Nothing was above me to send the water down. Another spray of drops swirled around me on a wind. I recalled my dream, down in the cell below, of rain and lilies and the death of cities.
“I call…,”I shouted, then stopped. The gallery began to calm at the echo of my voice. I stared at the Temple Mother, but she was not focusing on me. From the fiery glare in her eyes, she had caught the gist of the Dancing Mistress’ remark. My last gambit had failed; now I would play for all. “Mother Umaavani,” I said, adding to the Dancing Mistress’ insult with deliberate disrespect of my own, “I call upon the mercy and wisdom of the Lily Goddess to pronounce upon my case. Lay your charges before Her, if She does not already know them, and let us see what She says of both me and my teacher.”
I heard another laugh in the gallery, this one loud and clear. The voice sounded like Mother Shesturi. There were some here who still cared for me.
“Very well.” The Temple Mother’s tones were ice now. “So it will be done. On your soul the burden rests.”
The gallery erupted again. Protests were shouted from higher up-by the outsiders, I was sure-but they were drowned out by the chatter of the women in the lower seats.
The Temple Mother pointed the Dancing Mistress and me to a low bench at the edge of the altar circle, just beneath the bottom tier of the gallery. It was normally used by aspirants awaiting their vows, or others sitting out a service until their special role was called upon.
This bench also had the advantage of being out of the line of fire of Mother Argai’s crossbow.
“What takes place here?” the Dancing Mistress asked in an urgent whisper.
“We are to be judged by the Goddess.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” I frowned at her. “I have made the best play I know for our lives and freedom. These women have no mercy, but the Goddess has been speaking to me. And Her power is very real. This is not Copper Downs. The divine does not drowse the years away here. There is risk, though. Most dicta from the Goddess are as She inspires the Temple Mother.”
“The Temple Mother says what she wishes, then credits your Goddess?” The sarcasm in her voice could have been scraped off with a spoon.
“Well, yes.” Put so baldly, the flaw in my plan was obvious enough. “Yet there are times when the Goddess speaks directly through her. Our gamble is that the Goddess will personally engage this matter, as she has been with me at times.”
“Why do you think that, Green?” I could hear the fear in her voice. The end might come at any moment, and the Dancing Mistress could not fight free of so many.
“Because I dreamed of rain, when we were below, and rain fell on me just now at the altar.”
She sighed. “She is not a rain goddess, is she?”
I shook my head. My Mistress’ life hung by far too thin a thread.
“Then let us hope your dreams are far more powerful than mine.”
As the altar was set up, a woman of the Bittern Court finally forced her way down to the sacred circle. Several Mothers from the Blades trailed protesting in her wake. The Temple Mother was having her sacred robes drawn over her by two aspirants.
When she turned to face the woman who approached in the harbor-gray silks of the Bittern Court, exasperation was plain upon the Temple Mother’s face.
“You cannot do this,” the Bittern Court woman said quietly. That there was no greeting or introduction told me they must have been speaking earlier, and were once more taking up the conversation in this awkward moment.
“I do not strut into your Great Room and tell the Prince of the Bittern Court how he may dispose ships in the harbor,” the Temple Mother said sharply. “It is not for you to come to my altar and tell me when and how to petition my Goddess.”
“We have an agreement.” Though she stood with her back to me, and might as well have pretended I was made of air and smoke, the Bittern Court woman’s wag of her chin to indicate me was clear enough from behind.
“We have an agreement to pursue the deaths today,” the Temple Mother said. “I am pursuing them. You will have your turn.”
“My turn is first.” There was venom in the other woman’s voice.
“Not when the issue is at prayer before the altar of my Goddess.” The Temple Mother’s tone matched the poison of the Bittern Court woman. “Now I suggest you go back to your seat before your daughters are made barren.”
When she turned, the woman finally looked at me. If a cast of the eyes could cut, I would have departed in a basket. I smiled broadly at her and nodded as though we were friends meeting in the market.
She left, shaking. I wondered if she would resume her seat in the gallery. More likely, there would be bullyboys in the pay of the Bittern Court lying for me, should I pass out the doors of the sanctuary with my freedom intact.
Though it would take a particularly foolish or ignorant street fighter to take on a Lily Blade. Any Blade had a number of very well armed friends.
Assuming, of course, that vowed or unvowed I was still a Blade when this proceeding ended.
One of the priestly aspirants began to light the thuribles hung around the altar. The look she shot me was full of worry. Interesting . I was still not convinced that my life was at stake, but the Dancing Mistress’ certainly was. We had upset whatever their plan was for this convocation.
The incense smoldered. At this time of year, there was saffron crumbled into it, which gave the smoke a strange smell of wormwood and sunflowers-nothing like what the spice did in food. A chanted prayer began among the circling aspirants, who were joined by two Priestess Mothers whose faces I recognized but who I did not know by name.
The prayer went on, calling on the Lily Goddess for Her strength in times of strife. I hadn’t heard this one before. It sounded more like a war prayer than an invocation of wisdom. The women’s way was not to stand to a fight. Even we Blades ran secretly, or did black work.
Still, they prayed the virtues of arm and shield and bright helm. The Temple Mother stepped forward, spread her arms, and led the gallery in the Hymn to Change. O Lily, Mother of us all Here in Your sacred hall
Watch over us as we age
From cradle to the grave
From child to maid so gay
To mother then crone so gray
Make us better than our fears
Down the course of bitter years
The singing died down with the last notes of the peti being played above the gallery. Its bellows eased to a stop with a familiar creaking wheeze. The Temple Mother turned to her altar, dropped her chin, and began to pray again, this time alone. Her voice ran in a long wavering chant, never pausing for breath.
The Dancing Mistress clutched at my arm. “Something comes,” she whispered so softly, she scarcely had voice at all.
The Temple Mother’s vestments began to stir in a familiar swirl. I felt a chill down my own back-fear or something else, I did not know. A great wind rustled, even though it did not pass through the hall except to send the smoke from the thuribles circling the Temple Mother.
I thought of rain, and the death of cities, and slipped the Dancing Mistress’ hand within mine. This was to be a channel, direct possession by the Goddess, rather than “inspiration.” What I had gambled for, but all I’d really done was change the rules. I could not say what profit this would bring me, or whether I would be right in the risk I had taken for both me and my teacher.
The wind suddenly turned furnace hot. Screams echoed in the gallery above as doors slammed open. Some of the altar cloths whipped loose to catch upon the great silver lily. My groin ached like a stab wound, and I felt a sudden, terrible flow of blood from within my vagina. Doubled over against it, I could see red-brown spots emerging on the robes of the aspirants near the altar. A fearful wailing erupted from above.