The Devil's Garden (6 page)

Ume was skeptical. Was he claiming to be a virgin at 120 years? She circled the bust, running her fingers over the soft clay. “How long do the Meer live?”

“As long as we have the sense to, I suppose. We are raised by the templars, so I cannot speak with certainty of the longevity of those who came before me. I am told the Meer of Rhyman is in his fourth century, and there are others even older.”

“But the Meer of Rhyman has a child. So there is still some procreation among you.”

“So it seems. Are you interviewing me, Ume?”

Ume blushed. She was behaving like the spy others hoped she would be. “I’m sorry.” She clasped her arms behind her back. “That was rude.”

“No matter, Ume
’La.
” MeerAlya used the Deltan suffix that could represent something wondrous or something fearful. “I find your interest stimulating.”

She sat for him again, both clothed and nude, while he sketched and made adjustments to his sculpture. Time seemed to move differently in the Meer’s chambers, and Ume lost track of it.

When MeerAlya asked her to dine with him, he confirmed the plum sprig had been no simple trick by conjuring the meal with a few choice culinary words, murmuring “a thousand leaves of salmon” and “figs with aged cheese” as the delicacies appeared like thoughts taking shape on the table before them. Even the crystal and porcelain formed at his words, “flutes of oaked wine,” producing breathtakingly fragile, tulip-shaped goblets sparkling with crystalline russet liquid that tasted of the musky wood kegs it could not have aged in.

Alya raised his glass to her as she looked on in wonder. “You see, my dear Maiden, it is a simple thing to create, to focus one’s mind on the desires of the moment and breathe them into being. But even a Meer cannot conjure such exquisite company.”

A jarring cacophony brought back the stolid tick of ordinary time.

Even from MeerAlya’s quarters behind the dome of the altar room, the sound of shouting and altercation could be heard in the courtyard. A servant announcing MeerAlya’s personal attendant interrupted their meal in an unprecedented breach of temple etiquette as Alya set down his glass.

“My liege.” The templar bowed deeply at his entrance. “You should not be troubled, but an extra flank of the temple guard has been placed before the arches. There is an incident in the courtyard.”

“An incident?” Alya pushed back his chair.

“A small group of malcontents, my liege. We are addressing it. I advise that you not concern yourself.”

“I see. And what is it that has them so discontent?”

The templar colored. “They are calling for your ouster, my liege. They are anti-Meerists.”

“Anti-Meerists.” MeerAlya set down his napkin. “They are, it seems, against my very nature. There is not much I can do to satisfy them in that.” He turned to Ume. “This is unprecedented in the years of my reign. Tell me, Maiden Sky, do I provide so poorly for the
soth
of In’La?”

Ume blanched, unable to look away from the blue quartz of his eyes. “I would not presume to judge, my liege. I may be considered to belong to a privileged class of citizen.”

Alya nodded. “A prudent answer.” He sighed and stood. “Templar Hrithke, please escort the Maiden Sky to her transport once you deem the altercation safely allayed.”

Ume stared after him as he strolled from the room. Had she angered him, or was he merely disheartened? It must be the protest Cree had spoken of. Ume hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Incongruously she recalled being seated naked in the Meer’s lap, his silver hair draping her like mist.
“The safest place you will ever be is in the arms of your Meer.”

Hrithke presented her with another alabaster box, bigger than the last, and she realized she must have spent a full three days with MeerAlya. She hadn’t slept and hardly remembered the changing of the light. It was as if his presence were the radiance of the sun itself, and she a satellite that merely turned her face to his light.

Cillian wasted no time seeking out Cree in the morning. She had lent him the fine woolen coat she’d worn to present herself in the Garden. He wrapped it around himself as he wended through the alleyways of Lower Bank Street, his feet clad in a pair of plain brown boots he rarely had occasion to wear. The autumn chill seeped into his bones; In’La felt it first among the Deltan
soths.

At Cree’s boardinghouse the landlady eyed him with suspicion.

“I’m here to see Master Sylva.”

“An’ he expects you? You one of those troublemakers?”

“It’s fine, Mistress Fersi,” Cree called as she hurried down the stairs. “Cillian is a friend.”

