Endurance

by Jay Lake

  As for those purposes, mine were not so clear to me at this moment. The Selistani embassy complicated things further. Especially since it had drawn the Dancing Mistress and her Revanchist associates down from the Blue Mountains in search of the Eyes of the Hills.

  I believed my old teacher’s claim that Matte had foreseen the gems returning to Copper Downs. The gems must have traveled here through the agency of Surali and the embassy. No other explanation made sense.

  But I could see no way to tie this problem to Blackblood’s moves against me.

  What did occur to me was that the Revanchists being in Copper Downs was a threat of another sort. As with the Prince of the City and his retinue, they were an embassy. An inimical power with designs that would undermine Copper Downs if carried forward. I could not imagine this Matte’s obsession with the Eyes of the Hills leading to a sudden outbreak of peace and quiet.

  As much as I hated to do so, I needed to carry this matter to the Interim Council. I’d been avoiding Loren Kohlmann since our ill-fated visit to the Selistani embassy, but that could not continue. Such as it was, their authority constituted my greatest protection here in Copper Downs. Besides which, I had to know what their response was to Mother Vajpai’s attack on me. I would lay the matter of the Dancing Mistress and the Revanchists before them—she used to sit on their council, they could hardly dismiss her significance. I might also discuss the matter of Blackblood’s attack on the Temple of Endurance.

  I did not particularly expect wise counsel, or even worthwhile solutions, but these were civic matters. Civic authority ought to solve them. The Interim Council had already tried to push the Prince of the City onto me once and failed.

  We needed a better plan.

  Scaling back down to the alley on the next block, I headed through the brewery district at a boy’s loping pace for Lyme Street and the Textile Bourse.

  * * *

  Today the Conciliar Guards were having none of me. As soon as they saw me heading for the steps and realized who I was, both of them stepped back, while one tugged the door open.

  I paused before I passed inside and looked more carefully at their uniforms. Though I could not recall perfectly, these certainly resembled the old Ducal Guard.

  Waste not, want not.

  Never above pricking a man with a weapon in his hand, I gave them my best feral smile. “You boys part of one of the militias?”

  A panicked glance passed between the two hulking brutes. The one holding the door said, “We be the Conciliar Guards.”

  “Lampet’s Lads,” the other guard added helpfully. He was slightly smaller than standard issue, merely overheight but not monstrous. I could not recall having seen him before.

  “Ah, yes. Councilor Lampet.” As Councilor Kohlmann had said. The thought of that horrid little man in command of a few dozen—or hundred—men under arms was appalling.

  The old days really were better, in this case. The tension between city guards, the dormant regiments, and private forces had functioned in a very loose balance. Which had distinct advantages for both the law-abiding as well as the more freelance-minded such as myself. The idea of an oiled weasel like Lampet controlling a meaningful portion of the swords in Copper Downs seemed a very poor way to keep the system in loose balance, even without worrying as to the councilor’s own personal priorities.

  Perhaps I should convince Chowdry to start a chapter of the Lily Blades under Endurance’s blessing. For protection.

  “I see,” I told the two guards. “Carry on.”

  One saluted, the other did not. I pushed within to the crowded foyer.

  * * *

  Mr. Nast was upstairs conversing with some of his senior clerks. I nodded at him and strode to the council’s meeting room. Their chairs empty, which disappointed me. Early afternoon on a Thursday, not a feast day or a temple day. It occurred to me that I had no idea what the Interim Council’s work schedule was. They all had other jobs, or least other responsibilities, to which they attended.

  On the other hand, I had plenty of ways of making people pay attention to me. I plopped down in Jeschonek’s seat and began tossing my short knife in the air. Practice with the weapon was never misplaced, and sooner or later someone would find the courage to try yelling me out of the chamber.

  Simple enough.

  The chief clerk did not disappoint. Within about ten minutes he peeked from behind the stained-glass door at me. “Shall I take it as given that we have argued about your occupation of this room, and good sense has not prevailed?”

