by Jay Lake
That was met with another of those steam-kettle sighs. The pond bubbled a bit more.
The idea that had been glimmering in my head burst into light. Before I could think too hard on my own words, I blurted, “If I could find a way to free your mind from Mafic’s chains, would you aid me?” Could it be so much harder than calming a storm at sea?
“I will help you in any case,” he replied. “All my own purposes are spent. I might as well pursue yours.” He smiled without humor. It was like watching a forge grin. “You propose to stand against Mafic. That cannot be so wrong.”
Though it burned my hand, I touched his cheek. “Your purposes are not so dead as you think, Red Man.” I would have pitied him then, but he was beyond pity and into another place where I could not follow.
* * *
We sat in silence awhile until the steam had cooled again. The sun climbed past its zenith and began the long, slow slide toward the western horizon. I might have taken his hand, but it seemed disrespectful to Fantail and besides, not likely what the Red Man needed in that moment.
Eventually we spoke further, talking for quite a while. I fenced with exquisite care around the borders of the spell that lay across his mind. In return, I learned more of the Saffron Tower and its methods. The men—and it was exclusively men who made decisions and took actions there, Fantail notwithstanding—who sat in their high platforms staring out across the Riven Strait and thinking on the state of the world were more scholars than monks. The Saffron Tower celebrated a number of rites that coexisted more or less in harmony, as they all served the larger end.
Firesetter could not tell me if it was divine energy or a more human sort of magic that drove their miraculous powers. At that time in my life, I had yet to meet a wizard, and indeed barely knew rumors of their existence, and so was far more inclined to ascribe miracles and wonders to the touch of a god. Such had been my experience, after all. To a carpenter with a hammer, everything is a nail and the world is made of wood.
What troubled me was that the Saffron Tower seemed to have no god as such. At most, what Firesetter described was a species of dedication to the masculine principle. They tore down the Daughters of Desire not to replace those goddesses with anything else, but to reduce the power and protection of women until the only shelter left to the wives and daughters of this world was the strong arms of their husbands and fathers.
That wasn’t a theology; that was just simple control.
We talked about the hunters they sent out. We discussed how the art of god-killing was honed and pursued. We went over in great detail the training they had received in everything from roundhouse punches to rhetoric, so those warrior-monks and their agents could persuade as well as pursue.
When I finally went back into the kitchen to seek some clean water and to feed my children at my breast once more, I was left with the impression that Mafic would be dangerous, possibly extremely dangerous, but that he would be just one man. A nearly fatal mistake that proved to be, but not due to any faithlessness on Firesetter’s part.
My dear Chowdry;
I have found that I miss your company. Neither of us is perhaps blessed with wisdom, but you are not afraid of me, nor do you see a child when you look into my face. No one else treats me as I am, not quite the way you do.
This city stands on the brink of ruin. I am quite tired of politics. Though, in truth, I suppose the struggle here can be seen as the same struggle back there in Copper Downs. Why anyone longs for such power is past my understanding. It comes only with the need to defend ever more.
This I know from my own experience, and my power does not even exist.
I have learned more of the man Mafic, of whom you warned me. There is one here he once trained, who was turned down another path. I know that I would not fight Mafic if I had the choice. There are further methods of opposition, but they are being closed off one by one through circumstance or the plotting of others.
All I want now is for the affairs of Kalimpura to settle sufficiently for my children to be safe here. I may have to settle these affairs myself.
Be well, build your temple, and pray this trouble does not come back to you.
Though Mother Argai returned at dusk, Mother Vajpai did not. The Red Man continued to rest in stony silence by the pond, now that our earlier interview had ended. He showed no signs of stirring. The rest of us sat vigil in the kitchen. I sewed that day’s bell onto my silk and Marya’s both, and inspected the knots on my older work.
“The fire at the Hawk Court is still being at smolder,” Mother Argai said in her slightly odd Petraean. She seemed tired, and occasionally glanced toward the door leading to the back garden and Firesetter.
I continued to wonder about that fascination, but the news of the moment was far more important. “Nothing else caught in the blaze, I trust?”
“Not from that fire, no.” She rubbed at her eyes. “There are being least six other burnings about the city.”
“Is that normal?” asked Ilona. Ponce stirred, Federo sleeping in his arms, but said nothing.
What a strange question, I thought. “Are building fires ever normal?”
“No, that is not what I meant. Does this city burn much on its own, or are these fires entirely part of the street fighting?”
I glanced at Mother Argai. She’d lived here all her adult life, unlike me. “It rains enough here,” she said, “that we are not for the most part fearing a great burning.”
“More attacks from the Street Guild and the Bittern Court, then,” I said.
“Perhaps. Many old grudges were being contested this day.”
She had the right of that. The Saffron Tower’s grudge was the oldest of all, if their stories were to be believed. And that certainly was being contested to this day.
“What else?” I asked her.
She slipped into Seliu, a more comfortable tongue for her. “Rumors and more rumors. No one has seen the Prince of the City. His guards are gone from their posts. Most foreign captains have fled the port. Cargo sits idled on the docks. The fishing fleet is thinning as those boats head up the coast to hide in smaller, quieter places.” She gave me a long, hard glare. “The recent rising of the waters is as big a factor there as any violence in the streets.”
