Kalimpura (Green Universe) (15 page)

Really, the principle was simple enough, if I could just get people to listen: Don’t attack me or my children, and I won’t attack you.

We ran some more. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mother Vajpai limp. It was not for me to beg her some relief. She was Blade Mother, and would either assert her authority or step away. But her weaknesses belonged to her.

*   *   *

The Blood Fountain still flowed in the plaza before the Temple of the Silver Lily. I felt another wave of a sort of reversed nostalgia, pleased to be home and still very much a stranger. The Beast Market was in full swing and high odor both, while the temple’s well-worn red marble steps were more crowded with beggars than ordinarily so. Many of them were unusually large and healthy—the Street Guild was assembling here in hopes of catching me out. The building itself rose with that distinctive almost-teardrop shape, the silver cladding nearer to the peak bright in the afternoon sun.

We trotted up the steps, barking out a marching chant, and cleared through the great doors at the top and into the foyer where once upon a time I had first arrived, lonely and scared and ill. The same tapestries greeted me, the same low benches. It was a peaceful place, and familiar.

Mother Surekha’s handle stood down there, with some catching of breath and stretching of backs. I knew this drill—no one wanted to appear weak or tired, but bodies had their own notions. I was pleased enough that I wasn’t aching or worse, and so stood breathing just a bit heavier than normal.

Yet none of them drifted off to eat or sleep or bathe or play amongst themselves, as we so often had after a run when I was here. All the women stayed near me, hard-faced with hands near knife hilts.

So I was a prisoner, though they had not yet bound me over. I glanced at Mother Vajpai. Her attention was unfocused. Banishing pain from her feet, I was certain. Seeking a bit of peace before the next act of this little morality play unfolded.

Betrayal was most certainly in the air. The only question was from whom, and of whom.

*   *   *

As Mother Vajpai and I entered, I noted the sanctuary had not changed since I was last here almost two years ago at my banishment. This was a deep, galleried well that filled the central space of the temple’s architecture. Seats rose in tiers so that the congregants could all see what their Temple Mother was about, and her words would be heard by all ears.

It was a curious arrangement, I’d come to realize. Most religious architecture places the goddess, and her chief servants, before and above the congregation. No one looked down upon a priest, in my experience. Not if that priest could help it.

Yet here the arrangement spoke of a different relationship between the worshippers and the worshipped, between the leaders and the led.

My life had once before depended on that relationship. I wondered today if it would so depend yet again. That seemed unfortunately likely.

The galleries were peopled but uncrowded. This was not an hour when services normally occurred. The whispering that had arisen at our entry died down quickly. I met many interested eyes, and even a few friendly ones, in the faces above me.

The Temple Mother stood composed but tense before the altar. That was, as always, a great silver lily almost six feet wide, sculpted as a flower yet half-opened. Mother Umaavani who had banished me was dead, I had been told by Mother Vajpai. She’d been succeeded by Mother Srirani. As so often in the recent history of the temple, we were once more governed by a Justiciary Mother.

In the quiet that preceded what was to come next, I reflected on the machinations within the Temple of the Silver Lily. Our two most powerful orders were the Justiciars and the Blades. Those were also the two best known outside the temple walls.

The Blades, of course, were my own order. Women trained to fight and kill who used their skills to keep the peace. We were as close as Kalimpura came to the Petraean idea of a municipal guard or city watch. Peace was something you purchased for yourself in this city, if you could afford it. The poor hid themselves away, and most often made their own justice, much as their betters did.

The Courts of this city were Guilds, or trading houses, though they often maintained the trappings of law. The Justiciary Mothers served as mediators among the wealthy and the poor alike. They sometimes sat as judges in a fashion that even a northerner would recognize, though their courts were convened for a single purpose, and disbanded again once the affair was concluded.

Law itself in Kalimpura was a matter of custom and persuasion. Justiciary Mothers tended to be legalistic in their thinking, careful and focused of mind. In a sense, they were the opposite of the Blades, who often solved problems swiftly and irrevocably.

