark eyes. His fat did not hang in folds, which suggested hidden muscle. “Loren speaks for the warehousemen and commodity brokers.”
Federo then pointed to the man to Kohlmann’s left, sandy-haired with the burnt-brown skin and rough leanness of a sailor, though he was also in a suit. I might have trusted the set of his eyes had I met him by a dock somewhere. “This is Captain Roberti Jeschonek. He speaks for the shipping trades, and those who work ashore in their behalf.”
The next man was the Pater Primus, of course. “Yonder sits Stefan Mohanda. He represents the banks and bourses of Copper Downs.” Mohanda nodded again, challenging me with his smile. Now I understood the masks and cowls, though I wondered why he had shown himself to me back in Blackblood’s temple.
“Our last councilor is Mikkal Hiebert. He speaks for the carters, the laborers, and all the building trades.” Hiebert grinned at me. Overdressed in brightly colored robes, he had the look of a man who enjoyed life far more than most.
“The Dancing Mistress speaks for those who are not Petraean by birth or tribe,” Federo concluded.
I wanted to ask who spoke for the poor, for children, for women, for the tens of thousands of people in this city who had no voice in this room. I held my tongue, not being a fool. In their way, these proud northerners had reinvented the Courts of Kalimpura. I could not resist a twitting, though. “I am surprised that your renascent gods do not have a voice on the Interim Council.”
Another shadow passed across Federo’s face within an eye blink. “The Temple Quarter has ways of making its requirements known.”
At least he managed not to look at Mohanda. Could this be what he was hiding? It would fit-a sending of Mohanda’s god had come for me and the Dancing Mistress, then struck her down. This removed her from the situation and left me to rely on Federo. The man who had stolen me away in the beginning of my life.
“Have you yet received the story of what befell the Dancing Mistress this last night?” I was not above a hard look at the priest who hid himself as a
banker.
“Word came this morning,” Federo told me solemnly. “She was wounded saving you from attack in the Below, then a young priest took you both to safety. I have heard she recovers within the Algeficic Temple.”
“Yes. That cult is well connected, it would seem.”
Everyone laughed, including Mohanda. When the smiles had died, quickly enough, I pressed on to the true point. “I have been dragged back across the Storm Sea to aid you in your defense against a bandit in these hills. I have heard he is a man, I have heard he is a rising god. I have heard he burns all in his path. I have heard he takes farms and villages into his protection. I expect I’ll soon hear he has fangs a yard long, but is also toothless.” I looked around. “Have any of you met Choybalsan?”
They all turned to Federo. He appeared uncomfortable: genuinely so this time, not another lie folded a moment too late. “I have followed him through these hills in every season of the last two years. I have spoken with his lieutenants, even walked among his armies. He is often gone, always when I have come to treat with him.”
It sounded idiotic to me. “How can a man roam the lands north of here for two years, complete with a fearsome army, and never come close to the city?”
Kohlmann cleared his throat. “Two years ago, his army was less than a dozen riders from the Karst Hills.” He looked around. “Or so we were told. He burned a few stables and raided a manor house up in the Snowmarch River valley. A season later, he was on the road with two score younger sons who might otherwise have taken ship or joined some guard here in Copper Downs.”
“The army, in the sense you mean it, is an artifact of this summer season,” Jeschonek said gruffly. “He was first a raider, a rouser of unsatisfied country rabble. Now he has too many men and must find a city to house and feed them.”
I looked back to Federo. The former dandy seemed so careworn. I wondered what plan he and the Pater Primus had in motion, and who would be betraying whom. Federo smiled. Fatigue was plainly upon him.
“You went looking for this man when he was riding with a dozen spears, bothering vineyards?” I asked.
“In fact, yes.” He sighed. “That was the first season of this Council’s rule. We’d heard of burnings out in the country, which seemed ill-omened, given how recently riot had ended here within Copper Downs. I went up to see, and came upon Syndic Alburth’s manor an afternoon too late. So this trouble has been slipping my fingers from the first.”
I decided to lay the problem bare. “You went to some expense to bring me back here where I never wanted to be. The Dancing Mistress is nearly dead of it.” I drew my knife and slammed it flat onto the tabletop. “What is it you want me to do?”
“If I might,” said Mohanda.
Federo waved him on.
“We think you may be in a position to judge whether Choybalsan is little more than a canny bandit chieftain, or whether he is in some fashion heir to the power that built and sustained our unlamented Duke.” The secret priest pressed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “You might imagine this is of great interest in the Temple Quarter.”
I’ll bet.
Mohanda went on. “If the Duke’s spells are broken and gone from the world, why have the gods not awoken fully and retaken their rightful-rather, the place they claim for themselves at the heart of this city’s life? If the Duke’s spells are still in the world, claimed and trammeled perhaps by an enterprising hilltop warlord who is still unfolding their powers, then the gods are at risk of being lost once more to long silence.
“As you are intimately familiar with the magic that had bound the Duke to this world, and you might recognize the scent or texture of it if you saw it on another man, well… You can imagine what value we could find in that.”
I digested his words a moment. It seemed the path I might follow to pursue the Goddess’ fears. Whatever could put a god to the silence of years, or rouse them again, was a powerful threat. A large step toward god-killing, which seemed to be a problem in Copper Downs as well.
