Jay Lake - Endurance

Much better than breaking oneself over and over to rescue ungrateful cities from their self-created oppressors. The Interim Council could go hang.

I never would do it, though. My daughter needed me here, in a place that could be made safe. For good or ill, this city was for me. And Copper Downs had its own needs. Not to mention all the children who continued to be lost every year in that distant homeland of mine. Someday I would have to return for the little girls and boys who daily saw fates worse than mine.

Amid the wandering of my mind, I realized my feet had carried me once more to the Velviere District. That suggested that some part of me felt safer under Endurance’s protection than otherwise. I could not argue too much with this wisdom, though I feared to bring the same peril that had slain Amitra and Nitsa on to their fellow acolytes.

Still, I called at the temple. The gatekeeper I had met the very first time was yet absent, but I entered the grounds to discover most of the acolytes at prayer inside of the wooden hutch of the temple.

The ox god might be my creation, but I did not feel any overwhelming need to bow to him. Instead I wandered to the cooking area, outside the ruined kitchen tent. There I found a pair of grumpy Selistani men in traditional dress stir-frying spinach and then mixing the resultant crispy leaves with some Hanchu sauce.

“A dish for a countryman?” I asked in Seliu.

One of the cooks, a tallish fellow with a small scar on his cheek, looked up at me. “Take a bowl, but be quick, before the little preachers return.”

I followed his advice and apportioned myself a goodly serving of the crunchy spinach. “Are you not followers of the ox god?”

The other cook, a much smaller fellow with narrow eyes and a mournful cast to his face, answered as he tossed spinach in his hot pan. “What does it mean to follow a god, boy? There are no Selistani temples in this cold stone place. A Bhopuri ox is what we have, if we wish to pray.” He nodded toward the temporary wooden temple. “ Their view of prayer is much different than ours.”

That was fascinating to me. “What of the priest, Chowdry? He is one of us.”

“He spends all his time with the whitebellies.”

“Excuse me?” I did not know the word.

“The pale folk here,” the other cook said. “And the browns who try to act like them. Not good, honest children of the sun like us.”

They both laughed. I became very conscious of their kurtas and my own corduroy breeches and canvas shirt. If anyone of my people was a whitebelly, it would be me. Raised here, speaking Petraean better than Seliu.

That was when I realized they’d meant to insult me. I looked into their snickering faces and for a sharp moment considered hurling my bowl at them, and following it up with my fists and blades. These two combined would not stand three blows against me.

Instead I placed my mostly full bowl down on the edge of the rickety table where they’d been prepping their cookery. “I thank you for the time,” I said stiffly.

I stalked off into the twilit field beyond the tents, on the far side of the foundation work around the gaping minehead. The brambles had been cleared here, too, but the ground had not been stamped down or graveled over as out front, so they were coming back in sharp, green shoots. A dangerous place, like walking on spikes. Not where one would wish to take a fall.

Skinning out of my shirt and pants, I squatted to put the blocky workboots back on. Now I wore only them and a pair of linen drawers. The bulge of my belly seemed much more pronounced than the last time I’d stood considering myself naked. I took up my short knives and began to spar with an imaginary opponent. Mother Argai, perhaps. The sight of my breasts swaying as I moved would distract her slightly. And while I was swifter than she, the woman fought like a snake, always just a little to the side and curved off from where you expected her to be.

I began to work faster and faster, dashing back and forth across my claimed area. The wall loomed not so far behind me, so I incorporated jumps and climbs. The imaginary Mother Argai chased me, I chased her. I avoided only falls, for taking a roll in my bare skin across these new brambles amid the cut-down stalks of their elders would have been beyond foolish.

This was not a real sparring match, far from it. But I had not in truth sparred since leaving the Temple of the Silver Lily. Fought in earnest, yes. Run for my life. Lain lazy in bed. All of those things. Here in Copper Downs, only two mortals could match me, and those two overmatched me. Mother Argai, over at the Haito mansion with the Selistani embassy, was probably the only fighter I could meet face-to-face and make the workout count without embarrassment to one or the other of us.

Still, I slammed myself about, used the wall as both an enemy and a friend, swung my short knives till my wrists ached, and leapt till I had worn myself to shivering exhaustion. Finally I stopped, worried about weakness and balance, and realized this was an autumn night and the air had grown cold and damp.

I looked up to see a solitary girl watching from a short distance. After a long moment of trembling silence, she called out in Petraean, “Are you finished?”

“Yes,” I said shortly, then mopped my face with my shirt before tugging it over my head.

“Chowdry sent all the men to their tents and told the women to mind their own business until you were done. I was ordered to watch for you.”

That I had to laugh at. “He was concerned about my corrupting the men with my breasts? If any of these boys haven’t seen a nipple by now, they have larger problems than me.” It wasn’t as if anyone here could take anything from me I didn’t care to offer. I tucked the short knives into my sleeves, more to make the point to myself than for any other reason.

“I cannot say, Mistress.” She approached slowly. A Stone Coast woman, a few years older than me. Not a Selistani whitebelly. It was hard to tell in the gathering dark, but I thought her eyes might be blue. Her hair was some pale color that silvered oddly in the faint light.

“Do not call me ‘mistress.’” Sweating and thinking of Mother Argai had put me in a fey mood. My loins were stirring, for no one in particular. I was curious to see her close enough to tell if she would catch my eye. Or I would catch hers. To that end, I said, “Here. Balance me so I can get these boots off and the trousers on.”

The woman hurried toward me and grasped my elbow. I stank, I knew I stank, but it was the sweat of good, honest work. Building up my body to defend the god Endurance. I hopped from one foot to the other, standing in the loosed boots to tug the pants on while she clutched at my elbow.

“So what is your name?” I gasped.

“Lucia,” she said, releasing my arm to reach down and help me with my waistband.

That was more like it. I stood straight and raised my arms out of her way. Lucia bent around me to fasten my pants.

Surely she would not have done that without some interest in me.

“Tell me, Lucia, do you think I might have another bath?”

She giggled faintly. “They would deny you nothing now.”

I decided to be blunt. “Then scrub me. I shall do the same for you.”

“Mistr-” Lucia stared a moment at her feet. “Green. I am not supposed-”

Touching her lips, I hushed her. “Do what you wish, but I am having a bath and would be glad of the company.”

Soon enough, Lucia brought me hot water in the tent with the large copper tub. The air was buttery warm now in the light of two oil lamps and a squat-bellied stove, and smelled pleasantly of the burning. Then she brought me soap and a sponge. Then she brought me a long-handled brush. Finally, she brought me herself. The light made her skin yellow, but her hair flowed downward and her breasts gathered firm as she slipped into the water with me.