by Lynn Abbey
"Siggurn!" Cauvin shouted, standing on a scaffold high against the east wall. "Get that up right now!" The carter looked up from the barrel of mortar he was mixing to glare at Pel. The healer chuckled, but he lifted his hands to the shoulders, trying to school his face into innocent lines. Not his doing. Just a bad choice of words. Purely coincidence. But it was amusing to see the way the big man's face turned scarlet as if he feared his secret was out.
"Froggin' hell, hurry, pud! I'm bursting my froggin' back holding this block up until you get that froggin' mortar up here! Move it!"
Siggurn, now understanding the mistake, leaped to haul a bucket of cement up the ladder to the impatient stonemason. Pel couldn't stop laughing. Oh, if people knew what he knew! But he would never tell. He had too many secrets of his own to keep.
"Healer," a voice whispered to him. Pel glanced down at one of the blanket-wrapped heaps near the brazier.
"Yes?" he asked.
A gloved hand reached out of the mass of cloth to beckon to him. He could see nothing of the face. It was hooded by the heavy wool blanket. Good fabric, too, without a single patch or caught thread. Had a wealthy patron come here seeking his attention in the guise of a curious onlooker? Everyone knew the date of Pel's latest workday. Why, a handful of people who owed him had made a point of being out of the city today. Why shouldn't someone who wanted to see him come along?
wealthy patron come here seeking his attention in the guise of a curious onlooker? Everyone knew the date of Pel's latest workday. Why, a handful of people who owed him had made a point of being out of the city today. Why shouldn't someone who wanted to see him come along? . "I hear you make the jewelweed potion." "Yes, I do." "I need some." "For yourself?" "Yes…" the breath came out in a hiss. "There aren't enough children in Sanctuary. I am called to make
some. I cannot… try." Icy fingers crawled along Pel's back. The way the huddled figure phrased his words alarmed him. "What about… the mother?" he asked, very slowly. "Ahh… so it's true," the voice breathed. The hand curled until the forefinger was pointing at his temple. A
familiar gesture, one Pel hadn't seen in a decade. His heart contracted with fear. As surely as if he had torn it away to look, he knew the cloak concealed a body marked with red stain and tattoos. It came rushing back to him that he had told his former masters that he was going underground. He hadn't meant it then. He was even more determined now not to return.
"No!" Pel almost shouted. "I mean, you are sure the mother can have children? Is she old enough?"
"They are all old enough. My body will not obey the Mother's command." Now Pel could distinctly hear the capital letter. "Ah, you must be an Irrune, sir," Pel said, carefully, still with his voice low enough so only the gloved
visitor could hear, though he was tempted to shout out to the nearby crowd of big burly men with hammers and chisels, There's a Dyareelan here! Kill him! "We poor Ilsig only take one wife. So… you cannot raise your sword? Is that the help you wish from me?"
"Yes. As soon as possible."
"The potion takes but a short time to prepare, but I cannot do my work with so much dust in the air. Would you return tomorrow?" "That will do," the blanket inclined its head. "After dark. I do not wish to advertise my… problem. Or my presence."
"As you wish," Pel said. "Many of my patients prefer to be discreet about seeing me. That means you'll be paying in cash, then? Otherwise, you'll be joining these," he gestured at the workers, "next workday." "Cash." "Healer!" Cauvin shouted at that moment. "Do you want this froggin' pillar replaced with wood or stone?" Pel started toward him automatically, then turned to look back toward the heap of blankets. It was not
there. A shadowed shape was slipping out of the door. He'd been too surprised to take action; now it was too late. With an act of will he went to listen to an argument between Cauvin and Carzen.