The shadow of a fading black eye marked Cree’s brow, and Cillian reached to touch it. “Cree, what—”

She brushed his hand away with a scowl and pushed him before her up the stairs. When the door was shut behind them, she embraced him with surprising strength.

“
Meeralyá!
You scared me to death.”

“Cree, what happened to your eye?”

Cree let go of him. “Someone accused me of being a woman at the docks. I had to teach him a lesson.” She held up the scraped knuckles of her right hand with a rueful smile. When he reached for her hand in concern, she shook her head. “It’s nothing. It’s you I’m worried about. Where have you been?”

“At the temple.”

Azhra appeared in the doorway of Cree’s bedroom. “You were at the temple? Were you there for the demonstration?”

“I was there. Inside. Dining with the Meer.”

Azhra threw Cree a look of mistrust. “How well do you know Cillian?”

“How well does she know
me?
She doesn’t even know you at all!”

“I’ve known Azhra for months,” Cree said quietly. “This isn’t her first visit to In’La. She’s a founding member of the League of Expurgists in Rhyman. She helped the local chapter organize.”

Cillian’s face blazed with embarrassment. “Well, thank you, Master Sylva, for letting me keep you from each other briefly.”

Cree rolled her eyes as Azhra laughed into her hands. “We’re not lovers, Cillian. Ye gods. You’re as jealous as a man.”

“I am a man,” said Cillian, feeling foolish.

“Not always, my delicate angel. Not always.” Cree kissed him on the nose and led him to the couch. “Look. We’ve been planning the protest for a long time. The people want action. The templars managed to disperse us eventually, but even they seemed halfhearted in their support of the Meer. I think they only stand by him because they have no public cause to denounce him.”

Cillian shrugged off the coat and laid it over the arm of the couch. “I don’t know about this. What do you expect Alya to do?”

“We expect
Alya
to leave.” Azhra folded her arms, leaning against the door frame. “The Meer are an anachronism. They’re sucking the lifeblood from the Delta.”

“What about your daughter?”

Azhra didn’t flinch. “I was used as a vessel by the Meer of Rhyman. I have no loyalty to the temple or any of its occupants. But I wonder. Where are your loyalties?”

Everyone seemed to want an answer to this question. He could only give her the truth.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I think you’d better decide.” Azhra relaxed her adversarial pose. “I know how seductive the Meer can be. They make you feel like…something special. But it’s an illusion. Everything they do is illusion. They are not gods. They are almost not even men. Men feel. They’re bereft of feeling.”

The bell rang, saving them from more tense conversation, and Mistress Fersi called up the stairs.

“There’s no one else has so many visitors, sir,” she complained loudly as Cree went down to meet them. “I run a proper boardinghouse.”

“I know you do. We’ll keep it quiet, Mistress Fersi.”

“If you have overnight guests, there’s board to pay, Master Sylva!”

Jin and Zea followed Cree into the apartment, Zea bearing an infant on her hip. Azhra took a step back into the bedroom at the sight of the child, as if afraid it might bite.

“We just came from the Devil’s Garden.” Zea juggled the child to her other hip. “It was total chaos.”

Cillian made a face at the baby and was rewarded with a grin. “The
Devil’s
Garden?”

Zea smirked. “Where the Meer’s prostitutes grow.” Behind her, Cree gave a slight shake of her head. Apparently, not everyone was aware of Cillian’s public identity.

“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on at the Garden?”

Jin dug through a bag of infant accoutrements as the baby began to fuss. “The templars were arresting one of the girls. Charging her with that templar’s murder.”

Cillian’s blood ran cold, as if his circulation had stopped. “A courtesan? They think a courtesan did it?”

“One of the street girls, I think. Petra or something.” He fished out a linen-wrapped sugar teat and handed it to Zea.

“Persa.” Zea put the comforter in the baby’s mouth.

It was not a name he knew, but courtesans did not mix with the Lower Bank Street girls. If she was being arrested for Ume’s crime, surely Nesre would do something. The chill sank into his stomach.

“She was an expurgist. It seems the templar was using the prostitutes to get information on the movement. I don’t believe she killed him at all. I think this is a setup.”

