I was sick of being god-touched, and tired of being the point of contention.
Iso and Osi represented another avenue of ancient wisdom, should I wish to examine that question further. And somewhat more sensibly articulate than either Mother Iron or Archimandrix. Even better, the wandering twins could help me protect myself from Blackblood. As strangers to the city with only polite interest in our factions and their fates, the two of them could also possibly counsel me on how best to pit the Dancing Mistress’ pardine Revanchists and the Selistani embassy against one another-surely my securing the Eyes of the Hills from Samma would allow me to dictate the terms of that balance, if I could best puzzle how to use the gems.
In truth, all that wondering pointed to only one reasonable conclusion. I must unravel one thing at a time, or determine that the knot was so tangled I had no choice but to cut it and move on.
Stated thusly, my plan was simple to the point of elegance. Short on useful details, perhaps, but those sorts of things tended to appear as needed.
Day was coming to an end by the time I’d fully sorted my thoughts. Iso and Osi followed their meditations and evening rites-this was the hour at which they had turned me out previously for the sin of being female. I skulked across rooftops until I found a rented room being vacated by a night worker, some clerk bound for an evening counting out the day’s receipts, wearing the suit he carefully pressed before dressing and taking his leave. It was the work of moments to quietly force open his window. Within, I blocked his door with the lone chair, washed myself in his little basin, ate of his small bowl of dried fruit, and slipped into his not too grubby bedclothes for a few watches of comfortable rest. I did not neglect to leave an overgenerous silver tael on the washstand for the stranger’s troubles, though I hoped he would not be too fearful and confused by my break-in.
Even in those days of my youth, I understood the value of small kindnesses in life.
I awoke in the later hours of the night, to judge by the lowered, glowering moon above the swift-moving clouds. The forced window rattled with the fast, nervous air. The squalls I’d seen the afternoon before had taken their time, but were still on their way. The impending rain rendered seeking the rooftops now an unlikely choice. I felt a bit guilty about appropriating my host’s tiny rented room, so I took some time to straighten and clean. I even mended the torn shirt he had set out in his clothespress. Leaving the room better than I had found it, including the silver tael on the washstand, I headed to the cobbles and into the city before the rains that seemed likely to arrive with the dawn.
The baby hungered me, and tugged once more at my incipient nausea, so I ignored the roughening weather to slip around to the bakery near the Textile Bourse for a fresh cardamom roll and some kava. The woman there smiled to see me. I knew I’d risen in their estimation, because this time I was invited to sit in the kitchen and eat while two large, silent men worked the ovens. They were stripped to the waist, and their reddish-gold skins sweated in the heat like the demons of baking. They kept themselves clean with towels and wore long padded gloves to handle the breads.
The woman sat with me a little while once I’d tucked in. “We know you,” she said shyly.
That was worrisome, but it could mean anything. “You are kind,” I mumbled around a mouthful.
“You called the ox god, and spared the city.” She nodded her head. I looked up at a sudden gap in the gentle noises of baking to see both the men-her brothers?-standing at attention with the butts of their long wooden paddles grounded to the floor. They nodded as well.
“Endurance called himself.” I found myself embarrassed. “It was only my voice that made the prayer.”
That brought a shrug from the woman. She handed me a small fruit with a ribbon tied to it. “Offering. For the god, for you. Our thanks.”
She would not let me pay, either. I ate the cherry-a single one at that, strange offering though it seemed-and tied the stone into the ribbon to slip within my pocket. I bowed, took my leave, and went to find the twin pilgrims. Avoiding any chance of being viewed by prying eyes from within the Textile Bourse was my first step. After that I slipped into the burgeoning morning traffic of the city along with the beginning of the serious rain.
Iso and Osi were unsurprised to see me. So unsurprised, in fact, that they had already laid out a third setting for tea before my arrival.
“A fortune told?” I asked lightly. Their warehouse echoed with the drumming of the storm on the high, flat roof.
“Our rites are thorough,” said Osi.
Iso nodded. “Sometimes common sense is enough. Even for old men such as us.”
Common sense and good finger on the pulse of rumor, I’d bet. Anyone who made it their business to learn their way around the local gods of necessity learned their way around much else of the local life as well. And these two certainly had long practice at both.
“I thank you.” The Eyes of the Hills seemed to crackle inside my shirt, as if their velvet bag were alive. Likewise I fancied the twins’ attention drawn toward the hidden gems. Once more my memories of the encounter with Desire loomed large.
One thing at a time. These two had no place in my troubles, but I did not yet know them well enough to trust them with everything that had befallen me. How I wish I’d listened to that thought more carefully at the time.
“Tea first,” Osi said.
Iso: “Then we will speak more of gods.”
So tea we took, amid some very polite and inconsequential talk of local foods and the fall harvest and the inadvisability of eating shellfish that had not been bought off the decks of a boat just in. Always they passed the sentences back and forth between them as if in some private game. I had to strain not to hear them as one man. I knew that would be a mistake.
In time the tea service was wiped clean. They were fastidious in handling what I had used, and avoided my immediate presence with an almost eerie grace that was both fascinating and irritating. Once again ignoring my own inner wisdom, I laid aside my feelings on the matter in the interests of my larger needs. We had taken seats on mats laid in a circle so that we made three even points. I sat watching them as they watched me.
“You have been touched,” said Iso.
Osi added, “The gods follow you as a dog will follow a cat in an alley.”
“I am not bait, nor prey, for them.”
“No,” Iso agreed. “But once a way has been opened from the divine into a human mind, it is easier for the divine to follow a second time.”
“Though far more often,” his brother added, “whatever god opens the way guards his prophet with jealousy.”
“You are most unusual, Mistress Green. You speak with several gods, and for none of them.”
“We know priests who would give all to be touched as you have been.”
“They can have it!” I almost shouted. These two certainly knew how to spark my fears and anger. “This is worse than being swarmed by beggars. You can kick a beggar, or outrun her. No door can be locked firmly enough to deter the entry of a god.”
Iso shook his head gravely. “Though they often manifest as human, and we speak of them so, you would be better served to think of the gods as forces.”
“As you might think of a storm, or an earthquake,” Osi added.
That, I could understand.
Iso continued. “But directed. And with intelligence.”
Osi touched his brother’s arm, as if for emphasis. “To call them beggars does not properly describe your experiences, or characterize the nature of the divine.”
“But they are beggars,” I protested, realization dawning within me. “The gods demand attention and sacrifice and devotion. If enough people turn away from them, they fade. All the power of a goddess is in her followers.”