Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “Very,” said Istvhan. “Not quite as large as Anuket City, but that’s the only one I know that’s any larger. And it’s much more…” He fumbled for a word, and finally settled on “Organized.”

  Clara nodded. And now we have retreated to completely safe topics, like street layouts, because otherwise we will have to talk about that kiss and if it meant anything and if I will send you away.

  She swallowed. The hard place in her chest still ached, but there had been a moment, as his palm lay across it, when it had loosened. It had hurt, like a muscle drawn so tight that any lessening was agony, and yet her whole body cried out for more. Cried out so strongly, in fact, that the beast heard it and rumbled under her conscious mind. Now? Now?

  No. Hush. We’re safe.

  She followed Istvhan through another winding alley. The thought of leaving him behind was crushing. You’ve left it too long, she thought bleakly. You left it too long and dammit, you’re in love, aren’t you? Now what’s worse—loving him or losing him? Which one lets you function for the next few days, until you get your sisters back?

  You don’t have to decide right now, she told herself. Not until after you’ve visited the Temple and sorted all this out. You don’t have to choose yet. You won’t lose him today.

  The intense relief that followed that thought told Clara that, rightly or wrongly, she’d already made her choice.

  Twenty-Eight

  Istvhan had visited several temples of the Rat in his day. They all tended to be rather similar, though adapted to the architectural style of the area. You had the sprawling compound, the buzzing hive of activity, the line of people seeking food, the healer’s quarters and then the quiet, somewhat austere buildings that housed the organizers and the problem solvers and the lawyers. In Anuket City, there were mechanical devices to streamline the system. In Charlock, the central hub of buildings was surrounded by a maze of colorful tents that were moved in various positions depending on the weather and favorable astrology.

  In Morstone, however, for the first time, Istvhan saw a temple that was overwhelmed.

  Space was at a premium because of the docks, so the Morstone Temple was less sprawling and more warren-like. It folded around the dock it was on, spiraling upward, and underneath were slung dozens of the large hammocks they favored here, the enclosed kind that resembled a pupating caterpillar.

  It was jammed to capacity. People lined up to wait for the healer, some of them holding obviously broken limbs or coughing miserably. Children much too young to be here were waiting in line too, with the too-adult expression of children who were running errands for adults too ill or too busy to go themselves. The legal offices—or at least, what Istvhan assumed were the legal offices—were also overwhelmed. A woman leaned against the wall, waiting her turn, while tears slid down her face. An older woman beside her was trying to coax her into drinking a sip of water and saying the meaningless things you say to strangers in distress: “Honey, I don’t know what’s wrong, but I promise, you’ll get over this, it will be all right, I promise…” Acolytes wearing the Rat’s sigil darted through the crowd with expressions ranging from enthusiasm to panic.

  “Saint’s teeth,” muttered Istvhan. “We need to talk to someone in authority, but I hate to pile even more work onto these people.”

  Clara looked around, shaking her head. “Do you want me to be a nun for a bit?”

  “Will it help?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her smile had a faintly malicious edge to it. She took a deep breath, put her shoulders back, folded her hands into her sleeves, and suddenly she was every inch the woman who had come into a stranger’s tent and informed him that he would be escorting her across the mountains. Istvhan took a step back involuntarily and wondered how he’d ever had the balls to kiss her.

  She planted herself in the path of an acolyte, and said, “Bless you, child, I have need of your assistance.”

  The acolyte stopped as if he had run into a brick wall. “Muh…I…ah….ma’am?”

  “Sister Clara.” Her lips curved just slightly and she inclined her head. Terror spread across his face.

  “I’m sorry, sister, I didn’t mean—I—disrespect—”

  “You are forgiven,” said Clara kindly. “You have not sinned against me. I am here with important news that must be delivered to someone well-placed within the hierarchy. Who is it convenient for me to speak with?”

  The acolyte’s eyes darted back and forth, indicating to Istvhan that it was not convenient to speak to anyone at the moment and also that the young man felt it was probably not worth his soul to say this out loud. “If you’ll follow me, sister?”