I ignored the implied reprimand and answered in Petraean so Ilona and Ponce could follow better. “With the burning of the Hawk Court and the thinning of the fishing fleet, people will soon start to be hungry here in the city. It will not take too long for that to become a wider issue than Surali can manage.”
“Or anyone else,” said Ponce finally. “I know little of this city, but in Copper Downs my father is the master of the Green Market. I do know something of how many cartloads of food it takes to keep a city eating for a day. Everyone from the wealthiest to the beggars depends on what comes through the gates and off the docks. If you do not fix that problem quickly, it may become unfixable.”
“I am not in a position to raise the Hawk Court from its ashes,” I said, stung. “I did not do this to Kalimpura.”
“Be telling that to the captains of the fishing fleet,” snapped Mother Argai.
Opening my mouth for further hot words, I closed it instead of replying in kind. She certainly had the right of this situation.
I did not know how I had raised the sea. How could I possibly not-raise the sea well enough to assure everyone on the waterfront of their safety? As soon prove it would never rain again. Or always.
“In a word,” Ilona said, her own voice leaden, “despair. Your city despairs.”
“Not yet,” answered Mother Argai, “but that is coming.”
Closing the circle of the argument, I added, “And Mother Vajpai is not.”
Everyone fell into thoughtful silence for a few moments. I settled Marya against my shoulder and let her sleep. Soon I would trade off with Ponce and have Federo at my breast awhile.
The quiet was finally interrupted by the hitch of a sob from Ilona. “We are no closer to my daugh
ter.” Her voice trembled.
“I will go and fetch both her and Samma from the Bittern Court,” I promised, striving for loyalty to our other lost hostage. “Before dawn, if Mother Vajpai does not come back with some other, better news in the meantime.”
“No,” said Mother Argai as Ilona began to say something in response.
Ilona’s face darkened. “No?”
“We need to do this properly. Or it will not be done at all. I think one of us should seek after Mother Vajpai. The value of the Blades in this would be incalculable.”
“You don’t have—” Ilona stopped herself. She and Mother Argai shared a long, slow look suffused with shame and grief on both their parts. Samma was daughter to none of us, but clearly had been a lover of Mother Argai’s after my departure. And she was a Blade Sister to me.
“Everyone’s heart is in this,” I said slowly and carefully. “The question is not whether we act, but how. And we are all agreed that waiting is no longer the best strategy. Yes…?”
That question elicited a series of nods.
“Fair enough, then. Here is my proposal: I favor going straight into the Bittern Court before Surali has an opportunity to further deepen our troubles.” I nodded at Mother Argai.
She understood what I was doing well enough. “Green and I cannot be succeeding on such an effort without help. We know this because she was being at the Bittern Court before, and that was a price too high to be paying for nothing. We need the Blades too badly to not try to seek them one more time.”
“And if we lose you or her as we have lost Mother Vajpai?” asked Ilona. “Then what? Ponce and I can hardly go knocking at Surali’s front gate.”
“Mother Vajpai is not lost,” I said. “Merely misplaced.” Looking around, I gathered them all in by eye. “I will go to the Temple of the Silver Lily if it is your will. To seek her, and to try to raise the Blades myself.”
“Better I should be going, Green,” said Mother Argai quietly.
“No.” I was afraid she might have her own agenda, secret orders or some agreement with Mother Vajpai to which I was not privy. But I could hardly say that aloud. “I will go. You know how the Blades see me. If I appear now, it will be as a call to action.”
“Some of them hate you,” she offered. “And many of the Mothers of the other orders are not so fond of you.”
“And some of them love me. You yourself told how they have begged for my return.”
“No one is neutral toward you, Green,” said Ponce unexpectedly. “I know nothing of the Blades, but I do know you. And you are, well … inspirational.”
Mother Argai nodded reluctant agreement to that last. “People are following Green even when they are knowing better.”
“Especially you,” I said with a smile.
“Especially me.”
“Then I will go,” I announced. “Before dawn. You must care for the children, and help Mother Argai make ready to move swiftly when the need arises.” I glanced at the doors leading outside. “It might be well to try to speak with Firesetter again. He was willing to talk with me this afternoon.”
Mother Argai looked interested in this development. “I will sit with him awhile.”
I still could not sort out whether her interest in the Red Man was lust, or worship, or possibly both. But she was not mine to command. Even if Mother Argai had been so, I could not determine what would be best to do in this case.
She slipped out the door, a jug of water in her hand. After she went, I turned to Ilona and Ponce. “As for you two…”
“As for us two what?” Ilona asked. Her voice was soft again. “You are not here to tend our hearts or our bodies. You go over the walls in darkness, and return wrapped in moody silence, and sometimes barely remember your children. We are here, and will continue to do what is needful, but do not recount us our wrongs.”
Ponce winced at this speech, but did not look away or contradict her.
“I had not planned to call you wrong on anything,” I lied. “Just to ask you what you might be able to do with the children while I was gone.”
