by Jane Kindred
“MeerRana of Rhyman is your daughter?” Cree let out a low whistle. “Meeralyá!”
Azhra gave her a strained smile. “It comes so easily to the tongue, doesn’t it? Taking their names as imprecations.”
“But she’s Meer? I mean, can she speak things into being?”
“How would I know?” Azhra gave her a defiant look that seemed to mask more fragile emotion. “It was a dozen years ago. I barely knew the child. They took her to her father as soon as I delivered an heir, declaring it a miracle, as if she just sprang from his hip. Now she lives inside the golden walls of the temple and lives off the blood and sweat of the people, the same as he.” Azhra reddened. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I haven’t spoken of her in…” She sighed and glanced around the room as if the rest of the words might be there somewhere.
Cillian had never been in such a tense and awkward conversation, even with the most socially inept patron. “Well.” He released Cree’s hand and slapped his palms against his thighs. “Thank the gods that’s not a matter I shall have to worry about. Now who’s up for a drink?”
Cree cornered him in her bedroom later when he was preparing to go out. “Why don’t you stay tonight? Azhra’s taking the couch, but we’ll have privacy in here. There’s an important meeting, and I’d really like you to see what we’re about.” Cree kissed his neck as he cleaned off his eye paint before her mirror. “And I have purely selfish reasons too, of course.” She paused and looked at his reflection. “Cillian, you told me you were of age that first night.”
“Actually that was in the morning, after you’d had your way with me.” He flashed her a wicked grin.
“Cillian.”
“You didn’t specify what age you wanted me to be of, Cree. I’m well past the age of marriage. My older sisters married at thirteen.”
Cree’s eyes darkened. “The age of marriage for a woman, you mean. The age our fathers sell us off. You’d still be sowing your wild oats if you were a man.” Despite her glowering looks, he was pleased she seemed to have forgotten that technically he was one.
“Besides, I told you, I’ve been a working girl since I was twelve. You could hardly take advantage of me. How much less innocence were you looking for?”
Cree made a face at him the mirror. “Maybe Ume Sky is beyond corruption, but you, dear Cillian, aren’t quite as worldly as all that. I have an overwhelming urge to take care of you.”
“Well, Master Sylva—” Cillian loosened what remained of the chignon, “—there’s no charge for that.”
He took his leave of Cree and Azhra before midday, his dress and veil from the previous evening bundled together in brown paper tied with string.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Maiden Azhra.” He kissed her hand in parting.
She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “We should talk before I return to Rhyman.”
“Perhaps we’ll see each other again, then.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Cree lingered for a parting kiss before opening the door to the street. “If I don’t see you soon, I’ll come looking for you again in the Garden.” She gave him a wink.
“I look forward to it, Master Sylva.” Cillian dropped a slight curtsy before turning to head upriver.
At Ume’s apartments, a note from Templar Nesre was waiting. MeerAlya had requested her presence at the temple, and she was already late. He was certainly a man of odd hours.
After a quick bath Ume slipped into a sleeveless black sheath with red ribbon closures up the bodice and open sides. Beneath, a pair of crimson silk pants with veiled insets of a red matte gave the billowy effect of a skirt. Slippers embroidered with damselflies in red and gold and a veil in bloodred satin completed the outfit, with a dyed rivercock-feather comb to hold her chignon in place. There was little time for cosmetics; a sweep of pomegranate stain dotted with black river sand sufficed for the Irises of Alya. Ume ran the juice over her lips and rubbed a bit into her cheeks as well before hurrying down to the carriage waiting in the Garden.
It was a relief not to find Nesre in it. His warning about her loyalties still disturbed her, especially after the tone the morning with Cree had taken.
MeerAlya waited for her in his studio, seated before a pedestal with his hands white with clay, and greeted her warmly with no mention of her tardiness. “I thought you might like to see what I’m working on.”
On the pedestal, a half-formed bust was emerging from the clay. Ume stepped closer and saw it bore her likeness. He had sculpted her face with eyes downcast and to the side, a brooding coquette.
“Does it please you?”
She nodded. “It does, my liege. I’m honored you consider me a worthy subject.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Have you done many courtesans?”
The Meer laughed richly. “You delight me, Maiden Sky. You wish to know who has captured my eye before you. A fair question. I am quite old by ordinary standards, though but an infant Meer.” He rose and lifted Ume’s chin with a clay-powdered hand. “I will not deny I have looked on other beauties, but time is a very inconsequential thing to a Meer, and I have been in no hurry to partake of them. Among the Meer, when my ancestors were still feracious, a man of my years might have been considered to be coming of age.”
Ume was skeptical. Was he claiming to be a virgin at 120 years? She circled the bust, running her fingers over the soft clay. “How long do the Meer live?”
“As long as we have the sense to, I suppose. We are raised by the templars, so I cannot speak with certainty of the longevity of those who came before me. I am told the Meer of Rhyman is in his fourth century, and there are others even older.”
“But the Meer of Rhyman has a child. So there is still some procreation among you.”
“So it seems. Are you interviewing me, Ume?”
Ume blushed. She was behaving like the spy others hoped she would be. “I’m sorry.” She clasped her arms behind her back. “That was rude.”