  “How the hell did you do that?” Istvhan murmured in her ear as they were led out of the main compound and through a door by the legal offices.

  “When bears are threatened, they stand up on their hind legs and fluff their fur to look big,” she replied, just as softly. “This is just the ecclesiastical equivalent.”

  They were eventually handed off to Faizen, a lean black man with closely cropped hair. His upper lip had clearly been cleft and sewn together, either as an infant or later as a result of some injury, and had left him with a permanent sardonic expression, but his voice held nothing but genuine concern.

  “From Archenhold?” he said, after Istvhan had introduced both himself and Clara. “Welcome to the madhouse. I wish I could say that we can help you, but…” He spread his hands.

  “Did something happen here?” asked Istvhan. “Some recent catastrophe?”

  Faizen gave a brief choking laugh. “No, paladin. This is actually quite a good day, by our standards. No one is giving birth on the floor and hardly anyone is screaming.”

  Istvhan stared at him in frank disbelief.

  “I know, I know.” The Rat-priest raised both hands as if to ward off Istvhan’s gaze. “I know. This is shocking if you come in from somewhere else. I trained in the temple in Anuket City and…I know.”

  “Do you need more money? More people?” Istvhan honestly could not imagine the Temple of the White Rat leaving the Morstone arm of the faith to struggle like this. Bishop Beartongue would be up in arms.

  “No, we need a different city,” said Faizen. “This place has failed on every possible level a state can fail, except that it’s got an army under control of the Sealords. There’s no government, no courts, no services. If your neighborhood’s dock supports fall down, tough shit. You move or you get a bunch of people together and figure out how to jam enough trash into place to hold the neighborhood together. We’ve got the Rat’s support, which is why we can do this much, but not even the Rat’s coffers can fund running the entire city, and even if they could, the Sealords would see that as a direct threat and we’d be out. And then who would take care of these people?” He spread his arms wide.

  “You’re stuck,” said Clara sympathetically. “Trying to do the greatest good for the greatest number without getting shut down.”

  “You have plucked the pearl from the meat, yes. The first thing the temple does when we expand to a new area is bring in healers and set up a soup kitchen,” said Faizen. “Once we’re getting people fed, we worry about housing. At that point, it seems like you always need lawyers to represent people. Then we start worrying about general problem solving, and we keep adding the ranks of solicitors sacrosanct.” He passed a hand over his tightly cropped hair. “We’ve been stuck at the housing stage for about a hundred years now. Short of raising an army and overthrowing the Sealords, I don’t see us getting past that any time soon.”

  “And the Rat doesn’t do that sort of thing,” said Clara.

  Istvhan grunted. The White Rat did not overthrow governments, although Istvhan was fairly certain that Bishop Beartongue had more knowledge of the occasional targeted assassination than was entirely ethical. Not that she’d ever do it herself, of course. But it was something of an open secret among the upper ranks of the solicitors sacrosanct that people who called themselves Sin Eaters came and went from the temp
le sometimes and you didn’t ask where they were going or what they were going to do when they got there.

  Still, it was entirely possible that whatever was going on here, simply offing a couple of these Sealords would only make it worse for a great many people. Or they’re busy elsewhere, or they don’t operate in this area. You can fit what I know about those people into a thimble, really.

  “I feel guilty for adding to your burdens,” said Istvhan.

  “Of course you do. You’re a paladin.” Faizen shook his head while Clara muffled a snort. “The Rat provides as best He can. He provided us a god-touched builder the other day, if you can believe it. This poor kid shows up fresh from the Forge God’s temple, where his god actually handed him off to the Rat somehow, and then it turns out he can do things with cantilevers and…I don’t know, I don’t understand how any of this works. I didn’t know gods could actually trade staff.” He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, I’m babbling. I’m very tired. You’re here, Paladin Istvhan, and I must believe that you will be the solution to a problem, or we will be the solution to yours. Tell me what I can do for you.”