  “It would save some trouble, yes,” I admitted. “Quite thoughtful of you.”

  “I’ll have a girl around with some water and fruit,” Nast replied. “And I’ve already sent for Councilor Jeschonek.”

  “A happy coincidence then that I’m in his seat.”

  His face assumed a pained expression—surely deliberate, if I knew this man. “You could make an appointment. As most people do. They generally have an agenda as well, and sometimes even keep to it.”

  “Mr. Nast, have you ever known me to do as most people do?”

  “I am sure that iconoclasm is one of your greatest charms, Miss Green.”

  With that, he withdrew. I impatiently awaited water and fruit, which arrived soon enough. A delicate Hanchu bowl, porcelain and painted with bamboo and plum blossoms, featuring three crisp apples and a soft peach, along with a tall carafe of water with chips straight from someone’s icehouse. My stomach seemed willing to tolerate these things.

  After I ate I commenced to carving my name in the mahogany tabletop with one of my short knives. It was a horrible abuse of such a decent weapon, but I wanted to motivate the council to respectful haste.

  If not this time I called, the next.

  * * *

  Councilor Roberti Jeschonek arrived before my boredom had become dangerously destructive. He was disheveled, and seemed to have run from the docks to the Textile Bourse. I said as much.

  “No, ’twas a horse, but the docks did not have an easy morning of it.” He sat down in Kohlmann’s chair and apparently couldn’t decide whether to glare or smile at me. “Two foreign crews mixed it up and we nearly had a riot.”

  Which was, of course, the Harbormaster’s problem. Except when it wasn’t. Rather like Kohlmann, and much unlike Lampet, I could readily imagine Jeschonek wading into a dockside brawl with both fists, risking himself to bring it to an end before serious blood was shed. “You did not take any hits, I trust.”

  “Oh, a man always takes hits. The secret is giving back more than you get.”

  I laughed. “A policy that has served me well thus far in life.”

  A moment later one of the junior clerks darted into the room with a mug of kava for Jeschonek. The young man shot me a cautious look that in turn disguised a wink, then slipped out again.

  The councilor took a long, careful sip before glancing down at where I’d been defacing his table. “That will not so easily be sanded out.”

  “Consider it a reminder.” I dropped the knife from a foot above. It landed point-first in the wood and stuck upward, vibrating.

  “No one is at your beck and call, Green. Especially not this Interim Council.”

  “Perhaps I could arrange the bad news to arrive at your convenience?”

  He leaned forward. “What bad news?”

  I tapped at the top of my knife’s narrow hilt as I listed off what was on my mind. “You already know of the Selistani embassy’s attempt to imprison me. They nearly fought with Councilor Kohlmann. There was another attempt upon my person yesterday, in which two innocents were killed.” At the surmise in his eyes, I added testily, “Not by me.

  “Today I find that zealots among the pardines are come to Copper Downs in search of an ancient treasure stolen from them by the late Duke. Those are an even more dangerous embassy than the Prince of the City and his little collection of fops and assassins.” A stronger tap made the knife quiver with a metallic noise. “All of which ties back to a warn
ing I received during my stay in the High Hills.”

  “From whom?” Jeschonek asked.

  I was interested to note that the issue of my source of information was his first question, rather than wondering of what I had been warned. “The graves up there talk, you know. Many of them babble, but some are very sensible indeed.”

  His lips curled in disgust. “Don’t tell me ghost stories.”

  “You are being an idiot,” I snapped. Pulling my knife free, I began slapping the palm of my left hand with the flat of the blade. “You lived through Federo’s ascendancy. And you did it standing as close to him as anyone did who survived. You were inside the biggest ghost story to be told here in generations. Of all the council, you and Kohlmann should require the least convincing on this matter.”

  “The world is filled with powers,” Jeschonek admitted. “As above, so below. But the ancient dead of another era, interred a long day’s ride from here, have no special insight into our affairs. I do not care so much for gods and ghosts in any event. Surely they are only a projection of our desires.”