Cillian used the discipline of his art to keep his expression placid, but his head swirled with alarm.

Zea turned to Cree. “I need to use your privy if you don’t mind. Jin and I have been on our feet all morning posting bills.” She held out the baby as Azhra stepped away from the door. “Could you take Edme for me?”

When Azhra recoiled, Cillian stepped forward, welcoming a diversion from the sickly maelstrom in his head. “Let me. I haven’t held a baby since my youngest sister was born.” Cillian swooped in to take the infant before Azhra’s refusal was noticed. Edme stopped fussing at once, reaching to tug on his hair with interest. He tucked her against his hip as he remembered doing with his sister Lahni. A few months after Lahni’s birth Cillian had been caught wearing one of the veils his older sisters left behind.

He bobbed on his heels, rocking Edme as he mulled the news. If Zedei had been spying, it wasn’t for the Meer; Alya knew nothing of the expurgist movement. Cillian desperately needed to talk to Nesre.

When Zea returned and took Edme, Azhra picked up her wrap and veil. “I’m going to see what I can find out. The market is close to the Garden, isn’t it? There’s bound to be talk there worth listening to.”

“I’ll walk with you,” said Cillian. “I’m headed that way.”

Cree frowned. “You’re leaving already?”

“There’s something I have to take care of. I just wanted to make sure you were all right and to let you know I was.”

“Well, keep this at least.” Cree picked up the coat he’d returned. “I have another, and it’s getting chilly.” She held it open for him to put his arms into the sleeves and buttoned him up as though he were a child. “Can you come to the meeting later?”

“I have to see someone.” Cillian glanced at Jin and Zea. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

“Well, if you can’t, at least come by after when you’re free.” Cree gave him a reserved kiss. “If you’re free.”

“I will.” He touched the bruise over her eye. “I don’t like this, Cree. Be careful.”

“I am being careful.” She pulled away from him, a bit stiff. “I’m working to end this repressive regime.” There was no missing her disapproval that Cillian was not.

As he walked with Azhra toward the market, Cillian was struck by how changed In’La was becoming, and how swiftly. He’d never heard of a public movement for anything, let alone against the Meer. Azhra was right; In’La had become strange. Traditional roles were being abandoned: unmarried women walked in the streets unaccompanied by a chaperone and without the veil; a couple such as Jin and Zea raised a child together without the blessing of matrimony.

Opportunities for work were expanding with the new mechanizations and new means to power them, but the living a person could make was growing dearer—
alyanis
bought less with each passing day. Ume’s status had kept her out of the circuit of common folk to a large degree. When had this change come, and what had spurred such anger toward the Meer?

Azhra was quiet beside him.

“You’ve had a child,” he said after a bit. “May I ask why you still wear the veil?”

“Because it is my privilege. No man has unveiled me. I am not a married woman. The veil says my body is my own.”

“I wear the veil as well,” he confided. “When I’m in courtesan dress. I always wanted to, even as a small child.”

Azhra glanced at him. “I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to be a woman. You’re born to the ruling sex, yet you give up your power. I would give anything to be a man. I
hate
being a woman.” The depth of feeling with which she declared this saddened him.

“I have far more power as Ume than I do as Cillian. Ume is a truer expression of who I am. I feel like I’m faking it when I dress as a man.”

Azhra considered this, pulling her wrap closer as the breeze picked up. “And Cree—she seems to have more power, as well. I thought it was her access to masculine privilege. But maybe it’s something else. Maybe dressing that way feels truer for her.”

The wind had turned cold, and Cillian put his hands in his pockets with a shrug. “I don’t know why anyone else dresses against their sex. I only know why I do.”

Their paths were about to diverge, and Azhra paused. “Cillian, be careful of the Meer. His real magic is his power over you. He’ll consume you.”

“You weren’t a willing consort, Azhra. You said yourself you had no power. It’s not that way with MeerAlya. Your Meer took what he wanted from you. It’s only natural you’d hate him.”

Her dark blue eyes were depthless with longing as she shook her head. “I loved him.” Azhra turned away toward the market.