“No matter, Ume’La.” MeerAlya used the Deltan suffix that could represent something wondrous or something fearful. “I find your interest stimulating.”
She sat for him again, both clothed and nude, while he sketched and made adjustments to his sculpture. Time seemed to move differently in the Meer’s chambers, and Ume lost track of it.
When MeerAlya asked her to dine with him, he confirmed the plum sprig had been no simple trick by conjuring the meal with a few choice culinary words, murmuring “a thousand leaves of salmon” and “figs with aged cheese” as the delicacies appeared like thoughts taking shape on the table before them. Even the crystal and porcelain formed at his words, “flutes of oaked wine,” producing breathtakingly fragile, tulip-shaped goblets sparkling with crystalline russet liquid that tasted of the musky wood kegs it could not have aged in.
Alya raised his glass to her as she looked on in wonder. “You see, my dear Maiden, it is a simple thing to create, to focus one’s mind on the desires of the moment and breathe them into being. But even a Meer cannot conjure such exquisite company.”
A jarring cacophony brought back the stolid tick of ordinary time.
Chapter Six
Even from MeerAlya’s quarters behind the dome of the altar room, the sound of shouting and altercation could be heard in the courtyard. A servant announcing MeerAlya’s personal attendant interrupted their meal in an unprecedented breach of temple etiquette as Alya set down his glass.
“My liege.” The templar bowed deeply at his entrance. “You should not be troubled, but an extra flank of the temple guard has been placed before the arches. There is an incident in the courtyard.”
“An incident?” Alya pushed back his chair.
“A small group of malcontents, my liege. We are addressing it. I advise that you not concern yourself.”
“I see. And what is it that has them so discontent?”
The templar colored. “They are calling for your ouster, my liege. They are anti-Meerists.”
“Anti-Me
erists.” MeerAlya set down his napkin. “They are, it seems, against my very nature. There is not much I can do to satisfy them in that.” He turned to Ume. “This is unprecedented in the years of my reign. Tell me, Maiden Sky, do I provide so poorly for the soth of In’La?”
Ume blanched, unable to look away from the blue quartz of his eyes. “I would not presume to judge, my liege. I may be considered to belong to a privileged class of citizen.”
Alya nodded. “A prudent answer.” He sighed and stood. “Templar Hrithke, please escort the Maiden Sky to her transport once you deem the altercation safely allayed.”
Ume stared after him as he strolled from the room. Had she angered him, or was he merely disheartened? It must be the protest Cree had spoken of. Ume hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Incongruously she recalled being seated naked in the Meer’s lap, his silver hair draping her like mist. “The safest place you will ever be is in the arms of your Meer.”
Hrithke presented her with another alabaster box, bigger than the last, and she realized she must have spent a full three days with MeerAlya. She hadn’t slept and hardly remembered the changing of the light. It was as if his presence were the radiance of the sun itself, and she a satellite that merely turned her face to his light.
Cillian wasted no time seeking out Cree in the morning. She had lent him the fine woolen coat she’d worn to present herself in the Garden. He wrapped it around himself as he wended through the alleyways of Lower Bank Street, his feet clad in a pair of plain brown boots he rarely had occasion to wear. The autumn chill seeped into his bones; In’La felt it first among the Deltan soths.
At Cree’s boardinghouse the landlady eyed him with suspicion.
“I’m here to see Master Sylva.”
“An’ he expects you? You one of those troublemakers?”
“It’s fine, Mistress Fersi,” Cree called as she hurried down the stairs. “Cillian is a friend.”
The shadow of a fading black eye marked Cree’s brow, and Cillian reached to touch it. “Cree, what—”
She brushed his hand away with a scowl and pushed him before her up the stairs. When the door was shut behind them, she embraced him with surprising strength.
“Meeralyá! You scared me to death.”
“Cree, what happened to your eye?”
Cree let go of him. “Someone accused me of being a woman at the docks. I had to teach him a lesson.” She held up the scraped knuckles of her right hand with a rueful smile. When he reached for her hand in concern, she shook her head. “It’s nothing. It’s you I’m worried about. Where have you been?”
“At the temple.”
Azhra appeared in the doorway of Cree’s bedroom. “You were at the temple? Were you there for the demonstration?”
“I was there. Inside. Dining with the Meer.”
Azhra threw Cree a look of mistrust. “How well do you know Cillian?”
“How well does she know me? She doesn’t even know you at all!”
“I’ve known Azhra for months,” Cree said quietly. “This isn’t her first visit to In’La. She’s a founding member of the League of Expurgists in Rhyman. She helped the local chapter organize.”
Cillian’s face blazed with embarrassment. “Well, thank you, Master Sylva, for letting me keep you from each other briefly.”
Cree rolled her eyes as Azhra laughed into her hands. “We’re not lovers, Cillian. Ye gods. You’re as jealous as a man.”
“I am a man,” said Cillian, feeling foolish.
“Not always, my delicate angel. Not always.” Cree kissed him on the nose and led him to the couch. “Look. We’ve been planning the protest for a long time. The people want action. The templars managed to disperse us eventually, but even they seemed halfhearted in their support of the Meer. I think they only stand by him because they have no public cause to denounce him.”
