Jay Lake - Green

“We have a priest,” said Federo. “I believe you know him-Septio of the Algeficic Temple.” I shot Mohanda a glance, but the man was smiling like a grandfather with his descendants before the solstice hearth. Federo went on: “He is clever and thoughtful. We would have the two of you travel together as ambassadors of one of our temples, asking to make terms with Choybalsan before he enters the city.”

“He is known to be interested in gods,” said Mohanda.

“I’d be, too, if I fancied myself one,” muttered Kohlmann.

“We believe he will receive you,” Federo finished smoothly.

“I am no priest,” I told them. Which was not exactly true. There was small distance between an aspirant of the Lily Goddess and a priest. However, those people did not need to know my history, especially not the Pater Primus. “I will not be convincing.”

“Follow this Septio,” Mohanda urged. “Be his silent acolyte. His claim to speak for the temples will bear credibility because he is known widely as a priest of Blackblood. Your purpose will be to look and to listen.”

“To see what may be seen of this vanished power.” Federo, again.

“Why not send the Dancing Mistress, or another pardine?”

Federo shook his head. “Choybalsan slays them where he finds them. There is one rumor that does not seem to have its opposite being whispered alongside. The pardines of Copper Downs certainly believe it.”

I retrieved my knife and studied the blade a moment. My eyes looked back at me from the murky reflection. Kohlmann was visible just above the point, as if I held the largest of swords underneath his jaw.

“If I go, and find nothing. Feel nothing…” I waved the knife for emphasis, and almost giggled to see Federo duck away from me. “Nothing is there. I can already say that. These past days, I could not taste it in the city. Locating more of it in some hill camp seems unlikely. When I return, will we then be quit?”

A complex web of glances passed around the room. “We will be quit,” said Federo in their wake.

Good, I thought. I had no intention of running straight home, not until I understood the Goddess’ fears a bit better, but I wanted to be free of the Interim Council. “Stand me a purse for my fare home, and a worthwhile consideration for my time. Give it to that man Nast outside. He would provide a receipt for his own grandmother, I am sure of it, and know years later on which hook he hung her. Make that thing happen, and give me your word that we’ve a sealed bargain. Then I will go looking for this wild goose of yours.”

“Aye,” ran around the room like a ripple.

“So recorded.” Kohlmann scribbled in a tally book. “Five in favor and one not present, we carry the proposal.”

“That was it?” The Courts of Kalimpura could take half a season to agree on whether the sun rose at dusk or dawn.

“You’ll note there are no attorneys on this Interim Council,” Jeschonek said dryly.

Mohanda’s grin was positively feral. “Accidents will happen.”

“So?” I demanded

Federo took my arm as if he planned to escort me into a grand ball. “So now we go tell Mr. Nast to write you a bond for fare and expenses for an amount we can both find satisfactory.”

We stepped out in the hall. Several clerks stood there, looking through a stack of papers in one’s hands, but at the sight of us, they moved off. Federo shut the door.

“Green,” he said, his voice low. “I am sorry I do not have more time now. How is the Dancing Mistress?”

My face burned. “She might be dying, but I am ashamed to say I do not know.”

He sighed. “It has been almost four months since I have heard from her. We disagreed, then she vanished. We had spoken of searching you out, and quarreled where we should not. I have been praying she had gone for you.” His smile was crooked with sadness. “My prayers have been answered. She did not fall victim to Choybalsan’s bandits. But her return is at such cost. What was she about?”

“The Dancing Mistress fears for the city.” That was certainly true, though how much her concerns aligned with Federo’s I could not say. Obviously they had been at odds over me.

“I am glad you are here.” He made as if to embrace me, then changed his mind in the middle of the reach.

That, at least, seemed genuine. I wondered if the shadows and deceptions I glimpsed within him were just the product of being responsible for so much. As the Factor’s man, he had had immense tasks, but not ultimate authority. Now he sat in the Duke’s seat without the centuries of experience and adamantine confidence the old ruler had possessed.

“It will be good,” I said. “I cannot but think this Choybalsan is a storm that will pass.”

“We shall see,” he answered grimly.

“Oh, yes.”

As he called for Nast, I considered the Goddess’ words. Federo and the Dancing Mistress were certainly entwined. Was it those coils of the heart she had warned us of? If my old teacher were to become distant and distrustful, she might perhaps betray this man and so lead him to a failure before the coming of the Bandit King.

I hoped that my role might be to reconcile them, and settle the confidence of the city’s rulership.

Nast came. We made a chaffer about transport costs and guarantees and expenses. The old clerk finally wrote out a bond promising the cost of a cabin passage to Kalimpura as available from the three best ships in port the month I claimed it, plus triple that same value paid out as compensation for my services.

It did not seem to me to be so much money for the treasury of an entire city, even one in troubled times, but to see Nast and Federo argue, the terms of the bond might have been the last copper paisa to feed a starving family.

“I must go back to our session,” Federo finally said. “I beg your indulgence. If you and Septio find some intelligence, do not hesitate to bring it straight to me. Ask here at the Textile Bourse. Nast and the privy clerks always know where I am to be found.”

This time I did hug him. Something was wrong, some strange distance, but I thought now I knew what it might be. He returned my hug, stroked my hair, and murmured some vague apology before slipping back into the meeting room.

There was much running about thereafter. A scrivener with a good copperplate hand was made to come write out the final agreement on a length of vellum. Nast made me countersign the bond, which he gave me a receipt for. He then took the bond back and filed it with the bursary clerk to hold against a future payment demand, and gave me a receipt for that. I told him the papers might not survive my trip to the uplands, so he took the demand receipt and filed it with the council’s privy clerk. I refused the last receipt, for I reckoned we had already made more paper than I’d ever have need for. Nast sniffed and slipped it into an inside pocket of his coat.

“Have a care, Mistress Green,” he said. “I should not like to see you fail to return and thus be unable to reclaim your wealth from the coffers of this city.”

That I did not even try to untangle. Instead I bowed. “I shall miss you as well, Mr. Nast.”

The front door was not so hard to find, and so after resetting my veil, I showed myself out. Septio stood across the street, dressed as an ordinary working man and eating fried fish from a folded paper cone. Despite my manifold irritations, I smiled to see him and went to ask after the Dancing Mistress.

We ate fish together and walked slowly toward an ostlery on Shandy Legs, as that street was known. He told me what I sought to hear, though it did not all please me.

“I brought that great pardine brute to the temple.” Septio took a large bite and gulped it down without much chewing. “We protect much there, as with any mysteries, but I was not so worried.”