Before investigating the chaos still apparent in the Garden, Ume changed upstairs in her apartments, kicking off the masculine boots in favor of her black slippers and throwing on the red silk pants and a plain black tunic belted at the hip with a string of onyx teardrops. A red chiffon scarf, artfully draped and tucked into her chignon, served as a veil.

She made her way through the lingering crowds unnoticed; there were courtesans and streets girls enough that her presence was commonplace. A group of templars stood across the street from the Salver & Chalice speaking in hushed tones with their heads together. Nesre was not among them. Ume couldn’t afford to wait for him to seek her out. It was highly irregular for a courtesan to solicit a patron, but Ume had never shied from the irregular when it was called for.

With the lengths of her scarf drawn around her shoulders, she approached the templars, her arms crossed against the wind. Her reputation preceded her, and they bowed their respect and ceased their conversation.

“My lords.” She inclined her head. “The esteemed Templar Nesre asked me to meet him here, but in all the tumult we’ve missed each another. Could you possibly carry a message to him? Or do you know where I might find him?”

They exchanged glances of some significance.

An older templar took her arm and led her aside, his maroon robes marking him as a high-ranking priest, though not a member of the Court of Decisions. “Templar Nesre is leading the investigation into this regrettable event.” Ume was unable to keep her eyes from widening. “When I see him, I shall tell him you are seeking him. Where shall I say he may find you?”

“I’ll wait for him inside the Salver and Chalice.” Ume pressed his hand and gave him a demure smile from behind the sheer veil. “I appreciate your kindness. I wouldn’t want him to think I’d forgotten our engagement.”

“Of course, Maiden Sky.”

Inside the tavern, she ordered a pot of warm pepper tea to calm her nerves. As a well-respected courtesan, she had a personal booth and was able to sit in its darkness without disturbance until Nesre arrived, remarkably calm.

“My dear Maiden Sky.” He kissed her hand. “I had hoped to speak with you. In fact, I had thought to do so before now, but you seem to have been scarce.”

Ume curled her palms around her teacup, watching the steam make patterns on the liquid’s surface. “I have only lately left the Meer.”

“Indeed?” Nesre sat across from her and pulled the curtain closed. “He must be quite taken with you. You’ve shared his bed, then.”

“No, as a matter of fact. He sculpts me.”

He knit his brows. “Sketching and sculpting. Our Meer is a man of strange passions.”

Ume leaned toward him and spoke in a sharp whisper. “Nesre, what on earth is going on with this arrest?”

“Nothing you need worry about, my dear. The girl has committed a crime for which I cannot charge her, and the Court of Decisions has a crime for which it needs a perpetrator. It works out nicely all round.” He gave her a dark smile. “Or would you rather hang?”

“I can’t let someone else hang in my place!”

Nesre sat back, once more perfectly composed, as if they were discussing the menu. “As I said, she is guilty of a serious crime, one for which hanging would be a mercy. You must leave all of this thinking to me. I am well trained to it. Meanwhile you do what you are trained to do, and all will be well.”

“What does that mean?”

Templar Nesre flicked his fingers against the curtain and glanced out to ensure they were alone. “I need you to engage in sexual congress with the Meer of In’La.”

“
You
need me to?”

“The people are restless under his rule. The time has come for the Meer to step down. The Meeric Age has ended.” Nesre refilled her cup from the pot of pepper tea, his placid face infuriating her. “Most of the templars are with me, but a few stubbornly hold to the old ways. And the old ways consist of the Meeric Code, so if it is broken…then they will be with me.” He gave her a patronizing smile. “You seem surprised, yet your newfound friends also share my view, do they not?” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Of course I keep an eye on you. I cannot afford not to.”

Ume drew her hands away from the teacup as the porcelain radiated the boiling heat to her fingers. If Nesre knew of Cree and the expurgist movement, he knew of their meetings and their plans for protest. And he had done nothing to stop them.

She looked him in the eye. “One of them said Zedei was a spy. Was he yours?”

“The unfortunate Templar Zedei was, alas, not persuaded to my point of view. He did infiltrate your friends, but he meant to expose them before the time was right. He would have brought down the movement.”

“I didn’t kill him, did I?”