Even then, I could see the balance this represented, action countervailed by consideration, thought bolstered by deed. In my years since, my appreciation for the arrangement has grown. At the time, I was mostly annoyed. Justiciary Mothers found Blades messy, and I was surely the messiest Blade since at least the youth of the late Mother Meiko, more than two generations ago.

The other orders of the temple grew naturally out of the internal functions of any religious house of women. The Domiciliary Mothers ran the kitchens and workshops, cared for the youngest children not yet taken into their training, and maintained the temple’s physical and social structures. The Caring Mothers raised the older children, eased the lives of our most elderly Mothers, and served as the temple’s healers. The Mothers Intercessory saw to the more basic and general education of the children, kept the libraries and scriptures, served as witnesses to what had been written before in prophecy and temple law, and tended the altar, relics, and other holy duties of our worship of the Lily Goddess.

I knew from my training here that the post of Temple Mother had once belonged almost exclusively to the Mothers Intercessory. About forty years ago it had passed between the Blades and the Justiciars several times before settling with the Justiciary Mothers. Fairness had been claimed at the time, and the supposed value of experience in negotiating with the city beyond our doors.

Many had their doubts, especially the Blades. Including me. Our temple seemed to have become ever more deeply enmeshed in the schemes of politics to the benefit of, well, no one.

I stared at Mother Srirani, knowing this show of open disrespect would irritate her. That concerned me in no wise at all. She stared back, scowling down her nose at me with lips pursed. The white and gray robes of her office did not hang well on her, and I wondered if she wore Mother Umaavani’s old garments, or if she had lost weight of late. Mother Srirani was not so tall, only a bit more than I, and rounder of face and body than any Blade would ever be.

Just to trouble her further, I offered my sweetest smile. The look she returned me cleared any of my doubts. The Temple Mother seemed to take our silent exchange as her cue, for she straightened and addressed the congregation in a voice that was unfortunately reedy for a woman in her role.

“Mothers. Sisters. Women of the Temple of the Silver Lily, of Kalimpura, of Selistan.” Well, that arguably left me out on all counts. Beside me, Mother Vajpai stirred a bit at the words. The Temple Mother continued: “We gather today to consider the errors of one who was once among us.” At least it was only me who was on trial today, not Mother Vajpai. “Sent forth in exile carrying woes of our own beloved goddess with her, the miscreant Green has returned against holy writ and our goddess’ will to once more trouble us here.”

At that, I stirred, ready to leap up in answer, but Mother Vajpai laid a steely grip upon my right arm. I could have broken it—probably—but chose instead to heed her silent counsel.

“Across the seas in the barbarous place of her exile, Green to my certain knowledge has betrayed the interests of our temple. She has abrogated the writ and will of our beloved Lily Goddess. She has brought disgrace to us and upon our city with her behaviors public and private. Trusted persons of high station here in Kalimpura were subject to her depredations in a manner that could have called ruin down upon us all.”

Mother Srirani turned from playing to the gallery to instead stare me down. That, at least, she would not best me at. I stared back at her, letting her see in my eyes what awaited her. I did not need to promise a bitter fate, I simply
knew
.

“You stand accused of misdeeds outside even my purview to adjudicate, Green. But it is within my purview to pass judgment upon your return from banishment without proper leave. It is within my purview to rule upon your fate as a Sister and Mother of this temple. It is within my purview to punish you for those infractions that are sadly ours to make amends for. For the rest of your crimes, well, you shall have to seek the mercy of those you have wronged, the powerful across Kalimpura.”

The mercy of the powerful
was a folk saying here in Selistan, implying something to be laughably unlikely. Much as a Petraean might have said
diamonds in the sewers
. I and everyone listening knew that what she meant by that was throwing me to our enemies without, and relieving the temple of responsibility for my fate. Death at the hands of the Street Guild—a very likely outcome given the display of an hour ago—would in this case go unanswered by the Lily Blades, who in general never let a slight or injury to their own go without strong response.

