Kalimpura (Green Universe) (16 page)

Silence spread from that statement. One of the questions long dogging the temple had been why the Lily Goddess was ever more difficult to address over the years. Even the Temple Mothers, who stood for Her in this world and spoke with Her words, we were all assured, had experienced much trouble with that. I had been able to call Her, more than once. I knew that had greatly troubled some of my elders, though I had largely ignored the discussion at the time.

From the flash of panic on Mother Srirani’s face, I guessed that she had experienced little or no luck at the rite. The last thing she wanted was me interfering successfully.

In effect, I had challenged her authority. Oh, such games these women played. Why in the world had she even hauled me and Mother Vajpai here before an assemblage of the temple, instead of simply locking us up, or having our throats slit?

Because she is a Justiciar, and follows the process.
The politics of the temple would allow her to do no less. Too many senior Mothers and Sisters would have questioned not just my disappearance on arrival, but the necessary vanishing likewise of Mother Vajpai and Mother Argai.

“Shall I pray?” I asked amid the quiet of dozens of watching women. Looking up at them, I added, “Or have the affairs of the temple reached such a state that urgent change is needed? Who among you thinks this whole business has been properly done? Rise if you would see another path.”

The women already on their feet looked startled, but none of them sat down again. Several Blades stood, grim-faced with their hands loose as if for a fight. To my surprise, a few Justiciary Mothers stood. Then all seven of the Domiciliary Mothers in the gallery rose together—I had always been a favorite of the cooks, to put it plainly.

After that, slowly, with a rustle of robes and leather, every woman in the room stood. I turned back to Mother Srirani. “Where is your power now, Temple Mother? Let us speak to the Goddess ourselves.”

“No,” she said roughly, switching tacks in the face of such overwhelming opposition. “I was a fool to think you would respect our rules. You shall not profane this place with your foreign prayers and strange ideas. Mother Surekha will escort you from the temple. You and Mother Vajpai are expelled from your order, and from the service of the Lily Goddess. Her ears will be deaf to your prayers, Her eyes blind to your sacrifices. Our Blades will not help you. No hand will be raised to your aid. May you find what you seek in the justice of the streets of Kalimpura.”

An urgent jerk of Mother Vajpai’s chin caught my eye. In that moment of pause, I realized that she had the right of things. We were better off withdrawn from this place and shaping our own next moves than risking some new devilment from Mother Srirani, who had so clearly become Surali’s puppet. Even if the Lily Goddess did choose to manifest, She would not play the politics this situation demanded. Her brushstrokes were much broader than that.

Looking up once more, I made my closing statement. “I go, not because I accept either Rani’s authority or her edict, but because I wish peace upon this temple. I shall see all of you again.”

Mother Vajpai and I walked out through the little door at the base of the gallery to the thunder of applause. Mother Surekha crowded close behind us, nervous and unhappy as any cat on ice.

Despite everything that was going wrong, I found myself smiling.

*   *   *

I ignored our escort and headed for the kitchens. Mother Vajpai kept pace with me, Mother Surekha trailing behind. There was no point in stepping out into the circular plaza of the Blood Fountain. The Street Guild awaited us there. And the Blades would not be of any aid. Not right now, not directly. I had my own doubts about the future effectiveness of Mother Srirani’s ban, but they did not signify just then.

No one else followed us, not even the rest of Mother Surekha’s handle. Mother Surekha herself seemed far more nervous now, judging from my frequent glances over my shoulder. She could be as nervous as she wished. I wanted to be sure she wasn’t drawing a weapon.

Mother Vajpai seemed more concerned about Mother Surekha’s state of mind. As we slipped down the Lesser Adamantine Stairs, she looked backwards as well. “Tell me, do
you
wish to see us on the street?”

Mother Surekha grunted. Then a confession: “I don’t know what is right here.”

Hot words rushed to my tongue, but I swallowed them. I had another purpose here. Argument with an angry Blade was not on my agenda. Besides, this was Mother Vajpai’s question.

“It should not be so hard,” she said gently as we banged into the kitchens.