  “As may be. But you have seen their effects upon this world. And Erio, a king of old who has been a student of this city a thousand years or more in his moldering grave, fears for us.” His warning of imbalances within the city, and plots against me, had been sincere, if sadly unspecific.

  “I fear for us!” The councilor slammed down his kava mug and drummed his fist against the table. “You do not have to be dead to realize what trouble may descend upon this city.”

  “There is no may to this trouble,” I told him. “It is here. Use Lampet’s Lads to force the Selistani back on to their ship. The embassy is of my people, but their interests are not mine and most certainly not this city’s. Then compose some suitable response to the pardines, for they will come to you eventually. Possibly with tooth and claw, possibly with petitions. Draw them away before their madness sinks in, for they have become infected with politics. Or perhaps religion.”

  “You are infected with politics,” he said. “As for religion, I’ve never seen or heard of someone so god-haunted as you, Green. If you were not in this city, none of these others would have troubled us.”

  He was right, so far as that went. The Selistani were here for me. The pardine Revanchists were here for the Selistani. Blackblood wanted to control his son. My daughter. Fires take that bastard god.

  “You were not so eager to have me gone before,” I told him in a hard, quiet voice. “Not when the city was at stake. You would never have brought down Federo and Choybalsan without me.”

  “No. And do not think us ungrateful.” He leaned over the table. “But we cannot govern a city according to the whims of your enemies and the violence of your acts, Green. Life is settling. The troubles that dog us now follow you, not Copper Downs.”

  “You had a goddess nearly slain in the Temple Quarter during the brass-ape races four summers past,” I told him. “Which was nothing to do with me. Despite the matter of Choybalsan, I do not set my targets so large, and would never care to meet the one who might try. Trade is unsettled, or you would not be seeing riots on the dock and yourself so busy and under duress. This city has not yet fully recovered from the death of the Duke. If it had, Councilor Johns would not have a place in this room.”

  “That fool of a Factor trained you too well.” His reluctant smile belied his words. “But those are matters we will resolve. It is you who has small armies of assassins following you around.”

  “Should I return to Kalimpura, then?”

  “The High Hills were far enough away for me, frankly. At least there we knew where you were.” After a moment, Jeschonek added with rueful honestly, “And could find you at need.” He drummed the table again. “But here is my problem with you now. We bring our own enemies into being. When the Duke held the throne and kept all our politics and religion quiet, trade came to the city and little disrupted us. There has been more riot and trouble in the past four years since his fall than in the previous four centuries combined.

  “You enter the city, and forces follow to oppose you. Green, I do not know what you are. Surely your tale is not yet fully told. God-touched, a storm of blades, or just a freakishly determined young woman, it does not matter. But your strength draws opposition. And that is what my city does not need.”

  It is my city, too, I wanted to say. This I had realized when speaking with the Dancing Mistress earlier. These people had bought me away from my father and my home, but they had also raised me to be one of them.

  Councilor Kohlmann stepped into the room as I was considering my next words. I was glad enough it was not Lampet, for whom I already lacked patience. “Have you told her?” he asked Jeschonek.

  We both spoke at once. “Told me what?” “I was doing so.”

  Kohlmann gave me a long look. “It is clear to me that the Selistani embassy is a sham. They are only here for you. We cannot order them to leave, for we would be embarrassed of resources to compel them to our will. The council has voted to withdraw the protection offered to you before. You are charged instead with disposing of your personal matters without further harm to the city of Copper Downs.”

  “These troubles belong to you, Green,” Jeschonek added. “You must take them away from our door.”

  “You bastards,” I shouted, leaping to my feet with my short knife in hand. To their credit, neither man flinched. My blood boiled, but to what end? I slipped the weapon away, glaring at both of them as if my eyes could slice their skin. “You disgust me. I never mistook the Interim Council to be friendly to me, but my faith in our common interests was clearly misplaced.”