Mother Vajpai released my arm and rose painfully to her feet. She allowed a wince to cross her face, which I knew was her own playing to the gallery. “Hello, Rana,” she said to the Temple Mother with a nod. Addressing someone in authority by a child’s nickname was a supreme impoliteness only nominally disguised by her tone. Then she turned her attention to the gallery.

“How many of you here know me well?” Mother Vajpai pointed. “You, Mother Aasi, I shared a sleeping mat with when we were both too short to open the doors of the refectory. You, Mother Urgattai, argued the case of the Glassworks Poisoning that I uncovered during the Death Right action against that old bastard Mansajurat. You, Sister Feillig, I plucked from a wrecked cart on the Street of Silversmiths when you were a babe, and looked to the care of until you took your vows among the Intercessors.”

The gallery was muttering again. Mother Srirani’s face darkened with anger, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Mother Vajpai was just ahead of her, just forceful enough to stop her.

Even old Mother Umaavani would not have permitted this to go on,
I thought with satisfaction. Embarrassment was the most potent weapon against a woman in the Temple Mother’s position, because people lost respect.

“Every one of you knows I was sent forth with specific orders from Mother Srirani. The blessing of the Lily Goddess was
claimed
.” Oh, that bit of sarcasm was artful. “I was told to take Mother Argai with me and fetch the exile Green back from Copper Downs, for reasons that were said to be good and proper at the time.

“So how is it that such a mission, dispatched by the very woman who now accuses Green of violating her banishment and numerous other unspecified crimes, has become a gross violation of the will of our goddess? Could it be that the interests served never were those of this altar behind me? Could—?”

“Enough!” Mother Srirani’s voice rang shrill. “You speak foolishness, and have been too long out of the councils of this temple to know what has been judged right. Mother Surekha will escort you to a quiet chamber where the Caring Mothers will see to your disturbances. There you may rediscover reason and dignity.”

“I will not be silenced.” Mother Vajpai’s voice was ominous.

“It is not silence, Pai-pai.” The Temple Mother lowered her own tones until only the closest could hear. “It is safety. Yours and mine.”

Mother Surekha and two of her handle stepped up to Mother Vajpai. The women looked uneasy at effectively arresting their own Blade Mother. I wondered who had held Mother Vajpai’s post in her absence, and if that one stood to gain it permanently should Mother Vajpai be deemed unfit to resume her duties.

Then my old instructor, the most dangerous human woman I’d ever known, nodded at me. A glint of satisfaction, of all things, rode in her eyes.

I could take that hint. Touching Mother Surekha’s arm, I muttered, “Abide a moment,” then strode from my bench at the base of the gallery straight toward the altar.

“Let the Lily Goddess to speak to us!” I shouted. This hand I had played before, that memorable day with old Mother Umaavani when the Dancing Mistress and I had been on trial here. This was a
temple,
after all. Ultimate authority rested with none of the women who served the Lily Goddess. Not when the goddess Herself could be summoned. “I have been back on these shores only an hour, and already I am tired of wordplay in place of simple, honest truth.” I shot Mother Srirani an exaggerated glare that could surely be seen even from the highest gallery. “And I might have expected the lies to be slightly more clever. Or have we all lost our senses to fear, surrendered to politics, and given up who we are meant to be?”

“You will sit, or I will have you seated,” snapped Mother Srirani.

“I am still a Mother of this temple, banishment or not.” Not quite technically true, I’d never finished taking my vows, but that was how most of the women here viewed me. “I have the same right to appeal to the Goddess’ intercession as any of my Sisters here.” I turned my gaze from the Temple Mother back to the dozens watching. “If she can strip that right from me by whim, she can strip it from any of you. Are you all so eager to surrender your place before the altar to the coin of outsiders?”

That sparked an eruption of angry chatter from above. Several women jumped to their feet. A few hurried out.

Now Mother Srirani was trembling with furious passion. A bad tendency in one who would lead, I knew, ignorant then of the reflexive irony of my thought. “I will not have this fane be made a mockery!”

“Too late,” I called, to a ripple of laughter from those who could still hear me. “Now, will you beseech the goddess or shall I?”