Jay Lake - Endurance

Anything to keep Corinthia Anastasia in the city until I could rescue her. Or force her captors to release her. Anything to shine the light of the public’s dubious regard on Surali and her betrayals. Like all roaches, she prospered best hidden in the shadows.

A man watched at the mouth of the Tavernkeep’s alley. I simply walked past and backhanded him without breaking stride. He stumbled away from me with a curse, so I spun to follow up with the short knife in my left hand and my right fingers clutching his throat.

“Who ordered you here?” To my surprise, I realized he was Selistani.

“N-none,” he gasped.

“You just happen to be sheltering from the snow by standing in an alley mouth.” I closed my fingers on his throat. Any moment now he would realize he outweighed me by at least double, and I would be forced to either kill him or take to my heels.

“Y-you are c-crazed.” His voice was cracking, probably from my pressure on his Adam’s apple.

“Go home,” I growled. “Hide for a few days. It won’t matter after that.” I stomped hard on his instep to give him something to think about as he limped away. Then I left him standing there with the gift of breath still in his lungs.

I realized that while I was no longer in a red rage, my anger at the people who were bedeviling me had not diminished in the least. Still, I could be generous with the lives of others.

Inside, the Tavernkeep’s place was as quiet as I’d seen it since returning from across the sea. For a moment I was taken aback, wondering if my countrymen had departed. Very few pardines were present. The endless round of gambling men was reduced to a few diehards.

The Tavernkeep, however, was at his bar.

“Greetings,” I said. “If you have a cook working tonight, I would enjoy some curry.”

He put down a narrow yellow bottle he’d been examining. “Welcome, Green. Do you bring chaos on your sleeve again tonight?”

That brought a smile to my face. “Not unless it already lies in wait for me here.”

His lips pursed; then he turned to look back into the kitchen. Moments later he returned with a small stone bowl of the pardine bournewater. “This will serve you well.”

Grateful, I took the bowl. “I am rarely certain what serves me well anymore.” I sipped at the drink. It went down much as its namesake-clear and cold, tasting of rocks in the high thin air, but also of the stuff of life. “Where are the Dancing Mistress and her Revanchists?”

“They pursue an errand.”

Something deliberately oblique in his tone caught at my ear. “In truth? On this night?”

“I cannot say why.”

What or where, he might be able to tell me, but the pardines were not my errand. Not right now. “I wish them well of it.”

That brought a snort of amusement. “If you do not carry chaos on your sleeve, what does bring you here this evening?”

“Looking for chaos elsewhere.” I nodded over my shoulder at the room-heavy wooden pillars, beams overhead, a low fire, quiet voices scattered about. “Where is the Selistani wrecking crew which has been occupying your dining room of late? I have need of their services.”

“Some are here. Some have gone off with the Dancing Mistress. Many are upstairs sleeping.”

“Already?” It was barely dark outside.

“They drank away their sorrows after your last riot, I believe. There is always a price to be paid for such.” He glanced back at the kitchen again. “The boy is out on an errand. Can you abide awhile for your food?”

“May I prepare it myself?” I hated the diffidence in my voice.

The Tavernkeep stared a long moment, then flicked his ears. “Of course.”

Commanding a kitchen again, however briefly, was a taste of the peace I’d been longing for. One always knows where one stands with food. Ingredients, cookware, time, and skill could be combined so that the only surprises were whatever the cook planned.

Chowdry had never been trained as I, but he’d lived all his life with Selistani cuisine, and so had substituted long experience for my refined knowledge in stocking this kitchen. At least the portion of it dedicated to human cookery. I ignored the dry-cured game haunches and bins of desiccated flowers that served the needs of pardine cuisine. Instead I attended to the paneer cheeses, the strong spices, the tubs of spinach and chickpeas and beans and rice that were the building blocks of what I sought.

Curry, of course. The sambar podi was readily identified. I sniffed at it. The pungency was clearly from the sun-warmed south-no Stone Coast greenhouse could have grown this. I smiled, carried by the spice’s scent back to better days in the Temple of the Silver Lily when I had traded recipes with the cooks and been allowed the run of the kitchen.

I found coconut-milk stock already prepared. That I set upon the iron stove to warm while I hunted vegetables and meat to furnish the curry with. Most of what I could locate was the carrots, cabbage, and suchlike of northern cooking, but there were some good, honest onions. And of course the spinach. I did not attempt the pardine larder in my pursuit of meat. I did find a slab of fish in a stone cold crock-from the texture of the flesh, a redfinned shark taken out of these northern waters.

That was sufficient.

I spent a very happy twenty minutes chopping, sauteing, and blending, with several wide-ranging trips through Chowdry’s spice selection until my curry was powerful enough to blister a dead man’s lips. Once the dish was simmering nicely, complete as I could make it, I cleaned the knives and boards I’d used, wiped out the pans, then served myself a generous bowl. I left the pot warming for any others who might hunger soon.

Cooking was better than prayer. Maybe even better than sex.

I tucked in, surprised to discover how hungry I was. Another thing I’d soon have to take more care for. I needed to keep myself and the baby fed without racing through the entire day on nervous energy and anger. I touched my belly again as I ate, apologizing to my daughter. She seemed to have nothing to say in return, so I left her to her peace.

When I was done, the Tavernkeep took my bowl. “More?”

The pot I’d left on the stove beckoned, but I was satisfied. “Enough for now.” I looked back at the room. What I wanted could not be done in this evening’s storm, and besides, getting men out into the freezing wet dark would require a greater cause than I could likely argue right then. “I would ask a favor. May I engage a room for my night’s rest?”

“They are all full.” A deliberately human regret tinged his voice. “I can find you a blanket if you want to sleep down here on a bench or the floor by the fire.”

“That will do.” I concealed my disappointment. The idea of an actual bed had been very tempting. “I plan to rouse these men early. I’d like to borrow a decent-sized pot and a metal spoon.”

“Do not come up to the third floor with those,” he growled.

I nodded and thanked him. In time I took my kitchenware and the proffered blanket and made myself comfortable near the heat. I was as safe here as anywhere this night. At least people watched the door in this place. Still, I slept with my short knife in my hand.

The common room was fully dark except for glowing coals when I awoke. The oil lamps within were long since wicked down. Not even their scent remained in the room’s close, stale air. The Tavernkeep’s place had no windows on the ground level, but I was sure dawn had not yet stolen into the skies outside.

A number of my countrymen slept on the floor-more than I’d seen last night. Either the Dancing Mistress’ delegation had returned, or some of those upstairs had descended once more to the common room. I’d have woken up to any raucous party, though.