  Kohlmann stepped back as I reached the door. He was afraid of me. Good. I gave him a flesh-rending smile. Even more hard words rolled in my head, but I kept them to myself and departed without further discussion. They did not trouble to call me back.

  In the upper hallway, the clerks cowered. I had not realized we were so loud. When they cowered downstairs as well, I understood it was me that frightened them, not the shouting. I stalked out into Lyme Street, holding back tears that shamed me horribly.

  Me.

  Crying!

  Not now, not for insults as foolish and petty as these.

  But they were still bastards.

  * * *

  All I could do was walk off the tension. I needed to drain my anger before I could sensibly take further action. There was risk to me, and the ghost Erio had believed there to be risk to the city. Too many players, too many plots. I had to deal with the Selistani embassy, with the pardines, and with Blackblood’s moves against me. The Interim Council would be no help. The next most obvious answer was to turn my enemies against one another.

  But in my current state of agitation, I could not manage to conceive of a decent plan, let alone hope to carry it out.

  I stomped toward the Dockmarket instead. Some piece of homely cheese might do me good. Likewise a crowd of indifferent people about their occasions, happy or sad as the mood took them, none bearing arms with my name written on the back of their hand. No one at the Dockmarket would care who or what I was. I could lose myself for an hour or two in their pressing mass, be distracted by chandlers or toymakers or weaponsmiths, then find myself sufficiently recovered to survey what must follow. At least the day was decent, a late gasp of autumn granting us all warm sun and clear skies without the knife-edged winter wind.

  The Dockmarket was busy as ever. Trade might be down, but there were few vacant stalls. Tired old women hawked handfuls of trinkets from the tops of bollards. A clown juggled pigeons, tossing the birds like stones until they fluttered back into his hands. Fruitiers and greengrocers occupied wide spreads of stalls, their produce ranked in colorful arrays like a nursery paint box. Laughing children ran through the market clutching brown-spotted summer apples and thin coins stolen from the careless. I smelled food frying, flowers rotting, machine oil, spices, the acrid scent of blades being sharpened on a grinding wheel, the dung of a dozen kinds of
animals. The sounds likewise made such a distraction. Blue-robed memory men squatting on the distorted faces of ancient, fallen idols chanted histories. Hogs bellowed their fear before the sledge took them in the skull. Chains jingled, babies shrieked, hammers fell.

  This place was as close to the comforting chaos of Kalimpura as I was likely to find in Copper Downs. I slipped into the rhythms of the eddying crowds, falling into the habits of a Blade on a run—my stance, the set of my shoulders, how close I kept my weapons. Realizing this, I forced myself to relax. This was not the place of my enemies. The city of Copper Downs did not oppose me. Only some people in it, most of them foreigners.

  I caught myself at that thought. Selistani. My own people were not foreigners.

  Or were they?

  A crowded space of split-log benches offered a chance for folk a-marketing to pause and consume the food they’d purchased, or rearrange the goods they’d bought. I slipped onto a sawn stump, glad for the respite. This was not the time for thinking, this was the time for clearing my head. But I needed a moment. At least the anger had subsided. Calm had not yet returned.

  Though people were packed in here, the rest did me good. I’d been raised in isolation behind the Factor’s bluestone walls. Even so, my years in Kalimpura had inured me to crowds. I looked up at the low, scattered clouds of the autumn sky and wondered how this market might appear to a bird overhead, or some weather god with a heaven’s-eye view of the world. We would be as termites in their mound, laboring for our colorful scraps of food and cloth.

  Something in that image comforted me. Kalimpuri were not so different from those of the Stone Coast, when viewed from far away.

  My reverie was interrupted by a cry in Hanchu. I looked up to see a small elderly man being backed against the slats of a melon stall by half a dozen youths. The Dockmarket was not so dangerous, except perhaps for pickpockets, but these things sometimes happened. People pushed by without looking or stopping to help. It was unlikely anyone in authority would even happen along, let alone intervene.