“Only I can swear for or against you, Maiden Sky. The word of a courtesan is not her currency.” Nesre stood and pulled the curtains aside. “I have it on good authority that your patron of late will be calling on you to attend him following the Autumnal
Vetma.
See to it that you share his bed. The testimony of your body will be needed. I believe your sex will sway those who are as yet unconvinced of our mutual friend’s depravity.” He kissed her on the cheek, and she sat motionless, too stunned to protest. “What I ask of you and what your friends ask of you are one and the same. You may not care to do it for me, though you are in my debt. Think of them instead.”

Less than a week remained before the annual autumn blessing, the sole occasion whereupon the common people were allowed to petition the Meer. Wealthy merchants and citizens of standing could come before him daily in petition, as long as they had sufficient gold, but for the annual blessings, gifts of any nature were accepted. Most people considered it a farce—who had ever seen the Meer bless anyone?—but few could resist the possibility that this time, this season might be the one when Alya would choose them. They lined up for days in advance: a ready-made assembly of the masses.

Ume hadn’t quite believed the expurgists would go through with it. To remove the Meer from the throne, from his temple—where was he to go? And what made them think he would leave? It wasn’t as if they could imprison him or force his hand. He would simply speak, and the prison doors would open.

She would have to attend the meeting of the League of Expurgists. This was too crucial to take Nesre’s word for it. Cree had said the meetings weren’t usually held in her rooms, but she hadn’t specified where this one was to take place. Ume would have to find Azhra at the market.

It was just past midday as Ume threaded her way through the crowded marketplace, but there was no sign of Azhra among the clusters of older women with traditional head coverings and their maiden charges in the veil. A few hours had passed since they’d parted. Perhaps Azhra had already gone.

“Maiden Sky.” Azhra observed her from a fruit stand, a jute cord bag full of breadfruit tucked in her arms.

“Maiden Azhra.” Ume approached her. “How did you know me?”

“You have a distinct hair color.” Azhra shifted her bag. “And you’re quite conspicuous. Who else could you be but the
soth
’s most illustrious courtesan?”

Ume smiled and lowered her eyes. “I suppose that’s true. But I’m glad you did. I never would have found you on my own.”

“That’s the benefit of being an ordinary maiden in the Delta.” Azhra began to mill through the market once more with Ume beside her. “The only one, so far as I can see. It’s easy for me to gather information. People don’t see me.”

“And did you gather any?”

“I overheard a group of street girls in the square below the temple while I ate my lunch. They were skeptical of Persa’s involvement, either with the crime or the movement. But the murdered templar was a patron of hers on several occasions.”

“I thought Zea was sure she was an expurgist.” Ume fingered a bolt of emerald silk as they browsed.

“She may have attended a few meetings, but the other girls viewed it as something of a joke. The templars appear to believe otherwise.”

“The templars?” Ume dropped the cloth and looked at Azhra.

“There are a number who have been secretly attending meetings. The movement is growing among them. And they believe it was Persa who was spying on
them.
”

At last it made sense. Both Zedei and Persa had been opposed to the expurgation, and Nesre had made certain they were out of the way. Ume debated whether to tell Azhra of her own entanglement. It could mean trouble for her if it got back to Nesre.

Azhra paused to haggle over a blue-glazed bowl. “Why were you looking for me?”

“I wanted to attend the meeting this evening, and I didn’t know where it was.”

“That’s easy.” Azhra set down the bowl as the merchant named an extravagant price. “A copper
alyani
and no more,” she insisted. “Look around you, Ume. There are bills posted everywhere.”

The merchant feigned outrage at Azhra’s offer of less than half what the bowl was worth. After all, he had a dozen mouths to feed and an ailing wife. Ume glanced at the posts around the tent. Pieces of parchment clung to them, announcing An Evening of Meeric Poetry. Upstairs, Riverdock Public Tavern, at Dusk.

“Works like a Meeric charm.” Azhra tucked her bowl, bought for two coppers, on top of the breadfruit. “What Deltan in his right mind would accidentally wander into that?”

Azhra came up to Ume’s apartments to wait for her to change. It was probably wiser for Cillian to attend than Ume.

