“As you please.” He began shredding long-shanked strips of meat with his fangs. I found myself curiously unwilling to ask what animal had been slaughtered and cured to make his snack. I was afraid the answer would be too unpleasant for even me.
When the Rectifier seemed to have taken his fill, at least for the moment, I told him I was ready to venture forth and find a bakery. We crawled from our shelter through the jumbled junk of the yard outside. No one noted our appearance on the street under the stark, clear sky. Faint clouds scribed frosted glyphs at the very top of the heavens, but I was not wise enough to read them.
He set a loping pace I was willing to follow, for the effort would only benefit me, whatever the pain in my chest. I let the pavement absorb the pounding of my feet. The distresses of my spirit slipped free in each glancing step. The air had enough of an edge to hurt my lungs, which made a fine counterpoint to the jarring of my ribs. Ilona’s house must be so cold, I thought. She would have made a fire, but even amid an entire forest of feral apple trees and neglected lumber tracts, the woman was parsimonious with her fuel.
There were times when living in Selistan seemed like much the better option, regardless of my station there. I wondered how sincere Samma had been in saying she’d meant to find me and bring me home. Warm, those streets were warm, even when they were filled with enemies.
As if Copper Downs were not.
We skidded around a corner and I went sprawling on the cobbles. That multiplied the pain in my ribs, and struck me a hard blow to the jaw that made my teeth and skull ache. I managed to guard the baby, but the sheltering made the rest of my fall worse. The Rectifier spun and scooped me up before I could recover myself. At his hands, I was back on my feet.
“You are in litter,” he said, sniffing at me. “You should not fight.”
I was still trying to sort out how to respond to that when we fetched up before a bakery. This was a commercial establishment, turning out racks and racks of loaves for taverns, inns, chandlers’ carts; whoever would purchase by the dozen or the twentyweight. It smelled like a bakery, all yeast and wheat. That was surely what had drawn the Rectifier. The scent was sufficient to distract my own attention from the fresh hurts of my body.
The thing was, he had the right of it.
Grumbling, I went inside and bargained for a basket of butterflake rolls. The two women behind the counter didn’t want to sell such a small quantity to me. I pointed out that the Rectifier and I could make a day of loitering in front of their bakery discouraging customers while we waited for minds to be changed.
They relented quickly enough at that threat, though I was gouged on the price. I judged little point in overplaying my hand for that. Instead I took my rolls and left.
The smell was luscious. Still, these were not cardamom rolls. They tasted well enough and went down all right. I nonetheless wished for the others. Or possibly some pickled cabbage.
That last had to be the baby talking through my appetite.
When the two of us had finished gobbling down my acquisition-the Rectifier ate two of them, possibly out of some misplaced politeness-I took the lead in walking us toward the warehouse where Iso and Osi waited. The Rectifier followed along with studied patience, as if he were indulging me. Which might even have been true.
“Why do they call you the Rectifier?” I asked.
“Because it is my name,” he replied in his rumbling voice. Nothing of his answer invited further inquiry, but I was feeling a childish rebellion against his obvious indulgence.
“I know something of pardine names. What do you rectify, that they should call you so?”
His claws flexed. “Troublesome humans for the most part.”
“None so troublesome as me,” I announced cheerfully.
“Few, to be sure,” the Rectifier admitted.
I decided I’d won my point. Whatever that trivial victory might mean. We approached the warehouse, so I pulled him aside to lean against a wall in conversation.
“Now we shall visit a pair of human… well… ascetics.”
“Priests?” A delight bloomed in his eyes. I realized this was surely as much to tweak my sensibilities as anything.
“Monks, more like,” I told him. “And you will behave.”
“What order?”
“Excuse me?”
The look he gave me was far less indulgent. I was thankful for all my years with the Dancing Mistress-most humans found pardines next to impossible to read, I’d been told.
This time his voice rumbled. “Of what god are they priests or followers?”
“I don’t know.” In that moment I realized how curious an omission this truly was. “They speak of their ancient rite, one which excludes women, but they have never named it. Surely because I am a woman.”
“Surely.” Doubt rang heavy in his voice.
“In any case, they are twins. Iso and Osi. These two are strange, even by the standards of the religious. But they know a great deal. And they are helping me to overset Blackblood, that he might cease hunting my trail.”
The Rectifier shrugged, a dangerous, slow ripple of muscle and attention that meant he was focusing if anything too closely. “Even my help is dangerous to you. Simply because we are of different kinds, without respect to our regard for one another. The aid of those with an unknown purpose is likely to be a far greater trap.”
“I know, I know…” Everyone had to warn me of something, it seemed. The world never stopped trying to teach me. Maybe I needed to keep trying to learn? That lesson about lessons continues even now, years later. “I am willing to trust them, based on their own self-interest. I do not know their character or their history except for what they have chosen to display. These two brothers are among the few in this city without some hidden purpose for me.”
“You know that, do you?” The sarcasm in his voice was downright human. “Who you choose to trust is your business. I pledged you my aid. Aid you I will.”
The balance of his unsaid words echoed quite clearly in the chill morning air between us. I shrugged off a surge of frustration. The Rectifier would help me as he saw best. Surely he had even less agenda than the twins, unless he were in secret league with the Revanchists. The idea of the Rectifier doing anything in secret coaxed a reluctant smile to my lips.
“I trust you,” I said. “For reasons stronger and older than anything offered by these two mystics from the deep east.”
“Neither of us died when we fought.” He chuckled, that slow grinding laugh of his. “That is rare. And trust-making.”
The implications of that sank in. “I am glad I did not train in your school.”
One great paw enclosed my shoulder. “If you had, the school would have been bettered.”
I ducked my head to hide the foolish grin that tried to seize my face, and mumbled a thanks. Then I led him through a small side door into the dusty country where I’d left the ministers of my ambitions.
Iso and Osi rose to their feet at the sight of the Rectifier, once more reminding me of a pair of fighters ready for the sparring ring. How had they ever fooled me in the Dockmarket with the supposed threat of the local thugs? I had only needed look at their stance to know better, but I’d been blinded by their age and my willingness to believe in these two men who so reminded me of Lao Jia.
The great pardine settled his weight as if about to leap into a fray. Whether he was reading their stance or their saffron robes I could not say. Priest killer that he was, the Rectifier might well recognize the order or temple from which their rite stemmed.
For now, though, it was on me to speak, and quickly. “Revereds,” I said sharply. “I bring friends together today, to pursue the matter that troubles me most.” I bowed toward the twins. “Iso and Osi, I present the Rectifier. He is a warrior among the pardines, one who has stalked the shadows of the divine through the human world.” Then I turned and nodded at the Rectifier. “These are Iso and Osi. They also stalk the shadows of the divine along a somewhat different path than yours. Each of you has given me wise counsel, and all of you have said you would grant me aid in this matter I now seek to resolve.”