The ringing of hammers and voices had long since died away. Pel huddled near the last orange embers of his brazier, alone in the echoing temple ruin. Night had fallen, and with it came a miserable, frosty drizzle. Sanctuary had always had terrible weather, Pel reflected. It had gotten worse since he had returned. The night was bitterly cold, but at least now the rain didn't come through the roof. The cloth could hold for a good long time, perhaps until another owner came to claim Meshpri's temple. The building would not fall down, thanks to Cauvin and Pel's other patients. It could house another servant of the healing god, one who would carry on the task of helping to heal Sanctuary…
But the important thing was that he knew the hooded visitor as a priest of the Bleeding Hand. Arizak had not, then, wiped out the entire warren. Like a cancer, the cult was growing back again somewhere in Sanctuary, and Pel might be the only one who knew it.
His visitor must be gathering new devotees, probably street children. By what he'd told Pel there were certainly a few girls old enough to bear, but no boys old enough to impregnate them, leaving him as the only one who could do the deed. That meant the cell was small as of yet. Thank all chance for that. But the priest was impotent. And so he had come to Pel.
What a dilemma he was in! His conscience wouldn't let the priest beget more babies to become assassins or die as sacrifices, yet he must give the man what he asked for. What could he do? Less than a full day from that moment, just after nightfall, the priest would return for his jewelweed potion. Pel could go to the palace and bring guards to wait here with him, to capture the man. But if he did, the man would denounce him as a former Servant. Pel could not hide the truth from his questioners. He and the other would both die, trampled by a herd of horses. He could—he had to steel himself just to think the thought—he could kill the priest. He'd kept his skills honed sharp all these years. But the man might not arrive alone. There was a chance he'd miss at least one defender, and his life here would be over, one way or another. And if he succeeded, there'd be the question of what to do with the body.
What was he thinking? Pel paced around and around the brazier, now filled with cold ashes. He was a healer now, a servant of Mesh-pri! He couldn't spill unjust blood. He'd have to answer to his goddess one day. Poison… no! Absolutely not. Never.
Pel thought hard. There must be a solution that would serve both his oath and his patient. He had no good reason to refuse to make the potion. He'd promised. But the Hand couldn't be permitted to sire more innocent children. No more babies must be born into the hell he'd survived. He just couldn't bring himself to kill in cold blood, even for them.
A thought struck him, so hard he stopped dead in the dark. What had he promised? He felt the slow smile spread over his face. Yes, that was the solution! He could keep his word. Hastily he felt his way back to the altar, and scrabbled with sensitive fingertips until he found his tinder and flint. Striking a hasty light, he began to gather up bundles of herbs, piling them on Meshpri's altar.
The buildings on the Avenue of Temples were reputed to be haunted. Anyone passing by the ancient shrine to Meshpri late that night would have heard the banshee cackling of restless spirits and hurried home to lock their doors. Night had just drawn its cloak over Sanctuary when the hooded visitor returned to the apothecary shop. Pel had been waiting impatiently all day. Unable to think about anything but the impending meeting, he couldn't trust himself to mix medicines, lest he make an error that might prove fatal. Instead, he set himself the backbreaking task of cleaning up after his conscripted workforce. The bristles of his broom were at least a handspan shorter than they'd started out that morning, so vigorous was he in sweeping. He had just bent to brush up a panful of stone dust, when the low voice came almost at his elbow.
Pel jerked bolt upright. The pan flew out of his hands, scattering the dust all over. "You're here!" he exclaimed.
"I am. Is it ready?"
"Yes, it is," Pel said, knowing he was babbling. "This way. It's ready. Seven uses' worth for one soldat. If you need more, I can make it. Any time."
Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he took the small bottle out from under th
e altar and placed it before the visitor. No gloved hand reached out to take it.
"Taste it," the visitor commanded.
"What?" Pel asked. He tried to peer under the hood to see his visitor's eyes, but it was too deep.
"I do not know you. There are poisoners in this city. Taste it."
"But I'll…" Pel began. Never mind. He picked up the bottle and uncorked it. With a glance at the door, Pel took a mouthful of the potion. He swallowed.
