Green

Anticipation

Some weeks later I rode up the Barley Road into the hills. Somehow I was once more upon a horse. Autumn was hard in the air, carrying a frosty edge that had me longing for the warm nights of Kalimpura. I wore many layers, but the cold contrived to bother me intensely.

I had no fear of bandits. The few still haunting the area were very afraid of me. Most of the countrymen had been listening to Chowdry. Endurance was already having an effect on both the Petraeans of Copper Downs and their rural cousins.

This day, I was bound for the high tombs and the half-wild orchards that spread out on the slopes below them. In one saddlebag, I carried spices and cookware for the cottage holder who had sheltered me. In the other, I had brought a few books and some warm winter clothing for Mistress Danae, should I be lucky enough to find her. Otherwise, I would leave them at the cottage. Paper and charcoals as well, for me to take up sketching again if time and energy permitted.

I held certain hopes for this day, of course. To learn more of anyone else who might have survived the Factor’s house. To spread well-deserved thanks. To be away from Copper Downs for a while. Despite my destination, the dead did not interest me, not even those chattersome ancients in the high tombs.

The Rectifier was gone. None of his people would say exactly how he’d slipped their net, which meant they’d let him go. Which was too bad, in a way-I’d come to appreciate the old rogue. His purposes and mine had been somewhat in opposition at the end, but even I understood that our soulpaths were aligned.

The pain god’s temple was shut for a time. A few half-trained acolytes and long-retired priests worked to restore substance to Blackblood.

Endurance had no temple yet, but the mineheads leading Below seemed a likely location. Chowdry was very busy. So were the priests recruited from the former army. I had sent letters to Kalimpura, to certain Courts and temples, and most especially to the Temple of the Silver Lily.

Nast paid me my bond, but I told him I had reasons to winter over. Instead of taking ship, I placed the money with the Tavernkeep. Him I trusted more than any bank, and I needed to stay awhile. Whoever my child was to be, her story would begin here in the shadow of my father’s ox.

I vowed her first memory would not be, like mine, the celebration of a death. The silk the Dancing Mistress had worn into battle covered me quite nicely, and had nearly the right number of bells upon it. I did not know where she had gotten it, or why. There had been a sufficiency of sendings and divine manifestations that night for me to believe almost anything.

In the days since, I’d sewn a new bell at each dawn. The ancients here did not bury their dead in the sky as we had at home, but they were high in the hills, which seemed much the same to me. I patted my belly and the child hidden within as I rode into the day, the sum of my years singing a quiet song of death and life upon my shoulders.

My grandmother would have been proud of me.

I knew Endurance was.