  Istvhan outlined his trip’s mission quickly, and waited as Faizen digested it. “Huh,” the man said finally. “I don’t know of any headless corpses about, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m an organizer, not an intelligence gatherer, and half the things people tell me, I forget. But we have people who can look into it.”

  “Rather more pressingly,” said Istvhan, “there is Domina Clara’s problem.” He gestured to her and she recited her story. She seemed more absent than usual as she did it, or perhaps saying the same words, over and over, had worn the edges off them and made them an emotionless repetition of facts.

  Or perhaps, as always, she is too calm. Though she had not seemed so calm when he kissed her, and whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he did not know.

  “That seems a long way to go,” said Faizen. “A very long way. Is there some reason, do you know, why someone would wish to kidnap your sisters…?”

  Not a stupid man, thought Istvhan. Not that he’d expect someone highly ranked in the Rat priest hierarchy to be anything less.

  Clara glanced at Istvhan. She had been fairly quiet since their kiss, and he did not know if it was because of that, or the city, or…well, take your pick, really, it’s not like we don’t have enough things going for a dozen people to brood over.

  “You had best tell him the truth,” said Istvhan. “All of it.” He held her eyes. “Better yet, show him. The Rat works best if their hands are not tied.”

  “Are you sure?” said Clara.

  I am sure that he’ll think we’re completely mad if you don’t transform and prove it, but I don’t think that’s what you’re really asking. “Your secret will be safe with him, or I will stand the reckoning.”

  Faizen put up an eyebrow at the threat. Clara nodded and rose, unfastening her robes. Istvhan rose as well and put his back to the door. This was not the time when you wanted someone to come barging in.

  She dropped her robes to the floor in a puddle of fabric. “Uh,” said Faizen.

  “You get used to it,” said Istvhan. Saint’s teeth, but the woman’s ass was as majestic as her breasts. He wanted to grab her rounded hips in his hands and…

  Her skin rippled and he stopped thinking about that, and started worrying about whether or not the cramped office was big enough for the transformation.

  It was, but only just. Two chairs were knocked over and the desk groaned under the sudden weight of paws.

  “Hrrrwwwff,” said the bear in Faizen’s face.

  The rather nice Rat-priest looked like he was about to scream, so Clara told the bear to go back down inside her skull. The bear did not much like the dark, enclosed room and the smell of tallow candles, so it obeyed.

  Faizen said “Aiiihh…hhhhhh…hh…h…huh?” or words to that effect.

  “You get used to it,” said Istvhan, who was guarding the door.

  Faizen’s mouth worked and he blinked a few times. “Was that real?” he said finally. “Not an illusion?”

  Clara picked up her robes and began shrugging into them. “Quite real,” she said. Her heart was thumping, partly from the physical strain of transformation, partly because you never knew when someone was going to react extremely badly.

  Fortunately, the Rat chose his priests of sterner stuff. Faizen sat back in his chair and began to laugh. “Incredible,” he said. “I’ve heard stories of werewolves, but never…I didn’t actually believe them.”

  “In fairness, I’ve never met a werewolf,” said Clara. “They might just be stories. But the nuns of my order are werebears.” She wiped her nose. The scent of tallow and human and wood was still ringing in her head like a sound, mixed with the background cacophony of dead fish and salt water that characterized Morstone. “We think they may have been kidnapped for a menagerie, or perhaps use in gladiatorial pits.”

  Faizen groaned. “The games. Yes, of course. Sealord Antony has been touting his drowgos legion for months. It would be quite a coup if one of the other Sealords could find something to match them.”

  Clara felt his words like knives, the way the word amphitheater had felt weeks ago.

  “Right,” said Faizen. “Right. Okay. Above my paygrade. Way above. Let’s take you to the Bishop.”

  Bishop Raulann was a tall, leggy woman, as dark as Faizen, but with pale hair pulled back in many narrow locks and secured with a metal comb. She looked up inquisitively at Faizen as he entered.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” said Faizen.

  “I’m not?”

  “Not in a million years.” He sounded rather pleased about it.

  At least this office was a bit bigger, Clara thought. She waited while Istvhan and Faizen explained things between them, and then called the bear up again.