“What lovely rooms you have.” She wandered through the parlor where Ume entertained when a patron preferred not to use his own quarters. “So this is how the courtesans live.” Her words had an edge of bitterness.

“It took me many years to earn them.” Ume spoke from the bath chamber as she scrubbed the smudges of kohl from her eyes.

“Many years?” Azhra appeared in the doorway. “Ume, you’re seventeen.”

Ume loosened the ties at her shoulders. “Five years feels like a lot to me.” When she dropped the tunic over her bare legs onto the ground, Azhra stepped back with a slight gasp of dismay.

“I’m sorry.” Ume grabbed a towel to cover herself. “I suppose it’s disconcerting to see the illusion shattered right in front of you.”

Azhra shook her head, cheeks pink over the hem of her veil. “It’s not that. I…I’ve only ever seen one man naked.”

“I thought you were a courtesan once.”

“No. Just a girl who found herself in the arms of a Meer.” Her eyes were solemn. “A very dangerous place to be, Ume. Don’t forget that.”

At dusk they walked downriver to the pub, receiving polite smiles and nods from passersby as if they took them for a couple in courting. The upstairs room was packed with people from every caste. Cillian recognized a templar or two out of ceremonial dress.

“Cillian!” Cree waved them over with a pleased smile and gave him a masculine kiss of greeting on each cheek. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

She made space for them on the rag-weave rug she shared with Sylus and Dehr, who looked up with a brief acknowledgment from their game of jack-stones. Sylus’s glance was noticeably briefer, as if to avoid trouble with Dehr.

Cillian spoke low at Cree’s ear. “There are templars here.”

“Spies?”

“I don’t think so.” Azhra answered before he could, arranging her skirt around her ankles. “I think our message is finally being heard. They’re no more happy living under tyranny than the people are.” She shared what she’d heard in the marketplace, and Cree pondered the news.

“I heard something myself.” Cillian spoke reluctantly. “I understand things are moving more quickly than I realized. Is it true the expurgists plan to move against Alya after the Autumnal
Vetma?
”

“I haven’t heard that.” Cree looked to Azhra, who shook her head.

“It came from a high-level templar. He’s an avowed supporter of the movement, but he may be a spy.”

“Or you could be the spy.” Azhra’s piercing indigo gaze settled on his.

Cree glared. “Enough, Azhra. He’s
not.
”

“But he might warn the Meer.” This charge Cree did not immediately repudiate.

“What good would that do me?” asked Cillian. “If the whole of In’La is rising against him, I can hardly stem the tide. It would be like standing with the reeds against the river. I’d drown just the same.”

“You would,” Azhra assured him. Another veiled threat.

“All the same.” Cillian’s folded arms matched Azhra’s stubborn stance. “I still don’t see how he’ll be persuaded to abdicate. He’ll use his magic.”

Azhra’s laughter was loud as a speaker appeared at the podium and the murmur of voices ceased.

After a long speech that laid at MeerAlya’s feet the increasing number of beggars in the streets, the high prices of grain and coal and the heavy tariffs on river-shipped goods, the speaker confirmed Cillian’s report. A march was planned on the temple the morning afterward to demand Alya step down. Key members of the priesthood, he claimed, would lead the way into the temple to show they stood with the people against the Meer.

The announcement prompted a rumble of disbelief.

“The templars serve the Meer,” someone shouted. “They have never stood with the people!”

One of the plain-clothed templars rose and turned to the crowd. “We are standing with the people even now.”

The dissenters were shocked into silence.

“Templar Garius.” Cillian spoke in spite of himself, shaking off Cree’s cautioning grip as he stood to confront the startled templar. “Can you explain how you plan to remove MeerAlya from the temple? What if he refuses? How will you bind his magic?”

Cree tugged at his pant leg, hissing his name amid an undercurrent of angry whispers.

Garius addressed him with a withering look. “The power of the Meer is largely exaggerated. Any he
may
have is at its most depleted by the excess to which he is prone following a public
vetma.
The wealth of the people is laid at his feet in exchange for a promise of his favor to some gullible petitioner. For that one empty promise to bless the breeding of goats in the coming season, or to ensure an ample harvest a year hence, the gluttonous Meer receives offerings enough to fill the altar room.”