There was no way to disguise the effects of the jewelweed potion. They were immediate and long lasting. His member sprang against the inside of his trousers. Pel felt his cheeks burn. He hadn't had this sudden an erection since he'd been a boy just reaching puberty. It almost hurt. The hood appeared to study the reaction with intellectual interest. Pel thought he would die of shame.
"Satisfactory," the visitor said. He flicked his hand, and a soldat bounced on the stone table. With a sweep of the enveloping black sleeve, the small bottle disappeared. "I will be back for more when I require it."
"Welcome, I'm sure," Pel gritted, wishing he'd go.
The visitor laid a gloved hand on his arm for thanks. "You serve one greater than yourself." The cloak swirled out of the door, and Pel relaxed. Or tried to. It was going to be a couple of hours until things… calmed down.
He hadn't foreseen having to test the potion for the visitor, but it was unimportant. Pel never intended to sire a child again. The potion would do exactly what he had promised the visitor it would: allow him to mate with his new priestesses. Pel had not promised that it would allow him to sire children on them. He'd made the potion exactly as he always did, but added a special ingredient, a rare herb only found near graves and barrows. The priest might be full of new vigor and potency, but empty of seed. If he finished the entire vial, which Pel had no doubt whatever he would, he'd never be able to sire another as long as he lived.
The visitor was right: Pel did serve one greater than himself. Meshpri, and her son, would surely forgive the liberty, but it was all in the cause of saving lives. Babies who were never conceived would never die.
LYNN ABBEY:The Red Lucky
Bezulshash, better known as Bezul the changer, awoke to the honking of twenty outraged geese and a dream that something had struck the front door of his family's establishment at the nether end of Wriggle Way, deep in the Shambles quarter of Sanctuary.
"Bez?" his wife, Chersey, whispered. "Bez, are you awake?"
"I am," he assured her, despite the absurdity of the question: Nothing on Wriggle Way could sleep once the geese got going.
They both shucked their blankets. Barefoot, Chersey hurried to their children, four-year-old Ayse, and her little brother, Lesimar, both beginning to howl from the cradle they shared. Bezul spared the extra moment to find his boots and the antique, iron-headed mace he kept handy beside the master bed.
He was tiptoeing down the pitch-dark stairway when a patch of light appeared on the landing behind him.
"Bezul?" a woman asked, her voice gone deep with age. "Is that you?"
"It is, Mother." Bezul spoke loudly; the geese were still in high dudgeon. "I heard a strike against the door. I'm sure it's nothing, but I've got the club. Shut the door and go back to bed where it's warm."
By the lingering light, Gedozia did neither. The stairway shuddered beneath her unsteady footfalls.
"Mother—"
"It's them," she declared. "It's them come to steal what's left. Mind the shadows, your father says. They're waiting in the shadows. They came back. Came back with the bloody moon!"
Gedozia's body frequently awoke long before her mind. Her husband, for whom Bezul had been named, had been dead these last eighteen years, a victim of apoplexy, directly, and the Bloody Hand, indirectly. Gedozia had never recovered from his death. She was easier to deal with, though, when she was dream-addled. By the light of day, she lived on bitter tea and nostalgia.
"I'll mind," Bezul said. "You get back to bed, Mother."
She didn't, but the light from her lamp made it easier to shove through the geese milling at the foot of the stairs and find the door latch. Bezul trod precisely on a floorboard, engaging a well-oiled mechanism. A wooden post, barely ankle-high but stout and kiln-hardened, rose silently out of the floor a handspan away from the jamb. The post would halt the door's opening—for a heartbeat or two—in the event thieves were waiting on the other side. Bezul lifted the latch; the heavy door swung on its hinges and thumped against the post.
The slice of Wriggle Way visible through the partially opened door was empty save for the graying shadows of early dawn.
"Who's there?" Bezul called, his voice a trifle quavery.
