“Right, then. Can you put yourself together, mentally, so you’re back as a boy again?”
She snorted at the question. “I’ve been a boy for longer than I’ve been a girl. It’s always been safer.”
“Well, I’d say ‘you’re safe now,’ except you’re not safe now, you’re just safe here,” Alonnen shot back. “But the point is, you should go back to the temple to ask for your coat and cap. If you were a normal sort of Server apprentice.”
Rexei shuddered and shook her head. “I don’t know if they were listening or not. I didn’t sound like an idiot when I . . . when I stupidly confronted that crowd all but on the temple steps. And I don’t need the coat. Not if I’m going to stay here.”
“That might be so, and you’re more than welcome to stay . . . but if we, the regular sorts, don’t find a Patron Deity fast, the priesthood’s going to want to fill it for us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want whatever they come up with. Odds are, it’ll be a demon in disguise, but even if it isn’t, they’re a group of men that have never hesitated to kidnap, torture, and do many worse things to anyone they wanted.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Rexei asked, challenging him.
He leveled a look at her. “I know you do. But we have two major problems on our hands. First and foremost, the threat of demon summonings. Now that Mekha is gone, we might have a chance to get some sort of scrying aids planted inside the temples, but to do that, we need someone to get inside with focus crystals. There are probably a dozen other things we could use, but I know how to make those. Still, to get past the outer wards, they’ll have to be smuggled inside and then activated. That takes a mage . . . and you’re the only one we’ve got who they won’t know is a mage.”
Every time he said the M word, she shivered. Rexei tried to hide it by sitting up a little more, huddling into her borrowed sweater. “You said, that you know how to make them. But weren’t we talking last night with a bunch of powerful mages from outkingdom? I’d think they’d know tons of stuff we don’t about spying and scrying.”
Alonnen hadn’t considered that. So used to doing things on his own, of struggling against the local ignorance of his fellow mages, plus the need to hide his actual location and the existence of the Vortex, he had not actually considered that. Blinking, he nodded slowly. “Yes . . . I suppose I could ask them. But that solves only one problem, if it can be solved.
“The other thing we need is to make sure the rule of law doesn’t break down here in the Heias region. Those laws were decided upon by the Consulate, which means by the representatives of all the many guilds. If we can present the local guild heads with a Patron Deity they can understand, grasp, and focus upon, then we just might be able to get one to manifest—and what better Goddess than this Guildra you’ve been meditating upon?” he asked her.
Rexei wasn’t too sure about the word meditating, but she supposed it did fit, sort of. Guildra was a concept she had clung to in the hopes that one day, someday, they could be rid of Mekha and lead far less fear-filled lives. Now that Mekha was gone . . .
“For that matter, who better to explain the concept of Guildra to the others than you?” Alonnen added, gesturing toward her. “You’re practically Her . . . well, not a Patriarch since I don’t think anyone would want a system so similar to the last one, but I’m not sure what to call the highest priestess of the new system, if not a Matriarch.”
His words stirred unnerving feelings of trepidation within her. She could see his points, but Rexei wasn’t so sure she wanted to follow Alonnen’s suggestions to their “logical” outcome. Rexei shook her head. “Actually, if we’re going to have a Patron Goddess of Guilds, Her priesthood should be arranged exactly like a regular guild. None of this ‘superior to you’ nonsense the old priests used, and none of their fancy titles. No one guild should be ranked higher than another.”
“Rule by committee is a terrible method,” Alonnen pointed out. “There is always someone who guides and rules during Consulate meetings. But I don’t think the other guilds would care to always be ruled by the Guild Master of the Gearmen’s Guild.”
“In one of the towns where I stayed, they had three grandmasters of equal rank in the Weavers Guild,” Rexei pointed out. “Each one served a term of two years. We could rotate Guild Masters that way.”
“Yes, but in what order?” he challenged her. Then sighed. “I suppose we could always call a quorum vote . . . So, what, the highest clergy would be a Guild Master of . . . Priests? Of the Worship Guild? Prayerful Guild? I’m Not A Bastard Meanie Guild?” Alonnen tossed out. It pleased him to see her grin at his silly suggestions, though she did duck her head a little in the effort to hide it. “See, there? That’s what we need. A fresh look at everything.
“So, Longshanks . . . will you please come with me to the Consulate meeting this evening and discuss your ideas for a new sort of Patronage with the rest? You can consider it a part of your official duties as a Gearman, and thus a Sub-Consul, a representative of Guilds that cannot make it to the meeting. Only in this case, you’re representing a new sort of Guild that doesn’t exist yet.”
She wasn’t quite swayed, but his words did make sense. “I’ll think about it. And . . . I might attend the meeting. But I won’t go straight to the temple. It’d be smarter to contact one of the other Servers who was working there and ask them to discreetly see if they can find out if the priests know I’m smarter than I pretended to be, while trying to fetch my coat and my cap for me.”
“I suppose that could be done instead,” Alonnen allowed. “The priests’ll have to open up at some point for food supplies, if nothing else. As much as I’d love to get a scrying crystal in there . . . not at the risk of your life, no.”
Studying him, Rexei wondered. And then she wondered if he would be offended if she asked. Since she had learned in thirty different apprenticeships that the only way to learn fast and far was to ask, she asked, “What are you thinking? About all of this. Mekha vanishing, the kingdom collapsing, a new God or Goddess, Guildra . . . everything.”
He raised his brows at the question. Lacing his fingers over his chest, he tapped his pinkie fingers against the brushed-flannel wool of his shirt. “Quite a lot, actually. Even without the threat of demonic invasion, we’d still have to deal with the priesthood somehow. Some might be willing to disband and take up other livelihoods . . . but these are, one and all, boys and men who grew up understanding that the priesthood had the greatest power in the land.”
“They could take anything, do anything, and they answered to no one but another priest . . . unless it was the combined weight of the guilds. But even then, not even the strongest of Consulates dared resist all that hard,” Rexei agreed, letting her head drop against the padded back of the chair. “I got the lectures when I became a Gearman.”
“And ‘Gearman’s strength shall then endow,’” Alonnen murmured, eyeing her speculatively. Her head lifted up off the chair and her brows came down in a wary frown. He flicked a hand partly in dismissal and partly in acknowledgment. “You’re definitely mixed up in all this. I can see it.”
Her mildly wary look shifted into a much more nervous one. “No, I’m not.”