“Same as we ever do,” Ponce said with a strange look on his face, somewhere between frustration and anger.
At that, I gave up. Instead, I took my daughter from him—in this we could still cooperate peaceably—and went to lie down awhile in the sleepless dark with both my babies. Their gurgling breath in time with each other reminded me all too sharply how every one of us was someone’s child. Even Surali.
How could I kill, knowing what effort had gone into making each life that stood before me?
Rage, replied a voice deeper inside me. Anger will always power your arm when a blade is needed.
I am ashamed to say that even to this day that is still true, though wisdom and age have done much to temper me. Even words can strike a man down, when spoken to the right person, and this I have had to learn as well, to my further shame.
* * *
An hour before dawn, I was in the kitchen ready to leave. I had slept poorly, and my wounds itched abominably. Fear of Mother Vajpai’s fate had crept into my mind during the night like the tide rising. For her sake, I left my children behind once more in the care of others. The goat milk we had been procuring would continue to serve to keep them fed until my return.
My leathers were cleaned, mended, and finally fitted me to their proper snugness, My blades were honed—even the god-blooded short knife required attention from time to time. I had pulled a shapeless gray robe over me. No pretense of being Sindu this morning. Those women did not work as servants in the quarters of the city much beyond their own. I planned to approach the Temple of the Silver Lily as I had last left it, in the guise of a kitchen drab. A large, crude basket under my arm gave me the excuse I needed. Ponce had picked fruit from the yard under the cover of darkness to fill it and so grant me plausibility.
“I do not know how long I will be gone,” I told them. “But I hope to be back in a few hours.” Glancing at Mother Argai, I added, “What of Firesetter?” If I failed, he might be her only ally in entering the Bittern Court by force.
“He steams the pond with his tears for his consort,” she said with an odd formality.
I kissed Ilona, then Ponce, and hugged Mother Argai close. “Tend to him,” I whispered, in hopes it would heal them both.
Going out the back way, I paused beside the Red Man. Though he had settled some, he still held the same position in which had been kneeling for over a day now. Any human would have long since collapsed from joint pain. “You have been a friend to me already,” I told him.
He turned his head to look at me. In the predawn darkness, his eyes smoldered like glowing coals. “You have paid too much to fail.”
With that benediction in my ears, I slipped out the postern gate in the rear. We’d given up pretense of secrecy, as there seemed small purpose in it now. All I needed do was walk away quietly.
* * *
At the hour of dawn, the cats go to the tops of their walls and the curbs that bound their small, vicious domains to welcome in the new day. I have sometimes thought of them as being present to carry away the shadows of night on their fog-soft feet, but they are most likely keeping an eye on one another. Those who hunt are ever suspicious and resentful not of their prey, but of their rivals.
Walking past these small, poised sentries, I wondered on my friend the tiger. Had he gone back to his garden? Or was he slain by one set of panicked guards or another? It was hard to imagine him stalking the streets of Kalimpura, but perhaps he had found a nest among the banyans of Prince Kittathang Park and sat even now to watch the dawn like the thousand thousand of his small similars that dotted the city.
Today it was just me, the cats, and the bakers’ boys out with their morning flatbreads. The odor of burning still hung low over the city, but it more resembled an old rot now, not the open wound of yesterday. Whatever fighting there had been seemed not to have spilled through the darkness. I had seen enough of that in Copper Downs, with tor
chlight hunts and drunken gangs of guards or soldiers rampaging through the city,
Was it that here in Kalimpura even enemies agreed to sleep? Or were we simply too tired to carry the fight through all the watches of the night?
The fatalistic mood carried me all the way to the Beast Market and the square around the Blood Fountain. Already the cages squeaked and groaned as they were brought from their warehouses and quiet courtyards. Two dozen sorts of animals muttered and groaned and squawked, each complaining in the manner of its kind.
The fountain flowed, too. The red stone that lent its color to the name still looked black in this dim light. The temple was quiet. I noted the steps still seemed far more clear than normal. The usual assortment of beggars, petty merchants, and the simply homeless were largely absent. At least this morning their places had not been taken by masses of the Street Guild as on my last visit.
Those bastards, too, were doubtless sleeping their way toward another day of thuggery. At that time in my life, I had already understood no one is a villain in their own story, but I did wonder what tales the men who did the fighting, and the bullying, and the swaggering, told themselves of the rightness of their cause. Did the poorest deserve to have their fingers stepped upon so they would give up their last copper half paisa to buy a fighting man’s evening ale?
At least my acts had purpose.
Or so went the tale I told myself.
Without purpose, I was no better than they.
I drifted away from the plaza, down Juggaratta Street to where I could corner to my left and find the alley that led to the various back entrances and exits of the Temple of the Silver Lily. As with any great house or public building, the façade of power at the front was supported by a warren of the small and functional at the back. We even had our own smith, though she and her apprentices forged blades rather than horseshoes and wheel straps.
Several cart teams idled in the alley, their drivers each waiting his turn to unload. Fish for the day’s stew, bags of rice that the head steward must already be regretting the rising price of, and a load of small, promising barrels all lingered for induction into the maw of the kitchen.