Silence. Bezul noticed a pale lump near the threshold. He thought of the noise he'd remembered and bent to retrieve the object. The geese attacked his legs as he did. The birds were better than any dog when it came to watching a place, but they were completely untrain-able and never did learn the difference between owners and invaders. Bezul swatted the nearest beak and, with his arms flapping wider than their wings, shooed them from the doorway. The birds retreated, noisier than ever. They'd be lucky if silence returned before sun-up.
"A piece of cloth knotted around a stone. Someone's sent us a message."
Bezul picked casually at the knots. They were well-tied with oiled cord and held tight against his curiosity. He waded through the geese to the counter at the heart of the changing house. Chersey was beside him, lamp and children in hand, when he laid the wrapped fist-sized stone down for closer examination.
"So, what's the message?" Gedozia asked from halfway down the stairs.
The geese nipped at Ayse who shrieked louder than all the birds together. Flapping and honking and shedding shite, the birds waddled into the maze of shelves and niches where the more valuable and vulnerable portion of the changing house's stock was stored. It would take the luck of Shalpa, god of thieves, to get the flock penned up before they opened for business, but Bezul couldn't worry about that yet. He couldn't get the knots loose, either.
Chersey deposited Lesimar on the counter and put his still-shrieking sister beside him. When a quick pass with the lamp failed to show any bloody nips on the little girl's flesh, Chersey took the stone from her husband's hands.
"What's the message?" Gedozia repeated from the other side of the counter. She slid her lamp beside Chersey's.
Chersey's slender, agile fingers traced a loosening path along the cord and the length of it fell to the counter.
"It's just cloth," Bezul observed, more than a little puzzled.
"Sewn cloth," Gedozia corrected. "Give it here," she demanded and snatched it before her daughter-in-law could obey. "The hem torn off a shirt," she concluded.
"Maybe there's writing on it?" Bezul reached for the cloth.
Gedozia wouldn't relinquish her treasure. She rubbed the seam between her fingers and held it close to her eyes. Bezul could see enough of the fabric to know there were no marks upon it.
"What manner of mess—?" he'd begun when Gedozia yelped and the cloth fell from her fingers. "Mother?"
"Perrez," she croaked, a look of sheer panic forming on her face. "Perrez! O, my husband, they've taken our son! They've taken Perrez at last! It was all for nothing! All for nothing!"
Perrez, the last member of the household, was Bezul's much younger brother, his mother's favorite son, and a man who put more effort into avoiding work than into finishing it. He called himself a scholar, which wasn't an utter lie. There wasn't a musty manuscript in the changing house—in all of Sanctuary—that Perrez hadn't memorized in his relentless quest for treasure maps and clues. Perrez hadn't been around when Bezul closed up for the night, but scholars didn't keep workingmen's hours; scholars needed the excitement only a tavern could provide. Chersey fetched up the cloth and met Bezul's eyes with a worried frown.
"How can you be sure?"
"Marking stitches—"
"My stitches! My son!" Gedozia wailed, setting off the children and the geese.
Chersey squared her fingers over a pattern of dark-thread crosses embroidered into the cloth. "The laundresses use these to sort their work. Most of them can't read, you know, and one white shirt looks like another."
Home-brewed soap and a wooden tub set up behind the changing house weren't good enough for Perrez's shirts. Oh no—his shirts went clear across the city to a woman in the 'Tween who dosed them with bleach and blueing for two padpols apiece. It wasn't that Bezul begrudged the padpols. Appearances were important in a changing house. Though the bulk of their business came from ordinary folk, the bulk of their profit came from the aristocrat trades that Perrez brokered. High-colored, handsome Perrez showed off a bleached, blued shirt far better than Bezul, who took after his father's side of the family, ever could. But Perrez would swear and swear again that the laundress was a beldam liar when she came to collect her fee, when it was Perrez who lied as easily as the sun sparkled on the sea.
And now, a bit of Perrez's shirt had been thrown against the changing-house door.
What to make of it? Bezul wondered amid the cacophony. He lined up the cloth, cord, and stone on the counter. "They've taken him!" Gedozia keened. "They took him while you were sleeping!"
