Jay Lake - Green

I paused at his tone, and thought on what the huge pardine had said about the bones woven into the fur of his chest. Not that I had any great loyalty to the Pater Primus and his little band of finger-choppers, but I had not intended to send violence into their house, either. “Was that ill done?”

“Possibly.” The Tavernkeep seemed divided between alarm and amusement. “It will be a day for them all to remember.” He folded my note. “What is the nature of her injuries?”

“She was battered badly in a fight with a sending of the god Blackblood. It then dragged her some distance. I fear both the breaking of a hard combat lost, and damage to her soulpath for being taken into the depths of the Algeficic Temple.”

He frowned. “I will fetch Healer and several others, that we might run together at need. Are you coming?”

“No.” I hated saying that. “I am charged to go before the Interim Council, in part as a requirement by the priests before they will release the Dancing Mistress. If I go back to the temple, I will not have filled that commitment.”

“Go, then. I will have what is needful to her within a few spans of minutes.”

“Tavernkeep?…”

He paused in his busyness. “Yes?”

“Will the Rectifier hurt her more?”

“No. Yet his help may not be what she wishes for most.”

I fled. Regret warred with shame in my heart. I should have stood by the Dancing Mistress. Could have. Except now I did the bidding of two deities. And what she wanted, of course. I had to hold on to that idea. This was what she wanted.

From the nameless tavern to Lyme Street was a quick enough walk. I passed out of the warehouses of the brewing district and through a few blocks of crowded houses before I made it onto the street. There had been tanneries there once, before they moved out to the eastern edge of Copper Downs. Some of the huge old buildings now held coach barns and stables. Others had been made into mercantiles for lumber and other goods that needed space.

Beyond them, Lyme Street was home to cobblers, tailors, and weavers, as well as to several felt works. The Textile Bourse, unlike many guild buildings either in this city or Kalimpura, was proudly close to its roots. I had not been within, and we had not passed by during our tours of recent days for fear of being called in, but the Dancing Mistress had pointed to it from a distance several times.

A facade of carved granite seemed intended to provide gravitas to the trade. The stairs were flanked by a statue of baled wool on one side, and a stone replica of a felting vat on the other. Someone had planted flowers in the vat, though now it was mostly weedy stems and dead leaves. The banner of Copper Downs hung from the roof, blocking the central windows-a copper shield in four parts, with a coronet and a ship. As I had been so carefully taught to read such symbols, more properly it was quarterly, in the first, on a field tenne a ducal coronet surmounting a ship on the sea proper; in the third, a field tenne; second and third, a field sanguine.

Somehow I was surprised they had not stricken the coronet.

A pair of guards stood before the entrance atop a half flight of steps. They wore the same raw leather as the fool at the treasury had, and each held a pike. As I walked up, one dipped his weapon to stop me.

“Ain’t going in, boy. Especially not with that there mask on. In any case, they’s busy.”

I could hardly pick a fight here. “I am sent for.”

“Now you’re being sent away.”

They both chuckled.

“Federo wishes to speak to me.”

The chuckling stopped. The pikeman’s eyes tightened. “And you are being certain you wish to speak to himself? Ain’t no great treat, I don’t reckon.”

I thought of the certain pleasures of feeding him to Skinless, but held on to my rising irritation. “I won’t know until I go in.”

He took a step back and banged on a door featuring stained-glass images of the wonders of felt. An elderly, dry-faced clerk looked out.

The guard pointed at me. “This one say’s ’e’s for Federo.”

The clerk looked me up and down. “I do not believe we sent for a boy assassin. Surely you belong on Lobscouse Street among the music halls.”

I undid my veil and showed him the scars upon my cheeks.

“Perhaps I am wrong,” the clerk said smoothly. “I see the rumors of your arrival did not overstate the case.”

“Thank you,” I told the guard sweetly.

The blacks were good enough for Kalimpura, where it seemed that there were as many modes of dress as there were people. Here where the costume was native to the stage, at least, I just looked strange. Veils were not in fashion especially, nor masks.

Now that I was in the Textile Bourse, there was little need for more secrecy. I tucked the veil away in my satchel as I followed the clerk through the doors.

The hallway within had once been grand. Today it was mostly crowded. Shelves and cabinets and desks were shoved in roughly squared arrays across the marble floor. Maps had been strung up over the portraits of long-dead bourse presidents. People trotted back and forth with papers in their hands, scratched with fountain pens, or met in little knots of two and three. Customs duties and the licenses of trade and guild had not stopped simply because a throne had fallen.

“As you see,” the dry clerk said, “we are quite occupied. We find it efficacious to place the tax and fee work here, where public complaints can be met. Please, come with me.”

I followed him through an irregular path threading across the room in twists and turns. The place was noisy, in a way that oddly reminded me of Below with its whispers and distant echoes. We mounted a grand staircase, now mostly a document repository, complete with little notes pinned to stacks of paper and ledgers. Once we’d cleared the wide turn that swept away from the tax floor, things were much more quiet.

The clerk paused at the top of the flight. “You are the girl, of course.” His voice almost seemed to click. “I am Mr. Nast.”

“My name is Green, Nast.”

“And my name is Mr. Nast, Green.” His smile was more of a mobile wrinkle on his face. “I expect we shall be the dearest of friends.”

I could not help but laugh at that.

Mr. Nast led me down a hall of offices that overflowed with more people at their work. A few were women, but most were stout, older men. The walls here were stacked with paper as well. A large door at the end held another square of stained glass illustrating even more of the wonders of felt. An argument could be heard within.

Nast rapped sharply on the door.

“We are in confidential session!” shouted a voice.

“Sir,” the old clerk called. “The girl Green is here.”

Silence fell. Behind me, the bustle of the hall died. I looked back to see pale faces peeking out of doorways. A young woman stood with an armload of folders, hand covering her mouth.

“You may enter,” the old clerk told me. “Best of luck, young lady.”

I pushed open the door and stepped inside to finally meet Federo once more.

Five people were seated within. I scanned as I would facing any threat, eyes leaping to their weapons, the exits-for a moment I was a Lily Blade on the point of action. Then I met Federo’s gaze, and I was once more just a girl beneath a pomegranate tree, waiting for my secret friend to return.

Those feelings swept over me like waves crossing a bar. They passed as quickly as they came, and once more I was fully and only myself.

Federo’s yellow-brown hair was darker, except where it was shot through with gray. His face was seamed as well, as though he’d worn the years far more heavily than I. Even his eyes seemed to have faded.

For a long second, there was a hard look upon him; then his face split into a great smile. “Green!” he shouted, leaping up from the leather chair in which he’d been sitting. He raced around the table, saying in Seliu, “Welcome, welcome back,” just before he collided to hug me close.