Cillian shrugged off the coat and laid it over the arm of the couch. “I don’t know about this. What do you expect Alya to do?”
“We expect Alya to leave.” Azhra folded her arms, leaning against the door frame. “The Meer are an anachronism. They’re sucking the lifeblood from the Delta.”
“What about your daughter?”
Azhra didn’t flinch. “I was used as a vessel by the Meer of Rhyman. I have no loyalty to the temple or any of its occupants. But I wonder. Where are your loyalties?”
Everyone seemed to want an answer to this question. He could only give her the truth.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I think you’d better decide.” Azhra relaxed her adversarial pose. “I know how seductive the Meer can be. They make you feel like…something special. But it’s an illusion. Everything they do is illusion. They are not gods. They are almost not even men. Men feel. They’re bereft of feeling.”
The bell rang, saving them from more tense conversation, and Mistress Fersi called up the stairs.
“There’s no one else has so many visitors, sir,” she complained loudly as Cree went down to meet them. “I run a proper boardinghouse.”
“I know you do. We’ll keep it quiet, Mistress Fersi.”
“If you have overnight guests, there’s board to pay, Master Sylva!”
Jin and Zea followed Cree into the apartment, Zea bearing an infant on her hip. Azhra took a step back into the bedroom at the sight of the child, as if afraid it might bite.
“We just came from the Devil’s Garden.” Zea juggled the child to her other hip. “It was total chaos.”
Cillian made a face at the baby and was rewarded with a grin. “The Devil’s Garden?”
Zea smirked. “Where the Meer’s prostitutes grow.” Behind her, Cree gave a slight shake of her head. Apparently, not everyone was aware of Cillian’s public identity.
“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on at the Garden?”
Jin dug through a bag of infant accoutrements as the baby began to fuss. “The templars were arresting one of the girls. Charging her with that templar’s murder.”
Cillian’s blood ran cold, as if his circulation had stopped. “A courtesan? They think a courtesan did it?”
“One of the street girls, I think. Petra or something.” He fished out a linen-wrapped sugar teat and handed it to Zea.
“Persa.” Zea put the comforter in the baby’s mouth.
It was not a name he knew, but courtesans did not mix with the Lower Bank Street girls. If she was being arrested for Ume’s crime, surely Nesre would do something. The chill sank into his stomach.
“She was an expurgist. It seems the templar was using the prostitutes to get information on the movement. I don’t believe she killed him at all. I think this is a setup.”
Cillian used the discipline of his art to keep his expression placid, but his head swirled with alarm.
Zea turned to Cree. “I need to use your privy if you don’t mind. Jin and I have been on our feet all morning posting bills.” She held out the baby as Azhra stepped away from the door. “Could you take Edme for me?”
When Azhra recoiled, Cillian stepped forward, welcoming a diversion from the sickly maelstrom in his head. “Let me. I haven’t held a baby since my youngest sister was born.” Cillian swooped in to take the infant before Azhra’s refusal was noticed. Edme stopped fussing at once, reaching to tug on his hair with interest. He tucked her against his hip as he remembered doing with his sister Lahni. A few months after Lahni’s birth Cillian had been caught wearing one of the veils his older sisters left behind.
He bobbed on his heels, rocking Edme as he mulled the news. If Zedei had been spying, it wasn’t for the Meer; Alya knew nothing of the expurgist movement. Cillian desperately needed to talk to Nesre.
When Zea returned and took Edme, Azhra picked up her wrap and veil. “I’m going to see what I can find out. The market is close to the Garden, isn’t it? There’s bound to be talk there worth listening to.”
“I’ll walk with you,” said Cillian. “I’m headed that way.”
Cree frowned. “You’re leav
ing already?”
“There’s something I have to take care of. I just wanted to make sure you were all right and to let you know I was.”
“Well, keep this at least.” Cree picked up the coat he’d returned. “I have another, and it’s getting chilly.” She held it open for him to put his arms into the sleeves and buttoned him up as though he were a child. “Can you come to the meeting later?”
“I have to see someone.” Cillian glanced at Jin and Zea. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”
“Well, if you can’t, at least come by after when you’re free.” Cree gave him a reserved kiss. “If you’re free.”
“I will.” He touched the bruise over her eye. “I don’t like this, Cree. Be careful.”
“I am being careful.” She pulled away from him, a bit stiff. “I’m working to end this repressive regime.” There was no missing her disapproval that Cillian was not.
As he walked with Azhra toward the market, Cillian was struck by how changed In’La was becoming, and how swiftly. He’d never heard of a public movement for anything, let alone against the Meer. Azhra was right; In’La had become strange. Traditional roles were being abandoned: unmarried women walked in the streets unaccompanied by a chaperone and without the veil; a couple such as Jin and Zea raised a child together without the blessing of matrimony.
Opportunities for work were expanding with the new mechanizations and new means to power them, but the living a person could make was growing dearer—alyanis bought less with each passing day. Ume’s status had kept her out of the circuit of common folk to a large degree. When had this change come, and what had spurred such anger toward the Meer?