Ah, the smell. Scent was the catapult of memory, and there was nothing like cooking to fire your thoughts into the past. Yeast, ash, spice, steam from the washbasins, the green and crumpled reek of vegetables. Such a familiar blend, all the way to the back of my mind.

I had been taught the many uses of a kitchen under the brutal hand of Mistress Tirelle, back at the Factor’s house in Copper Downs. We’d always cooked with just the two of us. No one to serve the food to, no servants or undercooks to help. Though my taskmistress had spoken much about the varied practices of a more substantial kitchen—such as the one I’d snuck through in the Red House—that had been theory to me until I arrived in Kalimpura, some time after murdering my way out of both captivity and the city of Copper Downs.

Here, in the lower levels of the Temple of the Silver Lily, I’d had my first real experience of a great and busy kitchen. I’d never worked with large ovens and cooking for two hundred, recipes that were measured in catties and bowlsfuls rather than ounces and cups. I’d shown the cooks here recipes from the cold north, especially the baking that was so little of the tradition in Kalimpura. They’d taught me their crafts in turn, their spices and sauces and the use of the clay oven.

I’d spent a lot of time with these women, my arms dusted to the shoulders with flour and seasoning, or wrinkled from taking my turns at scrubbing pans. They’d spent a lot of time with me as well.

So there were not too many surprised faces when I entered the kitchen, trailed by Mother Vajpai and Mother Surekha. Some smiles, yes, and some frowns. Wings of rumor had flown here just as fast as anywhere. The kitchen knew most things before the rest of the temple.

Old Sister Shatta came hobbling toward me. She was the master baker in the kitchen, answering only to Mother Tonjaree, who was the kitchen’s head steward. She was also one of the women who’d spent the most time with me in the years when I could be found down here.

“Hungry, girl?” she said with a gritty laugh. She nodded at Mother Vajpai and favored Mother Surekha with a fishy stare.

“Sister Shatta.” I hugged her. “I have been gone too long.” She looked so much older than I remembered, trembling as she walked but still refusing canes. Or at least refusing to show them to me. “I am sorry to be rude. I am in something of a hurry.”

“Oh, we’ve heard, girl.” She touched my face, fingers brushing down my chin. “And you’ve been talking to voices in the dark.”

Everything seemed to still for a moment. Even the grumble of the fires and the pinging of the iron ovens quieted. In Sister Shatta’s eyes I saw an unaccustomed depth shining past the wispy webs that would all too soon finish claiming her sight.

I dropped to one knee, clasped her hand, and said, “I have come home to You.”

Briefly, I felt raindrops and smelled lilies. Then Shatta’s old woman voice cackled at me. “Get up, girl. You shall never be outrunning those fools if you are bending a knee to every biddy who wants to give you a kiss.”

Right then and there, I’d have told her of my children and my life, but this was not the time. And the less said in that place about potential hostages, the better. Rumor’s wings flew in all directions.

The undercooks and kitchen girls drifted closer, casually forming a sort of wall around us. Mother Surekha looked even more uncomfortable, as if she’d never realized how much politics went on in the kitchens. And who would, if she’d never worked here? The interweaving of food and relationships was obvious to anyone who’d ever stood to serve, but not always to those who sat to eat.

“We must away and swiftly,” I said. “You must know what has taken place in the fane. Street Guild gather outside in numbers too large to evade.”

“I overheard Mother Maati saying she planned to send two girls marketing for herbs.” Sister Shatta’s voice was cackling and sly.

“We will need to cover our leathers.”

“And these,” said a girl I did not know, pushing two large cane baskets at me. I handed one to Mother Vajpai.

“Robes?” I asked.

Cloaks were thrust at us. Gray, patched, nondescript, still they reminded me of my belled silk back aboard
Prince Enero,
and Marya’s. These city folk thought that such a peasant affectation, but the habit of sewing a new bell every day was all I had of the region and people of my birth. Setting aside that thought, I shrugged into one and pulled it close around me. Mother Vajpai donned hers and picked up her basket once more.

There was nothing particularly convincing about us. Mother Vajpai especially would never pass a second glance as a scullion, but with luck we would not draw the first glance. So long as we didn’t move like Blades.