  Raulann was much calmer than Faizen. She didn’t scream or yelp or even stammer. Her brown eyes went very wide, and then she, too, began to laugh. “Oh my. Rat have mercy. How are you doing that?”

  It took Clara a moment to put the bear down again. It was displeased with all this coming and going. She got a mental image of a bird popping in and out of a hole in a tree, the closest the bear could manage to a dramatic monologue.

  She staggered a bit as she came out of the transformation. Istvhan grabbed her arm to steady her. “Sorry,” she said. “Too many changes close together. Give me a moment.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Bishop Raulann, as Istvhan guided her to the chair. “Yes. My goodness. That was real, then?”

  Clara nodded.

  “It’s not an illusion,” said Istvhan. “Or if it is, it covers all the senses and also she gets about eight feet tall.”

  “That is one hell of a thing.” She paused. “Ah…are you under a curse? Do you need it broken? Because I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen anything like it, but we could send you to our healers…”

  “No, no.” Clara managed a chuckle. “No, I was born like this. That’s not the problem.” She laid out her story yet again. Raulann listened intently. Her questions were few and mostly to clarify timelines and the extent of the transformation. When Clara had finished, she leaned back in her chair again, balancing on the back two legs, and rocked back and forth for a moment, thinking.

  “All right,” said the Bishop. “I can’t keep you here. It’s nothing personal, we just don’t have space. And…well…if people are going to come hunting for a nun matching your description, I’d rather they didn’t go through a bunch of sick and hungry people to get to them.”

  “Completely fair,” said Clara. “More than fair. I’d be devastated if I brought trouble to your temple.”

  “We don’t actually have the ability to protect you anyway,” said Bishop Raulann. “The Rat doesn’t call warriors, and it’s hard to hire anybody when the army pays so much better. We’ve got a few retired fighters and bouncers in case of emergencies, but I doubt they can do half so much as you can on your own.”


  “She’s not alone,” said Istvhan.

  “Yes, of course.”

  So much for your offer to leave me with the Rat, Captain. Though if Clara was being fair, she couldn’t fault him. She had only encountered smaller outposts of the White Rat’s faith in her travels, but they had not been anything like this. It was clear that they were barely keeping their heads above water. It would have been cruel to simply dump her problem in their laps and expect protection as well as aid.

  “I’m sorry we can do so little. I know if you came from the south, you had reason to expect that the Rat had a great many more resources to put at your disposal. As you’ve seen, though, Morstone is…different.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Istvhan. “I had no idea. I don’t know if our bishop in Archenhold has any idea.”

  Raulann shook her head. “Oh, they all know. That’s not a complaint, incidentally. They’ve got their own flocks to maintain, and the Rat sends a great deal of material support and manpower. We can only operate at such a level that will not get us shut us down, and you’re looking at it.” She smiled faintly. “And more lawyers won’t help anyway. You need actual laws for that to work, beyond, ‘Whatever the Sealords say.’ So we get by. And while we cannot defend you, we do have a spy network, albeit a somewhat specialized one. We can put that at your disposal.”

  Clara inclined her head. “I’d be very grateful for anything they can turn up.”

  “In addition,” said the Bishop, “we maintain a number of safe houses. And one of our priests is…ah…well…eccentric but trustworthy. Of necessity, I fear, you will have to tell him the truth, but he will find it all fascinating and will not be in the least alarmed.” Her lips quirked. “I apologize for that. I imagine it is probably very tiresome to be fascinating.”

  “It’s better than being stoned in the streets,” said Clara.

  “Yes, but one prefers to have more options available.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Our information network, as I mentioned, is extensive but erratic. However, I can definitely put word out looking for any nuns arriving in barred wagons, or unusual prisoners slated for the gladiatorial pits. The Sealords introduce new challengers on the first new moon every month, so it will be at least a week. We have a little time.” She paused, then leaned forward and touched Clara’s hand without any apparent hesitation. “And I can promise you that the word would be everywhere about a group of nuns turning into bears in the pit, so we can be certain they have not yet been presented.”