As Septio had said, when a god dies, He is gone forever.
“How is it that I shall find this bandit when the leader of this council cannot?” I gave Federo my sweetest smile. “Old friend, I always thought you could winnow out anything. That was your main occupation for so many years.”
“We have a priest,” said Federo. “I believe you know him-Septio of the Algeficic Temple.” I shot Mohanda a glance, but the man was smiling like a grandfather with his descendants before the solstice hearth. Federo went on: “He is clever and thoughtful. We would have the two of you travel together as ambassadors of one of our temples, asking to make terms with Choybalsan before he enters the city.”
“He is known to be interested in gods,” said Mohanda.
“I’d be, too, if I fancied myself one,” muttered Kohlmann.
“We believe he will receive you,” Federo finished smoothly.
“I am no priest,” I told them. Which was not exactly true. There was small distance between an aspirant of the Lily Goddess and a priest. However, those people did not need to know my history, especially not the Pater Primus. “I will not be convincing.”
“Follow this Septio,” Mohanda urged. “Be his silent acolyte. His claim to speak for the temples will bear credibility because he is known widely as a priest of Blackblood. Your purpose will be to look and to listen.”
“To see what may be seen of this vanished power.” Federo, again.
“Why not send the Dancing Mistress, or another pardine?”
Federo shook his head. “Choybalsan slays them where he finds them. There is one rumor that does not seem to have its opposite being whispered alongside. The pardines of Copper Downs certainly believe it.”
I retrieved my knife and studied the blade a moment. My eyes looked back at me from the murky reflection. Kohlmann was visible just above the point, as if I held the largest of swords underneath his jaw.
“If I go, and find nothing. Feel nothing…” I waved the knife for emphasis, and almost giggled to see Federo duck away from me. “Nothing is there. I can already say that. These past days, I could not taste it in the city. Locating more of it in some hill camp seems unlikely. When I return, will we then be quit?”
A complex web of glances passed around the room. “We will be quit,” said Federo in their wake.
Good, I thought. I had no intention of running straight home, not until I understood the Goddess’ fears a bit better, but I wanted to be free of the Interim Council. “Stand me a purse for my fare home, and a worthwhile consideration for my time. Give it to that man Nast outside. He would provide a receipt for his own grandmother, I am sure of it, and know years later on which hook he hung her. Make that thing happen, and give me your word that we’ve a sealed bargain. Then I will go looking for this wild goose of yours.”
“Aye,” ran around the room like a ripple.
“So recorded.” Kohlmann scribbled in a tally book. “Five in favor and one not present, we carry the proposal.”
“That was it?” The Courts of Kalimpura could take half a season to agree on whether the sun rose at dusk or dawn.
“You’ll note there are no attorneys on this Interim Council,” Jeschonek said dryly.
Mohanda’s grin was positively feral. “Accidents will happen.”
“So?” I demanded
Federo took my arm as if he planned to escort me into a grand ball. “So now we go tell Mr. Nast to write you a bond for fare and expenses for an amount we can both find satisfactory.”
We stepped out in the hall. Several clerks stood there, looking through a stack of papers in one’s hands, but at the sight of us, they moved off. Federo shut the door.
“Green,” he said, his voice low. “I am sorry I do not have more time now. How is the Dancing Mistress?”
My face burned. “She might be dying, but I am ashamed to say I do not know.”
He sighed. “It has been almost four months since I have heard from her. We disagreed, then she
vanished. We had spoken of searching you out, and quarreled where we should not. I have been praying she had gone for you.” His smile was crooked with sadness. “My prayers have been answered. She did not fall victim to Choybalsan’s bandits. But her return is at such cost. What was she about?”
“The Dancing Mistress fears for the city.” That was certainly true, though how much her concerns aligned with Federo’s I could not say. Obviously they had been at odds over me.
“I am glad you are here.” He made as if to embrace me, then changed his mind in the middle of the reach.
That, at least, seemed genuine. I wondered if the shadows and deceptions I glimpsed within him were just the product of being responsible for so much. As the Factor’s man, he had had immense tasks, but not ultimate authority. Now he sat in the Duke’s seat without the centuries of experience and adamantine confidence the old ruler had possessed.
“It will be good,” I said. “I cannot but think this Choybalsan is a storm that will pass.”
“We shall see,” he answered grimly.
“Oh, yes.”
As he called for Nast, I considered the Goddess’ words. Federo and the Dancing Mistress were certainly entwined. Was it those coils of the heart she had warned us of? If my old teacher were to become distant and distrustful, she might perhaps betray this man and so lead him to a failure before the coming of the Bandit King.
I hoped that my role might be to reconcile them, and settle the confidence of the city’s rulership.
Nast came. We made a chaffer about transport costs and guarantees and expenses. The old clerk finally wrote out a bond promising the cost of a cabin passage to Kalimpura as available from the three best ships in port the month I claimed it, plus triple that same value paid out as compensation for my services.
It did not seem to me to be so much money for the treasury of an entire city, even one in troubled times, but to see Nast and Federo argue, the terms of the bond might have been the last copper paisa to feed a starving family.
“I must go back to our session,” Federo finally said. “I beg your indulgence. If you and Septio find some intelligence, do not hesitate to bring it straight to me. Ask here at the Textile Bourse. Nast and the privy clerks always know where I am to be found.”