“Go now,” urged Sister Shatta. “We shall be dull-witted serving wenches should anyone come asking.”

I turned to Mother Surekha. “And you?”

She glowered but held her harder words in check. “Once you leave, my duty has been discharged.”

“Keep it discharged,” I advised her. “There will be grief raining down aplenty soon enough. You will not want that.”

“I saw you cut those men,” she whispered.

My index finger tapped her chest as regret panged me. “You would have killed them, too.”

“Not so easily. No one should die that easy.” With those words, she turned abruptly and pushed through the crowd of onlookers.

Raising my voice, I said, “Thank you all. There are no promises I can make, but if I can manage, things will be different soon.”

“Come back and cook awhile,” someone said—I did not catch the voice.

“We will.” With that, I headed for the pantry and the loading doors beyond where the draymen brought food from the various markets around Kalimpura. Mother Vajpai ghosted close to my elbow. I could practically hear her being thoughtful.

*   *   *

For all the imposing glory of the frontage of the Temple of the Silver Lily, the rear facing was as anonymously crowded and busy as the back of any other substantial institution. Carters, beggars, small tradesmen—a steady traffic passed in the alley behind. We slipped into the stream, walking briskly with our heads turned down. Most of the servants in this city or any other walked briskly. A shuffling step would have cried out that we wished not to be recognized.

Swiftly we merged into the crowded streets beyond, losing ourselves away from the Blood Fountain with its swarm of angry Street Guildsmen. After about six blocks, I pulled the limping Mother Vajpai into someone’s walled garden to rest a short while beneath the shade of a papaya tree. It was a shame about the latch on their gate, which I was forced to cut through with the god-blooded dagger.

“Those Street Guild bastards did not used to have so much power,” I said, pacing before the bench whether Mother Vajpai unashamedly took her rest.

“Things have changed since you left.”

We’d discussed this back in Copper Downs, we’d discussed this aboard
Prince Enero,
we would doubtless continue to discuss this, but still I was surprised. The Blades had always seemed to me to be so powerful, so constant, so … confident.

“Things have changed,” I agreed. “That does not mean I must accept what they have become. But now I need to get back to my children.” My breasts were not aching yet—we had left the ship scarcely two hours ago—but they would before the day grew much older. And besides, though I understood quite starkly why we had not taken the children with us on disembarking, still I feared for their safety. So long as the officers and crew of
Prince Enero
were more afraid of me than they were afraid of whoever challenged them from over the rail, things would remain stable.

But not any longer than that.

“We cannot return to the waterfront,” Mother Vajpai pointed out. “Certainly not right now. The Street Guild will be there in numbers. And they are very stirred up.”

“Without the help of other Blades, you and I would be ill advised to try that,” I said, agreeing. Puffing air from my cheeks in a measured sigh, I tried to think what the next most likely course of action would be.

The problem with being a Blade is that you were a
Blade
. We formed no alliances to speak of, and neither gave nor asked the help of others. Our work was our own, and we alone suffered whatever consequences arose from that in turn.

So we had no allied Court or Guild to turn to. No other temple or god kept such a force to hand, for the Blades’ long-held monopoly on the Death Right had always discouraged such adventurism. And our hoped-for allies in the Saffron Tower renegades Firesetter and Fantail were still far from our grasp.

“Who do you know that we could appeal to?” I finally asked.

“The same people you do.” I heard a twist of amusement in Mother Vajpai’s voice. She was playing the part of a teacher once more.

You know the answer, now think of it.
At least the lessons here were not beaten into me as they had been back at the Pomegranate Court within the Factor’s bluestone walls.

No, the lessons here carried their own life or death penalties.

“Everyone is armed, and no one is, in this city.” We’d certainly done our part to discourage overtly competing forces, though obviously the temple and the Blades had failed quite badly in containing the growth of the Street Guild. “It is difficult to know where to turn.”

“Some people are everywhere and nowhere,” Mother Vajpai replied in a mild tone.

“Everywhere and nowhere…”

“You’ve been doing very well so far.” She smiled at me, though her face was a bit drawn. “I am impressed.”